Groucho Marx once said in jest:
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
This is now the serious dividing line in politics, between principles or values and pragmatism. Lets rewind to 2015.
The Tories were a pro EU party with a Eurosceptic wing, but mainly pro EU. Labour were pro EU and the Limp Dim's were EU fanatics, as are the Greens, PC and the SNP.
The entire political spectrum was to some degree pro EU on balance bar the only party created to break that stranglehold was UKIP. After the 2015 GE and the offer of a referendum that won the election for the Tories, we held the referendum and as we know, Brexit won.
All the major parties had campaigned for remain, The Limp Dim's, SNP, PC, Greens refused to accept the result, citing high principle that they knew better than the electorate. The Labour Party tried to triangulate the position and pretended to be Pro Brexit but it was self evident that their heart was nowhere near that position, clearly demonstrated by their 2017 GE vote share which got the vast majority of the Remainer vote.
The Tories on the other hand said "If you don't like my principles, I have other ones you might like" and consequently moved to a Brexit deliver position. Granted the leadership election for the Tory party was a shambles and had they not all stabbed each other in the back I'm fairly sure a real Brexiteer would have won, but that's not the point here.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the two sides of politics do politics very differently.
On the right (Tories/UKIP/Brexit)
Its a pragmatic but principled approach. It's based on the fundamental premise that politics is about power, and there's no point in being in politics unless you strive for power. Therefore, if you are not ideologically aligned with the majority of the electorate then you are far less likely to win and therefore you need to change your position to suit the electorate. Therefore the Tories changed their party position to align with the electorate.
On the left (Labour/Limp Dim's/Greens/PC/SNP)
While Labour did try to square the political conundrum it had near zero credibility in its Brexit pronouncements and all the others simply refused to accept the referendum result.
Purity of values and beliefs massively trumps the drive to power. They would rather maintain an unpopular position that was fundamentally undemocratic to stay true and pure than accept the price of power which is to accept their purpose is to serve the will of the electorate.
Highlighted Structural Flaws
What Brexit has done is fundamentally stress test both the political structures and the political parties to destruction, and in that it has highlighted many fundamental truths that previously were there but were largely hidden below the surface.
What this has shown in stark relief is the division between left and right, not just in terms of politics and approach but in terms of values and the regard they have for the electorate in general.
In short, the left would rather rigidly stick to a set of values "no matter what". It will happily spout the same values time and again even when its absolutely clear that the electorate, as a mass, don't share those values.
However, the right is prepared to adopt the Groucho Marx position of going away and finding a value set that the public and electorate will support, and as a consequence are far more likely to be elected.
The left, after having been dealt a massive drubbing by a Tory party that on the whole probably wasn't that fundamentally popular are still spouting their "values" are not up for debate, there can be no compromise, no change, fundamentally its for the party leaders to repeatedly brow beat the electorate that they were wrong, deluded, didn't understand the questions posed and need to listen more.
Anyone who has marched into the boss's office, told him his decision is wrong, that he's deluded and needs to listen to a junior member of his staff should know what the outcome of that conversation would be, but apparently the party's of the left think they can win with that arrogant approach. The truth is, we know for certain they can't.
Comments
Post a Comment