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Slip-Sliding Away: Labour may now enjoy a dominant position in Britain’s political landscape, but only by virtue of not being swallowed by it. |
THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY’S “landslide victory” is nothing of the sort. As most people understand the term, a landslide election victory is one in which the incumbent government, or its challenger, by the sheer force of its political appeal, sweeps its opponents from the field. Like the victims of a real landslide, the victims of an electoral landslide are buried by the decisive mass and unstoppable momentum of the voters’ mandate.
This is NOT what happened in the United Kingdom on 4 July 2024.
A much better way of describing what happened to the Conservative Government of Rishi Sunak is to utilise that very Kiwi word “slip”. The ground upon which the Tories had erected their political dominance simply slipped away from under them. Undermined by years of economic austerity and ideological polarisation, and jolted by politically irrecoverable corruption and incompetence. One minute the Conservatives were there, and the next minute they were gone, leaving Labour perched precariously on the slip’s edge. Labour may now enjoy a dominant position in Britain’s political landscape, but only by virtue of not being swallowed by it.
The raw numbers say it all. In 2019, the British Labour Party experienced its worst electoral defeat since 1935, attracting just 32.1 percent of the popular vote. At around sunrise on Friday 5 July 2024, when all the votes had been counted, the British Labour Party’s share of the popular vote had risen to 33.7 percent. But, thanks to the extraordinary unfairness of the UK’s First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system, Labour’s one third of the vote had left it in possession of two thirds of the seats in the House of Commons.
Sir Keir Starmer is not the UK’s new Prime Minister because he won a landslide victory, but because the Conservative Party, quite simply, collapsed.
A Labour victory by default does not, however, satisfy the British Establishment’s requirement that UK governments be presented as positive expressions of the voters’ will – rather than a by-product of their bitter disillusionment and disgust. Uniformly, the British media have employed the landslide metaphor to legitimate Labour’s huge parliamentary majority. The British people have been told that they have handed their new government a decisive mandate, and that it is now their duty to let Starmer and his colleagues get on with the job.
Exactly what that job is is difficult to express with any clarity. It is important to bear in mind that the now governing party is not the Labour Party of Clement Attlee, or Harold Wilson, or even the “New Labour Party” of Tony Blair. What the British people have elected, wittingly or unwittingly, is “Changed Labour” – a political party which, according to its leader, is “unburdened by doctrine”. In the light of Starmer’s extraordinary admission, the only job which the Prime Minister and his new “Cabinet of all the talents” will be temperamentally equipped to get on with is the preservation of the status quo – which is a godawful mess.
As he sets out to clean up the mess that is contemporary Britain, Starmer has made it very clear to whatever remains of Labour’s beleaguered socialist factions, and even to the lack-lustre social-democrats of Blair’s New Labour, that he intends to be guided by the principle of “country before party”. This determination to lead a government that is at once non-ideological and unaccountable has raised no discernible hackles. Indeed, when openly enunciated by Starmer on Election Night these sentiments drew loud cheers from his audience of Labour activists. The acclamation of Starmer’s youthful supporters would appear to confirm the party’s full and final surrender to the political logic of technocracy. “Changed Labour” is an understatement.
But can a government of technocratic professionals possibly hope to win the support of the two-thirds of British voters who cast their ballots for other parties? Starmer may be reasonably confident of the Liberal Democrats’ backing in the years to come, ditto the Greens’. Not that he will need it. Not when his majority is greater than the seat tally of the Lib-Dems and Greens combined. It would be advantageous, however, if Starmer could point to a clear “progressive” majority across the UK, one that was broadly supportive of his government’s direction of travel. Fortunately, the combined vote share of the three progressive parties comes to 52 percent – a narrow majority, but a majority nonetheless.
Ranged against Starmer and his allies will be the 38 percent of voters who cast their ballots for the Conservatives (23.7 percent) and the UK Reform Party (14.3 percent). Of the two, it is Reform, Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle, that constitutes the gravest threat to Starmer and his “changed” Labour Party. In spite of their leader’s claims, not all of Labour’s 411 MPs are unburdened by doctrine. Indeed, a great many of them hold rigidly ideological positions on immigration, gender, race, and the Israel-Gaza War. Farage and his colleagues (all four of them) will highlight the perceived extremism of Labour’s “identity politics” to drive a wedge into those same working-class constituencies that fell to the blandishments of Boris Johnson in 2019. Constituencies in which Reform polled impressively in 2024.
Farage has made no secret of his intention to “come after” Labour voters. He is confident that Starmer’s commitment to unscrambling a chaotic status quo, without upsetting the City of London and/or the Bank of England, can only result in the dangerous disillusionment of those many millions of Britons hopeful of being governed better, and with more compassion, by Labour than they were by the Tories. Though he doesn’t look like a fan of The Who, Farage’s message to the British working-class will be: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
And what of the biggest losers, the Tories? Down an astonishing 251 seats, reduced to a diehard rump of 121 MPs, and having lost nearly all their best and brightest leaders (and Liz Truss) in the “slip”. Where does the world’s most successful political party go now? And who will lead it there?
Looking back through the long career of the Conservative Party, it is clear that its remarkable ability to navigate the turbulent seas of British history is attributable largely to a clutch of colourful and proudly unorthodox navigators. Robert Peel, who broke his party to feed his people. Benjamin Disraeli, who, in forging “one nation” Toryism, bequeathed his party an enormously successful electoral formula. Stanley Baldwin, the successful industrialist whose death duties did for a feckless aristocracy more effectively than any cloth-cap socialist’s general strike. Winston Churchill, the narcissistic, grandiloquent turncoat who saved his country from fascism. Margaret Thatcher, who dared to unleash the atavism that lies in Toryism’s dark heart.
That person may not yet be seated in the House of Commons. But if and when the latest saviour of Conservatism finally takes their seat on the Opposition benches, they will be recognizable principally by how fully they embody the sentiments of G.K. Chesterton’s remarkable poem “The Secret People”:
We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 8 July 2024.
I don't want to come across as a cheerleader for the Starmer government, I am not. However, I do not regale in the 'get your pessimism in first' approach by some commentators. That the Tories collapsed is of huge importance to those that have seen (and are seeing) the socio-economic policies of the Tories imposed upon civil society. The people finally drew a line in the sand and not only the most marginalized, but through the classes, put a stop to the cruelty and incompetency that has poisoned Britain. I await the King's speech to see the early outline of the replacement government.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to Reform, there has been some narrative that Reform created the collapse of the Tories. In fact, the collapse of the Tories caused Reform. Their vote has been embellished by even the hard core of the Troy right not being able to vote for a continuation of dysfunction. This is evident in the little told story in Northern Ireland, which saw not only the fall of the DUP but 'Fall of the House of Paisely' in North Antrim. The progressive parties campaigned little to allow the Reform aligned TUV to end Ian Paisley Jr's political inheritance.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/16/dup-house-of-paisley-north-antrim-general-election-loss
Not even the attempt at voter suppression prevented enough people in enough electorates to tick whatever box necessary to remove their Tory MP. This was a massive rejection of the policies of exclusion an d marginalization that had destroyed the nation since Thatcher, with those of the last 14 years abandoning even the remnants of Tory paternalism and replacing with a sense of self-entitlement in which the state is for their benefit and that of their cronies, old school tie and business partners. The electoral removal of the loathsome who cared not for the marginalized, the nation or the environment.
Yes it was a low turnout, and Labour's percentage of the vote was not overwhelming. But in each targeted electorate, enough Labour voters turned out to win and in each Lib.Dem. targeted seat enough backed a candidate to unseat a tory. The Tories, DUP and SNP have questions to answer from their previous governing positions. While the SNP may have a way back in two years under Scotland proportional system, the other two may have a longer and harder path. Reform have limited seats and limited commons time and are lead by a lazy politician that specializes in photo shoots and controversy. By-elections may see them maintain a profile, but expect the establishment to circle around the party of the establishment.
It reinforces the mantra that "oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them". The question now is whether PM-elect Starmer will govern as an actual UK Labour PM, or as a Tory in Labour clothes which is so 1997.
ReplyDeleteStarmer not too long ago promised NZ-style electoral reform, but now he's walked back on that & supports the FPP status quo. FPP is a relic of a previous century even as politics on both sides of the Atlantic evolves & revolves.
Following the King's speech, we can now have a better evaluation of Starmer's aims for government -
ReplyDeleteBudget Responsibility Bill - Prevent the unaudited budget Liz Truss tried to impose.
National Wealth Bill - £7.3bn Keynesian economic investment.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill - Fairness in planning.
Employment Rights Bill - Bans zero hour contracts and regulates job security.
English Devolution Bill - Bring powers to local and regional authorities.
Better Buses Bill - Allowing local authorities to run buses.
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - Bring rail back to public ownership.
Rail Reform Bill - Allowing a single public body to coordinate rail.
Great British Energy Bill - Public investment in clean energy.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill - says it all
Water (Special Measures) Bill - Strengthen water regulator to ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability.
Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill - A new Border Security Command and end to use of hotels as asylum measure.
Children's Wellbeing Bill - remove the exemption from VAT for private school fees, enabling the funding of six and a half thousand new teachers. Free breakfast in primary schools, assistance with school uniforms.
Skills England Bill - Reform apprenticeships, with union, business and local authorities
Renters' Rights Bill - End no fault evictions and apply a Decent Homes Standard.
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill - reform leasehold and allow common ownership.
Mental Health Bill - Ensuring mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health and preventing detention of those with mental health.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill -phase out smoking for the next generation, and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes.
Draft Conversion Practices Bill - prevent conversion therapy for sexual and gender orientation.
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill - Equal pay for ethnicity and disability.
Crime and Policing Bill - Neighborhood policing.
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill - Measures aimed to half violence to women and victim support.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) - Holder of events to take measures.
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill - Independent champion for Armed Forces and their families.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill - Remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.
Hillsborough Law - Introduce a duty of candour for public servants, ensure legal costs for victims.
Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation - Remove and reform unlawful aspects of previous law.
Football Governance Bill - Independent football regulator, rights for fans.
Holocaust Memorial Bill - To be built near House of Commons.
I leave all to access whether "the only job which the Prime Minister and his new “Cabinet of all the talents” will be temperamentally equipped to get on with is the preservation of the status quo – which is a godawful mess."
NB: How much the NZ government is moving in the opposite direction.