May tightens grip on Tories, exit

OPINION: Britain’s election may look the same, but everything is going to be different

ON JUNE 8, Britain will hold an election that will look, at first glance, much like any other.

Prime Minister Theresa May has called the vote early to give herself a broader mandate in coming negotiations with the EU, but “snap” elections are hardly unheard of in British politics.

There have also been plenty of elections, in the past century or so, dominated, as this one will be, by the “centre-right” Conservative Party and the “centre-left” Labour Party.

But this time, they are not battling for the centre.

Instead, this will be a battle between two parties that would have looked crazy and extremist – far-right and far-left – to their own members only a few years ago.

May’s Tory Party differs so radically from David Cameron’s which won in 2015 as to be unrecognisable. It is not just “eurosceptic”; it will take Britain out of the EU in the most definitive manner, cutting economic, trade and legal links, something no Conservative leader since the 1970s would have contemplated.

It has muted Cameron’s “green” conservatism, and taken over the anti-immigration agenda of the UK Independence Party, the fringe group it once feared as a rival.

It will probably dispense with Cameron’s commitment to foreign aid too.

Tony Blair’s Labour Party, meanwhile, has been replaced by Jeremy Corbyn’s quasi-marxists, who will campaign on an agenda of much higher taxes, more spending and heavy scepticism not only towards the EU but also towards Nato, the US and all trade organisations and historic British allies.

Corbyn wants Britain to give up its nuclear deterrent; he has appeared on both Russian and Iranian state TV.

He has a long track record of supporting the Irish Republican Army, dating to the era when the IRA staged terrorist attacks on British targets.

A different kind of radicalism will be on display in Scotland, where the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) may well sweep the board.

Because Scotland voted to stay in the EU, an SNP victory may set the stage for another referendum on independence, and even for an end to the UK.

May has promised this will not happen; Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has promised that it will.

Curiously, the three parties have one thing in common: they all claim to be fighting for “the people” against an unnamed and ill-defined “elite”.

All offer their followers a new identity: Voters can now define themselves as “Brexiteers”, as class warriors or as Scots, opposing themselves against enemies in (take your pick) journalism/academia/ the judiciary/london/abroad/ financial markets/england.

If you were wondering whether “populism” was nothing more than a political strategy, easily tailored to elect any party of any ideology, you have your answer.

Left-wing radicals, rightwing radicals and Scottish radicals all share a style, if not an agenda.

There remains only one unknown: What happens to everybody else?

What about the centrists, the significant portion of the country now uncomfortable with both major parties?

What happens to the 48% who voted to keep Britain in the EU? What happens to people who are neither Brexiteers, nor class warriors nor Scottish?

Not all of them (indeed hardly any) can actually be characterised as “elite”, but that doesn’t mean they want any of the three populist projects on offer.

They do have one political option: the Liberal Democrats, Britain’s “third party”, which sometimes does well in odd years like this, and which will try, like Emmanuel Macron in France, to create a broad centrist base.

But the Liberal Democrats haven’t got the structure or the funding to fight for every seat. Instead, centrists will probably choose a lesser evil, stay loyal to their old party and hope for the best – or not vote at all.

If the polls are right, the result will be a Conservative landslide, in parliamentary seats if not the majority popular vote.

The “Brexiteers” will claim a mandate, not just on Europe but on all other issues too. Everything in Britain will look much the same, but will be completely different. – Anne Applebaum, Washington Post

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Angus Robertson, an SNP member of the UK Parliament, speak to the media outside the Palace of Westminster in London this week. British Prime Minister Theresa May has called a snap June 8 general election in an effort to strengthen her hand in EU exit talks and tighten her grip on a fractious Conservative Party.

Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech to Conservative Party members to launch its election campaign in Walmsley Parish Hall, Bolton, this week.