Credit: ISABEL INFANTES/AFP via Getty Images
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Britain is now on course for the most consequential election in its postwar history. The fate of Brexit, a second referendum, Boris Johnson’s embryonic premiership and Jeremy Corbyn’s radical Labour project — they all hang in the balance. The ballot on Thursday December 12 will ultimately define each of these political projects.
It will be the country’s 22nd general election since 1945. And it’s the fifth nationwide election to be held in the past four years — something which reflects not only the record rate of volatility in British politics, but the extent to which the ‘Europe question’ has pushed one of the world’s most stable two-party systems into a state of almost continual flux.
For Prime Minister Johnson, the election will determine whether his premiership ends as a brief footnote, or full chapter, in the history of British politics. The campaign should throw light on whether ‘Johnson-ism’ really exists; whether a small but intriguing collection of ‘one-nation’ policies can find their full expression as a coherent body of thought.
Could these ideas make a meaningful contribution to a conservative philosophy that for much of the past quarter-century has appeared timid, lost and devoid of serious thought? Or will they, in the shadow of defeat, be quickly forgotten?
His party’s future hangs in the balance, too. If the Conservative party can embrace a realignment of its electorate, then it stands a chance of not being cast into opposition. What started as a home for elites, before turning to more liberal middle-class professionals, the party is now having to speak ever more loudly to blue-collar Britain and social conservatives. The logic of this election demands that the Conservative Party develop a new language in order to connect with groups that have felt left behind and left out by the relentless onward march of social liberalism. The coming weeks will reveal whether Conservatives are willing to fundamentally re-orientate themselves to find success.
For the Leader of the Opposition, the election will ultimately decide the fate of his more radical and quixotic left-wing project. Either Corbynism will be consigned to history as a curious, disruptive but ultimately ephemeral detour in the history of the Labour movement — as dictated by the unwritten law that mainstream parties must be punished for ideological radicalism — or it will, instead, morph into a genuinely transformative government that paves the way for a fundamental and radical restructuring of Britain’s economy and society. The former leaves room for a rebooted challenge from moderate social democrats; the latter will shut them out for a generation.
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