A May Election in June

Prime Minister Theresa May has called a UK general election on 8 June. Given the 2011 law on fixed term elections, which means that it should have instead been in 2020, this was a surprise announcement. The brought forward date has to be agreed by Parliament first, but this will very likely happen, given that the Labour Party must back it or else appear afraid to go to the electorate. However, the bigger questions are what this election will be about and what it reflects about British politics today.

The news media were puzzled, if not annoyed, in the hour or so ahead of May's Downing Street statement. Why did they not know before what was going to happen, or even have any clue? Surely this was not a declaration of war, or the UK’s own missile strike somewhere?! Could it be a resignation? Her slightly unsteady gait and frail looking pose had already led to gossip that she might be about to step down due to ill health. Surely, sacking Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary would not demand a Downing Street declaration. A few minutes ahead of time, the tip off came to limit the media’s blushes of ignorance: it was to call a snap UK general election!

Outside 10 Downing Street, May did another of her performances trying to look a determined and decisive leader. But she remained unconvincing to anyone who has paid attention to events. The snap election was claimed to be necessary to bring about a more strongly positioned government to secure successful Brexit terms with the EU – more of a majority than the comfortable Conservative Party one of 17 House of Commons seats.[1] She claimed there was too much opposition to her planned good deeds in this negotiation within the existing parliament. This rather overlooks the problem that it does not matter what the Brits want, whether 100% of their MPs or not. What matters in the Brexit negotiations is what deal will be agreed by the 27 countries in the rest of the EU.

The UK election has instead been called for another reason, basically the dire state of the British Labour Party. Unable to act as an opposition, Labour has slipped in UK opinion polls and May stands well ahead of Labour’s Corbyn. Labour looks unlikely to win back any seats in Scotland after its huge losses to the Scottish National Party in 2015, and the Conservatives have little more to lose there. Changes in Wales or Northern Ireland will make next to no difference to the UK result. Meanwhile, in the main voting country, England, Labour is in dire straits, having been eaten by UKIP and the Conservatives in 2015, and still looking vulnerable to the Conservatives in the lead up to June 2017. The latest polls show the Conservatives with around 44-46% of the UK vote and Labour with 25-26%.

Tactics based on the latest opinion polls are not the best strategic guides, and things could go wrong for May’s latest gambit. Although probably not much wrong, given the politics of the populace. While just under half the UK voting population is not pro-Brexit, and this could grow now that some of the economic consequences for jobs are dawning, there remains a strong base of anti-immigration Brexiteers among English voters, one to which the Labour Party adapts rather than challenges. For example, so far Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has avoided talking much about immigration: saying it is OK loses him votes; saying it is not OK would embarrass his conscience. A view on Brexit also gets little look in, apart from how it must be the best deal possible, for similar reasons. The trial of moving from being an inconsequential backbencher shuffling in the dust of a moribund left to leading, or even managing, the views of the electorate has clearly been too much for him.

The forthcoming UK general election will be both low level tragedy and farce, and tales told by many media idiots, full of sound and invented fury, signifying nothing new.

Tony Norfield, 18 April 2017

---

[1] It is possible, nevertheless, that this majority might have been reduced in coming months. Police investigations are taking place into Conservative Party overspending in a number of constituencies in 2015. This could have rendered invalid some Conservative victories, produced new by-elections and cut their majority.

Labour ‘Leadership’ and British Politics

The British media is focused on Jeremy Corbyn, the radical outsider who, according to opinion polls, might win the Labour Party’s leadership vote. That vote is in about seven weeks’ time, so don’t hold your breath. But it is worth making some comments on what this reveals about British politics.

Most of the Labour leadership contenders make Ed Miliband look like a charismatic guru who could inspire followers to walk over burning coals and not feel a thing. By comparison, Corbyn is an exception, at least in having a personality and some political beliefs. I would only point out that his political beliefs have not prevented him from remaining a Labour Party Member of Parliament for more than thirty years. Just consider what that means. So many years and so many crimes, either committed by, or supported by, the party to which you belong. Was the Labour Government’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq weird anomalies – against which a critical voice could build an effective opposition? Or would history judge instead that Labour has always supported British imperialism’s interests and that dissident voices reflected naivety at best?

However, Corbyn’s dissident beliefs on Iraq and Palestine, among other things, are not the basis of his support, either in his London constituency or among ordinary Labour party members in this leadership contest. Instead, that support comes from his anti-austerity stance. Yet while his inner-City constituency might support Corbyn’s position on opposing cuts in welfare payments, the rest of the UK does not. Against his stance, one has to consider why the other Labour leadership contenders basically support the Conservative government on the need to slash welfare payments, something summed up by the recommendation of Harriet Harman, acting Labour leader, to abstain in the recent Parliamentary vote on welfare cuts. The Conservative government’s proposals reflected not just a Conservative prejudice, but also a view that they would go down well with their supporters and others. Recall that, in the May 2015 UK general election, close to 50% of the British electorate voted either for the Conservatives (36.9%) or for UKIP (12.6%).

This is the substance of the horror expressed in the news media, by Tony Blair and others who are shocked by Corbyn’s rise to prominence in the polls. A vote for Corbyn as Labour leader will make Labour even more unelectable! It is not a question of his anti-New Labour beard, or even his opinion that the government should discuss with Hamas and Hezbollah. The key point is that he has failed to reflect in his political stance the fundamental conservatism of the British electorate.

It will take an eruption some years in the making even to begin to alter the scene. Perhaps that will come when this Conservative government eventually encounters its own ‘Poll Tax’ moment, a wall that Thatcher hit after believing that British politics was at her command. But, at close to the peak of her power, even she could not make her favourite adviser, Alan Walters, like Caligula’s horse, a consul and instead lost Nigel Lawson, her once-feted Chancellor. This miscreant group of slimeballs has less ability. It is full of low-grade chancers, not least Boris ‘water cannon’ Johnson, so it could unwittingly contrive to generate protest from the UK populace. However, personally, I do not bet on that eventuality making any real difference.

Tony Norfield, 25 July 2015
(some small amendments to the text on 31 July)