Tory pollster Lynton Crosby says Theresa May right to call early election

Lynton Crosby, the Australian pollster and Tory campaign political strategist, says Theresa May was right to call an early general election and has warned against writing off the embattled prime minister.

Crosby has also played down the influence of the youth turnout on the result, while predicting more people would vote for Brexit should another referendum be held.

“All the evidence I’ve seen, is that, if another referendum were to be held now, more people would vote to leave the EU now than in the referendum,” he said.

Speaking at a business lunch in Sydney on Tuesday, Crosby attempted to explain the phenomenon of Jeremy Corbyn.

“On polling day, over 70% of voters thought the Conservatives were going to win,” Crosby said.

“So they thought we’ll reward [Corbyn] for being prepared to talk about interesting things and shake the system up, but we’ll still have the comfort of having Theresa May as prime minister at the end of the day,” he said.

Crosby said Corbyn, who was “radically different” to past opponents the Tories had faced, continued a string of results reflecting the disillusionment of voters in developed economies.

He said candidates, to be successful in an uncertain and distrustful electorate, must communicate a set of core and shared values and give hope that “tomorrow will be better”, while assuring stability and continuity.

For some, Crosby became a focal point for criticism of May’s campaign, which was widely mocked as a disaster for the Conservatives.

May’s own former chief of staff, Nick Timothy, blamed Crosby for deciding to run a presidential-style, rather than traditional campaign.

Crosby sought to avoid a detailed dissection of the election at the event, hosted by the Australian-British Chamber of Commerce, and deflected questions about the prospects of Boris Johnson as a potential replacement for May.

But he cautioned against assuming May’s leadership was over, citing the example of long-serving conservative Australian prime minister, John Howard, who was once labelled “Mr 14%” for his poor performance in the polls. “I’m not in the business of writing anyone off,” Crosby said.

He defended May’s decision to hold an early election, saying it was needed to give her strength in Brexit negotiations.

“I think Theresa May was absolutely right in her judgment that she needed the strongest possible position in order that she could negotiate the democratic will of the British people,” Crosby said.

“Ironically, she got a record vote,” he said.

Crosby cautioned against a simplistic analysis of the result, saying commentary had exaggerated the significance of the youth vote.

He said the failure of older voters to turn out for the election was just as significant.

The pollster also warned that the rise of third-party campaigning for Corbyn had a “significant influence” on the campaign. He made specific reference to the Momentum grassroots group, describing the trend of growing third-party campaigns, particularly from the left, as a “warning sign” for politics in Australia and the business community.

“I think that was a very important influence on the campaign,” he said.

“You can have all of the money in the world, and you can have all of the techniques in the world, but at the end of the day … you’ve got to get people out to vote, which means having people out on the ground, knocking on doors.”

Crosby helped mastermind Howard’s Australian election campaigns, before leaving to work for the Conservatives in 2005. He worked on successful campaigns for David Cameron and Johnson.