Johnson's jamboree

Wow! That was the election result the pollsters did not see coming. It was seismic for a number of reasons and it is hard to refute the view that Boris Johnson emerged as the most attractive candidate in a contest of the ugly. Even Johnson’s victory speech acknowledged that many voters who have not voted for them before may simply have loaned their votes to the Tories because: (a) they had no interest in backing Corbyn and (b) they really do want to “get Brexit done.” A big majority of 80 seats – the largest by any government since 2001 and the largest Tory majority since 1987 – gives Johnson a mandate to do more than deliver Brexit. If he plays it right, he could potentially cement the Tories in power for another decade, such is the catastrophic state of the opposition.

Labour lost it in more ways than one

Indeed, this was a result which requires Labour to reflect on where it wants to go next. This was its worst showing since 1935 in terms of seats (chart above), although its share of the vote was higher than in 1983, 1987, 2010 and 2015, But it nonetheless underscored the extent to which Labour has lost touch with its core voters and Thursday’s result was a damning indictment of the direction the party has taken under Jeremy Corbyn. I pointed out in 2016  that Corbyn was the wrong man at the wrong time and I was not taken in by the 2017 election result, attributing this to a  backlash against Brexit, particularly amongst younger voters who looked for Labour to oppose it. However, I was astonished by the extent to which his unpopularity amongst voters was even cited by his own MPs. Labour’s problems with anti-Semitism and the perception that Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser do him no favours amongst ordinary voters. His inability to take a position on Brexit lost him the youth vote and he was roundly criticised for signing off on Labour’s tax-and-spend policy.

But Corbyn is merely one manifestation of Labour’s drift to the left. To hear some of his fellow travellers deny the reality of the party’s position in the wake of this resounding defeat is to realise that it will be a long way back for Labour before it can be considered electable. The party has traditionally performed well when it tacks towards the centre, as it did under Tony Blair. But when it drifts to the left as it did in the 1930s, 1980s and under Corbyn this tends to be a recipe for electoral disaster. Blair was a proven winner who tapped into the national Zeitgeist and it is a measure of how far Labour has moved that party activists would rather criticise Blair for his involvement in the Iraq War than recognise his election-winning genius. When Labour loses long-held seats in my native north-east England, you know the game is up.

Lib Dems demonstrate the ineptitude of the centrists

Whilst on the subject of opposition parties, the Liberal Democrats’ failure to capitalise on its centrist credentials was a spectacular indictment of its own failings. Slightly less than half of voters supported Remain but the Lib Dems managed to capture only 11.5% of votes and won just 11 seats – one less than in 2017, with leader Jo Swinson losing her seat. Let us not forget that the Lib Dems were the enablers of this election. However, their promise to revoke the Article 50 notification was a serious policy mistake as it reinforced the perception of a party that was prepared to ignore the wishes of those voters who favoured Brexit. Many people have asked me why they would do something so dumb. I think the answer is that they assumed Labour would back a referendum and they simply wanted to differentiate themselves. 

But by ruling out any cooperation with Corbyn, the Lib Dems are directly responsible for scuppering any chance of a Remain coalition that might have given them a fighting chance of achieving their goal of overturning Brexit. To put it bluntly, both the main opposition parties made too many strategic and tactical errors that were evident to anyone with more than a passing interest in politics. One does have to wonder who was in charge of the election strategy for both the main opposition parties, for they were spectacularly incompetent. Next time round, folks, I am available for hire - I certainly could not do any worse.

The Tories could not lose against this level of opposition

The Conservatives did not exactly fight a stellar campaign but they kept their message simple and did not tackle Labour head-on on their own ground. Johnson largely avoided making too many gaffes and his promise to move beyond Brexit clearly resonated with a large part of the electorate. My views on Johnson have been well documented on this blog over the years and they have not changed. But I have to admit that the Tories fought a well-disciplined campaign and they were canny enough to pick a fight they could win. The party knew that it had a good chance of beating a Corbyn-led Labour Party. It might have struggled against a more credible leader, although it would almost certainly not have pushed so hard for a winter election if they thought they might lose. As it is, their vote share of 43.6% has not been bettered since Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 victory (chart below).

I will deal with the outlook in future posts. But the key concern right now is whether we will see a party that tacks to the right, as many of its more prominent politicians appear to want, or whether a more centrist version of Johnson will emerge that permits a broader church.  Johnson has a big majority which means he will be far less reliant on a small number of MPs to ensure the passage of legislation. This raises the possibility that he may not need to push for a hard Brexit in order to keep his MPs onside – a luxury that Theresa May did not enjoy. He may also be more emollient on the question of extending the transition period than he sounds today.

 

Holding the union together will be a challenge

But there are some big issues on the horizon. The SNP won 48 of the 59 Scottish seats, implying that neither the Conservatives nor Labour will have much representation north of the border. It is clear that Scottish voters, who voted 62%-38% in favour of remaining in the EU in 2016, do not buy into the policies espoused by the main Westminster parties and the push for a second independence referendum will gather momentum.  Similarly, nationalist politicians now outnumber unionists in Northern Ireland for the first time, indicating a possibly more favourable view towards a united Ireland. Future Conservative governments will thus have to devote more attention to maintaining the union. It can no longer be taken for granted.

Can the Tories demonstrate they are about more than Brexit?

The mould has also been broken in another way. Whereas in the past Labour could rely on the votes of working class voters in the former industrial heartlands, that may no longer be true in future. A generation of Labour voters would not countenance voting for the Tories after their policies were deemed responsible for triggering a wave of deindustrialisation. That changed this week. This is a sign that the old tribal certainties are breaking down as younger voters are no longer influenced by the historical conflicts that shaped their parents’ generation. Maybe Boris Johnson still has the old magic; Heineken Man refreshing the parts that other politicians cannot reach, rather than Marmite Man who is loved and hated in equal measure. Maybe! Johnson has the potential to be the unifying candidate that the country needs. But he carries so much Brexit baggage that he will have to redouble his efforts to prove that the Tories are more than a single issue party. It is going to be an interesting ride.