Stephen Davies has given us a lucidly written history of Brexit which he argues has resulted in the realignment of British politics. According to Davies the Brexit process and 2019 Conservative Party election landslide ushered in a political realignment as significant as the realignments of the 1920’s and the 1970’s.
According to Davies four groups of voters made up the alignment from the 1970’s to the 2010’s: Social Democrats, Libertarians, Traditional Collectivists and Free Market Conservatives. Davies contends that the political realignment of the 1970’s – ushered in by Margaret Thatcher – reached a dead end by 2010. Both the Conservative and Labour Parties stood for economic liberalism and social liberalism. Economic issues were central to both parties. The differences were minimal.
But over the past ten years questions of culture and identity overtook economics as the central political issues. The proponents of Brexit rejected the globalist, supranational direction of the nation, arguing for a return of national sovereignty to protect British culture and traditions. Immigration, of course, was one of the issues. But Davies argues that it was only one of several issues driving Brexit. As Davies makes clear, the London focused elites completely misjudged the depth of the feeling of the nation about this. Political entrepreneurs like Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), however, grasped this change and ran with it. The Conservative Party leadership’s decision to offer a referendum on the European Union was done to try to neutralize the potential threat of UKIP on the right.
Davies discusses how both the Conservative and Labour Parties were split by the Brexit question. His detailed, yet clear discussion of the tensions within each coalition are worth a careful reading. But it was the Conservatives who understood that they had to act quickly to preserve their position as the only party on the Right. Davies credits the oft derided Theresa May for starting to turn the Conservatives towards a nationalist position. Boris Johnson took over, purged the party of the Brexit opponents and completed the transition.
Davies says that the Emergent New Alignment consists of four groups of voters: Radical Cosmopolitans, Cosmopolitan Liberals, National Collectivists and National Liberals. The Conservative Party led by Johnson has a lock on the National Liberals and won a lot of traditional working class Labour voters from the National Collectivist side to win the election of 2019. The Conservative Partsy took control of the Right. According to Davies, the Labour Party does not yet know how to respond to this new alignment. If they do not, then their very existence is at stake.
The book is accessible to American readers. Davies has spent plenty of time in the US and understands the American system. He has obviously written the book with an eye to American readers. The book is very balanced and non-partisan. Highly recommended.
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