I don’t think it’s possible in 2021 to identify who will be ‘waiting in the the wings’ in 2024 (although I do think there is still serious talent in the Labour Party), nor what the make-up of the House of Commons will be after the next election, let alone the state of politics when it comes to the election after that (there might, for example, be no Scottish seats at all). But as I said I don’t think any of this matters for the reverse-brexit process to get under way.
For the future of Labour generally… Well, the first and most important lesson of history is that it’s littered with the failed prophesies of commentators who’ve said Labour (or the Tories, or the LibDems) ‘will never recover from this’ They will (as long as the underlying economic interest groups are there). I do expect the long-term rise of the Greens to continue (as it will throughout the world in various guises) and that a successful Labour leader (like all left leaders soon) will have to either co-operate with them or steal their clothes (as the Tories did with UKIP).
However, I also think the current Tory alliance is very fragile. They successfully incorporated the UKIP types, but there is plenty of evidence that centre-right voters are unhappy with this - and since many of them opposed brexit they will be particularly sensitive to evidence that it is failing. My guess is that the current Tory leadership will not be able to hold it together for long. By the next election many will probably put their cross elsewhere, so while I don’t think Labour will win under Starmer, I do see the Tories losing a lot of seats.
And then there’s demography. Even in 2019 the Tories only led in one age group: the over 65s. Even with its heavy defeat, Labour got most votes in every working age group. About 75% of under-25s opposed brexit. 67% of under-35s describe themselves as socialists; 78% blame capitalism for the UK’s housing crisis, and 75% say capitalism caused climate change (which of course it did!).
I was a remainder, however I would think long and hard about rejoining. The EU, led by Barnier and Macron, wanted to punish the UK for voting to leave. From their point of view, possibly sensible as a means of discouraging others from thinking of leaving. However, instead it has tainted the EU for many previously EU supporting Brits.
But have they really? I know UK press love to portray the EU as bullying UK - it seems to me that EU is just trying to comply with the “oven ready” deal.
@Simonridout please give examples of how the EU is doing this.
Fair enough - obviously if there is a contest before the next GE it is most likely to be someone who is a current sitting Labour MP which limits the field a bit.
Certainly possible but even if Sturgeon holds a further independence referendum by the end of 2023 as promised, and the Scots vote “out”, I can’t see them immediately exiting the Union, so there probably will still be Scottish MPs in 2024. In any case she needs the agreement of N° 10 for legitimacy (it would be messy anyway, even messier if the referendum is not sanctioned on this side of the border).
Not clear that it helps Labour though - without the 59 Scottish MPs the Tories would still have 355 MPs out of a reduced commons of 591 - increasing the majority to 119
Do you think that even if the whole country is screaming at the Tories to reverse Brexit they will listen. I honestly doubt it based on the evidence so far.
It will need a non-Tory government to even start to think about starting to think about the process, and the EU will rightly be wary if it is sensible.
OK, reasonable points. My concern is that Labour does not seem to be in a state to steal anybody’s thunder especially if, as you hint, it’s “worse on the inside”. Let’s not forget either that by and large the post-war years have been Tory held. I think it’s 30 years of Labour government vs 46 of Tory.
However the skill of the Tories is keeping the alliance together - and do not forget that every single Tory MP currently sitting had to agree to support Johnson and his version of Brexit. The ties that bind etc.
I’d like to agree with you here but I think it is too messy to predict. Starmer is vulnerable on the twin fronts of Brexit and Covid because the Tories will claim victory on both and many will believe them (neither are true, of course). Starmer is especially vulnerable if he tries to criticise the Tory handling of Brexit because they will point out that he supported the deal.
Now I suspect we both understand that he had no good option - though I think the damage limitation could have been better. He could, for instance, have had Labour abstain, or not whip and leave it to individual MPs. He could also be more effective at getting the message out that the Tory Brexit is not working.
Yeah, except that Tories naturally put Party first, self second and the national interest a very poor third.
Although you are correct that the Tories only polled more than 50% of the vote in the over 60’s they polled more than Labour in all age groups over 40. Also the Labour/Tory tipping point moved younger in 2019 compared with 2017. Source YouGov
The question here is whether, over time, the cohort of young, left leaning, voters will age into older left leaning voters or whether people become more right wing as they age. The voter distribution for the Tories in 1997 was more even but generally support was higher in the older age groups (27% 18-24 vs 36% 55-64 and 65+).
Labour was more evenly spread but what became of the 49% of voters in the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups in 1997 - they did not emerge into 2019 providing Labour with 50% support in the 40-49 and 50-59 age groups. Source Ipsos MORI
All that said my hope is that you are right - without a Brexit agreement to wave at the voters triumphantly (even if they had every intention of tearing it up as soon as possible) and with more and more acute problems being obvious they might struggle to gain votes.
Or they might just twist and turn and corrupt the system and pull the wool over everyone’s eyes again. They’ve long since stopped playing by Queensbury rules.
But they’re all EEA member countries - this was on offer to the UK and the UK refused it!
(Switzerland effectively in the EEA, though perhaps not technically - it has a unique status which the EU has been clear for many years cannot be replicated.)
EDIT: Isn’t this a good example of the way the UK media distorts reality - turns what was in fact a UK choice into an EU ‘punishment’ - and of how people really do believe it, and it shapes their political views and votes?
Had to do a double-take there Billy - your reply is so similar in both style and substance to discussions I used to have when I was in the Labour Party, I thought for a moment I was in a time-loop!
The full effects of Brexit are still some way off thanks to Covid so I can see the Tories calling an early election in 2023 to take advantage and Labour won’t be in a position by then to mount a serious challenge. Having lost the election Starmer will have to go as he’s failed to unify the party which means yet more wrangling over the direction of travel and before you know it it’s 2028. Only a full on economic meltdown will prevent the Tories (then led by a moderate like Sunak) winning again which pushes re-joining the EU further into the distance.
The EU did say that the door would always be open to the UK but I suspect that if push came to shove that door would turn out to be not actually open wide enough for the UK to get through until its inflated ego has reduced considerably.
I do not see it happening in the foreseeable future. The EU will go one way and the UK will go another and the divide will become wider and wider. It would take a major earthquake to bring them closer together again.
They may well have. But I think that by the time HMG has finished watering down its human rights legislation, curbed its citizens’ right to protest, given itself permission to ride roughshod over immigrants’ rights, brought its justice system and its media under the control of politicians etc and generally made a mockery of democracy, it would take more than a positive referendum result for the EU to agree to the UK starting the rejoining process.
It might also depend on whether the UK has paid off its divorce bill by then or not.
But everybody seems to be assuming that the process of rejoining starts with a referendum and/or becoming a candidate country for EU membership. I don’t see it that way (but then I’ve always seen customs union / single market inclusion as the most important thing, rather than EU membership).
I would see the start of the process presented - indeed thought - as merely a new trade deal - possibly application to join the EEA, which as I understand it would be relatively straightforward. Presented as a pragmatic change to a poor deal, and in the light of overwhelming evidence and changing consensus about that deal, I think this could also be relatively uncontroversial in the UK - and indeed in the EU (since it would offer the UK little actual power). There would certainly be no referendum; there is no precedent for that (except in Switzerland).
But I do also think that a few years after this, EU membership would be back on the agenda.
I don’t think you’re being realistic Geof, there is a very real prospect of the Tories being in power until the end of the decade and it will take a change of government for even a new trade deal to be considered let alone re-joining fully.
I do not see this as straightforward at all. The reason the UK could not conscience EEA membership during the negotiations was that it wanted at all costs to extricate itself from freedom of movement of persons. And the freedoms are indivisible, so free movement of goods and services is not posssible without free movement of persons. The EU will never agree to compromise on the freedoms and I do not see the UK climbing down over FoM so the barrier seems insurmountable.
Regarding EEA membership, my feeling is that this was the UK’s major miscalculation. I suspect they fully expected to be able to get the EU to allow them the EEA benefits of free movement of goods services and capital without people. The EU needed the UK more than the UK needed the EU, therefore the EU would back down and the UK would get the deal it wanted. I seem to recall month after month after month of EU irritation at the UK’s obstinate attempts to cherry pick despite having it explained to them time after time why they could not, with endless repetition of “the four freedoms are indivisible”, and it took a very long time for the UK to accept that BMW was not going to ride to their rescue and insist that free trade with the UK was an absolute necessity.
Well, we’ll see. I don’t see the idea of the Tories as currently constituted being in power for long. as very realistic, and I think the lack of realism comes from seeing ‘politics’ as detached from change in the real world, especially economic change. It isn’t. What do politicians fear most? - ‘Events, dear boy’.
Possible scenarios I see are:
Things get so bad in the UK the government itself collapses in acrimony - leading via a complete changing of the guard to a general election, won ‘by default’ by Labour or maybe a hung Parliament.
Things only get medium bad and the Johnson crew stagger through to the next general election, which Labour win by default, or hung Parliament, or narrow Tory win - leading again to a complete changing of the guard in both main parties - and recognition that the trade deal has to change.
What I don’t see as realistic is the Tory Party not changing in response to either things getting very bad in the short term, or things getting a bit bad over several years - they will change, because they always put keeping their seats first.
But again, you’re assuming that future political views will simply repeat those that existed in 2016. This is entirely unrealistic. Political views change enormously as the real world changes - sometimes very quickly (as I noted above, Boris Johnson himself has apparently completely changed his views on climate breakdown in less than 5 years, and in another thread that Lord Frost has completely reversed his view of brexit!).
The question is not whether the politics will be different in 2024 (or whenever) - they will be - the question is how they will have changed.
