Let's give as much charity as we can to every excuse that can be found.
The 'vaccine bounce' is not an illusion. It isn't anything like the whole story, but we have to make allowance for the sheer emotional relief of springtime, reopening and the semi-plausible belief that the era of lockdowns is over. No matter how much death and misery the government are to blame for, Boris Johnson's specific appeal to voters is that he makes them feel good about themselves. 'Bring us sunshine', the Daily Mail once mawkishly pleaded, and for those who like him, he does. If
depression is endemic in these isles, don't underestimate the power of anyone who appears to offer an anti-depressant.
The Brexit effect is real. In seats like Hartlepool, the surprise of 2017 was that they didn't go Tory, with the single exception of
Mansfield. In the previous general election of 2015, the combined Conservative and Ukip vote was easily over fifty percent in a slew of former Labour heartlands. This largely reflected the growing abstention of former Labour voters, but a minority were also energised by Ukip's racist agitation in a way that they wouldn't been by the Tories. Ukip functioned as a conversion machine, delivering lots of former non-voters, Liberal voters, independent voters and Labour voters to Tories in these constituencies. The collapse that was expected in 2017, when Farage was briefly in retirement and Ukip voters were expected to go Tory, was simply put off for a couple of years by a surprisingly effective Labour campaign and manifesto. More generally, the revival of the Conservative vote is a secular phenomenon. In every election since 2010, the Tories have increased their vote share. The biggest single factor in this is the rise of right-wing populism and its culmination in the Brexit vote.
Congruent with that shift, the Conservatives are no longer campaigning on a neoliberal, austerian ticket. They are talking about big structural investment. Tory mayor of Hartlepool, Ben Houchen, is popular because he supports some Labour-type policies: taking the local airport into public ownership, investment and industrial policy. The global context, which includes low borrowing costs for governments, the retreat of globalisation, the pandemic emergency, the rise of Chinese state capitalism as a superior competitor, and the concomitant shift in Washington, gives the Conservatives plenty of leeway for this. When Hillary Clinton talks about competing with China more effectively by reclaiming "the means of production", you know that the old Washington Consensus is finished. As L. P. Hartley wrote, "the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
The desperadoes of the Labour Right would add one more effect: the 'Corbyn effect'. Few beyond their incestuous sodalities will buy it, but let's give it as much charity as possible. Tom Watson is quite right to say that Labour was never going to turn round the 2019 defeat in a single year. It is also true to say that this defeat, as much as it was about Brexit and Labour's utter confusion on the issue, was also about the extent to which Corbyn himself had been vilified in the national media. It's also probably true that the denouement of Corbynism, after the enthusiasm of 2017, probably confirmed many people in their growing cynicism toward and contempt for Labour. It's also true that the defeat in 2019 demoralised and disoriented activists, and triggered a sequence leading to the decimation of the activist and small donor base. That has left campaigns strapped for door-knockers and cash.
Not much else can be said in favour of the 'blame Corbyn' argument, because it's an insane argument. If your vote drops more then points on that of your predecessor, it isn't convincing to blame your predecessor. Particularly if you've witch-hunted, suspended and denied the whip to your predecessor, an auto-da-fé put on precisely so that the current leader could boast about how different he was. This election campaign was run by the leadership office. The candidate, a dull figure of the centre-right, was imposed by the leadership. Even the timetable was chosen by the leadership office. The campaign was dominated, not by Corbynites, but by New Labour figures such as Peter Mandelson and Iain McNicol. The whole political strategy since early 2020, such as it is, has been determined by the leadership office. That strategy is what has been tested here, nothing else.
And this is where we come to Keir Starmer. Starmer reminds one of the character in Howard's End who has given up "the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas". Except that he has neither ideas nor tailcoat. Yet, half of the Corbyn base, given an admittedly uninspiring roster of candidates last year, and amid the demoralisation and rudderlessness mentioned above, chose him. I frankly think this speaks poorly of them. That they didn't cringe to listen to him speak. That he didn't make their teeth chatter and their skin crawl. That they really bought this balloon as a charismatic performer, as someone who could (even if he wished to) defend the core policies in a slick and professional way. One can only be reminded of those Lib Dems who genuinely thought that Jo Swinson was good on television, until she spent a bit more time on television. It's a sad testament to the mind-addling power of despair. And yet, of course, when the chips are down you see what that support amounts to. There was a big abstention of activists in these local elections (excepting, perhaps, in Manchester where Andy Burnham appears to draw genuine warmth). This is why constituency parties and the national office were bombarding members with emails begging for help. Since there isn't going to be a change of leadership, most people are voting with their feet.
Now, I've seen John McDonnell in the news explaining that he won't be asking for Starmer to resign. He says that would be behaving like the people who waged relentless, brutal war against Corbyn. I can see the game that McDonnell is playing. However, the rhetoric speaks volumes about what went wrong with the Corbyn leadership, and what goes wrong with the British Left in general. It's far too much in love with the moral high ground, when political battles aren't usually won on the moral high ground. And that's why we have Starmer, and that's why Starmer will get far worse before anything gets better.
