It has been another eventful post-Brexit week. I have blogged about the Johnson government’s gunboat diplomacy attitude in international trade negotiations before. I did not expect that analogy to become reality. But this week the government actually did send navy vessels to “resolve” a row with French fishermen who attempted to block the Port of Jersey over post-Brexit fishing licences! This episode, while materially rather trivial (except of course for the fisher(wo)men whose livelihoods depend on the licences), constitutes another stark reminder of the type of post-Brexit foreign policy the Johnson government privileges.

The other big Brexit-related news were the local elections on Thursday and the Hartlepool by-election, which was considered a major test for Kier Starmer’s leadership of the labour party and the popularity of Johnson’s government. In England, the Tories emerge as the big winners from this electoral test – which speaks volumes about the perception in the population of how Brexit is going.

Taken together, these two events show just how much Brexit has shifted the (domestic and international) political landscape in the UK.

Why do people like the Johnson government?

It became quickly clear on election day May 6th that what labour supporters had feared, and conservatives hope had become reality: Hartlepool had elected a conservative member of Parliament for the first time in nearly 50 years. And it was not a close victory either: Jill Mortimer received nearly twice as many votes as Labour’s Paul Williams. The conservative victory is a major blow to Kier Starmer’s attempt to recover from Corbyn’s historic defeat in the 2019 General Election. Seeing another ‘red wall’ constituency turn blue is particularly significant, because Corbyn cannot be blamed anymore, Brexit has now become a reality, and incumbent governments tend to lose by-elections.

To many of us Johnson government’s popularity is astonishing. We are at the tail end of a pandemic that has so far claimed 127,598 lives in the country (on7 May 2021 6:45pm BST). The fifth highest death toll world-wide; topped only by the US, Brazil, India, and Mexico. The PM’s personal integrity is once again in question, with the Electoral Commission currently investigating the financing of the renovation of the PM’s Downing Street flat. Plus, Brexit – while not the cataclysm that it could have been in a no-deal scenario – has fallen short of all the promises (e.g. about frictionless trade), as this and other Brexit blogs illustrate regularly.  

And yet, the more I read about and around Brexit, the more I think I understand why people vote leave and why – even once the Brexiteers’ promises can be compared to reality – they continue supporting the Brexit government. Here is my explanation.

Brexit: A promise not yet broken?

The first key element in understanding why people continue to think Brexit was a good idea and therefore continue supporting Johnson’s government has to do with the subjectively lived reality post-Brexit. There is much evidence that shows that Brexit is hitting UK companies hard (60% report facing difficulties) and that optimistic predictions about the post-Brexit perspective of industries like Fishing have quickly evaporated. Yet, this does not mean that people perceive Brexit as a disaster for their everyday lives. Indeed, a recent survey by Ipsos Mori finds that 69% of people feel Brexit has made their daily life better or made no difference. Only 28% felt it had made it worse. Partly this is due to the fact that Brexit will take time to filter down and start affecting individual living standards. Partly, it is also due to the fact that from a leave voter’s perspective Brexit may actually work.

Indeed, to understand why people are quite happy with the Johnson government we need to remember why people voted leave in the first place. Here, immigration played a key role in the Brexit vote. Indeed, after the economy and ahead of ‘sovereignty,’ immigration was the second most important issue that made people vote leave.

As with any Brexit-related outcome it is really too early to know what the impact of Brexit on immigration will be in the medium- and long-run. Yet, for now immigration is probably the one aspect where Brexit may look like it has delivered on its promise. Recent figures show that in the past year, the UK has seen the largest population decrease since WW2. While the effect of the Covid19 pandemic and of Brexit are confounded here, there is ample evidence that Brexit is part of the story, especially where the reversal of immigration from Eastern Europe is concerned.  This may be bad news for the UK economy in the long-run (because it relies on immigrant works to keep prices and inflation low). Yet, for someone who voted for Brexit in order to ‘take back control’ of our borders, this may certainly sound like good news (even though after years of trying to get rid of immigrants, the pro-Brexit press doesn’t hesitated to blame EU citizens for refusing to return to the UK to work in hospitality after the lockdown).

Holding the Purse Strings and ‘Levelling up’

Another key issue motivating voters to choose ‘leave’ over ‘remain’ in the 2016 referendum was the concern with a lack of investment in local public infrastructure and services and the promise that leaving the EU would somehow free-up funds to increase such investments.

Here, the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda to redress regional economic inequalities is a crucial element of the government’s post-Brexit strategy. The levelling up agenda has been criticised for being a slogan rather than a clear and substantive policy programme. However, the government has used its control over the treasury and over the civil service to make some symbolic investments in northern towns. Thus, in March, Chancellor Rishi Sunak approved conservative Mayor of Tees Valley Ben Houchen’s bid for a ‘free port’ that includes Hartlepool. This decision was hailed by the Mayor as marking the “the day Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool was reborn as an industrial powerhouse.” He promised the ‘free port’ had the potential to create 18,000 jobs in the next six years.

These sort of investment decisions by the conservative government have been increasingly criticised by academics and journalists, who found evidence that funding decisions are skewed towards marginal conservative areas rather than areas most in need of investment.

For the leave-voting majority of people in Hartlepool, however, the Johnson government’s decision means that there is hope. Moreover, while it is not true that free ports are only possible thanks to Brexit, voters in Hartlepool certainly are told that this is one of the great benefits resulting from their Brexit vote. So, why wouldn’t they vote for the government that supposedly made all this possible, when voting labour for 50 years did not halt the industrial decline of their town? Whether or not Labour directly responsible or the decline, is of course another question, but from the voters’ perspective, there seems little risk in supporting another party now that there is an alternative; which brings me to my next point.

New Toryism: There is an alternative!

Another key element in the Tories electoral successes since 2019 is labour’s flawed strategy to run ‘the same old campaign against the same old Tories, and to keep on losing because Britain doesn’t have the same old politics, or the same old voters’ as Rafael Behr aptly put it. Labour does not seem to understand one thing that red wall voters do understand, namely that Johnson’s Tory party is a very different proposition than Michael Howard’s, John Major’s, or Margaret Thatcher’s Tory party. The latter may have been unelectable for many working-class voters in the North of England. Yet, with Brexit the Tory party has been taken over – some would say hijacked – by a very different type of politicians who stand for a very different type of policies. The European Research Group (ERG), whose power over the party has dramatically increased due to Brexit, is an ultra-conservative group within the party, which pushes for a nationalistic line. But Johnson’s leadership has also made space for a move away from ideological conservative monetary, financial, and economic policies, towards more pragmatic and even state interventionist ones. Here, the Northern Research Group is playing an important role.

The combination of nationalism and recovering ‘national pride’ – another important concern for leave voters in 2016 – and public investment makes for an appealing programme for many labour supporters in post-industrial regions. To be sure, for now these ideological changes have not led to a coherent and encompassing economic strategy. Yet, the fact that Tory candidates are now able to make credible commitments to public spending and investment in infrastructure in the North of England does mean that they can shed their image of a mine- closing party of the rich and thus become an electable alternative to Labour. As a first-time Conservative voter from Hartlepool – interview on Radio4’s Today Programme on 8 May 2021 (@18’) – put it ‘I want change’ and there was a ‘viable alternative, the conservative party.’

Gunboat diplomacy to win fake wars

A final factor that explains why the conservatives are doing well in elections at the moment has to do with a strategy I blogged about before, namely fanning nationalist sentiment by framing any Brexit-related policy issue in cultural, identitarian terms of ‘us versus them.’

The government and the pro-Brexit press blames anything that does not go well on the EU and frames any decision by the EU or its member states that displeases the government as ‘punishment’ for leaving. This stokes popular resentment against the EU and allows the government to portray itself as fighting a war against the EU rather than trying to establish a collaborative relationship. This fake war the government has created is one that – of course - one that it is winning ; not just on the fisheries front with gunboats off Jersey, but also on the ‘vaccine war’ front.

This strategy continues to work well for the conservatives with many voters rallying around the flag, making everything else seem secondary – including the scandals around the PM’s finances and questionable behaviours.

‘Reckless and irresponsible’

Conservative supporters may be tempted to support the government’s approach to managing its post-Brexit relationship with the EU. Afterall, so far the approach has brought both electoral support at home and some successes with the EU. Thus, the EU has signalled flexibility with the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which some may be tempted to see as a sign that playing hardball is working.

Of course, quite the opposite is true. Indeed, the Government’s approach to its relationship with the EU and its members states is ‘reckless and irresponsible’ (I’m borrowing here a phrase the PM has used referring to a possible indyref2 – the irony!). While grand standing and posturing may allow the Tories to score points domestically, the impact on the relationships with our trading partners and allies should not be underestimated. The government sets the tone for interactions, which can quickly lead to lose-lose tit-for-tat strategies and escalation. For instance, this week the EU Commission recommended to reject the UK’s bid to join the Lugano Convention. Similarly, the French maritime minister’s threat to cut Jersey’s power supply over the fishing licence row, for instance, illustrates that silly provocations may be met with similarly silly responses. The worrying escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and North Korea may serve as an illustration how quickly such posturing can become very dangerous.

 A lasting ‘northern realignment’?

Does all this mean that Brexit is shifting the political landscape in a way comparable to the Democrats in the the USA essentially losing the South to the Republicans after 1964? Has Brexit brought about a ‘Northern Realignment’ that will see northern England and the Midlands turn blue for the foreseeable future? Nothing is less certain than that. Both the 2019 General Election and the local elections this week are still fundamentally Brexit-related elections. Brexit politics have proven a powerful force, but their effect will wear off eventually. Looking at the conjunctural factors explaining this week’s results can shed some light on this question.

The incumbent “jab bonus”

One thing to note is that while the local and byelections in England have been disastrous for Starmer’s labour party, they did much better in Wales. Here the incumbent labour First Minister Mark Drakeford held on to his post. Given the SNP’s victory in Scotland, one interesting fact of the local election is that in all three nations the incumbent party managed to cling on to power. This is quite astonishing, but largely explained by the ‘jab bonus:’ The successful roll out of the Covid19 vaccination programme in the UK has increased support for the parties in charge of handling it in the three nations. The above-mentioned first-time Tory voter from Hartlepool mentioned the successful vaccination roll-out as the key reason he chose to switch from labour to conservative. The vaccine programme lends the Johnson Government an air of competence which is reassuring in a pandemic and will have led many voters to give the conservatives their vote.

The ‘jab bonus’ is very significant: Even 20% of the remain voters surveyed by Ipsos Mori consider that Britain was ‘able to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic better’ due to Brexit. That’s in spite of the fact that the UK is the European country with the highest death toll. The vaccine success since January makes all this forgotten and becomes a post hoc argument for Brexit that even seems to convince a considerable number of remain voters. Yet, this is of course not a long-term shift that will hold on beyond the pandemic.

Brexit demographics

Another reason why the shift to the conservatives in the North of England may not be as permanent as many commentators predict or fear, is the above mentioned fact that what is happening right now is still ‘Brexit politics.’ Professor John Curtice observed on Radio4’s PM Programme (7.5.2021) that heavily leave voting constituencies have seen a double-digit shift from labour to conservatives, but remain areas have not seen such a shift. In other words, the conservatives are seen as the new Brexit party and therefore anyone who wanted Brexit is currently more likely to give them their vote than Labour who has been vague and unclear about its position on Brexit.

Yet, we should remember what the demographics of the leave vote were: Leave voters were to a very large extent older and even elderly voters, while the young overwhelmingly voted for remain. Any credit for Brexit and hence support that the conservatives are currently enjoying in former labour heartlands may therefore be temporary phenomenon in that respect too. Eventually, the conservatives will not be able to rely on the reputation of being the actual Brexit party, but will need to mobilise sufficient numbers of younger voters. This will mean attention will have to shift to addressing real problems.

The return of reality? Actual policies to address actual problems

While the handling of the vaccine role out and the still to be tested promise of the levelling up agenda has bought the conservatives time, eventually people will want to see the economic promises turn into reality. If that does not happen, support may crumble again.

In this area, I am sceptical the Johnson government is currently lying the groundwork for future electoral victories. As mentioned above, the levelling up agenda (or ‘slogan’) has not been translated into any clear and comprehensive policy.

Similarly, the second important leg of the government’s post-Brexit economic strategy is the conclusion of free trade agreements (FTAs) around the world. However, as I argued in a short piece on the Encompass web page this week, the government’s free trade strategy is completely disjoint from any domestic industrial strategy. Indeed, earlier in the year, the government decided to drop the industrial strategy elaborated under the May government in 2017. It seems very doubtful that a free trade strategy that does not go together with a plan for how to make companies competitive in the – supposedly more competitive – post-Brexit world economy will make up for the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. The FTAs that the government has promised will only be possible if the UK grants the trading partners access to the UK market. This may put more pressure on non-university educated workers in heavily leave voting areas, rather than solving their economic concerns.

Given the absence of an actual plan for economic policy, when economic reality – rather than hope and promises – moves back up on the voters’ priority list, the conservatives may be caught wrong-footed. The Brexit campaign was dominated by win-win arguments about more sovereignty and economic gains. Currently, whenever the reality belies the win-win outcome of Brexit, Brexiters change tack and argue instead that the gain in sovereignty is worth the economic cost. Yet, as Chris Grey pointed out this week, “If Brexiters want to justify themselves in economic terms, then they can’t use ‘priceless’ sovereignty to escape a proper accounting.” In particular, once young people in the former industrial labour heartlands will grow impatient for the promised economic benefits of Brexit to materialise, the ‘pricelessness of sovereignty’ may sound like a cynical rhetorical stunt that drives new-found voters away from the conservatives.

For the opposition parties, that shift from patriotic jingoism back to economic realities cannot come soon enough, because very few of them have any chance of beating the Tories at that game. The one exception of course is the SNP in Scotland. It is no coincidence that this nationalist party continues to thrive (although narrowly missing out on an outright majority in Thursday’s Holyrood elections) in the current climate.