Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I disagree. It wasn't a point I can recall coming up at all. It was probably mentioned once or twice but it really wasn't hammered home in the way it should have been.

[Sheilbh]

Every British expert pointed it out. The EU and international think tanks or organisations pointed it out. British institutions like the OBR pointed it out. British press like FT or Economist pointed it out. Even some backbenchers pointed it out.

Yeah it was always pointed out and fairly clear.

It's just that the English opposition seems utterly incapable to actually oppose the government and have its own narrative. Labour was completely ineffective under both Corbyn and now Starmer. And the Tories deliberately purged all dissenting voices eventually and are now ideologically pure sovereignty first.

I think there's two phases to it.

One is before we left - and I think Corbyn/Labour self-involvement is key. But it is extraordinary to me that Remainers failed to make any political hay in that period - despite polls moving so that a majority think Brexit was a mistake, despite many things the Remain campaign predicted coming true and the emergence of probably the most ideologically committed pro-European movement in Europe. It's probably the second biggest political failure I've ever seen - right after the Remain campaign. And in both cases people were calling them out about this at the time.

I think the new phase is now we've left - and I just don't think people are interested in Europe as a topic and don't want to re-open old wounds. An interesting example is that for the last 4 years the biggest way people define themselves politically has been Leave/Remain to the extent that people wondered if that would become the new permanent division in politics - a permanent culture war. Over the course of the last year that's collapsed, while those identities still exist the main political identities are broadly back to being Labour or Tory. There's a minority where this is the single biggest issue for them - but they're probably a Lib Dem+Greens size group. I'm not sure for a governing party that Europe will be particularly fruitful.

It's tough to assess how well Starmer's done - I think being in opposition during a pandemic, when you back 90% of what the government does and voters do not want you to "play politics" is really difficult. Especially when you're trying to establish your "brand" as opposition leader. My biggest concern is the last two leaders of the opposition who won an election were Blair and Cameron. Both of them conveyed a real sense of change from the predecessors (Foot, Kinnock; Hague, IDS, Howard) who'd been rejected by voters. At the minute I feel like Starmer's a little bit in Miliband territory - so he's done enough change to piss off Corbyn supporters (or, for Miliband, New Labour ultras) but he hasn't done enough that voters feel like there's a real shift in the party.

[Sheilbh]

I disagree. It wasn't a point I can recall coming up at all. It was probably mentioned once or twice but it really wasn't hammered home in the way it should have been.

The Remain campaign made the gamble - that's probably right 90% of the time - that it would be won or lost on people's jobs and the economy. That was wrong, but I'm not sure this point would've made a difference because it's really just a detail of the jobs and economy argument, no?

[Zanza]

I think the new phase is now we've left - and I just don't think people are interested in Europe as a topic and don't want to re-open old wounds.

All the issues that Brexit causes, be it raised trade barriers, less opportunities and cultural links, more hassle for tourists and other travelers, a confrontational, ineffective foreign policy towards Europe impacting geostrategical goals of Britain, etc. are not in the past though, but only come to full fruition now after Britain left.

That Labour is incapable to create any positive narrative or at least criticism of the government and just pretends all of this does not even exist as areas of policy just shows how inept they are. They don't need to make it a central campaign item like it was the last years. But they are not even calling out the government for its most obvious lies about Brexit. Complete no show. There is no opposition in England.

[celedhring]

Granted that I'm not too keyed into British politics, but from the outside looking in I fail to see the point of Keir Starmer.

[Josquius]

I disagree. It wasn't a point I can recall coming up at all. It was probably mentioned once or twice but it really wasn't hammered home in the way it should have been.

The Remain campaign made the gamble - that's probably right 90% of the time - that it would be won or lost on people's jobs and the economy. That was wrong, but I'm not sure this point would've made a difference because it's really just a detail of the jobs and economy argument, no?

It feeds into that for sure.
But a more critical point of it would be in challenging the established narrative. The decades of nonsense about the EU being this red tape machine hanging over us was a huge hurdle that needed dismantling.
Just saying everything you've heard for 30 years is wrong wouldn't work. So instead they should have added context of how things are so much worse outside the EU.

It feeds into another point of how we should have paid more attention to Switzerland. There should have been documentaries seeing how life is around Geneva or the like showing the trouble of the borders.
Switzerland got over its own brexit equivalent of a stupid anti foreigner referendum concurrently with our brexit so it was relevant.

[Sheilbh]

All the issues that Brexit causes, be it raised trade barriers, less opportunities and cultural links, more hassle for tourists and other travelers, a confrontational, ineffective foreign policy towards Europe impacting geostrategical goals of Britain, etc. are not in the past though, but only come to full fruition now after Britain left.

Yeah but they're all issues that were part of the 2016 campaign. The reality is going to emerge now we've left - but the whole discourse around these elements is something that's been non-stop for 4 years.

And to be honest they're either issues people don't care about (foreign policy, trade barriers, opportunities/cultural links) or won't care about until they actually deal with it in person (issues for tourists, cultural links like kids not doing Erasmus). But trade, foreign policy, culture are not things that win or lose elections in the UK unless they have some catastrophic impact, which I don't think is going to happen. We will over time become poorer (both economically and culturally) but I don't see anyone really running on fundamentally changing our position with Europe in a generation.

That Labour is incapable to create any positive narrative or at least criticism of the government and just pretends all of this does not even exist as areas of policy just shows how inept they are. They don't need to make it a central campaign item like it was the last years. But they are not even calling out the government for its most obvious lies about Brexit. Complete no show. There is no opposition in England.

The people who care about Brexit lies or any of that are already not voting for the government - and it's not like anyone who vote for a Boris Johnson government is under any illusion about who he is. Everyone knows that Johnson's got an indeterminate number of children with multiple women, has cheated on all his wives, has been fired from multiple jobs for lying, has made outrageous unkept promises (the Garden Bridge, Boris Island from when he was mayor) and that his entire schtick is a schtick. I mean half of that comes from Michael Gove's 2017 backstab when he revealed to the world that Johnson wasn't fit for high office. People voted for him in spite, or perhaps because of that stuff.

I cannot stand all that schtick and think he's a disgrace who should be nowhere near the cabinet but I don't think the stuff that I already think is going to be the way Labour win (I'm not sure they can - starting from here). It's early days and this might be totally wrong but I think competence and sleaze will be what does for Johnson, because they hurt any political leader. Not the stuff that people have already priced in and hurt 90% of political leaders - but every few years there's a lucky one who comes along and is widely perceived as shifty/a charlatan and wins anyway.

Most of the voters who care about Brexit lies or any Johnson lies will be voting for Labour. The Lib Dems and Greens aren't really a threat at the minute - they might cost the odd seat or two but not really. Labour need to convince Tory voters who know but don't really care.

Granted that I'm not too keyed into British politics, but from the outside looking in I fail to see the point of Keir Starmer.

Yeah. It's tough to know how well he's done. And arguably the most important is how Anas Sarwar does leading Scottish Labour.

On the one hand, when he took over the Tories were over 50% but part of that was rally round the flag effect in a crisis. At the last election the Tories won about 44% of the vote and Labour got 32%. Now the Tories it looks like the Tories are closer to 40% and Labour are around the high-30s. That's not dreadful for an opposition leader's first year, especially given the constraints of opposition during a pandemic.

On the other, as you it's not clear what he's for. There's still not a very clean, blood-on-the-carpet break with Corbyn's Labour. He has focused his pitch on competence, which should be a good bet v Johnson but is always at risk of the government (against its better instinct) doing its job - and it is right now with vaccines. Plus at the minute it's tought to see any difference between Labour and the Tories on economics because of the pandemic - so Sunak has announced that they'll un-do most of Osborne's corporate tax cuts in the future. Somehow a Tory Chancellor announcing billions of pounds of corporate tax rises caused more splits in Labour than the Tories - the left basically wanted corporate tax rises now (which is left, but not very Keynesian) and the leadership decided to rule out raising corporate tax at all (which is more right than the Tories).

I'm not sure what the answer is - my inclination (but this is always my inclination) is he needs a big clarifying fight with his party. Clause IV or "hug a hoody"/"vote blue, go green" style fabricated fight to get a hearing from the country.

[Zanza]

I agree with what you write about Johnson. Somehow people don't care about his bad characteristics. And Starmer will not change that.

But I disagree with your view, that Starmer or Labour are doing okay as opposition. Regarding Brexit itself, people did not consider the EU an important topic for decades before the referendum but then it massively grew until it became the most important topic in British politics with huge constitutional convulsions for about half a decade.

Also if you look at the right-wing press, Britain might have left the EU, but the EU is still on their minds. There may be fatigue about the topic, but as it is a) something that can clearly create passionate politics and b) will not go away as Britain will constantly interact with Europe, Labour might as well take any position. But they don't.

But even beyond Brexit, they seem completely devoid of political messaging. How can an opposition leader show competence when they either don't take positions or endorse government policy?

[Josquius]

Europe as an issue isn't going away.
But it should end up like the Iraq war in a few years if the tories attempts to keep their culture war going aren't fed.
It'll reach a state where not many will admit to having voted for brexit.

[Sheilbh]

I agree with what you write about Johnson. Somehow people don't care about his bad characteristics. And Starmer will not change that.

I think it happens from time to time that the UK public decide to like a chancer despite their obvious flaws - Blair, Wilson, Lloyd-George, Churchill all spring to mind. With all of them, for some reason the British public warm to flaws that would destroy any other politician - I don't know Terry Thomas syndrome or something. But it means they're kind of teflon (and I think with Johnson one of the key factors is that, despite international coverage, he's not Trump).

But I disagree with your view, that Starmer or Labour are doing okay as opposition. Regarding Brexit itself, people did not consider the EU an important topic for decades before the referendum but then it massively grew until it became the most important topic in British politics with huge constitutional convulsions for about half a decade.

I don't know if they're doing okay - they've gone from a 12 point gap to a five point gap which isn't bad, but 2020 is a very weird year to judge.

Also for the entire time the UK was a member a significant part of one of the main two parties wanted to leave the EU - it just switched from left to right in the mid-90s and the Lib Dems used to campaign for a referendum every election to "settle the issue" once and for all. The EU wasn't an important topic but it was a constant topic in UK politics. I don't think there's an equivalent in any other European country where a signifcant chunk of the main governing parties fundamentally disagrees with the EU. The first Labour majority after we joined ended up with a referendum, the first Tory majority after they became the main Eurosceptic party ended up with a referendum.

In the campaign itself Brexit wasn't about the EU - it was about the UK. It was synecdoche for all sorts of other things: kicking the establishment, reducing immigration, culture war issues etc. Some of the issues (like immigration) are linked to the EU but others were totally irrelevant. The EU referendum map looks weirdly similar to the AV referendum even though they're totally different issues. That's always, I think, a risk with referendums - the voters get to decide what they care about.

Also if you look at the right-wing press, Britain might have left the EU, but the EU is still on their minds. There may be fatigue about the topic, but as it is a) something that can clearly create passionate politics and b) will not go away as Britain will constantly interact with Europe, Labour might as well take any position. But they don't.

I think context matters here - 90% of this I see in the Express and the only way I see the Express is by Remainers retweeting it (I imagine that's actually a larger part of their social media engagement). The Express has the smallest circulation of the right-wing press and it also does lots of headlines about Princess Diana which also creates a passionate response in a few people - but I don't think we should overstate it as a paper - it's got about the same circulation as the Daily Star which only ever prints pictures of Johnson in clown makeup with the nickname "Bozo". There's definitely a chunk of people who really care about the EU (pro and anti equally), but they're a minority now. But we are definitely in for a year of the right wing press vicariously with a little bit of plausible deniability getting excited about the prospect of a Le Pen victory in France.

There's been comparisons with the EU over vaccines - but in part that is domestic politics. Labour and the Lib Dems attacked the government for not joining the EU scheme because it would mean the UK would get fewer vaccines slower and there were big pieces in the Guardian about it too. But I also think the Guardian and the Independent and the Mirror cover UK failures and negative bits of Brexit similarly - they're just less popular and don't get shared on my social media for people to dunk on because I'm in a bit of a Remainer/left bubble.

I also think there's going to be issues - like vaccines - where the EU and the UK take different approaches and they will be compared. I've seen more in the European (and even American) press about the UK vaccine program than most other issues because there's a comparison - the UK has taken a different approach on things like procurement but also delayed second doses etc which means there is a story there. I think that'll happen every time the UK and EU take different approaches.

But even beyond Brexit, they seem completely devoid of political messaging. How can an opposition leader show competence when they either don't take positions or endorse government policy?

Yeah but I think just really difficult to work out how well Labour or an opposition should be doing in a year like this. Labour (rightly) support the pandemic measures, including economically that the government's taken - so it's approach has been to criticise how those measures were taken/competence because it basically agrees with them. And as I say I think in the UK over the last year if Labour were perceived to be "playing politics" with the pandemic it would really hurt them. The two areas I wish they'd been bolder on was criticising the failure to lockdown in December and to close schools earlier, because everyone could see where that was going to happen.

Europe as an issue isn't going away.
But it should end up like the Iraq war in a few years if the tories attempts to keep their culture war going aren't fed.
It'll reach a state where not many will admit to having voted for brexit.

But that's different than re-join or re-negotiate becoming a major issue or people voting for parties pushing for that. You know, I don't know that opposing Iraq helped Miliband or Corbyn very much or that supporting it hurt Cameron, May or Johnson.

[Sheilbh]

Although, in the Starmer is useless column - first poll of Hartlepool (apparently commisioned by the Communication Workers' Union):
CON 49 LAB 42 NIP 2 REFORM 1 GREEN 1 LD 1

That would be a gain of 20 points for the Tories (and 5 for Labour). The Brexit Party would go from 25% to the 2% of the Reform Party - which is its successor but pretty moribund now Farage has quit.

And obviously it's pretty catastrophic for the Lib Dems - they were second when they were the main protest party in the 2000s. It's a weirdly 1950s poll though - main two parties with 90% of the vote. The collapse of protest parties is really fascinating. It almost makes me wonder how important 2010 really was, after a decade of posturing as a left-of-Labour protest party the Lib Dems join the Tories in government which collapses their credibility (they're now just a standard liberal party getting a standard liberal party's results) and UKIP becomes the protest party that comes close in numerous by-elections/wins European elections through the 2010s

[Admiral Yi]

It almost makes me wonder how important 2010 really was, after a decade of posturing as a left-of-Labour protest party the Lib Dems join the Tories in government which collapses their credibility

Really?  I've always thought the Lib Dems were posturing as the sensible center between the extremes.

[Sheilbh]

Really?  I've always thought the Lib Dems were posturing as the sensible center between the extremes.

That's what they did when they were founded in the early 90s. Then with Lord Ashdown () they basically moved to being a "progressive" but safe anti-Tory party and had observers in Blair's first cabinet - but this was a legacy of Blair's terror of the polls collapsing and Labour needing a coalition partner. But under Kennedy they definitely moved to being a centre left party - the big campaigns in the 2000s were for an extra 1p on income tax, no student fees for university and against Iraq - on most issues they would criticise Blair/New Labour from the left. Maybe that's just because Blair's thing was absolutely dominating the centre so there's no space for a "sensible centrist" party - but I also think ideologically Kennedy was more from the SDP tradition. After Kennedy they moved more to a sort of classic centrist party and then into coalition with the Tories.

The Lib Dems used to be masters of local politics and ran competent councils and picked candidates who would do well in each constituency even if brought together they were a little incoherent. So they were able to play both crowds very well. They'd have very soft centrist/centre-right figures winning rural seats like North Norfolk, Taunton or Westmorland by consolidating all the anti-Tory vote. Then they'd have far more progressive and centre-left candidates winning university towns from Labour like Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge. Plus everywhere they won - lots of councillors and lots of councils that focused on "delivery" and regular bin collections etc.

It's why coalition blew them up so much - the consolidated anti-Tory vote in the rural seats collapsed, the university towns went Labour and all the protest voters realised they might actually form a goverment.

Now they've lost all the ground they made up since the war and are back to what are probably their new heartlands - affluent areas/suburbs of capitals (Kingston, St Albans, Edinburgh West), affluent university communities (Oxford West, Bath, North East Fife - home of St Andrews) plus the odd remainder of the old Liberal Party heartlands in the fringes (Westmoreland, Caithness, Orkney and Shetland).

But since 2010 - and especially Brexit - they've become a far more Southern party. Historically they always did well in the Celtic fringe in areas and fairly well in some Northern areas that on demographics alone you'd think would go Tory - that's largely been wiped out.

[Josquius]

It's sad as there really is an opening for the lib dems in the "Conservative but not an absolute raving lunatic" segment of the population given the way the tories are going.
But they are managing to keep failing.

But that's different than re-join or re-negotiate becoming a major issue or people voting for parties pushing for that. You know, I don't know that opposing Iraq helped Miliband or Corbyn very much or that supporting it hurt Cameron, May or Johnson

Give it a few years.
Even as it was clear brexit was bound to be an absolute disaster in the lead up there was a heavy "just give it a chance" element.
There needs to be a few years of suffering before this becomes a politically viable option.
I do seriously think its a case of when, not if, the UK rejoins. At the least sliding into a Switzerland style situation.

Iraq certainly has hurt labour as a whole. Even amongst flag shaggers. It works as a standard issue dismissal of the entire time Blair was pm.

[Zanza]

I think context matters here - 90% of this I see in the Express and the only way I see the Express is by Remainers retweeting it (I imagine that's actually a larger part of their social media engagement). The Express has the smallest circulation of the right-wing press

The Express may be the best example, but it is also Telegraph, Daily Mail, Spectator, Financial Mail, sometimes The Times etc.