Will British politics be upended in the European elections on Thursday? Certainly, the traditional faultlines may be recast, at least for this election.
The Brexit party will no doubt emerge triumphant, the Tories crushed, Labour humiliated and the Greens and the Lib Dems will make sufficient gains to claim a modicum of success. Whatever the results, they will leave untouched the fundamental problems that have created the chasm between large sections of the electorate and mainstream parties.
The debate has been dominated by the rise of the Brexit party. For some, it’s a distillation of far-right sentiment, for others the means to break the mould of politics. In reality, it’s neither. Nigel Farage has a long history of playing to racist and reactionary themes. But the Brexit party, so far, is not a creature of the far right. If it survives, and when it finally decides on its policies, it will probably end up as a kind of Tory-party-in-exile, though more nationalist and populist.
But that’s also why it’s no mould-breaker. With no membership, no democratic means of shaping policy and, indeed, no policies (at least until after the election), it’s an expression of the hollowed-out character of contemporary politics, not a means of restoring substance to political debate. What’s transforming politics is the inability of Labour or the Tories to speak to their constituencies. The shambles of the Brexit process has only deepened the sense in sections of the electorate that their voices are unheard, their votes ignored.
The key question, as I’ve argued before, is: “Who will give shape to disaffection?” No party, old or new, is addressing that. Until they do, there is unlikely to be much change to the zombie-like character of British politics.
• Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
