Brexit hurt the right in loads of ways. This might be the biggest one of them all
As Rishi Sunak calls an ill-advised early election, while his party continues to sit in the low to mid 20s in the national polls, it is becoming increasingly clear that at the very least, Brexit has not provided the Tories with a sustainable electoral coalition. At worst, Brexit seems to have blown their vote to pieces. There are many reasons that are often cited for this: that it allowed the hard right to take over the party, that it led them away from sensible policy making into the realms of make believe, that far from dampening populism on the right, Brexit stoked it. However, I don’t think this is the biggest way that Brexit hurt the Conservative party. I think the manner in which Brexit caused them the most damage is that they decided in a collective sense that they didn’t need portions of their recent electoral coalition anymore. They really didn’t need liberals to vote for them, perhaps ever again. Or anyone who voted Remain. Or anyone who isn’t high on culture wars in one particular, niche manner.
This is why they are sitting where they are in the polls and why they going to lose a general election in a few weeks’ time. They are certain that they don’t need a bunch of people that they really, really do need to win. The Tories have reimagined the British electorate as something they are manifestly not, obsessed with things that in actuality they do not care about. There are these invisible people who haven’t been voting in any elections lately but will do when the time comes, the Tories keep telling themselves. 52% of people voted for Brexit, right? Well, they’ll vote for Brexity stuff in 2024, the logic goes, even as the polls, the local elections and other electoral events tell them the exact opposite.
The Conservative party’s biggest against the grain victory this month should tell them a lot of what they need to know in order to turn things around - almost certainly too late for the general election ahead, but at least to figure out what to do in opposition - and yet early signs are they are incapable of learning from it whatsoever. Ben Houchen kept hold of the Tees Valley mayoralty and you know how he did it? He’s focused on jobs in the area and not GB News, culture wars flavoured bullshit. He staked a lot on Teesworks, a massive facility being built just east of Redcar. What is Teesworks? When it is finished, it will be one of the biggest green energy hubs in the western world, if not the biggest. A major wind-power, carbon capture and hydrogen energy provider, the likes of which the country has never seen before. A major piece of the net zero puzzle.
I want to make this clear, so we all understand it: a Tory mayor has held onto his job, massively against national swing, by backing a massive net zero project, one that will create an incredible amount of green energy, because people in Teesside understand that the project will create thousands and thousands of local jobs. And that’s what people want, in Northeast England and the rest of the country. They don’t hang out on Twitter like us obsessives do. They want job creation and for the NHS to work, those two things more than anything else.
We hear from the usual Tory cheerleaders that everyone in the country hates net zero and the party has to reject it - despite the fact that their one electoral hero of late has championed net zero project all the way to an unlikely victory.
People want reasonable, practical, centrist politics in Britain. That’s Starmer’s entire pitch to the electorate - and why’s he’s riding high in the mid-40s in the polls and about to be prime minister in a few weeks’ time. Pissing large sections of the electorate off feels good if you’re a GB News anchor or a blogger, but it doesn’t work for a party seeking to get a parliamentary majority under the Westminster system. The Tories need centre-right liberals. They need people who just want the NHS to run smoothly. They need people who want jobs and if they are the result of net zero policies, all the better. Brexit fooled them into thinking this isn’t the case. They need to unlearn that if they ever want to win another general election ever again.
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I'd agree, but with one addition. You write: "They want job creation and for the NHS to work, those two things more than anything else." I'd add "education that's effective." But the picture of Rishi all wet will stick in my mind: An extra 100m last year, but not enough sense to get out of the rain!