I’ll be equally curious tonight to know which three-word slogan better appeals to the nation’s viscera as I will to know the outcome of the election.
The race to ape US democracy’s campaigning by the shortest message has left an inhospitable landscape for those that see no simple answers to complex questions, and who take no comfort from tribal allegiance. Campaigns run by the PR industry are premised upon an informational scorched earth policy that leaves a trail of political homelessness in its wake.
Corralling me into the great tribal divide is, however, my belief that EU membership is the biggest single issue in UK politics, and our exit the greatest long-term misstep, in respects that are material to all: economy; security; global relevance.
Contributing little more than 1% to global carbon emissions, a net-zero UK wouldn’t save the planet. What might, however, would be successful influence over the global agenda. Such leverage, on climate change, conflict resolution, and on societal values, exists for the UK only via its membership of the bloc. A sober view of the UK’s power to set the agenda, with its comparatively high global ranking on nominal GDP, is informed by the influence Japan exerts on global affairs, with a GDP almost twice that of the UK. That is, an influence barely worth one headline a year.
Only the EU is an equal in the US and China’s otherwise bipolar world, and mere decades will see leading European nations fall in relevance and influence, first behind India, and later nations from Brazil and Mexico through to Indonesia and Nigeria — countries where values are often largely unrecognisable to modern Europeans. International charters drafted in the image of European social aspirations are set to decay absent the economic might that permitted their expression.
Competing for the UK’s reins to face this dilemma are two major parties that are not what they’re perceived to be by their most ardent supporters. We’ve a Conservative Party that’s a closet Remain party, whose greatest strategic victory is its consummate outmanoeuvring of the Brexit Party. The party of the establishment can’t endure at odds with the establishment, amongst whom only an eccentric fringe relish Brexit’s dismantling of the entire state architecture for no obvious benefit. But the party’s descent into factional conflict, and led by the most cynical of political opportunists, makes it impossible for it to express its true political nature except dysfunctionally.
The Labour Party, by a contrast worthy of satire, is a closet Brexit party, that’s attempted to make unlikely bedfellows of Brexit heartlanders — ex-mining communities from South Wales, ex-dock workers from the north east — and younger pro-Remain university graduates, with metropolitan values. Attracted by Labour‘s inclusive messaging and checklist of spending pledges, younger supporters are less aware of Corbyn and McDonnell as the political palingenesis of Tony Benn, who would turn in his grave if Labour derailed Britain’s exit from the EU. Today’s Bennite Labour leadership are dyed in the wool Eurosceptics.
There’s undoubtedly less cause for panic about the affordability of Labour’s 2019 manifesto than its critics suggest, and support is widespread for greater spending on public services. But there’s more moral hazard than virtue in the relentless message that someone else will pay. McDonnell’s candid about the need to have a saleable entry point. The aspiration is for a far bigger state. Bigger than France, one presumes, where government spending accounts for a staggering 56% of the nation’s economy.
Big state is a very abstract concept to many voters, and I see a risk that younger cohorts — who have banked the way of life in a mid-Atlantic style free-market economy — would find a government-dominated society a little colourless.
A useful metaphor is a brown envelope from the government instructing the recipient to redistribute their Instagram followers to users claiming low self-esteem. I know many that’d be happy to share, if it cheered someone up. But socialism’s not about the sharing. It’s about the brown envelope.
Ever on the fringe, circling the major parties in the hope of a draw, is a Liberal Democrat Party that’s replaced one of the most credible voices in UK politics in favour of the least statesmanlike major party leader since 🤔 Tim Farron.
Campaigning on a promise to cancel Article 50 seems neither good strategy, nor good politics. But… it’s a policy that, functioning unequivocally in the nation’s best interests on the defining question of our time, is perhaps only accidentally ideological. And, finally, it’s a policy that’s logical and principled.
Residing in a constituency that only ever returns a Conservative MP, being logical and principled is the only contribution I can make at the ballot box.
Liberal Democrats: ✔️
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