Labour was always going to be damaged by Brexit, because it split them in two: the urban cosmopolitan liberals for Remain, the Northern working class for Leave. And ironically, Leave was a reaction against David Cameron’s austerity – and now those voters have gone for Boris Johnson’s Tory party in what is far closer to a Trump election than the Brexit referendum was. This was the second referendum, and it was a bloodbath. And for its trouble, the Tories have now been thoroughly Republicanized.
Corbyn’s old style Labour was forty years out of date and not credible, setting aside that he was a personally execrable candidate.The accusations that he was a closet Leaver may or may not have been on target, but his was a Labour socialism of the 70s, when Michael Foot was campaigning against continued membership of the then-EEC. There was no way to split that baby; he had to either go all-in on Leave and try to sell a “Better Brexit” or find a way to sell the North on pulling the plug. He did neither, and the inability to stand up one way or the other on Brexit was his final undoing.
It wasn’t enough to say “Not Boris”. Boris was the UK’s Trump: a rich toff who could make enough of the working class think he was on their side. He had to stray from the Tory faith, distance himself from austerity, and promise a moon on a stick which will not be deliverable if Brexit leaves the UK economy in worse straits than it is presently occupying. But at the heart of it, “Get Brexit Done” – beaten to death without ever explaining what that actually meant. Simple and stupid beats complex and clever, and the Tories won on simple and stupid.
Because that’s really what happened. The Tories are the party of Brexit now, more even than the actual so-called Brexit party (which ended, like UKIP before it, with exactly no seats again), and they own the future of the UK – above and beyond the Brexit votes, for the next five years as well. They successfully bought the ticket and now have to take the ride; the problem is who all will be harmed as they ride this bomb to Earth. And with unionists shelled in Northern Ireland, and the SNP ascendant in Scotland, the future of the UK on Friday the 13th looks to be on mighty thin ice.