Which political party will come off worst from the referendum fallout?
Obviously the Tories are in turmoil. They have been for some weeks - you can tell they're confused when they go round stabbing each other in the chest. The situation is now fluid - and the fluid is blood!
And it's no surprise that Labour is also in turmoil - while their divisions on Europe don't run quite as deep, they are there but the real problem for Labour is having a Tory party in trouble when your leader has just shown how lacklustre he would be in a General Election campaign. So no surprise that the Labour moderates are restless and lining up to be Brutus.
The LibDems are either keeping their heads down in despair or no-one notices them anymore - I'm not sure which.
The SNP are full of put on righteous indignation, scenting the chance of another referendum (but not too soon, please, they seem to be signalling; at least not before an oil price recovery).
And UKIP are delirious. I suspect they shouldn't be, as their whole reason d'etre is about to evaporate. They might make hay for a while on the immigration issue - inevitably, even out of Europe, it will be too high for many of their supporters, unless the economy goes down the pan big time, in which case they'll have to find someone else to blame. But in the longer run it's UKIP that have the greatest need for a strategic rethink. After all, as effectively a single issue party, their issue has just been nailed. And they've never shown the slightest sign of being able to build a coherent set of values and programme, other than a plague on the EU, so it's not clear that will be possible.
Do you think this is what David Cameron meant by shooting UKIP's fox with an in/out referendum? Probably not, be I think time will show he has taken them down with him.
Having said that, historians will look back in amazement at how a party that (to date but maybe forever) has only won one seat in Parliament was able to hijack the political discourse in England and put the country, for better or worse, on a very different track. Because, without UKIP hounding him, I'm sure the Tory eurosceptics on their own would not have wrung a referendum out of David Cameron.
In the famous 60s protest song "Eve of Destruction" Barry McGuire sang "Handful of senators don't pass legislation". No, but somehow a party with one MP has changed our political landscape fundamentally and permanently.
P.S. Of course, if the establishment mount a rearguard action to keep Britain in Europe against the expressed will of the people (I'm watching you Lib so called Dems amongst others!) then UKIP will get a huge second wind
The Lib Dems must be getting noticed Phil, they have signed up 6,000 new members since EU self destruction Day
ReplyDeleteDecided to take a look at the 2015 general election results to see if they foretold the leave vote. UKIP got around 4,000,000 votes in total, by far the biggest group after the Conservatives and Labour. If half of Tory voters also backed leave then you end up around ten million votes (9.8m). A large amount - but way off the 17.4m who did vote leave.
ReplyDeleteI guess that leaves us wondering what the other factors were? Labour voters being under no real 'whip' from their party? A large number of the 'extra' voters in the referendum (5% higher turnout than the election) supporting leave?
Who knows! I'm still slightly baffled by the result but its past that point now.
I'm more concerned by the Tory party leader candidates seeming to think that staying in the EEA and migration controls would be possible! Its very disheartening to think that the referendum was won based on fears about immigration, but today Stephen Crabb spelt ot out by saying that its clear 'immigration is the red line' for people. My hopes of a brexit negotiation that could focus on ridding us of needless beaurocracy and improving access to global markets - whilst keeping the positive elements of the EU (including free movement of labour) take a hit.
That's a fascinating quantitative analysis,Mike. It shows that the Leave support was genuinely cross party and probably some folks who don't normally vote. Whether you like the result or not, it's hard to portray it as just a bunch of xenophobic UKIP and right wing Tory supporters, even if a lot of them were concerned about immigration. On which point I think the Europhiles response in the campaign - to say that people were entirely right to be concerned about immigration but then to change the subject - may have made a lot of people determined to vote Leave. They know when condescension when they see it and they saw it in spades. Remain should have been brave and said "we can't control it and this is why it isn't a problem". No bottle!
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