The great rescrambling of Britain’s parties

PEOPLE HAVE been talking about the collapse of the British party system for decades. Now it may actually be under way. The government has lost its authority. Parties are dissolving into factions. Factions are forming left-right alliances. Backbenchers are seizing the limelight while frontbenchers are hiding in the bushes.

Theresa May’s historic defeat on January 15th showed how far the disintegration on the right has gone. Just 40 Tories who are not on the government payroll voted in favour of the deal; 118 Tories voted against it. Now the focus is shifting to the left. Having lost the vote of no confidence in the government—and hence his chance of engineering a general election anytime soon—Jeremy Corbyn will face mounting pressure to call for a second referendum. This will expose deep divisions within his party: between Remain-supporting middle-classes and the Leave-supporting workers; between Labour’s high command and the bulk of its activists; and between Mr Corbyn, who dislikes the idea of another vote, and his chancellor, John McDonnell, who is more open to it.

The most important division in British politics is no longer between Conservatives and Labour, but between Remainers and Leavers. Yet there is also another broad division, between statespeople and anarchists. Statespeople want to prevent a no-deal Brexit at all costs. Backbenchers such as Sir Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles on the right and Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn on the left have sponsored amendments designed to prevent Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, by delaying Brexit and forcing Parliament to come up with a deal that it can agree on. Anarchists such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dominic Raab, by contrast, regard a no-deal Brexit as a blessing in disguise. It is a way of administering a shock to a complacent establishment and turning Britain into a low-tax, light-regulation Singapore-on-Thames.

Look more closely and you can see four parliamentary groupings with the inchoate characteristics of parties. The highest-profile is the European Research Group of 40-plus Tory MPs. It has a prominent leader (Mr Rees-Mogg), a hyperactive organiser (Steve Baker) and a whipping structure. It is at loggerheads with Tory Remainers. The counterweight to the ERG on the other side of the debate is provided by supporters of a second referendum. This People’s Vote group makes a valiant effort to present itself as cross-party. Anna Soubry, a stalwart of the campaign, has been joined by grandees such as Dominic Grieve and young high-flyers such as Sam Gyimah. But it is dominated by MPs from the right wing of the Labour Party.

Between these poles are two groups of pragmatists united by a desire both to avoid damaging democracy by overturning the referendum of 2016, but also to spare the economy from the ravages of a hard Brexit. The first group consists of members of the government and other May loyalists. Mrs May is determined to breathe new life into her deal despite the fact that it looks dead. The second group consists of supporters of a softer Brexit. Mr Boles wants Britain to join the European Economic Area, which has the merit of already existing. Others favour a customs union. A softer Brexit might well command the support of the majority of MPs, but many of those MPs are on the Labour side. Many Brexiteers would rather split their party than support a soft Brexit.

Amid the chaos, the political landscape is shifting. In normal times political talent gravitates to the front benches. Today there is more talent on the backbenches. Mr Corbyn has acted as a talent-repulsion field and Mrs May, never a great promoter of able ministers, has lost 11 members of her cabinet in the past year. The whipping system is at breaking-point as the enforcers lose their ability to bribe and bully and political factions organise themselves via WhatsApp. A few years ago political journalists dreamed of finding the keys to the whips’ offices. Now they dream of finding the electronic keys to WhatsApp groups. Grassroots politics is becoming more important. The demand for a second referendum came initially from disgruntled voters rather than from MPs. At the same time, Brexit supporters in Tory constituencies are pressing wavering MPs to honour the Brexit vote.

Against the grain
The closest parallel to all this is the 1850s. Britain was seeing the emergence of a two-party structure, with Robert Peel’s Conservatives on one side and the Liberals on the other, until the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. However, tariff reform splintered the two great parties, particularly the Conservatives, and created several factions that still marched under the banner of the two parties but which in practice were constantly forming temporary alliances with one another. A third of the Conservative Party supported free trade and two-thirds opposed it. Britain had a succession of minority governments consisting of coalitions of different factions; governments frequently changed without the bother of a general election; and parties were flexible and multi-faceted.

Could Britain be in for a repeat of the 1850s? Today’s parties have deep social roots. Tories of different factions continue to socialise with each other despite their profound differences over Brexit. For all their divisions, Tories are united in their determination to keep Mr Corbyn out of Downing Street. Still, Brexit is a powerful acid. If Mrs May delays it—as she should—Britain will have to endure many months of Brexit mania.

Even if she finds a way of opting for the softest Brexit possible, Britain’s negotiations with the EU will rumble on for years. A second referendum would inflame political divisions. A no-deal Brexit could produce such economic chaos that the Conservative Party would be out of power for decades. Brexit could even lead to a political realignment if moderate Labour MPs use the People’s Vote as the nucleus of a new centrist party. One thing is clear in all the confusion: anyone who thinks that Britain can go through the madness of the Brexit drama and then revert to politics as normal is howling at the Moon.