The Jeremy Corbyn effect and the Labour leadership election: the death of New Labour?

A month from now, we'll know who the new leader of the Labour Party will be. The odds favour Jeremy Corbyn, given the massive groundswell of support from the party grassroots, which has left the three other "establishment" candidates struggling to come up with a plan. The latest one - involving all the "big beasts" - seems to be an all-out attack on Corbyn's values and what it would mean for the party electorally.
The surreal irony here is that the party hierarchy talk about Corbyn being someone who will have no resonance with the public mood, while he remains the only candidate of the five who has energised the party base and caused a massive rise in party numbers (more on that later). In other words, the hierarchy want someone who may have little in common with many of the actual party members, but will somehow resonate with the wider public. The surrealism of this point of view tells us what stage of absurdity the Labour party has now reached.

From party of government to political laughing-stock

In five years, the Labour party have gone through a seismic change in fortunes, at least as traumatic as that which they faced between 1979 and 1983 - arguably more so. The story of what happened in Scotland north of the border is highly educational. The party became complacent and relied on second and third-rate party hacks to run things on Scotland, while being dictated to from Westminster. The SNP took advantage of this ruthlessly, and took power in Holyrood with a majority. In 2015, Scottish Labour's MPs in Westminster found out when the same result is applied to a FPTP system: wipeout.

What we are seeing now is the accumulation of various factors, which have aligned together at one moment in time, bringing the spectacle of the current Labour party into full focus. Apart from the meltdown in Scotland highlighting an effective schism between the ideologies of the Scottish and English electorate, there are the changes that have happened within the Labour party itself over the last five years (and since the May election) that have contributed to this very public mess.

Ed Miliband's election as leader was due to the support of the unions. We can only guess now what might have happened if David had won instead; of all the possible candidates to lead the party after the 2010 election defeat, he was probably the best-qualified, having been Foreign Secretary, and being a figure who could easily articulate the "centrist" approach. As we now know, the grassroots of the party are currently much more leftist than many of its MPs, most of which have served through the years of New Labour. Ed Miliband has been seen as one reason for this realignment amongst the grassroots.
Then, after the Falkirk election scandal, the voting system within party was changed, with the intention of making it much more open to party members, making the process more obviously representative of members' views, and allowing for low barriers to entry to encourage increased party membership. Given that party membership is now more than 200,000, we can say that approach is a success. Unfortunately for the party hierarchy, the members are not looking to vote the way the party elite expected.  The horrible complacency of Labour's leadership has come home to roost. Having allowed a "token" leftist candidate on the leadership election, once more the Labour leadership took things for granted: their members would vote for one of the uninspiring, centrist candidates because there was "no other alternative". They had learned nothing from the debacle of Scottish Labour. In the same way that the SNP became the beneficiaries of Labour complacency, Jeremy Corbyn has become the beneficiary of this grassroots insurgency.

Having given the party base a weapon to democratise the election process, the party heads are appalled at how this has backfired on them. While those at the top of the party are New Labour veterans and stalwarts, the "Ed Effect", and the shattering loss of the 2015 election, seems to have galvanised the party base to "stick two fingers up" to the out-of-touch complacency shown by Labour in Westminster.
This is also partly a result of the lack of any inspiring new figures coming through the party. While the likes of Chuka Umunna and Liz Kendall are new MPs and can articulate the "New Labour" idea, the problem is that it is not what many of the grassroots want to hear. Worse, their generalisations and lack of a "common touch" make them out as being only a few shades to the left of the Tories. This is also partly the legacy of New Labour and Blair: selecting yes-men and party hacks as MPs, that have little real life experience outside of politics. Only Dan Jarvis of the "newbies" bucks this trend as being a former soldier with a genuine life story to tell; but for (understandable) family reasons doesn't wish to step up to the mantle.

Cavaliers and Roundheads

This is where the "Corbyn-,mania" comes from. Being cut from a different cloth to the many indistinguishable "New Labour" figures, he is the polar opposite, something that hasn't been seen in British politics for thirty years. A natural populist, he appears as a bearded prophet, who dresses in the style of puritan socialist. This is in marked contrast the "professional" look of the rest of the Westminster set, from the "New Labour" types to the ranks of the public school Tories.

In some ways, British politics these days seems to resemble the ideological contortions of the mid-17th century. Certainly, with the situation north of the border, relations between England and Scotland may be said to be almost as bad and distrustful as they were in the days of the Civil War. While no-one of course is suggesting violence, the political situation, and the complex political realignments across Britain, could be said to be as convoluted and as difficult to comprehend as they were at that time. There are factions and sub-factions now as there were then.

The Tories are certainly living up to their role as the party of the aristocracy (The "Cavaliers"), doing just enough to rule the country, but doing so in a highly-divisive and dangerously-reckless way. Like back then, the modern Tories - the party of the aristocracy - are unpopular in London. Like back then, the Tories had "lost Scotland" to a group of Scottish political insurgents.
But also like then, bizarre political groupings and alliances were formed. The modern Labour party (aka The "Roundheads") has factions of its own, as Cromwell's supporters did back in the 17th century. During the Civil War and up to the Restoration, Scotland changed allegiances a number of times. This was also the time of "The Levellers", whose values these days Jeremy Corbyn would be sympathetic towards. The "Corbyn insurgency" bears all the hallmarks of being a grassroots rebellion like that which was formed by The Levellers in days of the Civil War.

The current political situation within the Labour Party in Britain may soon become even more convoluted, if Jeremy Corbyn becomes the new leader. Corbyn's campaigning in Scotland has shown that he has drawn the support of many who had only just recently swapped their votes from Labour to the SNP in the general election. However, the new leader of Scottish Labour, Kezia Dugdale, is ardently against his values. So we may well have a situation where the leader of Labour in England is more popular in Scotland than England, and more popular than Scottish Labour's own leader, who disagrees with him. This would be beyond farcical, but also a reflection of how complicated British politics has become.

A Corbyn leadership may well be a "moment of madness" by the Labour grassroots, given the fact that they lost the general election on a platform more to the middle than anything proposed by Corbyn. A mass movement of Corbyn support would almost certainly face a bloodbath in the face of the "Cavalier" Tories in 2020; but it would be an "honourable death", as seen by his supporters.

The problem is what state the Labour Party would be in afterwards - or after five years of Corbyn leadership.

The 2015 General Election: the aftermath, and the implications for Labour and UK politics

The results of the general election were a shock, to Labour most of all. The Liberal Democrats suffered catastrophic losses, who - for their naive willingness to join in coalition with the Tories five years ago - may as well now be called the "Useful Idiots" of the last parliament. But this was not totally unexpected, given their low percentage of polling.

In spite of all the criticism of the pollsters getting the result so wrong, the reality was that they got most things more-or-less right - except for the polling for Labour and the Conservatives. All the other parties polled at roughly where they predicted. It was the "shy Tory" effect that the pollsters either completely missed or - just as likely - a collective "group think" that made polling companies discard "wrong" polling results that appeared to inflate the support for the Tories.

In this election, it was a "perfect storm" of factors that resulted in Labour overall losing twenty or so seats, leaving them a hundred behind the Conservatives in parliament. Several factors over the duration of the last parliament swung things - unexpectedly - for the Tories, leaving them with a surprise (albeit tiny) majority. The collapse of the Lib Dems left twenty-odd seats there for the taking for the Tories. The surge in UKIP over the last few years has seen a portion of the working class transfer their vote from Labour and into the purple, costing Labour precious votes in key Tory/ Labour marginals. And the surge of the SNP has effectively left the three main parties locked out of Scotland, which cost Labour forty-odd seats.

These three factors, coupled with the simple effectiveness of the Tory message (in spite of its negativity and bare deceitfulness), allowed the Tories to fend off any Labour advance in the key battlegrounds. The result was a net gain of twenty-odd seats.

The road to contrition

Labour now has some hard questions to ask itself about what strategy they can formulate to regain power. Where did it they go wrong? The Tories were allowed to dictate the "narrative" of the events of 2008 without a coherent alternative argument (namely, the truth!). Many will say that the Tories' message about Labour was based on a willful lie - which is basically true - but the fact that the Tories were able to so easily get away with it demonstrates the weakness of Labour's leadership and message.

Equally, many will - rightly - point to the loss of the key marginals (places that, under Blair, usually swung their way). Winning back the confidence of those voters is key to Labour being able to eat into the hundred-seat gap that separates them from the Tories. The battle over "Middle England" (i.e. the marginals) is the key to getting into government. Regardless of how popular a party is in Scotland or Wales, England will always be the only way a party can find its way into government. This may be not what some Labour people want to hear, but that is the reality.

And herein lies a problem - several, actually. First of all, there has to be a realisation that the next time there will be an election (presumably in 2020), many people will have forgotten why the financial crisis happened. If Labour were unable to convince people of the truth about what happened in 2008 this time around, five years from now it will be basically impossible. Think about it: any voter who will be, say twenty, come the next election, was only a child of eight when the financial crisis happened. Arguing over what happened in 2008 in a 2020 election will look parochial and backwards-looking in the extreme, regardless of the truth.

Labour may well have to swallow their pride and - to an extent, at least - accept the "lie" of the Tory narrative. It's already too late to change people's minds about what they think what happened. While Labour go on arguing about the facts, the Tories have their "narrative". The average person will believe almost any narrative if it is explained simply and repeated enough: this is the simple (if sad) truth. The extent to which Iain Duncan Smith can still convincingly talk about "welfare reform" is a case in point.

To get to that point in the party, however, will probably involve a prolonged "blood-letting" exercise within the party, like that which existed in 2005 after the Tories lost their third successive election. This is will painful for many after the bitterness of losing an election they thought they had a good chance of "winning" (after some negotiation). Those people will have to simply take in on the chin if the party is to move forward, or look at leaving the party altogether.

But that exercise in "contrition" is only half of the problem...

The "Party Of Britain" no more?

Blair's Britain was the high watermark for the Labour party: winning three successive elections, two of them successive landslides. Whereas the Conservative and Unionist Party at one time represented the nature of the United Kingdom, under Blair, Labour came to represent the modern-day "Party Of Britain", leading in all parts of Great Britain. The Conservatives were reduced (and still are) to being essentially an English party, looking parochial compared to Labour's embrace of the modern, diverse Britain of the 21st century.

Come 2015, and the the UK looks more divided than ever, between the nations and between different segments of society. While Labour still dominates in its Welsh heartlands, Scotland's politics has effectively detached itself from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, England looks politically very similar to what it did twenty or thirty years ago: with Labour dominating the North, the English cities and London, with the Tories having a sea of blue in everything between. England is segments and islands of red in a sea of blue. And under the surface, UKIP is the second party in many places up and down the coast of England.

This leaves Labour in a more difficult situation politically than in 1987, when they last won a similar number of seats in an election. While the Tories' majority is slender (even less than in 1992), Labour - due to the factors mentioned earlier - have their work cut out to claw back the lost ground.
Assuming that the party choose a "modernising figure" (i.e. "Blairite", for want of a better moniker), this will help them win back the Tory marginals.

If Labour is very smart, they will also exploit the (temporary?) collapse of the Lib Dems and try and muscle into contention in places like the South West, where traditionally Labour have struggled against a Tory/ Lib Dem two-horse race. However, even this may be a lost cause, given that the LibDems look keen to get a new leader in quickly. Tim Farron, chairman of the party and a leading left-wing figure, looks to be favourite. Indeed, the LibDems may already have the threat Labour poses on their mind more keenly than Labour does, given Labour's post-election introspection. The irony here is that while it was Labour's failure of introspection post-2010 that resulted in a lurch leftwards and Ed Miliband becoming leader, a surfeit of introspection post-2015 may lead to Labour missing out the opportunity to quickly fill the political space in the centre by the collapse in the LibDems.
Labour made the assumption back in 2010 that a collapse in LibDem support would leave a mass of support flocking to Labour. The 2015 election proved this to be a pipedream. While this effect won them maybe a dozen seats, the same effect won the Tories around double that. It is possible that the transfer of votes in Tory to LibDem is "soft", and therefore malleable to the right kind of Labour message; but it's tall order. The right kind of message from a LibDem leader would see them simply switch back to what they know.

Many Labour figures are talking about a ten-year plan, with no realistic hope of regaining the lost ground needed in time for the next election. Unlike in 1987, Labour's position is precarious because the diversification of the British political scene is mostly to the cost of Labour. If Labour, as necessary, move to the centre to reclaim the middle ground as Blair did, it leaves their left flank exposed. Under Ed Miliband, their positioning was deemed to far to the left to convince enough centrist voters to back them. If Labour move more to the centre as anticipated, it will be more difficult to dissuade the working class against switching to UKIP. As Labour move to the centre, more of their "core voters" will see them as increasingly out-of-touch compared to the straightforward message of UKIP. This may be a risk that Labour will have to take: will the votes they gain from undecided voters in marginals be more than those lost to UKIP?
Regarding the Greens, it is unclear if they had a decisive effect on the Labour vote or not. Apart from in a small number of constituencies, their numbers did not seem big enough to have a decisive effect either way, compared the striking performances of UKIP.

Lastly, of course, there is the SNP. Politically, Scotland is now separated from the rest of the UK, leaving Labour without one of its heartlands. The one-time "Party Of Britain" is now looking like a party without a country - in a sense, a "stateless" party. The Tories may have retreated into being "Little Englanders", but at least they have retained their coherence; the diversification of British politics has left the Labour party being ideologically and geographically pulled apart, with little unifying coherence remaining.

Ironically, while the Tories may be a party in hock with The City, Labour cemented its political dominance of London itself in the 2015 election. London remains the most "Blairite" part of the UK, and a Labour citadel. It is the miles of towns and countryside around the rest of England that are largely with the Tory camp. Meanwhile, the Labour supporters in the Welsh and Northern heartlands are politically closer to those supporting the SNP. Trying to keep these differing versions of "Labour" together is becoming a more difficult challenge given the changed landscape

The battle for the political soul of Britain is not over, but the forces that are pulling Britain's politics and identity apart are winning. And time is running out.

The 2015 General Election: what happened?

Politics is a brutal business, they say; but rarely has an election in modern times been so brutal. The Conservatives were the major beneficiaries to the dramatic collapse in the Lib Dems across the UK, and Labour's Scottish supporters switching en masse to the SNP.

While in the 2010 election, the Conservatives were ahead of Labour by fifty seats, now they are ahead of them by a hundred. However, this must still be put into context. Needing 323 seats for a working majority, David Cameron won 331. This is more than the bare majority that Wilson got in October 1974, but still less than what Major got in 1992 (336). And we know what happened to that "majority" over the course of five years.
In that sense, George Osborne's hope that 2015 would be like 1992 again, we was proved right, in that the Conservatives won a similar result in terms of seats (though around 4% less than 1992 in the popular vote).

However, there the comparisons end. For Labour, the number of seats won (232) was similar to what they won in 1987. But this was not because of collapse in the votes in England. Compared to 2010, they won nearly a million more votes this time around, in spite of the collapse of their support in Scotland. So something very strange - and perverse - must have happened. There were different factors (more on those in a moment) that resulted in Labour doing far worse than they were expecting in England.

Lastly, the poor Liberal Democrats - as many of their party members feared - reaped the whirlwind of working in government with the Tories. After losing nearly fifty seats, Tories seemingly voted tactically to save Nick Clegg's seat where so many other Lib Dems were ousted. This must have felt like a particularly cruel kind of mercy. No wonder that when Clegg gave his speech standing down as leader, he seemed like a broken man. Their cohort of MPs had been reduced to the kind of levels they had in the 1960s.

A perfect storm

For Labour, the election results were a stunning shock.

While the results in Scotland had been feared to an extent (if not quite believed), in reality they were caught in an unexpected "pincer" on both sides of the border.

They had been hoping that the losses they might have had to the SNP would have been offset by gains in English Tory/Labour marginals. Instead, in many marginals, Labour became victim to an unforeseen "UKIP Effect". In places like Bolton and Bury (close to this author's neck of the woods), the Tories unexpectedly won, sometimes by a margin of only hundreds of votes. This was repeated even in places like Wales, and across other towns and small cities in "Middle England". In these constituencies the common denominator was UKIP coming a strong third. What seems to have happened is that, rather than the Tories bleeding votes to UKIP and letting Labour through (as they had hoped might happen), the opposite was happening: Labour was bleeding "working class" votes by their thousands to UKIP.

This was one of the major factors that accounted for UKIP receiving nearly four million votes. And was - without doubt - the reason for Labour's biggest (and most unexpected) casualty of all - Ed Balls.
Of course, this does not explain all the results in the key Tory/Labour marginals, but it was certainly a key factor in a significant number of them. In many marginals, UKIP were the Tories "secret weapon".

The reasons why people chose to vote Conservative and not Labour in those key marginals will not be discussed here. Some of these factors have been discussed by the author before. It was also clear from anecdotal evidence that the SNP "fear factor" was playing on the minds of some key voters.

One more thing about UKIP. As UKIP themselves predicted, they came second in a number of "safe" Labour seats in the party's northern heartlands, and similarly, came second in a number of the Tories' heartland seats in the South-East. So Farage's claim as being the only "working class" party in England, was now beginning to look more and more credible, in spite of the reality.

A "lucky" Prime Minister?

As said at the start, the Conservatives won their seats due to the collapse of the Lib Dems, grabbing almost all the seats that were a toss between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Cameron claimed during the campaign that he only needed twenty more seats to govern, and he got them, from the Lib Dems. However, that presupposed that he didn't lose any seats to Labour, but as we have seen above - again - he was proved right, against all the odds. Thanks to the insurgent effect of UKIP on Labour's base, the "fear factor" of the SNP and worries over the economy on classic swing voters, the Tories emerged from the face-off in the Tory/Labour marginals relatively unscathed. Some seats were lost to Labour, but there were equally other (unexpected) gains from Labour. The losses and gains basically cancelled each other out. It was in these seats that the election was really won.

The switching of many Lib Dem seats to Tory, and the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland meant that Labour had to rely on the English marginals mostly going their way in order to ensure that the Tories lost enough seats to bring Labour into contention as a serious alternative to form a government. In this way, Labour really were fighting against the tide. Due to the three factors mentioned - the Tories being the biggest recipient of the Lib Dem collapse, the surge of the SNP, and the UKIP "secret weapon" - the Tories really held the best set of cards to allow them to consolidate on their 2010 result.

In hindsight, these three factors should have been more obvious, in spite of all the predictions of a hung parliament and a messy politics to follow.

As things stand now, both Labour and (even more so) the Lib Dems have serious questions to ask themselves about what direction they should take their respective parties. While Labour's result in this election is comparable with 1987, this fails to take into account the loss of so many MPs in Scotland this time around. They cannot expect to gain them back any time soon. So the 1987 comparison is not truly accurate. Labour now are much more an "English" party than they were on Thursday morning.
But the political scene in Westminster is more fractured than ever before, in spjte of the gross injustices that FPTP has brought to UKIP and the Greens (while massively rewarding the SNP). In that sense, the political scene feels, if anything, like that in 1983: a divided opposition allowing the Conservatives to continue ruling from Downing Street.

David Cameron may well have felt he has dodged a bullet in this election, and been rewarded with a political bomb landing in the laps of his opponent, leaving a multitude of political carcasses.

Perhaps he's just "lucky".

The Conservatives, Labour and the SNP: the Tories' cynical strategy of divide and rule

The Conservatives' election strategy has been marked by negative tactics and low politics. This reached a low point with the personal attacks on Ed Miliband the other week, but has not stopped. In spite of the fact that there is little evidence that this is actually having an effect on the polls (and some suggesting it may have had the opposite effect), the attacks on Miliband have continued by major Tory figures.
Cameron seems intent on flogging this particular dead horse. One particularly-telling moment was a Cameron interview with Sky News the day after Fallon's remarks, where Cameron admitted that he didn't know Miliband personally (or really, at all), but still felt justified in making these highly-personal attacks. This is just absurd: the Prime Minister trying to defend making unsavoury personal attacks on a person he barely even knows. The fact that Cameron has to resort to them to make a point, while Miliband simply has to talk about the effect government policies are having, tells you a lot about the character of the two men vying to be Prime Minister after the election.

The wider truth about the Tories is that they would do and say almost anything to have power. Their manifesto was full of ridiculous promises; where the money came from, nobody knew. While all parties are guilty of exaggerating the danger of other parties, the Conservatives' threats at times have bordered on the nonsensical: that they would create "millions" of jobs, and that Labour would destroy "millions" of jobs. Since when do Conservative governments "create" jobs? Only the private companies can do that. The talk of Labour "chaos", which ignores the fact that - prior to the global financial crisis - Labour presided over the longest period of growth in living memory. Yes, there was a crash, but it was a worldwide crash, that cannot simply be blamed on Labour. In any case, the Conservatives' economic policy at the time was even more gung-ho than the then Labour government's. But these facts must be conveniently forgotten to project the fallacy of Conservative competence.

Divide and rule

The Conservative Party is the historic party of the old aristocracy, and the party still rules the UK with the same attitude the Empire had towards it's colonies. These days, with the empire long gone, it feels like the "empire" is just London ruling the other parts of the country like outlying colonies. For those in the Westminster bubble, the rest of the country certainly feels as remote. The country is ran as though it is just an economic extension of the London economy: this explains why London acts as a vampire on the "real" UK beyond the M25. The economic model the UK has had for the past thirty years has been made in London, for the benefit of London. Any beneficial effects on those areas outside of London have been incidental. It's essentially the same economic model as some parts of the Third World.
The only way the electorate can be distracted from this reality is by the Tories creating poisonous false narratives like "strivers" versus "shirkers". The "politics of envy" that the Tories hurl at Labour more accurately reflects how they use the politics of fear to protect their own interests and positions. When you have a lot to lose - like the media barons that support the Tories  - anything that could possibly prevent your own expansion is perceived as a mortal threat.

The Tories have been gradually losing support in Scotland over the last thirty years. The loss of the 1997 election saw the last generation of Tory Scots swept from Westminster, leaving only a vestige of support. The irony was that, after opposing devolution, the Scottish Conservatives found that they could have a larger voice in Holyrood's new, proportional system. The same was true of the SNP. When the nationalists became a minority government in Holyrood, the SNP had to rely on Tory support from time to time to get some bills through parliament. Then, with the collapse of Labour support becoming even more dramatic after the SNP won power outright in the following Holyrood elections. a historic change looked to be taking place. The aftermath of the independence referendum last year confirmed the historic nature of the collapse of Labour support to the benefit of the SNP. The Tories looked on in delight.

As said earlier, the Tories have a track record of doing and saying anything in order to have power. Regarding the national integrity of the UK, this will even extend to happily losing one part of the country if it means having a better control of the rest. For this is the calculation that Cameron and other figures in the government have clearly made. This is, quite literally, "divide and rule".

And yet, the Tories' strategy is at a complete counter to one of main tenets of their existence: the preservation of the UK. While it may be argued by some that it was the Labour party that "gave up" on the empire, it is the Tories who seem happy to give up on the idea of the UK - so long as they think they can rule what is left of it.

While in the election campaign they talk about the dangers of the "chaos" of the SNP somehow having control over Labour and the UK as a whole, at the same time people like George Osborne are talking up the talents of the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon. It is almost as if some Tories want the SNP to do well, regardless of the implications this may have on the wider future of the UK. And yet, while offering more powers to Scotland after the referendum, now they are talking about how Scottish voters' choice will have no effect in Westminster - words that seem almost designed to make the Scots even more angry and disconnected from the decisions in Westminster. This would no doubt suit the long-term aims of the SNP.
One theory doing the rounds is that the Conservatives are somehow hoping to destroy the Labour party in Scotland through the proxy of the SNP. With the simultaneous collapse of the LibDems north of the border, this then gives them a free run as the main "unionist" opposition to the SNP. A plot as nefarious as this couldn't be put past the Tories, regardless of how fanciful the aim. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (until he's the enemy again).

A Game Of Chess

In this light, the Scottish Conservatives may be trying to play a very long game. Meanwhile, the English Conservatives are trying to make Labour - the only party with serious levels of support in each part the union - as the party prepared to "do a deal" with a party (the SNP) that would split the union asunder. As we have already seen, this claim is as nonsensical as it is shamelessly hypocritical and disingenuous.
It would suit both the SNP and the Tories for Labour to be dislodged as "Stewards Of The North". To use a "Game Of Thrones" analogy (apologies to those not in the know) the Tories are playing the Lannisters, who secretly did a deal with the Boltons (the SNP) to take over from the Starks (Labour).

But this is not a game. While Cameron and Osborne play petty politics with Scotland for their own reasons, at the same time they are also playing games with the "insurgents" in British politics, UKIP. The Tories criticise Labour for refusing to rule out a deal with the SNP, but already in the previous parliament, Ukip's agenda forced Cameron into promising an EU referendum in the next parliament. And that was even at a time before UKIP had any MPs. While UKIP are unlikely to get more than a handful of MPs, they have plenty of "soft power" over the Conservatives in terms of the many Euro-sceptic MPs amongst the Tories themselves.
So, assuming that Cameron did get back into power, he would be beholden to the "insurgents" of UKIP on one hand, and powerless to prevent an angry and politically-disconnected Scotland breaking away, on the other. A Cameron second term could conceivably conclude with Scotland breaking up the union and the UK leaving the EU. While these might seem far-fetched scenarios, they would be even less likely if Ed Miliband were Prime Minister. 

To the likes of Cameron, politics is a game of chess, but one he thinks he is much better at than he actually is. His record as Prime Minister and statesman is actually pretty appalling. It sometimes feels like he's doing it for the lack of anything better to do.

2015 post-election scenarios: the SNP, and a sea of bad options for the UK

Barring some unexpected change in the next two months, the 2015 general election is likely to end in an unholy mess. While the last election produced a hung parliament, it was the size of the LibDems in Westminster that made the "ConLib" coalition possible.

This time around, that is extremely unlikely to be possible - and is largely due to the SNP.

Coalitions of the unwilling

With the LibDems expected to lose anywhere between twenty or thirty-odd MPs (and even Nick Clegg under threat of losing his Sheffield seat), their losses look to be gains for the Conservatives and Labour in England and the SNP in Scotland (see the excellent explainer and graphic here). And with the Conservatives highly unlikely to retain their current numbers in parliament, a "Tory-led" coalition looks mathematically unworkable, even with the support of the DUP and UKIP.

What looks certain is that, even if the Tories somehow were able to hang on as a minority government with LibDem and others' support, the "anti-Tory" MPs (i.e. Labour and the "Celtic Fringe") would have more MPs to vote against any legislation. When it came to passing the Queen's speech later in May, the "anti-Tory" MPs could veto it. Ergo, government wouldn't be able to function.

Of course, that assumes that the LibDems would support the Conservatives the second time around. That assumption is also complacent, as it would depend on the internal politics of the LibDems post-election. For example, if (in the worst-case scenario) Nick Clegg lost his seat, it would probably put the more left-leaning party figures in more prominent positions. It is already likely that Danny Alexander will lose his seat to the SNP, leaving Clegg without one prominent supporter. In the event of negotiations with the Tories on another coalition (or "case-by-case" support), the more leftish parts of the LibDems are much more likely to make their voice heard, given the mauling the party is likely to have faced after being with the Tories in government for five years. So the LibDem leadership may well be under pressure to keep their distance from being too closely linked to anything the Conservatives do after the election.
For these reasons, it would be foolishly-arrogant for the Tories to take LibDem support for granted after the election. The LibDems may well choose to support Labour, especially if they have the larger number of MPs (which was officially the central reason for Clegg supporting the Tories in 2010). As the LibDems like to say of themselves, when in a coalition they would give a heart to a Tory government, and a backbone to a Labour one. This sentiment can be easily mocked, but that is more-or-less how the party sees itself.

One of the most outlandish options - which hardly anyone has spoke of - is a "grand coalition" of the two main parties. The German government is a "grand coalition" at the moment, and was in Merkel's first term (currently in her third).
However, there are reasons why this option is outlandish. It seems highly implausible for several reasons.
First, while this would guarantee a huge majority in parliament, it would cause massive ruptures within the two parties. Defections would be likely from both parties (e.g. to UKIP).
Second, it would look like - and would be - a stitch-up. The support for the other parties - UKIP, in particular - would likely surge, and cause problems within both parties (see point one). There would likely be strong calls for a change to the voting system (again), and this time they may have to be heeded.
Third, while the other parties - such as UKIP in particular - lump the three parties together as "LibLabCon", there are still large areas of disagreement between Labour and the Tories: austerity and Europe, to name just two. While the LibDems also had disagreements with the Tories when they entered the coalition, they at least both agreed on the idea of austerity. Labour's view is different from the LibDems, and thus very hard to match with the Tories' vision. It seems almost impossible to imagine the leading personalities of these two parties in the same government.
Which leads to the last point: the clash of personalities. The leading lights in the Tories and Labour can't stand each other (or at least appear to). How day-to-day running of government would be possible with such a group of opposing personalities with mutually-exclusive visions (Osborne and Balls fighting over the Treasury?) is almost beyond comprehension.

Scratch my back...

So far, we've looked at coalition options, but haven't mentioned the elephant in the room: the SNP. The Tories are keen to emphasize the "nightmare scenario" of a Labour-SNP coalition of the UK, making the Tories as the "anti-Scottish" party. Certainly, it is easy to see why this scenario would be unpopular in England, with the threat of the tail wagging the dog.

However, it looks like both Labour and the SNP are well aware of this perception as well. The SNP have made repeated statements that they would not enter a coalition with Labour (as well as refusing any deals with the Tories). The rationale for this appears to be one of "fear of association". Looking at what's happened to the LibDems in government with the Tories, the SNP seem to have decided that they would rather have their influence from afar, than be intimately-bound with any major party, and thus tarred with the same brush.  If that is indeed the case, then they have learned from observing the LibDems' painful experience. While there will likely be no SNP ministers in government (though the thought of Alex Salmond as Scottish secretary is amusing), the question is what indirect influence could the SNP have?

While Labour have refused to rule out a coalition in principle, the SNP seem to have made their decision for them. As things stand, the most likely post-election scenario is a minority Labour government supported by the SNP (and others?) on a case-by-case basis. This is, remember, what Cameron first offered to the LibDems as his preferred governing option in 2010; and now the LibDems may well rue the decision not to have taken it. But is this scenario feasible in the long-term?
Probably not.

While it's true that the SNP did rule Holyrood as a minority government for a full term, Westminster politics lacks the more deliberative and co-operative aspects seen in the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales (and NI). Westminster is a bear-pit, as we see in PMQs each week.
It is hard to imagine a minority government of any colour surviving for a full term. Labour would be under pressure for an EU referendum from the Tories. Although Labour could theoretically ignore this, the threat of a Tory-UKIP alliance to lobby for a referendum would be hard to ignore - especially considering how UKIP are effectively the second party in parts of the North of England. This would put Labour MPs under pressure to heed to public opinion.
Secondly, assuming that the SNP gain the majority of MPs in Scotland, this would give them a legitimate right to demand another independence referendum (regardless of the fact they'd only just had one). While Scotland and the SNP may not really want independence outright, the SNPs large cohort of MPs could effectively act as leverage to campaign for "devo-max", with the emphasis on "max": to ensure that the famous "vow" for Home Rule is implemented in full. This is their real - and realistic - aim, and will likely have the support of the Tories (who have their own plans for EVEL). In this, a minority Labour government could be forced into an unlikely fait accompli between the SNP and the Tories to divide power between them. This would lead to a whole new constitutional can of worms.

Whatever the result of the election, things in the UK are unlikely to be the same again.

The SNP surge and the 2015 General Election: what this means for UK politics

This time last year, no-one was seriously predicting that the SNP could wipe the board in the general election this year, and gain the majority of Scottish seats in Westminster. But now only a few months away from the election in May, barring some unexpected, massive, late recovery for Labour, this looks like the most likely scenario, according to analysis.

Analysts have said that the polling figures in Scotland seem so out-of-kilter with past polls to stretch credulity to (and beyond) breaking point. As has been said, if the results were an accurate view of the political situation in Scotland, it would have to indicate a sudden and massive sea-change in opinion. Few seem to be able to accept the truth staring them in the face: that there has, indeed, been a sudden, transformative, change in Scottish politics. It's just that these kind of things don't happen very often - but they do happen from time to time.
And now is clearly one of those times when there is a once-in-a-generation shift in politics. They do, indeed, happen: the last time it happened nationally across the UK was in 1997, and 1979 prior to that, and again going back to 1945. In 2015 we're facing the birth of a messy, five-way political scene, that is bound to put huge pressure on the existing voting system if the situation remains as it is for more than one parliament.

Reaching the tipping point

In Scotland's case, the collapse of Labour's support has not been as sudden as people think, but has been more gradual in Holyrood; it has simply gone largely unnoticed in Westminster, due to the complacency of the Westminster establishment. The SNP have been in government in Scotland now for many years, with a third term looking a shoo-in next year. They have been gradually eating away at Labour's "natural" majority, so much that by the time of the referendum last year, 45% voted "yes". With so many of those voters being from places like Glasgow and Dundee, what has clearly happened is those Labour supporters who voted "yes" last year, have now simply switched their allegiance to the SNP.

Rationally, this makes sense, as the SNP was the only large party that supported "yes". Somehow, after voting "yes" for independence, Labour grandees expected their "natural" supporters to go back to voting for "no"-supporting Labour in the election, This attitude reflects a ignorant disregard for the once-in-a-lifetime effect that a referendum can have on the politics of a nation, and a "blind spot" for not realising the dangerous position it put Labour in after the referendum. It's unclear if the SNP saw the beneficial, post-referendum, side-effects of this either, but they are reaping the rewards now regardless.

But what this means politically is nothing less than an earthquake north of the border, for whereas ten years ago Labour were around twenty points ahead of the SNP in Scotland, that situation has now reversed. The "45" who voted "yes" in the referundum are now the "45" who will probably vote for the SNP in the Westminster election. This utterly changes the political scene, in a way that politicians could have scarcely imagined.
Now that the SNP are averaging percentages in the forties in many constituencies, and are comfortably ahead of Labour or the Lib Dems in many areas, Westminster's FPTP system now suddenly works in the favour. This is the oddity of the FPTP system and how it can bring about freakish and sudden change. Once a party reaches a "tipping point", they create a "teflon" quality within the system: this explains why the Lib Dems may be polling less than ten per cent of the vote, yet still end up retaining many of their MPs. Of course, the other extreme is now facing them in Scotland: that they may lose almost all of their MPs thanks to the SNP surge.
So the FPTP system can be equally a blessing and a curse, depending on the circumstances. As Labour may well find out, if all constituencies vote the same way, it means that one party ends up with all the seats, regardless of how unfair this may seem. That's just the way the system works!

For the SNP right now, they are doubly-blessed with a surge in popularity that is giving them a comfortable hold over Holyrood, and the likelihood of having a large cohort of MPs (though "enforcers" might be a more appropriate word!) to take down to Westminster. Which leaves us thinking about where this leaves Scottish relations with Westminster...

A "rough wooing" in reverse?

Whoever forms the next government after the election. they are facing a huge headache if the SNP has the predicted number of MPs that polling currently predicts. Modest estimates are that they could win two dozen seats; higher estimates (yet still plausible, given the polling figures) talk about forty or more MPs. These are extraordinary numbers, but again, given the unique effect of the referendum, these are extraordinary times.

Tories may well be thinking they could retain power by default, with the SNP surge depriving Labour of up to three dozen or so MPs. They should be careful for what they wish for, because whichever party ends up being the biggest number of MPs, they will almost certainly not have a majority (even with Lib Dem support - more on that in a moment). and any possible coalition looks much shakier than the one formed after the 2010 election.
Here's why. Polling across the country suggests that the Conservatives are likely to lose seats to Labour in many marginals; given how historically-badly Labour did in 2010 this kind of recovery is no surprise, and their polling figures are healthier than the Tories in these battlegrounds. So the most likely party the Tories are to take MPs from is the LibDems - the very party they would want to be in coalition with. In other words, they would - at best - end up with similar numbers of MPs, but with far fewer LibDems to form a coalition. Ergo, they could not form a majority as a two-party coalition.
So the Tories have their own strategic problems, and that's without factoring-in the "UKIP effect". Apart from the LibDems, no party of any size would want to do business with them.

Labour has its own problems, due to the SNP and the combined effect in England of the UKIP-Green insurgency. So while they would expect take seats from the Conservatives, due to losing seats in Scotland to the SNP, they may well end up in only a modestly-better position than now, and short of a majority, even if they did a deal with the LibDems, as mentioned above.

This scenario, looking very likely at the moment, gives the SNP the whip hand. The question is, what kind of constitutional nightmare does this scenario result in? This is politically (and constitutionally) uncharted territory. Both main parties will be locked in squabbles over how to deal with the SNP's cohort of MPs post-election. And how would they form a government? Will the Scottish "tail" be wagging the English "dog"?

The easiest option for parliament would be to call a fresh election if the situation is looking untenable, but what guarantees are there that the result would be much different? And would there be an appetite for even more politicking?
In this potentially-febrile atmosphere, relations between Scotland and England could make the tensions during the referendum campaign seem trivial and light-hearted by comparison. The potential for venomous disagreements and shady scheming is large. But this is the situation that the UK may well face, with no-one in Westminster having a real clue what to do about it.

Calls for another Scottish referendum may come, and not only from the Scots. The UK may still be split up due to the in-fighting between the various components of the union. Whatever happens, it certainly will not be boring...

The 2015 General Election: confusion, hung parliaments, UKIP, and a war on many fronts

A recent poll clarified the depth of the confusion over what the likely outcome of this year's general election will look like.

I wrote this time last year that Labour would probably win the election, giving some of the reasons why. In the present circumstances, Labour look like they will either win outright, with a small majority (e.g. of less than twenty), or come out as the largest party in a hung parliament (e.g. with somewhere in the region of 280-320 seats). The latter scenario is still quite possible, though (more on why in a moment).

On the polling figures the Tories have had more-or-less consistently for the past year or more, they may well lose around fifty or so of their MPs; possibly more given their lack of appeal in the North of England, where UKIP looks likely to supplant them as the opposition to Labour in many areas.

The LibDems look like a spent force. Charitable estimates are that they will lose something like twenty of their MPs (currently on 57 in this parliament); more apocalyptic scenarios - which are still very feasible given their dire poll ratings - are that they could lose more than half their MPs, including some current ministers. In the event of a hung parliament, the LibDems are likely to have too few MPs remaining to make a viable "tandem" coalition with the biggest party (e.g. Labour); at best, if a coalition involving the LibDems were formed, it would have to involve a third party to make the numbers work in parliament.

A war on three fronts

While Labour look set to be the biggest party in parliament, barring some unforeseen circumstances, being a few points ahead of the Conservatives in the polls is no guarantee that they would still have enough MPs to govern alone.

The poll mentioned at the start of the article shows how strong the three "minor" parties are - UKIP on 20%, with the Greens biting at the heels of the LibDems for national share of the vote...and with the SNP on 5%.
The last figure is the most stunning, because the SNP are not a "national" party. They only have candidates standing in Scotland. In many ways, the "5%" figure is meaningless, if they only have candidates in on part of the UK. But if their support is 5% on average nationally, that tells you the level of support they have in Scotland must be many times higher than that; proportionally, the SNP are by far the most popular party in Scotland. Recent polls put their support on something twenty points ahead of Labour, the next biggest party, which is why analysts are estimating that, at a conservative estimate, the SNP could take at least twenty seats away from Labour.
Indeed, due the the FPTP system for Westminster, the SNP could take the majority of all of Scotland's seats to Westminster, leaving them with anything as high as forty or more MPs in parliament (most of those representing former Labour strongholds).

This scenario would be nothing less than an apocalypse for Scottish Labour. And, obviously, causes massive problems for Labour getting a majority in parliament.

The UKIP factor is a second front that Labour knows it cannot be complacent about. While most analysts think that UKIP would struggle to get into double figures in terms of winning seats in Westminster (having more than, say, six MPs in parliament, would be considered a phenomenal result for UKIP under the circumstances). That doesn't mean that they wouldn't cause problems in the election itself regardless.

Because UKIP's voter base is spread widely across the country, their demographic impacts on both the Tories as well as Labour.

As said earlier, UKIP look to have supplanted the Tories in large parts of the north as Labour's main opposition. This is may be a blessing in disguise for Labour as, although some Labour supporters may switch to UKIP, many "natural" Tory voters could well tactically vote purple as well. It's uncertain if this will seriously challenge Labour in its heartlands, but it would certainly do more damage to the Tories than to Labour.
The problem Labour has with UKIP is more in the south and the Midlands. While the Tories will shed support to UKIP, Labour could equally shed support to UKIP in the same way (and in some of the same constituencies, due to the demographics). Clacton-on-Sea, and Rochester and Strood are good examples of this: seats that have, at one time or another, swung either to Labour or the Tories (but historically more Tory than Labour). So we know that with UKIP polling 20%, this will damage Labour almost as much as it will the Tories. There are seats in the south that Labour would normally expect to win in order to become the biggest party, but where UKIP are strong due to the demographics. This will cause some problems, possibly resulting in failing to win those seats, and thus presenting further problems in what should, ordinarily, be "winnable" seats.

The question is in what way, and that is the problem that analysts are having: with UKIP being such a new political player, it is difficult to compute exactly how they will affect the results in many constituencies. We will only know the truth in May. And this is why Labour should not be complacent about thinking that having an outright majority is "in the bag" even if they are ahead of the Tories in the national vote. In Scotland, Labour are facing a potential nightmare; in England, the UKIP factor is the great unknown. And then there is the fast-growing threat of the Greens...

The Green Party now have more members than UKIP, according to recent figures, and their popularity has soared in the last twelve months. I talked about the threat of the "minor parties" a few months ago, but since then the Greens have gone from strength to strength. With their polling figures being almost comparable to the LibDems, and even the Prime Minister (as often seen, an amoral man of no principle) is using their popularity as a convenient excuse to get out of the TV debates.
But more seriously, the rise of the Greens is mostly at the expense of the LibDems; it's unclear how much of the "Green surge" is due to lost Labour voters. The Greens themselves are optimistic about increasing their number of MPs, by concentrating their efforts on constituencies with favourable demographics.
Although even the most optimistic Green campaigner wouldn't expect the Greens to win more than a few seats in Westminster, again, like UKIP, they may "split the vote" in some seats, eroding the support for Labour or the LibDems, possibly resulting in some  surprising results (e.g. the Tories winning in a place they wouldn't expect).

So while the Conservatives have UKIP to worry about, Labour have a fight on three other fronts as well. A hung parliament is still more than possible, even if Labour finished ahead of the Tories in the polls in May. It all depends on how things play out with the so-called "minor parties".

But they may not be "minor" for long - the SNP, for instance, may well have a lot to say come May...

The Scottish referendum, home rule and the West Lothian Question

Scotland voted against becoming an independent country, by 55% to 45%. While the result was not quite as close as the polls predicted, many pollsters suggested this may well happen due to the "shy noes", which is indeed what happened.
That all being said, put in other terms, for every twenty voters, 9 were for separation - which suggests a very divided electorate. And now a few days on from the vote, Scotland feels like a different country psychologically and politically from a few months ago; perhaps permanently so.

Having energised the population like never before in living memory, the SNP look to be the political beneficiaries of the "Yes" campaign: many Labour voters voted for independence on the back of an attitude of complacency and seeming distant indifference from Westminster. One example of this was the surreal moments when Scottish Labour MPs came to their constituencies north of the border to campaign (and where many of them indeed hailed from), to be told by one-time Scottish Labour supporters to "eff off back to Westminster".
The referendum had the effect of making many Scottish Labour voters swing over to the "Yes" campaign and firmly into the SNP camp. That change may well be irreversible, with large implications for some of their seats in the Scottish (post) industrial heartlands. In other words, the SNP have turned overnight into a "Ukip north of the wall".

I'm alright, jock

A closer analysis of the referendum shows us that the vote was based on economic interests above all. The areas that voted yes were the (post) industrial heartland around Glasgow, and Scotland's fourth city, Dundee. Aberdeen (already wealthy from oil), and Edinburgh (wealthy from a vibrant economy), as well as the Scottish countryside regions and islands, all voted no.

This makes cold economic sense, if not being politically or psychologically heart-warming.
Those people who voted "yes" did so because they saw that they had nothing to lose and were more than willing to risk what little they had gained from the union with England (well, London). Glasgow and Dundee have never recovered from the (London-inspired) economic malaise brought on by the disappearance of the industries thirty years ago; in this sense, a vote for "yes" is a vote of desperation as well as aspiration.

(At this point, a wag might suggest that Glasgow and Dundee be given independence from the rest of "no" Scotland and the UK, seeing as that's what they voted for)

Those who voted "no" did so because of a simple attitude of "I'm alright, jack" - they were doing fine (or at least, not badly enough to want to risk something) from the union with London. To these people, independence meant change and uncertainty, and like any conservative cautionary individual, would prefer the devil they knew than the devil they didn't.

Another angle was the "age gap": the comparison of generational attitudes. Alex Salmond gave the vote to sixteen year olds with the transparent view that they would be more inclined to vote for independence. Not enough research has been done yet to show if this was truly proved to be the case. It follows some logic to suggest that older people (e.g. over fifty) may well look to their pensions and be terrified of the thought of what would happen to them come independence; on the other hand, younger people have the rest of their lives to look forward to aspiration rather than the caution and worry of an approaching mortality.

"What's your problem, Scotland?"

One last thought is comparing the independence movement and referendum in Scotland to contemporary and recent referendums in other parts of Europe. Catalonia is planning a referendum of its own in the coming weeks and months; Flanders in Belgium has had similar ideas for years. Even Italy has some (rudimentary) independence movements, such as the Veneto (Venice region), and others.
Since the end of the Cold War, Slovakia has split from the Czechs, the Baltic states have split (or re-detached themselves) from Russia, and Yugoslavia has fracturing into half a dozen pieces. Most recently, Kosovo declared independence in 2008.

A more comparable example to that of Scotland and the UK, is the case of Montenegro. This nation became joined with Serbia after the First World War (and also involved a union of crowns, as both Montenegro and Serbia were independent monarchies in 1914); Serbia also had other Slavic parts of the former Austria-Hungary as its reward for starting the First World War. The resulting nation became known as Yugoslavia, though it was in effect a "Greater Serbia", given its much larger population. When Yugoslavia fractured in the 1990s, Montenegro (apart from Kosovo) remained the only "partner" in this union of states with Serbia.
Finally, around ten years ago, Montenegro had its own independence referendum, which was won by only one percent of the vote (if that). That vote cast the last part of "Yugoslavia" into oblivion and history. Serbs and Montegrins are linguistically and culturally as alike as Scots and English. The question many "yes" voters in Scotland (and in other successful independence movements in Europe) ask other Scots is "why would you not want to be a free and independent country?" In short, what is your problem?

Many people in Glasgow and Dundee this weekend may feel they are living in a nation of scared sheep. While this is an unfair insult to many "no" voters, the anger from the "yes" camp is understandable: if places like Montenegro or Slovakia - neither of which have many recognisable resources - would be independent countries, then why not Scotland, with its oil, industry and educated population?
However this question may soon become academic, thanks to the "cunning plan" of David Cameron...

"I have a cunning plan..."

A week is a long time in politics, so they say, this this past week is certainly following that rule.
This time last week, panicked by the close opinion polls. Cameron, Milliband and Clegg agreed to a "vow" to grant Scotland extensive new powers - as explained by their spokesperson, the former PM Gordon Brown.
This was the "devo-max" option that Alex Salmond originally wanted on the referendum vote; Westminster was now offering a vote for either a Salmond-inspired "indy-lite", or a Westminster-panicked "devo-max". Salmond had been playing a poker game with Westminster for the last few years over Scotland's future, and Westminster had blinked.

Or so it seemed. Another analysis of the situation reveals that David Cameron saw a ruthless opportunity in what looked like another flapping episode at Downing Street. Cameron has plenty of form for both being at times a hopeless strategist and also a ruthless opportunist: it is for this reason why he has so many enemies in his own party as well as in general. It also explains why many view him as being a disaster on so many levels for the country. His current "cunning plan" is possibly the most dastardly of all, in terms of its huge implications.

In short, Cameron is happy to give "home rule" to Scotland, provided there is a quid pro quo for England (and Wales and NI, in theory).
Cameron's vision for preserving the UK in a modernised form is to give tax and law-giving powers to Scotland, provided Scottish MPs have no rights to vote on equivalent bills in England. In this way, Scottish MPs would be emasculated to having a right a sit in Westminster, but in effect do little else (and have no right to sit in a Westminster government either).

If Cameron's vision rings true, the same could also be true for Wales and NI, eventually leaving Westminster as an English-only parliament at some way down the line, with Downing Street effectively as an English-only government. In this scenario, while the Westminster government would represent (and formulate) foreign policy and British interests abroad, almost all other major internal decisions would be left to the devolved governments in London (Westminster), Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

The "Balkanisation" of Britain?

The political ramifications for Labour are massive.
Cameron has clearly calculated that as the Tories are now an English-only party, this leaves Labour (and to a lesser extent, the Lib Dems) as the only truly "British" party in the country. Therefore, the best way to screw Labour electorally and politically is to give them what they had been asking for all these years - full devolution! This would leave the Tories at a natural advantage in an English-only Westminster, and make it more difficult for Labour to form a government.

Labour have dodged the bullet of Salmond's referendum only to be hit in the solar plexus by Cameron's "devo-max" plan.

Cameron has therefore gone from nearly breaking apart the UK by accident to now having a plan to effectively break up the UK on purpose.

The next seven months will prove to be pivotal and seismic in Westminster, With the Tories now keen to embrace some kind of "fast-track" devolution package before the general election in May (which they would ordinarily expect to lose), they see this plan as killing two birds with one stone: turning the tables on Labour by putting them in an impossible position - to accept their plan would be electoral suicide, but to reject it would be not much better.
The "England first" strategy also seems to be with Ukip in mind - though its easy to suspect that may also backfire, as Cameron has been trying to "out do Ukip" for the last eighteen months, with disastrous results.

These are truly crazy times, when you have a Conservative Prime Minister whose plan is to effectively break up the union in order to hold on to power.

From the Crimean referendum to the Scottish referendum: is the EU a modern-day Austria-Hungary?

In a previous article about the Ukraine Crisis, I compared the modern-day EU-Russia confrontation over Ukraine to that a hundred years ago between Austria-Hungary and Russia over Serbia, that followed from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

As obviously illegitimate the Crimean referendum appears, what is beyond doubt is that Crimea only became part of Ukraine as a result of the fall of the USSR; when it was given to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s, it was only in "Ukraine" on paper, and Russia has obviously felt that way ever since.

In fact, I read a good analogy regarding Russia's relationship towards Ukraine, comparing it to England's toward Scotland. Russians and Ukrainians are often intermarried, with many ethnic Ukrainians even working in the Kremlin; similarly English and Scots intermarry, with many Scots having recently been an integral part of the British government. For Russians then, the idea of Ukraine drifting away from Russian orbit (and Russian culture) would seem as unthinkable to many English people as Scotland breaking away to become part of,the Eurozone. Britain as an idea would simply not longer exist in reality.

For many Russians, Ukraine is more simply, "western Russia", in the same way that in Victorian times many Scots themselves preferred to call themselves "Northern British". This analysis of Russia-Ukraine goes further: if Russians had known back in 1989 what they know was happening to Ukraine now, they would probably have gone to war then to prevent Ukraine from splitting from Russia.

The elephant in the room: self-determination

For many of the EU leaders, Angela Merkel included, Russia annexing Crimea marks an unacceptable changing of borders of the European continent, redrawing the accepted geo-political map from the end of the Cold War.

Except it doesn't. Not by any criteria you could think of.

Such a statement by European leaders includes such appallingly-willing blindness to the reality: Europe's borders have been changing ever since the end of the Cold War, with Europe's happy acquiescence. Czechoslovakia was the first to divide, even though it was far from clear if the decision was forced on their populations or not. Yugoslavia, of course, divided into five parts initially in the early nineties, followed by Kosovo's semi-detached status from 1999 becoming properly independent in 2008; Montenegro was the last to be resolved, separating from Serbia in the mid-2000s.
The real problem for the EU is that in recent years various constituent states of the EU have been trying to kill off any further fracturing of Europe's borders, for the sake of their own selfish desires. Having encouraged non-EU European states to settle issues using peaceful self-determination, they are terrified of having to apply the same principle to themselves.

This explains why the Scots are being treated as the bete noire of Europe's establishment. The EU is terrified of the potential "domino effect".

The EU currently has around half a dozen well-established independence movements to deal with within its constituent states: apart from Scotland's (continually mocked) independence referendum, Catalonia is the well-known for its desire for self-determination from Spain. The Basques have their own self-determination campaign (from Spain, as well as claiming part of France); the Galicians of north-west Spain even have (less well-known) independence movement. The Flemish in Belgium have brought Belgian government affairs intermittently to a standstill in recent years due to their desire for a division of the Belgian state. Just in the last week, even Veneto (the Italian region of Venice, at one time known as the Venetian Republic) had an "online referendum" that gave overwhelming support for independence from the Italian Republic.
Apart from Scotland's senior partner in The UK, England, no EU nation-state is willing to even consider handing over the right to self-determination (or in many cases, even the chance of a legally-binding vote) to any of these people. The reason? That it would violate their constitution.

Why is the EU so appalled and terrified of upsetting the status quo of its internal borders? Yet why does it see fit into interfering into others'?

The 21st century Austria-Hungary?

It should be remembered that the EU is first and foremost a political project. It was initially a free-trade zone from the 1950s onwards, that expanded in the 1980s and 90s into supra-national political and legal entity. The economic transformation was complete with the establishment of the Eurozone, that became fully-functional in 2002. Put into practice, this means that the parliament in Westminster has as much say over some fully-binding EU legal issues that, say, Michigan has over aspects of US federal law.

Austria-Hungary was also a political project, in a manner of speaking. Originally the Hapsburg Empire, by the 1860s, it had been constitutionally modified into the "dual monarchy" of Austria-Hungary. This meant that while the Austrian Emperor was technically its combined ruler, many key decisions (such as national and foreign policy) had to be done by mutual agreement with Hungary. Austria-Hungary had a multi-national parliament (like the EU) that included all national tongues. This invariably led to a chaotic process, but as the parliament's role was mostly advisory, it was easy to play off one side against the other, and for the empire's ruling council to ignore it when necessary.

Skip forward a hundred years, and the modern EU has some unwelcome similarities. Like Austria's, the EU's parliament is an unwieldy multi-national cauldron, which, also like Austria's has little real power; like Austria, the EU has its own (electorally-unaccountable) ruling council, called the European Commission, whose members are chosen at the whim of various European statesmen. It is the European Commission who decide what happens in the EU. Just like it was with the ruling council in Austria-Hungary.

The issue of self-determination within EU member-states now is as prickly an issue as was minority rights within Austria-Hungary. Indeed, it was the partially an impasse between Austria (who were minded to give the Slavs more rights) and the Hungarians (who wanted to preserve their own heightened status at the expense of the Slavs) that led to ethnic Serbians within Austria-Hungary plotting to kill Franz Ferdinand.

In this sense, the EU is little better than the European empires of yesteryear. Things may be dressed up in "democratic clothes", but if the EU uses all of its resources to dampen the wishes of self-determination of some of its peoples, it is no better than an empire. Indeed, it is, by definition, an "empire".

Europe as the new "sick man of Europe"?

Austria-Hungary was once called the "sick man of Europe" (as was the Ottoman Empire) a hundred years ago. It was considered a "doomed empire", though this analysis is retrospective. No-one thought that at the time.

The EU today, especially after the financial crisis, looks in increasingly shaky shape.

Its constitution looks like an awkward instrument of controlling over a wide variety of national and economic interests, as did Austria-Hungary's a hundred years ago. The EU's economy looks geographically top-heavy, relying on Germany in particular, and Northern Europe in general, to off-set the malfunctioning and creaking economies of the South. This is no model for long-term stability. The Euro as a currency was designed as much as a political as an economic project, setting up the "Eurozone" for a disaster in the making. Reaching its first real test, the financial crisis, no-one in their right mind can say that the Euro has truly "worked" as a currency for all of Europe.

The EU's "drive to the east" (as I've mentioned before), looks more like imperial over-stretch, while forgetting the potential problems that bringing in these new territories create. Austria faced a similar dilemma when it annexed the ethnically-mixed Bosnia in the years prior to the First World War, including those ethnic Serbs that would go on to kill Franz Ferdinand. In the same way that Russia and Austria battled for strategic influence over the Balkans a hundred years ago, the EU and Russia are doing the same with Eastern Europe. Reaching the gates of Kiev was a sign of how far Europe's leaders were prepared to go to boost their own vain "sense of destiny", regardless of how that would be interpreted in Moscow.

Europe's leaders cry foul over Crimea's referendum and Ukraine's national integrity, but only do so from the perspective of being an imperial rival to Russia's influence. They can claim no moral high-ground. They cannot even rule their own subjects without stifling their rights; how much longer can the EU continue living as though its problems do not exist?

It was the First World War that killed the multi-national empire that was Austria-Hungary: its many nationalities were given their self-determination, and the empire dismembered. As already mentioned, its minority problem with the ethnic Serbs in Bosnia was an indirect cause of the empire's downfall.
With the rise of nationalism across Europe on the back of the financial crisis, and the EU's support for a Kiev government that includes nationalist extremists, is Ukraine the straw that broke the camel's back, with the EU sowing the seeds of their own demise?

Why Cameron's Conservatives are the most incompetent British government ever

I wrote last year about how Cameron's government is possibly the worst-ever British government in modern history. Since that time, that point of view has been only vindicated even further.

Last spring, around the chancellor's "omnishambles" budget, there were a series of cock-ups that made the government seem completely inept, as well as indifferent towards the detrimental effect their policies were having on the economy and British society in general.

If possible, things are now even worse.

 The government's economic policy has been a complete disaster. The UK is now on the verge of entering a unprecedented triple-dip recession. The UK is currently going through its slowest economic recovery (if it can be called that) than even before the Great Depression. Youth unemployment is at near-crippling levels, many of those including people with degrees. Levels of long-term unemployment are at similarly-worrying levels. The vast majority of the jobs that are on offer are part-time or temporary (if not both). All these signs in the job market tell us that, thanks to Osborne's incompetence, the British economy may be going through a permanent structural change in the employment market, so that large parts of the country become comparable with a deprived East European country.

The government's economic policy is centred on paying off the debt. This would be a laudable aim, if the way there are going about it were not more laughable. Thanks to their economic policy, the debt has increased continually, rather than the opposite. The Conservatives use the reasoning of comparing government finances to that of a household, which may seem easy to explain, but is also completely idiotic. You cannot compare running the government to running a household. This is what economists might call confusing micro-economic policy with macro-economic policy. This mistake is easily explained if you think about where government gets its money from: taxpayers.
The government confuses taxpayers to the same income you would get from a job to pay your household outgoings. The government also confuses paying government debt to the same principle as paying off household debt (e.g. a mortgage). The government thinks that if you pay off government debt as fast as you can, by cutting back on public spending regardless of its detriment to its taxpayers, it will be better for the economy. This is like a household cutting back on things like food and fuel in order to pay off a mortgage more quickly. Rather than getting a better deal on your mortgage (paying it off over a longer time frame), the Conservative household would rather starve now. Furthermore, using the same Conservative principle, imagine the household is unemployed. If you cut back on transport costs, for example, you make it more difficult to get a job. So the measure is self-defeating.
This is what the Conservative government have now discovered, too late for the economy. By cutting serious public investment, and cutting back on public spending, you are reducing the opportunities for taxpayers to make more money; and when you make the economic situation more difficult for your taxpayers, your tax revenue goes down. Thus increasing the debt, not reducing it. When the economy is doing badly, this is the time for government to act; when the economy is doing well, the government can back off. The Obama administration has known this all along, and explains why the US is on the way to a steady recovery. The Conservatives' therefore have shown that they are utterly incapable of understanding how the economy works.
Furthermore, George Osborne still says that the sign of the economy's decline is even further justification for his policy of reducing the debt at all costs. Going back to the mortgage analogy, this is like a household starving to death to pay off the mortgage stating that their starvation is a sign that they're doing well! I'm not sure what Osborne's mindset is these days, but he's either: completely irresponsible in knowing he's wrong but refusing to admit it, or; completely delusional, and in need of mental help. In either case, a rational or competent Prime Minister would dismiss him. But David Cameron is neither rational or competent either.

While Osborne is responsible for the government's disastrous and idiotic economic policy, his long-term friend David Cameron supports him, and meanwhile is largely responsible for the government's foreign policy, in particular Europe. Now that Cameron has officially stated his party's stance towards Europe, he has displayed another example of his amateur ineptness at politics. Cameron has stated that if he wins the next general election, he will give the public a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, based on the assumption he will get back some powers (which, he doesn't say, or know, yet).
There are a host of reasons why Cameron has shown appalling judgement (here), as well as creating a disaster in the making (here). In short, Cameron has offered a short-term solution to papering over the cracks of his party's disunity, by offering a ticking time-bomb, for both his party and, potentially, the country.
Apart from its reception in the UK, Cameron's European "strategy" of getting a better deal can only work if his threat to leave concerns the EU, and Germany in particular. But thanks to thirty years of government under-investment in the manufacturing sector (as I described here), the EU paying more for the UK's exports  is not a huge worry for them if the UK leaves. Many of them would just shrug their shoulders at the silliness of the British government, and carry on without us. The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK. Cameron doesn't seem to realise this, however.
So Cameron has followed up Osborne with a potentially disastrous and idiotic European policy. For even in the best-case scenario (that he is re-elected, wins sizable EU concessions, and wins the referendum), there will still be a Eurosceptic wing to his party, as now. Cameron doesn't even want the UK to leave the EU, but he is willing to put everything at risk for a relatively small gain.
I wonder if he's ever played poker.

At the same time, Cameron has given further ground to Alex Salmond, effectively Prime Minister of a semi-autonomous Scotland. For Cameron's newly-stated European policy plays into the hands of those who want Scottish independence. The reasoning for Nationalists is this: why put at risk Scotland's position in the EU (and even if not threatened, potentially reduced, as part of a re-negotiated UK deal)? Rather than wait for Euro-sceptic England's potential withdrawal in (for example) 2017 to drag out Scotland as well (joined at the hip, as they are in the UK), much better for Scotland to engage with the EU on its own terms as a separate state, by supporting the independence referendum in 2014.
Thus by 2020, Scotland could be in the EU in its own right, and the "remainder of the UK" out. Again, Cameron shows up his complete lack of strategic thinking.

Then there is the issue of defence, another issue that Cameron has completely screwed up. He recently made a speech that the Algerian hostage crisis highlighted the need for a British defence strategy for North Africa, involving troops and additional ordinance. He suggested this at the same time as supporting his governments ongoing plan to reduce the British army to a level (eighty thousand men) that is lower than was that of the German army's punishment at the terms of the Treaty Of Versailles (who were reduced to a standing army of one hundred thousand men). In other words, it could be argued that, in earlier days, Cameron and his government's treatment of the British army would have been equated to that of a foreign conqueror on a defeated enemy. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the service chiefs have similar views now.
Not only does this attitude of obsessive parsimony to the army show incredible arrogance by the party that is traditionally supposed to best defend the interests of the armed forces. More than that, it is another example of the chronic lack of foresight and future planning. How does the government expect Britain to defend itself, let alone fulfill current and future commitments abroad?
It could be argued that such incompetence towards its defence policy is tantamount to an abrogation of its duty to defend the nation.

This "lack of foresight and planning" is an ongoing theme with Cameron's government - a polite way of saying that they haven't got a clue how to run the country. But this is, in effect, the reality.

Not only is the government completely incompetent in its key roles of the economy, defence, and European relations. It also has a completely incompetent and self-defeating immigration policy.
The UKBA has been found out to be one of the most incompetent government agencies of all. Again, government cutbacks play a part in this, as fresh scandals explain. UKBA staff are overwhelmed with the workload relative to their staffing sizes; as a consequence, airports are filled with queues more redolent of a banana republic, and tens of thousands of visa applications (including passports and supporting documents) have been lost or forgotten about. Months pass without a response for many applicants, and that is just in the UK.
Then there are the government's idiotic immigration rules themselves, that are causing universities to pull their hair out in frustration, as thousands of potential foreign students forego on the chance to get a British education because they are either unable to get a visa, or don't have the patience to wait months for one when they can much more easily go elsewhere. For these people, getting a visa to the UK seems no less difficult than getting a visa to North Korea.
Lastly, there are the government's immigration rules that are less incompetent, as inhumane. British nationals married to spouses from outside the EU or EEA (meaning those married to Americans, Australians and Kiwis as many as any other country) can only live with their spouses (and children) in the UK if they earn nearly £20,000 a year, or have a similar amount in savings (more if they have children). In other words, if you are British, not rich, and are married to someone from the wrong country, you cannot live in the UK. If the government's defence policy is something close to an abrogation of its duty to defend the country, the government's policy towards these unfortunate Britons is something close to a denial of the basic right of residence to its own people.

There are countless other examples of ministerial and governmental incompetence.
One of the most recent ones is the fiasco over the implementation of the "Green Deal", the government's supposed "flagship" environmental policy, that was meant to update the environmental standards of homes across the UK, and keep the related industries with permanent, long-term employment. However, in spite of the government's outward support for these industries, lack of basic government planning has meant there is no work at all for these industries, as very few home-owners know about the "Green Deal", let alone signed up to it. Bone-headed government thinking has therefore left key "green energy" industries out on a limb.

Thus in the space of less than a few years, the Conservative government has reduced the UK to same level of government competence as found in a Third World banana republic.

The title of the article is "why Cameron's Conservatives are the most incompetent British government". I have explained the "how", but not the real why.
The real reason "why" is because those at the top, from the supposed "cream" of society, have little idea about how to run government and the key institutions that run modern-day Britain. This is down to education, as explained in more detail here.

How the UK became an anachronism

The UK (or to give it its full title, "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland") is in trouble.

As I recently wrote, and as it's often in the news, Scotland is planning to decide on its constitutional marriage arrangements with its southern neighbour. Either divorce (independence) a marriage of convenience (devo-max), or to retain the current awkward arrangements.

If Scotland did choose independence, the "UK" by definition, would no longer exist - because there would no longer be a "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"; just a Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It's Scotland that gives Britain the name "Great".
It seems extraordinary (ignorant as well as arrogant) that Westminster politicians have not realised what "The UK" is: a legal union of two states, England (with Wales and Northern Ireland), and Scotland. Westminster seems to think that it carry on as before if Scotland leaves the union, with Scotland as a "successor state", as the EU also appears to believe. But by that logic, there would be two successor states; England and Scotland, not Scotland and the "RUK". Westminster's logic of a legally-superior "RUK" is a fantasy land where Westminster can have its cake and eat it.
Westminster and the EU's logic is based on a false understanding of the special form of historic union between England and Scotland. Scotland would not be a "successor" state. England does not "own" Scotland, in the way that other states have "broken away" from their larger, former overlords. The example of South Sudan breaking away from Sudan is not appropriate; the nearest contemporary comparison would be the "Velvet divorce" of Czechoslovakia, but even that is not totally accurate, as their state was an artificial creation after the First World War, it was not a legal union of two states. This is what Westminster fails to remember, and the EU for that matter, too.

Since "The UK" joined the EU, surely all legal documents have applied equally to Scotland as well as England, as in any political union. But equally, Scotland leaving the union should not be the same as Scotland leaving the EU: as Scotland joined the EU in the same treaty as England, but in its own legal right as one half of "The UK". Everyone outside of Scotland seems for have forgotten that Scotland has a separate legal system. When Scotland joined with England in 1707 it deferred its parliament to Westminster, but retained independent legal apparatus. This is why I agree with Alex Salmond's explanation why Scotland should not have to "re-join" the EU as a "successor state". Either both Scotland and England are "successor states" to a defunct "UK", or neither. There could be no such thing as a "RUK" in legal terms, as there are only two legal "parts" to the union - England and Scotland. If one pulls out, it's all over: you have two brand new entities. The nearest legal comparison to such a situation would be the break-up of the Soviet Union, or the that of the former Yugoslavia. But the EU didn't have to deal with any of those countries being already member-states. And even those were unions of several or more states, not just two, like the UK. The ignorance of EU politicians on the unique legal nature of "the UK" is as surprising as it is insulting.
Catalonia's independence movement bears many similarities to Scotland's, and in more ways than one. For Spain itself is a "legal union", at least historically. For Spain before Franco was a Kingdom of two crowns: Castille (centred on Madrid) and Aragon (cented on Barcelona). So Catalans' interest in Scottish independence is also based on the historic similarities in the relationship between the union of England and Scotland, and the union of Castille and Aragon (now called Catalonia). The fear of Catalans copying the Scots is the reason why Madrid is so hostile towards Scottish independence, and why they are trying to make things awkward for Scotland's relationship with the EU.

That all said, the most likely outcome for Scotland is "devo-max", also called Home Rule, where Scotland remains part of the UK for appearance's sake, but only foreign policy and military arrangements come from London.

But even that option is worth talking about, and people would be wrong to downplay its significance. Because Home Rule for Scotland, which is almost certain to be the most likely outcome in 2014, means the end of the UK as we know it.

And what is this "UK" anyway? According to polls, more English people favour Scottish independence than the Scots themselves; it seems the British public as a whole are in favour of financial independence for its constituent parts (i.e. they raise their own taxes, rather than a lump sum decided in London). Even some Tory MPs favour this idea, as they see the financial sense of financial devolution.

By that definition, the "UK" as a concept no longer has the support of the majority of British people. The UK could soon turn into a big house party where all the guests agree to bring their own drinks. Forget the idea of "collective responsibility".

With the UK's status quo as good as dead by the end of 2014, the most likely arrangement would be some form of quasi-federal status of the different parts of the UK; after Scotland votes for Home Rule, no doubt the voices from Wales will become louder. Infact, the Welsh have already made noises on that issue, so expect Cardiff take start causing trouble in tandem with Edinburgh. At the current rate of frantic political debate, the Welsh assembly may well ask for a referendum on "devo-max" itself before very long.

And then there's England itself, by far the largest part of the UK. One reason the Welsh are not happy about Scottish independence is that it would make England seem even more dominant politically; the Welsh don't want to be left alone with the insufferable English and an intractable Ulster problem.
England itself has regional issues; cost of living disparities that cause much Northern resentment at a distant-seeming, aloof London elite, are just one example. So even the cry for regional devolution with England may well become impossible to ignore within a few years.

So, where does that leave "the UK"?
By 2015, as things stand, David Cameron in all likelyhood will be Prime Minister of an international power with much reduced central authority. His constitutional power north of the border, with a Home Rule Scotland, would be negligible. If Wales soon demands Home Rule within the UK, then the same would be said of Wales. Northern Ireland's parliament may well also ask for similar powers, leaving Cameron "Prime Minister of the UK", but in practice, effectively just Prime Minister of England, but responsible for the defence and foreign policy of all parts of this so-called "UK".
This will make Cameron, and future UK Prime Ministers, more like an "official" head of government, if not in reality on the ground. The UK will effectively be more federalised, and less centrally-powerful in some ways, than the EU is now.
There's a beautiful irony to that fate for "Euro-cynic" Cameron.

So within four years, the UK will, barring a miracle, become another type of unique constititional entity in the world. Already the UK was renowned in the world as being the only joint monarchy of two consensual states (and confusing foreigners endlessly about what "Great Britain" and "The UK" was, and why the country has four different national sporting teams).
And we'll make it even more confusing after 2014, whereby "The UK" will have a national government that doesn't even properly rule within its own borders, making "The UK" as a nation-state less powerful than the smaller nation-states within it.

There is a wonderful irony here. That the UK, that most conservative of countries, that cherished its establishment and its institutions only fifteen years ago, has been so transformed in itself that the country's own people seem to be indifferent to the country's constitutional existence.
What happened to the "British"? The Scots, Welsh and English have rediscovered their sense of national identity, in spite of the common cultural ties. The other irony here is that there are probably more people from ethnic minorities who would call themselves "British" (albeit with a hyphen) than the "natives".

In this way, it adds to my idea that Britain as a socio-cultural concept is as distinct from Europe as is Scandinavia; everyone knows what "Scandinavians" are, their culture and peculiarities, even though, as a whole, they are several different nations. The UK exists as a default option for those people of the British Isles who don't feel quite up to the idea of going our own ways.

As Alex Salmond said, if Scotland went it alone, England would lose a surly lodger and gain a good neighbour. That's also what the Scandinavians did a hundred years ago; in spite of the friendly jokes that Scandinavians have between themselves (their version of the "Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman" jokes), they get on well as seperate nations.

In that sense, borders hardly matter at all if the cultural ties are still strong, as they are between the UK and Ireland. It looks like the UK will live on for a while yet, but any new British "marriage of convenience" will be no more than that: a pact between financially independent nations to pretend, for the sake of convenience, to be a single country, with a symbolic head of state, and a symbolic head of government.

And that seems a very "British" way of dealing with something. Funny.