ANALYSIS
IF politics was based on logic, the eight Labour and three Tory MPs who left their parties to join the Independent Group (TIG) last week would be confident of smashing a duopoly that has dominated Westminster for decades.
With Labour hogging the Left touchline, and Theresa May being held hostage by the right-wing European Research Group (ERG), there appears to be space for a centrist party to appeal to the better natures of the average voter.
If you include the Liberal Democrats, “TIG” plus Vince Cable’s party could form an alliance that attracts up to 20% of the electorate. A new party, supporters believe, might become the UK equivalent of En Marche!, the disruptive centrist vehicle of France’s president Emmanuel Macron. Various obstacles prevent an interesting political theory from becoming a political reality. Macron was the great white hope of liberal centrists in 2017, but he is beginning to resemble a one-term president. A combination of riots and drift have made him look like an ordinary politician who is struggling to carve out any positive legacy.
It is also difficult to determine what, if anything, could be the glue that holds together the 11 TIG MPs. Yes, they are opposed to Brexit, but their signature policy may have a four-week expiry date if Westminster agrees an EU withdrawal agreement. If Brexit has been backed by the voters and MPs, it would take a brave set of politicians to call for the process to be reversed.
A bigger problem is that moderate Labour MPs and one nation Tories are divided by fundamentally different political values. One of the great myths of British politics is that the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were pale imitations of previous Conservative administrations. According to this left-wing critique, Blair was essentially a Tory who made minor tweaks to a status quo that barely challenged. Without rehearsing Blair’s mistakes – Iraq, ID cards, failing to reform the financial services industry – Labour’s only prime minister of the last 35 years was anything but a Conservative. On his watch, parliaments and assemblies were introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a reform agenda that would never have happened under any Tory Government.
On social and economic policy, it is almost impossible to imagine a Tory Government introducing a minimum wage, creating a multi-billion-pound tax credit system, or making deep inroads into cutting child and pensioner poverty.
The instincts of the eight former (New) Labour MPs are based on the idea that Government can be a force for good. They believe in an activist state rooted in increased public spending. Improving the life chances of those with the least in society is what took them into politics.
Conservatives have a different set of political values. They are suspicious of grand schemes to change society and oppose what they regard as social engineering. Depending on the economic circumstances, Tories have a belief in either keeping a tight grip on public spending, or cutting it. They want a solid economy to be the basis on which some money is returned to taxpayers. Tories believe the root causes of inequality are complicated. Many believe it can partly be explained by some people in society – usually middle-income earners – making better life choices than others. On this basis, Conservatives are unenthusiastic about redistributing money from the first group to the second. This difference in outlook explains why the alliance of MPs from the New Labour and one nation Conservative traditions is doomed. Chris Leslie, one of the eight, made clear last week that he is anti-austerity. Anna Soubry, the standard-bearer of the Tory Left, was enthusiastic about former prime minister David Cameron’s economic agenda.
You only need to look at what happened to the LibDems after 2010 to find out how such an awkward political marriage ends. After agreeing to join the Conservatives in coalition, the LibDems swallowed deficit economics and welfare reform, in exchange for scraps like a referendum on a voting system they did not support. Their brand is now toxic.
There is even less of a market in Scotland for a Macron-style movement. Ruth Davidson openly admires Tony Blair and has moved the Scottish Tories leftwards since becoming leader. The SNP, while talking Left, secured power on the back of middle-class votes and rewarded them with populist policies such as a “free” university tuition and a council tax freeze. Scottish politics already has a crowded centre.
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