The result of the final ballot is an interesting one, and will occasion much confusion among "professional" political commentators. On the surface there's a roughly even three-way split. How can the Tories possibly get their act together now? It's because the politics matters the most, and the personalities come second - that's how. The real split is between the third or so who supported the "centrist" briefcase campaign Cleverly headed up, and two-thirds who think off-the-deep-end culture war drivel is the party's route back to the big time. In other words, the populist turn inaugurated by Boris Johnson still hasn't played itself out among Tory parliamentarians. The cheap tricks and scapegoating ploys of the recent past are crack cocaine for these people. The issue is they need a clown to front them for the act to work, and while the politics of Badenoch and Jenrick owe a heavy debt to the Big Top neither have the personality or charm for it to be convincing.
This one-third/two-thirds split therefore means moves toward the centre, and a direct contestation for the scores of seats lost to Labour and the Liberal Democrats becomes much harder. Those soft Tory-curious voters left the party's orbit a while ago, thanks to their weak efforts at addressing the problems their government has caused, and the endless scapegoating and distraction tactics. However, as long argued here the Tories are not "mad" to make a right wing turn. After a crushing defeat in which Reform's campaign was decisive for the loss of dozens of seats, it's simple arithmetic to add their support to the Conservative vote and, hey presto, more votes than those won by Labour. Heading off to the right also apparently solves the crisis of the Tory base. In their imaginary, the party lost votes to Nigel Farage because they weren't conservative enough. The small boats kept on coming, legal migration still went up, and measures designed to deal with them were stymied by "foreign courts". Promising toughness and crack downs is how to win Reform voters back.
But those voters are not interested. Our two-thirds majority forget they went into the general election promising all those things, and Reform still took five seats from them. They might, like Jenrick, say they mean it this time. But here's the difficulty. Johnson was able to build an election-winning coalition because he proved he was serious about Brexit. The tests he passed: defying his rebels, defying the courts, defying the EU, it was all show but it was seen to be done. Something that wouldn't have been possible if Johnson wasn't the Prime Minister at the time, nor if he hadn't led the Brexit campaign in the first place. Farage also, from outside Westminster, was able to demonstrate that he could be trusted on Brexit and immigration. His 25-year political career has thrived because he's done nothing but push these issues. How can Badenoch and Jenrick demonstrate a seriousness of purpose when they both served in Sunak's government and didn't deliver? They can't, which leads them to embrace even more extremism, like soft soaping right wing thuggery, or increasingly desperate stunts. Such as wearing 'Hamas are terrorists' hoodies and saying the SAS undertake extra judicial killings just to avoid human rights paperwork.
What will become of the third of the "sensible" parliamentary party? They will serve in the shadow cabinet of whoever wins. They might even hope to exercise a moderating influence, while manoeuvring themselves into positions of indispensability - just as they did when the wheels came off Liz Truss's premiership. Or some, like our old friend Gavin Williamson, might retreat to the backbenches to support children's charities or join Cleverly in painting Warhammer 40K miniatures. Whatever they do, the defeat of their two banner men is a political defeat for them, and an end to any hope the Tories are going to win the next election.
As previously argued, this is not popcorn time as the Tories set themselves up for five years of irrelevance. Yes, there is humour in the Tories skipping the William Hague stage and going straight for a retread of the Iain Duncan Smith era. But their move to the right can poison British politics further, embolden the extremism of Reform, and encourage racists, bigots, and the self-identified far right to step up their attacks. To give themselves what they think will be a political advantage, the moral vacuity of Conservative MPs means they are gambling with the safety and sense of security of millions of Britons.
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6 comments:
“To give themselves what they think will be a political advantage, the moral vacuity of Conservative MPs means they are gambling with the safety and sense of security of millions of Britons.” Absolutely, this is what they’ve always done, it’s arrogance and ignorance. “The cheap tricks and scapegoating ploys of the recent past are crack cocaine for these people.” Really does sum up the mindless attitudes of the Tory right. Pathetic and weak.
Don't you think that Keir and his crew might take the title of your post as a challenge?
There is, now a three way split between Blue Labour and the Tories, both on around 30% of the vote, and Reform on around 15%, all trying to secure for themselves the same 30% of the electorate that supports their petty-bourgeois, nationalist agenda, which is now their core agenda.
The real representative of that agenda is Reform, and it is likely to act as the pole of attraction. In the meantime, Conservatives are going to be propelled in the direction of the Liberals as either Jeneric or Badenuff hurtles in the direction of Reform, making a lash up of those two inevitable at some point to be able to defeat Blue Labour. Next years local elections will be a catalyst for that.
Similarly, progressive Labour voters will be repulsed by Blue labour's reactionary agenda, as the polls already indicate. It has destroyed its real working-class core support, in search of the votes of minority of bigots and petty bourgeois nationalists. A centralisation and concentration around the Liberals and Greens will draw in many young Labour voters, if not as activists. Again the local elections will be ana acid test and catalyst.
At some point, the Blair-rights in the PLP will jump ship before it sinks. A new SDP type Liberal alliance is in the making. The question is what role the unions will play, which if we had a decent, organised and principled Left working through those unions and at the grass roots of Labour would not be such an open question. Unfortunately, as I feared at the time, and stated openly before Corbyn's election as Leader, the failure of that project, for all the old reasons has scuppered that for now,
I think the problems are much deeper than just the spiralling chaos of the Tories. Labour are just as embedded in Neoliberal dogma as the Conservatives, and so too are the LibDems and Reform. They only differ in how much they would seek to temper its more inhumane and destructive qualities and try to ameliorate the effects of inequality. But neoliberalism hit the buffers back in 2008 and can only lead to growing dissatisfaction, frustration, anger and then rage. It is hollowing out our politics and eroding what remains of democracy. Some sort of reaction from the losers in the system - which is most of us - is inevitable. The more they try to suppress this , the more violent it will be when it breaks out.
Added to that, the speculative bubble that has been passing for 'growth' is bound to pop at some point in the next decade. Possibly the surge in insurance claims from extreme weather and other climate driven disasters will overwhelm the financial system. After that its anybodies guess where our politics will go. Nowhere good is probably the most we can say.
> Some sort of reaction from the losers in the system - which is most of us - is inevitable.
Indeed, which is why the people most responsible are spending so much energy on splitting those losers into at least two unreconcilable partisan blocs, trying to set them up to fight each other. Can be viewed of course as a natural part of the "hollowing out our politics" which you mention.
But, its quite clear that they are not pursuing neoliberalism. Reform/Tories are pursuing not neoliberalism, but old style red in tooth and claw early 19th century/18th century Liberalism, based on the idea of the small producer, as advocated by Libertarian/Anarcho-capitalists. Its why they promote Brexit, and nationalism.
If they were neoliberals promoting the interests of capital, they would have opposed Brexit and been advocating EU membership. Those interests are currently only promoted by the Liberals, Greens and SNP/Plaid, who are the true vanguard of neoliberalism. The Conservatives (really neoliberals to use your terminology) still inside the Conservative Party were/are represented by the likes of Heseltine, Clarke and so on, as well as those that left such as Soubry.
Yes, neoliberalism collapsed in 2008, and became impossible, because it was based on an illusion of being able to create wealth by simply inflating asset prices, by printing money tokens. Its the same delusion that affects, in a different context MMT. But, as I wrote at the time that collapse of the material conditions for neoliberalism, meant that the only possible solutions were, in the short term, a return to the kind of progressive social-democratic policies of the post-war period, and the extensions and intensification (closer political union) of the EU et al, or else the kind of rabid nationalism that has been seen. Which also can't work, as Truss found at, and collapses, but causes even more chaos in the process.
Blue Labour is also not promoting neoliberalism, but trying to stand on that same ground of reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalism as Reform and the Tories. The Tories must split, and also Blue labour must split, or else, the Blair-rights will first stage a coup, and topple Starmer, whose poll ratings make that not impossible in the short run.
Of course, the Blair-rights face the same problem, which is why at some point they have to resort to some kind of post-war social-democratic agenda, and recognise that it involves sacrificing all those inflated asset prices, be it house prices, or share and bond prices. But, as many others have pointed out that is much easier to do, if you don't have 4% of your GDP being lost each year as a result of being outside the EU.
In the 1960's, and 70's, part of the trick was done, not just by the fact of real growth, but also of inflation. If you look at inflation adjusted asset prices, during that period, they continually fell, as also interest rates rose. It didn't seem like it at the time, but that was just because nominal asset prices rose, due to inflation.
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