The Tories have understood that their response to the financial meltdown – a prolonged period of austerity that squeezed living standards – was unpopular and wrong. They also twigged that Brexit was a revolt against austerity and free-market economics more generally – so they have embraced the decision to leave the European Union and positioned themselves as the party of intervention and the working classes.
Labour won seats in 2017 when it said it would respect the referendum result, but saw its “red wall” breached when it moved steadily closer to remain. Having chosen not to listen to what voters in its former heartlands were saying, Labour now seems bemused to find that they have migrated to a party that did.
Voters in the former industrial parts of the country are not mugs. They could see that Labour’s stance on Brexit had moved from respecting the referendum result in 2016, to telling the public to have another think (and to come up with a different result) in 2019...[As for the] expensive, electoral bribes. To many voters, these seemed an insult to their intelligence, which indeed they were.
Instead of seeing Brexit as a vote for a different sort of economy, [Labour] has demonised leave voters as nativists and racists. It decided early on that no matter what form Brexit took, it would be worse than the status quo.
Brexit has already been a catalyst for change. It has forced the government to spend rather than cut
[Elliott offers] the only option that offers a way back for Labour: embrace Brexit and argue for a left version of Britain outside the EU.
It is not quite the only option for grieving guardianistas:
How to be hopeful: Anne Lamott on the awe of everyday play
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