52 Britain The EconomistApril 14th 2018
T
HIS is supposedly an age of disruption. Across the world, es-
tablished giants are being slain by startups fuelled by nothing
more than brains and bravado. The most exciting question hang-
ing over Britain at the moment is whether the same spirit can be
applied to the country’s ossified political structure.
Rumours of a new political party abound. The Observerhas
suggested that Simon Franks, a film mogul, has amassed £50m
($70m) to fund a new party. The Timeshas revealed that David
Miliband, a former Labour foreign secretary, is willing to return
from New York to offer his services. Sir Nick Clegg, a former Liber-
al Democrat leader and David Cameron’s deputy prime minister,
has hinted that he might join a new party.
It’s easy to see why this talk generates such excitement. Many
Britons are repulsed by both Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left Labour
Party and Theresa May’s Brexified Tories. Some 56% tell pollsters
that no party represents their views. Moderate MPs from both
sides of the aisle make no secret of their contempt for their lead-
ers. Emmanuel Macron, who founded a new party to seize the
French presidency last year, provides a model and an inspiration.
Yet the British political system is likely to prove much more dif-
ficult to disrupt than, say, the British high street. The first-past-the-
post system is hard on startups—Britain has had only one nation-
ally successful and enduring new venture in the past hundred-
odd years, the Labour Party—and it is particularly hard on centrist
ones, because their voters tend to be evenly spread across the
country. The last centrist startup, the SDP-Liberal Alliance, won
25% of the vote in 1983 compared with Labour’s 28%, but only 23
seats compared with Labour’s 209.
People who hope for a great political realignment need to reck-
on with two obvious problems. The first is that Britain already
has a centre party. The Liberal Democrats, the heirs to the SDP-
Liberal Alliance, polled only 8% in last year’selection, on a plat-
form of reversing Brexit. The second is that the country is awash
with new parties. In the first three months of this year 35 new
ones were formed, including one called the Sensible Party.
Those who say the mooted new party would be different
point out that it is garlanded with big names. But the names are
the veryopposite of what you want in a disruptive party: fallen
Goliaths rather than plucky Davids. Mr Miliband is Davos Manincarnate (theTimesarticle lauding his reappearance quoted a
friend pointing out that the great man is “still attracted to Brit-
ain”). Sir Nick is a titled throwback to the Cameron years (perhaps
a rule of thumb for breaking the mould is not to give prominent
roles to people with knighthoods). The people problem is most
acute among the Lib Dems, who are led by a quintessential yes-
terday’s man, the 74-year-old Sir Vince Cable, and are represented
in Parliament by 12 lacklustre MPs and 98 peers.
Britain’s centrists are hopelessly divided over the most basic
strategic question: should they upturn British politics by starting
a new outfit, or tryto reclaim their ancestral parties from within?
This debate is most intense in Labour. Moderate MPs tried hard to
get rid of Mr Corbyn, only to see him hold onto his job and win
40% of the vote in last year’s election. Now they are restive again,
following rows over Russia and anti-Semitism. Some Labour MPs
still talk of forming a moderate parliamentary bloc and leaving
Mr Corbyn with the hard-left dregs. But the result is likely to be ex-
actly what it was last time: paralysis and drift, while Mr Corbyn
tightens his grip on the party apparatus.
The biggest problem for centrism is not practical but intellectu-
al. At the start of the century, centrists were convinced that they
had a winning formula: a free market in morals as well as eco-
nomics, and a determination to use the proceeds of growth to
help the poor. This philosophy colonised all three main parties.
But today it lies in ruins. The financial crisis has destroyed the cen-
tre’s reputation for economic competence. The concentration of
wealth in London has undermined its claim to stand for social
justice. And social liberalism is alienating conservative voters.
So far, centrists have done a singularly unimpressive job of
putting their philosophy back together. This is partly because
they are divided: between fundamentalists, who dismiss criti-
cisms of the old model as manifestations of closed-mindedness,
if not outright racism; and reformers, who recognise the need to
fix the model’s weaknesses. Brexit is also to blame. Many cen-
trists are being driven so mad by the vote to leave that they ha-
ven’t got the mental energy to think about why it happened in the
first place.Blame the script, not the actor
Reconstructing this centrist philosophy will be harder than build-
ing it was. New centrists need to start by understanding why their
philosophy has imploded, which means learning not only why
the financial system went into seizure but also why, even before
the crisis, so many people felt left behind, culturally as well as
economically. They also need to reconcile opposites. How do you
remain in the sensible centre while leading a revolution against
Britain’s new oligarchy, the clique of second-rate people in both
the public and private sectors who have got rich by sitting on each
other’s boards and marking each other’s homework? How do
you address technocratic questions about the wiring of capital-
ism (stock options, public listings, takeover rules) while fashion-
ing a compelling vision of a capitalism that works for everyone?
Time spent trying to rethink liberalism is much more likely to
be repaid than time spent building a new party. New parties sink
into the sand unless they are very lucky. New ideas can colonise
old parties and redirect old debates. Beatrice and Sidney Webb
said that the best way to change the country was to “permeate”
all its parties, left, right and centre, with ideas. Today’s centrists
need to do likewise, and focus on thinking up new ideas rather
than inventing new parties. 7The empty centre
Britain doesn’t need a new centrist party. It needs new ideasBagehot