From London
The Conservatives have dominated British politics for the last 100 years. They have been governing since 2010, with Thatcherism they reached a historical record (1979-1997), in the 1950s and early 1960s they held power for 11 years. In comparison, Labor had only one long period of government (1997-2010) with “Blairism”. The other labor efforts lasted a period, sometimes supported by extra-party alliances, even though in some cases, they managed to implement great transformations (the post-war Social Welfare state, for example).
This historical balance has led the Conservatives themselves to boast of being the “natural party” of the government. Beyond the fact that it is an interested and narcissistic evaluation, the debacle of the Boris Johnson government has opened a deep question about its validity.
Many analysts believe that the stench left by his two and a half years in office (Partygate, financial and sexual scandals) will be difficult to hide, especially when the vast majority of the candidates to succeed him were part of his government. But in addition, Boris Johnson resigned on Thursday, but he has not left: he remains the acting prime minister until the Conservatives choose a new party leader who will automatically become prime minister. This process can take up to three months: an eternity in politics.
The blonde Chernobyl
Nicknamed after the conservative British weekly The Economisthis resignation went around the world, but except in the United Kingdom, few noticed the fact that he is still the acting prime minister and that he is seeking to form a transition government.
The process is not easy because In the chaotic 48 hours that preceded his resignation, more than 50 ministers, secretaries and undersecretaries of state, and their assistants, resigned: the government machinery was left semi empty. There are not many who want to serve under him. Many fear what the The Economist he called Johnson’s “toxicity”: his closeness pollutes the most pristine political careers.
Labor, the opposition and much of the Conservative party have called for him to step aside immediately and appoint a consensus figure in his place.
Johnson wants nothing to do with that kicking out the window. But he is not in his hands. Labor will table a no-confidence motion this week against the new “blonde Chernobyl” government.
Much will depend on the support that this motion obtains from the conservative deputies who continue to enjoy a large parliamentary majority. But Johnson whether or not to continue in the immediate term, the problem, as pointed out by the The Economist and other media, goes far beyond his figure: it is the country and the conservatives themselves.
¿Where are you going?
With already 12 years in power marked by a permanent fiscal adjustment, the conservatives are not only going to have to get out of this mess and elect a new leader. At the same time they will have to decide which direction the party takes.
In the last 100 years there have been two major trends. The “one nation conservatives” (conservatives with a social conscience) have sought to preserve national unity through state paternalism that resolves or puts a more or less dignified patch on the class and geographic fractures that divide the country.
This variant of conservatism dominated the party until in 1979 it came Margaret Thatcher to power and laid the foundations for a neoliberalism that was projected around the world in the 80s and 90s.
Thatcher is today like Churchill for the conservatives: a totemic figure. But the world has continued to spin. The neoliberal promises of “trickle down” (spill of wealth thanks to privatization and the market) were not fulfilled. Inequality continues to grow the economy depends more and more on the financial sector, the levels of tax evasion and underfunding of the state are alarming.
It is interesting to evaluate the The Economist because it comes from the same conservative camp that celebrated Thatcherism. “The country is much poorer than you think. The current account deficit has exploded and interest on the debt is growing by leaps and bounds. If the next government insists on increasing public spending and lowering taxes at the same time, it is headed for a terminal crisis. The policy that it assumes has to be anchored in reality”, indicates the weekly.
Conservative´s choice
Like the Sophie’s choice of the famous novel and film, the decision made by the conservatives will open deep wounds. The dominant tendency, the Thatcherites, want to continue adjusting the fiscal accounts and at the same time lower taxes (without combating tax evasion by multinationals and billionaires).
The One Nation Conservatives want to increase public spending to deal with the country’s growing poverty, intensified by global inflation. In this group are the influential Conservative MPs who in 2019 achieved a political miracle: tearing down the red wall in the north of the country, displacing Labor who lost a historic bastion.
Boris Johnson managed rhetorically to be with both sides. In his two and a half years in office, he promised to increase public spending, advance an ambitious egalitarian agenda and lower taxes because the Conservatives “are the party of low taxation.”
This rhetoric collided with reality, more in times of Covid. The result was that the Conservatives ended up raising taxes and not making the promised investments to ‘level up’ the impoverished and de-industrialized north and the affluent English south.
According to the latest report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an expert on the subject of British poverty and inequality, 22 percent of the population lives in poverty: some 14.5 million are minors. The calculation is that poverty will continue to grow with the rise in the cost of living. In the next 12 months, almost another million and a half will enter that group, including half a million minors.
Get Brexit done
One of the main slogans with which Johnson achieved his landslide victory in December 2019 was “get Brexit done”: achieve the exit agreement from the European Union after almost four years of negotiations. Indeed, that December 31 the United Kingdom separated from the European bloc, but with the “blond Chernobyl” at the head, Brexit signed in a solemn treaty, is about to disintegrate and give way to a trade war with the European bloc. .
In June, the Johnson government decided to unilaterally declare the part of the agreement dealing with Northern Ireland null and void. The announcement deepened the existing crisis with the European Union (EU) and jeopardized the peace process in the province that enters these weeks in the turbulent season of the marches (historic unionist celebrations of the victory in the 17th century over the Catholics ) that tends to raise the political temperature to the point of outbursts of street violence.
Brussels and Dublin quietly welcomed Johnson’s resignation in the hope of better relations with his successor. There is no sign that this will happen. In the 2016 referendum to leave the EU, 80 percent of Conservatives voted for Brexit. Things have not changed. It is very difficult for the new leader to stray too far from the line drawn by Johnson without further tearing the party apart.
It’s the economy, stupid
Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit – sharp separation from the EU, loss of the unified European market – had a clear economic impact. Some 40 percent of Britain’s global trade is with EU countries. Since Brexit, exports to the European bloc have fallen by 30 percent. The impact is felt in small and medium-sized industries, but also in prices, especially food prices. The UK imports almost half of its food: about 50 per cent comes from the EU.
This hard Brexit by Johnson has fueled the economic crisis of the pandemic and the war. In the last 12 months, prices – especially food and energy – have increased fivefold. A country that boasted of an annual inflation of 2 percent, today has one of 11 percent. Public salaries have stagnated since the beginning of the great conservative adjustment in 2010 and private ones have suffered the impact of the last three years.
Since the beginning of June there has been a wave of strikes in subways, trains, air terminals and airlines with thousands of flights canceled in the middle of the summer season. Heroes of the pandemic such as the health and education sector threaten strikes if they do not match their salaries with inflation. In the media they baptized him the “summer of discontent”.
If this economic and social turbulence is added to the ferocious political folly of the last two years, the result is a serious crisis of legitimacy for the Johnson transition government and for the one that will replace it. In a presidential system, in case of resignation, the vice president assumes. In a country that has a parliamentary regime, the replacement will be elected by conservative deputies and party members, not by the people as a whole. The new government will be born lame.
A kingdom in crisis
In 1097 days of misrule, Boris Johnson squandered the political capital he had earned in December 2019 with the fervor of someone spending everything he won in the lottery. As is often the case, the dizzying squandering of a fortune leaves a scorched earth. Nationalist Scots, who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, want a new referendum on independence. Welsh autonomists are getting used to using the “i” in Independence more than the “a” in “Autonomy”. The divide in England between a poor, deindustrialized north and an affluent south is more stark than ever.
Even in the most optimistic scenario, the hope that a new name usually produces after a period of crisis will hardly last: the erosion of the “natural party of government” has only begun. Now according to Sean O´GradyFrom the newspaper The Independent, worst comes. “The new government will not change anything because most of the problems we face are due to Brexit and the next government will follow the same line or be even tougher and more authoritarian in order to win the internal election to replace Johnson. The final vote will be in the hands of the 90,000 party members, mostly elderly, reactionary, and who do not even represent the Conservatives.. A nightmare,” O’Grady said.