Everyone already knows how much of Theresa May’s platform, policies and even rhetoric are directly stolen from Ukip. Nigel Farage himself publicly pointed it out this Sunday: not only had May taken Ukip’s major policy issues (immigration, grammar schools, bashing EU bureaucrats), he said, “She is using exactly the same words and phrases that I have been using for 20 years.” The general line from Ukip about its recent electoral wipeout is that if the Conservatives beat Ukip, it’s only because the ruling party now effectively is Ukip. So perhaps their work is done.
Less remarked on is the fact that May is playing the exact same game with the Labour left. Corbyn insiders note with dismay how they regularly see their best ideas, initiatives and slogans passed over in the media when they announce them, only to be solemnly read out a few weeks later in May’s next big speech – and greeted with near-universal acclaim. Since late 2015, for instance, Jeremy Corbyn has been calling for a national industrial strategy, only to see his call to have government intervene to support key technological sectors either been written off as outdated Soviet-style thinking or simply ignored.
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