This week in Brexitland, December 21, 2023
This is the general election scenario that scares me most
The Conservative party are going to lose the next general election; at least, unless something truly miraculous happens. I also think the odds of a hung parliament are tiny as well. Labour are going to get a majority, it’s all but nailed on. Again, unless something totally unforeseen happens, Labour wins the next election.
I also think it will be a late autumn election 2024, or even a Jan 2025 election, not a spring 2024 one. I don’t believe Sunak looks at the polls in mid-March and says: “You know, I realise we’re still 20 points behind, but let’s pull the trigger and see what happens.” He can wait another six months and hope for a miracle, more money to fight the election, as well as the chance to be prime minister for two years, whatever happens.
Whenever the election comes, a scenario that seems increasingly possible scares me a little. It involves the Tories being pretty much obliterated, which I know many reading this may well be hoping for. Yet such an event could come with a huge downside, even from a centre-left perspective, which I’ll explain.
Imagine Nigel Farage campaigns for the Reform Party and goes heavy on immigration. This is completely imaginable; the man himself has been hinting at this as a possibility for some time. Now, in doing so, he could eat up airtime and do two big things, right away. One, push the Tories further to the right on certain things as they try and shut down Farage, only to open up even more space in the centre, thereby losing more voters; two, in doing this and just by inserting himself into the campaign anyhow, move the Tory polling figures down even further.
The whole thing becomes ugly, “Breaking Point” moments popping up over and over again. It would make a campaign that looks like it will be grotesque anyhow even worse. Then comes polling day and the pinch on the Tories from the right with Reform and from the left with Labour and the Lib Dems peaks at just the right moment, devastating the Conservative party in an historical manner. The Tories end up with 15% of the national vote, Reform on 15%, the Lib Dems on 15% and Labour on 45%.
Labour would end up with about 500 seats, the Lib Dems with around 40, Reform with zero, with the Tories on less than 50 seats. Now, some of you might be thinking, hooray for that. But there are several problems that would arise very quickly.
One would be that the remaining rump of the Conservative party may come to view Farage as their only saviour. Yes, I know, logic dictates that in fact they lost a huge number of votes to the Labour Party, so shouldn’t they actually think about being more centrist and getting those votes back, but they won’t think that way. Or at least, not enough Tories will think that way. They will figure with Farage as leader, they could storm back.
I also worry about Labour with that large a majority. It could get unruly quickly and I fear they don’t have enough of a solid policy agenda to keep things going. There could be factions within the Labour Party quite quickly, as no one needs to immediately fear the Tories. This will seem extra true given the Tory leader of the time could be Suella Braverman, and thus they could languish in the polls for a while.
Then, when the moment is right, Farage announces he’s joining the Conservative party to save it. Reform, still at around 15% in the polls, will disband into the Tory fold. He tells his faithful it is all right to support the Conservative party again.
The Tories instantly jump in the polls as a result, spooking a now slightly faltering Labour government that has hit some problems and a few scandals. A by-election comes up in a swing seat. Farage takes his chance, judging the moment to be right. He is correct in this assumption and enters the House of Commons as an MP for the first time.
It doesn’t take him any time at all to push aside the unpopular, hopeless Braverman. Farage becomes the leader of the opposition. He runs hard on the things that have always served him well: immigration, loss of “British values”, the left behinds. He is the only person on the right who can truly sell the “Brexit wasn’t done right, it just needs to be done better” line. Also, the “Brexit should have served the left behinds better, it was the Tories and Labour who have failed to make use of Brexit in that way” shtick as well.
In late 2025, for the first time in four years, the Conservative party posts a lead in a national poll. It feels like a big moment and Farage gains massive attention from it. He is smart with the whole thing, buying off the few Tory moderates left with empty promises that they - as they always seem to do - fall for completely. It’s the Nigel train. What can you do but get out of its way?
And then, after the 2029 general election,Farage becomes prime minister of this country. That’s what I’m scared of in terms of where this is all going. A Conservative party out of control, with many of its supporters, members and MPs feeling like it isn’t sufficiently UKIPy at present, and a Labour Party that hasn't got enough ideas to sustain itself while in government, all paves the way for PM Farage. You might scoff at it now, but if this happened, you would probably feel like this is where Brexit was taking us all along.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful Christmas. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do so and I will be back next week with the worst of Brexit.
The key feature of Faragism is not taking responsibility. Sniping from the sidelines saying “if only I was in charge things would be great”.
When he has opportunity he resigns and pops up somewhere else. At the moment UKIP was at its height he resigned. At the moment the Brexit Party was at maximum inflection he stood down candidates.
Farage is all about the grift. Making money. Dragging politics to the right by threat.
He will sit on the sidelines, loved by Tory members, threatening the Conservatives by being more right wing.
While Nick has filled in a lot of assumed detail on this case that are possibly a little over egging it, he's basically on the money. I have said repeatedly said that hoping the Tories go down to a Canadian Progressive Conservatives type defeat of the likes of 2 seats after being in power, as they did in the early 90's ( or even 90 seats), would be a case of "careful what you wish for".
Yougov have done deep analysis of the views of the British voter and their methods, along with IPSOS, are the most accurate of the bunch. If you divide views into Left, Centre Left, Centre, Centre Right and Right, the biggest group is in the centre. However, while it pains me to say it, there is no big, successful centre party, at least not that can come through with major representation based on FPTP voting, so with exceptions, the centre normally decides the result whether it goes to the Tory right or to the Labour left.
The next largest grouping is Centre Right + Right, which is larger than Centre Left + Left. So for Labour to win, they have to take most of the Centre, so cannot do this with a Corbyn/Michael Foot leadership and appear to be disadvantaged with even a mid left Ed Milliband. Of course there are other factors, mainly in what the other side are doing. The obvious example was Mrs May's robotic inability to campaign in 2017. Also the Tory's 2017 uncosted manifesto with highly unpopular policies on paying for social care or on tax cuts on big inheritances, which left a unique open goal for Labour. But the useless Corbyn still couldn't score. However, Corbyn's better result that year gave the Left a crumb of an argument on the supposed popularity of Left wing policies, when it was nothing of the sort.
FPTP voting advantages the broad right wing most of the time, wherever it is used. That is because right wing views are more evenly spread around geographical constituencies such as the large number of rural and suburban areas in useful concentrations sufficient to win most seats. The left and progressive votes are piled up much higher in Urban areas, where they achieve useless higher average vote majorities. The wasted votes on centre and left are further generated by being split between so many parties: Labour, LibDem, Green and again with Nationalists in the devolved nations, all with distinct political traditions.
The centre and left have so many disadvantages in the present unfair British political system and the large number of Right wing voters are not going away. Even as Tory incompetence, corruption and economic failure causes right wing voters to stay at home in millions this time, or to vote for ReformUK, or fringe parties, that represents a broad right wing movement in flux. It will regroup itself and make a more serious stab at power . Farage is their best chance to make a serious electoral stab in 2029 if they keep on moving to the populist right.
The sensible alternative would be for the Tories to go moderate One Nation. But those MPs were either expelled or made to sign fascistic like loyalty agreements to De Pfeffel and Brexit. These were elected MPs who are supposed to represent their constituents and their consciences, not rubber stamps for Johnson and the Leave campaign. They narrowly lost the Referendum, are cowed and have little Tory membership support for any leadership candidates. They are not coming back for the forseeable, so it's a populist right wing future for the Tories.
Starmer and Davey have to be bold and confect a reason to join the Single Market and fast or the Industrial Strategy and green conversion both parties offer, will fail to bring back much growth. They will also need to borrow and reverse austerity to get money flowing through our failing councils, health authorities and closing high streets and pubs, as government spending makes up 40% of the economy and any £1 spent generates £3.50 as it goes around and around. If they don't do so, a populist nasty party, likely led by Farage will be banging on the door to be let back in practically the blink of an eye. Only once in the modern era has the combined forces of the right exceeded the votes of the left + centre, which was 2015 at 51%, when UKIP were on their record 12%, but the LibDems were down on 8%, while the Tories were on the up and Labour were down.
The other piece of the puzzle is proper PR voting ( not AV), by which a strained future Labour Party will be able to govern into the 2030's with LibDems and Greens and build a future for this country with professionalism, continuity and consensus, keeping at bay the populist menace until it hopefully subsides.