About dannyrye

Associate Professor in Politics at Liverpool Hope University Specialises in approaches to political power, political parties and organisatons ryed at hope dot ac dot uk

Rishi’s Election Call

Posted on October 24, 2022 by dannyrye

Whilst constitutionally an election is not necessary, calls for one may be hard for the new Prime Minister to resist.

By Associate Professor Danny Rye, Liverpool Hope University

It is not unprecedented for party leaders to change in-between elections and for a new Prime Minister to be appointed mid-term. It is very unusual for that to happen twice in one Parliament. So as Rishi Sunak shakes the King’s hand, and officially takes office, there are already some questions over whether he and his government can sustain a sense of legitimacy. The opposition are loudly calling for an election, as you might expect given the polls, but so are some Conservative MPs and conservative-supporting journalists.

In constitutional terms, there is no case to answer. We elect parliaments, parties choose their leaders, the Prime Minister needs to command a majority in the House of Commons, which in practice means being the leader of the biggest party. There is no requirement for an election before the end of 2024.

Politically, the new PM will want to avoid an election for as long as possible. The Conservatives are consistently 20 to 30 points plus behind in the polls, and dissolving parliament now would be electoral suicide. Since the calling of an election is once again (following the abolition of the 2011 Fixed Term Parliaments Act) in the gift of the Prime Minister of the day, we can rule that out for now. Sunak will want to steady the ship, calm the turbulent party down and set a course that his MPs can get behind and that will reassure voters. That’s a big ask given the damage that has been done to the Tory brand in recent months, but some improvement may at least make an electoral wipe-out less likely.

However, whilst constitutionally an election is not necessary, and politically it is very unlikely, morally it may be harder to resist. There seems to be a growing mood amongst the public for a change, and Sunak will hope he can at least stall that. Nonetheless, the election question now looks to have become part of the story, and he will be asked that question again and again.

He will need a compelling answer as to why the public should not have their say yet. The need to address the immense challenges the nation faces economically, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, growing worker unrest and creaking public services may form part of that justification, but they are just as compelling a reason for a change of government.

One of the first lessons of politics that any student will learn is that divided parties don’t win elections. They struggle to govern either as the last few months have demonstrated. Despite a large majority in the House of Commons, the Conservatives seem paralysed by division. Therefore, a significant skill that the new Prime Minister will need is party management. To somehow persuade the party’s warring factions – the libertarians, the more interventionist red-wallers, the Thatcherites, the ‘One Nation types – to work together.

It is not impossible. James Callaghan, who also became PM mid-way through a Parliament in 1976, held together a badly divided Labour Party and governed for three years, in the midst of economic crisis and industrial unrest. Unlike Sunak, he didn’t have a majority in the House of Commons either. However, even under the well-liked and hugely experienced Callaghan, the party sank to defeat against a reinvigorated, united opposition in 1979.

If Sunak, a political neophyte by comparison with just seven years in the Commons, cannot persuade his fractious party to work together and to present plausible answers to these difficult questions then the argument for an election will become harder and harder to resist. Continuing division is likely to point towards eventual defeat.

That lesson will be ringing in the ears of the leader. But will his fractious MPs hear it?

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‘Growth, growth, growth’ or bust for Truss?

Posted on October 6, 2022 by dannyrye

Danny Rye Associate Professor of Politics, Liverpool Hope University

Voters, and (dare I say) many students like to say that politicians should be more independent, less beholden to a ‘party line’. Yet it remains that governments need discipline, loyalty and trust, and voters will tend to punish division at the ballot box.

For governments to be effective, discipline is essential. Cabinet ministers are expected to support the government line, even if they may have argued against it in private (the doctrine of ‘collective responsibility’) and since in the British political system, governments govern largely through Parliament by passing legislation, it needs the loyal support of its MPs. And the party relies on the trust and commitment of its ‘foot-soldiers’, grass-roots members, to get their message out on the doorstep (something which remains important even in the age of social media and instant communication).

However, what we saw at the Conservative conference in Birmingham this year was a party in which these appear to be breaking down. The root of its troubles came just ten days earlier. The government began its ‘new era’ on Friday 23^rd September when Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, laid out its economic approach: a growth-driven agenda, based on tax cuts funded by borrowing. However, the markets didn’t like it, with sterling and government bonds going into freefall. The impression was of a government losing control of the economy. The public and political reaction was strong, and seemed to catch Truss and Kwarteng by surprise.

What could have been a triumphant debut for Liz Truss as leader and Prime Minister, therefore, became a litany of troubles:

MPs were in open rebellion against government policy, particularly over unfunded tax-cuts for the wealthiest. This was promptly reversed, and even the leader herself seemed unable to back her Chancellor in TV interviews.

There was more criticism about the apparent unwillingness to commit to uprating working-age benefits in line with inflation, including from Cabinet ministers like Penny Mordaunt and Robert Buckland.

There was confusion over key policy announcements: would the government bring forward its more detailed fiscal plans or not? No one seemed to know.

Party members – who let’s not forget voted for Truss over the MP’s favourite Rishi Sunak – were publicly complaining in a conference session with Party Chairman, Jake Berry, that they were ‘sick and tired’ of having to defend the actions of Conservative MPs and ministers.

Worse for Truss, voters appear to be rapidly losing confidence in her government. One poll from YouGov put the Conservatives 33 points behind Labour. Ten recent polls put the Labour lead at 25 points on average.

So, will her speech on Tuesday help to turn any of this around?

Getting a grip on policy, to be clear and decisive and show a clear sense of direction, would be a good start. Clarity is no guarantee of support, though. The 45p rate cut was pretty clear, but it didn’t make it any more popular. However, if you want people to follow you, it can help if they can see where you are going.

To some extent, the speech did this, albeit it was short on detail. She insisted that her plans for lower taxes and a ‘leaner state’ were the right ones, and would lead to ‘growing the pie’ for everyone. Presumably this is what she meant when she paid lip-service to ‘Levelling-up … in a Conservative way’. There was a call to have faith: ‘whenever there’s change, there’s disruption’ she said, suggesting that sticking to the plan would eventually be ‘worth it’. Not quite as elegant a phrase as ‘the lady’s not for turning’, perhaps, but a similar message. She will hope this restores the faith of activists for now.

She also addressed the speculation that she might make the Chancellor a fall-guy for the reaction to the not-so-mini-budget, when she declared that ‘the Chancellor and I are in complete lock-step’ in pushing ahead with their plans for reform. If, as they hope, the economic news starts to get better and things turn around, perhaps voters and MPs in fear of losing their seats might be won around.

However, some will (not unreasonably) claim that she has no mandate for such a radical change of direction from the Johnson government. Former Cabinet Minister, Boris Johnson loyalist nonpareil, and Truss supporter Nadine Dorries told The Times on Thursday that the new Prime Minister had made some “big mistakes’” and should not be abandoning the policies that voters supported when they elected Johnson in 2019. Moreover, the fact that she has already demonstrated her willingness to u-turn will encourage those who wish to see more changes.

One of the surest ways to bind a group together, is by identifying a common foe. Often, electoral opponents are enough. But in a populist move, perhaps inspired again by Margaret Thatcher, Truss went looking for more ‘enemies within’. Helpfully provided with an illustration by two Greenpeace protestors interrupting her speech, she denounced the ‘Anti-growth Coalition’ which included assorted political parties, militant unions, environmental groups, commentators and, mysteriously ‘vested interests masquerading as think-tanks’ (presumably this doesn’t include those she worked for in the past): ‘they don’t understand the British people’ she railed. The implication, of course, being that she does.

Does being populist make you popular with voters? The polls suggest otherwise. Labour now leads on the vital question of economic competence, usually the Conservatives’ most potent weapon. The difficulty Truss has now is that the image of her and her government as divided and incompetent may already be becoming set in the public mind. It may already be too late. From that point of view, perhaps, it’s ‘growth, growth, growth’ or bust for Truss.

This was originally published on Liverpool Hope University’s ‘Expert Comment’ Page.

A Labour Moment?

Posted on September 30, 2022 by dannyrye

Labour needs to tell a compelling story and persuade the public to listen if it is to be able to reverse its 2019 defeat.

Danny Rye, Associate Professor of Politics

When Keir Starmer took over the leadership of the Labour Party two years ago he was asked what his ambition for his leadership was. ’To win the next election’ he replied. Few believed it possible, many dismissed it. The task seemed too great.

Recovering from its huge 2019 defeat meant firstly, discipline, getting a divided and fractious party’s house in order; second, communication, talking outwards to the concerns of the wider electorate; thirdly, persuasion, getting voters to listen to Labour’s arguments. Only then, might they have a chance to overcome such a huge electoral hurdle.

It was not an auspicious start. Starmer’s first “conference” speech in 2020 was given online to an empty room, thanks to Covid restrictions. His second, just a year ago, was marred by heckling. He was criticised for being ‘wooden’. Perhaps he would have to be satisfied with preparing the ground for another leader to take the prize of power a couple of elections down the line.

But what a difference a year makes. Very few conference speeches are ever remembered, and this one is unlikely to be an exception, but they do tell us something about the state of the party. In the 1950s and the 1980s, Hugh Gaitskell and Neil Kinnock respectively found themselves having to focus on internal party squabbles. In the 1990s, a more disciplined party meant Tony Blair could focus more directly on appealing to voters, and voters were starting to listen.

In his speech in Liverpool, Starmer referred several times to 1945, 1964 and 1997. Key ‘Labour moments’, when the party took power. The 1945 Labour Party under Clem Attlee, had a vision for a fairer society where decent health care, housing and social support was available for all who needed it. In 1964, Harold Wilson presented a dynamic picture of a modern, technologically driven Britain forged in the ‘white hot heat of technology’. In 1997, Tony Blair talked of a ‘New Britain’ in which social justice, strong public services and economic efficiency were not mutually exclusive.

Each of these leaders had a compelling story to tell to a listening public. The question is, does Starmer? Is now a ‘Labour moment’?

I would argue that much of what Starmer’s speech did on Tuesday was to lay credible foundations for just such a story. There were four key elements to this:

Firstly, reassurance on the economy: Labour would be a responsible government, based on ‘sound money and economic management’, in contrast to the Conservatives who have ‘lost control’ and created a ‘cloud of anxiety’. It is Tory ideology that is ‘a barrier to growth’, he said, and ‘the only way out of this is with a Labour government’.

Secondly, affirming the party’s commitment to aspiration: providing ‘the gift of opportunity’ for working people to better themselves, to own their own homes, to be secure in work, to live in a fairer and greener society, to sort out underfunded, under-resourced public services.

Thirdly, neutralising electorally dangerous issues: there will be ‘no deal with the SNP’, Labour would control immigration using a points-based system, and it would ‘make Brexit work’.

Fourthly, the headline grabbing policy-announcement: ‘Great British Energy’, a publicly owned enterprise, would focus on developing and investing in renewable energy. This idea smartly links together the cost of living crisis, climate change, energy security, jobs, and wealth creation with a dash of ‘made in Britain’ patriotism and activist-pleasing public ownership. The hall loved it.

Finally, and perhaps wisely, there was a note of caution. This would be tough, there are difficult choices to make. A new government will not be able to do everything right away. Patience and determination would be needed to address the damage left by the current government, but we must ‘turn our collars up and face the storm’ and ‘run towards the challenges of tomorrow’. Nonetheless, there was optimism: a Labour government would make Britain ‘a country which is the best place to grow up in and the best place to grow old in.’

And optimism is definitely required: to win a parliamentary majority of just one at the next election, Labour needs to gain 123 additional seats across the UK. The skewed electoral system makes it harder for Labour to win where they need to. It would take the kind of swing that parties rarely, if ever, get, and SNP dominance in Scotland makes the task even harder.

Nonetheless, of three tasks outlined – discipline, communication and persuasion, this week’s party conference shows that the first has been completed, the second has begun and the third now seems plausible. To meet Starmer’s ambition for government, to make this a ‘Labour moment’ they must now tell that compelling story.

This article was originally published by Liverpool Hope University’s ‘Expert Comment’ page.

Brexit, Parliament and the British Constitution: why a People’s Vote is the only legitimate constitutional means of resolving Brexit.

Posted on June 12, 2018 by dannyrye

By Dr Danny Rye, Lecturer in Politics, Liverpool Hope University

The first clause of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty states:

“Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”

But as has become apparent, in the case of the UK, nobody really knows what those requirements actually are and a significant amount of energy has been consumed over the last two years in disputes over what the respective roles, responsibilities and powers of Parliament and the executive are, what the precise status of the referendum is and who, if anyone, is responsible for interpreting it. The Miller case exposed confusion and uncertainty even over who had the power to begin the process. There is no clear constitutional guidance, either, on how or by whom it should be executed, scrutinised or concluded and, crucially, how and by whom the outcomes should be approved or legitimised.

This messiness reflects the UK’s famously uncodified constitution, which means its basic rules are not systematically laid out in a single, document which governs the relationships of key elements of the political system. This means that the UK constitution is very flexible which has served it well in some respects, not least in adapting to European Union membership. But it means, above all, that the constitution is political. Above all, sovereignty and power in the British constitution has not been a matter for the courts, as in many codified systems, but has rather been established and maintained by political struggle, which is why the resolution of the question of who should trigger Article 50 by the courts is somewhat problematic in the UK context.

A key principle of the British constitution is the notion of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’ – that Parliament has the sole right to make or unmake law in its territory. For many Eurosceptics, it is this that made the British system incompatible with EU membership, which (as confirmed by the Factortame Case in 1991) instituted a higher body of law over that of statute. But this was merely a qualification of Parliamentary sovereignty, and one which Parliament imposed upon itself and (as Brexit perhaps proves) can also remove.

However, even if that qualification is eventually removed, there are, unfortunately for Parliamentary Sovereignty enthusiasts, many more than that. Significant constitutional changes made under the Blair and Brown governments (including devolution and the creation of a Supreme Court), as well as Cameron’s (including fixed term parliaments, the creation of regional mayors and English Votes for English Laws), whilst by no means part of any strategic masterplan, have also de facto altered Parliamentary sovereignty. In some respects it has been strengthened – the Prime Minister no longer has the power to dissolve Parliament against its will. In other respects, it has weakened: it has lost control over key areas of domestic policy, including personal taxation, to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. One of the more significant changes in recent years, it turns out, has been the use of referendums to endorse or reject many such reform proposals. It means that, as Vernon Bogdanor has pointed out that a ‘new principle … of the sovereignty of the people’ has entered into the British constitution (Bogdanor 2016, 314).

Thus, the age old struggle over sovereignty and power between the Crown (now represented by the executive) and Parliament continues, but now complicated by two other important participants: the devolved authorities and, crucially, the people. Brexit, in particular, the question of how the process should be carried out has exposed the ambiguities in the relationship between these participants and where the boundaries of authority and sovereignty lie. Ultimately, this raises profound, constitutional questions about who governs: Ministers of the Crown, Parliament, the devolved assemblies or the People?

The flexible and political nature of the constitution means that the response of politicians and political parties to the referendum was always going to be crucial in determining the ‘constitutional requirements’ necessary to withdrawal from the EU. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, with both main parties in states of disarray, and unclear how to respond, backbench MPs had a rare opportunity to set the terms of debate, and an analysis of the first six months of debates in Parliament following the referendum, reveals that five distinct positions emerged which have shaped the debate, are still relevant and still being argued over now.

Whilst these are on the whole politically motivated positions, taken because of their perceived advantage to either a Leave / Remain or a ‘Hard’ or ‘Soft’ Brexit position, have significant constitutional implications at least as profound as the outcomes themselves, and each leave questions about the developing nature of the UK constitutional settlement.

Five Positions: Arguments, Questions and Implications

Position 1: The Executive should make the key decisions and control the process.

Some argued for this on the basis that the referendum was an ‘instruction … given by the ultimate holders of sovereignty in this country—the British people.’¹ There is therefore no role for Parliament in interpreting the meaning of the result. Indeed, some went further and argued that it is simply legally and constitutionally right that the process be ‘a matter for the royal prerogative’ – and therefore ministers – rather than Parliament.³Many made a more pragmatic case arguing that ‘we need to unbind the hands of our Ministers and allow them to get out there … and negotiate the excellent deal that we know they can get’⁴but this has a similar constitutional effect. On the one hand, it denies the right of Parliament to meaningfully contribute to the process, thus effectively subordinating Parliament to the executive. On the other hand, whilst the argument for doing that uses the popular sovereignty expressed in the referendum as a justification, it treats the people’s role as a once and for all, final decision, thereby limiting the ‘sovereignty’ of the people to a once only event. The outcome, therefore, looks something like a power grab by the executive and a weakening of both parliamentary and popular sovereignty.

Position 2: Parliament should set the agenda, support key decisions and steer the process.

In a flexible constitution like the UK’s convention really matters and MPs pointed out that – as demonstrated by the Lisbon Treaty – it is ‘clearly established that a major treaty change has to be triggered by an affirmative resolution of the House’ ⁵ meaning Parliament must have a significant role. This makes practical sense, too, since ‘we cannot extrapolate from the result of the referendum the specific terms upon which the majority of those in this country wish their relations with the European Union now to be governed’. ⁶ Whilst both these arguments come from a position that does not deny the validity of the referendum, they assert the importance of Parliament’s role as a deliberative chamber, scrutinising in detail and coming to reasoned, considered decisions which neither the public nor the executive can.

However, this begs some questions: if we accept that Parliament must have a role in interpreting the will of the people how much room for interpretation is there? And when does it become blocking ‘the will of the people’? What – in other words – are the limits of Parliament’s authority in this respect? If the referendum was an instruction, who was it directed at? Some attempted to address this by simply asserting the absolute principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty, arguing that denying Parliament a vote is ‘a constitutional outrage’ because ‘referendums are advisory and … Parliament is sovereign’⁷ and arguing that Parliament should therefore be free in principle to overturn it. But whilst this may be consistent with a strict interpretation of Parliamentary Sovereignty, it is politically very problematic. It does not recognise the fact of popular sovereignty that – like it or not – has become established practice through the use of referendums to endorse or reject some kinds of decision.

Position 3: Government and Parliament need to work together in order to achieve the best possible outcome.

At first glance, a more balanced, pragmatic position recognises the legitimacy of the referendum whilst seeking unity in the ‘national interest’ and to the government’s own desire to make a success of it. Following a relatively close referendum result, Parliament’s role, from this point-of-view is to ensure wider public support – from both Leave and Remain supporters – so that ‘fellow citizens can have absolute confidence in this perilous process’⁸. Besides, the sheer complexity of the issues involved including the ‘citizenship rights, immigration rules, employment and social rights, agriculture, trading relations with the EU and third countries, and Scotland and Northern Ireland’ means that scrutiny of and approval for the government ‘aims, objectives and red lines’ in the negotiations is essential.⁹ For this reason, it is essential that the executive and Parliament can work together. If they do then the government is ‘far more likely to get a good deal’ because it will have ‘managed to bind both sides of this House and both Houses of Parliament into a strong negotiating position’.¹⁰

The implications of this is that there is a division of responsibility based on appropriate areas of competence: the people issue instructions via a vote, Parliament interprets and scrutinises it (including endorsing the timings) and the Executive negotiates and implements it. What this requires, however, is two things: firstly, a level of compromise on all sides which has not really been forthcoming. This has to be at least partly because the control over the process itself has been up for grabs: who controls the process, gets what they want and therefore it is worth investing energy in doing so. Thus, secondly, it requires a means of defining and arbitrating between those relationships. If something like this had been in place (in the form of a written constitution, say) then the fight is worth less perhaps we would have had less wrangling over who runs the show and more focus on what the outcome should be.

Position 4: It is right and necessary that devolved assemblies participate meaningfully in the process.

The trouble with the three positions set out so far is that they ignore another fact of the evolving constitution. Whilst the UK is still in principle a unitary system (and the referendum was UK wide), it does in practice contain some features of a federal one, albeit in a quasi and somewhat lop-sided way . There is, at the very least, therefore, a strong argument to suggest that the government needs to be sensitive to the divergent ways the constituent nations and London voted, which perhaps should have meant greater involvement than they have had so far. Thus, whilst there is no strictly legal obligation for the government to consider the demands of the Scottish (or Welsh or N.I or London) government, it may in practice make sense to do so.

On this basis, Scottish nationalist politicians have felt able to argue that ‘the process to exit the EU requires Holyrood’s consent’¹¹because of its significant effects on what are or may be considered devolved matters and because Scotland claims a level of sovereignty over these matters its own territory. Taken to its logical conclusion there is a serious case to be made that it is ‘ultimately for the people of Scotland to decide whether they remain in the United Kingdom or the European Union’.¹² Whilst this has to be understood through the prism of the SNP’s campaign for independence, a more practical argument for at least consulting with other constituent parts of the UK is that each has its own specific needs and interests that need to be considered and understood in ensuring the best and fairest deal possible. The direct involvement of devolved authorities is vital, for example, ‘so that we can explain to the UK Government how the industries work and how our communities live so that they can ensure that they prioritise them and not just the views of the City of London.’ ¹³

This illuminates another ambiguity which begs some important questions. Devolution is by now well established: the 2016 Scotland Act recognises the Scottish government and parliament as ‘a permanent part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements’. Despite this, there are still tensions over the limits and extent of the authority of the assemblies (the current stand-off between the Scottish and UK governments over the return of powers from the EU to the UK is illustrative of this). Would it not, therefore, make sense to have some consistent, transparent and clear rules about what its relationship to the UK Parliament and other constituent parts of the UK? In short, how can the relationship between the sub-governments and the centre be regularised and transparently governed?

Position 5: Voters should have the right to accept or reject the terms of any deal in a referendum.

In the first six months after the referendum, the idea of having a further referendum on the exit package / outcome of negotiations was a very niche position, articulated by a few on the Labour benches and the remaining Liberal Democrats. Geraint Davies, who was one of the early outliers on this argues that once the electorate have a clearer picture of a post-Brexit Britain which they had not got from the referendum campaign ‘they will have an increasing appetite for a referendum on the exit package’.¹⁴ One might have expected this argument to retreat somewhat as the process went on and opinion perhaps coalesced around a compromise.

However, the argument for a referendum on the deal has not gone away and has in fact gained credibility, articulated in a popular fashion by the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign. Whilst this has been initiated by anti-Brexit campaigners because it is hoped that the 2016 referendum decision will be reversed, there are other reasons why this may be the only satisfactory way of settling the issue of Brexit for now, whatever the result of such a vote might be.

First, endorsing the proposals recognises the reality of how we got here in the first place. If we accept that the people legitimately voted to set parliament and government the task of working out a way of leaving the EU, then it only seems right that the people should also be able mark their homework and pass a verdict on their efforts. A ‘guarantee that people will be able to vote on the destination as well as the departure’ would provide legitimacy for the outcome of negotiations on the same basis as the instruction to begin the process, as Tom Brake put it in 2016.¹⁵ Secondly, it provides a way to break the impasse and draw a line under the bitter divisions that Brexit has exposed both within the political elite and the wider population. Thirdly, it recognises the fact that our political system in its current form cannot resolve it. We have a minority government in a majoritarian two party system in which both main parties are divided and unable to come to clear agreements between themselves, never mind with each other. Thirdly, it recognises the fact that referendums have – for good or ill – become part of the UK’s constitutional practice and therefore ‘the people’, alongside the Parliament and the Executive, is here to stay as a key location of sovereignty in the British political system.

So, whilst Brexit has exposed some of the ambiguities at the heart of the British constitution about power and sovereignty, it also points us towards a potentially appropriate resolution. What is clear is that traditional ideas of parliamentary sovereignty simply don’t cut it. Referendums, devolution, the changing role of the courts (to name but a few) have all qualified it. The logic of the UK’s evolving constitutional practice and the need to come to a reasoned and reasonable settlement demands, therefore, a strong role for Parliament in deliberating, interpreting and shaping the response to the referendum, to be carried through by a coherent executive governing with and through Parliament and subject to its scrutiny, with the final result legitimised by a ‘People’s Vote’. This must all be done in partnership with and with appropriate provisions made for the devolved authorities. This may be wishful thinking, but it perhaps provides the contours for a settlement how the British constitution might work in the future, too, in or out of the EU. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss precisely how, central to this is codification. Writing it down into a clear framework so that rules, relationships and responsibilities are transparent and understood by all participants, including the procedures in place for changing it, will be vital to a settled, just and properly functioning system.

At present, it is not clear we have this. What we do have is mess and deadlock. The government is wracked by division and seems congenitally unable to make a clear decision, Parliament has had to fight against being ignored, blocked and bypassed, whilst the struggle is now on for a People’s Vote. Whatever the outcome, what happens next, and crucially, how it happens may shape our constitutional settlement for many years to come.

This article was originally published on Open Democracy.

2017 Election Reflections: May Blows It, Uncertainty Reigns.

Posted on June 9, 2017 by dannyrye

Not unlike David Cameron before her, Theresa May has gambled and lost. Despite winning the highest proportion of the vote for the Conservatives since 1983, the largely unexpected result (with the honourable exception of YouGov) leaves the Conservatives the largest party but losing their overall majority. This is, in part, thanks to the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn increasing its vote by almost ten per cent on 2015, the biggest increase in share since Clement Attlee’s time.

Within their respective parties, Corbyn is clearly vindicated and strenghtened his authority whilst May’s has been spectacularly undermined by her own actions and her own poor campaign. It remains, however, that no one has won and we are potentially entering a period of ongoing weakness and instability in government at a crucial time. Precisely the opposite of what May intended to convey in her now slightly risible looking campaign slogan.

It is too early to say what might happen, but there is some suggestion that Theresa May is planning to stay for the time being and she may be able to put together some kind of agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (who have ten seats) and continue in government. However, it is difficult to see that she can last long. Many Conservative MPs will almost certainly want to see her go after having put them through this ordeal.

Although Labour has been arguing the case for forming a minority government, putting forward its own programme based on its manifesto and challenging other parties to vote against it, this seems very unlikely to fly, at least for time being. May will get the first chance as leader of the largest party to form a government and much will depend on her capacity to carry that through in the face of a huge personal defeat. It seems certain she will stand down before long, however, perhaps sooner rather than later.

The most serious part of this for the country as a whole is that it is bound to cause problems for Brexit negotiations, unless some kind of cross-party approach can be taken. However what it certainly does mean is that there is less likely to be a so-called ‘Hard’ Brexit (that is a complete break from the single market and the customs union as well as the political and legal institutions of the EU) since there is no majority for it in the House of Commons.

It would also appear that this signals an end to austerity, since a substantial proportion of the population have clearly voted against it.

Perhaps the only real certainty at the moment is uncertainty. It’s going to be an interesting few days!

Corbyn, Labour, and the British Left: prospects for realignment after GE2017

Posted on June 5, 2017 by dannyrye

Lecturer in Politics, Danny Rye considers Labour’s future after 8 June, if the party does lose the election and the continuing prospects of a re-alignment of the wider British left under the Labour Party’s tent.

Until recently, the received wisdom had been that in order to win a general election, Labour had to appeal to a moderate ‘centre ground’. In 2015, Ed Miliband had gambled that the centre of political gravity had shifted to the left. His failure to return Labour to government after one term in opposition was taken as a signal that this was not the case and the party needed to tack back to the right. The subsequent election of Jeremy Corbyn suggested that the party’s electorate disagreed with that analysis. The shifts in the polls in recent weeks, seems to suggest that quite a lot of the UK electorate might too.

As I wrote at the time, Corbyn’s election opened up an opportunity to realign politics on the left. A re-engagement of the Labour mainstream with the broader left would help to reinvigorate and refresh the party’s policies and approach – developing not only new appeals in terms of policy but also new ways of organising, building a stronger presence in communities and reinventing the party for the future. This is arguably dependent on Corbyn being able to do two things: pull off a more leftist version of ‘big tent’ politics, drawing together the left, the centre-left, and the left-behind into a coherent alternative to austerity; and reform the Labour Party structures in such a way as to secure the left’s continued ascendancy.

Corbyn has certainly been successful in drawing the wider left into his tent. However, at present at least, much of this appears to be entirely based on his leadership rather than reflecting any general inclination to support the Labour Party. Were he to step down, it is difficult to see how that broad alliance would hold together. It seems also that some see the survival of Corbyn himself as vital to the whole project of the left in the UK – hence the qualified support he has from groups like the Socialist Worker’s Party and the Socialist Party. The failure of the Corbyn project would thus be a setback for the left more widely.

Corbyn has also undeniably been successful in galvanising new support and reawakening old support that had drifted away from Labour in the 2000s. Despite some suggestion that many of these newer members may be less keen to do the hard graft of party activism, there are reports around the country of greatly expanded participation in meetings and the day-to-day grind that is essential to the functioning of an organised political party. Whilst it is true that a good number of those are thought to be older, returning members, many of them are new and relatively young. This may be an important base from which to build for the future. The key again is how much these newer members are specifically wedded to the Corbyn project rather than the Labour Party itself. If he fails, or falls, will they stay on and engage in the debate about how to go forward?

Where Corbyn has been notably less successful is in persuading the bulk of his parliamentary party of his merits. It was clear from the outset that the vast majority of MPs did not support him. Despite a level of acquiescence by some in the wake of his initial victory, there has been more or less consistent hostility, which broke out most spectacularly in the failed so-called ‘coup’ of 2016. Thus, instead of a debate, what we have had is a long period of stand-off, infighting and distrust, followed then by what can best be described as an uneasy peace, or a kind of sullen hostility. Whilst things have gone remarkably quiet during the General Election campaign, this seems likely to break out into the open again on June 9^th. This underlines the division, too, between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the membership, particularly those who have joined or re-joined because of Corbyn. But the membership itself is also divided. In the 2016 leadership contest, Corbyn got a slightly higher per centage of the vote than he did in 2015, but those who were members before May 2015 cast most of their votes for Owen Smith, whilst those who had joined since the general election voted overwhelmingly for Corbyn.

However, there are more serious divisions which animate many of Corbyn’s critics in the PLP: that between the more cosmopolitan, urban Corbyn supporters and ‘traditional’ Labour voters – especially working class voters in the North of England and Wales – who are relatively socially conservative and economically dislocated. Many Labour MPs fear that these ‘left-behind’ voters simply will not vote for the party whilst Corbyn remains leader. But there is at the same time a divide between the pro-European majority of Labour MPs and those very same voters.

For many in the PLP, a trigger for last year’s vote of no confidence and failed leadership challenge (although by no means the only one) was Corbyn’s apparently lacklustre support for the Remain campaign, whilst most voters in key Labour areas overwhelmingly supported Leave. This double whammy of hostility both to Corbyn and Remain-supporting MPs underlines the fear that the Labour Party is in a very deep crisis in areas where support had previously been solid.

In this light, Corbyn’s unwillingness to make an issue of Brexit might be a wise move, but Labour’s electoral challenges do not stop there. On top of this, Labour is making no headway in Scotland, and is already virtually non-existent in most of the South of England. This crisis is not new by any means, but it underlines a conflict about the party’s future, what kind of party it is, and where it should be building its support.

A key aim for the left of the party, and precisely what Corbyn’s opponents would like to prevent, is changes to party rules to their advantage. Much, as ever, will depend on events, specifically the election result and what happens in its immediate aftermath. If he does badly in the election, Corbyn will be under pressure to step down. But, although a bad defeat might on one level make it harder for Corbyn to justify staying in position, it may also ironically make him more secure than before. Analysis by Policy Network found that Labour’s most vulnerable seats tend to be held by Corbyn’s opponents. This means that pro-Coryn MPs will make up a larger proportion of a smaller PLP in the event of a Conservative landslide. In any case, the PLP are unlikely to risk another challenge unless Corbyn voluntarily stands down, since it seems likely that were it to be put to the vote, he would win again.

But if Corbyn does well – and the polls are suggesting he might do much better than anticipated – the converse is true. The snap election meant that there was no time to go through full candidate selection processes and most existing ones were simply readopted. Attempts to install Corbyn supporters were unsuccessful except in the odd case like Walton. So, if Corbyn does as well as the polls now suggest he might, he is likely to face a still largely hostile parliamentary party. A key problem therefore will be what to do about his MPs. Yet, many of the objections that MPs hold come down to a concern about electoral prospects, so perhaps a good result will quieten them for now. At the same time, it will give party moderates a stronger hand within the parliamentary party (if not in the party as a whole), which will be crucial when the time comes to replace Corbyn.

The risk for moderates is that this would give the party’s left room to focus on reshaping the party internally in its own image and gradually change the internal dynamics of the party, and the make up of the PLP. However, despite their numerical support, the key problem for the party’s left up to now has been an organisational weakness which means that the leadership has found itself frequently unable to get its way. Moderate groups like Labour First have been very effective at organising within the party and winning key organisational positions such as the Conference Arrangements Committee which makes key decisions about what gets discussed at party conferences. Thus, even if he stays in position, there is no guarantee that the left will get their desired rule changes and the party will be locked into an ongoing internal war of attrition.

The stalemate seems likely to continue for the time-being. The only chance of change in the moderates’ direction is if enough members change their minds. But, in a lot of local parties there is still enthusiasm for the Corbyn project and, if the party can hold onto its vote or improve it, then it seems likely that members will want to stick with him. A relatively successful campaign may well win over previous sceptics, too. Whether this is enough to secure genuine organisational change and sustain a longer term realignment on the left depends ultimately on the capacity to win over the support (or at least the acquiescence) of the parliamentary party and other internal doubters, at least in the short-term. A measure of electoral success may go some way to achieving that.

This post originally appeared on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog

Brexit and Political Parties: Challenges and Opportunities

Posted on December 14, 2016 by dannyrye

Danny Rye, Lecturer in Politics, Liverpool Hope University ryed@hope.ac.uk

As a result of the vote to leave the European Union, party politics as usual, if there ever was such a thing, has been shaken. The referendum itself and the ensuing debate about Brexit has exposed the instabilities, contingencies and fragilities at the heart of the main parliamentary parties. We do not yet know what the effect of this will be, but British political parties face key challenges and opportunities as a result, and how they respond to them could have major implications for them and for the shape of the party system.

A glance back at British political history tells us that the structure and configuration of political parties has been periodically subject to this kind of flux and instability at times of social and economic change, leading to sometimes significant reconfigurations or reorganisations of the party system. In 1832, for instance, an organised Tory party first emerged out of the process of resistance to and the aftermath of the Great Reform Act, establishing what we would recognise as a two party system, with a government opposed by a ‘loyal opposition’. The ensuing need for competitive appeal to voters and the emergence of ‘Liberal’ and ‘Conservative’ labels brought the party system into the modern age. Following the First World War and the ‘confusion’ of parties that emerged from it, the changing social and political landscape, including the emergence of class and the decline of religion as key political dividing lines and the extension of the franchise saw in the 1920s the decline of the Liberals and the rise of Labour as the main alternative to the Conservatives, a rise interrupted by a split in the party over its handling of depression and economic crisis in 1929-31 and the formation of the National Coalition. The collapse of the post 1945 consensus, following the failures of Wilson, Callaghan and Heath governments in the 1970s to address Britain’s economic and industrial problems led to the emergence of Thatcherism, a split in the Labour Party and the formation of the SDP, as well as the emergence of the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties and the Liberal revival in the 70s, giving shape to the politics of the last thirty years.

What each of these developments have in common is that in the face of major political or economic crises, the existing party configurations, allegiances, alliances, positions proved inadequate and some kind of realignment, if not inevitable, became necessary. It is tempting in such circumstance to imagine that the hand of history is at play and that there is little that can be done to arrest the inevitable consequence of it. However, history is not something that is done to us, but something in which we participate. The political world just like our social environment is in ‘constant process and transformation’ a process of ‘perpetual motion’ and history is ‘a series of specific events’ in which we are ‘consciously involved and … can consciously influence’[1]. Thus, outcomes that seem inevitable in retrospect, like the emergence of the two party system in the first place, like the decline of the Liberal Party and the rise of the Labour Party are not necessarily so. Crucially, the contingencies, the avoidable errors and unexpected successes can be at least as important. The response to such events therefore is crucial to the effects that they have. Thus the political virtuosity with which political leaders and politicians respond to the Fortuna of events can have profound consequences.

For British political parties, then, the aftermath of the referendum may be one of these moments. Brexit presents challenging issues and potential opportunities for parties’ stability and success. It has presented challenges for party leadership and management by exposing or sharpening existing divisions and creating new ones, opening questions about future direction.In this short article, I will briefly outline some of these issues and what they might mean for the parties.

Conservative Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

The first challenge that the Conservative Party faces is trying to find ways to bridge its continuing divisions in the party over Europe. Tensions over Europe in the party are deep and persistent and it was David Cameron’s attempt to do just this that gave rise to the referendum in the first place. The increasingly Eurosceptic make-up of the Parliamentary Conservative Party meant that whilst those who could be called ‘Europhiles’ had greatly diminished in number, the most significant division in the party now emerging was between ‘soft’ Eurosceptics, who supported membership but argued that integration should go no further, and an increasingly vocal band of ‘hard’ Eurosceptics, who advocated withdrawal altogether[2]. Cameron’s attempts to appeal to this arguably stoked the problem rather than healed it. His 2005 leadership campaign promise to withdraw from the centre-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament was fulfilled (after some prevarication), but the pledge of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was deemed irrelevant following its ratification in 2009. In January 2013, Cameron was effectively forced into conceding a referendum (dependent on a Conservative majority) after 81 MPs defied the party whip to vote in favour of one following a Backbench debate in the House of Commons. It was clear that Cameron’s move had failed abjectly to dampen the growing Eurosceptic revolt when in May, 116 Conservative MPs rebelled on the Queen’s Speech, by voting for an amendment ‘regretting’ the absence of a referendum bill from the government’s legislative programme. Party leaders were forced to allow backbenchers a free vote and even ministers were permitted to abstain.

When Cameron won his unexpected majority in 2015, he had to deliver on his referendum promise. However, the effect was to galvanise Eurosceptic MPs by providing both a unifying focus for an otherwise unorganised group with differing aims and motivations[3], and leadership, which it had lacked up to this point. The decision of both Michael Gove and Boris Johnson to support the Leave campaign, brought high profile, mainstream ‘big hitters’ with a strong public appeal and significant communications skills to the Leave side. This was made easier, moreover, by Cameron’s insistence during the referendum campaign that he would not engage in ‘blue on blue’ attacks, a source of frustration for some on the Remain campaign team, as Craig Oliver’s recent memoir on the referendum campaign attests. Nevertheless, much of the media coverage seemed fixated on the divisions in the Conservative Party anyway, a substantial amount of it through the prism of whether Cameron was likely to Remain leader or not afterwards[4]. Thus, whilst the referendum did not create new divisions in the party, it focused, sharpened and exposed them.

Although the party’s claim to be the ‘natural’ party of government is not as strong as it was, the Conservatives were able to find a unity of purpose in its desire and instinct to govern. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, it looked as if the party might have lost sight of this, but in the end it was able to settle the leadership relatively quickly following Cameron’s resignation after the referendum defeat. Conservative leadership election rules give party members a choice between two potential leaders whittled down by MPs. Given the Eurosceptic bent of the party’s relatively small membership of around 150,000, the post-Brexit leadership contest held potential to reinforce a grass-roots revolt by presenting members with the possibility of voting for a vocal supporter of ‘Hard Brexit’. In the end, however, the inheritors would not be the architects of the Leave campaign. Michael Gove’s ‘knifing’ of Boris Johnson ended his candidacy before it even began but it did Gove no good either who was eliminated, just as Liam Fox and Steven Crabb had been in earlier rounds. Members were therefore left with a choice between Theresa May, Home Secretary since 2010 and a Remain supporter, albeit a relatively reticent one (as Craig Oliver’s account of the campaign attests), and Andrea Leadsom who had come to prominence as a high profile and effective advocate for the Leave campaign. Given the orientation of the membership, there was every possibility that Leadsom might win, a potential result that could have put the parliamentary party and the party in the country at loggerheads. However, it was never put to the vote. Leadsom withdrew from the contest stating that she could not justify going to the membership ballot with support from only 25% of MPs. Theresa May, was installed quickly as the new party leader and prime minister on 13 July just a few days after the contest officially began, displaying the strong instinct for survival that characterises the Conservative Party’s staying power and success.

The Conservative Party, therefore, in sorting out the leadership swiftly demonstrated that it had not lost touch with what it has seen as its historic purpose above all, to govern. Leadsom standing down meant, first of all, that the party was spared the possibility of a ‘revolt’ by members which may have created further crises; secondly, that leadership and therefore some direction on Brexit could be established quickly – curtailing the possibility of continued political limbo and uncertainty over the summer period; thirdly, it meant that an impression of strong leadership could be given to contrast with the divisions in the Labour party that had exploded into public view in the aftermath of the referendum and used to the party’s advantage.

May, moreover, came through looking like a reassuring, mature, statesmanlike figure. She won appearing to be above the fray, without apparently getting her hands dirty, by sitting back and allowing her rivals to self-destruct. She was perhaps not so much the winner as the last one standing when the firing stopped. She was also in many ways the ideal unity candidate. She supported Remain, but took a cautious, low profile during the referendum campaign, and on assuming the leadership insisted that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, appointing prominent Eurosceptics to the key positions coordinating the process of exit. Thus, it seemed possible that divisions over Europe might finally have been put to rest in the Conservative Party. Perhaps the party would finally stop ‘banging on about Europe’ (as Cameron had always wanted) and begin to show some unity of purpose behind a new leader with a clear sense of direction. Now that this issue of EU membership had been resolved, the party could come together in the interests of the nation.

However, despite the initial truce, there is, as yet, no sign of the divisions coming to an end. Post-referendum, the distinction between hard Eurosceptics and supporters of membership have transmogrified into an emerging division between supporters of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Brexit which has created some further party management issues for the new Prime Minister. Analysis of recent parliamentary debates[5] reveals that Hard Brexiters have made a range of different arguments, some taking an economically liberal line, based on global free trade and a competitive open economy based on low-tax and low-regulationwhilst others take a more ‘nationalistic’ position more directly resonant with the ‘taking control’ mantra of the Leave campaign, interpreting the referendum result as a vote for control over borders (against free movement), finances (against paying fees) and law (against the European Court of Justice) which rules out remaining in the single market under any terms since it would represent a ‘betrayal’ of what the British people had voted for. ‘Soft Brexit’ supporters on the other hand disagree. The strongest line is taken by ‘single marketeers’ whose arguments are oriented around the economic importance of being part of such a major free market, including a defence of the free movement of labour. Others are more pragmatic, expressing concerns about the impacts that the UK extricating itself from key arrangements and institutions like the single market might have on specific sectors, businesses, and industries, seeking assurances that their needs are fully understood. Thus the referendum has clearly not put the issue of Europe to rest in the Conservative Party and, if anything, the divisions between ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Brexiters have become fiercer and hardened by the constitutional dimensions about the role of parliament that are emerging as part of this debate. Hard Brexiters have tended to argue that the referendum result is a clear instruction for complete withdrawal (i.e. ‘Hard Brexit’) and does not require any further interpretation or debate in Parliament,which has in any case delegated its sovereignty to the people in this matter. The latter, on the other hand, have argued that Parliament must play role in providing a mandate to the government as demanded by established constitutional practice and to provide the public with confidence in the integrity of the process. The divisions in the party are only strengthened by these more procedural dimensions and – as contributions to Parliamentary debates show – underlined by mistrust. ‘Soft Brexiters’ are accused of using arguments about parliamentary sovereignty to frustrate the process and undermine the will of the British peoplewhilst ‘Hard Brexiters’ are, in turn, are accused of seeking to bypass Parliament’s ‘historic’ and constitutional role as a sovereign body because it is unlikely to come up with an answer that they would like.

The party leadership has attempted to navigate these continuing divisions by maintaining a reticence on the detail of how it wishes to proceed with Brexit and what the outcome should be. The Government has been accused therefore of having no discernible plan, whilst claiming that revealing its negotiating hand to parliament will weaken its position. This may be so, but there are also likely to be important party management reasons for this reticence too. Revealing the government’s position is bound to incur the wrath of one side or another in the debate and may yet precipitate further splits and even endanger her own position as leader. After Thatcher and Major, the issue of Europe has dispensed with a third Conservative Prime Minister. There is, as yet, no guarantee that it will not dispense with a fourth.

Labour Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

An important advantage that the Conservatives have, however, is that the opposition is also divided on at least three levels. Firstly, there are and have been growing divisions within the party between the mainstream majority of the parliamentary party and the party membership which has been most clearly exposed by the election and re-election of Jeremy Corbyn as the party’s leader. He was not even expected to get on the ballot but a campaign by constituency activists to persuade enough MPs to nominate him (he needed 35) in order to ‘widen the debate’ worked. That he went on to win illuminated the fact that many members and supporters, old and new, profoundly disagreed with the direction of the party and rejected the implied prescription of other ‘mainstream’ leadership candidates that the Labour Party had lost in 2015 because they had, under Ed Miliband, been too strongly associated with an anti-austerity position. Indeed, it appeared that the majority of the party’s electorate felt the opposite and thanks to rule changes made by Miliband, MPs (and trade unions too) lost the weighted votes that the old electoral college system gave them and could now more easily have a leader they did not want imposed upon them.

That this happened means there is now also a stark division, secondly, between much of the Parliamentary Labour Party – whose ideological positions range from a small group of so-called ‘Blairite’ reformists, to mainstream ‘soft left’ MPs – and the leadership, which now is effectively in the hands of key members of the left-wing Campaign Group. Any attempts to paper over this division fell apart spectacularly in the aftermath of the Referendum. Corbyn’s support for the Remain campaign during the referendum was regarded by many party moderates as somewhat lacklustre and equivocal at best and his reported initial response to the result that Article 50 should be triggered ‘immediately’ was greeted with incredulity by a number of Labour MPs who supported the Remain campaign. This division was exposed most destructively in the resignation of over 60 MPs from the front bench and a vote of no confidence by the Parliamentary Labour Party in the leader which took place immediately after the EU Referendum in June 2016. This attempt to force him out failed. Corbyn refused to go and thus a leadership challenge followed in which Owen Smith, although claiming the support of the vast majority of the parliamentary party, went down to defeat by 62% to 38%.

Since then, an uneasy peace has settled over the party in parliament, but divisions are not far beneath the surface and have emerged over the party’s response to Brexit, albeit without the same degree of publicly expressed rancour. Labour has started to shape a more directed response to the government on Brexit, steered by Keir Starmer, which has met with some success in pressing the government to reveal its plans, but Labour’s somewhat nuanced position seems to be hiding some deeper divisions, some of these between the PLP and party leaders (in reported tensions between Starmer and the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell for instance), but also between MPs representing Remain supporting, cosmopolitan constituencies and those in Leave supporting ones.

This exposes a further important division, thirdly, which is the dislocation between the party generally and substantial parts of its ‘traditional’ working class support, especially in the North of England. Labour MPs were overwhelmingly Remain supporters during the referendum (just ten MPs out of 232 supported the Leave campaign), and so were most party supporters, but many of its so-called ‘traditional’ heartlands voted to overwhelmingly leave: although more than two thirds of party supporters voted Remain, seven out of ten Labour held seats voted Leave[6]. Thus, contributions to parliamentary debates[7] indicate that whilst most Labour MPs are inclined to take a Soft Brexit position, emphasising the importance of access to the single market in particular and clarity and reassurance for key businesses and employers, some Remain-supporting Labour MPs have in response begun to adjust their position. Ending free movement for them has become, post-Brexit, a ‘red line’and despite ‘proven economic benefits’ Steven Kinnock argued in a recent Fabian publication that it ‘is not socially and politically sustainable’. Failure to address it, wrote Rachel Reeves in the same publication, would be tantamount to ‘holding the voters in contempt’[8] However, at the same time key party leadership figures have argued a different line. Diane Abbot, for instance, in a November 26 interview in The Guardian argued that Labour needs to hold its nerve and maintain its support for free movement and defend immigration, reflecting views expressed by Corbyn himself that immigration is not in itself the issue so much as the resources communities have to cope with it. [9]

The trick that the Labour Party has to perform is to hold on to its old heartlands in the face of the challenges of Brexit, whilst seeking to build new constituencies of support. Corbyn seems to have made great strides in the latter. His leadership has clearly galvanised a large number of people and membership now stands at over 500,000 (it was 200,000 in 2015) bucking the general trend of decline in party membership across western Europe. This might indicate it seems a strength of appeal in leadership that many political parties lack. However, polls have suggested his appeal amongst the electorate is low and, furthermore, his approach has also raised questions about Labour’s function and focus. Is it an electoral party that seeks office through maximising votes, or is it a mass membership movement that seeks to mobilise opposition to the existing political consensus? A successful political party needs in some sense to be both but in a political system which is heavily centred on the sovereignty of parliament and is likely to get more so in some respects (because of leaving the EU), it is difficult to see how a genuine political breakthrough can be made without control of the parliamentary arena.

Liberal Democrats

Another party in desperate need of a breakthrough is the Liberal Democrats. The first challenge the party faces is their weak parliamentary position and, thus, relatively low levels of influence. They were almost destroyed as a parliamentary force at the 2015 general election. They lost large number of voters, not least because having been part of the Coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010-15, the party could no longer rely on being a repository of protest votes. However, they gained no reward from elsewhere either, least of all their coalition partners. Indeed, they lost all 15 seats in their South West ‘heartland’, almost all of them to the Conservatives who ruthlessly targeted their seats. Overall, the result of that election was catastrophic, being reduced from a total of 57 MPs to just eight. Despite being the most Euro-enthusiastic party of all, and not long out of government, the Liberal Democrats were, due to their much diminished status, largely absent from the referendum campaign, and there were a distinct lack of significant roles for the party leader, Tim Farron, in key debates or on Remain platforms.

However, in the post-referendum landscape, their clear pro-European position has presented them with an opportunity, especially in the face of division or lack of clarity coming from the two main parties. They have cultivated and emphasised this pro-European voice in Parliament and their decision to oppose the (amended) Opposition Day motion in Parliament on 7^th December which set a date for triggering Article 50 has set them apart as taking a strong anti-Brexit, or at least anti-Hard Brexit line on which it shares common ground with the Greens, Nationalists and a small number of Labour MPs. They have also sought to emphasise democratic credentials by developing this into a campaign for a further referendum on the outcome of negotiations. This is a distinctive line of argument taken by the remaining Liberal Democrats and their leader, Tim Farron, underlining their emergence as a clear, pro-Remain voice in the current political landscape. This appears to be attracting significant new membership (the party currently claims around 80,000 members) and growing support which has culminated in a stunning by-election success at the Richmond Park by-election on 1^st December. Thus although severed at the head in 2015, the Liberal Democrats appear to be growing back at the roots.

UKIP

UKIP was founded for the express purpose of agitating for, and winning, a referendum on membership of the European Union, and its unity of purpose in this respect at least was not in doubt. Despite only having one MP, UKIP has, in terms of setting the agenda, framing the debate and achieving political goals, been just about the most successful and effective political party of recent times. Both the staging and the outcome of the referendum represents the fulfilment of its founding purpose, which is something not all parties can claim, and underlines the perceived and real threat they have posed to both main parties. It is therefore an unequivocal success for UKIP as party and its members and leaders could be forgiven for basking in its success.

Leadership has clearly been vital to UKIP’s success. The achievement of its goal is in no small measure down to the skill and astuteness of Nigel Farage as a political operator and communicator. The pressure that the party’s success under his leadership has put on the main parties is what led to the promise of a referendum in the first place and the sharpening of the divide between Labour and its once taken-for-granted Northern heartlands. What he and UKIP have successfully done is, first, frame the impacts of the financial crisis as a problem of immigration and, second, linked the question of immigration to the European Union. Europe had for a long time been low down on the priorities of voters, but immigration and the economy were both high. To link all of these together in a way that exploited the political and economic fallout for the purposes of achieving a specific long-held ambition was a skilful piece of political campaigning

At the same time, despite their low parliamentary representation they attracted almost four million votes (12.6%) at the last election which has put them in a strong position electorally, too. They were remarkably consistent in their level of support across the country (except for London) meaning that overall it achieved 120 second places: 44 to Labour and 75 to the Conservatives (the other being the Speaker’s seat). At the same time, the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote, particularly in the South West of England means that it is UKIP which arguably provides the most potent threat to the established parties, competing with Labour in much of the North, and the Conservatives in much of the South.

And yet, despite – or perhaps because of – this success, UKIP finds itself at a crossroads and a moment of introspection. Farage’s leadership is arguably what held the party together and stepping down leaves a gap that could be hard to fill. The infighting (literally in the case of two MEPs: leadership hopeful Steven Woolfe and Mike Hookem) and squabbling that followed the referendum and the debacle of Diane James’ short-lived leadership exposed this to a great extent. Indeed, even the Referendum itself exposed divisions in the party over the campaign, which may contain some clues about the lines of debate opening up as to its future as a political party. The more optimistic, relatively liberal side, represented by people like Douglas Carswell (the party’s only MP) and Suzanne Evans were aligned with the mainstream Vote Leave campaign, whilst Nigel Farage represented a populist, more explicitly anti-immigration campaign through Leave.EU, including the notorious ‘Breaking Point’ poster. Paul Nuttall’s election as leader provides UKIP with an opportunity to find a new, post-Brexit path. In his acceptance speech, he set UKIP the aim of replacing Labour as a patriotic working class voice. It remains to be seen if he can pull this off, but Labour MP Frank Field described his election as a ‘game changer’ for Labour.[10]

Scottish National Party

Sixty-two per cent of Scotland’s voters supported Remain in the referendum which has provided opportunities for the Scottish National Party to further its campaign for independence. The party are in a strong position to do so and this is down to a number of factors. Firstly, strong, effective leadership which was on display in the immediate aftermath of the referendum. In contrast to other politicians who appeared in a state of shock at the result (including some of the winners), Sturgeon decisively pressed Scotland’s case. This is combined with the party’s straightforward clarity of purpose on the issue of independence, its large, motivated membership and its stunning electoral success in 2015 (when it gained 56 out of 59 Scottish seats). Thus its parliamentary position as the third largest party, which gives it rights in terms of asking questions, organising debates and populating committees, has enabled it to bring its own distinctive arguments to the Brexit debate. It has enabled it to press for a central role for the devolved administrations in negotiations as well as to push another constitutional dimension to the debate in the form of the argument that Brexit requires consent from Holyrood.Ultimately, much of this should be interpreted through the prism of the SNP’s campaign for independence, which underpins arguments that Scottish voters are sovereign and the vote for Remain needs to be ‘respected’. [11]

Although the huge difference in support for European Union membership in Scotland might appear to make another referendum on independence inevitable, it is notable that the party has been reticent about committing to this and a key question for the SNP is the extent to which Scottish voters would be willing to sacrifice a 300-year-old union with England and Wales for a European one. The SNP, in short are in a delicate position between the electorate and its membership and so the ‘threat’ of a second referendum is a weapon that has to be handled carefully. Support for independence does not seem to have grown dramatically, if at all, since the referendum, and the party will not want to initiate one if it is unlikely to win. Furthermore, polling suggests that most Scots would prefer not to have a second referendum for now at least.[12] At the same time, however, those who identify as SNP voters are overwhelmingly in favour of independence and need to be kept happy too. So far, the SNP has proved adept at maintaining the balance between these two and continuing to get the balance right is likely deliver continued and sustainable success for the SNP.

Conclusion

Brexit and the aftermath of the referendum presents a number of challenges threats and opportunities for the political parties and how they respond to them may have a significant impact on the party system and its configuration for some time to come. In order to maintain its unity, the Conservative Party leadership faces the significant challenge of overcoming the divisions between supporters of ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ variations of Brexit, which appear to be increasingly entrenched, whilst at the same time providing a positive way forward for negotiating a settlement with the European Union which satisfies both sides. Labour, meanwhile, needs to find ways of bridging significant gaps between its MPs, its leaders, its members and its voters and faces the difficulty of maintaining a coherent response to Brexit whilst seeking to rebuild a potential election winning coalition. For both main parties, these divisions are reflected in their responses to Brexit which are strongly influenced by party management concerns. The Conservative leadership retains an air of ambiguity and secrecy so as not to antagonise the fragile relations between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Brexiters. The Labour Party, although ostensibly more sympathetic to ‘soft Brexit’ takes a somewhat nuanced position which masks the divided response the party has to it. Should they fail, however, to meet these challenges, other parties will be waiting to exploit the opportunities it offers them. The relative strength of UKIP as a voice for hard Brexit under their new leadership and their capacity to attract votes from Labour and the Conservatives is likely to have an important effect on how those parties’ overall positions develop. The same applies on the other side of the issue. The Liberal Democrats are emerging as a clear, pro-Remain voice in the current political situation and their recent success in Richmond Park has opened questions as to whether Conservatives are under threat from pro-European voters if they continue to take a relatively ‘Hard Brexit’ position. The SNP are also unequivocally pro-EU as a party and, given Scotland voted to Remain by a substantial margin, have carved out a clear role to defend Scotland’s interests, seek to influence the process and possibly use it to leverage further support for independence.

[1] Carr, E.H. (2001) What is History? (Basingstoke: Palgrave), 129

[2] Heppell , T. (2013) ‘Cameron and Liberal Conservatism: Attitudes within the Parliamentary Conservative Party and Conservative Ministers’ in British Journal of Politics and International Relations Vol 15, 340-361.

[3] Lynch, P. and Whitaker, R. (2013) ‘Where There is Discord, Can They Bring Harmony? Managing Intra-Party Dissent on European Integration in the Conservative Party’ in British Journal of Politics and International Relations Vol 15 317-339, 335

[4]For example, see: Philip Johnston ‘The Conservative Party may be destroyed by this European madness’ The Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk Accessed 30 November 2016; George Parker ‘Conservative party infighting on Europe referendum escalates’ Financial Times May 23 2016;

[5] Hansard Online https://hansard.parliament.uk/ [HC Deb 11 July 2016 Vol 613 cc 23-35; HC Deb 5 September 2016 Vol 614 cc 38-74; HC Deb 10 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 40-69; HC Deb 10 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 70-71; HC Deb 12 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 314-415].

[6] Chris Hanretty, ‘Most Labour MPs represent a constituency that voted Leave’. Available online: https://medium.com/@chrishanretty/most-labour-mps-represent-a-constituency-that-voted-leave- 36f13210f5c6#.fu9zvch6u (accessed 2 December 2016).

[7] Hansard Online https://hansard.parliament.uk/ [HC Deb 21 July 2016 Vol 613 cc 428-454 WH ; HC Deb 5 September 2016 Vol 614 cc 38-74; HC Deb 10 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 40-69]

[8] Facing the Unknown: Building a Progressive Response to Brexit Fabian Society Policy Report, 13, 17

[9] ‘Labour will not win a general election as Ukip-lite, says Diane Abbott’ The Guardian Saturday 26 November; ‘Jeremy Corbyn: I will not put a limit on immigration’ Politics Home 24 September 2016Online at: https://www.politicshome.com Accessed 1 December 2016.

[10] ‘Ukip leader Paul Nuttall is ‘game changer’ for Labour, says Frank Field’ The Guardian 30 November 2016

[11] Hansard Online https://hansard.parliament.uk/ [HC Deb 21 July 2016 Vol 613 cc 428-454 WH; HC Deb 10 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 40-69; HC Deb 12 October 2016 Vol 615 cc 314-414]

[12] ‘Scots don’t support a second independence referendum’ You Gov 1 September 2016 Online: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/09/01/davidson-now-more-popular-sturgeon-scotland/ Accessed 28 November 2016.

Reflections on the 2016 Labour Party Conference

Posted on October 3, 2016 by dannyrye

It may not have been a hot summer, but it has certainly been a long one in Labour Party politics. The fallout following Brexit, the resignation of almost all of Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench and his crushing defeat in a vote of no confidence amongst MPs was matched by his expected and emphatic victory in the leadership contest that ensued. The culmination of this on Saturday, many would hope, might settle the matter. But Labour is still a party divided. The trails of sometimes bitter in-fighting are strewn around social media for all to see, the wounds that have opened up in constituency parties around the country, not least in seats like Liverpool Riverside and Wallasey are unlikely to heal immediately. Some of the evidence of the party’s division could be seen on the conference floor and indeed on the podium. Tom Watson’s combative speech, for instance, railed against what he saw as the ‘trashing’ of Labour’s brand – by downplaying the record of the Brown and Blair governments, Labour’s current leaders were undoing its prospects. Len McCluskey, in a challenge to rebel MPs, quoted from Henry V, calling on those with no stomach for the fight ahead to “depart the battlefields”, a perhaps not so heavily coded reference to deselection. In the hall, both were cheered and applauded enthusiastically.

There is no doubt, then, Labour is still divided. The evidence is there for all to see. Moreover, it is difficult to see how it will be otherwise for the foreseeable future. Although it would be too simplistic by far to say that it is about the electability of New Labour versus Momentum movement politics, there is a definite tension between those who see power in parliament as the final destination and those who see it as a staging post along the way to something much more fundamental. Corbyn himself, in a speech which was significantly more assured and confident than last year, sought to argue that Labour could be both of these things: it could be about protest and campaigning and about winning elections. What is undoubted is that the party is now bucking the trend in terms of membership, and looks likely to grow further now that Corbyn has for now consolidated his grip on the leadership. If that increased membership translates into campaigners on the streets at election time, then that will be of significant benefit to Labour at election time. Nonetheless, the evidence available suggests that Corbyn’s appeal as a potential prime minister remains very limited. Despite enthusiastic support from a growing army of activists, in the wider country his ratings are very low as a range of polls have shown and Labour as a party is performing poorly.

Some have asked whether this means that Labour is somehow dying as a party of government. Of course, no party has the right to exist, and in the short term at least the party’s prospects do not look particularly strong. However, as anyone attending conference would have seen, there is much life left in the party on all sides. On the fringe, debate is lively, ideas are coming from the left, the right and the centre of the party, grappling with practical issues of governing and policy, particularly in local and municipal government. The forthcoming elections for metro-mayors in Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands also open up opportunities for Labour to prove itself in government and victories in London and Bristol earlier in the year are also high profile platforms for Labour in power. Corbyn appears to be growing into the role of leader, and is demonstrating a level of relaxed confidence and authority that he perhaps lacked in the recent past. Policy ideas are beginning to emerge and both his and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s speeches showcased some practical and radical ideas. So the party faces a huge challenge. It has a mountain to climb to get an appealing message across to the wider public, particularly those who have voted Conservative in the past or not voted at all. Next year, hopefully a year without an energy-sapping leadership contest, perhaps we will have a clearer idea of how close they are to meeting that challenge.

Also featured on Liverpool Hope University’s Expert Comment page.

Labour Divided: Corbyn versus the Parliamentary Labour Party

Posted on June 29, 2016 by dannyrye

by Danny Rye, Lecturer in Politics, Liverpool Hope University

It has almost become a cliché to say that we have entered unchartered waters following the decision to leave the European Union. Leadership and direction is sorely lacking. The Prime Minister has resigned and the Conservative Party is about to become fixated on who succeeds him. At the same time, many of the main players on the Leave side of the argument appear to have absented themselves from the scene, or else are busy explaining how those who supported them are unlikely to get much of what they want, whilst millions have signed a petition demanding a second referendum. The country is in a state of shock after the result, even – it seems – the winners. Prime opportunity, you might think, for the Opposition to step into the breach, provide the leadership the country sorely needs and start to articulate a way out of this mess, a golden opportunity perhaps to shape the agenda and set a way forward. Instead, we have – at the time of writing – approaching sixty resignations from the front bench and an emphatic vote of no confidence in the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected only nine months ago by a large majority of members. Why – many have reasonably asked – do this now?

At the heart of this are a series of divides that run through the party and that may prove very hard to reconcile. First, it exposes a huge divide between the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and the membership, especially those that have joined or re-joined because of Corbyn. Much was made of the £3 Registered Supporters and the role they played in getting him elected, but Corbyn also won the vote amongst longer-standing members and it seems likely that, if put to the vote, he would win again unless those who oppose him can get new members and registered supporters in to vote for an alternative candidate. There is a caveat to this, however, since many of his supporters, younger ones especially, were also Remain supporters, if there is evidence that he somehow scuppered the Remain campaign, as has been suggested, then enough of them might turn against him. Secondly, it exposes a key divide which concerns many of those in the PLP, that between core, ‘traditional’ Labour voters – especially working class voters in the formal industrial parts of the North of England and Wales – who are relatively socially conservative and economically dislocated, and many of the more cosmopolitan, urban and left-wing ‘new’ membership who support Corbyn. The fear that many Labour MPs have is that those voters simply will not vote for the party whilst someone like Corbyn is the leader, thus damaging the party’s capacity to achieve anything on their behalf. However, and thirdly, it exposes at the same time a divide between the pro-European majority of Labour MPs and those very same voters. One of the triggers – but by no means the only one – for many in the PLP has been Corbyn’s apparently lacklustre support for the Remain campaign. And yet those key Labour areas voted overwhelmingly for Leave. Regardless of the current struggle, the Labour Party is in a very deep crisis, in danger of haemorrhaging support to UKIP in the North of England, making no headway in Scotland, and virtually non-existent in most of the South of England. This crisis is not new by any means, but it underlines a conflict about the party’s future, what kind of party it is, and where it should be building its support.

Some have tried to characterise this as some kind of ‘Blairite’ ‘coup’, perhaps with an eye on the forthcoming Chilcot report, but this is patent nonsense. None (perhaps bar one) of the Shadow cabinet members who resigned could reasonably described as ‘Blairites’ – they represent a broad spectrum of political opinion in the party – and very few of them were even around when the decisions under investigation by Chilcot were made. Even though Corbyn won his leadership election with very little support from the PLP, many were prepared to go along with it for what they saw as the good of the party, and perhaps even in the hope that Corbyn might be able to reverse their decline in some of these areas. That MPs are doing this now is a sign that they do not believe this to be the case and, with the possibility of an election later this year, it was a case of move now or face electoral annihilation. It is also worth remembering that most MPs are in regular touch with their constituents, and if they thought that Corbyn was winning support, they would back him. It is evident that they do not believe this to be the case and, indeed, so much so that they are prepared to take such a risk at such a time. There is no doubt that it is an act of desperation on the part of MPs, and it is difficult to see how this will end well for the party. If Corbyn stands again (and party rules are ambiguous over whether he has the automatic right to do so) and wins, then it is difficult to see how the party can hold together afterwards. Indeed, even if he does not win, it is still difficult to see how this can end well. Labour, it seems, is more emphatically than ever, (at least) two parties. As one insider suggested yesterday, unless Corbyn gives way, a split between them is almost inevitable and it looks as if it might simply come down to a fight over which side keeps the party name and brand.

Vote Remain, Take Back Control: A Personal View on the EU Referendum

Posted on June 21, 2016 by dannyrye

By Danny Rye

Many of you have already made up your mind: some of you like me are, instinctively, ‘Remainers’, others of you ‘Leavers’. Some of you may genuinely have been persuaded by the arguments of one side or the other. Some of you perhaps have still not made up your minds which way to go. Nearly all of you, I imagine, can’t wait for this to be over. I have already voted Remain by post, but I have spent much of the time since attempting to formulate why I am doing so. I realise that as I have tried to do so, many of my feelings are contradictory, muddled and inconsistent. I suspect I am not alone in this.

Part of the problem is that the EU, rather like the constitution, is something that our attention has always been deflected from: we have been told ‘people are more concerned about jobs, public services, the NHS’ than issues like Europe or the voting system. We are told that we should not worry our poor little heads about it, but this ignores the importance of our political institutions, the technicalities of our democracy to the way decisions are made, who makes them and influences them and therefore what the decisions actually turn out to be. In other words, the problem is one of power.

The opportunity of this referendum was that it might open up the possibility to finally address some of such questions, or at least begin talking about them. If this debate is about anything it is surely should be about how we are governed, about our democracy (or lack of it) and our future relationship in and with the rest of Europe, as a European nation (which we will remain, even if we leave). Instead it has descended into a confection of knee-jerk nationalism and cynical utilitarianism, with wild predictions of economic disaster if we leave and virtual invasion if we remain. Thus it still feels as though that debate has not really been had.

The arguments that have dominated the campaign have been profoundly depressing. The arguments of the Remain campaign are centred around an appeal to narrow material self-interest. It is not that these outcomes are not important: our economic prosperity and security should be a vital component of any such decision. It may be that this narrow economistic appeal to the wallet may work in the end, but the suggestion that we should stay in merely because we might be materially better off displays an underlying cynicism and, indeed, ambivalence about European cooperation. Sadly, the Labour Party has failed, despite the clear opportunity, to set out a distinctive, democratic argument, largely riffing on the protection of workers’ rights and similar issues. This, again, is important but underlying it is a message of despair: that we should stay in the EU, not because there is a compellingly positive reason to do so, but because without it we lack the strength and the will to ensure such protection ourselves.

Similarly, the Leave campaign poses legitimate questions about the EU and democracy with its slogan ‘take back control’. However, if we leave the EU who will have that control? And how will they be held to account? In what respect will this renew our democracy? Rather than answer these questions (to which the obvious answer is they will take back control, not us), it has reduced the argument to one of control of borders, implying – without explicitly promising – that there will be a reduction in the number of foreigners coming to live and work in the UK. This focus on immigration has given vent to some very unpleasant sentiments, releasing a genie of xenophobia and hostility within and between communities that will be very difficult to put back in the bottle afterwards.

I am voting Remain because I believe that cooperation with our fellow Europeans within a permanent framework is desirable on principle and because I reject the narrow, nationalism on offer from Leave. But where is this argument? Where is a positive vision of a European future? A stable, cooperative continent of nations, working to agreed rules and within an established framework is without doubt the best, most constructive way of resolving our differences and we have to be engaged in it. It is vital to peace, security and prosperity in the future. However, the EU has also developed a disdain for national electorates that, if it is to survive, it must seriously address. In the words of the new DiEM25 movement, it has to democratise before it disintegrates. Some might say that it is beyond reform, especially since the Lisbon Treaty which goes further than any treaty before in its integrationist ambition. But we have to try, and since the EU is the existing framework we have for cooperation, it is the platform from which we can begin to change it. Departing from it or destroying it will not help this process.

One thing for sure (to borrow from the Leave campaign) is that the status quo is not an option. If Remain wins, as I hope it does, the debate about our future as a European democracy must not end here. Both the critique of the EU – along with the language of democracy and self-determination – and pro EU arguments have been too easily conceded to right-wing, elitist narratives that display very little interest in actually extending democracy very much. For Remain, staying in means following the same corporatist, undemocratic path; for Leave ‘taking back control’ means giving that control to our Westminster elites, not the people.

Whatever happens on Thursday, this ground has to be reclaimed. Democrats need to contest the lexical terrain on which the right has planted itself and begin to articulate a response that addresses the concerns of ordinary people – not just by appealing to their wallets or by blaming foreigners – but by addressing the very real problem of power. This problem is not just a national one, but one that concerns all the people of Europe and it thus means fighting both for a more democratic EU and a more democratic UK.

In other words, let’s vote remain and perhaps then we can start to take back control.

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