Looking back over some of my past blogs, I've been absolutely useless at predicting the outcomes of General Elections, But that won't stop me having another go. In a previous post, I've expressed my reservations about the direction Keir Starmer is taking the Labour Party but, if the pollsters are to be believed, he's still likely to lead the Labour Party into government at the next General Election. So come with me as I gaze into my crystal ball and I reveal how I think things will turn out.
1. The Tories will wreck everything at an ever increasing pace as the General Election approaches, because they know they won't have to clear up their mess. I really can't think of a time when the Tories have left their house in order. (why am I suspicious of the 10-15 year spending commitment on the NHS announced yesterday?).
2. Labour will win the General Election on a desperate tide of people wanting to Get the Tories Out. But, and this will be very important later, their future freedom to manouever will be hampered by the policy statements and red lines they laid down on things like Brexit.
3. Labour will do their best to fix some of the things the Tories broke and it will prove very expensive. Probably more expensive than they thought when they were in opposition. Mending is always more expensive than breaking.
4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work. The Right Wing Press (RWP) will tear even bigger strips off them than usual. (Digression: Labour will never get fair coverage in our British media. But this is a "known known". Labour need to figure out how to deal with it but not, please, by cosying up to the owners a la Blair and Murdoch).
5. Make Brexit Work won't. Work, that is. Trying to make Brexit work is like trying to get the genie back into the bottle. It can't be done. Anyway, what does Making Brexit Work even mean? What does a working Brexit look like? Does anyone know?
6. Meanwhile, Labour are having to spend more and more just to keep the country's infrastructure from literally falling apart (think sewers, water pipes, collapsing schools, crumbling hospitals etc.)
7. In the meantime, the Tories watch from the sidelines, laughing and jeering. "Typical Labour. Always spending money they don't have."
8. If they're very fortunate, Labour will go into the General Election-after-next with the overall situation in Britain slightly better than it was when they took office. The country will only be knee-deep in metaphoric and real sewage, rather than thigh deep.
9. But, perhaps they won't be so fortunate. The Tories and the RWP will join together to blame everything that's still broken in Britain on Labour. "Same old Labour. Can't be trusted with the economy. Can't be trusted with anything. Can't even fix Brexit, despite their lofty promises." Labour will be stuck. The taunts about having failed their flagship Brexit fixing policy hit home, because they're true. That lubricates the way for all the lies the Tories and RWP are spinning about their wider performance.
If Labour pivot towards any hint of Single Market/Customs Union/Rejoin, they might as well tattoo "we wasted 5 years because we didn't have a clue about what we were doing when it comes to Brexit" across their collective foreheads. They may pivot anyway, because the alternative is even worse. This is where those bright red lines (remember them?) will bite them in the arse so hard they won't be able to sit down for the next six months. Because the press can absolutely legitimately scream "U-turn! Come and see the U-turn so big, it's visible from the Moon." And it will be true.
11. So Labour lose the General Election after-next. A one-term wonder, and they're done. The Tories do what they do best: keep blaming everything on Labour, while picking their looting back up where they left off last time.
Go back through what I've just written and note that I think Brexit runs through it. That is why Labour need to change their fundamental approach to Brexit, and they need to do so now. They need to stop ruling anything out (not saying you won't do something isn't the same as proactively saying you will). They need to think along the lines of "Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing". They need to make the change now so that it's far enough ahead of the General Election that the fuss about the U-turn is reduced to the constant every-day moaning and carping of the RWP press by the time the General Election comes around.
Also, Labour need to reconsider Proportional Representation. It's the only hope they (and we) have of anything approaching long-term stability. Many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And they need to be fixed. But the only conceivable way of getting the time necessary to do so is to form long-term partnerships via Proportional Representation. That way, you get rid of the short-termism that dominates British politics to the ruin of us all. (In the current 5-year political cycle, the first year is spent learning the ropes and the last gearing up for the next election, so there are really only 3 even vaguely "productive" years to be wrung out of incumbency.)
Predictions over and it's time to cover up my crystal ball. Here's hoping that Starmer will have a change of heart on some of his red lines. I sense that the country is ripe for change and that Starmer could be a lot bolder that he seems to want to be. But will he? You know, I'm not holding my breath on this one. I just don't think he's got it in him.
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