Radicalism does not usually work out well for the Labour party. Michael Foot fought the 1983 general election on a hard-left manifesto famously dubbed ‘the longest suicide note in history’ and saw his party’s worst result since the first world war. But as next week’s general election approaches, despite running on an even more sweepingly statist programme, Labour is rising in the polls. The most left-wing government in British history is now a real possibility.
On the face of it, this makes no sense. Why, after the chaos of the last hung parliament, would voters choose another one? The prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, propped up by the Liberal Democrats, the SNP or both — plotting second referendums on Brexit and Scottish independence — is too traumatic to contemplate. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. When was the last time that a major election delivered the expected result?
An important shift in this painful, somewhat surreal election campaign is that while the Tories have already successfully squeezed the Brexit party’s vote, Labour could still take lots more support from the flailing Liberal Democrats.
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