Magical thinking in British politics is the preserve of neither the left nor the right. Magical thinking in British politics has really been the driving force in politics for well over a decade now.
Talk of reality or having difficult conversations about complex issues which don't necessarily fit with ideological narratives IS what British politics has sought to avoid and has been capitalised on by others.
We started to have conversations about leaving Europe because of a failure to look at and address a shrinking gateway of opportunities for white working class families when access to training and apprenticeships in manual jobs stopped and was replaced by already trained individuals from overseas at a time where the manual job market was already shrinking as manufacturing went overseas. This has damaged our strategy self reliance and exposed us more to economic and political shocks. Leaving Europe then exposed us to more issues which we haven't addressed because we havent looked at the internal infrastructure of manufacturing and farming within the UK. We continued to look outward rather than internally deal with our own shit. And we were too busy pretending NI and the Good Friday agreement was unimportant. We just talked about trade deals with places further away, didn't think about transport costs, times and political stability and the known issues with the sustainability of fossil fuels long term and instead obsessed over barriers to prevent pesky competition to our British businesses who now couldn't export and subsequently went under, whilst expecting we would be included in border entry systems just like we were before without finger prints and visas. We didn't sort out that ongoing issue over energy and just had a bit of an argument about whether it was a good idea to allow the Chinese to invest in British nuclear power or not and just kicked the can down the street. Whilst franchising the train network to a bunch of European companies (some of which are part state owned) rather than considering long term issues with congestion and public transport particularly in provincial areas which were losing most employment opportunities. We didn't want to have a conversation about cultural clashes and gentrification and how that put pressure on long standing established communities. We wanted microwave ready meal politics with politically correct optics and narratives.
No one has made a fucking decent decision that recognises reality and that subjects are difficult and complex in British politics for at least fifteen years. No one wants to grapple with anything that is 'unkind' or 'a bit more complex and much more dull as fuck than you are making out'. It's all simple thought terminating concepts and ideology.
We've instead played a game of Fudge it, Forget and Fabricate. You could stick that neat little slogan on the podium of every single political party right now.