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With polls this weekend showing four parties in a statistical tie, British politics is balanced on the edge of a tipping point. The powerful incumbency benefits of first past the post depend on incumbents leading newcomers. If that ceases, the process can brutally reverse 1/?
2/? First past the post is disproportionate, granting huge advantages to any party which can rack up local leads. No party has been able to overhaul Lab and Con's ability to do so for the past 70 years, but now we have two parties, one new, one old, on the cusp of it.
3/? The key mechanism here is not electoral, but psychological. If voters believe the new challengers have no hope, they hold their noses and back the least-worst of the two incumbents. But if they start to believe the challengers can *win*, locally and nationally, that changes
4/? This is the root of the much ridiculed Lib Dem "winning here" bar charts. The party knows, from long, bitter experience, that the biggest hurdle for them is in voters heads - convince people they are a credible challenger and the rest becomes much easier
5/? This is why if 2-3 polls showing Brexit party or Lib Dems ahead of both Lab and Con turn into 10-20 polls showing same, then British politics really could go through its largest, most fundamental shift since Labour emerged after the mass franchise.
6/? Think of it as the electoral "tinkerbell effect" - if people believe the new parties can win, then that belief becomes self-fulfilling. If people cease to believe the old parties are unbeatable, they become beatable.
7/? It is still likelier, I think, that this proves to be a European Parliament driven blip & the old parties live to fight another electoral cycle. They still have many powerful advantages:resources, organisation, partisanship. There's a lot of death in a party. But, but, but...
8/? ...there are some powerful reasons to think we may be on the edge of a political avalanche. The challenger parties are mobilising deep divides in the electorate - over education, identity, diversity - that have been building for a long time and are driving change elsewhere
9/? Layered on top of that the powerful divide over Brexit, which mobilises these structural divisions and cements them into new "Leave" and "Remain" partisan identities, more powerful than the fading "Labour" and "Conservative" ID's, as @sarahobolt and others have shown
10/? And we know a total realignment can come suddenly, and against all expectation, because exactly that happened in Scotland just 4 years ago. In that election a party which dominated for a century was wiped out, with the largest swings ever seen in any British region since...
11/? ...the final Irish election to the UK Parliament, when Sinn Fein swept the board, preparing the ground for Irish independence. National identity, arguments over sovereignty and democracy, & deep social cleavages - a potent mix in Ireland then, Scotland 2015 and England now?
12/? The fate of Scottish Labour in 2015 should have had far more attention than it did - I guess it got shoved aside by Brexit. It shows no party - no matter how deeply rooted in class, regional, social and national identity it is - has a right to rule, or even to exist
13/? And lets' remember, also, that even beyond Brexit there is little to hold voters to the main parties. Labour have an extremely unpopular leader and face a constant stream of scandals and internal conflict. The Conservatives' outgoing leader is also widely disliked and...
14/? ...her potential successors are not, at present, much more popular, and will soon face the same Westminster and Brussels constraints that destroyed May. Their early campaign manouverings do not suggest much willingness to even think about these, let alone overcome them.
15/15 It is a quite remarkable coincidence that we get a by-election in just a few days, with politics balanced on the brink. Perhaps historians will one day see the Peterborough poll as the point when the landslide away from the main parties began. Interesting days ahead /ends/
(P.S. Some of these ideas will be discussed at greater length in my forthcoming book "Brexitland" with @smthgsmthg ...assuming we manage to get it finished!)
Couple of post-script thoughts on which side of the Brexit divide is better placed to overhaul the incumbents. IMO, both have v diff strengths & weaknesses, so might arrive at the destination by different routes 16/?
Brexit party is the only party in the hard Brexit/nationalist/culturally conservative space, while Remain/cosmopolitan/liberal space is divided between LDs and Greens. Means easier for BXP to secure first place in polls - a key psychological advantage
OTOH, LDs have an advantage of longstanding local presence and infrastructure in many places, and the LD/Grn split may hobble them less in elections than in polling and associated psychology because their appeals are geographically and socially distinct 18/?
LDs recovery, as @election_data has highlighted, is heavily concentrated in suburbs & South England, and they do better with wealthier, more moderate middle class remainer types. Greens vote, by contrast, is concentrated in big cities and among v liberal young voters 19/?
@election_data So the two sides of the realignment are a bit asymmetric - the Brexit party have a bigger niche to themselves, but their newer, have a relatively even spread vote and lack infrastructure and local presence. LDs and Grns have local strongholds already, but divide Remain vote
@election_data 21/? BXP may face an "all or nothing dilemma" - if they start winning, they could win in loads of places. But they could also, like the SDP, end up falling short everywhere. Early gains for LDs and Grns may be easier, but racking up the really big numbers could be harder.
@election_data 22/? The two may also feed off each other. Here's a scenario to ponder: if BXP won 100 plus seats at next election, what would Remain vote do? My bet is this new threat wld intensify liberal/pro-EU counter mobilisation - leading to huge gains for LDs& Grns in the following elec
@election_data 23/? Given the different geographical and social reach of the parties, and the asymmetry of the divide with one party on one side facing two on the other, *if* we got a realignment it might take several elections to sort out. Which given likely chaotic nature of Commons returned
24/? While these divides unravel, might come in quick succession. There were three elections in three years in 1922-24, the last time UK had such a realignment. Brenda from Bristol may be in for a nasty shock /ends/
