Decomposing Liberals

Nick Cohen cuts a pathetic figure and his latest rant reads much like his last rant. And the one before that. And the one before that. But after his pitiful wittering on about personality cults, the agonies of the deepest, darkest reds hiding under Labour Party beds and the hounding, the hounding of MPs by legions of far left attack dogs, the thousand word torture finally culminates there in a wee nugget of political interest.

Responding to the persistent rumours of the imminent arrival of a new centrist party, he rather fancies its chances. Behold,

The media and, more seriously for its supporters, the Corbyn Labour party do not understand the fury at Brexit that is raging through liberal Britain. It is white-hot and capable of immense destruction ... Likewise, Corbyn believes he can renege on his referendum promise without Remain voters making him pay. For all the world they sound like Scottish Labour politicians circa 2005, taking their voters for granted and guffawing at the notion that the SNP could ever sweep through the Labour heartlands.

Blimey. He goes on to say "Volcanic pro-European fury" threatens to up end the political system and destroy the old certainties, including the two-party iron law of Westminster politics. It goes without saying that Cohen's record of insight and clue is as rubbish as other scribblers in the dying centrist, liberal tradition, but an ignominious back catalogue of mistakes is no guarantee he will always be wrong. Broken clocks are right twice a day, and political realities might even sometimes impinge on the dismal consciousness of a Spectator columnist.

On the dinner party circuit and among the dwindling band of Labour MPs who give him the time of day, there is anger all right. And it has certainly proved capable of mobilising a hefty march or two. But it's not enough to take an impression from the inside of the bubble surrounding your life and simply assuming it's the case everywhere and for everyone else. Yes, many remain supporters are appalled by the Theresa May's antics and the smug complacency of the Tory ultras. No doubt many wish the clock could be turned back. Still, there is a world of difference between wanting something and accepting you can't have it. Assorted commentators tend to forget this when puzzling over polling that suggests a majority of Labour members want a second referendum, but are also happy to support Jeremy Corbyn's handling of the Brexit crisis. The truth of the matter is only a minority of remain voters are obsessed with and frame their politics around a remain prospectus. Brexit is intangible to most people, the damage the Tories have inflicted and are inflicting now is not.

Bold claims, so where's my evidence? Well, Labour might have slipped a touch in a few polls but its electoral coalition is more or less holding together. Despite desperate attempts to talk up apparent membership losses by the Labour right and their media friends, there doesn't appear much evidence of this. And our friends the Liberal Democrats are hardly surging. Nor is there a clamour for a new centre party because, if there was, our bold, brave heroes would have struck out for themselves long ago and success would be theirs.

We know this, Cohen knows this, the centrists know this, and the organised forces of liberalism know this. Yet are we on the cusp of a liberal storm surge of SNP-style proportions? If we use that experience, the moment suggests not. The collapse of Westminster politics in 2015 was not a bolt from the blue. The SNP skilfully built a reputation for steady-as-she-goes government since taking charge in 2007. They have avoided major political calamities that are routine for establishment politics elsewhere in Britain, and successfully opposed themselves to Westminster with a semi-populist civic nationalism with liberal characteristics. As such they had something different to offer by the time the Scottish independence referendum swung around, enabling them to hegemonise long-bubbling discontent with London rule and returning all but three of Scotland's MPs in 2015. The signs were there if you chose to look at them. Think about the UKIP experience too. They didn't explode from nowhere in 2013 as the Tories tussled over equal marriage. Their rise was a combination of consistent, modest success in European elections and being indulged by the mainstream media. And even Corbynism, which presents as an overnight phenomenon, was nothing of the sort. The exclusion not just of the left but the denigration of and lack of interest in what the Tories were doing to with their cuts, their social security cruelties, their hostile environments, and their assertion of market fundamentalism was building up a huge constituency who burst into mainstream politics via the twin eruptions of the 2015 leadership election and the 2017 general election.

This is not the case with liberalism. They don't have the numbers to break the mould, nor do they have the politics appropriate to the moment. Unlike Corbynism, unlike UKIP (as was) and the SNP, which are examples of political recomposition, angry liberalism is undergoing decomposition. The Liberal Democrats are marginal and barely relevant, so irrelevant in fact that their existence is oft overlooked by partisans of a new party. The liberally-remain centre of the Tories is routinely ignored by May's dilly-dallying with the Brexiteers, even though they're better represented on the payroll than the ultras, and Labour centrism is little more than one long sulk by MPs not used to and finding objectionable the idea of members wanting a say in how their party is run. As I've argued before, liberalism/centrism is a movement, a ruling class movement, but one that has historically (at least where the 20th century is concerned) subordinate to conservatism and politically demolished and partly absorbed by Labourism. 2010-15 was its last great hurrah - the LibDems were in government, liberal-leaning Dave and Osborne ran the Tories, and the beloved Ed Miliband was from centrism land and the legion of equivocations were thanks to the politics from there. And all that has gone. Liberalism is, effectively, a gaggle of generals without an army, a clutch of representatives without a party. The base has either slunk away, or is huddling around the LibDems for warmth. And, unhappily for them, the slice of the remain-voting population for whom remain is the deepest, overriding concern tend to be ... the same groups of voters already disposed toward liberalism.

It could make a come back some point down the line. In fact, I'd go so far as to say liberalism's long term future is a conservative one. That is to say a liberal-dominated, statist centre right party along the lines of Angela Merkel's CDU is the only way the Tories can secure their future over the long-term - it's certainly going to find successive elections more difficult sticking with the play book of contests past. Here then is an opportunity for liberalism. But that's a long way off. It's falling apart, has been turfed out and marginalised in the two main parties, and finds its media bastions under siege from newcomers and beset by social media.

Ridiculous pieces like Nick Cohen's are ten-a-penny, but are no less part - an aspect of the journalistic record - of the decomposition of liberalism. He and his petty oeuvre are one note of an elite choir screaming their existential doom as they feel the chill embrace of night gathering about them. The point is not far off when their chief representatives will no longer be seen, and their wonky speeches and desperate pleas resonating barely enough for a historical footnote.