All of which has to lead to serious questions about the future of the Conservative Party. Some of their representatives are putting their unpopularity down to mid term problems of a government in power and believe that if they can somehow get Brexit over the line then they’ll get back to being a mainstream party contending for national leadership. The longer they delude themselves with that thought the better for their opponents. It wasn’t what I heard people say on the streets.
One section of voters is really angry that the dream of Brexit that they voted for wasn’t delivered and has happily bought into the idea that there was nothing misleading about the promises that were made to them and the only problem was that politicians didn’t try hard enough to deliver it. When you are dealing with hopes and fears instead of rational calculations it is not easy to predict what will happen, but a lot of people have bought into the faith that there is a magically better world once we Brexit. That faith is very strong and I can’t see great numbers of those voters automatically returning to the Conservatives no matter how far towards a hard Brexit they drift. The best the Conservatives can expect in a General Election is that some of the Brexit Party’s voters will return to them and they will be facing a split in the vote for the right in every constituency. The worst that awaits them is a wipe out across the country that sees the first past the post system reward the far right with over representation in Parliament whilst a weak and split Conservative Party trails far short of winning in almost every area. Either way a fresh General Election anytime soon is not something they will trigger intentionally.
To add to their problems the Conservatives now have to run a leadership contest in a deeply divided party. If they elect a leader from the right to try and head off Farage then it is far from certain that this will work to bring back alienated voters whilst it is highly likely to annoy a fresh tranche of their previously loyal support. The faction of the Conservative Party that simply wants it to speak up for the interests of business aren’t going to be happy for their party to be led by a man who said “Fuck business” and who backs policies that he knows are deeply damaging for business if he thinks it will win him a temporary political advantage.
If, by some miracle, the Conservative Party elects a fairly ‘moderate’ person who is trying to be the voice of the business community it is just possible that the party might evolve once again into a centre right party that wins elections. The only small problem with this is that it is just not what the vast majority of the remaining members of the Conservative Party want to do. No one from the centre or the left of the party looks capable of winning a leadership election. The vast majority of the candidates believe that their only route to power is by pandering to views of members who have learned their politics from fanatics in the States. A competition to be the most strongly in favour of low tax, free market economics and a firm alignment with Donald Trump’s America is to be expected. It will be ugly and divisive and unlikely to produce a government that is capable of appealing to the centre ground.
Outflanked from the right and with no appeal to the centre. Divided, unpopular and low on resources. We may very well be looking at the last few months of the Conservative Party as a mainstream force. More likely we are looking at it eventually improving somewhat on its dismal showing at the EU elections of, let’s repeat it, 9%. But are we ever again looking at a single united right of centre party winning first past the post elections in some parts of the country without much serious opposition? I don’t think so. I no longer believe that any Conservative seat anywhere in the country is safe.
It is highly likely that the Brexit party’s 31.6% share of the vote is a peak that they will never achieve again. They are now going to have to develop policies. That will create arguments within them and lose them voters who didn’t realise what they actually stood for. They are also going to come under scrutiny and, as with UKIP, it is a matter of time before the dodgy personal lives of many of their members cause them to lose support. Scandals and divisions are going to become a common feature of their profile. Nevertheless, they and the Conservatives are now going to be seriously competing for votes in many previous Tory strongholds and we are now living in a political world where there will always be a variety of right-wing parties. A split vote on the right could produce some very interesting results in a first past the post system.
Provided, of course, that the vote on the progressive side isn’t even more sharply split. The Liberal Democrats will seek to exploit this situation and will once again try and tell voters that we must all unite behind the one true party of Brexit. Just as Labour told us to unite behind the one true party of anti-austerity. If that kind of attempt to return to one party dominance prevails then a huge opportunity will be lost. The Green Party isn’t going to fold up and gracefully stand aside on behalf of any other party anywhere in the middle of an environmental crisis unless it gets something real back in exchange. Labour also isn’t going to gracefully stand aside. Under the distorting impact of a firat past the post Parliamentary election the only way to avoid a costly division amongst progressive voters is to work out some kind of deal on who stands where. Realistic politics means that give only comes when there is a genuine take as well.
If the LibDems can do politics differently and strike some genuine deals that see them standing aside in some areas progressive parties will be well placed to take a lot of seats and not just in Remain supporting parts of the country that have previously been seen as loyally Conservative. Even in areas backed Leave the Conservatives and Brexit are highly vulnerable to a unified opposition.
For example, in Craven the combined vote of the Greens and the Liberal Democrats in the EU elections was 37%. Brexit got 34% and a fight between them and the Conservatives on 11%, Labour on 6%. That means that a jointly supported Green/LibDem ticket on 37% could win. That is the arithmetic in one of the safest Conservative seats in the Country. The Chief Whip holds Skipton and Ripon but is going to find it hard to explain to voters why he promised them Strong and Stable government and delivered such a mess.
Genuine collaborative alliances are, however, extraordinarily difficult to deliver. The LibDems are going to be tempted to get drunk on success and they could decide to follow narrow party interests and try and kill off competition from the Greens by constantly spinning the idea that only Brexit matters and only votes for them will count. If they go for narrow sectarian politics a divided right fights a divided left and results up and down the country are going to become deeply unpredictable but nowhere near what is possible.
The simplest and by far the best solution to this is to end the bizarre outcomes that first past the post can produce and go for single transferable vote system. Let the public themselves decide who represents them rather than some backroom deal. But STV isn’t going to be the system that operates this side of the next General Election. In a world of more varied and smaller parties its existence has now probably become inevitable but it won’t arrive in time for the next election.
A much harder and more messy route to success is for serious discussions to happen now that result in a fair and reasonable targeting of winnable seats for LibDems, Greens and, if they still exist, Change UK. In an ideal world I’d love to include Labour in that but there is just no way the Labour Party are going to engage in collaborative cross party working any time soon on a national scale.
So the time has come for realism. Are the LibDems really prepared to enter into proper discussions that see them give up some winnable seats to the Greens? And if they are, how ready are the Green Party to strike those deals nationally and defend themselves against Labour’s accusations of collaborating with the neoliberal enemy? The time has come for some hard headed realism if we wish to win. And it has never been more important that we do win.