The Observer view on where Britain goes after the general election result
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Version 0 of 1. Corbyn was not the leader to address Labour’s decline. It can’t make the same mistake again This is the most decisive election result for over a decade. Boris Johnson asked the country for a mandate to “get Brexit done”, and last Thursday voters delivered him an overwhelming majority. The result settles once and for all the vexed question of when and whether we will leave the European Union: Britain’s formal exit will happen at the end of next month. But the conclusiveness of the result should not obscure the massive uncertainty that hangs over our future: over what type of Brexit we choose once we have left, a decision that will have huge implications for our economic wellbeing and the integrity of the union. This is the largest Conservative majority the country has seen since 1987, delivered on the biggest share of the vote won by any party since Margaret Thatcher’s first victory in 1979. For Labour, this defeat is its fourth in a row, producing the smallest cohort of MPs the party has seen since 1935. Britain’s electoral map has been upended as the Conservatives have swept to victory with a raft of seats in the north and the Midlands that were not so long ago seen as impregnable Labour strongholds. This new political reality leaves challenges for Britain’s political leaders. A newly triumphantJohnson leads a party stunned by the scale of its victory, a party that will have to confront the challenge of delivering Brexit without inflicting enormous damage on its fragile new electoral coalition. Nicola Sturgeon has been returned with a fresh mandate to champion Scottish independence but no obvious route to securing an independence referendum. Labour and the Liberal Democrats face months of agonising introspection and internal conflict as they embark on the process of choosing new leaders adequate to the task of rebuilding their shattered parties, and finding ways to reconnect with the voters who abandoned them. Only the start of the EU conversation From his podium outside Downing Street last Friday, Johnson struck a tone of unity and inclusion, in sharp contrast to the tenor of his divisive election campaign. He pledged to lead a “one nation” Conservative government that will bring together the nations of the United Kingdom, and reflect the sentiments of both those who voted to Leave and to Remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum. It is hard to overstate how dramatic a shift from the Tory approach to governing witnessed over the past nine years this would require. It would demand an entirely different strategy for achieving a new relationship with the EU from the one Johnson has pursued to date; an undoing of the painful austerity of the past decade that has most sharply hit low-income families and less affluent areas; and an unravelling of the toxic legacy of Theresa May’s hostile environment. Leaving the EU on 31 January 2020 under the terms of the withdrawal agreement will not see “Brexit done” in any but the most superficial sense. Our exit will be only the start of the conversation about what our final relationship with the EU will look like. Do we want a closely aligned relationship, which would minimise the economic damage and protect the Good Friday agreement? Or do we want to diverge sharply from European regulations and standards in order to align more closely with the low-regulation economy of the United States and end free movement, the price of which would be sharpening economic inequalities, a grave risk to the union and a watering-down of worker and consumer protections? New Tory voters, new Tory MPs Like May before him, Johnson has always prioritised his own political interest over that of the country. The absence of a Conservative majority since 2017 has given undue influence to the hard Eurosceptic flank of the party, and both May and Johnson have been willing to dance to its tune as the price of its support. Johnson has been willing to pursue the hardest of Brexits, which would risk the integrity of the union and impose huge economic pain, as the price of power. His resounding election victory must shift this calculus. Not only does it reduce the influence of his party’s most fanatical Eurosceptics; it has brought in a fresh wave of MPs who represent areas of the country whose economies would be wrecked by a hard Brexit. This provides him with the political imperative to tack towards a soft Brexit that minimises its economic impact, protects the union and recognises that over half of voters did not give his version of Brexit their seal of approval last week. The same imperative operates when it comes to reversing the past decade of spending cuts. Johnson’s manifesto offered far too little on this, including nothing about the slashing of tax credits that has left many working parents thousands of pounds a year worse off. By 2023, more than half of families with children will have been shifted on to universal credit – which is far less generous than the system it replaces – and many of these will be new Conservative voters, living in constituencies with new Conservative MPs. Johnson ignores this at his peril. But while his majority could push him towards a softened approach, his election campaign risks an altogether different political legacy. Johnson will no doubt extract a dangerous lesson from his win: that putting out untrue claims about your opponents, blaming them for events that happen on your watch, and avoiding scrutiny at all costs is an effective political strategy. At least he can no longer rely on the toxic, populist narrative of “people versus parliament”. He controls the Commons. If in five years, Britain is languishing in the wake of a catastrophic Brexit, the responsibility will lie with him, and him alone. Labour’s dilemmas Corbyn’s momentous defeat leaves Labour with different dilemmas. The party has lost more than 2.5 million voters in just two years. But there were still more voters who did not endorse Johnson than those who did; many of whom will fear the consequences of another five years of Conservative government. Labour owes it to them to undertake a full and honest reflection of why it lost, rather than descending into sectarian blame games. Supporters of Corbyn have tried to write off Labour’s losses as a consequence of Brexit above all else. On this account, the referendum created a lose-lose situation by opening up a new cleavage that divided Labour’s electoral coalition. In eventually swinging behind support for a referendum on any deal, Labour sacrificed its heartland support. Those who have spent the past two years arguing for a referendum – this newspaper included – must take stock and reflect why the case never resonated with enough MPs and voters for it to happen. But Labour’s lack of leadership on Brexit – its abject refusal to adopt a clear position early on – undoubtedly did the argument for a fresh referendum significant damage. Labour’s problems go beyond Brexit. Its vote share declined most in Leave-supporting areas, but also dropped in areas of the country that voted to Remain. Polling suggests that the most important factor in voters deserting the party for the Conservatives was not Brexit, but Corbyn’s leadership, reinforcing reports from Labour MPs throughout the campaign. And Brexit is a symptom of Labour’s problems in its heartlands, not the cause. Under our electoral system, Labour can only win decent majorities by building a coalition of socially liberal and socially conservative voters from every corner of the UK. The decline in working-class support for Labour has been long-term and structural. Corbyn must accept the voters’ verdict While we have always recognised that Corbyn energised a new generation of members and activists, it has been clear that he was not the leader to address this long-term structural decline. There have been plenty of warning signals, including the no confidence motion backed by over 80% of the parliamentary party in 2016. Dire personal ratings added to the picture. Still, Corbyn – hampered by an evident deficit in political skills and strategic vision, encumbered instead by a worn-out and irrelevant set of dogmas – persisted in the belief that he was right, and his critics wrong. The dreadful price is that Labour looks further away than ever from delivering for the communities most in need of a Labour government. Now Corbyn must accept the voters’ verdict: they did not see in him a prime minister; they did not see in his manifesto a credible agenda for change. He cannot lead the Labour party through the painful reflection it must now undertake; he must resign with immediate effect, paving the way for a caretaker leader. The danger is that the forthcoming leadership contest will quickly become dominated by factional infighting rather than an honest debate about what Labour needs. The party’s members have an awesome responsibility ahead: to select a new leader who can excite younger voters, while rebuilding bridges with those working-class voters who deserted it, and who will not shy from confronting head-on the antisemitism crisis that has engulfed the party in recent years. Questions remain This election may have shaken up Britain’s electoral landscape, but none of the existential questions facing our country have gone away. How do we balance the trade-offs involved in Brexit? What is the UK’s future as a union of four nations? How do we make it a greener and kinder country in which to live, in which older people do not go without basic care and children get an equal chance in life regardless of who their parents are? Labour has, for now, forfeited its chance to lead a government to address these challenges, and the country’s immediate future yet again lies in the hands of a Conservative prime minister. For the fourth time in a decade, the party must embark on the process of reflection and rebuilding. Britain cannot afford for it to make the wrong choice again. |