As the UK’s new Prime Minister, Theresa May, settles into her new job, expect to come across more evidence of post-Brexit derangement syndrome in the commentariat.
This syndrome is identical to the same disorder that afflicted Brexit voters in the referendum – except that it has now spread to Remain supporters and pundits. In its victims, it wipes out all attention to niggling circumstances and annoying facts.
Just a few weeks ago, it made Leave supporters believe they could get a free trade agreement with the EU that broke the latter’s foundational principles. It made them think you could counter the effects of globalisation by, um, signing free trade agreements with the rest of the world. It reinvented the rules of budgetary maths. It made victims believe they really didn’t mind outright lying commitments, as long as they liked the promises.
Among the commentariat, post-Brexit derangement syndrome is more contagious. Its effects are more euphoric. An unprecedented situation – a major EU member state votes to leave; its own Union might break up; a new prime minister with no ministerial record beyond home affairs; an Opposition in meltdown – exacerbates the syndrome’s erosion of attention to context.
The Brexit vote was motivated among key segments by rising economic inequality and instability
For there is very little known context left. The variables are many and all open to question. So the pundits have a field day, opining without responsibility even more than usual.
Take the current game of wondering whether May will be more of a Margaret Thatcher or an Angela Merkel. The question is nonsense to begin with. She could no more be another Thatcher or Merkel if she were their identical twin.
This is not because May is sublimely unique and her own person. She is, in many ways that others and she herself have identified, very much a product of her background: south of England, with service in the army and the Anglican Church a feature of proud family history. As someone said, this is a class and cultural background that she virtually oozes even in her personally distinguishing characteristics – the playful, colourful shoes offsetting the sober clothes, Yotam Ottolenghi rather than Delia Smith, and the signature phrase, “Get on with the job”. I met a dozen like her in Cambridge common rooms.
But while a politician’s personality and background helps shape their circumstances, leaders are equally shaped by the political context itself. And, by force as well as by choice, May faces circumstances completely different from those of Thatcher in the 1970s and 1980s, and those of Merkel over the last decade.
Thatcher came to power at a time when there was wide agreement that the British State was sclerotic and the enemy was trade unions under arrogant leaders. It was the State that needed downsizing and radical reforms. Thatcher oversaw a swerve to the right in British politics, which was sanctified by New Labour’s acceptance of the fundamental reforms.
May’s premiership, on the other hand, will be preoccupied with shifting British politics somewhat to the centre. This is not just a matter of personal preference (although, clearly, the years she spent serving as shadow minister for employment and for education will have left her with deep-seated convictions). It is also a matter of circumstantial imperative.
Right now, it is obvious that it is not the British State that needs cutting down to size but corporations. The Brexit vote was motivated among key segments by rising economic inequality and instability.
Yet, the Brexit vote itself threatens to exacerbate this very condition (given its dependence on free trade agreements negotiated as quickly as possible).
Among the available alternatives, the German conservative model of structured social dialogue – emphasising worker representation on boards, agreed pay discipline, etc. – is perhaps the most attractive for a one-nation Tory like May. It engenders trust and stability in turbulent times, as well as safeguards living standards better than most.
May’s non-ideological pragmatism may be personal; but it’s the circumstances that make the German model attractive.
May belongs to the generation of Tory politicians who count themselves Thatcher’s children. But Thatcher’s agenda, 30 years old, today is irrelevant. Only an out-of-her depth leadership candidate, like Andrea Leadsom, could think of Thatcher as a model for the post-Brexit UK. Meanwhile, May has noted that a shift to the electoral centre could help win, in the north, some voter segments off a Labour Party in meltdown.
Don’t all these considerations, however, make the comparison to Merkel well-judged? No. Both women may be churchmen’s daughters. Both, in their ascent to the top, have left many men’s political corpses scattered around them. But the relevant circumstances – those that create headlines – are entirely different.
Merkel is who she is, politically, by virtue by leading a united Germany in an expanding Europe, and by trying to lead Europe without seeming to boss it. Merkel herself would be different if she faced May’s task: keeping the UK together while it disengaged from the EU.
The noxious effects of post-Brexit syndrome on pundits don’t stop here, however. They are felt even in the sermons on democracy May is getting, whether it’s because she accepts the Brexit result or because she has ruled out an immediate general election to legitimise herself and the Brexit vote.
Once more, it’s the ignoring of context, as though the political rules of gravity don’t matter. Under the UK’s current electoral system, it has been calculated (by two independent sets of researchers) that a general election that turned on Remain or Leave would lead to an emphatic Leave victory, given the distribution of votes and seats.
Even if some Leave preferences have shifted since the referendum, a general election would be a highly risky strategy. Given the impact it could have on the composition of the mainstream political parties – Labour could be destroyed to Ukip’s advantage – the impact of a general election might actually be to give more power to smaller parties (including the pro-Remain Liberal Democrats) and destabilise the country further.
May is a former Conservative Party chairman (secretary-general in our terms) and knows the electoral landscape well.
It’s unlikely that she’ll be moved by people pointing out that, a decade ago, she called on Gordon Brown to legitimise himself as prime minister by calling a general election. She could well win an immediate general election but it would still tear the Conservatives apart, even as Labour was destroyed.
Unaffected by post-Brexit syndrome herself, she knows there is no way out of the contradictory demands made by Brexit voters, keeping the UK together, and the complications of the UK’s electoral system. The UK’s new prime minister is steely woman of principle but the circumstances of her premiership will call for all her skills of flexibility and pragmatic improvisation.
ranierfsadni@europe.com