Tories and Labour face same challenges despite election

Both Labour and the Conservatives find themselves in a similar situation as they did in 2010, with similiar challenges to overcome in order to progress

In the aftermath of another wildly unpredictable – and quite frankly unnecessary – election, two conclusions have been quickly reached. Labour have done very well, the Conservatives’ terribly as their gamble in calling the election back-fired. But its not quite that simple.

Lets start with Labour. First the good news; Labour won 40% of the popular vote and won a total of 261 seats in Parliament. Now the bad news; Labour won 40% of the popular vote and only secured 262 seats. Contrast this with 2010; Gordon Brown’s campaign was derided as a disaster as he secured only 29% of the vote, but still won 258 seats. Miliband secured 30.4% of the vote and got 232 seats.

In short, in terms of seats Labour is back where it was in 2010. This is a huge improvement on the forecast that many – including myself – made ahead of the election that Labour could plunge to a position where it had no realistic chance of government until 2030. But it has done little more than reset the clock back seven years; in fact it could be worse than that.

To form a majority Government Labour needs to win around 65 additional seats and  has limited headroom to increase its vote share, having already managed a record increase and a result comparable to Tony Blair’s in 2001 . Analysis indicates that a swing of around 3% could give them a one-seat majority, and less make them the largest party.

Its a significant improvement considering Labour had a successful campaign, the Tories sabotaged their own, the SNP had a poor campaign, and Labour has already cashed in their trump-card of attracting youth voters.  The prospect of a Labour-SNP pact worked wonders for the Conservatives in 2015 and they will likely talk it up again in any forthcoming election, as well as offering a less realistic and instead a more populist manifesto.

The Tories are also in a similar predicament; on vote share alone they actually had a tremendously successful night – achieving results comparable to the high point of the Thatcher era – but they ended up with fewer seats. Their vote will also struggle to go much higher and anything more than a very small majority looks difficult to reach.  They too have a similar number of seats to 2010, but no obvious coalition partner this time around.

Both parties also essentially face the same problems that they did before the election; Labour still needs to win over Conservative voters if it wants to form a government; the Conservatives need more ‘working class’ support in the North and Midlands to secure a working majority.

To do this they will have to find a way of broadening their appeal; this election has shown is that both parties have won big increases in support that has not translated into seats.  British politics seems more polarised than ever, largely due to last year’s Brexit referendum.

Labour gained professional, young, and university-educated voters – such as those in London seats – who supported remain.  The Conservatives won some working class voters – such as those in parts of the North and the Midlands – who backed leave.

The key to understanding the result appears to be working class leave-voters who, having abandoned UKIP (who collapsed everywhere), went back to Labour, rather than the Conservatives as many expected.  This was partly due to the Dementia Tax and fox hunting re-toxifying the Conservatives.

What is unclear is the extent to which this realignment of English politics along Leave-Remain lines is permanent. In Scotland, the 2015 election was heavily influenced by the independence referendum the year before; pro-union Labour being decimated. Its effects have waned since with the SNP falling back across Scotland. Coming just a year after the Brexit referendum the same may have happened in England, but like most things with politics these days, its hard to say for certain.

Is a Conservative landslide victory inevitable?

 

The received wisdom is that The Conservatives are on course for a landslide victory and are likely to increase their parliamentary majority from 17, up to sixty or even a hundred seats, largely at the expense of Labour.  But is this as inevitable as it seems and what, if anything, can the opposition parties do to avoid this outcome?

1. Fight a Brexit Election (Brextion?)

This election is about one thing and one thing only; Brexit.  This is the new dividing line of British politics and the lens through which the next five to ten years will be experienced.    The opposition parties should base their campaigns on their position as that is what voters and the media will focus upon.

Everyone knows where the Conservatives, SNP and Lib Dems stand, but what of Labour? The easy bit for them is identifying a unique and credible position – pro-Brexit to escape the ‘tyranny’ of the EU and respect the will of the people, but also pro-single market to protect jobs and the economy – the hard part is owning it having waived through the Government’s Article 50 Bill.

Heart and Head point to a Soft Brexit

The further out from the referendum we go, the more its legitimacy is diminished; the terms of Brexit will need to be consensual and deliverable in an expedited time-frame

Godwin’s Law says that any internet discussion will inevitably result in a mention of Adolf Hitler. The principle can now be extended to any political discussion; whatever the issue – low pay, tax avoidance, inflation, the deficit, immigration, social mobility, – it will inevitably end in Brexit, and quite possibly, still arrive at Hitler thereafter.

Brexit dominates all political discussion because of the scale, complexity and uncertainty of the task ahead.  Yet its Herculean nature suggest a pragmatic outcome; Brexit is limited by practical constraints that will likely end with a Norway-like model. This model will likely include membership of the European Economic Area and membership of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); but the return of fisheries control and the addition of modest immigration controls and reductions in EU budget contributions.

This ‘EEA Minus’ model appears most likely if we follow the prescription of Brexit supporter Michael Gove who this week suggested we apply Occam’s Razor to the problem.  Practically, the most achievable Brexit is a ‘soft’ option like EEA Minus, in which Britain leaves the political structures of the European Union – the commission, Parliament, Council – but remains a member of the Single Market and Customs Union. The only alternative is a transitional relationship (similar to EEA Minus) lasting possibly a decade while a harder Brexit is negotiated, but the political obstacles are potentially insurmountable.

As Universal Credit, NHS IT systems and planned crackdowns on tax avoidance demonstrate, a government’s achievements often fall far short of its ambitions. There is no precedent for a government, a public body, or private organisation undertaking a task of the scale required by a hard Brexit, let achieving it from scratch within two years.

To take three examples, a hard Brexit would require a replacement to the CAP to be designed, tested and implemented within two years, while making significant payments into the EU Budget as part of the exit process.  Upon leaving the customs union Britain would also need to recruit tens of thousands of customs officials and construct an entire infrastructure to be able to process at our borders the importation of literally millions of items from around the world.  Finally, a hard Brexit requires the cutting bespoke details for individual firms or sectors is unsustainable both owing to the complexity it would create and the legitimacy of a government picking winners.

While Brexit supporters suggest that the development of new free-trade deals could prevent many of these issues there is no evidence this is achievable.  Despite years of negotiation that such trade deals require, the election of Donald Trump in the US will likely see the Trans Pacific Partnership and TTIP abandoned and NAFTA amended; free-trade is ideologically and practically in retreat despite CETA’s eventual success.

There are also political obstacles to a drawn-out, hard Brexit.  Negotiations will straddle several Parliaments and governments will need to maintain the political and public will behind its goals.  Even if the government does not change there are many Conservatives and Opposition Peers who oppose a hard Brexit.  Equally, a drawn-out exit would expose the negotiations to close scrutiny and increase the potential for a loss of political and public support; the further out from the referendum we go, the more its legitimacy is diminished.  Therefore exit terms will need to be consensual and deliverable in an expedited time-frame.

That said, for an EEA Minus model to be workable the Government will have to achieve some concessions over immigration.  In principle, the single market does allow for temporary controls on immigration and the restriction of welfare payments, and there is appetite to examine this further. David Cameron’s success in his renegotiation demonstrates there are opportunities for concessions in this area, though presentation will have to be improved.

The Government will also have to reconcile that a European Court would still have jurisdiction over some aspects of UK law.  In principle, this is always likely to occur in a free trade area so presentationally it is not as problematic as it first appears. In addition, Norway is subject to the EFTA Court of Justice, but does not subscribe to all of the European Laws the UK does at present, and has additional freedoms over foreign and trade policy, so there would be a marked difference to the status quo.

As many of its leading campaigners acknowledged the decision to leave the EU was an emotional one; the practicalities of Brexit and whether the supposed benefits in ‘taking back control’ remain secondary.   Objectively, a hard Brexit would be incredibly difficult and complex, to say nothing of its desirability.

The success of Brexit will therefore come down to the government of the day’s ability to present its key ‘wins’ – the be they the return of fisheries policy, ‘emergency’ controls on immigration, modest reductions in the EU Budget, the repeal of some EU laws, or the replacement of the ECJ with the EFTA Court of Justice – as a victorious example of ‘taking back control’.

 

After Brexit and Trump, is there any hope?

 

The issues that have driven Brexit and Trump’s ascendancy  – a rejection of the economy, liberal culture and political class – have already been articulated by those on the left of the political spectrum. So is there still hope for a progressive future?

If you were one of the 48% of Britons who thought the vote for Brexit was bad, then things have likely just got a whole lot worse for you with the news that Donald Trump is President-elect of the United States.  What connects these two events – and the rise of nationalism across Europe – is a fundamental rejection of the political, economic and cultural status quo of the past 35 years.  Western liberal democracy as we know it is going to change; but does it provide any hope for progressives?

If we take the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 as marking the onset of the Great Recession and the beginning of the end of the neoliberal consensus (e.g. the dominance of Thatcherite or Reaganite economics), then Brexit and Trump represent the beginning of the next political economic paradigm; a leap into the unknown.

Support for both Brexit and Trump were essentially votes against three things:

Voters given little choice in EU referendum

The EU referendum has failed to excite interest among younger people, Labour voters, and on the evidence of last night’s Sky News question time, even those planning to vote.  The reasons for this is are as obvious as they are inescapable; voters have never been given the chance to properly engage with the issues at stake.

The campaign has left voters feeling uninformed, focussed on a narrow set of issues and become overly focussed on the ‘Dave versus Boris’ narrative. The reason is that the ‘referendum’ is a flawed tool for making decisions of any kind.

Even by its own measure Labour had a poor night

So Labour lives to fight another day, at least in England and Wales. While they may have defied many expectations by avoiding significant losses in English council elections and they remain on course for a win in London, of more interest is how the Labour leadership have interpreted the results.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell claimed that despite being the first Opposition to lose council seats in thirty years, the result was positive because of the increase in their share of the vote, cutting The Tories lead compared to the 2015 General Election, with a 4% swing.  But does this analysis, and indeed the tactic of gradually increasing vote share in local elections, add up?

For all their good intentions, governments need to be more honest

When discussing their plans, governments should be honest that they will probably change rather than presenting them as a fait accompli

Describing to friends what my job in public affairs actually entails can be tricky.  I often liken it to Public Relations, except I speak to politicians instead of journalists.  I also suggest it’s about translating for my employer what government says it will do, into the often more complex reality of what might actually happen.

Governments – through announcements, speeches and interviews – speak confidently of what they will do, rather than what they ‘hope to do’.   But the UK does not have government by fiat; its plans often require the approval of Parliament, a process that can take several years if a draft bill, public consultations, Select Committee inquiries, commencement dates and secondary legislation are all factored in.

If it wants to be heard on the economy, Labour must speak the voters’ language

This week’s speeches from Labour’s economic spokespeople – the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and the well-respected backbencher Rachel Reeves – reminded me of Ed Balls own economic plans for fiscal discipline to pay off the deficit alongside investment; it seems things haven’t changed that much.

Yet it also reminded me of the leaders’ debate in Leeds in May 2015.  That night was encapsulated by the tragicomic moment that an audience member railed at Ed Miliband over Gordon Brown’s selling of ‘half our gold’ (at what turned out to be a relatively low price), as though it was the source of all our economic woes. It made no sense on its own terms, but the point seemed to capture a wider anger and distrust.

Tories should heed the warnings of the Scottish referendum

The Scottish disaster of May 2015 will be long remembered by the Labour Party, which saw a permanent realigning of the political landscape against it.  Yet the seeds of that defeat were already sown by the Scottish Independence campaign the previous year.  With the EU referendum now set for 23 June 2016 the Conservatives may too be sowing the seeds of disaster.

 

There are numerous parallels between the Scottish Independence and Brexit referenda, and how they threaten to split a ruling party from a significant portion of its electoral base.  The true impact, however,  wasn’t felt until months later; despite winning the referendum Labour lost the argument; once the party of social democracy in Scotland it was wiped out electorally, losing all but one of its forty-one seats.

Crisis looms over Britain’s politics, not just its economy

Britain is apparently due a recession; they normally come every eight years and we haven’t had one since 2008.  Analysts are predicting that bad economic news from China could lead a run-of-the-mill recession or even a full-blown financial crisis. On the eve of a potential economic storm the introspection of the Conservatives and Labour leave them ill-equipped to face it.