As I wrote last week, whatever its current troubles, Reform UK has hardly disappeared. Meanwhile, those black-clad quasi-paramilitaries may well be another augury of a frightening immediate future. One more English settlement – the town of Barnham, in Norfolk – is seemingly poised to stage a pretend independence referendum in protest at plans to locally accommodate asylum seekers.
Oh, and our new Labour prime minister has just held cordial talks with a US president who has not only brought a modern de facto fascism to his homeland, but wants to export it to Europe. But hold all those cheerful thoughts for a moment, and let us have a look at the Labour party as it gathers in Liverpool. The slogan plastered all over its conference is “Hope Again” – which, unlike last year’s dreadful “Renew Britain”, suggests that a few people at the top might have belatedly learned the basics of pithy political storytelling.
The influence of the two slogans that are accepted modern classics – “Take back control” and “Make America Great Again” – is obvious. In Labour’s case, “again” not only implies how badly Starmer’s reign went, but looks back to a better past and implies that something comparable is eminently possible. You might take it as a reference to the best aspects of the New Labour period, Harold Wilson in his pomp or the magical glories of the Attlee years.
The slogan also echoes some of the pronouncements made by Andy Burnham when he became leader, about the positive response of the voters of Makerfield to “the promised return of the Labour they once knew”. And it has to be said: those words and the conference tagline tap into his party’s ingrained nostalgia, and the idea that with enough effort, Labour might return to winning a commanding share of the vote, as it did back in the days when footballers chain-smoked and bowler hats were still a common sight (in 1951, although it lost to the Tories, Labour won a record 48.8%, and Wilson came very close to the same figure in 1966). Numbers aside, Labour still largely believes that by rights it should monopolise the progressive half of politics.
The Tories have the same idea about the right of the spectrum, which has recently fed into a seductive notion held by both “main” parties and many pundits: that with Zack Polanski’s PR slip-ups and the trouble that has engulfed Nigel Farage, we may be witnessing the rebirth of comfy, cosy, simple two-party politics. The UK’s passage into a multiparty system is deeply rooted in a society and economy whose complexity can no longer be smothered by our ludicrous voting system. Look at what has happened where the electoral machinery is different.
Labour recently lost control of Wales to Plaid Cymru, attracting a mere 11% of the vote. The SNP’s dominance in Scotland may have weakened, but it is more than intact. Meanwhile, even with first past the post still creakingly in place, whole swathes of what used to be considered middle England – particularly in the home counties – have switched from the Tories to the Lib Dems.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
