Wednesday 22 July 2020

Conditional and Transactional Politics

We're coming up to a year of Boris Johnson in the saddle, and as I write a few dozen hacks are penning their assessment of Johnson's performance, summarising his spectacular victories and disastrous failings. Most articles will carry their banality like a gold star and contribute nothing to the accumulated wisdom about British politics. Thankfully, there are already a couple of pieces worth your time by the New Statesman's Stephen Bush, and Conservative Home's Paul Goodman. Both of whom have an insight worth reflecting on. Stephen writes that the Tories are, for want of a better formulation, a government of campaigners and future success depends on their becoming something resembling a proper government. For his part, Paul argues that Johnson shares some qualities with Thatcher and Blair: none of his opponents had or have his measure, nor know how to neutralise him.

Going with Paul's first, the polls appear to bear his argument out. The Tories are proving very resilient and, if anything, are gaining ground again. Explaining this is relatively simple. As we have seen over the decades, people identifying with a political party has fallen. Since 1991 when 41% either very strongly or fairly strongly identified with a party, from 1997 the figures have hovered between 33 and 36, with 2017 proving to be an outlier year when it increased to 39% (BSA Survey, 2019, p.191). Younger people are the least likely to identify, but when it comes to Brexit 40% alone identify either as a strong leaver or a strong remainer. As party ID, as the polprofs like to call it, is the best and most obvious predictor of voting intention, its decline makes elections more difficult to predict and the job harder for political parties. Instead, we have the rise of conditional and transactional politics. To put it simply, larger numbers of people vote not out of party loyalty but because parties are offering and doing something they want.

Cast your mind back to the carnage of last year's EU elections. At 22.4%, the combined vote of the Tories and Labour was their worst result in a national ballot ever. Why? Theresa May's deal and her extension of Article 50 allowed the Brexit Party to be the vehicle of sending our referendum-thwarting elites a message. And Labour's sensible approach hardly lent itself to easy sloganeering and the simplistic binarism of Remain to Nigel Farage's Leave, and so the Liberal Democrats and the Greens cashed in. Johnson's insight was the Tories were only ever going to win an election if they could properly align their position with an unambiguous break with the EU and being seen to get Brexit done. Hence the theatrics and chaos once Westminster re-opened its doors, and he was proved correct. The transactional promise of sorting Brexit out overrode the party identities and voting habits of millions of former Labour voters, particularly those with a bit of property, are older and/or retired (and effectively declassed), and have no obligation to vote otherwise.

Johnson and Dominic Cummings know the character of this support, which helps explain their barrelling approach to all things. For as long as Brexit is delivered, they're fine. But what happens after December? This is where Stephen is right to make the distinction between campaigning and governing. If politics is conditional and transactional, especially if the content of the exchange is symbolic and rooted in values and identity, how can Johnson set up a new range of prospective transactions? Immigration had the capacity to fill the gap and contributed to Brexit in the first place, but from this perspective it's about to get sorted via their points-based dog's dinner, and so has limited utility. Culture war stuff about lecturers and students on campuses isn't going to excite anyone outside the incestuous coterie of right wing columnists and rent-a-gob backbenchers. Johnson's challenge in government then is to offer new wares.

The problem Labour has, even though polling shows the voters like Keir Starmer so far and prefer him to Johnson, is he and Labour aren't selling anything. More worryingly his flat footed treatment of Black Lives Matter, the reticence to say a cross word about the government, and distance put between him and Labour's platforms of 2017 and 2019 runs the risk of losing its already existing support. Thanks to the collapse of the old institutions, family relationships, and workplace organisation that used to inculcate the spirit of collectivism and class consciousness, the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible. It happened last summer, after all. The politics of triangulation are dead - if Labour doesn't go to them, then they won't come to Labour. It is that simple. Beating the Tories demands much more than just not being the Tories when the next general election comes around.

Conditional and transactional politics are here to stay. Who can make the most credible promises and be seen to deliver them has the best hope of transforming episodic support into something longer lasting. The Tories, as the governing party, have an advantage because they possess an unassailable majority and can do as they please. If they decide to do nothing with it, as per some advice to have come their way, they're in danger of throwing it all away. And likewise, if Labour retreats from the interests of their coalition of voters, they're doomed. But if both promise and deliver, promise and deliver, those party ID figures could start rising again. Do either have the wit to ride conditionality successfully over the medium to long-term?

8 comments:

Dipper said...

The Westminster merry-go-round continues to fail to understand where political power now lies.

What every national referendum and election has shown since 2015 is that there is an electorally decisive bloc of English voters who know how to act collectively to keep themselves (ie us, me) in power. 2015 saw English voters turn to the Tories to prevent a Labour-SNP coalition allowing Scotland to plunder the English tax base. 2016 saw the Leave Vote, 2017 saw an electoral majority for Brexit, and then in 2019 we saw a quite stunning level of sophistication and decisiveness; the year opened with the revelation that May was negotiating a deal which would have left the UK under the control of the EU but with no power. In switching to the Brexit party in the EU election the English Leave core forced the Tories to become a party of Leave, and then by switching back delivery a massive majority for Leave.

In the light of that, I am quite happy with how things are progressing. Johnson shows the key understanding that his power relies on Leavers being satisfied that the critical transfer of power from the EU to the UK takes place.

And hence on to the state of UK politics. It is clearly going to take some time for the Westminster /Civil Service machine to adjust to having actual power rather than being a supplicant in Brussels. That transition will take time, and will be forged by the reality of actually being responsible for things. It is no surprise that a civil service that hasn't made an independent decision for 40 years should struggle with real consequences to their actions. We just need to learn and grow, not throw a tantrum and demand someone else makes our decisions for us.

Labour needs to stop being a sheep in wolf's clothing and become a wolf in sheep's clothing if it is ever to regain power. Stop parading its virtue and pissing absolutely everyone off, and start showing some respect for the coalition of voters it needs to gain to win and go about the job of arguing and conversing with that base about solutions and trade-offs.

In short, Labour needs to stop making supporting the Tories an easy choice for this ex-Labour member and voter, and start making it difficult.

Anonymous said...

I think tory tax evaders and offshore tax havens users wanted brexit, including the media owners who then proceeded to prep their readers to want brexit as well.

Add in the huge dose of existing xenophobia that primed (many of) those readers and you have the unstoppable force that brexit appears to be. And yes, since they wanted it from the start, it's easy for the naive to think they have forced the tories down this path when in fact the tories led them by the nose ring.

When will this end? Maybe never, it depends whether the Unicorns are delivered or whether when brexit unloads the experts are correct and we are in deep do-do. Lack of food on the table is a huge motivator and tends to push issues like xenophobia down the priority list.

Blissex said...

«I think tory tax evaders and offshore tax havens users wanted brexit, including the media owners who then proceeded to prep their readers to want brexit as well.»

Several constituencies raised the vote for "Leave" from 35% in 1975 to 51% in 2016, but "tory tax evaders and offshore tax havens users" were already part of that 35%; but in 2016 a substantial part of the new "Leave" majority just wanted to vote against Cameron and Osborne were for.
Which gives me the opportunity of re-quoting what I think is one of the greatest pinnacles of mandelsonian attitudes:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/labour-fears-corbyn-will-be-seen-as-unambitious-3tww86v5n
Labour MPs have raised concerns that Jeremy Corbyn’s rhetoric on tax avoidance could appear anti-aspiration. A senior shadow cabinet source said the party leader was in danger of overreaching himself in his criticism of David Cameron for investing in Blairmore, the fund set up in an offshore tax haven in the Bahamas by his father Ian.

That probably is also part of the "softly softly" opposition and "we are all for aspiration" approach of K Starmer.

Blissex said...

«the carnage of last year's EU elections. At 22.4%, the combined vote of the Tories and Labour was their worst result in a national ballot ever.»

Oh please a sociologist that does political sociology should be able to recognize that voters behave very differently in elections that don't matter (to property prices/rents and economic policy) and elections that matter, and that the 2019 EU elections in the UK mattered not at all, so those few who voted loved being "naughty". It was the same with the Conservative landslide in the the 2004 local elections, that mattered little, reversed in the 2005 national elections, that mattered.

«The transactional promise of sorting Brexit out overrode the party identities and voting habits of millions of former Labour voters»

But most politics is transactional, party identity was not tribal, but the recognition that in the long term parties were firm in defending their own, something that mandelsonianism upended in the Labour party, driving it to PASOKification.
English electoral politics also is fundamentally transactional, as large blocks of voters only vote against whichever government party if they screw up, which means if property profits fall. Party identity is more related to activists.

«Johnson's challenge in government then is to offer new wares.»

Well, with an opposition that is offering the same wares as in “Keir Starmer [...] he and Labour aren't selling anything”, only with a claim of greater competence, he does not need to. And for all that voters like B Johnson better than K Starmer (even if the polls don't quite support that) in voting intentions the gap is still 10% New Labour behind, instead of the 20% ahead tha an opposition supported by mainstream media should be with a government this ridiculously biased and inept.

Also the wares that matter to the famous "swing voters" are property prices, because as part of family budgets term they are so huge, and as long as B Johnson can keep them going up to 2024, "Middle England" voters won't fire a "winning" government.

«the rising class of immaterial workers are predisposed to Labour precisely because it offered a programme complementary to their interests. Their support was conditional on this, and if Keir retreats too far from these positions they won't bother. Staying home on polling day or giving the Greens or LibDems a punt is more than possible.»

For the advocates of PASOKification that is a good outcome: fewer "trots" voting, a higher percentage of goes votes for thatcherite parties.

«Who can make the most credible promises and be seen to deliver them has the best hope of transforming episodic support into something longer lasting.»

The only promises that really matter are about housing cost inflation, because the numbers involved are so huge; for many families (especially in the densely populated south) most improvement to their living standards comes from property profits, and conversely for many others property costs are the single biggest detriment to their living standards (followed by poverty level wages and mean social insurance). The rest is largely Westminster bubble posturing.

Dipper said...

"I think tory tax evaders and offshore tax havens users wanted brexit, including the media owners who then proceeded to prep their readers to want brexit as well ... huge dose of existing xenophobia that primed "

And that's the next election lost right there. And the one after that.

How many times do you have to get thrashed in elections before you take this stuff seriously?

If you were hired by the Labour Party to win the next election, is this where you would start? Calling the target voters racist and stupid?

BCFG said...

"If you were hired by the Labour Party to win the next election, is this where you would start? Calling the target voters racist and stupid?"

If he was being political he would simply blame Russia!

Blissex said...

«turn to the Tories to prevent a Labour-SNP coalition allowing Scotland to plunder the English tax base.»
«the year opened with the revelation that May was negotiating a deal which would have left the UK under the control of the EU but with no power.»
«for the Westminster /Civil Service machine to adjust to having actual power rather than being a supplicant in Brussels.»
«a civil service that hasn't made an independent decision for 40 years»

What has really outraged many people is that England has never had any representation in the EU Council, or the EU Parliament, or the EU Court of Justice, and that weak quislings like Thatcher, Blair, Osborne have always been on their knees towards their EUSSR puppetmasters, and have obediently inflicted on England 40 years of nasty neoliberal policies designed in Brussels out of envy to undermine english superiority.
:-)

George Carty said...

Dipper: "If you were hired by the Labour Party to win the next election, is this where you would start? Calling the target voters racist and stupid?"

The defeat of Dennis Skinner in last December's election (he was the last "Lexit" Labour MP: the other pro-Brexit Labour MPs were all on the right of the party) demonstrates that yes, support for Brexit is primarily driven by the ethnic nationalism that is often referred to as "racism". Not all Leave voters were racist in 2016, but some of theose weren't later embraced racism in response to the right-wing stealth propaganda barrage on Facebook in 2018 and 2019.

As for "stupid", the notion that racists are driven by stupidity is a liberal conceit: what actually drives racism is cynism and zero-sum thinking (your little Englander perspective which sees the Scots as scroungers is an extreme example of this!). People become racists because they despair at ever being able to eliminate the unjust privileges of oligarchs, and feel that therefore the only way they can achieve some modest degree of prosperity is at the expense of those even weaker than they are.

I can see how this is a terrible bind for Labour: if they can't get elected because of racist voters, then they can't build the more just society that would reduce the temptation for those voters to embrace racism in the first place!