Blame it if you want to global warming, like the fire on La Palma, the 45 degrees in Figueres, the dry reservoirs and the lack of snow for skiing at Christmas. But the truth is that the tectonic plates have moved, and a new circle of hell has appeared in the kitchens of the Earth. To the nine that Dante reserved for the unbaptized, the greedy, the gluttonous, the angry and lazy, the lustful, the heretics, the fraudsters, the violent and the traitors, we must add a new one for the British conservatives as punishment for the decade and a half of austerity to which they have subjected the country, the bad management of the economy, the Machiavellian antics of Boris Johnson, the uselessness of The Resa May and Liz Truss, and Brexit.
The Tories have peeked into the political hell ahead with the results of three by-elections, losing two (Selby in Yorkshire and Frome in Somerset) in a landslide, despite being their traditional strongholds, and winning the third (Uxbridge in Greater London, Johnson’s former seat) by a narrow majority, thanks only to one local issue: opposition to a tax on polluting vehicles.
Should the voting trend repeat itself in the general election at the end of next year, or by January 2025 at the latest, the Conservatives would not go to purgatory but head to hell, their stash of MPs dwindling to a lucky 100 and a half, a similar debacle to their Canadian counterparts in 1993. A dismal sign from their perspective has been the tactical vote between Labor and Liberals to get them out of the way.
But the fact that some go to hell does not automatically mean that others go to heaven (Saint Peter is very scrupulous about who he lets in and who he doesn’t), and for Labor the day also has a bittersweet balance. Triumph over victory in a rural Yorkshire farming district that voted to leave the EU in 2016, the equivalent of a medieval castle inhabited by Tories, but frustration and disappointment at being unable to conquer Uxbridge. With inflation running at 8% (the highest in the G-7) and a full-blown cost-of-living crisis, mayor Sadiq Khan’s efforts to expand to the suburbs the area where the most polluting vehicles have to pay the equivalent of fourteen euros a day for driving have weighed heavily on voters in that neighborhood of the capital, a serious problem for older people with old cars, and ruin for small businesses with vans they can’t change.
Given the impact of the matter, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be tempted to make the growing resistance to decarbonization by 2050 and the promotion of green energy one of the key points of his electoral platform. Labor is already a bit in retreat, questioning whether we should not “listen to the voters” and slow down a bit, and put off Khan’s environmental tax (who insists that “clean air is everyone’s right, a matter of social justice”). The opposition is in a bind. If he backs down, he would offend the most convinced environmentalists, and the votes he would win on one side could be lost on the left and among the youth.
Voters may have already excommunicated the Conservatives, but Labor leader Keir Starmer has yet to receive their blessing. His tactic consists of not risking anything, not promising anything because there is no money, and letting the opponent wear himself out before giving him the last straw, as Muhammad Ali did. The most revolutionary thing about his program is to apply VAT to private schools. No raising taxes on large fortunes, no nationalizing railways, electricity, and gas and water companies, no contemplating a return to the single market, reforming the electoral system, or expanding subsidies for poor families. It is not surprising that he does not excite the left.
Despite this, everything suggests that the electoral alignment in the country has changed, and the coalition that Johnson forged (traditional Tories from the south of England and eurosceptic ex-labor members and social conservatives) has disappeared. Brexit is not on the voters’ agenda, who see its drawbacks but consider it a done deal. A terrible omen for the current government. Dante can now prepare to retouch his Divine Comedy and add hell.
