Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party can’t get us out of the EU, but they might yet keep us in it
Having spent two years demanding a general election on an almost daily basis, Jeremy Corbyn has voted to block one. The opposition parties that accuse Boris Johnson of mounting a coup refuse to let him seek a mandate. MPs are now in the surreal position of propping up a Government they have calculatedly undermined for the sole purpose of overturning a referendum whose result they had promised to respect. And they call themselves democrats.
With a stunning lack of selfawareness, Labour and Green politicians held a rally at Downing Street yesterday calling on people to “Stop the coup” and “Defend democracy”. Two days earlier, the same politicians had blocked a dissolution. No wonder MPs are held in contempt. The only parliamentary session to have sat for more days than this one without prorogation was the Long Parliament, elected in 1640. Those MPs also usurped the functions of the government – in their day, the Crown – combining legislative and executive power in their own hands. They, too, were reluctant to face their voters.
“Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation,” Oliver Cromwell told them when he sent them packing in 1653. “You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, [but] are yourselves become the greatest grievance.”
Sadly, many voters feel precisely that way about the current crop of
MPs, or at least those of them seeking to delay an election.
What exactly are Labour and the Lib Dems hoping to achieve? The public, after all, is unlikely to be impressed by parties that spent the summer holding rallies to demand a #GeneralElectionNow, but backed away the moment their bluff was called.
Does Jezza expect anyone to believe his stated reason for Labour’s U-turn, namely that he wants Brexit to be off the table before the campaign begins? If so, he takes us for fools. His Bill will become law tomorrow, making it impossible for any British government to leave without the EU’s permission. Yet, even with that legislation on the statute books, Labour still won’t agree to an early dissolution. Neither will the Lib Dems, the Greens or the Nationalists, all of whom were likewise demanding a snap election until last week.
No, this has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with the opinion polls. An immediate election would probably give Boris his majority: surveys show a Tory lead of between five and 11 points. Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe that, as the weeks tick by, public opinion will turn against a necessarily powerless Government. In particular, they hope that, if Boris is forced to ask for another extension of membership, many Conservative voters will huffily defect to the Brexit Party.
Are they right? If elections were driven only by logic, every Eurosceptic voter would back Boris. So, indeed, would a fair number of Europhiles. Plenty of people who voted Remain oppose a second referendum. They have seen how three years of polarisation have driven civility and generosity out of our political discourse, and are reluctant to stir our divisions up again with a new referendum campaign.
But we are not creatures of pure reason. Some voters will want to punish Boris for the sins of Theresa May. Others will refuse to believe that Brexit is being delivered until it actually happens. Still others have convinced themselves that striking a deal with the EU – any kind of deal – is somehow a climbdown. If enough of these voters back Nigel Farage, they might put the pro-Brussels parties into office. That is the Brexit Party paradox: it cannot deliver Brexit, but it can block it.
Which way will Farage jump? It depends on what his motivation is. Is he primarily interested in Brexit, or in Farage? Does he truly want to see Brexit delivered by someone else, while he sits on the sidelines?
The Brexit Party leader is signalling that he wants some sort of electoral pact with the Conservatives. I was, I think, the first person to call for a Tory-Ukip entente, as long ago as 2011. In the event, it proved technically impossible and, with time short, it is likely to be so again. Parties cannot deliver “their” voters. A pact between the Tories and the Brexit Party would not combine their opinion poll tallies. The Conservatives would lose some voters who regard Farage as a cheap populist. The Brexit Party would lose some voters who used to back Labour.
In any case, it is not clear how a pact would add to what Boris has already done to convince Brexiteers. He was the leader of the Leave campaign. He has sought consistently to deliver on the referendum result. Even the old Brexit Party argument that you couldn’t trust a party that included Ken Clarke has been anticipated. The cries and lamentations from the old Heathites, the court challenge by John Major, the newspaper columns about the Tories becoming the Brexit Party – these things have done as much to establish Boris’s Eurosceptic credentials as any action of his. It may be that, by polling day, Farage is mainly taking votes from Labour.
Might the Brexit Party stand aside in constituencies where its candidacy would allow a Remainer to get in? Consider the two most recent parliamentary by-elections. In Peterborough – a town where
61 per cent had voted Leave – the Conservative and Brexit parties won half the overall vote between them, but let in a Labour Europhile on 30 per cent. In Brecon and Radnorshire last month, the Lib Dem candidate squeaked in 1,425 votes ahead of the Tories, while the Brexit Party vote was 3,331. If similar things were to happen on polling day, we would end up with our first ever Marxist prime minister.
If Farage is primarily interested in his own career, that might suit him. As long as Brexit is delayed or cancelled, he can dream of being a British Trump, swept on by waves of anger and disaffection.
If, on the other hand, he truly wants to leave the EU, he will find a way of withdrawing his candidates from the seats where it counts. That would, of course, be a big sacrifice: he’d be standing aside unilaterally, rather than as part of a deal. If his real priority is to restore Britain’s sovereignty, though, he might just be tempted to – in his favourite phrase – “put country before party”. We’ll find out soon enough.
If Farage truly wants to leave, he will withdraw his candidates from the seats where it counts