Corbyn stakes everything on tactical voting by Remainers

Those who argue that a Corbyn led Labour party can never win a general election need to remember the days after the 2017 election, when Labour were ahead in the polls. Contrast Corbyn’s and May’s reactions to the Grenfell fire, and don’t imagine Johnson would be much better than May. Grenfell itself was a consequence of a ‘let’s end red tape, private sector knows best’ culture that is still rife in the Conservative party, and will not change if a Conservative is Prime Minister after the next election, whether that is a majority or minority government.

In those days Brexit was still relatively new, its impact on the economy had only been partially felt, and frankly it’s stupidity not fully realised. The implications for Ireland were not yet widely understood. Brexit seemed inevitable, and the Remain movement was very young. Labour were successfully triangulating over Brexit, and so the leadership’s position on the issue was compatible with the membership. But I could see back in 2016 that this was the position Corbyn himself was too comfortable with: respecting the referendum result by enacting some sort of soft Brexit. For whatever reason (his own previous views, genuine belief that the referendum has to be implemented, influential people around him) he would be very reluctant to move from that position.

As it became clearer that May was determined to implement a hard Brexit, and that parliament was unlikely to pass it because members of the ERG were determined to go for No Deal, and as the Remain movement grew, attitudes within the Labour membership began to change. As time went on it became clearer that the Leave campaign had lied about almost everything, and especially about the deal we could get from the EU. As people changed their minds and it became clear there were many different Brexits and the referendum was not a mandate for any particular one, the need for a second referendum became clearer.

The argument that Labour had to support Brexit to win any general election, that was plausible in 2017, became less and less relevant as Remain opinions hardened. Evidence began to accumulate about the flaws in that position. While most constituencies Labour needed to win might have had in 2016 a majority that voted to Leave, most Labour voters in those constituencies voted Remain. Furthermore, as many poorer Leave voters began to change their minds about Brexit, the number of marginals that were Remain came to equal those that were Leave.

The implicit belief among many was that Remainers had nowhere to go beside Labour. But this was never true. When I wrote this in December 2018 I did not anticipate the exact form in which Labour voters who were Remain would stop voting Labour, but it was clear from polls it would happen. But too many in Labour dismissed the Remain movement as a centrist plot, a continuation of the battle for power within Labour. Of course anti-Corbyn people would use any means to attack him, but the fact was Remain was a mass movement that contained many Labour members that had elected Corbyn, and voters who had chosen Labour in 2017, all of whom Labour were in danger of ignoring.

The rest, as they say, is history. An additional fatal mistake was for Labour to spend too much time in negotiations with May in a futile attempt to find a Brexit they could agree on. This spooked Labour Remain voters, and they turned to the Liberal Democrats and Greens at the European elections. The polls from December became actual votes, and turned out to underestimate the extent voters would abandon Labour. Both Labour and the Conservatives had to respond to those elections. The Conservatives did so by becoming the Brexit party, and gained back much of their losses from the European elections. Labour moved an inch, and did not gain enough.

The Labour leadership, by refusing to move with Labour members on Brexit, have single-handedly revived the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats. In a straight fight between Johnson and Corbyn, Corbyn would win. But with the LibDems attracting vital votes in Labour/Conservative marginals, the result is unclear. That already means that Corbyn's stubbornness over the summer on Brexit has put the election at risk. Without additional tactical voting, the current polls suggest the Conservatives would get an overall majority, and No Deal or the hardest of Brexits is bound to follow. This is Johnson’s and Cummings' central plan.

The move to guarantee a People’s Vote is important and should be retained. But although some voters are prepared to vote tactically to get it, others like voting for a party that reflects their view. The image of Corbyn holding out for Brexit is now well and truly planted in many people’s minds. Yet it was never too late for Labour to declare itself a Remain party. The shadow Chancellor, the shadow Foreign Secretary and even the shadow Brexit minister understand that, and have been open about campaigning for Remain in any referendum. If Corbyn had changed his position before the party conference he could have persuaded enough trade unions to back a policy where Labour always campaigns for Remain in any referendum for it to be carried on the conference floor. A show of unity around that position at conference would have sent a powerful message. It is a message that the LibDems and Conservatives feared.

Instead we have the party going into an election promising a People’s Vote, but telling voters that who they will support will be announced later. A party that overwhelmingly campaigned for Remain in 2016 is now sitting on the fence. I listened to the Brexit debate, and for the most part it was as if the Liberal Democrats did not exist, and the european elections had not happened. The main argument those rejecting the Remain motion had was that conference needed to support Jeremy Corbyn. They may have sung Oh Jeremy Corbyn in the hall but the parties that will be really rejoicing at this result are the LibDems and the Conservative party.

So Labour will go into the next election saying vote for us and on the crucial issue of the day, the issue that has dominated the last three years, and we will let you know what our policy is around 3 months after we win. They are hoping what happened in 2017 will happen again because Remainers in marginal Lab/Con seats understand that they gain nothing by not voting Labour. But as I've tried to point out, many things have changed in the last two and a half years. Corbyn's strategy is a huge risk, an immense risk, and one that has been taken because of one man alone, and for an overwhelmingly Remain party a needless risk.

It is needless and pointless because a Corbyn government can never enact Brexit. Corbyn may be able to carry the conference hall, but even if he wins an election with an outright majority he will never carry enough MPs to back whatever soft Brexit deal he comes up with. The Conservatives are bound to vote against, as will LibDems, the SNP and at least half Labour MPs. If it gets to a referendum he will fail because Remainers will back Remain and most Leavers will fail to vote for a policy the Brexit press will brand as making the UK a vassal state. Brexit will die under a Labour government, but we may not get a Labour government because Corbyn refuses to admit it.

Once the Nasty party, now the Brexit party

Brexit could be a gift to Labour that will keep on giving, if the Labour leader is able to grasp it

One of the sentences you are sure to hear nowadays is: “Brexit is not going to go away anytime soon”. It is true because Conservative party members will not let it go away. A recent poll showed a majority of those who will elect our next Prime Minister would prefer achieving Brexit to Scotland saying in the UK, Northern Ireland staying in the UK, or even the survival of their own party. They want Brexit even if it causes severe damage to the economy. The only thing that the poll suggested might make a majority forsake Brexit is the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.Therein lies the cure for our current Brexit blight and the opportunity for more than one period of Labour government.

In the short term Brexit fanaticism is extremely scary. The wish to see Brexit happen even if it leads to the destruction of the Tory party is utterly extraordinary coming from Conservative party members. Of course Conservative MPs do not want to see that, but their survival in government now seems tied to getting Brexit done, and so most seem prepared to contemplate a No Deal Brexit if that is what it takes. Our only hope to prevent this are a small band of Tory MPs who might put country before party, who could then combine with most opposition MPs to stop this happening.

Even if the attempt to leave with No Deal in October fails or does not happen, the Tory party is not going to give up. This radicalised membership will do its work by selecting Brexiters when MPs retire or leave for other reasons, and they may well deselect some of those who oppose No Deal. At some point those willing to stand up in parliament against a No Deal Brexit on the Tory benches will shrink to become insignificant. At that point Conservative party members will get their prize, if they are still in government.

How did the Conservative party descend to this level of fanaticism about just one issue? Robert Saunders’s New Statesman article about the closing of the Conservative mind is well worth reading. It is particularly useful for those young enough to think that Conservatives were always neoliberals. He writes:

“For most of its history, the Conservative Party has embraced ideas, while disclaiming ideology. Yet today, a party enslaved by ideology is almost barren of thought, just as it faces a historic set of challenges.”

Sauders has some ideas about why this happened but I think it remains a puzzle. One possibility is simply the scale of their intellectual victory under Thatcher, such that their Labour opponents showed they could operate in the UK that Thatcher bequeathed but with a more human face (including more NHS spending). The Conservatives became, to use Theresa May’s words, the nasty party in voters minds. The only way forward was to double down on reactionary xenophobia (Hague’s “foreign land”) or ramp up the neoliberalism (Osborne's austerity).

How did the Tory party membership get so radicalised about Brexit, when all the talk was about radicalism and entryism in the Labour party? The reason is that the Tory press that spent so much ink on talking about an imagined hard left Labour membership was also busy radicalising the Conservatives. Brexit embodies a mixture of nationalism, xenophobia, nostalgia and neoliberal zeal that Conservative party members cannot resist.

In all this scary stuff there is a potential light at the end of the tunnel, a way out of all this mess. And despite all the talk, it isn’t a Remain victory in a People's Vote. Even if we have another referendum, which seems only likely in a last minute panic created by an EU ultimatum, it will not de-radicalise the Tory membership. If, as seems prudent, the referendum is about the withdrawal agreement, then Brexiters will say that the right question was not asked. If it involves No Deal, then any loss by a few percentage points (and the press will ensure at least that) will just become unfinished business.

The best way for Brexit to end is not in the drama of another referendum, but instead with a whimper. The only way that can happen, with a radicalised Tory membership, is by electing a Labour government. As I have argued with little challenge, the Tories would oppose any sort of softer Brexit a Labour government might propose, so together with Remainers they would have a blocking majority in parliament or the country. How far a Corbyn led government would go down this road to nowhere we do not know. But he would never be allowed to put a Labour government at risk by pursuing a lost cause, so Brexit will not happen as long as a Labour government remained in power..

What we know a future Labour government would do is undertake a lot of measures designed to help one section of the Brexit electorate, the so called left behind. Very soon those and other voters would lose interest in Brexit, as politics became all about what the Labour government was actually doing. People would increasingly look back at the years following the 2016 referendum as wasted years, and an example of something never to be repeated.

At first Conservatives would try and keep the flame of Brexit alive. Doing so would only ensure their unelectability, as Labour would only have to remind people of the chaos of the Brexit years. Conservative voters and MPs would gradually realise that being the Brexit party was like being the nasty party, a sure way not to be re-elected. It may take one or two more elections, but as that poll of Conservative party members suggested, the only thing that could make them give up Brexit is a Corbyn government. That is in essence why a Labour government is the best, and I suspect only, way of disposing of the Brexit blight that has infected the Conservative party and therefore the UK.

This is the light at the end of the tunnel, such that Brexit ends with a whimper. However you have perhaps already wondered why, if this is all true, so many Labour voters and Remain supporters chose not to vote Labour in the European elections? Why have the Liberal Democrats suddenly managed to break free of the shackles of being in the 2010 Coalition government to be among the four contender parties in opinion polls?

I think there are two answers, one that acted as a trigger and one underlying force. The trigger was the Brexit talks between Corbyn and May. Although political commentators rightly gave these talks little hope of success, their length would certainly have provoked a fear among Remainers who had voted Labour in 2017 that Brexit could happen in this way. In addition the European poll seemed like an appropriate time to protest.

The underlying factor is that many voters are now identifying themselves in political terms along a Remain/Leave divide instead of a political divide. Remainers were getting fed up with the absence of a strong political voice making the case for Remain, and instead hearing endless discussion of impossible Brexit plans from the ERG. All they hear from Labour (because most voters do not read political speeches) is the latest version of Labour’s position on a second referendum. Labour seems to be muffling its own voice on the issue of the moment. The Liberal Democrat campaign slogan of ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ was just want Remainers had been waiting to hear.

Which brings us to the current shadow cabinet meetings. Corbyn has moved another iota, agreeing that an option on the ballot would be “a real choice” for Remainers, but not moving nearly as far as many want. There is a certain symmetry in the two main parties position on Brexit, but also major differences. The symmetry is that, during May’s period, both parties wanted some form of compromise compared to what most of their party members wanted. Both parties eventually encouraged an insurgent party, the Brexit party for the Tories and the Liberal Democrats for Labour, that was able to take a large number of their votes by offering policies that forsaked compromise. But there the similarity ends.

The Conservative party will decide, in one way or another, to come to some kind of accommodation with the insurgent party. That will happen by changing their Brexit policy to mirror the policy of the insurgent, or to cooperate with the insurgent party in any general election, or both. The Conservatives, as they always do, will adapt to the threat they face in order to stay in power. .

The Labour leadership, in contrast, is in denial. All the evidence points to their failure to campaign for Remain as being a critical threat to an election victory, an election that could come very soon. Even before the European elections there were as many Remain and Leave maginals, because many working class Labour voters had changed their mind since 2016. In addition, it turns out Labour leavers do not feel that strongly about Labour taking a Remain position, but Labour Remainers care about it a lot. I have not come across a single reputable pollster that suggests Labour are increasing their General Election chances by keeping its pro-Brexit position, and plenty arguing that to win they have to back Remain.

The argument that Labour needs to support Brexit to win the election is no longer credible. Instead the leadership’s support for Brexit puts at serious risk a Labour government that could rule for more than a decade. When you add in the impossibility of a Labour government enacting Brexit, and I just do not see why Lexiters remain in denial.

Incremental moves until conference also makes no sense as a strategy. The longer Remain voters get used to thinking they are going to vote Green or Liberal Democrat, and as long as the Labour leadership resists what appears to be overwhelming force, there is a strong risk that many will carry that habit into a General Election, if only because Labour’s eventual change will lack credibility.

If the shadow cabinet are interested in maximising Labour’s chance of being in power, it has to change Labour’s official position to one of supporting Remain now. No one is asking Corbyn himself to campaign for Remain, and it would probably be better if he didn’t, because there are plenty on his front bench who can do so more credibly. But their campaigning has to reflect Labour’s official position, which is to become the only party that can make Brexit go away.

Why the European Elections will be painful to watch for some Remainers

In theory the forthcoming European Elections on 23rd May should be an opportunity for Remainers to translate the clear majority for staying in the EU that we see in the polls into actual votes. Remain has been ahead of Leave since the summer of 2017, and recent majorities have been above 5%. Indeed some in the smaller anti-Brexit parties have been suggesting exactly this: the EU elections should be about Remaining rather than Leaving. Unfortunately things are not that simple, as the following YouGov poll illustrates.

The smaller columns for the parties represent the data with ‘Would not vote’ and ‘Don’t know’ included.

The first point is that the anti-Brexit parties are polling at around half the level of the pro-Brexit, anti-People’s Vote parties. The key problem, as it has always been for the Remain cause, is that the Labour vote is mostly made up of Remainers. In this poll, 77% of Labour voters voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, and some of the other 23% may have changed their minds since then. Labour is an overwhelmingly Remain party in terms of who votes for it, but its leadership is in favour of its own form of Brexit and appears ambivalent towards a People’s Vote.

Some Remainers would love voters to desert Labour and vote for one of the three unambiguously anti-Brexit parties. But this is very unlikely to happen. Many voters, even though they might support Remain, want a Labour government above all else, and they will vote for Labour despite this being about elections to the European Parliament. This is of course exactly what happened in the 2017 general election. Voting left is hardly an irrational choice for these Remainers, because if we do not leave the EU the European Parliament does play a minor role in EU affairs and it is important to have left wing voices there.

The second point is that the elections for the European Parliament is actually about voting for MEPs, so seats matter as well as the popular vote. The D'Hondt voting system used in British elections for the European parliament combined with voting for MEPs on a regional basis does penalise smaller parties. The Liberal Democrats only received 1 seat out of 73 in 2014, even though they got nearly 7% of the overall vote. As a result, if the Remain vote splits badly it is conceivable that the total seat count for the Remain parties combined may only be a few seats, which will not look good compared to the double figures that Farage will get.

A very good question is why the anti-Brexit parties have not cooperated. It would be difficult to choose just one of the three parties to stand in each district, but it would not be impossible. Without this cooperation, tactical voting is unlikely to prevent the anti-Brexit vote being split three ways in each England region. It would seem these parties think it is more important to fight among themselves than unite in sending a clear message on Brexit. That will be sad if this failure leads to MEPs only being in the job for a few months. Remain can get a million on the streets and 6 million signatures, but it seems getting small parties to cooperate is a more difficult task.

Another possibility would have been for the People's Vote campaign to do as Nigel Farage has done, and put up candidates themselves on a pro-EU ticket. Unlike Farage, the People's Vote campaign would face problems in doing so. Electing individuals on a simple pro-EU ticket only makes sense if these MEPs only have a very short tenure. If the campaign is successful, you want proper MEPs representing different political perspectives. That is probably one of many reasons why the People's Vote campaign will not field candidates of its own, and is perhaps another reason why the smaller parties do not cooperate.

Given Labour's position and the lack of cooperation among the anti-Brexit parties, Remainers should not turn these European elections into a vote about being anti-Brexit, because they will lose badly. The combined vote for UKIP, the new Brexit party and the Conservatives is almost certain to exceed the combined vote for the LibDems, CHUK and the Greens. A smarter tactic would be, through the People’s Vote campaign, to make these elections into a vote about a People’s vote. The key difference of course is that Labour can potentially be counted as being in favour of a People’s Vote, and so making the European elections as a kind of referendum on a People’s Vote might succeed. Using the poll numbers above, the pro-People’s Vote parties have an overall majority.

In reality Labour’s position on a People’s Vote is nuanced, or perhaps just confused. It is in favour of a People’s Vote for a deal it does not like, but is rather ambivalent if the deal is its own. The leadership is divided on the issue. Apparently Keir Starmer was described by Tories in the joint government/Labour negotiations as the ‘ideologue’ for wanting a People’s Vote, while his colleagues were described as more reasonable! The European elections could force Labour’s hand on the issue. This is obviously what the People’s Vote campaign will hope for, but how much the Electoral Commission will allow it to campaign over the election is unclear.

If Labour did unambiguously commit to a People’s Vote in all circumstances it could take votes from the smaller parties, and this may well dominate any votes it my lose from Labour leavers. Labour has the opportunity for an overwhelming victory in these elections, as Brexit will take many votes away from the Conservatives to pro-No Deal parties. However that inducement may not be enough, in part because Labour are constantly thinking about the possibility of a General Election where they do not want to be painted as the anti-Brexit party. Remainers should also have the sense to see that a Labour victory in a general election would be a better option from a Remain point of view than a People’s Vote, for reasons I set out here.

Without a general election, the Brexit position has become a stalemate. Theresa May is set against holding a People’s Vote, and so are Brexiters. Behind all their guff about such a vote being an insult against democracy (“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”), the real reason Brexiters hate the idea of a second referendum is that they think they will lose. Nor has parliament been able to force the government to hold a referendum, with the latest vote in parliament being 280 voting in favor of a People’s Vote and 292 against.

However no other option looks like getting over the line anytime soon either. Brexit has become a war of attrition. Brexiters are in no mood to accept May’s deal, and instead some have pinned their hopes on replacing her. Even if they succeed, it is unclear how this changes the parliamentary arithmetic. The Tories also fear a general election for the same reasons Brexiters fear a People’s Vote. Talks between Labour and the government are unlikely to get anywhere because a compromise that didn’t include a People’s Vote would be devastating for Labour, and any compromise by the government would pour oil on the fire of Tory divisions. Finally the new October deadline set by the EU is unlikely to force anyone to change their mind, because there is a belief in the UK that the EU will always allow another extension rather than risk an exit with no deal.

In these circumstances, a People’s Vote (PV) is going to be seen more and more as the only way out. In parliament it is already the option with most votes. It is just possible that the European Elections could change some minds if it was seen as an endorsement for holding a PV. But for this to happen the PV campaign needs to persuade the smaller parties to stop talking about this election as being about Brexit and instead start talking about a People’s Vote.

As far as the media is concerned, the European elections will be about the showing of the pro-No Deal parties. Indeed it could all be about Nigel Farage. His new Brexit party is well organised, well funded (from sources unknown), and is likely to get extensive publicity from the BBC at least. (To see the BBC choosing his “put the fear of god into MPs at Westminster” line as their headline quote illustrates all too well the themes of last week’s article on how the media encourages far right extremism.) The poll above, taken before his party was formally launched, indicates that his Brexit party could easily end up beating the Conservatives and coming second, as UKIP voters switch to his party. This will become the main new story.

That will be painful to watch for Remainers, but ironically it could indirectly help the People’s Vote cause. Moderate Conservative MPs will see the poor showing of their party in the European elections and begin to understand more clearly the bind they are in. For as long as Brexit is an issue, they will be in danger of hemorrhaging votes to pro-No Deal parties, but if they accept No Deal the Conservatives will not be in government for decades. A People’s Vote on May’s deal may be the only chance they have of changing that situation any time soon.

When two mass movements clash

Last week saw leading lights in one mass movement, the Labour party, attack elements of another mass movement, those who want to remain in the EU. What led to this attack seemed to be posters issued by an organisation called OFOC depicting John McDonnell in the pocket of arch Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg. My own view is that these poster were a waste of money and hardly worth bothering with. But leading lights in the Labour movement tried to suggest to grass roots Remain supporters that they are being used as a way to attack Corbyn, as here for example.

As it happens I have quite recently suggested that some Remain campaigners risk the danger that their message is sounding very similar to the numerous anti-Corbyn attacks you can find throughout the media. For example suggesting that the only thing in the way of stopping Brexit is Corbyn (ludicrous) and that therefore he has to go (won't happen). As the only chance of a vote on the final deal is if Labour supports it such a message is positively counterproductive.

However the attacks from Bastini, Mason and others took a different tack, listing in great detail how OFOC was connected to, and possibly funded by, certain Tory and LibDem figures. This was the basis of the ‘being used’ claim. There are two big problems here. First, Remain is a cross party movement. So what exactly is the big deal with establishing all these links? So what, you might say. Second, Remainers have every reason to be critical of Labour policy, which is now clearly not to stay in the EU. 

The days of triangulation are over. We now know that the Labour leadership wants a negotiated deal with the EU that has some safeguards on nationalisation etc, and for some MPs at least some limits to free movement. As the great majority of Labour members and voters support staying in the EU, this is a difficult position for the Labour leadership to take. Labour are therefore acutely vulnerable. Indeed as there is a chance that Labour might back a people's vote but May never will, it is sensible that Remainers now concentrate any pressure on the Labour leadership. 

Picking a fight with some Remainers by suggesting they are, knowingly or not, just an anti-Corbyn front because they attack Labour on Brexit seems to both miss the point and to be terrible politics. I guess it can be what happens when two mass movements with considerable overlap in terms of membership clash. Of course any Brexit negotiated by Corbyn would be less harmful than the Brexit May might be able to negotiate, and Labour still might vote against the final deal and support a referendum on it, but until Labour do start saying No Brexit is better than May’s Brexit Labour are vulnerable and have to accept that Remainers will try and put pressure on them.

All of which is of course a minor sideshow to what will be the main story of the next few months: will May be able to negotiate a deal with the EU? Labour are completely irrelevant in answering this question. The answer will depend on whether May will finally break with the Brexiters, and how much these Brexiters react to this rejection. The deal that will be done, which involves at a minimum being in the Customs Union and the Single Market for goods, is anathema to most of the Brexiters based on their past behaviour. That deal, as I have argued before, represents the almost complete failure of the Brexiter project.

The Brexiters have two choices. They can try and make it as hard as possible for May such that she fails to get a deal, and hope that the UK leaves with No Deal as a result. Although there is much you can criticise in May as a Prime Minister, her stubbornness probably means she will not allow her deal to be sabotaged in this way, but that will probably not stop the Brexiters trying. The second choice Brexiters have is to park their displeasure at the deal until we leave in 2019, and hope that they can achieve further breaks from Europe subsequently, perhaps by getting a Brexiter as Conservative party leader. The problem with this strategy is that time is not on their side: demographics, losing the Mail, and people seeing how the UK steadily falls behind the rest of the EU are just some of the reasons why.

There is no doubt that May will do what she can to get a deal, and I suspect the Brexiters will not have the support or the will to stop her once she stops appeasing them. Which leaves Labour in a dangerous position, where they may alienate Leavers by voting against the deal, and alienate Remainers for not supporting Remain. The days when they could keep both groups happy by triangulating, and almost win a general election, are over. They cannot be crazy enough to vote for or abstain on the final deal, because then they become complicit in all the economic harm that Brexit will do, as well as alienating the majority of its own members and voters. It would mean four years of Labour  losing Leave voters to the Conservatives (as the Brexit press would spin anything other than a vote for the deal as Labour opposing Brexit), and Remain voters to the LibDems or Greens.

One thing we have learnt in the last week is that most of the handful of Tory rebels will not have the courage to vote against any deal May makes. (No deal is another matter.) So Labour will lose the parliamentary vote on the final deal. Labour are not in government, and the deal is being done now, so what they would want to do in government is irrelevant. That means that they have little to lose by backing the popular people’s vote against May’s deal as well as voting against that deal. No Brexit is better than May’s Brexit. That way, they allow the two movements to march as one.

Postscript 27/06/18

Conversations with some Labour party activists both before and after this post suggest that Labour has to focus on winning over Leave voters in traditional Labour held constituencies, and so has to appear to back Brexit where it can. There is a danger that they are taking for granted many who voted for them in 2017 because they thought Labour would stop Brexit, and still do (See, for example, this poll in January 2018, where only 19% of Labour voters think Labour is pro-Brexit.) There is a danger that we are seeing a repeat of what happened over austerity in 2015: Labour taking for granted that anti-austerity voters would vote for them, and at the same time failing to win over pro-austerity voters with talk of being 'tough on the deficit'. Much the same happened with immigration.   

Remain fundamentalism

An argument I have often heard is why are people talking about getting a softer Brexit (by staying in the Customs Union (CU) or Single Market (SM) for example) when what we should be doing is staying in the EU. There is a more extreme version of this which says that attempts to get a soft Brexit are dangerous, because they make the prospect of remaining in the EU less likely. I will call this more extreme position Remain fundamentalism.

I want to argue against Remain fundamentalism by imagining a soft Brexit that involved the UK staying in a comprehensive Customs Union with the EU and staying in the EEA. (For an excellent discussion of what the EEA is and is not, see Ian Dunt here, here and here - in that order.) [1] That is what the current UK withdrawal bill specifies as amended by the Lords, so let me call this the Lords’ Brexit. Compare this to the only hardish Brexit deal that can be done (assuming, as I think is reasonable, that parliament would never pass No Deal), which is something close to what John Springford and Sam Lowe have called the Jersey option: staying in the CU and the SM for goods but not services, perhaps allowing some UK flexibility on freedom of movement.

We have no idea whether the EU would accept either option, because the UK government has been wasting its time (which given they are supposed to be running the country on our behalf is also our time) trying to choose between fantastical solutions to the Irish border problem that the EU will not accept. But for the sake of argument suppose that May ignores her Brexiters, and perhaps with parliament’s help chooses something like the Jersey option and that the EU agrees to it, or instead that May has to go with the Lords’ Brexit and the EU (and EFTA) agree to it.

The Remain fundamentalist argument is that because the Jersey option does more economic damage to the UK than the Lords option (because the EU has a comparative advantage in exporting services, and immigration from the EU is beneficial to the UK), it is more likely that parliament would grant a referendum on it and that people would reject that deal in favour of staying in the EU. I actually think the opposite is the case, We are much more likely to see parliament grant a referendum if we go for the Lords’ Brexit, and that people would reject the Lords’ Brexit in favour of staying in.

The case for a referendum on the final deal is much more clear cut if the deal is the Lords’ Brexit, because the Lords’ Brexit has virtually no advantages compared to EU membership and a clear disadvantage. In practice being in the EEA would mean accepting rules adopted by the EU with no say on those rules. In short, we gain nothing by having no say on the rules we have to obey. I cannot imagine any politician being able to get people to vote for the little bit of wriggle room and influence being in the EEA gives you compared to the having a real seat at the table.

In contrast, with the Jersey option things are much more complex. There will be perceived advantages of this option compared to staying in, such as greater control over immigration. You can be sure that the more Mrs. May can fudge the agreement such that she can pretend these advantages are there even when they are not, she will.

Now add in a powerful group of Brexiters. They would angry that they did not get the hard Brexit they want, but in the Jersey option they would still see hope in ambiguity. More importantly, with the Jersey option there would be plenty of meat for this group to work on, including immigration of course. But with the Lords’ Brexit it is hard to argue a strong case for why this is preferable to be in the EU, even if you are a Brexiter politician or newspaper.

I would be the first to admit that these arguments are not clear cut. But the Remain fundamentalist position only makes sense if you can be sure that a harder Brexit makes a referendum more likely. To me, at least, it is not obvious that it does. The more you can eliminate the economically damaging but superficially attractive aspects of Brexit, the more chance people have to see that the whole thing is a complete waste of time.

[1] There are a lot of differences between being part of the EEA and what is called BINO: the UK being in the Single Market and Customs Union and everything else to do with the EU except being absent from its political structures. I am assuming that there would be no problem being in the EEA and a CU, that agreements with the EU would also be made on agriculture and fisheries that would at least allow a soft Irish border, that the EU and EFTA would allow all this and so on.

Why is no one talking about the angry Remainers?

I would not normally write this kind of post, but I couldn’t find anything on this by searching so I wrote it myself.

One very good answer to the question posed by the title would be if they did not exist, or more specifically that they might make a lot of noise in certain circles but in electoral terms do not amount to much. The main evidence we have that might raise doubt about this explanation is a series of remarkable by-election results for the Liberal Democrats. Everyone knows about Richmond, and earlier they had done very well at Witney, but their gain in vote was much more modest at Sleaford. What is less known is their steady success since the referendum in council by-elections. Each council by-election involves small numbers compared to Westminster seats, but there have been many more. What is interesting at this level is that the LibDems have been winning seats from both Labour and Conservatives, and in both Remain and Leave areas.

So why are political commentators continuing to talk about the UKIP threat to Labour much more than the LibDem threat to both main parties. Part of the answer is I’m sure the importance of the Brexit tabloids in influencing the Westminster bubble. But I think there is also some legitimate caution in not reading too much into these by-election results. First, the national polls have shown much more modest gains for the LibDems. Second, the power of the LibDem by-election machine is well known, and those with long memories know that spectacular by-election victories can come to nothing when we move to a general election. This would also help explain the non-uniform nature of the victories: for nearly every success you can find a relative failure.

While all that justifies caution, it does not provide any evidence against the angry Remainer idea. Nor does the fact that victories have happened in Leave constituencies, for two reasons. First, even if a constituency voted 60% for Leave, that still leaves 40% who voted Remain, and council elections in particular are where genuine anger is likely to motivate people to vote when the turnout is typically low. Second, quite a few people may have voted Leave but do not want a Hard Brexit.

The first factor may also help explain the discrepancy between local election results and the small movement in the LibDem’s national poll ratings. But, for Remainers, there may be a potentially more optimistic explanation. Responding to opinion polls may involve little thought. In an election people can read election leaflets, and they may think more before casting their vote. If so, local election results could be what economists would call a leading indicator of national polls in this particular case.

However, I say potentially because there is a less optimistic interpretation. In individual local elections the national media is not in election mode, and so local election literature may be unusually persuasive. In a national election, as we saw with the referendum itself, the broadcast media allows itself to be influenced by the pro-Brexit press. The LibDems may also be given little airtime as a small party, so there will be an automatic Leave bias.

For reasons like this, I’m afraid I find the outlook for Remainers like myself pretty grim. I can see one possible way of avoiding leaving the EU, but it requires a number of things to all work out. First, the march on 25th March is really, really big. Second, the LibDems make very large gains in the local elections in May. The combination of these two events could put the idea of the angry Remainer on the map. It might start encouraging some psephologists to speculate on which politicians would be vulnerable to a LibDem surge.

Third, the Brexit negotiations have to be seen as going badly. If ministers start blaming the EU for their intransigence, that is a good sign. Fourth, Labour keep Corbyn as leader. Fifth, it becomes clear that Article 50 can be revoked. Sixth, a run of polls have clear majorities for Remain over Leave. All that might just start making enough MPs seriously worried about keeping their own seats that they finally get the courage, and by some means a way, to vote to stay in the EU, or to call a second referendum. I have not tried to work out the probability of all those things happening, but as a fictional dwarf once said: “Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?”

For those pining for a more macro post, the next one will be on the Bank of England's forecasts

Brexit: a battle lost but who will fight the war?

The Brexit vote was, in economic terms, an act of self harm. You do not need to just ‘trust the experts’ on this: it is pretty close to common sense. As Rebecca Driver clearly explains, leaving the single market will make it much more difficult for (particularly small) firms to trade in Europe. As Europe is on our doorstep and geography matters, that cannot and will not be compensated for by trading more elsewhere. [1] Finally greater trade is associated, for clear reasons, with higher growth. Lower growth will impact unfavourably on every area in the UK, whether they voted Leave or Remain.

The harm done is not just economic. As Ben Chu writes, “The crude majoritarian politics of this referendum has seen half of the population (a generally poorer, less well-educated and elderly half) effectively strip major freedoms and even a cherished identity from the other half (a more prosperous and predominantly younger half)”. Before the referendum, I had conversations with people arguing that a Brexit vote would be more harmful than a Trump presidency, and this deep sense of anger, loss and despondency will not go away. We therefore need to understand why it happened.

In my last post I argued that Brexit was a protest vote against both the impact of globalisation and social liberalism. The two come together over immigration, and of course the one certainty of the Brexit debate was that free movement prevented controls on EU migration. Globalisation has benefited the majority in the UK, so those who had not benefited could not alone have won a Brexit vote. Equally social conservatives have lost battle after battle in the UK on specific social issues. Brexit was the perfect storm where these two groups came together, and combined they just managed to win.

Explanations do not imply inevitability, but instead tell us why the result could easily have been different. We need a sensible discussion about immigration, rather than assume it is always and everywhere a problem. However to follow the social conservative route and say concern over immigration is just xenophobia is not helpful. [2] We need to challenge the view the right wing press has patiently built up that immigration is responsible for declining public services and making it difficult to get housing. Too many people continue to discount the power and influence of the media: that is a mistake, as this research on Fox news shows. It is not difficult to get across the benefits of immigration, given how much the NHS and our construction sector depend on immigrants, but it is not something many of our leading politicians have done for some time.

More generally it is becoming increasingly clear how destructive the doctrine of neoliberalisation has been. Neoliberalism combines the encouragement of globalisation with demands for a much reduced role for the state. In the advanced economies the deindustrialisation implied by globalisation and the growth of China and elsewhere has been beneficial overall, but there are sections of society that have lost out, which invites a backlash. As Kevin O’Rourke shows, globalisation has often led to fierce resistance in the past. Dani Rodrik has demonstrated how state spending can protect, and has often in the past protected, the losers from trade. [3] (As an economist mights say, globalisation is a Kaldor/Hicks improvement, but in recent times the compensation part has been missing.) Brexit, like the financial crisis and perhaps also Donald Trump, are in this sense problems created not by globalisation alone but by neoliberalism.

For the UK it is worse than that. It is not just that austerity is the real cause of declining public services, and a failure to build houses is the cause of rising prices and rents. (See Chris Dillow or Mariana Mazzucato) It is that this government in particular has connived with the right wing press to transfer blame for an NHS in crisis and unaffordable housing from their own policies on to immigration. The Remain campaign was Cameron and Osborne, and neither were prepared to change their tune and start talking about how limiting immigration would mean there was even less money for public services. As I noted in the previous post, the NHS was an important concern for Leave voters, and they thought Brexit would make things better. Can you imagine a worse background for the EU referendum vote than a government that continually stressed the importance of limiting immigration, but failed to achieve those limits so spectacularly. [4]

This was not the only problem with the Remain campaign. In terms of getting the message across, Leave seemed to understand their target audience much better. (It is not my field, but this from Mark Hind makes sense.) To get the message across the Remain campaign relied on the institutions of the establishment: the Treasury, Bank of England, IMF etc. Fine for those for whom the establishment is respected, less so for those who regard it as remote and detached from their lives. Remain made very little use of academics, despite the fact that this group is trusted by the public. [5] Leave did seem to understand this, which is why they went to ridiculous extremes to discredit these experts. The broadcast media hardly ever noted the consensus among economists that Brexit would reduce everyone's standard of living, and instead did their ‘he says, she says’ thing. This media also failed to point out the lies Leave told, preferring ‘balance’ over truth.

All this implies that while the potential for a Brexit vote was always there, reflecting the perfect storm of anger against globalisation and social liberalism, it might not have been realised if the Remain campaign had been better, the Leave campaign had been honest and the broadcast media had not departed from its mission to educate and explain. The lies of the Leave camp are already apparent. The depreciation in sterling that immediately followed the vote is a cut in living standards for everyone in the UK with no lasting compensation. It is permanent unless the markets have got things spectacularly wrong. The economic downturn that is underway is as predicted. In both cases voters were told this was fear mongering by the Remain side: now those that promoted Leave are in the ludicrous situation of arguing that markets and firms have somehow been deceived by Project Fear.

In normal circumstances this would all be a cause for optimism. We do not need many voters to realise that they were conned by the Leave campaign before Leavers become a minority, or at least for the majority to favour a deal that can keep the UK in the single market with essentially free movement of labour. (There may have even been such a majority on the day of the vote.) To call this the denial stage in some ‘grieving process’ by Remain voters misunderstands the nature of the decision. Leaving is compatible with a whole range of alternative arrangements: some quite close to EU membership, some not. In that sense the vote only gave the green light to an ongoing struggle over what these arrangements will be. (For a discussion of the politics involved, see here but also here.) Thus those who say we should accept the verdict of the people are wrong, because a great deal is still to play for.

Yet circumstances are far from normal, and there seems little ground for optimism. Our new Prime Minister - who was as complicit in the sham targets for immigration as Cameron and Osborne - has appointed those who supported Leave to handle negotiations. She knows that the only way she can unite her party is to end free movement and therefore leave the single market.

Worse still, the government will do whatever it wants to do when it comes to the type of Brexit we have. Our official opposition will, if the polls are right, be the same opposition that was both ineffective and conflicted in the Brexit campaign, preoccupied as it will almost certainly be with cleansing the PLP rather than the details of trade arrangements. There is no alternative opposition with any strength. The SNP cannot speak for the rest of the UK, and anyway will be focused on trying (and probably failing) to drum up enough support for independence. As a result the 48% or more who did not want an end to the single market will not be able to do much about it. I fear that if you want a vision of what Britain after Brexit will become, you just need to look in the pages of the newspapers that were a vital part in bringing Brexit about.

[1] My impression was that discussion on broadcast news programmes, which is the main source many people have to unbiased news coverage, or even the debates never got to this point. We had someone from Remain saying trade with Europe would suffer, and someone from Leave saying we would be ‘free’ to trade with other countries. You do not need the Treasury’s gravity equations to make this simple point about geography and trade, but you need to go a little beyond soundbites.

[2] A similar point can be made about nationalism, which is hard to combat and may be a symptom rather than a cause.

[3] Rodrik, D. (1998), "Why do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?" Journal of Political Economy 106(5): 997-1032

[4] None of this was hard to see before the last general election. Those who in 2015 voted Conservative but also wanted to Remain need to ask why they took no notice of the warnings that some of us made. Those ‘business leaders’ who seemed to unanimously endorse Cameron need to ask, or be asked, why they were gambling with their company’s future in doing so.

[5] Part of the problem is that Leave voters tended not to trust anyone. This, by Jean Pisani-Ferry, is good on experts and trust.