Brexit — Identity and nationalism vs cosmopolitanism.

As I said earlier the interesting thing now is speculating on how the realignment is going to work out now - pretty rapidly I suspect. The starting point is that the Brexit referendum was a catalyst. The metaphor is almost exact - the referendum accelerated the emergence of a new division in British society over the issue of identity and nationalism versus cosmopolitanism. Brexit is a proxy for a whole series of attitudes, opinions and conflicts of both beliefs and interests. Over the last three years that division has become much sharper with a marked polarisation of views between leavers and remainers. As John Curtice pointed out on the BBC, leavers who would have been okay with Norway are now predominantly for no deal. Remainers who were grudgingly in favour of an exit so long as it was 'soft' are now predominantly in favour of revocation or a second referendum (with the goal of reversing the first one). The political identities of Leaver and Remainer are now very strong, much stronger than loyalty to existing parties.

The problem is that the parties we have and the composition of Parliament don't reflect this. One possibility is that the moderate leave majority in Parliament will assert itself by coming together across party lines. In that case the emergent soft leave majority will face strong opposition from Hard Leave and Hard Remain politicians and voters. The other is that we will leave without a deal. This would lead to a massive political crisis and the clear emergence of two new blocs. The same would happen if we revoked Article 50 or had a second referendum (neither of which will happen in my view).

I don't see any way now of avoiding a huge rupture in the Tory Party and , almost certainly, the Labour Party. As Andy Mayer has said elsewhere the logical course of action now for the ERG and brexiters in the Tory Party is to stick to their guns, vote down May's deal and oppose either a Norway exit or a revocation/second referendum. They may lose in the short run but in the medium term they have a clear position and can attack the outcome (if it's Norway run on a platform of exiting the EEA or at least the customs union, with a worked out plan, rather than the back of an envelope stuff we've had).

So if they do this (which I think they will) they are likely to become a nationalist leave party. What kind of views would such a party likely have on other questions such as economic policy? Most centre left commentators and people on the free market right think it would be a radical free market global Britain policy (sometimes called a Singapore strategy). (Of course the evaluation of this is different). Unfortunately, this is simply wrong in my view. I wish that was not the case but I am pretty sure it is. The electoral logic for such a party is that to succeed or even survive it would have to appeal to working class voters in the old industrial areas who have a generally left wing position on economics - nationalism plus Corbynism if you like. That will pull them strongly in a national collectivist direction. Moreover that is the way they are going anyway. If you actually look at what people like John Redwood are saying it isn't free market or 'global Britain'. It's rather 'capitalism in one country' and an economic vision that sees a central place for an active developmental and dirigiste state. It's basically Joseph Chamberlain and the Tariff Reform League brought up to date. Think South Korea rather than Singapore.

One big question is whether the name of the Conservative Party will survive (almost certainly) and if so who gets ownership. It could be the ERG but it could also be the other half of the Party, people like Nicholas Soames, Amber Rudd, Oliver Letwin etc. It's a mistake to see them as the moderate wing of the centre left establishment. I think what you would see there is a revival of Burkean traditional conservatism, sceptical, pragmatic and averse to change. It would do very well ultimately in the more affluent parts of the South East and also in Scotland.

Meanwhile the Labour Party is also going to experience big ructions. These are not as clear as the divisions in the Conservative Party because they have the benefit of being in opposition but they are just as deep. It's basically one between those who are in touch with the Party's working class roots (often MPs who represent seats in the North and Midlands) and those who are part of the cultural new left, people like Momentum members. Jeremy Corbyn is in an interesting (i.e. difficult) position because his instincts are actually to be with the first group (except crucially on foreign policy) but the bulk of his fans are in the second. Right now this division on the left is muted because the two sides agree on economics. They hope that once Brexit is done they will get back to that. I am now very confident they will will be disappointed and as the nationalist vs cosmopolitan divide becomes more marked they will also come apart. The big question is going to be whether Labour MPs will support an emergency coalition to Negotiate Norway+ in large enough numbers. If not a no deal exit is very likely.