Limbo Politics in Britain

The United Kingdom is in a political limbo. There are several reasons for this; Brexit, the weakness of Theresa May and the lack of credible alternatives.

When the United Kingdom voted narrowly in 2016 to leave the European Union, we knew there would be a period of uncertainty. Once Article 50 was triggered there would be a two year period for negotiations on the deal, and then the UK's membership would be finished.

However, since then negotiations have not progressed very much, and neither side has really been able to gain anything like an advantage. Part of the problem is the impression given that the UK government hasn't really worked out what it wants. Prime Minister Theresa May has repeated, many times, that 'Brexit means Brexit' and that 'no deal is better than a bad deal.'

This has meant there is a lot of uncertainty over the future, and what sort of deal will emerge, if any. But whatever we end up with, it will take many years for the full impact of Brexit to unravel, and so some decisions will be on hold for some time.  

The problem is, that the government's, and Mrs. May's, negotiating position is severely weakened by the result of the general election, which instead of the expected large Conservative majority, resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives cobbling together a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to be able to form a governing majority.

Mrs. May's position has been put in doubt by the result, and there is an appearance that at least one of her rivals, Boris Johnson, is manoeuvring himself into position and constantly undermining her by making comments related to Brexit.

Unfortunately for Mrs. May, her speech at the Conservative conference was somewhat hijacked by 'comedian' Simon Brodkin (which raised concerns about security) handing her a P45, which was followed by a series of coughing fits. While she handled these situations fairly deftly, it is the impression that is created that counts. Perception is everything, and these mishaps didn't create a air of confidence; not aided by letters falling off the board behind her as she spoke.

The message of her speech; energy prices, tuition fees which she wanted to get across are being buried by these events, and the news channels concentrate on the mishaps, rather than the positive message she tried to convey.

However, the Prime Minister does have a couple of things in her favour. Firstly, that none of those who would be considered rivals for her job; Boris Johnson, David Davis, Amber Rudd do not convince either. In fact, at least two of them would almost certainly be worse, and not enough is known about Amber Rudd to judge her abilities. Her very slim majority in Hastings does not help her cause if the position becomes vacant.

The second thing that favours her is the lack of alternatives from other parties. Jeremy Corbyn had a good election campaign, and the Labour Party bit into the Conservative vote enough to deny them a majority. There are various reasons for this; the paucity of the Tory campaign, the collapse of the Ukip vote and the failure of the Liberal Democrats to gain ground (despite ending up with four extra seats).

However, if Labour were unable to win against the worst Conservative campaign in living memory, and possibly any other for that matter, many question whether they can win next time. The party still has to show it can be trusted with the economy, even if you believe that to be an unfair perception, and it's still struggling to get that view countered.

The Conservatives, obviously, don't want to take that risk, and so will cling onto government (I'm reluctant to say power) for as long as possible, hoping that Labour's polling figures will fade over time.

Divisions within Labour still exist, although they put them aside, in the main, for the election campaign, and they may widen over time, especially as the election result, and various internal changes have strengthened Mr. Corbyn's grip on the party. He is entitled to do this, as he can claim that he did a lot better than expected, putting him in a position of strength.

Recent polling is still has the parties running very close, and so it appears the public does not really have that much confidence in either of them, but now we've returned to a two-party system, the alternatives, due in part to the electoral system, are very limited.

The Liberal Democrats failed to make any sort of breakthrough at the election. They gained four seats overall, but actually lost votes. Their leader at the time, Tim Farron, got embroiled in issues surrounding his personal beliefs, and eventually resigned because he couldn't reconcile those beliefs with being leader of the Liberal Democrats.

He has been succeeded by for Business Secretary Vince Cable, who is making all sorts of noises, but the Lab Democrats have a long way to go before they're a real voice again. They've tried to position themselves as the voice of the 48% that voted to remain in the European Union, but that has failed to gain ground.

Ukip's fall was the most spectacular, as their votes went to the Conservative and Labour parties, and they lost their single MP. They also lost their leader, Paul Nuttall, and have recently elected Henry Bolton to replace him. Ukip have tried to position themselves as the 'conscience of Brexit' and their future is dependent on how the negotiations go, and whether they start to regain some of their support.

So despite her weakened position, Mrs. May is safe for the time being. None of her potential rivals enthuses the electorate, the main opposition still does not persuade that they are ready for government. The economic future is very uncertain because negotiations with the EU have yet to progress sufficiently to see where the country will end up.

The DUP deal will enable the government to stay in place for at least two years, and by then a lot of things may have changed. New candidates for the top jobs in government will have emerged, some of whom may prove to have public appeal. Labour will continue to reshape itself, and could be in position to form a government if it wins the next election.

The UK in going to be in this limbo for some time, economically and politically, and there is no way of knowing which way things will go; only time will tell.





     

More questions than answers...........

To many Thursday's County Council election results were a 'game changer,' as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), seemed to come from virtually nowhere to win 147 councillors a gain of 136 on the same elections in 2009.

These gains were mainly at the expense of the Conservatives who were down 335 seats, although they remain the largest party in County Councils by some margin, having more than twice as many as the Labour Party.

These elections featured another poor performance by the Liberal Democrats, who lost around a quarter of their councillors. The Conservatives also lost about 25%, but they started from a much higher base, and so were always likely to suffer considerable losses.

The coalition partners then for the first time since forming the government in 2010 both suffered substantial losses, but is this just mid-term blues, or a taste of things to come?

Perhaps if the Labour Party had many more gains we could have read more into the results, but despite a gaining a very good 291 councillors, all that has happened is that Labour are back to where they were in 2009.

There were typical to and fros on Friday as both Conservative and Labour spokespeople each claimed the other had done terribly, trading figures back and forth, and really just generating more heat than light.

As a Labour Party supporter, I was pleased with the results on Thursday, especially as we made gains in areas where the party of often has difficulty making headway, such as the Sussex coastal area, the midlands and the west country. In the long run this may turn out to be more significant than whether or not Labour performed as well as they should have.

However, the real story of the 2013 County Council elections was the performance of UKIP, and whether  it heralds a sea-change in British politics (or perhaps more accurately English as UKIP's presence elsewhere is muted), or a protest vote against all the main parties, with whom the public have become increasingly disillusioned.

But UKIP have a number of problems to overcome before they could be said to have made a real impact on the political scene. True they have had candidates elected to the European Parliament for some time, but have never made much progress, until now, on the domestic scene, and still have got nowhere near having an MP elected.

In 2009's elections for the European Parliament, UKIP came second in the national vote, and many pundits are expecting that next year, they could well come out on top. But, until they have an MP elected under the UKIP banner, being taken seriously will be a problem for them.

There have been many rumours over the last year or so that a number of Conservative MP's might defect to UKIP, the principle issue being David Cameron's unwillingness to call a referendum on membership of the European Union. For Mr Cameron this is a delicate issue, as he too has problems with the EU, how it is administered and how much it costs. However, he is in the end, as is the Chancellor George Osborne, in favour of continued membership provided he can get the concessions he wants. Unfortunately for him, a substantial proportion of his own membership in including those MP's, want out altogether.

But, although a defection would cause the Prime Minister some embarrassment, losing a minor backbencher or two isn't an issue, until UKIP start to get members of Parliament elected under its own banner, advocating a UKIP manifesto.

On the face of it UKIP do present the greatest threat to the Conservative Party, but they can also affect the other main parties. Although Labour did not actually lose any councillors to UKIP on Thursday, inevitably some Labour supporters, for a number of reasons chose to vote for them, and almost certainly it cost Labour wins.

The UKIP performance also, probably, skews the performance of the Conservative party, as it is its supporters who switched here in the main, and without UKIP, the Tories losses would have been many fewer.

I think it would be dangerous to write off the UKIP performance as a mere protest vote, because politics has changed substantially over the last few years. The expenses scandal and the financial crisis has lowered people's opinion of politicians more than ever, and it's hard for leaders to make an impact. trust has gone, and UKIP leader's, Nigel Farage, bluff, bloke down the pub strategy is currently paying dividends.

As the elections drew closer, UKIP's candidates came under greater scrutiny, although not yet their policies, and demonstrated that they too have been caught out by their success, and have yet to put in place a proper candidate programme. Although as the other parties will vouch, that is no guarantee that the odd embarrassment won't slip through.

The General Election is two years away, and a lot will happen between now and then which could have a significant impact. The performance of the economy will be key, and the answers that each of the parties comes up with to deal with those issues.

Will the coalition hold together as they increasingly diverge in their approach? Will the Labour Party be able to come up with policies and rhetoric that enables the public to trust them again? Will the Conservative reaction to the UKIP threat be to lurch to the right, to allay that? Will the Liberal Democrats look to position themselves where they can benefit whichever of Conservative or Labour is the biggest party in 2015? Will UKIP make the breakthrough into Parliament they desire, and need, and become a new force in politics?

There is one other issue that may yet have an effect, and that's the referendum on Scottish independence due in 2014, only eight months before the General Election. A yes vote would create problems, as independence itself would not become a fact until around March 2016.

Would Scotland still send MP's to the House, only to have them leave once independence became a fact? If they did, and there were enough Labour MP's (Conservatives currently being weaker in Scotland than elsewhere in Great Britain) to either make them the biggest party, or even give them a big majority?

Alternatively, the Conservatives could move from being the biggest party to becoming a majority one, having once again been in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Would they dump their junior partners, and form a new government on their own?

Anyway, having strayed off the point a bit here, what does the County Council elections of 2013 tell us about the British political scene?

Not much in the end, the main parties both did pretty much as expected, UKIP did better than expected, but now they have entered the mainstream they will come under greater scrutiny. But with two years to go until a General Election, and European Elections and a Scottish independence referendum in between, there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment, so making predictions is a fool's game.