There is one issue for which this election will be remembered for generations: Brexit.
This is the fourth article in a series of six, reflecting on Labour’s 2019 election. In the first three I looked at the issue of exactly why Labour’s electoral coalition fell apart, the strengths and weaknesses of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party, and the problems inherent in Labour in relying on an ‘anti-austerity’ narrative when trying to justify a programme that would reverse 40 years of neoliberalism. Now, at last, we come to the defining issue of the vote.
Ultimately I am going to suggest that there was really no good way out of it. This was arguably the single most divisive issue in British politics since World War II, and Labour’s voter coalition was hopelessly divided on it. In a way, nothing more needs to be said.
