Who can bridge the great divide?

Amid all the argument in Westminster, everyone can agree on one thing: the country is bitterly divided. The 52:48 divisions of the Brexit referendum are still there, and possibly even more entrenched than during the campaign itself. The result hasn’t been followed by a period of national healing — quite the opposite. Even the cabinet appears to be split along Leave and Remain lines.

You would have to go back a quarter of a century to find a time when the two main parties were so far apart. The public, however, shows no sign of deciding which path it wants to choose. The general election resulted in a hung Parliament, and the local elections earlier this month suggest that if Theresa May went to the country tomorrow, the result would be even more inconclusive.

The fashionable theory is that this split nation is the new normal. Why? Because these divides aren’t only driven by differing economic interests but cultural values. The struggle between cosmopolitan and provincial Britain for cultural dominance has, the argument goes, replaced the battle between capital and labour as the defining split in our politics.

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Ian Williams

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But there is another way of looking at things. The 35:35 split between Labour and the Tories in the elections can be explained by the fact that neither side was interested in reaching out. They were both trying to motivate their bases rather than persuade those who don’t agree with them. Indeed, when Mrs May offered a message of national unity — her ‘burning injustices’ speech on first becoming Prime Minister in 2016 — it went down extraordinarily well with the public. Strikingly, 57 per cent of voters think politics is too divided and that the country needs a leader who can bring people together — not one who prioritises what is right even if it is divisive, according to polling done for the political strategists Hanbury.