By Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman, op-ed commentary published in the Winnipeg Free Press (daily), June 12, 2017
Even in an age of political and electoral upsets, Thursday’s [June 8] UK election contained so many shocks that commentators ran out of superlatives. Historic Conservative losses and Labour gains, the setback to Scottish independence, the demise of ‘hard Brexit’ and a triumphal result for Sinn Fein were topped off by the humiliating spectacle of a minority Conservative government relying on a bigoted Unionist rump in Northern Ireland.
These outcomes are not random, but are the maturation of historic problems of the UK state. The key lies in the Tory party itself, whose vote share has been declining since the 1970s. For the third time in as many years, the Conservative leadership gambled to shore it up: David Cameron’s promise of a Brexit referendum to secure his 2015 victory, the referendum itself and Theresa May’s snap election.
The first gamble seemed to work, but appearances were deceptive. Cameron would have been well advised to shelve his referendum promise quietly. Instead, breezily assuming that ‘Remain’ would win hands down, he held the vote and Remain lost (see: ‘Brexit earthquake has many ruptures’, by Radhika Desai, Winnipeg Free Press, July 2, 2016). Cameron then departed and, with key leadership figures discredited thanks to the Tories’ mounting internal divisions in the wake of the shocking referendum result, the party was scraping the bottom of the barrel for leadership candidates when Theresa May surfaced.
After less than a year in office, she called the snap election she had hitherto denied would ever happen, allegedly because she wanted a stronger hand in the upcoming Brexit negotiations. In reality, it was because a 17-seat majority gave too much power to her opponents in the party. She also hoped to profit from the war that a Blairite-influenced Labour caucus had been waging against Jeremy Corbyn, elected Labour Party leader in 2015 and to the left of many of his MPs. In these conditions, May thought she could dispatch Labour to the dustbin of history once and for all.
The insecurity and desire for control that led to her gamble worked against her and her party during the campaign. She appeared robotic and unresponsive and refused to take part in the usual leaders debates on TV or engage in much door-to-door canvassing. The Tory manifesto, clearly drafted with little or no inner party consultation, was disastrously ill-conceived and led to U-turns on critical parts of the platform. Her attempt to use the tragic terrorist attacks in Manchester [May 22] and London [June 3] that occurred during the campaign against Corbyn backfired.
Rather than the 100-seat majority May expected, the election turned a 17-seat majority into an eight-seat deficit. Having taken a hard stand in favour of Brexit for its electoral dividends, she found her party was not the only beneficiary of the collapse of the UKIP vote: Labour benefited, too. Moreover, her manifesto, with its austerity policies and its infamous ‘dementia tax’, turned off the young and old alike, leading to losses of heritage Conservative seats such as Canterbury in the southeast and seats in the south coast and the home counties.
May’s Tory party came across not as “strong and stable” but rather as weak and wobbly. The contrast with Corbyn’s campaign could not have been greater. Corbyn’s team set its own terms, refusing her focus on Brexit and shifting it to the sort of society and economy Britons want. The results could not have vindicated him more.
Labour issued a powerful and convincing anti-austerity manifesto, with well-costed promises to restore key services and benefits, abolish tuition fees that had been indebting students since the Blairite years, nationalize (yes, you read that right) the rail services and initiate a program of public investment in the economy and infrastructure to remedy bottlenecks and create jobs.
Labour kept its core northern constituencies, including the Brexit “leavers” whom May hoped to win by championing a “hard Brexit”. To this core, Labour added seats in the major metros, in the university towns and cities and in key Tory strongholds. It also regained traditional Scottish seats it had lost to a left-leaning SNP in 2015 (see: ‘Scots tired of austerity’, by Radhika Desai and Alan Freeman, Winnipeg Free Press, May 9, 2015). The result was a historically unprecedented ten per cent rise in Labour’s vote share. While even the most sympathetic polls had put at least five per cent between Labour and the Conservatives, the eventual difference was half that.
Having lost their second wager, the Tories must now rule with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party. Its price will not only include the inevitable public largesse in Northern Ireland but also the restoration of bygone settler privileges that provide its historic electoral base, exacerbating the growing crisis of Irish government on both sides of the border. And it will include a softening of the terms of Brexit.
UKIP’s Nigel Farage, “retired” from politics after the Brexit result, has already announced his return to the fray to menace the Tory base. The now much more complex and fraught Brexit negotiations will test May’s unbending personality sorely. Given the unpopularity of austerity and the irrelevance of ‘hard Brexit’, it is anyone’s guess how Tory fortunes might be revived.
That is why Corbyn’s move in declaring Labour ready to serve as a minority government is well advised. It may be more a question of when, rather than if, the May government falters and a nation, tired of electoral exercises, turns to Corbyn’s Labour. That will mark the first time in modern history that a seriously left-wing government has come to power in a major advanced capitalist country.
Radhika Desai is a professor in the University of Manitoba’s department of political studies and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group. Alan Freeman is a research affiliate in the faculty of arts and research director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group.
UK election: British capital in disarray
By Michael Roberts (UK economist), published on his website, June 12, 2017
The UK election result is a personal disaster for the Conservative leader Theresa May. She called the snap election to get a big majority and crush the opposition Labour party and its left-wing leadership. But instead the Conservatives lost seats and its majority in parliament and Labour under leftist Jeremy Corbyn increased its share of the vote dramatically after a vigorous campaign.
The turnout was 69 per cent, the highest since 1997, when the figure was 71.4 per cent. It seems that young people turned out for Labour, particularly in the big cities. Labour gained ten per cent to reach 40 per cent, while the Conservatives also increased their share by five per cent to 42 per cent. The big loser was the anti-EU anti-immigration party UKIP which collapsed…
Read the full article, with charts, at the original weblink above.
Further related readings:
Theresa May’s grip on power loosens as her bid to strike a deal with the DUP descends into farce, by Rob Merrick, deputy political editor, The Independent, June 11, 2017
No 10 announced that an agreement had been reached – but was then forced to retract the claim
Theresa May’s grip on power is faltering after she was forced to retract her claim that a deal had been struck for the Democratic Unionists to prop her up. In a night of farce, No 10 first announced that an agreement had been reached – only to release a second statement, just five hours later, admitting it had not.
The DUP issued its own statement, dismissing the claim of a deal, apparently angry at the attempt to bounce the party into signing up before it was ready…
Scottish independence on hold, by David Broder, Jacobin Magazine, June 11, 2017
The general election marked a setback for the Scottish National Party. Is the independence dream dead?
[UK election result in Scotland: SNP 35 seats; Conservative 13; Labour 7.]
Justin Trudeau deploys the politics of hype. Jeremy Corbyn offers politics of hope, by Martin Lukacs, The Guardian, June 12, 2017
Canada’s prime minister is a counterfeit progressive who champions warplanes, pipelines and privatization. Look across the pond for economic and environmental justice. Justin Trudeau has cynically continued many of his Conservative predecessor’s policies, while UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn now stands within reach of government with a redistributive agenda.
In French legislative election, Macron’s party buoyant but turnout slumps, The Guardian, June 12, 2017
Emmanuel Macron’s fledging centrist party La République En Marche has launched a drive to get voters out in the second round of the French parliamentary elections after its very strong first round showing was marred by a record low turnout.
Preliminary results of June 11, 2017 legislative election in France (Source: France 24):
Voter participation: 48 per cent
La République en Marche! (E. Macron): 32.3 per cent
Les Républicains (conservative): 21.6 per cent
Front National (M. Le Pen): 13.2 per cent
France Insoumise (J-L. Mélenchon): 11.0 per cent
Parti Socialist: 9.5 per cent
