Theresa May’s disastrous election has shown that British politics is now defined by two parallel visions. One is held by politicians and journalists, the other by almost everybody else. For the pundits and politicos, Brexit is the defining issue of our time, a chapter of history being written before our eyes. For the rest of us, what really tends to matter is much closer to home.
In Dagenham, what matters is the rise of moped gangs, and the police’s “no pursuit” policy. In Erdington, what matters is whether or not the rubbish gets picked up on time, or at all. In Harrow, it’s the fact that almost half of all jobs pay less than the living wage, while house prices soar. If you’ve just had your phone nicked for the third time, your front garden is full of rubbish, or you’re living in a car, chest-beating in Brussels is pretty far down your list of priorities.
While canvassing marginals from Hampstead to Dagenham, I did not hear the word Brexit once. What I did hear is that wages are too low, house prices are too high and older people are not a disposable annoyance, and neither are the young.
Labour understood that in a way that has shaken accepted political wisdom to its core. The Tories misunderstood it in a way that has drained the strength and stability from a seemingly invincible leader, in a way that not even Corbyn’s most ardent supporters expected. The much-anticipated Lib Dem surge never really materialised (they picked up just three extra seats), while Ukip all but vanished.
What this election has shown, in both its hope and its bottomless cynicism, is that the link between accepted political wisdom and the lived experience of the population has rusted, and disintegrated.
That’s why it took someone who seems to enjoy so consistently doing everything “wrong” to shake his rivals from their reverie. Britain needed someone obstinate enough to chuck the rule book in the bin, and that is unambiguously what it got in Jeremy Corbyn. And so the dry, soundbite-driven managerialism that defined our politics for so long was thrown out by the Labour campaign. We woke up this morning in a world where, at least for some, bin vans trump global politics.
This is a resounding two fingers to a state of mind that has defined politics since Corbyn’s initial leadership victory: “We know what we’re talking about, because we’ve been here before. Get the message, read a history book, and get over it.” Well, actually, we haven’t been here before. Time moves forward, even if that fact seems lost on many.
As always in this era of political upheaval, what we need to take on board (for the third time), is that what is said and what is heard are not always the same thing.
This, of course, is anything but new. It was discussed ad nauseam after the failure of pollsters, papers and politicians to predict Donald Trump’s victory, just as it was after the hopelessly mismanaged remain campaign last summer.
For millions of US voters, Trump’s campaign was not about the bellicosity that (rightly) took up so many column inches. It was about the living standards required to exist with a basic level of dignity. For millions of voters in the UK, Brexit was not about the equally vile debate that (again rightly) preoccupied so many high-profile remainers, who were determined to challenge it. Again, it was about living standards, and the erosion of fundamental pride in oneself as a person. This erosion started with Margaret Thatcher here, and Ronald Reagan there, and has only deepened with time.
To put it simply, Brexit was not about Brexit, it was about living standards. Trump was not about Trump, it was about living standards. And now, for the third time, the “Brexit election” was not about Brexit, it was about living standards. The pattern we’re picking up here is that politics is about living standards. The sooner journalists, and the politicians we obsess over, realise that, the better.
