1945, 1964, 1997... They are not the numbers of a primitive or the key to open the safe in the closet, but the counted dates of a change in the political cycle in the United Kingdom, from Conservative to Labor. The years when Clement Atlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair rang the bell in Downing Street, and the British – an essentially conservative people – opened the door for them. Keir Starmer hopes to add his name to that list, and complete the winning formula with the 2024 figures.
Yesterday, Labor concluded its annual conference in Liverpool in a climate not only of optimism but almost of euphoria, with a YouGov survey giving it a seventeen-point lead in voting intentions, the largest advantage in two decades and which would translate into a clear absolute majority. It is still a bit early to claim victory, but who would have said it after Boris Johnson's victory in December 2019 –less than three years ago–, when the party suffered its biggest electoral blow since 1935. The general analysis then was that the Tories had managed to reinvent themselves with Brexit and the capture of working class voters, and that the center left would need at least ten years to be competitive.
But if a week is an eternity in politics, as Wilson said, let's not say three years, and since that December 12, 2019, many things have happened (in politics and economics, few of them good). Johnson has self-destructed, Putin has brought war to Europe, supply chains have broken, energy prices have skyrocketed, inflation is at its highest in generations, a pound is worth about the same as a dollar, and the Conservative Party has become a kind of cult of Brexit and the most radical neoliberalism.
Labor, a movement of union origin with more of an opposition vocation than a government, remained in command from 1997 until the new millennium occupying the center of British politics (Blair's third way). But after losing power, he turned to traditional socialism with Jeremy Corbyn that scared many voters. Keir Starmer corrected the course to the center left, decontaminating the brand, fighting anti-Semitism, removing toxins and purging his predecessors. Boris Johnson made life difficult for him, with his peculiar cocktail of right-wing culture warfare and economy with social democratic touches of a big state, more taxes and investments in infrastructure to equalize the country, and appeal to the working-class electorate who had trusted him. But now Truss has gambled all the family jewels in the neoliberal casino.
It is said that it is the governments that lose the elections more than the opposition that wins them, and Starmer already counted on this to turn the tables in January 2024. But now more than ever. Truss and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng's bid for economic growth at any cost is so high that Labor has become almost a bystander. Either his enemies have found the Holy Grail, and his plan will be so successful that he will become a universal reference model (and there will be no one to remove them from power), or they will crash (as many economists predict) and then Labor will not have more than being there to receive the torch.
“The strategy of the conservatives – reduction of taxes and bonuses for bankers – is not only suicidal but also immoral, they have completely lost control of the economy and the confidence of the markets, you only have to see the fall of the pound, what we are witnessing these days is unprecedented,” said Starmer in the closing speech of the congress. He offered as an alternative the creation of a large public renewable energy company to create jobs and promote sustainable growth, re-establish the 45% rate for the largest fortunes, build affordable housing so that 70% of the British are owners and strengthen the ranks of public health with medical students. No alliance with Scottish nationalists, and no intention of undoing or watering down Brexit (“make it work”). No great canvas to manage the country's chronic decline, at least a few strokes, to be there when the doors of 10 Downing Street are thrown open if Truss runs out of chips at the casino.
The Conservatives have gone so far to the right that they have left a highway from the center to the left of the political landscape. “The objective of growth is very good – he said – and we share it, but the dividing line is who pays for it. The billionaires or the middle and working classes? The energy companies with their huge profits or the families?
El Labour, sunk in misery for three years, believes they are back in power. When he caught up with him in 1964, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer found in his office a note from his predecessor, Reggie Maudling, which read: "Sorry, mate, but there's no money."
