London swings! What's your political identity?

In the voting booths, that is, as the Brexit, Farron and Corbyn conundrums make voters question their traditional choices. Nick Curtis decodes the capital’s political identity crisis...

By Nick Curtis

11 May 2017

So on we thunder towards the general election like an out-of-control locomotive in a western, with politicians duking it out on the caboose. Unlike in a western, though, no one watching knows who to root for any more. The black hats and the white hats have blurred into 50 murky shades of grey. This is the year when all the old certainties have been torn up, when decades-long tribal party loyalties have been smashed and all bets are off. We are all swing voters now.

So, how do you vote if you’re traditional Labour, live in Vauxhall — but can’t stomach putting a cross beside hard-core Brexiteer and friend of Farage, Kate Hoey? Who do you back if you are a liberal concerned about Tim Farron’s evangelical Christianity (or a cat lover who doesn’t want to sniff a spaniel)? Should Tories who don’t like the secretive, authoritarian turn of Theresa May’s Government vote tactically to preserve some form of opposition in the face of Labour’s implosion? And who do you vote for in Richmond if you are anti-Heathrow but also anti-Brexit, or just find Zac Goldsmith insufferable? Here, we identify the new tribes floating in the political soup of confusion...

The Tacticalistas

The technocrats of the new politics, up to their armpits in algorithms that prove, for example, that a vote for Simon Hughes might mean a better tax deal in London, a vote for Zac Goldsmith in Richmond will strike a blow against a third Heathrow runway — or that spoiling a ballot paper in Islington North will ensure a Labour defeat, triggering a leadership contest next year, a further 37 months of infighting followed by the butterfly emergence of New New New Labour 2.0 in 2020, an improved showing in the next election and a progressive landslide in 2027 or 2032. Tacticalistas are mostly on the left in London (there’s a Ukip/Tory axis outside, and let’s not even go to Scotland). But there are also Tory centrists who have taken umpteen online polls that prove they were liberals all along and will vote tactically in the hopes of a soft Brexit, a softer-than-soft Brexit or even a this-doesn’t-usually-happen-to-me-it-must-be-the-booze Brexit.

The Turncoats

Donald Trump once professed himself a Democrat. Douglas Carswell flies back and forth between the Tory party and Ukip like a ball in a Chinese ping-pong championship. Shaun Woodward seemed to change his party allegiance whenever the wind changed. So when everything is upturned, as now, why the surprise that so many Labour voters, faced with a Corbynite muddle, crave the firm grip of Theresa May? Or at least, the lukewarm embrace of Tim Farron. As Churchill didn’t actually say, but might have: ‘If a man is not a socialist at 20, he lacks heart: if he is still a socialist on 8 June, he clearly didn’t hear Diane Abbott on the Nick Ferrari show.’

The Regrexiteers and the Remaindered

A shifty, surly bunch, who were at each other’s throats six months ago but now find themselves united in a sort of morose, despondent resignation. The Regrexiteers are those looking at the UK’s possible €100bn ‘divorce bill’ from the EU, who remember that £350m promise on the side of the bus, and have changed their minds, tipping the balance of a YouGov poll that found more people (45 per cent) now thought Brexit was a bad idea than those (43 per cent) who thought it was a good one. The Remaindered are those who, however fierce their loyalty to Europe, see no point in rehashing the Brexit argument when both Tories and Labour are committed to it, and just want to get the whole thing over with and start trading with Chad, or wherever. These two factions now have more that unites them than divides them, so may soon start mating and breeding, which should lead to some interesting demographic patterns among first-time voters in around 2035.

The Slogan Daleks

Those who, having learned the lesson of ‘Brexit means Brexit’, have realised that explaining (or even thinking about) their voting choices is much harder than simply stonewalling by repeating a single line of meaningless rhetoric.

‘If you want strong and stable government…’

‘A coalition of chaos…’

‘...And there’s the election expenses scandal…’

‘STRONG AND STABLE.’

‘... but:’

‘STRONG AND STABLE! STRONG

AND STABLE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!’

(See also Labour’s ‘The many, not the few’, the Lib Dems’ ‘We are the party of opposition’ and the Green Party’s ‘We’ve actually had an MP in parliament, actually, unlike Ukip, but we don’t get nearly as much airtime and it’s SO unfair, actually, anyway you should probably vote for the Women’s Equality Party, actually…’)

The Jeremiahs

No, not another Corbynite splinter group in the increasingly factionalised Labour Party: the Jeremiahs are those who see the general election as a contributing but minor sideshow in the global slide towards Armageddon. The PM complaining about the remaining 27 EU nations ‘ganging up’ on Britain or ‘interfering’ in the election somewhat pales beside the war in Syria, the covert machinations and overt territorial ambitions of an aggressive and emboldened Russia, the atomic bellicosity of North Korea, the renewed global re-normalisation of racism and illiberalism across Europe and the fact that Donald Trump seems to think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be easily sorted out, possibly over a beautiful slice of chocolate cake. The Jeremiahs believe we are doomed —DOOOOMED — and they give those old enough to remember the Cold War of the 1960s a little frisson of apocalyptic nostalgia.

The Silent Majority

No, not the old Silent Majority — the traditional, close-mouthed corpus of Middle England that has actually been as noisy of late as a metal water tank full of metal buckets full of screws and ball bearings falling down the metal emergency stairs of the Shard over and over and over again. The new SM, predominantly in London, is sick of the endless, divisive talk of politics, which has turned friend against friend, husband against wife, mother against daughter. They just want to have a good time — drink a cocktail at The Ned, eat some nice things during the Evening Standard’s London Food Month, get tickets to Hamilton and go boating in Hyde Park. They may vote and they may not. And while it’s hard to blame them, it’s worth noting that this attitude was last prevalent in 1930s Weimar Germany.

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