How does the general election result matter?

This may be of more interest to friends beyond the UK, but I hope all will find something to provoke thought, even if you disagree.

The day after the general election we drove to Suffolk to visit my family. As I waited to pay for car fuel, a European lorry driver came into the shop clutching a 50 Euro note. He did not join the queue waiting to pay. A British driver called out “Oi mate there’s a queue here.” The other driver tried to explain that he just wanted to ask a question (he was unsure whether he could pay with Euros). The British driver responded “For f***k’s sake. Bloody ignorance. Good job we voted to get out yesterday.” This was the first reference I have heard to the election beyond the media. I cannot claim that this incident was typical, but it does illustrate one strand of the emotions aroused by Brexit.

Brexit                          

The election results mean that the UK will certainly leave the EU from a formal perspective on 31 January. Certain arrangements will continue for a transition period, which in theory ends on 31 December 2020. After that, all depends on negotiations. In the meantime, there remain many uncertainties, particularly for UK citizens who live in the EU (like our youngest son) whose rights are immediately reduced and far from clear, and for EU citizens in the UK.

By casting the Brexit decision as a Yes/No or Remain/Leave choice, the Conservative Party created two political camps with opposing views. Now, there are, of course differing views on any political issue. For example, one can have different views about the rate at which we can moderate CO² emissions, or how to prioritize transport investment. As the subjects are debated, policies can change in either direction. Brexit is fundamentally different in that it is an either/or choice for ever, or at least for a very long time. One section of the population wins and another loses everything. In the post-referendum political debate, the Conservative Party has been the party of Brexit, effectively telling those opposed to Brexit that the pro-Brexit faction has taken charge and Brexit opponents no longer have a say. A new noun was invented (“remoaners”) to label those who dislike Brexit as “bad losers”. No possibility of reconsideration or re-evaluation of the decision has been permitted. The Prime Minister’s first statement, after winning the election, that remoaners should “put a sock in it” reflect this attitude precisely. His subsequent speech was more conciliatory, but I suspect that reconciliation will be difficult in the short term at least.

It should also be noted that Brexit was not supported by Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and other large cities. Brexit was also supported disproportionately by older voters and opposed disproportionately by younger voters. Thus, Brexit is a project of the English regions outside major urban centres and of a generation who will be less affected by Brexit than its younger opponents.

The Labour Party

For about the last 100 years the Labour Party has vied for governmental power with the Conservative and Unionist Party. The principal third party, the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats), has been a voice for change and new ideas, but without any role in government apart from the five years of coalition 2010-2015. In short, the Labour Party has been, and still is the only alternative to the Conservatives.     

Labour’s origins in the late 19^th- and early 20-centuries was deeply rooted in trade unions, the cooperative movement and Methodism. And, geographically, the party’s heartlands lay in the Midlands, Northern England, the Welsh Valleys and Scotland’s cities. These were the coal-mining and industrial areas where working-class solidarity was a bedrock of society. When I reached voting age in 1970, it was still common for Labour MPs to rise to political office by being union officials. The 21^st-century Labour MP is now much more likely to be a lawyer or other professional. The party’s share of the vote in its old heartlands has declined as its leadership has had less in common with its heritage. Tony Blair, for example, was a privately-educated, Oxford-graduate lawyer who  represented Sedgefield in the County Durham coal-mining area. In this election, the Conservatives defeated the Labour Party in Sedgefield and elsewhere by targeting the pro-Brexit, largely older, voters in places such as Sedgefield which elected a Conservative MP for the first time since 1930.

The Results

There are 652 MPs. The Conservative Party received 43.8% of votes cast and won 365 seats, about 58% of MPs. Labour received 32.2% of votes and 203 seats, about 32% or so of MPs. However, the Liberal Democrats with 11.5% of the votes have only 11 MPs, while the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) with 3.9% of votes has 48 MPs. The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin had about 10% of the number of votes received by the Liberal Democrats  but have 15 MPs.  Similarly, Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists received a tiny number of votes, about 5% of those received by the Liberal Democrats, but have 4 MPs, more than a third of the number of Liberal Democrat MPs.

In short, where a party receives its votes, can have a disproportionate effect on the number of MPs elected. By winning more votes than Labour in Northern England and Wales and the West Midlands, the Conservatives were able to win a larger proportion of MPs than the party’s share of votes. The disproportionate share of MPs compared to votes is still more marked in the smaller “nations” (as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are now termed) than in England. This raised serious questions concerning national unity.

Scotland

Not long ago, Labour dominated Scottish politics. Indeed, it was Labour that devolved power to form the Scottish Parliament to placate emerging nationalist sentiments. There are 59 Scottish MPs, of which SNP has now 48. The Conservatives (who once had scarcely one) now have 6, the Liberal Democrats 4 and Labour a single seat. Moreover, the SNP is the governing party in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP lost the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. However, Scotland voted to remain in the EU and is being dragged out by England. A strong nationalist party combined with resentment against Brexit and the English creates a climate in which independence sentiment can flourish. Another independence referendum is not imminent, but is likely within the decade. If Scotland eventually leaves the UK, Brexit and the Conservative Party’s Brexit obsession will be in large part responsible.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland exists as a compromise solution to the movement for Irish independence from Britain in 1919. Contending unionist and Irish nationalist interests drive Northern Irish politics. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, to some extent constrained the potential for conflict, at least for armed conflict, but has recently been under severe strain. Now, the Republic of Ireland is a signatory of the agreement and plays a part in maintaining it.  Since Ireland is a member of the EU, the status of the border and of customs and trading arrangements between  the Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, constitutes a volatile element of Brexit, an element concerning which Conservative Party Brexiters were both ignorant and indifferent when Brexit negotiations began. The issue prevented approval of Mrs. May’s agreement with the EU and ended her Prime Ministership. Mr Johnson’s achievement of a revised agreement was the basis of his success in this election.

However, the picture is complicated. After her failure to win a majority in the 2017 election, Mrs May relied on the support of ten Democratic Unionist MPs. The Democratic Unionists were resolutely pro-Brexit, although Northern Ireland voted against Brexit in the referendum. They insisted that the EU agreement should not in any way treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. Nationalists were resolutely opposed to Brexit. The EU insisted on an arrangement that prevented the reimposition of any kind of border between the Republic and the North as a result of Brexit. Therefore, Mrs May negotiated the Northern Ireland “Backstop” (a contingency device to prevent imposition of a border if trade negotiations with the UK failed). The Backstop was fiercely opposed by the committed Brexiters in the Conservative Party and by Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson’s agreement creates a special customs/trade status for Northern Ireland, which is fiercely opposed by the Democrat Unionists.

In the election the DUP lost 2 of its 10 seats in Westminster, nationalist Sinn Féin retained 7 seats and the nationalist SDLP gained 2. Thus, there is now one more nationalist MP than unionist. So, Brexit and the election has altered the balance of power and sentiment between pro- and anti-nationalist groups with cosenquences that could, in the long run, further threaten the unity of the UK.

In short, Mr Johnson may be pleased with his victory and his rout of Labour, but the consequences for our nation that result from the Brexit obsession may be very serious.