honestly just dont understand the British public, I never will. Covid incompetence, Brexit shambles and such blatant cronyism and provable lies (border in the Irish sea for example) yet people have still fallen over themselves to give them more power. I reckon they will get an even bigger majority in 2024
The answer to this is simple and has very little to do with “woke agendas” or manifestos that have climate change stuff in them, it isn’t even to do with ignorance or racism.
To quote James Carville, “it’s the economy, stupid” Not the macro economy, but the micro effects.
We’ve had austerity, sure. And people suffered, but the two things the tories have done for people who were traditionally labour leaning are Brexit and their response to Covid.
With Brexit, people voted for Boris despite a million reasons not to, because he promised Brexit no matter what. People voted for May because she was doing Brexit, and the other parties were stopping her. I’m not a natural Tory voter (nor a brexiteer) , but voted for her because you don’t change your manager in the middle of a difficult match.
Then Covid hit and despite the fact they have handled it incredibly badly, the one thing they did well was financially supported those people who would be really struggling now. And those people are not traditional Tory voters. They implemented a Labour style “welfare state” with generous furlough payments, supporting families (eventually) with free school meals, supporting small businesses (eventually). They didn’t do the Trumpian thing of only helping big business and leaving people in poverty. I remember being really surprised when they first announced it.
The two things that have caused a wane in support for the Tories were when they announced furlough would end, mid pandemic, and the school meals thing.
Had the Brexit economic impact (which is actually happening) not been masked by the economic problems with Covid, I suspect we would have seen a different result in these elections. Had the Tories stopped furlough last July and Labour were campaigning on reinstating it, they would have done better.
Even when a party goes against your views, the vast majority will ignore that if it makes financial sense. It’s the same reason boycotts for ethical reasons don’t work. People know they shouldn’t support, say, industrial farming, but if that’s the only meat you can afford, you’ll buy it.
When the Tories no longer have Brexit and Covid to rely on for support, and are then tasked with healing the economy which will mean deeper austerity than we have ever seen. When they go back to ignoring the north suffering in favour of the south. When benefit levels are cut even further and things like education and the NHS are further privatise and start to suffer, then Labour will see its base return.
People (largely) vote with their pockets.
Scotland is a difficult problem to solve. I’m not sure how the SNP stranglehold will be resolved, however, the signs are that their support has further waned in this election so one more term of them fucking things up, combined with a more effective opposition might just do the trick.