Brexit: Tories, Coalition, Trump have better feel for public mood

It is vital to discern the lessons and traps for Australian politics in this Tory ­triumph, writes Paul Kelly. Picture: AFP

The British election was domin­ated by two elements absent from Australia — the Brexit imperative and the widely loathed socialist Jeremy Corbyn — yet it is vital to discern the lessons and traps for Australian politics in this Tory ­triumph.

The similarities linking the US, Britain and Australia should not be exaggerated but there are two common trends.

The parties of the right have triumphed in better reading the public mood and recasting their policies, even their identity to win.

The parties of the left have blown their brains out by squandering the public anger towards ­financial elites, compressed living standards and the alienation of working people who feel frustrated or betrayed — an ideal framing for left election victories. The left misread the times. Its world-historic failures have created the current opening for radical conservatives. Hillary Clinton and Bill Shorten expected to win; many of Corbyn’s backers believed he might pull off victory.

The left became consumed by ideological arrogance. It listened to its true believers and the liberal media. It was misled by the post-global financial crisis decade from 2009 and the support it enjoyed from academic, media and cultural elites convinced the time had come for social transformation.

Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison mobilised people power in launching savage campaigns against their opponents from the left — and their success in each case was built upon the left’s extremism. The left made two specific mistakes — it misread culture and it misread class. It embraced contemporary progressivism in its assault on traditional values and patriotic norms while its quest for individual self-expression spilling into gender, race and queer ideology only alienated the mainstream.

Its class campaigns were crude, old-fashioned and tired revamps of big tax, big spending and big disruption as though society hadn’t changed fundamentally in the past several decades. Consider the almost inconceivable consequences — Clinton lost to Trump, the British Labour Party has lost four elections in a decade and the ALP has lost three elections in six years against a mostly divided Coalition.

Johnson champions a “One ­Nation Conservatism” — the messages are a priority on the nation-state and a conservatism that relates to the entire community. Brexit was pivotal to his victory but Brexit is a symptom of deeper ­forces that Johnson exploited. The lesson here is the power of ­resurgent nationalism.

Morrison and the ­Coalition seized this position years ago exhibited in border protection policy, but Brexit become its ultimate expression as the British people voted against sovereignty surrender to the EU, took back control of immigration and decided British, not European, institutions would decide their destiny.

The revival of English nationalism (which may yet see the UK unravel) was a rebuke to the pro-EU establishment and its belief that Britain’s EU membership was irreversible. The lesson is that nationalism retains its power into the 21st century because people link individual self-interest with national self-interest. This is the golden bridge to conservatism’s revival. Its power lies in its validity: individual destiny is chained to ­national destiny.

This strikes at one of the foundations of progressivism — its distaste for nation-state loyalty and its belief that a civilised people will accept the logic of a globalised world (think trade, capital flows, climate change and people movement) and substitute enlightened internationalism for emotive ­nationalism. The elites misjudged their own countries and the bedrock power of location, community and nation in the way people interpreted their lives. Johnson, an Oxford-educated elitist eccentric, picked the trend.

Morrison has seized the nationalism position at home. He will play this card throughout the term knowing Labor’s equivocation will be exposed at some point because its progressive wing, dominant in the rank and file, believes Australian nationalism is founded in ­racism, sexism and patriarchy and wants to pull it down from Australia Day to border protection to ­national interest climate change targets. The biggest story in Johnson’s win, however, is the transformation of conservative politics into different degrees of populist, big-spending, protectionist and one-nation aspirations. This change is opportunistic, winning and dangerous. Yet it has deep roots in social evolution.

Labour parties in Britain and Australia were creatures of the ­industrial age, and as the industrial age heads towards sunset and the labour-based vote falls to 33 per cent it is unsurprising the conservative parties are adapting and trying to sweep up the disaffected into their own columns.

Political parties adapt to the changing culture. Trump, Johnson and Morrison occupy different positions on this spectrum and their differences are likely to be more important than their similarities. Trump is the most reckless.

Morrison is the most middle-ground cautious. Johnson’s backers might enjoy the idea they have the best of Trump’s populism without having the lunatic President himself.

Forget the nonsense about permanent voter realignment. This is the age of voter volatility where voters, less loyal than before, will vote more on performance. The more the conservative parties chase, win and must retain working-class votes the more they change their identity and the more internal contradictions they face. It is the challenge of success. It is no surprise that Johnson and Morrison are fixated on delivery. Johnson now owns dozens of Labour seats; Morrison’s future depends on winning more Labor seats.

Both prime ministers know the key to holding marginal seats and the seats previously held by their opponents depends on delivery and results. These PMs are conservative expansionists looking for new voter colonies to incorporate and hold. In the process the norms of true and traditional conservatism are trashed by Trump and being reinvented by Johnson as he pledges big spending on the National Health Service, more benefits for the working class and a decisive break from Thatcherism.

It is predictable the Tories now invoke Benjamin Disraeli, 19th-century prime minister and author of the book Sybil on the plight of Britain divided between two ­nations, the working poor and the elites. This is a bid for Johnson’s historical legitimacy as he recasts the Conservative party.

Morrison channels the new populist conservatism yet seeks to retain the best of traditional conservatism. Morrison believes in cultural tradition, in the budget surplus, in markets along with ­selective state intervention.

He doesn’t believe in debt like Trump and huge spending like Johnson; unlike Trump, he is an anti-protectionist; Morrison is not an Australia-first populist; but he is a pro-immigration border protectionist. He believes the Australian public wants better, reliable, more efficient government, not radical change. Unlike Johnson, he had no Corbyn to exploit.

This brings us to a big question for the left: can parties of the left escape from their current crisis? Consider Corbyn’s response to ­defeat. He believes he won on the issues. “As socialists we seek to raise people’s expectations,” Corbyn said. “I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments.” This is progressive dogmatism at its worst. Progressivism is fused with moral conviction and this is Anthony Albanese’s problem: ­progressives will say their policies are right and popular and will prevail if just given another chance and yet another election. Joe Biden offered a predictable truism: “Look what happens when the ­Labour Party moves so far to the left.” If the Democrats endorse Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren they will be refusing to learn, and merely empower Trump.

The warnings for Australian Labor cannot be missed — don’t think winning the youth vote means you are on the right side of history; don’t let activists steal your party from under your nose because you might not get it back; don’t be fooled by repeated polls showing your individual policies are popular (say negative gearing and franking credits) if the total impact is to weaken your profile as a credible alternative; respect people, don’t lecture and, finally, listen less to your believers and more to the public.

The warnings for Morrison are obvious: with Trump still formidable and Johnson now triumphant the conservative populists will demand that Morrison be more like them. It will be tempting to see Trump, Johnson and Morrison as a trio of like-minded brothers — tempting but false. The conservatives are winning but Australia is different to Brexit Britain and Trump’s America, and Morrison needs to navigate in his own waters.