Category: Politics

Bullet: The collapse of the Tory Party should be a warning to Reform

At the end of next week, I think politics will look quite different. We’ll have had another TV debate, and this time one in a format that suits Starmer, and I’m sure his team will have pointed out his flaws. Reform, Nigel Farage’s party, will continue their rise in the polls. And, I think, they’ll overtake the Conservatives. Not once in post-war history has the governing party finished third place. It is unprecedented.

Various political analysts have tried to pinpoint where it all went wrong for the Tories. Was it partygate, or appointing Chris Pincher, or electing Liz Truss, or the direction of Sunak’s government, or the shift to the right? My stance is that this disaster for the Conservative Party has been a decade in the making.

To recap: In January 2013, David Cameron went for another term in office – successfully – and fought off UKIP by pledging a referendum on EU membership. That referendum resulted in a vote to leave the EU in 2016, and David Cameron resigned. Theresa May became leader and attempted to deliver her version of Brexit, and called the 2017 election to strengthen her majority. The Conservatives lost their majority, and Theresa May wasn’t able to unite the party on Brexit. In 2019, she resigned and Boris Johnson took over. Again, Johnson couldn’t persuade Parliament to back his version of Brexit. He called the 2019 election, and this time his leadership was about a single issue: getting Brexit done.

That sounds great for Boris Johnson. He enjoyed a popular couple of years in office, firstly delivering on his main pledge, and then leading a highly-approved (at the time) response to the pandemic. But soon, the unity was over. A party united around Brexit, and a country united around getting through coronavirus, now had nothing to unite behind. Boris Johnson introduced levelling up, but this faced two problems. First of all, it was place based, and Conservative MPs represent two very different types of places – think Jeremy Hunt compared to Jonathan Gullis. Second, this was effectively “improve outcomes”. Surely every MP should be united behind better sociodemographic and economic outcomes anyway?

Thanks to partygate – or rather, Boris Johnson’s lying about partygate – the party found itself with no ideology, no goal, and now no leader to unite behind. Cracks begun to show, with traditional Tory MPs finding themselves at odds with the 2019 intake. MPs who had won (and won, and won, and won) their seats based on centre-right politics were in the same party as those who found themselves in a job thanks to Johnson’s personality.

As the Conservative Party began to slip in the polls, it resorted to more divisive policies, and for two reasons – largely due to the aforementioned divisions, but the long Conservative rule meant the party was stale and out of new ideas despite being desperate for them. Not only bad for the country and liberal democracy, these tactics also further divided MPs. The Rwanda plan (which Rishi Sunak didn’t even agree with), the arguments about trans rights, and now national service are all tactics seen as necessity but which do damage to the Conservative Party.

If the Reform Party ever get into government – which I find unlikely in this election cycle, and probably the next, but not an impossibility in the long term – they are likely to face precisely this challenge. They have both an asset and a threat in their Boris-like campaign coalition. A charismatic leader and an easy soundbite to rally around can win power, but it can also cause the demise of a party if not properly planned.

Let’s say Reform get into power with a flagship aim of net-zero migration. They achieve it within 2 years. What next? It is a deeply right wing party that simultaneously supports British institutions like the NHS which is socialist in its roots. Social conservatism isn’t popular in the UK and may not be uniformly popular in Reform supporters. There is no coherent economic view in the party, with agreement on tax and spending coming secondary to immigration figures. Whilst it may enjoy short term electoral success, the Reform Party is in no position for real, long-term government.

Bullet: David Cameron is the symptom. But what of?

September 11 2001 was a good day to bury bad news. It seems Rishi Sunak had the same approach today, but the opposite way around: have some bad news, so create a day to bury it.

Braverman was all over the headlines over the weekend, and it looked bad for him. For a government that promised integrity, breaking the Ministerial Code wasn’t something he could easily forgive, and for a political lightweight such as Sunak, political challengers are something best avoided. Openly forgiving her and allowing her to continue wasn’t an option, and neither was making a significant deal of her resignation. Bringing in David Cameron as foreign secretary probably wasn’t because he is particularly well regarded in foreign affairs – he isn’t – but rather because he needed something to make the headlines today that wasn’t a disaster of his own making. And, frankly, it worked. You may well not be aware that Sunak got a no confidence letter submitted about him today, and you’re not to blame.

This means David Cameron’s return to frontline politics is, effectively, a symptom of Rishi Sunak’s political cowardice, which itself is an almost inevitability of his lack of parliamentary or public mandate. But what does it mean?

To begin with, not only is dragging a former Prime Minister back to hide your weakness a significant symptom of said weakness, but especially so for Rishi Sunak. He has very few political allies he can draw upon. He is seeking to move the Conservative Party away from the socially liberal and optically centrist May-Cameron era. Johnson most likely isn’t a name Sunak wishes to have attached to his own, particularly given that both were issued fixed penalty noticed. Truss is Truss. This is not Sunak drawing on a longstanding ally who is well versed in the relevant area of political life.

Nor is it Sunak shifting his direction of government back to a centrist one, even if Matt Hancock believes it is. For one, Sunak lacks the mandate to make such decisions, as is evidenced by the Braverman situation – he doesn’t have the capacity to pull all the strings of government, only those begrudgingly granted to him by MPs who didn’t put him there but knew Truss had to go. Not only this, but Sunak is doing everything he can to appease the so called New Conservatives – socially conservative 2019 Tories who have a big focus on reducing immigration but also on “gender critical” views – amid a discussion that they’re encouraging Braverman to make a leadership bid. Sunak’s given them a string to pull in the form of Esther McVey. And whilst the meeting didn’t go successfully – Sky News says less than 10 MPs turned up – a loud group of co-ordinated backbenchers probably isn’t great for a weak PM.

There is another explanation of what Cameron’s return may be a symptom of, and I think it may be this in addition to the aforementioned. Sunak has a narrow pool of MPs that won’t cause him problems. Given the reason behind his weakness is his lack of parliamentary mandate, this isn’t surprising – Conservative MPs never actually gave him the go ahead. They just didn’t stop him. His appointment to one of the great offices of state has already caused him some problems, and he’s already almost guaranteed to lose the next election, so he may well be looking for somebody with no leadership ambitions to quietly do their job. I imagine this isn’t an easy feat in any Conservative Party, let alone today’s.

Regardless of the diagnoses, today marks a day where Sunak’s government is diagnosed with something. He can figure out what it is, but there will be new challenges to navigate. What happens if he wants to sack Cameron – or, worse still, his loud backbenchers do? Sunak’s fixed the headlines today, but complicated an already difficult balancing act in the process.

Long read: Brexit, Corbyn, and regicide: Why parliamentary sovereignty is not to be challenged

“The public doesn’t bring down Prime Ministers; Parliament does.”

The sovereignty of Parliament has never been shown to be so obviously so important compared to now. No matter how loud the views are amongst the grassroots of a party or a cause – it must command a majority within Parliament, or at least within the Parliamentary Party. I could talk about my opinions on Parliament and the Lords and the electoral system – in fact, I did in my first draft of this post – but that isn’t relevant here and now. What matters is that every party learns and understands that it runs the risk of repeating the mistakes of the past if it does not begin to quickly listen to the realities of a world-class political system.

Liz Truss is, by every single measure conceivable, the worst Prime Minister we’ve had. Probably ever, certainly in modern history. By time in office, by number of u-turns, by policies delivered, by confidence of her own MPs, by confidence of the Commons, by the value of the pound. She has been so poor. And, this may be controversial, but I do not believe it to be something extraordinary about Liz Truss that has caused this issue. She was no weaker than May, and her policies were no more outlandish than Thatcher. The combination may have been fatal for her, but there is more to it than that.

The results of the (first) 2022 Conservative leadership election give it away. She came third in the first four rounds of MP ballots, and second in the final round. She entered office without a majority of her own Parliamentary party. Her mandate is Parliamentary, and Parliament’s mandate is the public. One of my deepest and most pragmatic beliefs about our democracy is that it is, and should remain, Parliamentary. There should be no constitutional requirement for a general election if a leader changes. Sure, opposition parties are right to call for one and I would like one, but there should not be a constitutional requirement. And so, whilst the governing party had an effective mandate from the public (regardless of your views on FPTP), the leader had no mandate from the governing party’s sovereign body: MPs. The party of regicide was always going to oust her as leader if she did not gain their confidence quickly. She didn’t. They did.

This could be a little different if she started out in opposition and gained MPs. Boris Johnson was so successful on Brexit because he was so ruthless with the MPs that he gained; any MP who ran in the 2019 election had to support his Brexit deal. Therefore, there’s a theoretical argument that opposition parties have a little more leeway with this and can listen to their members more, as they can – if they get into government – force their majorities into having confidence in them. This is only if you get into government, though, which brings me fairly smoothly onto my next point: if you’re an opposition party, it’s harder to get into government if you don’t have the confidence of your party. This shouldn’t be followed quite so stringently as it should be if you are in government; I know if I was still in the Labour Party, I’d want a say on the leader (and did in fact have a say on the leader last time). The 2016 Labour leadership election showed the flaws of this though, with 172 MPs against Corbyn, and 40 supporting him, he won the leadership election. He was never going to be able to unite or govern effectively, no matter how good his campaigning was.

This also applies to policy. The Brexit referendum probably made political sense to Cameron at the time. There was a rising party, UKIP, taking votes from him, threatening his MP’s majorities in swing seats. So, to shut them up and stop them from taking votes, calling a referendum and winning it wasn’t a bad thing to do. The problem was what ensued afterwards, which has only become clear in hindsight. The Tory Party at the time was mostly remain-supporting, including Truss herself, a member of Cameron’s cabinet. Theresa May took over – who supported remain – and tried to deliver Brexit with a Labour Party opposed to her and a Conservative Party opposed to Brexit. The result of the 2017 election made things no clearer, with Labour running a Brexiteer candidate in Corbyn with a policy to remain in the EU, and the Conservatives running remainer May with a policy to leave the EU. How can a parliament have confidence in a policy when it isn’t entirely sure who supports it and who is against it? Boris Johnson seemed to, for all his flaws and corruption, understand the necessity of a clear unambiguous Parliamentary majority to deliver a policy.

In comparison, take the two most successful and influential politicians in modern Britain, Thatcher and Blair. They both had one crucial thing in common, which was the command and confidence of their parliamentary Party. The public doesn’t bring down Prime Ministers; Parliament does. When you realise this, and understand that the public didn’t bring down Thatcher, or Blair, or Cameron, or May, or Johnson, or Truss, this concept becomes significantly more important.

Imagine if Thatcher had been elected without the votes of her Parliamentary party. On the same policies, with the same backing from her party members and the same view from public, but with the Conservative MPs giving their support to a hypothetical alternative candidate. Her character would not have changed, and nor would have her ideology, but she would have found herself in a position that could have very quickly become untenable. She was an effective if disagreeable opposition leader and Prime Minister not because she had the backing of significant grassroots organisations, but because she respected the sovereignty of the House of Commons and its importance in deciding the fate of an Opposition Leader and a Prime Minister. Blair’s mandate did not come from the party members – Corbyn had a bigger backing of party members than Blair did, albeit not by much. But, put two opposition leaders up side by side, one with the backing from their Parliamentary party and another with grassroots support. Nine times out of ten, I believe, the one with backing from Parliament will be more successful than the one with grassroots support. The public can vote for somebody who does not have the support of various grassroots movements – they can’t vote for one who doesn’t have the backing of their own legislators. If they do, it will only be a matter of time before downfall from within.

Bullet: The inevitable end for Liz Truss

I now feel confident enough that the end is coming for Liz Truss that I can write and publish this. I’ve thought for a while about how awful she is at speaking, campaigning, governing, and decision making – all the things that are absolutely essential for a Prime Minister. On top of that, she’s polling at around 20% (with another big result expected at 5pm today from Redfield & Wilton), and there’s rumours that there’s 100 no confidence letters already sent to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 19222 Committee. This is not something any Prime Minister has survived.

Prime Ministers very rarely get formally pushed out, so while it’s worth bearing in mind that the letters formally can’t be used to oust her, she is likely to choose resigning with some sort of grace over the alternative option – the 1922 Committee having to change their rules to allow themselves to sack you after less than 2 months probably looks worse than saying “It’s clear my ideology isn’t what was needed at the time I was elected, and so I will be offering my resignation to the King.” And, in that sense, I believe that where there is serious and growing doubt that she will survive, that means the decision has already been made.

Jeremy Hunt is expected to entirely reverse Liz Truss’ mini budget, which comes after she put her confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng only to be forced into sacking him. This will look better for Hunt than it will for Truss – and it is quite something when a Chancellor who has been in the job for 2 days and was one of the most unpopular Health Secretaries in living memory announces tax rises and spending cuts, and comes out of it in a better position than the Prime Minister. He’s fixing somebody else’s mess, but Truss’ constant presence through the two Chancellorships and her endorsement of the mini-budget means for her it’s too late.

She has only a mandate from Conservative members, remember. She wasn’t the first choice for MPs for leader – in fact, she came third behind Penny Morduant for the first four of five MP ballots. And, whilst we do formally have a parliamentary democracy where people vote for individual MPs to make the decision for them, it would be foolish to pretend that Boris Johnson isn’t the man who won the 2019 election for the Conservatives, with Jeremy Corbyn being the man who lost it for Labour. Whilst her government has a public mandate, her Premiership does not, and she tell MPs that she won them their seats in a way that Boris Johnson could.

Hunt is also expected to limit Truss’ energy support package. This is the only place where she has the upper hand on Labour at the moment; in PMQs, you will often find her saying “We’re commiting to support for 2 years – Labour’s plan only lasts six months!” If that commitment of 2 years is no commitment at all and entirely dependent on who went in the metaphorical revolving door at Number 11 in the last month or two, where is her upper hand against Labour? It is not funding public services, nor is it low tax, nor is it honesty, nor is it sound decision making, nor is it fiscal responsibility and a strong economy, nor is it stable leadership, nor is it having a likeable leader.

Hunt may be making better economic decisions than Kwarteng, and might even boost his own ratings if he says he’s making tough decisions to clean up the last guy’s mess. But, in doing so he will deliver a fatal blow to Liz Truss that will show within the next fortnight as her economic policy is dismantled by her own party, making her the shortest serving Prime Minister by some considerable distance in modern history. A Conservative Chancellor cleaning up a Conservative mess (against the fundamental ideology of the Conservative Prime Minister) caused by a Conservative Chancellor appointed by a Conservative Prime Minister is not a good luck for the Conservative Party, and it’s much worse for Liz Truss. Her lack of a Parliamentary mandate is coming for her.

Bullet: What Boris Johnson’s result means for the Conservative Party

In 1989, Thatcher had the confiendence of 314 of 374 Conservative MPs. A year later, she left Downing Street in tears. In 2018, Theresa May had the confidence of 63% of Conservative MPs. Six months later, she resigned outside Downing Street in tears. In 2022, Boris Johnson had the confidence of just 58.7% of Conservative MPs. A year later, what will happen?

In the coming days, expect the airwaves to be littered with Raab, Patel, Dorries, and company explaining how the win shows the country wants the Prime Minister to get on with the people’s priorities. They’ll probably talk about how he still clearly has the priority of the government the people elected, and that Labour’s political gains didn’t work. Above all, it’ll be that now is the time to “move on” and “unite behind the Prime Minister” to “get on with the job”.

None of this will actually mean very much. Whatever happens next, Boris Johnson’s critics are emboldened, and his supporters are weakened. Whilst you’re not going to see many voters remembering that Boris Johnson got 211 votes for and 148 votes against, the Tory party will be quietly remembering. The condition of support for the Prime Minister will slowly but surely go unrealised, and the party will be a party that no longer gets things done. Public calls for unity will be going to the wrong people, with MPs not changing their minds. Those who vote no this evening will likely hold that position for the remainder of his premiership. From public statements, it is clear that the no decision is taken after much more consideration than a yes one. In other words, the Tory Party will be no more unified than it is this evening for the rest of Johnson’s leadership, even if its division is quieter.

It’s hard for me to predict how Johnson will go, as this isn’t a matter of policy but rather a matter of character. With Theresa May, there was a failure in her flagship policy which forced her into stepping down – a clear pinnacle of what had brought about the confidence vote. With Johnson, this might not happen. Sure, he might break the law again, or the ministerial code, but I doubt it. I’ve a feeling it may come down to an election. Where Mrs May had a moment where it was clear her Brexit failures were sticking around, Mr Johnson may have a moment where it’s clear his character flaws are doing the same. Keep an eye on June 23rd, but don’t expect it to be monumental.

That’s why I think the death of the premiership will be a slow one. A slow realisation that Labour’s lead isn’t going anywhere (so, please, don’t fuck it up, Mr Starmer). A slow realisation that 2019 was a one off win for Johnson. A slow realisation that a suit and tie Tory is electorally better than a wine and cheese one. People will begin to realise the government is sad and limp, but there won’t be an event that kills it off. The Johnson government is terminally ill, but won’t be euthanised. Maybe there’ll be a week or a few of hospitalisation before it passes where things are dire, or maybe the party will realise that killing a wounded animal can be more merciful than forcing it to suffer. It could cling on until Labour kills it. But, make no mistake: I believe this to be a diagnosis that this government won’t be healthy again.

And so, with the exact end of Johnson unknown, I turn to post-Johnson and look at his successor. The Tory Party turning from such vocal support of good old Boris to a desperate attempt to rebrand themselves will be interesting at least. This isn’t impossible – look at Starmer’s Labour. But also remember the “Same Old Labour” tweets from the Tories; they know how damaging it is to say that a party hasn’t moved on from its unpopular previous leader. The big names in the Tory Party are the pro-Johnson ones, so the next leader will have to be chosen carefully. Where May’s front bench could be elected as leaders with different Brexit policies, Johnson’s front bench may be unpopular amongst backbenchers and rebels. My guess is Hunt – name recognition, few scandals or baggage, and ministerial experience.

Whatever happens, a random Monday in June has changed British politics for the next few years. Johnson may cling on until the next election or he may be forced out within months, but I can say with a significant degree of confidence that Johnson has no more than half a term left regardless of how his leadership comes to an end. Remember, of 359 Conservative MPs, he only has the support of just over 200.

Bullet: The confidence vote in Boris Johnson

There’s a reason that you hear stories of employers telling people if they don’t resign, they’ll be fired: resigning is a lot more pleasant than being fired. There’s a reason I say this. If Boris Johnson genuinely feared he’d be kicked out of office, he’d probably have resigned by now. I’d be careful about buying into the hype that today is Johnson’s last day.

There’s a few reasons this could shape out to be a little different (and I certainly hope it does), but I think it rings true nonetheless. That means that this vote isn’t one to watch believing it will change much externally. Glue yourself to BBC News, but don’t do so with a genuine belief that his time in office has come to an immediate end. At the end of today, the chances are that Boris Johnson will still be Prime Minister (even though a win today will leave him weaker than he was last week), and most of the public won’t really care that much about the numbers. They’ll see the vote, win or lose, and move on with their lives. That’s why I believe the best way to look at this is from within the Conservative Party, and how this could spell change in politics over the coming months and years.

So, let’s say he wins. This is the most likely outcome in my view. The big bit of news his how comfortably he wins and what this means. A comfortable win not only gives Boris Johnson safety, but also signals something wider: the Conservative Party have no intentions of distancing themselves from Boris Johnson after the Sue Gray report. That’s not to say they won’t ever, and it’s not even to say they won’t before the next general election. But it does make clear that, right now, the Conservatives are the party of Boris Johnson. Labour can use that to their advantage in the future. When Boris Johnson is no longer leader and if the party makes an effort to move away from him, a comfortable win today will be a reminder that they were more comfortable with a lawbreaker than they were with an electoral liability.

If he wins by a narrow majority, things don’t look good either. It gives hope to rebels that they’ll be able to get rid of him. Whilst he’s protected from a VONC for a year, Britain’s only two female Prime Ministers Thatcher and May both resigned well within that yearly time frame. Yes, he’s protected, but divided parties don’t win elections, and Tories get rid of leaders that don’t win elections. If the vote diagnoses the party as one divided, it may spell trouble for the Prime Minister, as he becomes aware that he could be doomed to lose the next election. Remember that a narrow win amongst those who once almost unanimously did not oppose him is no real win at all.

The 2019 intake is a big group to watch, as these are the MPs that are there because of Boris Johnson, and their support or lack of will be at least somewhat reflective of the views in the red wall. This will have its limits, as an MP of any party won’t be completely reflective of their constituency, but a big loss of support from these could send a message to the rest of the party: Boris Johnson won’t win these seats again. The entire vote should be seen as a series of messages from some Conservative MPs to others – some groups and individuals will be announcing that they still believe they keep their seats because of Boris Johnson, whilst others believe they do so despite him.

The timing of this is significant for Conservatives wanting to cling to their seats, too. Boris Johnson had a big success in 2019, but has suffered a big defeat in 2022. His plea to MPs is that things will get better, and that he’ll soon enough return to the 2019 glory days of Conservative support. Winning this can put partygate behind him, he argues. But in just 17 short days, he faces two by elections from very different demographics – the classic Conservative stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, and Wakefield which was gained by the Tories in 2019. A bad performance in one of these, let alone both, is bad news for the Conservatives in the future. They may well be aware that if they don’t get rid of him today, they can’t get rid of him post-election. This is made worse by polling in Wakefield suggesting the Tories would get roughly what they got there in 1997 when Blair won a landslide – 28%, which is almost 20 points down compared to 2019. Votes against the Prime Minister may well be “shit, I’m at risk” votes, rather than “I like public standards” votes. Those who support Johnson will also be aware that the Conservatives are behind in the polls, and will be supporting him on the condition that things improve electorally when (if ever) all this party stuff is behind him.

This is why I’d be wary of predictions by Labour optimists that Johnson will call a general election. If Labour supporters are hopeful he’ll do it, it’s all the more reason he won’t. Early general elections are for parties that are doing well in the polls and don’t want to risk a fall, not for those who wish to strengthen their mandate after a period of weak performance. Ask Theresa May how well it went for her. The real thing we should be watching is can Boris Johnson win back support that is shown as lost this evening? If he can’t, that’s when I predict his days as Prime Minister will be behind him. The reason I hesitate to give him a year’s timeframe is that I don’t think his end will be a VONC as it won’t be brought about by something new but rather an old issue lasting, and he’ll be pressured into resignation.

The long and short of this is that Boris Johnson will probably win, and he probably won’t call an election. He’ll be Prime Minister tomorrow and Conservatives will be in power for a while yet. But, the rebellions may be bigger than expected and spell doom for the Prime Minister in the long run, with some Tories realising they’re at risk. The real speculation worth paying attention to is not that there’ll be a general election, but that things will either get better or dramatically worse for Mr Johnson. The coming months are make or break for Johnson’s premiership.

P.S. If he resigns today, he’ll have lasted one day less than Gordon Brown, and I think that’s quite cool.

A year in office: Biden’s missed Supreme Court opportunity

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died just 6 weeks before the 2020 Presidential Election, Mitch McConnell was keen to have the Senate confirm one of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees before it took place. This is despite the fact that McConnell himself was very clear in 2016 that the Senate would not hear any of Obama’s nominations for the Supreme Court justice to follow Scalia an entire 9 months before the 2016 Presidential Election.

For those of you who don’t know, the Supreme Court is made up of nine justices to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Those justices serve life terms, and they’re replaced when they resign or pass away. A President will nominate a justice to fill a vacant seat, and the Senate will vote to confirm that justice. This process has become politicised, with Presidents appointing justices who will fit their agenda – Republican Presidents will appoint justices that take a pro-life interpretation of the Constitution, for example, whilst Democrats will appoint justices more likely to uphold Roe vs Wade (the ruling which legalised abortion nationwide).

This politicisation of the Supreme Court has, for the most part, been played quite nicely between the two sides. If the Senate sees a qualified candidate, it will generally appoint. However, this precedent was resigned to history in 2016 when the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the Senate would not even hear the case for an Obama appointed justice – nothing would happen until the new President, whether Clinton or Trump, was inaugurated. Fast forwards four years to a Trump administration, and McConnell was eager to backtrack on his precedent and appoint a justice before a Presidential election. With the disregarding of one precedent, another was set: one of ignoring good faith and past precedent. Whatever the GOP (another name for Republicans) say in one case, it’s not for the sake of the nation, Constitution, or good faith, but rather for the sake of furthering their own agenda. Will they force through a poor quality nomination to strengthen the conservative majority on the Supreme Court? Absolutely.

With the Republicans brazenly playing dirty, Biden should have done the same. The letter of the Constitution applies, of course, but not the spirit. Anything the Democrats restrict themselves from doing now will only be done by the GOP further down the line, unless it’s constitutionally disallowed. That leaves two options for ideological success: do something first, or make sure it never happens. And so comes forth the idea of court expansion, which we’ll return to later. The court is made up of 9 judges, and past precedent has kept it this way. Obama only nominated when 9 became 8, and Trump did the same. However, there’s no rule that says this has to be the case. The exact words of the Constitution with regards to the Supreme Court are as follows:

“…he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.”

In plain English, this reads along the lines of “The President can nominate Supreme Court justices with the permission of the Senate [amongst others]: but Congress may put legal limits [age, criminal background, etc.] on who can take up these roles.” There’s absolutely no mention of an upper limit of justices. I could talk about the many pros and cons of a Constitution in the formate of America’s, but this is one of its flaws: it’s taken literally and incredibly hard to change. No mention of an upper limit? Then there’s no upper limit until 3/4 of States, 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agree.

So where is – or was – Biden’s opportunity for Constitutional change? When discussion of court expansion came up in the campaigns and debates for the 2020 election, Republicans were opposed – or at least the voters were. If Biden could get the Democrat members of the House and Senate on board, which he probably could given the GOP’s history of doing everything they can to sabotage the Democrats, he can then say to Republicans: here’s your chance to stop me from expanding the court. And it could well be electoral suicide for many Republicans to say no, given Biden’s unpopularity with their voters.

The Republicans have already proven they’ll play dirty – if there’s nothing Constitutional preventing them from doing something, the chances are they’ll do it. This means that, if a 2024 Trump Presidency happens, the court may well be expanded with conservative justices if no safeguards are put in place to prevent this. The controversy has died down now, meaning Biden has less fuel to ignite Constitutional change, and the Republicans have their eyes firmly set on returning to the White House. If they can do this, they could well take full control of the Presidency, House, Senate, and (in effect) the Supreme Court. It may be too late now, but Biden’s refusal to rule it out in the 2020 election means that the GOP can get away with it with little legitimate criticism from Democrats, and politicising a judiciary is never a good idea.

Hopefully this opportunity isn’t missed, and hopefully Biden realises that the best thing for America is to rule out Supreme Court expansion in order to keep it as nonpartisan, or at least bipartisan, as possible. However, I have a feeling that neither of those things will be true: court expansion is an issue at the back of voters’ minds if there at all, and Biden doesn’t seem to want to rule it out, leaving an open door for Trump to give America its most conservative court ever.

Bernie started a revolution: that’s where he went wrong

I knew of Bernie Sanders in 2016, though I wasn’t really old enough to be engaged in American politics back then so I couldn’t offer an opinion. In February 2020, I was throwing my weight behind him. Pictures of massive rallies full of people – Americans – supporting democratic socialist policies filled me with hope. He was America’s chance for healthcare that made sense, for university that didn’t throw people into hundreds of thousands of dollars of private debt, and for real action on climate change. It was the first time in my lifetime where I thought “Oh my god, things could really change in America”.

That’s kind of the problem with Bernie, too. Not the policy, but the messaging. He hit the nail on the head when it came to young progressives like me and many others – anger at the system which translated into radical, transformative change. That’s why I was so passionate and hopeful. Throw the same messaging at the lower middle class in the rust belt, and you’ll probably find that people working in car manufacturing who have just barely got health insurance won’t respond too fondly to the rhetoric of “let’s rip up the system”.

A middle ground is hard to find. My idea of the best middle ground is keep the anger, but don’t direct the anger at capitalism or cars or an abstract “the system”. Direct it at not doing the common sense thing. Keep the anger for the young progressives, but don’t talk about healthcare as some kind of revolution. Talk about healthcare in familiar terms. In practice, this means straying away from “We must defeat them” language (which I just copy and pasted directly from Bernie’s website), and towards “It’s common sense – we can fully insure everyone at half the cost.” Everyone knows common sense, and Americans are familiar with being fully insured.

Bernie had the right ideas. American health care makes no sense. It’s high cost at about 2x what most other MEDCs spend per capita, low efficiency given the bureacracy, and doesn’t produce great outcomes with a lower life expectancy than the UK, Germany, France, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and 33 other nations. Based on WHO data the US is 40th in life expectancy – the UN Development Programme puts it 37th, and the CIA’s World Factbook places America at number 54. When it comes to spending it’s more shocking – in 2019, the UK spent $4,653 on healthcare per capita. The United States? $11,072.

Health expenditure per capita by major nation. Source: OEDC.

I could talk for hours about why healthcare makes no sense in America, but that’s not the point of this. A quick look at a bar chart shows it doesn’t make sense. The problem is why Bernie couldn’t get this message to cut through. Policy doesn’t need to change, messaging does. The UK faces a similar problem with Labour although it’s not compounded by the Electoral College – Keir Starmer is criticised for speaking in front of a flag of the country he wants to lead, despite the fact that Bernie Sanders did this consistently with little criticism from the left. If the Democrats (and Labour) want to win in 2024, they need someone who can win the hearts of the young and the common sense of the swing voters. Anger and common sense aren’t mutually exclusive.

Why Biden won’t win again in 2024

One of the things that I brag about most is that I called the 2020 election correct in every state (and DC, although not once in its voting history has DC voted Republican) aside from Georgia and Arizona, which both flipped from Trump to Joe Biden. I predicted it’d be the first election since 1960 that Ohio voted differently to the final result, and I predicted a narrow win for Biden overall. Whilst I won’t claim that I got it exactly right – because I didn’t – I will offer my opinion on the 2024 election.

The electoral college in America pretty strongly favours the Republicans. In fact, so strongly that no Republican President has entered office by winning the popular vote since George H. W. Bush in 1988. Following Bush Sr., America had eight years of Clinton, then Bush Jr. won without the popular vote. Whilst he did win the popular vote for his second term, he did so having entered the Presidency without it. Obama followed Bush Jr. for eight years, then the world was burdened with Trump who entered office despite Clinton winning the popular vote. This means analysis needs to focus on the electoral college and therefore on a state-by-state basis. If we only took the popular vote into account, we’d probably have had a Democrat President since 1992 – national opinion doesn’t decide the President.

This makes swing states in America particularly important. My 2020 prediction was based on the rust belt voting for Biden, but also on the high turnout I expected amongst left-wing voters, given that Biden had one of the most impressive rebranding efforts I’ve ever seen from a candidate: he went from pale, male and stale when against Bernie and Buttigieg to offering significant policy changes, a shift away from Trump, and the first female and ethnic minority Vice President. This was all against the backdrop of Trump’s failures. It didn’t make a win inevitable, but it managed to turn out voters in cities like Philadelphia and Atlanta to the extent where Pennsylvania and Georgia were just won.

Biden was able to get the support of workers who’d been failed by Trump’s pandemic response or had family affected by it, as well as young progressives, without one group alienating the other. Put bluntly, Trump’s pandemic response was bad and Biden offered real hope. Now, Biden’s just as bad (the CDC have recently announced that isolation can end after 5 days without a negative test, and a rapid test is at least $10), and doesn’t live up to what he promised, so he’s likely to lose a lot of these groups. Young people won’t turn to Trump, so the edge in some states could be down to mobilising these. And, frankly, why should young people vote Biden when he’s failed to write off student loans? Social policy is the one thing keeping young people voting Biden – but even there, Biden promised 0 deportations in his first 100 days. He missed the mark by tens of thousands. Workers under Biden? They’ve kept their healthcare, but they did under Trump too. Put short, Biden has underwhelmed in the areas that made him win.

On top of this, there’s the fact that in American politics, the first 100 days are what matter, and no legacy was left of this. At this point it’s an assumption that Biden will lose the House in 2022, so the GOP will do all they can to make Biden look ineffective. This is going to harm his chances when it comes to the 2024 race. In other words, Biden’s failed to impress when the Democrats have had control of the Presidency, the House and the Senate. If the Democrats lose the House or Senate, Biden goes from bad to worse.

Of course, this is all based on the most likely scenario of the Democrats nominating Biden again, but the alternatives aren’t much better. Either nominate Kamala Harris, the most unpopular VP in modern history, or admit the administration has got it wrong and lose the incumbency advantage by selecting a third candidate, which is virtually unheard of in American politics. There’s no way of getting out of the Republican firing line. It’s either “Look at how Biden failed to keep his promises to America”, “You don’t want Kamala Harris as President”, or “Democrats can’t even trust themselves – why should you trust them?”, the latter of which will open up easy goals for the Republicans as they ask the nominee what they think of the current administration.

Biden had the opportunity to impress. He could have written off student loans, made rapid testing free, made Washington DC and Puerto Rico states (therefore giving them seats in both the House and Senate, which gives the Democrats an electoral advantage), expanded the Supreme Court, made healthcare more accessible, implemented gun control and police reform, and invested in huge social programmes to cut crime. He had the numbers to do whatever he wanted to do, so he’s the only one to blame. In fairness, his Build Back Better plan does deliver on some things (and might be Biden’s last shot at saving the Democrats’ 2024 dreams), but his choices in the first 100 days might cost America four more years of political stability, and those four years might prove fatal with ill judged foreign policy and populist domestic supporters. When he’s not up for re-election, he may be even more reckless too. It’s his last four years anyway, what’s he got to lose?

The beginning of the end for Johnson, and why the Conservatives could be doomed at the next election

If the opposition manages to sustain a good attack line, this will be the end for Johnson. It is significantly more important than the fact that the Prime Minister probably shouldn’t have attended a party. It’s the fact that there were countless mistakes – if you can call them mistakes – caused by a culture of lying, arrogance, and refusal to follow the law. Any decent Prime Minister would have said “I should not have done this and I will step down” for the sake of the country. Any bad Prime Minister would have done the same but for their party, similar to Matt Hancock. Johnson is neither of those, and that’s what makes him so embarrassing.

There are three options for the Conservatives in the next election, likely to be in 2023 or 2024. Boris Johnson could stay leader and there could be too few rebellions to trigger a vote of no confidence within the Conservative Party, which isn’t unlikely given that Labour’s constant infighting over the last couple of years has made them look incredibly weak and divided, and the Conservatives don’t want the same fate. Boris Johnson expelled all MPs that did not agree with him on the issue of Brexit, as unity was so important to the party – so don’t be surprised if the Tories don’t rebel. If Johnson does stay leader, the opposition parties and hopefully the media will have a fantastic opportunity for some good old fashioned character assassination. Is the person who couldn’t follow his own rules and couldn’t be honest about it the person you want leading you through the next crisis, and can you trust them to make good decisions on behalf of the country when they consider themselves exempt?

The second option is that Boris Johnson is replaced as Prime Minister. I consider this the most likely. Potential candidates for his replacement will vote for replacing him but only if they believe it is likely to pass, given their careerist goals but also that they will want to stand on a platform, both internally and nationally, that they’re not like Johnson, whilst seeking to balance this with being supportive of a government which they want to look successful. Their electoral chances will be ruined if the front bench votes against Johnson who survives the vote. If Johnson is replaced as Prime Minsiter, Labour also have a fantastic opportunity for campaigning against the new leader: “In 2015, the country voted Cameron and got May. In 2017, the country voted May and got Johnson. In 2019, the country voted Johnson and got Sunak/Truss/Patel. They can’t trust that a Conservative Prime Minister is up for the job.” They’ll also get the chance to point out that many current Tory MPs will have supported Johnson as a vote of no confidence will force them to pick a side or abstain, and that there’s nothing stopping a party with such a corrupt culture from replacing the new PM two years down the line with someone more corrupt as happened with Johnson replacing May. It’ll be an attack on the party which supported Johnson so much and the risks re-electing that party brings with it, rather than an attack on the new leader.

I believe this will happen before the second half of 2022 due to the process involved. A Parliamentary vote of no confidence (which triggers a general election if no new government is formed within 14 days) won’t pass against Johnson if it didn’t pass against May, and the Tories would struggle to find a coherent leader in time for the 14 day general election leaving Boris Johnson as their candidate. This means it would have to be done through a Conservative Party vote of no confidence, where enough Conservative MPs (15%, currently 55 MPs) must write to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee to ask for such a vote. MPs are only going to write at such a time when they believe the party to be at risk because of the leader, and trailing in polls is not enough to cause this. If Johnson survives the local elections in 2022, it means the scandals have passed without enough outrage from Tory MPs to remove him and they won’t remove him with no new significant scandal. In other words – this set of scandals will end him quickly with the help of the North Shropshire by-election this Thursday and potentially the 2022 local elections, or it won’t end him at all.

The third option probably looks a bit more appealing to a lot of senior Tories – keep the government looking strong as long as possible without ousting Johnson as Prime Minister, but standing a new leadership candidate in the 2023/24 election. On the face of it, this looks good: suppress the scandals as much as possible, say you’re delivering on the people’s priorities instead of playing politics, and dump the liability without making a big deal out of it in the middle of a term. However, this raises problems for the next leader. Any attacks on Johnson can then be carried out on the party as a whole. The leader will be forced into criticising Johnson after standing by him for years, or will appear soft on Johnson’s corruption when it will likely be one of the main talking points of the next election. And this won’t just be a problem that the leader faces – the entire party will be accused of standing by a corrupt leader until it’s elecorally convenient for them, and it will be hard for them to wiggle out of this one.

Whichever of the three options happens, it could spell significant danger for the Conservatives at the next election as Starmer’s blandness turns into his biggest asset. It just relies on Labour running a good campaign against the Tories and knowing that it’s an election which will be won on attack, rather than left wing policy. Once Labour have a term proving themselves as competent governors once again, they can use the following election to stand on popular left-wing platforms such as renationalisation.