Brexit triggers unparalleled collapse in Labour and Conservative support
One of the perils of punditry of any sort is that there are hugely powerful incentives towards being dramatic, and very little downside for being wrong. Dramatic predictions grab the media’s interest, the approval of social media algorithms and the audience’s emotions. All of which give the predictor they payoffs long before anyone gets round to being able to tell whether or not their predictions are right.
It’s why research into the accuracy of pundits shows that what makes for a successful pundit is at odds with what makes for a successful predictor. Caution, doubt and self-questioning are the hallmarks of the successful predictor. They’re not the hallmark of political pundits.
Which is why also I’m reluctant to be too dramatic, but the graph below is really quite something. It shows the combined vote share for Labour and Conservatives in the general election voting intention opinion polls and at the general elections since the 1983 contest.
Just look at that dramatic dive we’re living through at the moment. It is way off the scale compared with anything seen in the last thirty-five years.
Monthly average of GB voting intention polls along with general election results. Data from PollBase.
What’s more, there are good reasons to think this is about more than just a blip.
One is that whatever happens, Brexit isn’t going to disappear as an issue any time soon. Whatever route the country ends up taking, it’s going to be a live issue for a long time. Even if there is a People’s Vote and a decisive vote to Remain, there will still be long and bitter memories from Brexiters about how they were let down by Theresa May and the Conservatives. And if Brexit goes ahead, we have years and years of further talks and negotiations to come. The point we are currently stalled at, remember, was meant to be the quicker, easier stage.
Suez, the Winter of Discontent, the Miners’ Strike, Britain’s intervention in Iraq… all influenced political choices for years after. Brexit is not going away any time soon.
Even when an issue itself is over quickly, the long-term political impact can be massive if that issue has altered a basic part of how a party is perceived. Britain’s tumble out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (the ERM) in 1992 was exactly this. The issue itself was over pretty quickly and cleanly. It took once announcement and Britain was out and that was it. Britain was out. There were no years of new negotiations to hold. No sets of dozens of new international agreements required. Britain was just out and that was that. Save, that is, for the political impact. It destroyed the Conservative Party’s reputation for political competence for a generation – and indeed the Conservatives have still not won a comfortable overall majority at any general election since despite six opportunities to do so.
For the Conservatives, it’s a destruction of the idea they are competent (yes, people who voted Conservative did think that of them), magnified by the damage of having repeatedly said they would deliver Brexit and then failing to do so. The nuances of who in the Conservatives did what is beyond the public’s general interest in politics. What matters is the basic picture: a party repeatedly said for several years that its top policy was to do something – which it hasn’t done.
As for Labour, it’s a divorce in values between the life-long Euroscepticism of its leadership and the values of a huge part of its activists and voter base. (Many Labour held constituencies may have voted Leave, but it was Remain voters in them that elected those Labour MPs.)
There doesn’t look to be a magical political trampoline for either Labour or Conservatives at the bottom of that vertiginous Brexit drop in the graph above.
It looks, rather, like we could well be on the verge of a major remarking of British politics.
I live in Aberafan which is one of the safest imaginable Welsh Labour seats. The only reason ever given for voting Welsh Labour is “To keep the Tories out”. Coincidentally it was the the reason given for voting at the referendum: “Vote ‘Out’ to get rid of Cameron and the Tories”. Once there is no danger of a Tory government there is no need to vote Labour and, once there’s no need to vote Labour there’s no danger of a Labour government so there’s no need to vote Tory either. Maybe, just maybe, people will be able to vote for what they want rather than just against what they most fear.
Perfect 🙂
I’m very happy with the Lib Dem success in the polls, and I hope the drama can be resolved soon with a People’s Vote. This is the worst time for the UK to fall apart and fall out with the EU. With the threat of climate change looming, all of Europe – in fact, all of the world – should forget petty squabbles and pull together (https://lucie4eu.blogspot.com/). Otherwise, the outlook is unbelievably depressing.
I still don’t understand how a ‘People’s Vote’ would work.
What are the options? I see three:
a) Whatever is finally negotiated (although I thought the EU had said there would be no more negotiation over the exit)
b) Remain
c) Just leave
There can’t be three options on a new referendum, as none would get a majority. Much as I like proportional representation, I can’t see a Single Transferable Vote working either if somewhere between 45% and 55% want to leave and the same range want to remain.
How useful would a people’s vote be. In my family, I am a leaver and my wife is a remainer so we cancelled each other out last time. If there is a second vote, I will spoil my paper (the country’s decision has already been made) and my wife will vote to leave (as she says that was the result of the original vote).
What happens if the 72% turnout goes down to 50-60%. Can that be taken as a genuine expression of the will of the people?
Of course you can have more than two options. You provide people with an alternative vote (so for a 3 option vote, you get to vote 1st and 2nd preference).
If the options are remain, May’s deal and exit with no deal, then for example, May’s deal could be least popular, and those votes that chose that would be distributed to other options based on the second preference. I assume that remain would win of course, but in any case all available options would have been presented to the voters and they would have decided.
On your other point. It is sad to hear that your wife will vote to leave in order to support the 2016 vote, even though all of us know so much more now. If you take that view should you not also look at the 1975 vote, where the majority to stay was large on a good turnout? If the argument is that 1975 is long ago and things have changed, then the same is very true of the 2016 vote as well!
Brexit triggers unparalleled collapse in support for diggers;)
tiggers .. NOT .. tiggers Ha Ha