As the vote of no
confidence by 80% of Labour MPs after the referendum result showed,
Corbyn is at his most vulnerable over Brexit. The 2017 election
result may have wiped memories of this painful period, but to say
that it shows the vote of no confidence didn’t matter goes too far.
Unfortunately Labour still lost in 2017, as their powerlessness over
Brexit shows. How do we know that the perception that Labour MPs were
deeply unhappy with their leader did not cost Labour in 2017 the
crucial votes that prevented them forming a government?
Voters seem
currently as divided on Brexit as they are by party, and most Labour
voters and members want to stay part of the EU. There will therefore
be no better time for centrist Labour MPs who are pro Remain to break
away and form a new party. When Brexit happens there will be a lot of
bitterly disappointed people around questioning where to go from
here. That a few Labour MPs have been talking about the possibility
of forming a new party is an open secret.
Unfortunately Corbyn
has done virtually nothing for members and voters that closely
identify with Remain. Hopes have been kept alive by Keir Starmer and
occasionally John McDonnell, but neither attended Corbyn’s recent
talks with the Prime Minister. The overriding impression given by the
leadership and its supporters is that they do not want to antagonise Labour Leavers, and Remainers have nowhere else to go besides Labour.
It is never a good idea to give the impression to those closest to
you that you take them for granted.
If the objective of
this new party is to remake UK politics it is almost certain to fail.
But that is not what is important. The key issue is how much damage
it can do to the two major parties. One of the lessons of the last
two years is that the Conservative vote is pretty solid. Brexit is in
a way their Falklands: an issue where they can ramp up the
nationalism to maximum and their voters will forget the incompetence
and damage to this country their government is inflicting on them.
The minority of Conservatives who can see through this will be scared
by stories (often false) of what a radical Corbyn government will do.
The new party
therefore seems to be mostly a threat to Labour. This is true in part because our future trade relationship with Europe will play a major part in politics from now until the next election. (Those who think that Leaving the EU in March or whenever will stop politicians talking about Brexit will be very disappointed.) If the new party
pledges to fight for staying in both the Customs Union and Single
Market after we leave the EU, that will tempt Remain voters, because Labour
only speak of a close relationship with the Single Market. There is a
world of difference between being close and being in: ask any trading
firm why. Staying in the Single Market requires Freedom of Movement,
and this would allow the new party to attack Labour on immigration,
where its recent actions have also made them vulnerable from the
perspective of liberal Labour voters.
The problem a new
party has is the MPs that are likely to be part of it will find it
hard to major on radicalism. Will they really champion immigration,
or instead fall back on anti-immigration rhetoric? If they match
Labour’s economic radicalism with a kind of nostalgia for how
things were before 2016, they will find to their cost that this
nostalgia is not widely shared. All of these things mean that the
party will fail to capture most Labour supporters. However when it comes to winning the next election Labour do not
have supporters to spare. To lose some to a new party could mean another five years for this disastrous Conservative government,
What we can be sure
of is that the media, pretty well all of the media, will big the new
party up as much as they can. The reason they will do this is that a new party is a threat to Labour rather than the
Conservatives. A consequence of the media blitz will inevitably be
that some votes, mainly Labour votes, will follow. So whatever line
the new party takes, if they are pro-Remain they are quite likely to
be a threat to Labour come the next election.
In economics we talk
about ‘barriers to entry’ that prevent new firms entering a
market. Some of these are intrinsic, like set up costs for a new firm. But existing firms in the market can also influence whether new firms enter or not. Corbyn’s Brexit strategy so far seems
designed to create a ready market of customers
who are dissatisfied with Labour’s policy on Brexit. In other words Corbyn is currently creating the conditions in which a new party could enter, and survive for long enough to cost Labour the next election.
