Too Weak To Win. Too Big To Give Anyone Else A Chance

In 2016 Brexit rotated the political landscape through a full 90 degrees. From being divided vertically between left (socialist) and right (free-market capitalism) to being divided horizontally between Leave (absolute national sovereignty) and Remain (joining in a pan-European project as a team player).

 

Yes, it is that simple!

The Tories understood this and repositioned their party to be the triumphalist flag-waving party of Leave.

Corbyn, wedded to his 1950's past its sell-by-date ideology on absolute national sovereignty never really backed remain with any conviction.

So with the primary issues of the day being Brexit, when the electorate was confronted with the choice between a glitzy package of a star-spangled nostalgia fuelled nationalism on one hand, and a brown paper wrapped version of "the will of the people", also containing all the socialist the desperately needed social reforms that would reverse the worst excesses of the free market rape and pillage of the country, guess what the people chose? And that, in the main, is why there is a Tory 80 seat majority.

The electorate was presented with a choice between a Leaver and someone stuck in neutral.

The Tories had a relevant and easily understood political identity. Labour had "constructive ambiguity" and "everything is on the table" and "that's some way off yet".

I firmly believe remaining in the EU was by far the better option for everyone but the elite rich, Labour should have used that to champion remain and they would have then at least had a banner to go into battle in opposing the Tories. 

"Oh, there goes Michael again, blaming everything on Corbyn!"

Well here is the thing, Corbyn was head of the official opposition and his own ideology over the EU effectively meant he never convincingly opposed the Tories to the defining political issue of a generation. His faux neutrality made him positionless and ultimately pointless. He just could not get his head around that absolute sovereignty is a currency of diminishing value in a 21st-century rapidly shrinking world of increasing globalisation.

The Labour Party, that broad church party, is too broad to avoid all the infighting and internal appeasement to present to the people a well-defined and focussed political identity.

Labour is broken. It is too ineffective and weak to win elections and yet is large enough to ensure no other party can challenge the Tories.

Labour as they are now, in effect keep the Tories in power. And moreover, the Tories know this too.