Despite his steely caution going into the election, if Keir Starmer wins he must change his rhetoric concerning our future relationship with the EU.
Turmoil abroad, collapse at home
Since 2020, it’s as if 40 years of history have been compressed into four. The conflict in Ukraine continues with no end in sight, Israel is persisting with its campaign in Gaza with Iran waiting on the sidelines, and everywhere the far right is on rise. We’ve seen extraordinary events unfold in the USA since 6 January 2020, culminating in a presidential candidate becoming a convicted felon. We have lived through a global pandemic, tidal waves of disinformation and conspiracy theories, worldwide energy crises and mass migration.
Britain also faces its own internal problems. We have witnessed unprecedented political malpractice, with a government increasingly prepared to ignore legal norms, such as adhering to the ministerial code at home and international law abroad. A revolving door of special advisers, ministers and prime ministers, many in an open relationship with the truth, and a flirtatious one with populism, has inflicted ineffectual leadership and cronyism on a country beaten down by austerity, and has sucked the oxygen out of our political institutions.
And Brexit, which divided our country and reduced our GDP by up to 5% a year, is still never addressed in any meaningful way. There is a tangible sense of pent-up fury and the question is not whether the Tories will lose the election, but whether they will be able to form the official opposition.
Britain bucks the trend
The far right have won in many countries in the EU and Latin America and in November Donald Trump poses a real threat to Joe Biden. The UK is certainly not immune to radical populist-right politics. As Nigel Farage announced his leadership of Reform UK and his surprise candidacy in the general election as prospective MP for Clacton, the party rose to within two percentage points of the Conservatives. He has a strong chance of winning there, as he’s unlikely to risk an eighth consecutive defeat. Lee Anderson and Richard Tice are also hoping, with less certainty, to win in their respective constituencies, with a ‘Farage bounce’.
But if Starmer becomes prime minister next month, Britain will represent an honourable exception to a global phenomenon. To make that a lasting situation, and not a one-term barrage against potential extremism, some serious politics needs to happen.
It’s time to talk about the EU
For years the conundrum of Brexit has been locked away in the drawer marked ‘too hard’. Boris Johnson even micro-managed the use of related vocabulary permitted by Foreign Office staff. References to a ‘no deal Brexit’ were no longer allowed; ‘implementation period’, ‘level playing field’ and ‘state-aid’ were all banned phrases. This level of control was surely applied to prevent the obvious being observed. Brexit was an impossible promise and has therefore remained a permanent elephant in the room.
It was notable that when Piers Morgan revisited the issue on BBC’s Question Time on 4 June, suggesting a fresh vote on Brexit, and when Stephen Flynn called Brexit an unmitigated disaster in last week’s televised debate, accusing Labour and the Tories of being in a conspiracy of silence on the issue, both comments attracted enthusiastic applause. Polls show seven out of ten people want closer links to the EU and a majority of Britons are happy to accept freedom of movement in exchange for rejoining the single market. Across the political divide, 55% now believe we were wrong to leave the EU.
As opposition leader dodging bullets from a hostile press, Starmer is wise to be cautious, but as prime minister it would be an act of vandalism not to move to repair the damage done to the country in both economic and reputational terms.
Britain and the EU face similar challenges
EU elections consistently show most countries returning centre-right, social democratic or left parties. Although this year the far right certainly made gains, notably in France and Germany, they failed to win the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, Denmark, Belgium or Poland, and in Hungary Victor Orbán’s majority was reduced by a new progressive challenger.
France was a stand-out case with the far right comfortably winning as predicted. Emmanuel Macron is now taking the fight back to them by dissolving parliament and holding snap legislative elections in a few weeks’ time. Reckless gamble or courageous leadership? Only time will tell. Disinformation has been a huge factor in these elections and the investigative agencies set up to counter this have their eyes firmly set on Russia.
Social media has been used as a tool to convince people that the EU will limit the flights they can take, control what they can eat, that they will no longer be able to repair old cars, and that Covid-style lockdowns will become a regular feature in the future. None of this is true, but the messaging has been effective and the far right, as ever, offers to step up to protect the people from corrupt ‘elites’, opening the door for them to stifle action on climate change, disrupt policy on Ukraine and military expenditure, and block reforms intended to meet new challenges.
The majority opposing the far right are aware of this and are stressing the new geopolitical reality of a world in which Russia is a real threat to European countries, China is flexing its muscles, and the USA is retreating into its default isolationist stance. There remains the possibility of their re-electing Trump, which will embolden Vladimir Putin and could endanger the status quo more than any other factor. The UK faces the same problems.
The world votes and the future of all of us is at stake
Against this backdrop, the United Kingdom, along with a record 63 other countries representing nearly one half of the world’s population, goes to the polls in 2024. This is not including those that took place in the EU. In terms of conflict escalation or resolution, asserting the reality of and drastic necessity for action on climate change, and the future of democracy itself, the outcome of these elections will shape the course of the 21st century and the destiny of the entire planet. The UK needs to be at the heart of the action, not a lonely onlooker.
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