Boris Johnson could crash the economy tomorrow and still fare better than Labour – unless they do this

After the 1983 debacle, Neil Kinnock begged the party not to forget what had happened in the election a few months before. The same advice stands now

Given the dogma of denial that has gripped the Labour Party since its disastrous defeat a few weeks ago – the worst since 1983 or 1935, take your pick – the only hope for a change of government next time around would seem to be that the Tories muck things up so royally that they’re just thrown out by a desperate public in disgust.

If only.

They are, to be sure, capable of it, and the Conservatives’ reputation for economic competence is mostly undeserved. This time, no-deal Brexit is still possible, a short sharp shock followed by many years of stagnation. Even under a negotiated bare free trade deal there will loss of investment, closures, job losses, devastated communities (some in “Leave” areas). There won’t be much money around, anywhere. Public services, with a few exceptions, will be squeezed; the NHS will have to be reformed; inequality and poverty will rise. By 2024 we could easily have higher unemployment, higher inflation, lower real terms house prices and wages than today. So much for “unleash Britain’s potential”.

Ideal conditions for a radical Labour opposition to storm to power then? The real Brexit betrayal out there for all to see? The fraud Boris Johnson exposed by his own incompetence?

No. For a start, even if Brexit is an obvious failure, so what? It is over as an issue even now, and it’s all too late for “Remainer” arguments by then. Britain will have made its bed, lumpy and bug-ridden as it will be. Few will be in the mood even then for a re-entry to the EU – going through the whole thing all over again but in reverse. Besides, Johnson can always blame the nasty Europeans and difficult world trading conditions for the shambles. He’ll be like a dodgy used car salesman when you bring your jalopy back for a refund; full of excuses. He’ll find a fridge to hide in.

He will not be popular and even less respected after five years in power, but that doesn’t mean Johnson must lose – even in the middle of a slump. In fact, especially in the middle of a slump.

Tony Benn, the grandfather of the present left and messiah to his young disciple Jeremy Corbyn was fond of remarking that people always turn to the right at times of economic crisis. He was usually wrong, Tony, but he was right there. Labour’s benchmark defeats in 1983 and 1935 (and others) are telling moments. As in 2019, they came at times of crisis or soon after, and in conditions of economic difficulty for many regions of the country – what we now call the “left behind”. To varying degrees, many hard-pressed families, north or south, England, Scotland or Wales, socially conservative or liberal, young or old, did not turn to the left in such conditions. Labour failed to convince that there was an alternative.

In 2019, Labour lost 8 per cent of the electorate in two years flat. Johnson won 3.7 million more votes than Corbyn did. That was because the risks Labour represented were perceived as too great. As Rebecca Long Bailey keeps saying, Labour’s policies are popular (well, sometimes) – but she, and too few in Labour, acknowledge that the public thought them literally incredible, if not unwise. People in their everyday lives know that if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It was too.

And so new, harder times will soon be visited upon vulnerable people and run down towns. Brexit will see to that. Johnson will probably borrow as much as he can to keep the economy going, and some areas might even do well from having a new rail link or a relocated government department arrive. It will be a cynical, electorally-driven economic policy. There may be small tax cuts, tokenistic of the “golden age” he promises. Most people, after all, will hang on to their jobs. The NHS will still exist, struggling.

Yet the 2020s will be a nervous, uncertain decade as Britain tries to find a new role and a new way to make its living in a tough world. Labour should be able to offer a far better alternative than Johnson’s – but it must be one people can believe will not actually make a bad situation even worse: Otherwise, it will be a case of “better the devil you know” – again.

Labour’s progressive values are not alien to the British people – but the strident Marxist stuff is. They like their public services, but do not like bankrupting the economy to pay for them. They also dislike the bullying and the confused if not downright ugly ethos of today’s Labour Party – the antisemitism scandal being its most gruesome emblem. Labour should stand in stark contrast to the Islamophobic Tories – it does not.

Whatever Labour’s new offer turns out to be, it cannot resemble what they tried before. While their manifesto had some virtues, the public plainly rejected it – “end of”.

The biggest personal, emotional motivation for change for Labour members echoes a line of Neil Kinnock’s after the 1983 debacle. During that “period of reflection”, he begged his party not to forget what had happened in the election a few months before: “Just remember how you felt then, and think to yourselves: ‘June the ninth, 1983, never ever again will we experience that.’” They did though, moving too slowly to change, and they lost again in 1987 and 1992 before finally capitulating to the electorate and winning a landslide in 1997, and three full successive terms of solid achievements (too often overshadowed by Iraq).

Labour members should not now forget or deny or fabricate the truth about 12 December 2019. The Tories won, and it was nobody else’s fault but Labour’s.