Why Blairites would rather be led by Theresa May than by Jeremy Corbyn

I urge anyone genuinely interested in British politics to set aside the time and quiet needed to read this truly gripping and original article by Rafael Behr from Tuesday���s Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/how-remain-failed-inside-story-doomed-campaign

leave aside its tiresome assumption that all those reading it will sympathise with the pro-EU case. Its portrayal of the deep and committed collaboration between the Tory Party and the organised Blairite Left is superbly telling.

I have long maintained that there is no profound political division between New Labour and the Tories, and that the two are in effect one party. Here are factual details to demonstrate that this is truly so.  

This passage

���With non-partisan zeal that impressed their colleagues, the Tories on the team agreed to a script aimed at core Labour voters, which included the threat that Brexit would ���turn industrial heartlands into wastelands��� and ���finish the job that Thatcher started���.

'Old party rivalries were largely banished from the campaign ���war room��� at Stronger In���s Cannon Street headquarters. Researchers and press officers who had been savaging each other���s work for years now collaborated amicably. Residual tensions stayed below the surface. Former Labour staffers, moderate refugees fleeing the hard-left takeover under Corbyn, sometimes bristled at what they saw as unmerited swagger in the step of the Downing Street contingent, who expected to easily replicate their victory in the previous May���s general election. ���They arrived like an occupying force,��� recalls one former Labour staffer. ���They came in with a sense of, ���Step aside and we���ll tell you how it���s done.������

'But over the course of the campaign, the most senior remainers found collegiate sympathy in a shared world view. As one put it: ���We were the pluralist, liberal, centrist force in British politics.������ (my emphasis, PH)

 

Followed by this one

 

���Pro-Europeanism became a proxy for the fusion of economic and social liberalism that had been a dominant philosophy of the political mainstream for a generation, although its proponents were scattered across partisan boundaries. These centrists were the ruling class of an unrecognised state ��� call it Remainia ��� whose people were divided between the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems; like a tribe whose homeland has been partitioned by some insouciant Victorian cartographer. (My emphasis, PH)

'In the days when the politics of the fringe did not threaten their intellectual security, adherents of New Labour, the Lib Dems and ���Cameroon��� Conservatives had never seen themselves as a fellowship of moderation. Before Corbynite radicalism seized the left and Ukip���s vinegary nationalism suffused the right, debate was conducted in shades of difference within a broad consensus. But as the referendum approached, Stronger In became the informal party of defensive liberalism ��� the unpopulists ��� although that had never been the intention.��� (my emphasis, PH)

And you have the core of it.

In the same issue of the Guardian you can also find this equally fascinating analysis:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/post-referendum-politics-eu-vote

by Andrew (Lord) Cooper, a Tory peer and pollster, who advised the ���Remain��� campaign

which correctly grasps the real divide in British politics. Again, ignore the petty caricaturing of the traditional conservative tendency ���nationalist��� instead of patriotic, ���fearful��� of globalisation rather than damaged by it and therefore rationally hostile to it, ���preoccupied��� by immigration rather than, once again, reasonably concerned by it . The analysis is broadly, even strikingly right. One should also note that the statements with which they are said to be in agreement (���I hardly recognise the country I live in any more��� and ���If I could wave a magic wand and take the UK back to the 1950s, I would��� were devised by liberal elite pollsters, and were not the original words of the people polled, who might well have expressed their sentiments in ways a little less like Polly Toynbee���s idea of what they think. Even so, it is a good analysis of the state opinion in this country,. There���s certainly no ���silent majority���, but there is a large and vigorous if shrinking, minority, which feels mistreated and left out.

Note first of all Lord Cooper���s point that ���The research that informs political campaigns is much more sophisticated than published polls. We don���t just want to know who is going to vote one way or the other. We need to understand what perceptions and arguments cause people to come to the voting conclusion that they do. This means looking beyond demographic and regional factors to map the electorate on the basis of attitudes and behaviour. We need to identify our core vote ��� and our opponent���s ��� and to define, with as much nuance as possible, the voters who are genuinely in play: what they think and feel about the choice before them and which messages, messengers and modes are the most effective in persuading them.���

And then : ���The foundational research showed Britain divided into three almost equal chunks. The first chunk ��� 34% of the population ��� was internationalist in outlook; socially liberal; positive about globalisation, immigration and multiculturalism; and optimistic about the future. For these voters, the economy was by far the most important issue in the referendum. They were overwhelmingly going to vote remain, regardless of the terms of the debate.

'The second chunk ��� at that stage, 32% of the population ��� was diametrically opposed: nationalist in outlook; socially conservative; fearful of globalisation; opposed to multiculturalism; preoccupied by immigration; pessimistic about the future; and very hostile to the EU. For these voters, immigration was far and away the most important issue in the referendum; most of them favoured ending free movement, even if this made Britain worse off. The attitude that most characterised them was ���I hardly recognise the country I live in any more���. More than half of them agreed with the statement ���If I could wave a magic wand and take the UK back to the 1950s, I would���. Their imperative was to shut out the consequences of globalisation and open markets. These voters were overwhelmingly going to vote leave, regardless of the arguments.

���The third chunk ��� 34% of the population ��� was conflicted. These people were the in-play voters: the primary target for both campaigns in the EU referendum. They were very clear that they didn���t like the EU, and why: uncontrolled immigration, the huge direct cost of membership, too much meddling in our laws and lives. They were torn between the appealing idea of insulating the UK from the pressures of an open world, and fear of the idea of a Britain outside the EU, isolated and alone. They were defined by the attitude that ���my heart wants to leave the EU, but my head says it may be too risky���.���

Amidst all this, Mrs Theresa May seems to think her main task is to reunite the Tory Party,  an impossible alliance of people with wholly incompatible beliefs, and a major obstacle to intelligent thought or useful action.  Surely that���s the last thing Britain actually needs? Many of her party (perhaps Mrs May herself)  would surely be happier in New Labour, or merging with it, if unity is what they want. What's quite certain is that New Labour would be happier with Mrs May as their leader than with Jeremy Corbyn, which I for one find quite funny. 

 

Then the rest of us would realise we need to start a party of our own, if we're to have any friends at Westminster.