The unexciting election

On June 8, the United Kingdom will hold a general election, and Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May will be returned to power with a greatly increased majority. Yes, yes, we have all been reminded many times lately that even the most confident political predictions can end up making us look like fools. This forecast might be different if the Labour opposition thought it could win the election, and was unified in wanting to win it.

It mostly doesn’t, and it definitely isn’t. The result is an election that is completely unexciting, when it comes to any possibility of doubt about the overall outcome, and yet fascinating all the same.

Theresa May came to power last summer after the British people voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. May’s predecessor, David Cameron, had promised the referendum as a way of kicking the can of Europhobia down the road. He left 10 Downing Street and the leadership of his party pursued by hoots of derision. I suspect history will be a little kinder. He came awfully close to having a dazzling run of political success.

Cameron became prime minister in chaotic circumstances after the 2010 general election, which ended in a hung parliament. Gordon Brown was the incumbent Labour PM, although the Conservatives won the most seats, and it was left to the nerdy, earnest Liberal Democrats to decide whether to back Brown or make Cameron PM. With the proud, stubborn Brown immured in Number 10, Cameron reached out to the Lib Dems with an imaginative deal, offering them participation in an explicit governing coalition — something normally considered unthinkable except in times of war or extreme crisis — and a referendum on election reform.

The Lib Dems took the deal and found it a swindle. As advocates of reform, they lost their referendum, as election reformers almost always do, and they took the blame for every tough decision the coalition government had to make, as they were bound to. Cameron pulled the Union through a Scottish referendum on independence, or at least managed not to botch it, and won a U.K.-wide general like Cameron to have been succeeded by someone whose approach is more passive. Theresa May had laid low during the Brexit referendum as a Remain supporter. When Leave won and a daft Conservative civil war ensued, the divided party gravitated toward her. She promised to serve the full term the Conservatives had earned in 2015.

She has now broken that promise, unapologetically. Any half-sane politician’s instinct the U.K. election as a Canadian, you will hear May talking about “strong and stable” government at about 200 RPM, in exactly the same way Stephen Harper used to. This is no coincidence.

The Labour Party is torn between the old-fashioned socialist militants who made Jeremy Corbyn leader and the respectable corporate types who actually run the party and serve in the House of Commons. The U.K. has legislation requiring fixedterm parliaments, so May needed the support of Labour in a Commons vote in order to hold an early election. A Parliament can still be dismissed early if there is a vote of no confidence in the government, or if two-thirds of MPs vote to allow it.

Which they did. Corbyn loyalists, uncertain whether their man could survive as leader until 2020, had little reason not to consent to the snap vote. Labourite Corbynhaters, seeing a chance to dispose of their village-Marxist boss without the dangers of a party coup, went along too. They almost seem to be halfthrowing the election, relieved to have some prospect of Labour returning to power before 2025.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party, seemingly in firm control of Scottish politics and culture, made the Quebec mistake of talking about another independence referendum too soon after losing one. It is a classic shark jump. The people of Scotland seem to have realized that within Scotland, the U.K. general election will be a referendum on whether they want another divisive, stressful independence struggle right away.

This is not looking like good news for the strident but useless SNP delegation to Westminster. Polls show the Conservatives running a strong second in Scotland, with a chance of taking 10 or so seats away from the Nats. Four years ago, I would have fully expected to be typing “Jesus Christ just held a press conference in Clackmannanshire” before I typed the words in that last sentence.