Labour's performance in yesterday's election was abysmal. By comparison, Labour's poor performance under Corbyn in 2019, looks amazingly good. The lessons are clear. In 2017, under Corbyn, as Labour won over millions of progressive young people, it saw its membership and its vote increase by the most since 1945. It appeared to offer hope and progress compared to the Tories. Hope that Brexit could be stopped, progress away from the austerity that the conservatives of both Blairism and Toryism offered as their solutions. The mistake was Corbyn's collapse back into reactionary nationalism, as he advocated a "Labour Brexit", and along with his continual backsliding and appeasement of the right inside Labour that spent all its time undermining him. Starmer was the child of that right-wing fifth column, and Labour's collapse is the consequence.
The most obvious takeaway is, as Clive Lewis pointed out, that the turnout was down by 11,000 votes, or about 25% compared to 2019. The 2019 turnout at 41,000 was about the same as 2017. The fall in the vote is 3,000 more than the fall in Labour's vote, indicating that what has happened is that lots of progressive, anti-Brexit Labour voters sat at home rather than vote for Starmer's lacklustre, pro-Brexit Labour Party. The further evidence of that is that the vote for Brexit supporting Tory/BP parties itself was down by 50%. In 2019, the combined Tory Brexit Party vote was more than 22,000. In 2021, it has fallen to just 15,000. Meanwhile, the ridiculous Northern Independence Party deservedly got a derisory 250 votes.
Hartlepool is a strange constituency, but even a look at Labour's vote since 2015 is a useful guide. In 2015, Labour polled 14,000 votes, representing 35% of the poll. That was about the same as it had polled in 2010. Those votes, themselves were significantly down from the average Labour vote of the 1980's and 90's, and early 2000's, when Labour was racking up votes in the mid 20,000's. In 1979, Labour scored 27,000. In 1983, when Labour had its "left-wing" manifesto under Michael Foot, Labour polled 22,000 votes, or 45% of the poll.
In 1997, Labour's candidate was the arch pro-EU candidate, Peter Mandelson, who romped home with 27,000 votes, or 60% of the poll. The Tories were left in the dust, not that far ahead of the Liberals, whilst the referendum party raising the issue of the EU, were nowhere, on just 1,700 votes. The idea that what drives voters away from Labour in Hartlepool, or anywhere else, is its pro-EU stance is clearly nonsense, particularly given that, in 2019, Corbyn had returned to his Brexit friendly position, and Labour's vote declined, whilst in this election, Starmer is in full throttle pro-Brexit stance, and Labour was trounced!!!
In 1997, of course, Labour nationally won a huge majority, as the electorate got fed up of the Tories continual bickering over the EU, whilst they had run the economy into the ground, with the infrastructure left to rot, as the concentrated on inflating asset price bubbles. But, in the following elections, voters saw that things were not that much different under Blair.
Blair was lucky. From 1999, the world economy enjoyed the start of a new long wave upswing. Blair, who had continued the Tory austerity measures in 1997, and actually produce budget surpluses for four years, was able to start spending on the NHS and infrastructure, as the expanding global economy rubbed off on the sclerotic British economy too, and taxes rose along with other revenues. But, apart from spending money on public services, a lot of it not very effectively, Blair continued most of the approach of Thatcher and Major. The Tories had negotiated opt-outs of Britain from various pieces of EU laws on workers' rights, and Blair never opted Britain back into them, just as he never overturned all of the Tory anti-union laws. And, like the Tories, he continued to pump us asset price bubbles in the financial markets, and housing market, leading to the inevitable bursting of those bubbles in 2008.
Along with that continuation of Tory policies, Blair also joined Britain at the hip with the right-wing regime of George Bush in the US, and its imperialistic military adventures, such as in the Balkans, and in the Gulf. Labour's vote quickly began to decline again, reflecting a return to its long term decline that had been going on ever since 1945. In 2004, the consequence of that was clear to see. Labour's vote collapsed by 18%, down to under 13,000. But, it wasn't Tories, or UKIP that benefited. In 2001, the Tories had secured nearly 8,000 votes, representing 21%, but in 2004, the combined vote of the Tories and UKIP was just 6,000 votes representing only 20%. Rather, it was the very pro-EU, and anti-war Liberals who had marched forward, with nearly 11,000 votes, or 34%, representing an increase of 18% over 2001.
So, let's jump forward to 2015, and the comparison with the intervening elections. In 2015, Labour's vote was 14,000, having recovered slightly from its depths at the height of Blair's unpopularity during the Iraq War. But, the big improvement in Labour showing came in 2017, just as it did across the country. Under Corbyn's leadership, the party not only recruited tens of thousands of new, young, progressive members, but its vote surged by more than it had done since the landslide of 1945. Not even the landlslide victory of 1997, compared to 2017, in terms of the increase in vote share.
In Hartlepool, Labour's vote went up from 14,000 to 22,000, a 50% increase. It represented 52% of the poll, and itself an increase of 17%. Labour had just fought the EU Referendum on a program of Remaining in the EU, but fighting for socialist policies to be adopted within it. In 2017, it was clear that to stop Brexit, only a vote for Labour could achieve it.
So, the idea that Labour's fortunes today rest upon either a further collapse into nationalism, and wrapping yourself in the butcher's apron, as Starmer has been doing, or in abandoning the more progressive social-democratic policies that had come forward under Corbyn, is clearly nonsense. The right, continually undermined Corbyn, with their votes of no confidence by the PLP, the leadership challenge, only a year after he had taken over, then their campaign against the rank and file of the party, accusing them of bullying and so on, before they eventually settled on "anti-Semitism" as their trojan horse of choice. The internal report on the actions of the right within Labour's permanent bureaucracy, showed the extent to which they tried to undermine Corbyn, even at the cost of votes. The TV documentary following right-wing MP's during the 2017 election, showed the extent to which they were themselves looking forward to a poor performance, as the excuse to once again attack Corbyn. Instead, Labour came within a whisker of winning the election.
The loss in 2019, was the result of a combination of factors. Firstly, Corbyn himself and his Stalinoid backers could not separate out the idea that the support for the progressive social-democratic policies they had been pursuing did not carry over into support for the reactionary nationalism they had advocated since the 1970's, when they opposed the EEC, and supported the calls of the Alternative Economic Strategy for import controls, and so on. They just could not help themselves in trying to sneak that reactionary agenda back into Labour's stance. Despite the fact that their support for such positions had gone nowhere in the years after the 1980's, that the reactionary electoral ventures such as No2EU, had deservedly collected derisory votes, they thought that, now, somehow, it would be different.
The reality showed up in the Spring elections of 2019, when Labour's vote collapsed, as all those new young, progressive, EU supporting voters, millions of whom had come to Labour from the Liberals and Greens, or simply from apathy, deserted it, rather than support that reactionary position. Even 60% of Labour members voted for pro-EU candidates, rather than Labour in those elections. The reality was that, even in constituencies that voted heavily overall for Lave, a clear majority of Labour voters, backed Remain. So, shifting to a pro-Brexit position was crazy in electoral terms, as well as being thoroughly reactionary.
Labour also suffered, because from the moment he was elected Leader, Corbyn backtracked and appeased the right, rather than confronting them. His backers in Momentum, also went along with that strategy, whereas what was necessary after 2015, was to have not only built the rank and file basis, but to have organised it, turned it outwards, into active local campaigning, and quietly to have, in the process, been systematically replacing all of the old right-wing Councillors, and apparatchiks, and constructing a new cadre of politicians to replace them. It was necessary to have again without fanfare to have democratised the party, introducing mandatory reselection of MP's, so that all of those right-wing and Blair-right MP's that continually undermined Corbyn, could have been removed.
By appeasing the right, Corbyn and his Stalinoid backers only encouraged them to press ahead further, and the crescendo came with all of the anti-Semitism claims that like all witch hunts, took an element of truth, and inflated it into a huge self-sustaining lie. That there were anti-Semites in Labour, as in every other party, was undoubtedly true - indeed all sorts of bigots have been Labour members from its inception, including Keir Hardie - but this fact was turned into the idea that this anti-Semitism was rampant within Labour, and that it was exclusively a result of Corbyn's Leadership, and that was palpable nonsense. Yet, Corbyn and his backers failed to challenge it, and again simply appeased that notion.
Keir Starmer is the child of this process. On the one hand, he met the needs of hundreds of thousands of Labour members, who opposed Corbyn's collapse into Brexitism. During all that time, it was Starmer that proposed the Six tests that in reality meant that Labour could never support any possible Brexit deal. On the other, he was seen as not a return to the days of Blair and Brown. But, as I wrote at the time, Starmer would be the worst of all worlds. Had Long-Bailey won the leadership, then it would have meant Labour would likely push further forward with the reactionary Brexitism, whilst the right would have split the party, doing all in their power to take the name and machinery. They would have taken some of the unions with them, with others probably following in the years after. Under Stalinoid leadership, the Labour Party would have gone the same way as Stalinoid parties and other such social-democratic parties have gone, into obscurity.
But, a win for Starmer was bound to lead to the events that have been seen. The right pressed down upon him to distance Labour from Corbynism, which he has done, creating division and destruction in the party. Tens of thousands of activists have left. Those that remain are consumed by antipathy to Starmer, who has himself become a bigger Brexiter, and reactionary economic nationalist than even Corbyn was. The drive for that is the inveterate opportunism and electoralism of Labour, which meant that the right-wing populists in its midst demanded such a swing in the expectation of picking up votes in the former, so called red wall seats, such as Hartlepool. Well the reality of that has now been seen clearly, just as it was seen in the collapse of Labour's vote in Spring 2019, compared to its surge in 2017.
When its pointed out to the Right that Labour lost the elections of 2010, and 2015, as well as that of 2019, they simply respond by saying that, well, in that case its necessary to also tackle Milibandism, and Brownism as well as Corbynism. In other words, for the Labour Right, nothing less will do other than a return to the Thatcherite policies of Blair in the early 2000's. As I pointed out more than a year ago, nothing different should have been expected from them. It shows how crazy the position of the Stalinists was, but also of people like Paul Mason, who advocated the stance of the Stalinoid Popular Front, in support of Starmer and a supposed, but, in reality, non-existent centre. That centre is rather like Trotsky's description of the liberal bourgeoisie that the Spanish Stalinists sought to ally with. Trotsky described it as a "ghost class", who reality had abandoned their political representatives, and already gone over to the fascists. The same is true in relation to the supposed Labour "centrists", they are already tied inextricably to the Right.
Starmer will be forced by the Right to move even further in that reactionary direction. They are already blaming their defeat on what they are calling "Long Corbyn", a reference to the equally vacuous, and ill-defined "Long Covid", that has been confected by those that want to defend the policy of lock-outs, despite the fact that the virus almost exclusively affects the elderly, and to cover their abject failure during the catastrophe of those lock-outs to have protected the elderly from the virus. If he fails to do that, then the Right will themselves quickly move against him. We cannot tie ourselves to Starmer, and his abject failure, in the way that Paul Mason proposed, simply on the basis of some kind of lesser-evilism.
The Right claimed that 2019 was the worst Labour performance since 1935. In fact, it wasn't, but claiming it was suited the Right's agenda. Labour's performance in terms of vote share was worse in 1983, and 1987, and not much different in 1992. In fact, if Labour's collapse in Scotland is taken into consideration, Labour's performance in 2019, was much better than that in 1992 also. That does not mean it wasn't bad, for the reasons set out above, but even compared with those bad performances, Starmer's performance, now, is much, much worse, and the blame resides entirely with him, and the conservative, reactionary nationalist agenda he has been pursuing.
In fact, in terms of these elections, it was even worse than that. Day after day, Starmer has wrapped himself in the butcher's apron, and similarly backed every reactionary nationalist stance of Boris Johnson, over Brexit, immigration controls, defence of British war criminals and so on. But, in terms of Labour's positions set out in these elections, it was completely apolitical. In 2017, and 2019, Labour activists were out in force, whilst this time they have been almost nowhere to be seen, and not surprisingly. Meanwhile, the Labour leaflets have talked about the local candidates valiant efforts to clean up dog shit, to have green spaces protected, and other such trivia that could just as easily be pursued by any civic minded individual of any political persuasion!
It is necessary to rebuild Labour, and the labour movement. As a signal of that, Starmer must go, and a campaign to that end must must be started. better that such a campaign be originated form the Left, than from the Right. But, we cannot make the same mistake as that which arose with Corbyn, and which I had warned against, at the time of his nomination. That is, its not about some new saviour, not about some new cult of personality. The Leader must be simply the reflection of real changes inside the party itself, which requires a militant programme of party building and democratisation.
That is why, in 2019, I argued that we should back Clive Lewis as the replacement for Corbyn. Lewis has not collapsed into Brexitism in the way that Starmer has done, but, more importantly, he offers a perspective of democratising Labour, a process that Starmer and the Right will now try to prevent, as they attempt to purge the Left, and impose more authoritarian and bureaucratic control. The collapse of Starmer into Brexitism is itself ironic, because, it will itself, put Labour on the wrong side of history, as everywhere the forces of right-wing populism start to be put on the back foot.
The most obvious sign is in the US. Again contrary to the hyperbola that was spoken by Paul Mason and others, in January, that we were about to see a surge of fascism and fascist violence, nothing of the kind has happened. Nor was it likely, because thee ruling class has no need of fascism, and has every reason to be worried about its manifestation as a movement of the reactionary, nationalist, petty-bourgeoisie. The ruling class has not only moved against the fascist foot soldiers, rounding them up, and beginning to break apart their organisations, but it has also moved against those prominent maverick politicians such as Trump that acted as their mouthpiece. Expect indictments to come forward for Trump and his cohorts in coming weeks, but also for all of their international counterparts, including those that were part of the Brexit campaign in Britain.
As the inevitable disaster of Brexit manifests itself day by day, not only in its economic consequences, but in the break-up of Britain, not to mention the almost daily conflicts emerging with the much more powerful EU, such as over the Northern Ireland Protocol, and now over fishing in Jersey, with other conflagrations likely in Gibraltar, Scotland and so on, the last place that Labour wants to be positioned, is as Boris Johnson's bag man!
Johnson, models himself on Churchill. But, of course, despite all the crap talked about him, Churchill himself was a disaster. Everything he touched turned to shit, from Gallipoli, to Singapore, Dunkirk, it was one military disaster after another. Britain was saved in WWII, by first the USSR, who after it entered the war in December 1941, spelled the end for Hitler, as well as by the US, which ensured that a Britain in danger of being starved into submission by Germany, was kept fed and supplied across the Atlantic, and which, when it also entered the war, was able to turn back the army of Rommel, in North Africa, which, again, had defeated and the British. But, at least in WWII, Britain was still a world power, in a way that today it is not, and never will be. Johnson's sending of the gunboats to jersey was an act of sheer stupidity, which could go nowhere, and merely acts to further antagonise the EU, upon whose good graces the future of Britain continues to depend.
Support for the EU has never been stronger inside Europe, including within Britain. Tiredness over Brexit should not be confused for any such lack of support for the idea of Europe, particularly amongst its younger, more progressive populations. As I have written previously, its not just in the cities that such progressive voters reside. They form also a growing proportion of the voters in those so called "red wall" seats. Labour will never win over the reactionary Tory voters, and those that have traditionally supported those to the Right of the Tories, and nor should they seek to do so, by advocating the kind of reactionary politics those voters support. But, in abandoning both the anti-Brexit stance of Labour in 2016/17, as well as the more progressive social-democratic agenda of 2017, Labour will certainly lose those progressive voters, either to the dead-end of the Liberals, Greens, Plaid, SNP and so on, or to apathy.
So far, I have only seen early results from local council elections, but its already clear from those that the Greens, who have taken on the mantle of a more progressive alternative to Labour have moved forward, as labour has moved backwards. The results, of course, show a much bigger shift to the Tories, but I suspect that further analysis of the vote will show the reason for that is that large numbers of progressive Labour voters in those seats, have abandoned Labour for the Greens and Liberals, or else have sat on their hands, allowing the Tories in, rather than it being any significant increase in the Tory vote itself.
We need to provide a standard around which those progressive forces can rally, as happened in 2016/17. Its starting point must be opposition to reactionary nationalism and Brexit. We need a radical, progressive, socialist campaign to re-join the EU, at the earliest opportunity, and a struggle with European workers for a Workers' Europe.
Rejoin The EUBuild A Workers' EuropeWorkers of the World Unite
For A Socialist United States of Europe
6 comments:
Agreed that Starmer is proving to be a terribly uninspiring Labour leader, but I need to make several points here.
Firstly Hartlepool wasn't a typical red wall constituency: it was not only the most Brexity constituency in North East England (over 69% Leave in 2016) but had a wider attraction to rebellion against the establishment (the election of H'Angus the Monkey as mayor being another example). It's likely that they're still hung up on Brexit, and weren't just inherently suspicious of Starmer for pushing for a second referendum, but were also offended by Labour foisting another anti-Brexit candidate on them in the shape of Dr Paul Williams (he defied the Labour whip 6 times to vote in support of a second referendum).
Secondly, we need to consider pork-barrel politics as an important factor in the Tory local election surge. Many Tory candidates promised fairly explicitly that areas which elected Tories would be rewarded for it in the form of more investment from Westminster. The Tory mayor of Tees Valley is also extremely popular (in part for his rather un-Tory decision to take Teesside Airport back into public ownership) and I guess some of his popularity may also have rubbed off onto their candidate in Hartlepool.
Thirdly, another problem with red wall type places more generally (which makes it far more difficult for Labour to campaign there in the era since traditional heavy industry collapsed) is that they tend to have low house prices and thus high homeownership rates.
While grasping landlords are a very obvious class enemy in big metropolitan cities (which is the reason why in spite of its dreadful overall result in 2019, Labour still held pretty much every big city in England and Wales except Stoke) the red wall towns don't have a similarly obvious class enemy with which to mobilize Labour voters.
While left policies are good at mobilizing the young (who are likely to be private tenants and/or in precarious employment), they also alienate the homeowning majority who dominate the majority of constituencies. Almost no constituencies in the UK where homeownership exceeds 70% vote Labour, except in greater Merseyside (where British nationalism is unusually weak due to the Sun boycott and the large Irish population) and in South Wales.
And a fourth point: perhaps the youth turnout was depressed even more than normal (for local elections let alone general elections) because the young have borne the brunt of the harm from lockdowns? In the US it is notable that Trump (in spite of his terrible record) got about 10 million more total votes in 2020 than in 2016: may of these additional votes were likely to be anti-lockdown protest votes. That was particularly notable among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
Perhaps in these recent elections in the UK, young voters were alienated not just from the Starmerites (which they see as abandoning them in a futile pursuit of old culturally-conservative voters) but also from the Corbynites (many of which are seen as embracing Zero Covid fanaticism, even though the UK is structurally incapable of sealing its borders to the degree necessary to get the kind of outcome seen in Australia or New Zealand)?
George,
Some goo points on non-Brexit issues that I don't currently have time to go into. On Brexity seats, I disagree. A 70% Leave vote for the seat does not mean that a majority of Labour voters voted Brexit, as I've set out before. Most of the Brexit vote comes from Tories, fascists, non-voters. As I've set out in a new post, the biggest thing was the 25% reduction in turnout. Its not labour voters voting Tory, but more Labour voters sitting on their hands proportionally than Tory/BP voters.
I'll try to read your other points in more detail when I have more time, but I'm somewhat pressed at the moment.
In a constituency as Brexity as Hartlepool it seems quite likely that almost half of (2015) Labour voters voted for Brexit: it's likely that in the recent by-election those voters overwhelmingly abstained or voted for minor candidates, as did the roughly half of the Brexit Party vote that didn't switch to the Tories. One of the other noticeable points about Hartlepool is that the Liberal Democrats (who almost won there in 2004) received barely more than 1% of the vote in 2021.
While you're right of course that Labour would likely be better served by trying to bring younger and poorer voters to the polls, I don't believe that being ostentatiously pro-EU is the way to do that. Activists opposed to Brexit tended to have a very different demographic profile to Remain voters as a whole: they tended to be older and a lot more comfortably off, but Europhile for more personal reasons (for example a lot of them had worked in mainland Europe, or owned second homes there).
I suspect a lot of young precariat workers hated the EU (in part for the Eurozone's austerity policies: note that the Euro issue will make "rejoin" a more difficult sell than "remain" was, even after the effect of vaccine nationalism wears off). They voted Remain nevertheless (if they were old enough in 2016 to do so) simply because they hated the Faragists and the Britannia Unchained gang even more.
George,
Still very busy. Remember the Hartlepool MP, was once the very pro-Brexity, Liberal Mandelson, who won with thumping votes and majorities, at a time when the Tories were saying "Only A Week to Save The £", and Farage was nipping their heels.
I'm not surprised the Liberals have gone backwards in Hartlepool and elsewhere. Its because like Starmer they have abandoned their anti-Brexit stance. No wonder in most places they are being supplanted by the Greens, who are becoming the party of choice for the progressive middle class. I don't think many anti-Brexit activists have either worked, or have second homes in Europe. The reason for their anti-Brexitism is far more ideologically based than that.
As for young people, obviously they are not all the same, but support for the EU is way, way higher amongst the young in all categories than for other age groups. I suspect that freedom to go to Ibiza, and so on weighs more heavily on them, and remember even amongst the young precariat, many if not the majority have had higher education, and things like access to it, and to jobs in Europe is even more important. I suspect after this Summer as people see in practice just what a pain Brexit is just in relation to holidays that will become more apparent, especially given the appalling weather of Britain. As for austerity, Britain has been the central source of such policies since the 1980's under Thatcher.
I don't agree about the Euro. The £ will inevitably sink over time, and for holidays is already below parity with the € after commissions etc. Going in at a low exchange rate avoids the problems encountered with the ERM, but simply all of the saving for companies and ordinary people of a single currency make overwhelming sense, not to mention when it comes to single bank accounts with what are already EU wide banks such as Santander.
If you think the young hated the Faragists and Jingoists before wait until Starmer goes full British Bulldog, and people simultaneously see all the horrors of Brexit! I thought Corbyn was inept, but compared to this lot he looks a tactical geius.
Don't you mean "the very pro-EU, Liberal Mandelson"?
I suspect a lot of culturally-conservative voters may have been willing then to overlook their cultural differences with Mandelson, because of their rising house prices (middle-aged) or old-age benefits such as winter fuel allowance and free TV licence (elderly). The problem is that the Tories were able to provide even more goodies for pensioners, paid for by screwing over the younger population (with which old voters no longer felt any solidarity, as much of them had abandoned places like Hartlepool in favour of Newcastle, Leeds or London).
The collapse of the Liberal vote could hardly have been because they "abandoned their anti-Brexit stance" not just because Hartlepool is a very Brexity place, but also because it happened during the 2010-2015 years, while UKIP support surged at the same time.
It is more likely in my view that a good chuck of the Liberal vote (as with in other places, like south west England) wasn't a vote for liberalism but rather against "the establishment" (seen as embodied in the Tory and Labour parties), and that when the Liberals went into coalition with the Tories they lost their anti-establishment credibility (which transferred largely to UKIP, which became the new protest party of choice).
And while you may be right that most anti-Brexit activists don't have personal self-interested reasons to be pro-EU, if they are mainly from comfortably-off demographics (unlike Remain voters more generally) then that still makes it easy for the Brexit press to other them as a "metropolitan elite" (in much the same way that the right-wing press has been able to foster anti-refugee and anti-student sentiments).
Why would Brexit (as opposed to Covid-driven restrictions) make it considerably more difficult for young Brits to go on holiday to Ibiza? Even before the UK joined the EEC I don't believe Brits ever needed a visa (as opposed to a passport) to visit mainland Europe!
So you think that significant numbers of Brits will want to join the € just because it is likely to become stronger than the £? I don't see that: while the relative-strength factor may be why the € was originally overwhelmingly popular in southern European countries with weak national currencies (although it's unlikely the £ will ever be as weak as those) while widely being panned by Germans as a "teuro" ("dear"-o!), the post-2010 Eurozone crisis shows the perils of being locked into a common currency that is too strong for your national economy.
Of course the € would work a lot better if there were big fiscal transfers from strong regions to weak ones (as would be the case within a single state) but do you really think the Germans would ever be willing to fund such transfers to the likes of Greece and Spain?
George,
Yes I did mean pro-EU, obviously. Its not high house prices and so on that were responsible for culturally conservative, i.e. bigoted, voters still voting for Mandelson. The truth is as I've said many times, the Labour vote has always been based upon a large number of people with such views, who still voted Labour. Before the referendum, no one put the EU near the top of their concerns. It was stoked up, and allowed to be stoked up by the media and Tory politicians. But, for every one of such people that voted Labour, there has always been 10 who voted Tory, fascist or who didn't vote.
I wasn't talking about Liberals just in Hartlepool, but in general, in these elections.
I don't think the tens of thousands of young working-class activists that back Remain and joined Labour after 2015, are any different sociologically than the rest of their cohort who make up the bulk of Remain voters. The Metropolitan Elite is a myth, but you are right the press and others have purveyed that myth, and it plays a part in the thinking of Starmer and Blue Labour. But, its pursuing the implications of it that led to the disasters last week, and will lead to even more if its continued.
Covid will go soon, but Brexit will not. It means all the delays of going through the Non-EU queues at airports and so on. And, for students, the access to education is restricted and so on. On the Euro, I disagree. What the Euro crisis showed was the need for greater integration, and fiscal transfers, along with centralised debt issuance. The Greeks rightly decided leaving the €, let alone the EU would have been disastrous, because the Drachma would have been worthless, reducing their living standards to unacceptable levels. In the end, the ECB bailed them out. So, Germany already is making transfers via monetary policy that would be more effective for it to achieve via fiscal policy.
When people see the £ steadily falling against the Euro, and the cost of their foreign holidays, thereby continues to rise sharply - especially as global inflation is rising sharply, and Brexit means Britain will suffer from it even more - the idea of the security of the €, in which such currency variations no longer have to be factored in, and when the costs of currency conversion no longer apply - which the SNP should also take on board - will be a big pull.
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