Re-Alignment of Politics in the UK - A Primer.

The current political situation in the UK may seem calm to the outside observer but in fact it is amazingly febrile. How else can you describe a situation where Conservative MPs (ministers many of them) are telling the media with attribution that they are prepared to vote against their own government in a no confidence motion to stop a no deal Brexit? (I suspect if the Labour Party had a different leader there would be even more).

If you look at the situation facing the two main parties they are both in a very difficult position. The reason is that neither of them has a clear relation to the now clearly emerged political and social division in the electorate which Brexit has become the signifier for. For both of them, whatever course they take will have severe political costs. The result, very soon, will be that either both are transformed into something very different from what they have been historically or one or even both of them will be replaced and go the way of the old Liberal Party.

The Labour Party was playing a very astute game that managed to keep both leaver and remainer voters on side. That however has now run out of road. Whatever they now do they are in trouble, as a recent article in the New Statesman spelt out. If they continue to triangulate they lose votes in both directions, some to the Brexit Party and the Tories, even more to the Lib Dems and the Greens. In that scenario they will do well to get 20% of the vote. If they become a full on 'remain and reform' party they will get back a significant chunk of the voters who have left them to the LDs and Greens but nowhere near all of them, partly because many of those voters don't like Corbyn's socialism or are now so disillusioned that they have given up on Labour. Moreover if the party does go full on remain that will provoke a damaging split, probably over the specific question of a second referendum.

Meanwhile the Conservative Party has the mirror image problem. If Boris Johnson (assuming he becomes PM) goes for a no deal exit he will get back a significant chunk of, but nowhere near all of, the voters who have gone to the Brexit Party. In a general Election they could win a reasonable number of seats from labour in the North and Midlands. However they will lose a tranche of middle class voters in the South East and South West to the Lib Dems and because those votes are relatively concentrated will lose as many seats as they gain. In the worst case scenario they end up not getting votes back from the Brexit Party and losing lots of voters to the Lib Dems and will get something in the low 20%s range. Please don't tell me BJ will get a different deal from the EU or an extension to allow more negotiations, there is no way I can see the EU doing that. So the choice is no deal exit or fold. If no deal then the party splits. If he tries to keep the party together and there's no Brexit then the Brexit Party will sweep lots of Tory MPs away while they still lose voters to the Lib Dems.

So we are likely to have a truly messy general election. If we have four parties all with roughly equal shares of the vote (plus a significant Green vote) the outcome under our electoral system will be chaotic with lots of seats being won with 30% of the vote or less. The two main parties should be thinking not of how they can win a majority but of how many of their seats they can defend. Meanwhile in Scotland all the signs are that the SNP will win every seat (except probably Orkney). They will be odds on to win every single Labour and Conservative seat.

What will come out of this? On the 'right' there are two possible outcomes. One is that the Conservative Party will be replaced, by a 'right wing populist' party, whatever it's called. I think this is the lower probability because the Brexit Party has the same problem as UKIP - it's a one issue party intended primarily to bring about a transformation of the Conservative Party, which doesn't have a worked out full political economy. However the chances are not trivial. The slightly more likely outcome is that the Conservative Party will continue but in a radically transformed way that has little connection with what the Party has been historically. It will have become an insurgent anti systemic party. One aspect will be a sudden surge in memberships that will both revitalise and transform its grassroots. Another is that it will fall out majorly with big business and the professional and metropolitan middle class. It will become clear very soon, regardless of what happens with Brexit, that its political project (in the way that under Thatcher its project became reversing the economic settlement of the post war consensus and creating a more free market and entrepreneurial economy) will be one of national palingenesis (rebirth or renewal) which will be primarily a cultural project. What will also become clear very quickly imo is that that project is incompatible in various ways with the current system of global capitalism.

On the 'left' the Labour Party may survive but will quite clearly no longer be a predominantly working class party. Instead it will be a party of the metropolitan classes, living in London and the other metropolitan areas. It will become a party with a different kind of renewal project, one that combines radical egalitarianism with green politics and rather mixed up economics (despite the rhetoric I'm not sure 'socialism' is the right word for it) and a kind of radical cosmopolitan identity politics. On the other hand it could also be reduced to irrelevance and replaced by some new kind of political force that puts forward the agenda I just described.

Meanwhile I can see several political elements including a resurgent Lib Dem party and a significant chunk of the Conservative Party coming together to form a technocratic liberal cosmopolitan force, could be one party could be an alliance. The liberal cosmopolitans and radical left will be united in their opposition to the first force but will also be hostile to each other, so very messy politics. Heaven know how this works out over the next five years or so.

There's going to be several 'homeless' traditions in my scenario. Two will be traditional Burkean or Oakeshottian conservatism, and old style Labour. Another unfortunately will be individualist liberals, at least for a while. We will have to work on our arguments and our social base and look to get influence where we can. I think all of this is now going to happen much more quickly than most people realise. So lots of fun and betting opportunities in the next six to nine months.