Why England's political future is cosmopolitan, not communitarian
By J.C. | CAMBRIDGE
IF YOU bought a copy of The Times today, cut out and keep a copy of Matthew Parris’s column. In it, he describes the Clacton by-election as a battle between the Conservatives, Labour and UKIP for the dying parts of England, those end-of-the-line towns (literally, in the many seaside cases) where people go to retire, not to aspire nor to achieve. The Manichean scheme that he paints sums up the debate that will surely decide the future of England’s politics.
Mr Parris is careful not to belittle the residents of the faded Essex resort, but to describe it as he saw it: poor, nostalgic and occupied by white, working-class and mostly elderly folk. Still, he has come under attack from fellow Tories for writing what he wrote. Tim Montgomerie and Tim Stanley, to name two eloquent commentators, have rubbished the column’s argument: that the Conservatives should concentrate on the fizzing, optimistic parts of the British electorate, not the drably, barely comfortable Clactonites and their ilk. They accuse Mr Parris of snobbishness, elitism and ignorance of political realities: almost everything, in fact, but being wrong in his description of Clacton.
In your correspondent’s experience, Mr Parris is right about the town and the broader split that the by-election there will illustrate. In the past weeks I have had occasion to crisscross England from Birmingham to Southend, Hull to Berwick, Oxford to Peterborough. The single overwhelming impression of this English journey has been that the great divide is not north versus south or cities versus towns or left versus right, or even working-class versus middle-class. It is between those communities that have found a way to thrive in the economic circumstances conscribing England today—a high-wage, Anglo-Saxon service economy on the edge of Europe—and those that have not been able or (debatably) willing to do so.
On the one side are places that have some combination of transport links, housing, natural resources, skills, international connections, open-mindedness, existing industrial clusters and political can-do. Not all of these are present in all cases (most obviously, London badly lacks the second of these). But, your correspondent submits, the last of these is disproportionately present in the places that are making a good fist of whichever other factors they have at their disposal. On the other side are those that have few of any of these. They are declining, in spirit as in population.
As ever, political tectonics are following socio-economic ones. Just as England is splitting along lines perpendicular to its traditional divisions, so its two main political parties are tearing along their middles. Mr Parris’s column and the reaction to it neatly depict the debate within the Conservative Party. A very similar conflict is playing out in Labour ranks, too. In both, communitarians have come to blows with cosmopolitans.
The communitarian argument, as the responses to Mr Parris indicate, starts with the claim that Britain’s political disillusionment stems from the haughtiness of liberal metropolitan elites. In particular those of this outlook cite immigration and the EU, but other bugbears like MPs’ expenses, big business and purported NHS privatisation also play a role. London-bashing often features, too. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times writer, describes the political expression of such concerns as “the olive tree”—the outlook that most venerates that which is rooted and has existed for generations.
The cosmopolitan argument, by contrast, takes London as its starting point. In this philosophy, the capital’s success lies in its liberal-minded embrace of open markets, immigration and globalisation in general. Though the London-bashing communitarians are reluctant to admit it, successful English towns and cities beyond the M25 exhibit the same characteristics. Milton Keynes and Swindon, for example, are similarly pro-development. Manchester shares the capital’s knack for integrating a single urban economic area. Leeds has a pro-finance creed that has served it well. Coventry has made promising steps towards a post-Fordist manufacturing world. As Mr Friedman would put it, these places are embracing the “Lexus”—that which is disruptive and modern.
In both the Conservative and Labour parties, spooked by the rise of UKIP, debate rages between the communitarians and cosmopolitans. In the former, the likes of Mr Montgomerie, Peter Oborne, Philip Hammond, Theresa May and David Davis lead the former group. Mr Parris, Nick Boles, Michael Gove and (probably) George Osborne lead the latter group. David Cameron runs the party by swaying uncertainly between the two.
In Labour the picture is muddier (perhaps a product of opposition). But it is probably fair to say that the Blair-Brown generation of front-benchers (Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham) leans towards the communitarian end of the axis and that the 2010 generation (Rachel Reeves, Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt) tends towards the cosmopolitan one. In neat symmetry with his PMQs opponent, Ed Miliband runs his party by swaying uncertainly between the two philosophies.
From his cosmopolitan perch, your correspondent can but offer two bits of advice. The first is simply to follow the advice offered by Mr Parris: “If you want to win Cambridge you may have to let go of Clacton.” He has a point. If Clacton typifies communitarian England, then Cambridge (disclaimer: your correspondent lives there) typifies the cosmopolitan alternative. Though just a 90-minute drive from Clacton, the East Anglian town generates 68.7 patents per 100,000 residents (more than the six next best cities combined) and has the fullest population (66%) with high-level qualifications of any major British city. It sports a GVA/job of £54,000 (40% higher than London), virtually full employment and, with every month, new laboratories, apartment blocks and business parks sprouting along its margins. Fully one in five of its residents were born abroad. Here in cosmopolitan England, we’ll always have Parris.
Political priorities in places like Cambridge (read: most of Britain’s cities, many of its suburbs and some of its towns) are drastically different from those in places like nearby Clacton. Residents are turned off by anti-immigration rhetoric. They want strong policies on the economy and public services. They want to know how Britain will pay its way in the world. That broadly precludes electoral pitches predominantly based on identity, victimhood and nation. If parties want to concentrate on these, however, they should indeed pursue votes in the small, marginal towns that make up the communitarian base. As Marcus Roberts of the Fabian Society puts it, “the voters we pursue dictate the policies we get.”
For precisely that reason, both main parties need a dose of realism. The English seats that decide British elections are becoming more urban, more diverse and more dominated by the anti-authoritarian, pluralist generation charted by Moíses Naím in "The End of Power"—be they in the London suburbs, the Midlands, the semi-rural north, or indeed fast-growing towns like Cambridge. And, as the 2013 study of class commissioned by the BBC shows, the traditional blue-collar sector is being eclipsed by more complicated groups; products of the post-Thatcher service economy. These comprise the 61% of the population that is not accommodated by the traditional class descriptions of upper, middle and working. They include new constituencies like the “emergent service workers”, the “technical middle class” and the “new affluent workers”.
The two main parties are right to feel a responsibility to build society-spanning coalitions. But communitarians are wrong to suggest that parties do not need to choose between different social segments when they decide on the sub-groups from which they will attempt to build their bases.
The second bit of advice is to concentrate on English devolution in the weeks and months after the Scottish referendum. As various outlets (including the IPPR) have argued, whatever the result of the vote the constitutional imbalance between the English regions and the rest of the United Kingdom will require remedy. This will take the form of further devolution within England—either to a regional, city or (less likely) all-English level.
As such, the question of English identity will be crucial. As Michael Kenny (an important chronicler of Englishness) has argued, the struggle between different forms of English identity will be an essential feature of the post-referendum landscape. He describes two prominent guises—shire Tory and working-class underling—that dominate the expression of English identity. Its third form, a liberal, whiggish, optimistic Englishness, remains to be forged, he implies.
These two battles, between different forms of Englishness and between starkly different approaches towards England’s economic future, contain the seeds of this country’s future politics. Various outcomes are possible. Both Labour and the Conservatives may choose the communitarian route. Or both will reconcile themselves to cosmopolitanism. More probable is that one will decisively lurch towards the latter and the other will then choose to define itself against that. Which party will play which role is not yet clear. The answer depends on internal battles within the two. What is certain, however, is that whichever first chooses to throw itself into the pursuit of cosmopolitan voters will have the demographic wind behind it. That party will most likely dominate 21st century British politics.
