The oldest lesson in politics

It came as the biggest “I told you so” in political history.A great night for Tories, pollsters, and Brexit. A bad night for Labour, HughGrant, and, perhaps, bubbles.

From my own bubble here in the North West, where nothing asever changed very much, I find myself wondering why so few – or apparently sofew – predicted what is now so glaringly obvious. The polling had been indicatingthis result for weeks but anybody with an ounce of centrist DNA had spent yearswarning Labour that they would never win from so far over to the Left. So whydid so few in the media echo it? Why was the election supposedly too close tocall or did Hugh Grant really convince the country that this outcome was unlikely?

The cardinal sin, I suppose, is that it’s always easy to discountthe obvious and forget the perennial. The obvious was that an election in whichmany voters planned to “hold their noses” and vote tactically was always goingto be decided by the silent majority doing what they always do: simply pick theparty that stank the least. The perennial is the fact that British politics isnever won by splitting the vote.

The Tories realised both from the beginning. They cleverlyneutralised the threat of the Brexit Party where they offered a bold buteminently clear message and then otherwise did absolutely nothing for fiveweeks, leaving the other parties to froth themselves into oblivion, waffling onabout 4-day working weeks with everybody free to adopt their non-binary gender identityevery second Friday when they’re not giving Scotland a referendum. Corbyn, asever, did sanctimony better than anybody – usually involving the word “rather”– but it was always hard to see Britain electing a Prime Minister who could soundmorally outraged about everything including the fact that “I make my own damsonjam, thank you very much!” You could almost hear the electorate screaming:“Ooh! Look at him!”

As ever, it was also too easy to get obsessed with other narratives: Johnson avoiding the cameras, hiding in fridges, and all the other nonsense which obscured the conventional political wisdom that Labour never win elections from what was once more formally known as the “loony Left” and certainly not with a leader who has almost no appeal beyond his base. Labour didn’t learn their lesson from 2017 when they lost to a Tory campaign largely characterised by self-harm and a new Thesesa May haircut that made her look like an extra from the puritan side of the English Civil War. The Tories rarely make the same mistake twice and what looked like mistakes this time were nothing of the sort. They were just crude ways of avoiding mistakes. Truly lamentable politics but perhaps not even politics. Just great marketing.

For all the talk of the Tory victory, there was much aboutthe election that shows that the polarization across the country has onlydeepened. Parts of the North did turn blue and much will be said about hope andvision and all the things that make things feel better in the morning butunderlying some of this is an English nationalism that is easy to rouse anddifficult to quell. Tories should be wary. This time they are the beneficiariesof the pressures that caused this realignment, but they must now make a goodjob of Brexit whilst calming other passions aroused in the process. Some of thesteam has been released from the vessel of British politics but it would befoolish to believe it won’t build again, especially around questions of theUnion.

Where much of the Europhile rancour will now go isdebatable. Remain have already claimed a moral victory now that John Curtice confirmsthat Remain parties took 52% of the vote but there’s no coming back from this. Thiswas undoubtedly a win for Brexit, which will be done in whatever form it takes. The burden simply fell on the wrongshoulders, with the political ambitions of the progressive parties characterisedby their usual naivety. The result in Kensington spoke volumes. The Lib Demsand Labour managed to stand on each other’s toes and hand victory to the Conservativesin a heavily Remain constituency. They really were that hopeless. It was alsounforgivable.

The surprise wasn’t so much the Labour implosion – see aboveabout the dull inevitability of it all – as the utter mess that LiberalDemocrats made of what should have been a strong position. Whether you agreewith the Lib Dem position or not (and I suspect that like most of the country youdon’t), Jo Swinson had positioned her party well for the election. The problemwas that she overplayed her hand, mistaking her transitory influence inparliament with her influence in the country. Rather than consolidating herpower (perhaps by avoiding the election in the first place) and coordinatingthe Remain option, she succumbed to hubris and tried to position herself as“The Remain Party”. By the same logic, Jeremy Corbyn should have renamed Labourthe “We All Like Jam Party”: a good selling point but you must also havesomething to sell that doesn’t stink of duplicity. The Lib Dems started poorly withleaflets posted in areas where they claimed they’d be the biggest party but allheavily footnoted to explain only if circumstances arose when they *would* bethe biggest party. It was a lesson in circular illogic. Then, just to make surethey hadn’t unlined their craziness enough, they went big on transgenderpolitics which are sure to be one of those muddy intellectual bogs where many aliberal career will founder.

We end, then, really where we began: Labour still unelectable,blaming their loss on “moderates”, and looking to repeat their mistakes with ayounger and less Metropolitan cast; the Lib Dems looking for a leader who isn’tVince Cable; and the Tories back in power even though over 50% of theelectorate screamed “no”. Another generation of young politicians, meanwhile,will have learned the oldest lesson in politics: you either learn how to win oryou might as well not bother turning up.

@DavidWaywell