The Brexit Election 2019 — A Canadian perspective
The 2019 Labour defeat struck hard for the Jeremy Corbyn camp. Accusations for the failure came from all around, but many of them simply aren’t very fact based. For starter, the exit poll gave Labour 198 seats which would supposedly make this their worst defeat since 1935, but following till the end, the result was 202 with a drop of 60, and it matches more closely their 1983 defeat against Maggie Thatcher. As an outside observator, I am going to make sense out of the main themes surrounding this UK election.
-The Brexit Election
The number one division the UK faced was the Brexit. For the last 4 years, a [British, Irish, Scottish or Welsh] who opens the telly hears nothing but Brexit, every single issue is Brexit related. Tories and Labour were previously unaligned with both factions inside. The tories had a more vocal brexit faction with Boris Johnson (BoJo) who in 2019 took over the party. Labour had a more vocal Bremain faction, but Corbyn was a skeptic who pushed for a Soft Brexit plan. Corbyn is after all a “true” socialist and the European Union has “property rights” in their constitution which is the core value of capitalism. Corbyn also knows that unchecked immigration and open-border policies of the EU places unjust competition for local UK proletariat. This argument has been weaponized by right-wing pundits too. For third parties, there was the UKIP and Brexit parties whom by the 2019 elections decided to leave swing-districts to the Tories as they are single issue parties. The Liberal-Democrats were basically a Bremain Europhilic party, their slogan was “stop Brexit”. No preliminary agreement was made with Labour to protect swing-districts. (It should be noted they made one pact with Greens and Plaid Cymru.) Although 55% of the population voted for non-Brexit parties, the FPTP voting system made unified Conservative-Brexit party win. A marginal percentage of UK regret voting yes in the 2016 referendum, but even if BoJo had lost, the debate would have continued on and on. “Get brexit done”, was a good slogan to end it for good. In the end, Labour had no solid ground on the main issue. Little could have been done better by Jeremy Corbyn.
-The Regional Parties
Why did I tell you it is a “Canadian perspective”? UK and Canada share not only their history, Queen and similar government structure but also their Separatists. In Canada we have the Bloc Québecois who has been rising back in the 2019 general Canadian election, you can read my Québec-o-centric editorials in French. In the UK, they have the Scottish National Party in Scotland and different branches of Republican/Nationalist VS Unionist/Royalist parties in Norther Ireland. Traditionally, the Labour and the LibDems have a large pool of voters and seats in Scotland. The Liberals and the New Democrats suffered similar fates in Québec. Due to the rise of nationalism and the promise to a referendum to independence in Scotland in 2014, the SNP occupied most Scottish seats during the 2010’s thus ditching many Labour MPs. Scotland was more anti-Brexit than any other kingdoms of the UK. The result of the Brexit referendum revived their urge for a second referendum, taking away more Labour seats. It should be noted that Northern Ireland are taking more economic casualties due to the new unofficial Border with Republic of Ireland and the British backstop so Sinn Fein gained 2 seats.
-Muh Communism and Muh Antisemitism
For short ; NO
Some older voters may have been sensitive to red scare tactics, but let’s be honest they were never going to vote Labour anyway. Even Tony Blair, the centrist, was “red scared”. The base remained still, Labour still received 32% of the popular vote. In he 2017 snap election, Labour got a boost against Theresa May. Needless to say they aren’t communists, by PolSci metrics it was Social Democracy done better than modern SocialDemocrat parties. “True” communists don’t even participate in “electoralism” unless they agree with “lesser-evilism” or “harm reductionism”. For the “antisemitism” incidents *click here* no evidence was found. The party officials who pushed this narrative were the most hated from inside and outside.
There is a point of reference I can make between Rad-Left of the New Democrats and Rad-Left of Labour. Western Democracies leave close no place for foreign policy to their electors. Elected leaders may believe voters are too dumb to make such decisions, they rely on policy advisors and diplomats. Rad-lefties often dream of being “on the right side of history” such as during the anti-war in Vietnam, the anti-Apartheid in SA, the anti-war in Iraq. The conditions of Palestinians under Israeli state appeals to them and they believe they can change it in the long run. They also consider that the powerful NATO countries send funds to Israel because they use it as a buffer state to keep a presence in middle-east. By this logic, if we send money to another allied country, we should be able to denounce their international-crimes. But to be honest, it serves more as a way to score “Rad Points” and unfortunately leads the most vocal activists to accidentally give tropes that sound weirdly anti-semitic. The party officials end up being pretty quick to silence them.
-End of Austerity and Thatcherism
The most surprising regions to turncoat on Labour to the Tories are the “Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorshire and West Yorkshire” along with North East England and West Midlands. In the 80’s and 90’s they were screwed over by Thatcher’s policies and economic austerity. But, these reagions were the most vocal “yes” to Brexit in all UK. BoJo’s promises contrasted a lot with traditionally “conservative economics” ; more deficit spendings, more NHS, more side supply to push the economy, more protectionism. The voters no longer feared the Tories would put their job or social services in danger, specially if Brexit intended to do so. The tendency of conservatives to drop the economic religion of Deficit-Zero in favour of populism seem to gain global popularity. (at least outside Canada) If we can open speculation in 2020, US and Canadian leaders proposed advanced deals to post-Brexit UK. The private sector (at least some parts of) didn’t wait for negotiations to pour-in as the £ pound rose 4% after BoJo’s elections. I have to say, they made a good campaign and succesfully reassured the private sector about the Brexit outcome. Same thing cannot be said on part of the EU leaders and members.
Thanks For reading.
Special regards to Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) who wanted a non-crazy leftoïd explanation for this.. if he ever reads it. Fortunately it is only 5 minutes