Brexit, it is commonly believed, should have been a warning for Democrats. UK politics have long paralleled the politics of the United States, its closest ally and former colony. When the UK elected Thatcher the United States would elect Reagan; Blair likewise paralleled Clinton and Cameron (to a lesser degree) paralleled Bush. When the nativist and Russia-backed Brexit referendum passed, Democrats should have taken much more seriously the possibility of a (also Russian-backed) Trump victory in 2016.
Election results in the UK are sending another strong warning signal; Democrats would be unwise to ignore it again. Labour, the left-leaning party in the UK, has suffered its worst electoral loss in nearly a century granting the conservative party a massive majority and a strong mandate going into nearly a decade of unbroken control over the country.
Jeremy Corbyn, the septuagenarian and self-professed “socialist” leader of the Labour party, had a bold plan for this snap election. Coming off the Conservative Party’s infighting and failure to deliver Brexit by Boris Johnson’s self-imposed deadline (and with opinion polls showing falling public support for the conservatives), he would propose one of the most ambitious left-leaning election platforms of modern history. This manifesto included free college, expanded healthcare access, nationalization of broadband internet and utilities, a wealth tax, and redistribution of corporate ownership to workers. The theory went that proposing a bold, revolutionary, unabashed liberal vision for the future of the country would draw disillusioned and young voters into the electoral process again and lead the liberals to electoral victory.
The reality has proven much different. Political pundits will point out that this was a single-issue election and that Labour’s lack of an easy to understand and catchy position on Brexit cost them voters. It is true that Brexit probably explains a part of the loss, especially the loss of a small number of seats to nationalist (separatist) parties and the (Remainer) centrist Liberal Democratic party, but it does not explain the full extent of the electoral failure. Far-left policies did not bring any new voters to the polls; the youth vote, despite polls showing support for Labour’s platform, didn’t materialize. The liberal manifesto may not have been the only reason for the loss, but in the end it remains that it simply did not work. Labour may have lost less with this manifesto without the sticky issue of Brexit, but they would still have lost.
Democratic primary voters would be wise not to give in to the temptation of the myriad excuses already being made for Labour’s failure (ranging from mean headlines in The Sun to complaints that internal party scandals were “unfair”) and take seriously the lesson that electability matters and buying into the echo chamber of the party base is not a recipe for creating a winning platform.