On the face of it, the channel between Britain and France is far deeper in political terms than most people assumed just a few months ago, notwithstanding a plethora of comparable concerns among the two electorates.
French voters have recently ensconced in power a relative novice, and lately given him a safe parliamentary majority to fulfil his ambitions. The reins are now firmly in the control of a party that did not exist 16 months ago, under the youngest head of state since Napoleon Bonaparte, and most of La Republique En Marche’s successful candidates have no previous experience in politics.
That in itself is a healthy shift away from professional politicians, who all too often lack the will or the ambition to set their sights beyond the status quo. Yet if the 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, had been a more inspiring figure,
it is likely that a substantially larger proportion of the electorate would have turned out to endorse his party’s candidates last Sunday.
The 43 per cent turnout, abysmal by French standards, stands in stark contrast to the nearly 69 per cent notched up in Britain — the highest since 1997, albeit still lower than the average in the seven decades preceding 1997, a trend that symptomises the growing lack of faith in the electoral process.
In one sense, the British election did in fact reinforce the status quo ante, with the main two parties dividing much of the vote between them and “third parties” dwindling; the Liberal Democrats increased their parliamentary score after a particularly poor performance in 2015, following their coalition with the Tories. But former party leader Nick Clegg narrowly lost his seat in Sheffield, and his successor, Tim Farron, felt obliged to resign after the party’s insufficient gains, in which Farron’s religious fundamentalism may have played a part.
The biggest, and most welcome, surprise was the Labour Party’s ability, under Jeremy Corbyn, to gain 30-odd seats, leaving the Tories without an overall majority — despite the prognostications, at the beginning of the campaign, of a Conservative landslide in view of 20 per cent-plus pro-Tory margins in opinion polls.
These poll numbers steadily narrowed in the course of the campaign, not least because Corbyn diligently strove to get his message out directly to the voters, through personal appearances at rallies across the island, as well as through an admirable social media campaign, instead of relying on the generally hostile mainstream media outlets.
The vast majority of British voters under the age of 40 opted for Labour. A larger turnout among them may well have swung the election result. It would also have made a huge difference had Corbyn enjoyed the backing of most of his party’s MPs. It’s nonetheless remarkable how post-election polls show a clear majority for Labour.
Theresa May was personally responsible for the Tory debacle to the extent that she fought shy of public appearances, refusing to debate Corbyn or any other party leaders. There can be little doubt, though, that many Labour MPs (and their media backers) were counting on a party wipe-out in order to launch yet another attempt to dislodge Corbyn.
The sceptical media — particularly the supposedly left-of-centre Guardian’s menagerie of resident Blairites — have lately taken to praising Corbyn’s leadership qualities and his capacities as a campaigner, all too often overlooking the policies he offered that gave hope to a disenchanted populace. Those of us who had assumed that Corbyn would be rewarded if he succeeded in getting his message across have been vindicated to a considerable extent.
But May still rules the roost, even after her woeful response to the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, which is likely to have consumed more than 100 lives, testifying to the deadly consequences of neoliberal capitalism, a context in which profits inevitably trump compassion.
May’s first port of call after her electoral disaster was Paris, possibly in the expectation of imbibing some of Macron’s charm, given his neoliberal fantasies have evidently been rewarded. But Macron will almost inevitably face a popular backlash in the event of trying to put in place rules that eviscerate the French welfare state, even if he attracts applause from the European Union that May’s country is now obliged to exit from.
Unlike May, Macron holds some relatively progressive views, at least in comparison with his second-round opponent Marine Le Pen. However, unpopular moves are likely to attract opprobrium on a scale that will challenge his dubious mandate. And, across the watery divide, should a second election within the year become inevitable, specially if May’s attempted alliance with the far-right Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland proves too problematic, the Conservatives almost certainly won’t contemplate another contest without a different leader.
By arrangement with Dawn
