Conservatives win in UK by embracing nationalism
:$6+IN*T2N ± ± Local and regional election results across Britain last week hold lessons for $merican politicians. Not least is this $ Trumpist 5epublican 3arty that had taken the coronavirus pandemic more seriously and had delivered tangible benefits to its working-class supporters might not be in such a hole today.
0eanwhile, the travails of the center-left Labour 3arty under its relatively new leader, .eir 6tarmer, are an indication of the fractionali]ation and recriminations that Democrats would almost certainly have confronted had -oe Biden lost in November. To understand how they dodged a bullet, they just have to look across the ocean.
The headline result that was a genuine triumph for British 3rime 0inister Boris -ohnson a &onservative blowout in a special election in +artlepool, a coastal working-class constituency that, in various forms, had been under Labour control since .
&onservative -ill 0ortimer prevailed by nearly a 2-to- margin, and said her victory came courtesy of former Labour voters who “knew they had been taken for granted for years.´ +er success continued -ohnson’s work of demolishing Labour’s “red wall´ of once-loyal industrial communities in northern (ngland.
-ohnson gained a majority in 20 by taking working-class seats that had not voted &onservative in eons or ever . The +artlepool result, combined with positive &onservative showings in municipal elections in the region, were a mark of 6tarmer’s failure to stem the Tory tide.
But the elections also held a warning for -ohnson They reveal a 8nited .ingdom coming apart at the seams. In 6cotland, the pro-independence 6cottish National 3arty swept back into power just short of an absolute majority in 6cotland’s 3arliament.
-ohnson’s &onservatives have become less a British party than an (nglish nationalist party. Britain’s meandering e[it from the (uropean 8nion was popular in (ngland but not in 6cotland, where 2 of voters rejected Bre[it in the 20 referendum. $nd while :ales supported Bre[it in that referendum, it bucked the national tide last week as :elsh Labour outperformed e[pectations, successfully defending one contested seat after another, even in areas where the Tories had done well in 20 .
The pandemic was central in all these outcomes, to very different political effects.
:elsh )irst 0inister 0ark Drakeford won wide approval for his handling of the covid- outbreak, as did 6cottish National 3arty )irst 0inister Nicola 6turgeon. Despite many false starts and mistakes by -ohnson over the past year, the relative efficiency of Britain’s vaccination program clearly helped his &onservatives.
“There was a pro-incumbency effect across the 8. that comes from covid,´ 6tewart :ood, a Labour member of the +ouse of Lords, told me. “The incumbents dominated news coverage . . . which has hugely benefited Tories in (ngland, Nats in 6cotland, and Labour in :ales.´
The recriminations against 6tarmer for the losses in +artlepool and elsewhere came fast and furious. The party’s left assailed him for distancing Labour from the legacy of his predecessor, left-winger -eremy &orbyn. &orbyn himself was among the critics, and union leader Len 0c&luskey summari]ed a popular view on the left “3eople don’t know what Labour stand for anymore.´
But the party’s middle-of-the-road wing offered precisely the opposite criticism that 6tarmer, whom many of them support, needs to move more Tuickly away from &orbynites and establish a far clearer image of his own.
8ltimately, Labour is struggling with a hard-to-heal split, as 0atthew *oodwin, professor of politics at the 8niversity of .ent, noted. The divide is between socially liberal, pro-(urope supporters in Britain’s wealthy metropolitan areas where the party remains strong ± ± Labour’s 6adiT .han, for e[ample, was reelected as mayor of London ± ± and its older base in struggling, pro-Bre[it, working-class towns.
Tory wins in +artlepool and places like it, *oodwin told the BB&, were driven by “voters who have been left behind by the economic transformation of the country´ and “want to slow the pace of change a bit.´
It’s easy to imagine a comparable fight among Democrats if 2020 had turned out differently.
:ood also pointed to Labour’s failure to recogni]e changes in its own heartland. “+ome ownership has increased there,´ he said, “while Labour continued to treat northern seats in the same old way.´
In the meantime, -ohnson had distanced the &onservatives from austerity and the policies rooted in Thatcherism, making traditional Labour attacks feel dated. “In the less affluent northeast of (ngland,´ :ood said, “Tory local leaders are getting tough on local developers, building infrastructure, nationali]ing local airports. Labour points at them and accuses them of the Thatcherite sins of a bygone era.´