If the loss of the North Shropshire by-election was a political earthquake undermining the Tory government, it would have measured 8.5 on the Richter Scale. A seat that had been in Tory hands for the best part of 200 years was lost, and no amount of massaging the facts can diminish a collapse in the Tory vote from over 35,000 to just over 12,000, even for a by-election.
The loss of the seat is an indication of a profound crisis, not only in the Tory party itself, but in the body politic of British capitalism as a whole. The Conservatives have been the most successful right-wing political party in Europe for more than a century. As its political representatives, the Tories have served the economic needs of the ruling class in all matters of foreign and domestic policy, despite the inglorious decline of British economic, political and military power over those years.
But today, that same party is in thrall to a new layer of get-rich-quick spivs, people who are organically incapable of planning a policy beyond the next three months. Unlike Tory MPs and leaders of the past, who could hide their privileges and mitigate their effects, today’s Tories flaunt their wealth, their greed and their rule-breaking. It is a party that in the face of a world pandemic has become increasingly anti-science, like the nut-jobs in the so-called Covid Recovery Group of MPs. The latest indication of this is the assault by Tory MPs on Chris Whitty, the government’s Chief Medical Advisor, for having the temerity to give the public some facts.
A government mired in sleaze and corruption
We had the spectacle this week of over a hundred Tory MPs rebelling in Commons votes. It was not so much their opposition to compulsory Covid passports and vaccinations that was the issue, because even some left MPs opposed the government on these, favouring instead a voluntary and public education approach. What was disgraceful was the large Tory revolt even against the mandatory wearing of masks, hardly a huge attack on ‘civil liberty’.
The hypocrisy of Tory MPs can be seen in their making noises about ‘freedoms’ when they have faithfully trooped through the lobbies to vote through acts of parliament that restrict the right to protest and limit the right to nationality, potentially even for people who have lived in the UK all of their lives. While against Covid passports to get into nightclubs, they have nevertheless waved through laws requiring passports for voting. Even former Tory minister, Ken Clarke, referred to the Johnson government creeping towards an “elected dictatorship”.
The Tory party won the last election on the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’, and to the horror of industrial leaders and former Tory leaders, they have pursued a Brexit policy that has no economic or social rationale other than a vague nod in the direction of ‘getting back control’, whatever that means. British capitalism has been in a state of relative decline compared to other economies for decades, but Brexit, as deliberate act of policy, will accelerate that downward trend. Not that the economically-illiterate leadership or Tory MPs give a toss.
We have a government completely mired in sleaze and corruption on a level unprecedented in modern times. Second jobs, illegal (but highly lucrative) lobbying, secretive subsidies for holidays and flat redecorations, the list goes on and on. Most of the time, they don’t even bother to hide it.
They have approached the Covid pandemic as a golden opportunity to fleece the public purse through the award of contracts to their friends and associates. Every single useful step they have taken in the interests of public health has been taken late, grudgingly and half-heartedly. Added to all of this, there is now an impression, thanks to the revelations about parties across Whitehall during the last Christmas lockdown, that the government is laughing at everyone.
Johnson no longer an asset but a liability
The by-election result was, therefore, not a complete surprise. It shows that the public image that Johnson has so carefully nurtured, with the support of a tame media, is now seriously tarnished. Many Tory MPs will be looking at their own majorities, much smaller than Paterson’s 23,000, and will conclude that Johnson is no longer an asset, but a liability.
The problem for them is that there seems to be no ready candidate who could replace him and do any better. There may be no clear alternative in sight yet, but one cannot be ruled out. Neil Kinnock’s leadership was so poor in 1992 that the Tories’ new leader, John Major, was able to beat him in the general election of that year. Meanwhile, the by-election will intensify the splits that are already present in the Tory party and there will be more jockeying for positions by all of those around Johnson.
A columnist in the Financial Times, Simon Kuper, bemoaned the failures of the current Tory leadership, comparing it very unfavourably with past leaders. Trying to work out what ‘Johnsonism’ is, he comes to the conclusion that Johnson “embodies, in exaggerated form, the worldview of today’s Conservative ruling class: rules don’t apply to us.” Johnson, through his entire very privileged life – at Eton, Oxford, the Bullingdon Club, working as a ‘journalist’ inventing stories, dishing out public money to his mistress as Mayor of London – has certainly been a rule-ignorer par excellence. Where previous leaders of the Tory party were able to disguise or mitigate their privileges, Johnson doesn’t even make the effort.
But on the other hand, we should not imagine that the rot rests within one person. The corruption, public looting and the private self-enrichment is baked into the whole capitalist system, whether it is political bribery, contract procurement or dodging taxes. These are all systemic problems, and the crisis within the Johnson administration is a crisis within the British capitalist system itself.
Life is characterized by growing insecurity and uncertainty
We are no longer in the ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 1960s. We are living under a system that offers nothing but endless cuts in living standards, cuts in public services and the ongoing looting of the public sector, not least the NHS. While the friends of the Tory Party get wealthier by the week, the lives of ordinary workers are characterized increasingly by insecurity and uncertainty. Millions, even among those in work, are living in poverty. What used to be the ‘minimum wage’ for a tiny minority of workers is now the norm or even the maximum for millions. Food bank use is at an all-time high. The cost of housing and utilities is spiralling out of reach for all but the most well-off young workers.
The crisis faced by millions of workers should be a golden opportunity for the Labour Party in by-elections like this to strike out in a radical direction and to inspire voters in something better than sleaze, corruption, and cuts in living standards. If the Labour leadership of Keir Starmer was an even half capable opposition, they would now be demanding Johnson’s resignation and a general election.
Unfortunately, it seemed that despite coming second in the vote in 2019, Labour stood aside in Shropshire North and allowed the Lib-Dems a free run. Instead of aiming to shore up their previous vote of over 12,000 and setting their sights on the 33,000 who didn’t vote last time – the big majority uninspired by any party – Labour effectively gave up.
When a senior Labour figure is quoted as saying, in the week before the election, “I mean, let’s face it, Labour are never going to win North Shropshire”, it is a signal to Labour voters to switch tactically to the Lib-Dems. So thousands duly did just that. Instead of building on its votes of 2019, Labour lost nearly nine thousand. One can imagine the screaming headlines if Jeremy Corbyn had lost these many votes in a by-election. The last four votes for Labour in Shropshire North now read: 10,457 (Miliband leader), 17,287 (Corbyn), 12,495 (Corbyn) and 3,686 (Starmer).
All the hallmarks of a deflating balloon
Labour’s right wing have been crowing recently about what Progress describe as a ‘tectonic shift’ in voter support, based on Labour winning a couple of local by-elections somewhere and on creeping ahead in national opinion polls. But the Shropshire North result has none of the hallmarks of a ‘tectonic shift’ in Labour’s direction. It has all the looks of a deflating balloon.
In the final analysis, it is a matter of policies and how voters perceive political parties and what they are offering. But even in the absence of policies – and Labour is not putting any forward at the moment – Starmer’s Mogadon style of leadership is as uninspiring as it comes. Even on the issues of the new Covid guidelines, Starmer’s approach in parliament managed to give the impression more of support that opposition to the government.
There may be a contest for the Tory leadership in the coming six months or a year. That much is clear from this by-election. But we are still possibly a long way from a general election, which would be a lot more useful. Labour under Starmer will continue to stutter and splutter, even as the Tory vote in the polls collapses.
For those of us still left in the Labour Party, it is time to redouble our efforts to fight for socialist policies that are meaningful to working class people and which will attract and inspire voters. Policies like a £15 an hour minimum wage, the public ownership of all utilities, an end to looting and a fully-public NHS, publish ownership of building development land and a crash social house-building programme. But we also need to fight for a leadership that will support such policies.
