For many observers – and indeed many who have worked with UK colleagues in progressing different business, societal and governmental projects – Britain has always been regarded as a very serious country, with a good sense of proportion, objectivity and national responsibility. Laws, rules – and changes to those rules – were always decided upon by sober, reflective and insightful debate. Brexit appears to have changed all that…….
Sadly, the divisive impact of Brexit is now likely to be felt again, in the UK local elections, which are forecast to represent a nadir for the Conservatives, with predictions of a 22% loss of seats (1,000 of 4,628), and Labour predicted to gain at least 300 of those. Never before have the Conservatives faced into such a voter backlash, as a result of the Brexit fiasco.
Brexit has essentially fostered a tri-partite philosophical debate: the Conservatives – split down the middle in exactly the same way as the country was, in the original referendum; the Brexit party (or: UKIP in disguise), and Labour. The Conservatives have foundered on the assumption that a 51:49 split in the original referendum was a “clear majority” and their assumption that they could “lead” the country to Brexit. This has simply facilitated starker and more deepy-rooted division, and an appreciation of the need for an inclusive, cross-party, unification platform has come far too late.
As Will Hutton in The Guardian put it :
“ The right of British politics is becoming an amalgam of strident English nationalism, nostalgic xenophobia and hyper-Thatcherism hiding behind the language of anti-Europeanism that seeks to legitimise those ugly values. The ageing Tory party, already hostage to thousands of ex-Ukip members who have recently joined it, is being pulled magnetically towards Farage’s Brexit party. Tory councillors and activists around the country say they will vote for it, with its promise of a no-deal hard Brexit and national “independence”, something so valuable, declares Farage, that if it means being poorer and internationally marginalised, so be it…”
In any other political realm – where the right and centre-right were riven by such contentious debate – the Left should be “making hay” and rising to the top of the political spectrum….but this is not so in the UK. Labour is a party that is founded on the recognition and celebration of international interdependence in the pursuit of justice, solidarity and fighting climate change; tolerance of others and joy in diversity; commitment to equality and enfranchising workers – in other words, fundamentally pro-European – but whose leadership is in denial of this..or more precisely, prefers to remain ambiguous about it
And therein lies the paradox….
Commentators believe that if Labour does not adopt a more explicitly pro-European stance, its support will equally haemorrhage; it must be seen to be true to its beliefs and the emerging case of English nationalism has to be confronted full on. Ironically, many consider Labour’s 2017 general election manifesto to be a first draft of the kind of social programme that could address the grievances of so much of leave-voting Britain; but they equally believe that any such success could only be fully possible within the EU and its growth-enhancing trade relationships, underlining the need to assume a position embracing an interdependence of reform with remain.
What is indisputable, is that the results of these local elections in the UK will be very interesting, and will further impact the Brexit scenario !!
