Today’s old world elections
Reflections on the revolution in Britain.
On July 4, 2024, the Conservatives were swept from power in the United Kingdom after 14 years, suffering their worst defeat in history five years after winning with their highest vote share since Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 landslide. Three factors explain this.
One was apathy. Just 59.9 percent of eligible Brits voted, the second lowest share since 1885.
Second, the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) vote collapsed by 15 percentage points while Labour’s rose in Scotland by 17 points. As a result, the SNP lost 39 seats, and Labour gained 36 in Scotland.
Third, the Conservatives lost votes to Nigel Farage’s new Reform Party, which won 14.3 percent of the vote. In 2019, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives won swathes of so-called “Red Wall,” solidly Labour seats. Under Rishi Sunak, they lost them.
Three days later, French Pres. Emmanuel Macron’s bold attempt to break France’s parliamentary logjam failed. His “centrist” party lost 86 seats and the “liberal conservative” Republicans lost 22. The big winners were the left-wing New Popular Front (which gained 49 seats) and the right-wing National Rally (53). National Rally would have won more if not for an alliance between “centrists” and “far left” to withdraw candidates, uniting the anti-“far right” vote.
July 2024 witnessed similar phenomena in Britain and France: The “centre” or “liberal” right parties suffered while the “hard” or “far” right parties grew.
But a look at these “hard” or “far” right parties reveals as many differences as similarities. National Rally opposes mass immigration, but its economics aren’t very different from the French left’s. They support high taxes, government spending, more regulation, and trade protectionism. Reform opposes mass immigration, but its economics remain solidly Thatcherite.
This might hobble Reform. Its vote was only slightly above its predecessor UK Independence Party’s 12.6 percent in 2015, while National Rally won 32.0 percent, doubling its 2022 share. In an analysis for the Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch writes:
A recent survey by FocalData found that 37 percent of Britons would consider supporting a hypothetical party that believes immigration, LGBT+ rights and environmentalism have gone too far and that the country’s culture is under attack. This is a higher share than those asked the same question in France, Germany, Italy or the Netherlands…The latter two countries are currently governed by coalitions of which hard-right parties are the leading component.
He notes:
Similarly important is what the parties offer beyond rightwing positions on culture. The most successful such parties in Europe — Fidesz in Hungary and the conservative nationalist Law and Justice in Poland — are left-leaning on economics while right wing on social issues, positioning themselves squarely in the quadrant inhabited by most voters.
By contrast:
Reform’s more freewheeling libertarian politics appeal to a much smaller base. Farage offers sweeping tax cuts, and tax relief for private healthcare and health insurance. Maybe this platform works on the American right but it has a very limited audience here.
Indeed, many of those Red Wall seats were red for so long because they detested Thatcher and her “ism.” Reform might win some of those votes with its “cultural” politics, but it will repel many with its Thatcherite economics.
It is doubtful how well that platform would work on the American right. In a recent article for National Public Radio, Greg Rosalsky notes that Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance:
…is far from a traditional conservative…In his less than two years in the Senate, Vance has emerged as one of the brightest minds in what has been called “the New Right” or “national conservatism.” It’s an intellectual and political movement that departs from the free-market fundamentalism and foreign policy hawkishness of the Republicans of yesteryear…At least in rhetoric, this new populist wing of the party sounds less like Ronald Reagan and more like Bernie Sanders meets aggressive social conservatism, isolationism and nativism.
It also sounds like the “Blue Labour,” or “Red Toryism” floated in Britain in recent years, with Labour embracing conservative cultural values or the Conservatives embracing a bigger state. One of the defeated Red Wall Conservatives of 2024, Miriam Cates, tweeted:
…The way back for Conservatives does not lie in re-heated Thatcherism + cultural liberalism. Rather we must reflect the conservative views — both economic & social — of millions of unrepresented voters across UK.
Any recovery for the Conservatives will require courting Reform voters. But if Reform is to grow, it, too, faces a challenge: Does it try to sell small government to cultural conservatives who like big government, or does it abandon “Thatcherite” economics? The same question is being asked in America.