Even as scandal orbits No. 10 Downing Street, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is living the good political life.
In a major special election victory this week, Johnson’s Conservative Party won the northern parliamentary seat of Hartlepool. Held by Labour since its establishment in 1974, history was made when Jill Mortimer defeated Labour candidate Paul Williams. The Conservatives are understandably elated. Not only do they retain a significant majority in the House of Commons, but this victory suggests the party is on course to advance that majority further in Labour’s heartlands.
How have the Conservatives been able to do it?
Three factors stand out: Brexit (Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union), COVID-19 vaccines, and Labour’s endemic dysfunction. All of this has pushed aside the prospective political damage of reports that Johnson may have used private donors to refurbish his Downing Street government residence.
As with the December 2019 general election victory that saw Boris Johnson win his House of Commons majority, Brexit loomed large in Hartlepool.
Back in 2019, the Conservatives won widespread support from previously resolute Labour voters after pledging to get Brexit enacted at all costs. This offered a contrast with Labour, which, then led by far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, offered no clear vision on that defining political concern.
In Hartlepool, this week, Paul Williams appears to have been punished for his former opposition to Brexit. Areas of the English North, such as Hartlepool, have been sustainable in their pro-Brexit attitudes and hold the issue as a top priority.
The Conservatives also appear to have benefited from their successful rollout of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Diverging from the European Union, which delayed buying vaccine stocks, then temporarily suspended the use of vaccines, and has generally mismanaged its rollout, Britain has had a highly successful vaccination program. Infection rates are plummeting, and a sense of normality has returned. A normality, it is presumed, that will sustain without the need for any more lockdowns. We should also note that the EU’s record of failure has bolstered sentiments that Brexit was the right option.
Also helping the Conservatives: Labour remain crippled by infighting and lackluster leadership. Under current leader Keir Starmer, the party has sought to balance all sides of the political equation at the cost of appearing to represent nothing at all. Party supporters of former leader Corbyn say that Starmer has failed to offer a “radical” alternative vision to the Conservatives. Supporters of the moderate former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair say that Starmer has been too slow to abandon the far Left.
The assessment of this centrist faction (which I personally believe has it right) was amusingly emphasized by one of Blair’s top aides in a BBC News interview this week. In that interview, Peter Mandelson pointed out why a former Labour Party parliamentarian, Laura Pidcock, had little credibility to suggest that the Hartlepool defeat was down to Labour not being sufficiently left-wing. After all, Mandelson offered, in the 2019 general election, Pidcock “stood on a program of radical policies … and she lost, in Durham [a traditional Labour stronghold and northern constituency very close to Hartlepool]. Why? If [a radical left-wing agenda] was so good, if it was so brilliant, if it was so appealing, why did she lose?”
It’s not difficult to see why Boris Johnson is feeling pretty good right now.
