The Economist May 14th 2022 Britain 55A progressiveprisoner’sdilemma
A
hierarchy ofhate exists on the progressive wing of British
politics. True, Labour wallahs may not like their Conservative
colleagues. But they save their real contempt for the Liberal Demo
crats, whom they deride as spineless cynics and dirty campaign
ers. In a feat of projection, the Lib Dems detest the Greens because
it is annoying to have a small party with no chance of power
snatch precious votes. Meanwhile, everyone loathes the Scottish
National Party (snp) to the point that, when its Westminster lead
er, Ian Blackford, rises to speak in the House of Commons, an au
dible groan often echoes around the chamber.
Progressive parties in Britain struggle to work together, which
keeps them out of power. That is not because of a lack of voters.
Surprisingly, for a country that usually elects Conservative gov
ernments, the bulk of British voters support progressive parties.
In every postwar election bar 2015, more voters supported pro
gressive parties (Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the snp and the
Greens) than conservative ones (the Conservative Party and its
cousins on the radical right). Yet, owing to the iniquities of Brit
ain’s firstpastthepost electoral system, the government usually
has a conservative bent.
In effect, Britain’s progressive parties are stuck in a prisoner’s
dilemma. Cooperation would be better for all, yet they never
quite manage it. Signs are emerging, however, that the dilemma
has been solved. Changing electoral geography, a shift in Labour’s
politics and canny voting behaviour suggest that Britain’s progres
sive parties could, for once, be more than the sum of their parts.
Although Labour are only slightly ahead of, or level with, the Con
servatives in most polls, progressive parties have a 20point lead
over their conservative rivals. A happy equilibrium has been
reached. The prisoners could soon escape.
For starters, there is less incentive to fight each other. Progres
sive parties no longer tread on the turf of their peers. Sheffield Hal
lam, a leafy suburb of the Yorkshire city, is the only marginal con
stituency where Labour faces off against the Lib Dems. The Lib
Dems predominantly battle the Conservatives in tighter races:
around 70 of their 90 winnable target seats are Toryheld. As a re
sult, peace has broken out in recent byelections. Labour barely
put up a fight in North Shropshire, when the previously safe Con
servative seat fell to the Lib Dems. A similar strategy will be em
ployed in forthcoming byelections. A new era of nonaggression
between the two parties, similar to one in the 1990s, is under way.
There is also less to scrap over in terms of ideology. Politics has
settled down after a frenzied period, when both Labour and Con
servatives dabbled in populism on the left and right. Brexit is no
longer the beallandendall of British politics. Jeremy Corbyn,
the fomer, hardleft Labour leader, made those wavering between
the Lib Dems and the Conservatives nervous about not plumping
for the Tories. Now, Labour is a more centrist option. Sir Keir
Starmer was elected to lead the party on a softleft ticket, and has
since dragged Labour even more to the right. A mushy consensus
blurs the lines between Labour, the Lib Dems and the snp.
That means progressive parties can focus on their target voters.
If there is no challenge from rival parties for their metropolitan
base, Labour can focus on winning seats that turned Tory at the
last election. Likewise, the Liberal Democrats have previously
been an incoherent mixture of lowtax liberals and disaffected so
cial democrats. Now the party can focus on welloff, liberal Con
servative voters in southern England. Call them Tesla Tories: those
voters who were happy under David Cameron but chafe at the pop
ulist diet of illiberalism and tax rises served up by Boris Johnson.
Across southern England, Conservative mps are nervous.
Councils such as Somerset fell to the Lib Dems in local elections
on May 5th. Talk of “levelling up” northern England sounds a lot
like taking tax revenues raised in the south and spending them in
the north. If Conservative voters in the Home Counties wanted
that, they would have voted Labour in the first place. To placate
them the Conservatives could admit that levelling up involves lit
tle money actually being spent. But that would upset their new
supporters. Clinging on to both sets of voters, without the centri
petal force of Brexit, is a tricky task.
It is one made harder by the efficiency of the Conservative vote.
British politics follows the same principles as Wilkins Micawber’s
finances. Theresa May managed 42.4% of the vote in 2017. Result:
misery, and a hung parliament. In 2019 Mr Johnson won an extra
300,000 votes, hitting 43.6%. Result: happiness, and an 80seat
majority. A small swing has a big effect. British politics obsesses
over the newest marginal voter—the extra shilling in Mr Micaw
ber’s formula. It was new voters across the Midlands and northern
England that won Mr Johnson his majority. It is forgotten Conser
vative voters in the south of England who stand to take it away. Knight, knight Boris
A formal deal between progressive parties would either be point
less or harmful. Scottish independence would become a live issue
if the snpwere involved in a pact. Oliver Dowden, part Conserva
tive Party chairman and part political Rottweiler, accused Labour
and the Liberal Democrats of a secret stitchup ahead of the local
elections. By causing a fuss, the hope is that a Tesla Tory in Win
chester may still blanch at voting Lib Dem because of the thought
of a Labourled government. The truth is that there is no need for a
formal pact when a tacit one is already in place.
Breaking out of jail will be the easy bit. Even pollsters optimis
tic about Labour’s chances think that a governing coalition of op
position parties is likely to be a total mess. Any such coalition
would probably consist of three parties, or a complicated confi
denceandsupply deal, in which junior parties support aLabour
government on specific votes. The progressive parties do stillhate
each other, after all. But being in power beats being in prison.nBagehot
Labour and the Lib Dems are learning to play nicely with each other