Naveed Aman Khan
ELECTION 2019 are at doorstep and just knocking in the United Kingdom ‘The House
of Democracy’. Being blessed and honoured, I will be having meetings with Lords and writing columns from London next week on the UK election-2019 describing each of the trends in detail. Whatever happens will not only determine the future course but also give a clear and perhaps unsettling look. British election 2019 is considered to be nation’s most important since World War II. That’s true, but for Americans, it will also serve as a window into their own 2020 contest with Trump in picture. British politics have long mirrored Americans. Both USA and UK have been dominated for decades by two parties, one centre right the Conservatives and the Republicans and the other centre left Labour and the Democrats. The centre right parties historically attracted the educated and relatively well off, while the centre left ones attracted the poor, the working class and ethnic and racial minorities. There were important differences, to be sure, but Democrats and Republicans could each see their British counterparts as first cousins rather than distant relatives.
This parallelism meant that trends observed in one country often presaged changes in the other. In the 1950s, both countries were governed by cautious conservatives, who protected the welfare states built by their opposition. Both nations turned leftward at roughly the same time in the 1960s. Both were beset by stagflation during the 1970s, and turned toward free market conservatives Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, both once thought beyond the pale in the 1980s. And in the 1990s, New Democrat President Bill Clinton and New Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed their parties away from their working class roots and toward a market friendly ‘Third Way’. These factors are having similar political effects in both countries. Affluent, pro-Remain Tories are leaving their party for either Labour or the small, anti Brexit Liberal Democrats just like affluent suburbanites are leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party. Working class voters in England and Wales who want to leave the European Union are moving in the opposite direction, just as their blue collar counterparts in the USA elected Trump. The election’s outcome will largely be determined by which movement is stronger. The parallels go on. Labour has lurched left in recent years, and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is an unrepentant socialist who criticizes capitalism. Democrats are also swinging left, as the rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the strength of progressive favourites Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the presidential primaries show. Polls show voters under thirty in both countries largely favour these left wing populists and that affluent anti populist former conservatives are scared by them. Fear of and hope for, dramatic change will be important factors in elections of both countries.
Threats to national unity are also increasing in both USA and UK. In the USA, the threat comes from fears that increasing polarization and the vast gap in cultural attitudes between party partisans will irrevocably damage democracy. In Britain, the threat is more direct. The UK is actually four countries; England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and Brexit is raising the chances that Scotland and Northern Ireland will choose to leave. Polls earlier this year showed that Brexit supporters cared more about leaving the EU than maintaining British Union, and the Scottish Nationalist Party’s manifesto forthrightly plunks for another referendum on Scottish independence. Both countries today are dealing with the populist revolt driven by the effects of the 2008 financial collapse, globalization and mass migration. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 referendum shocked the nation’s elites just as Donald Trump’s upset victory shocked USA elites a few months later. Brexit has become a cause celebre among the American right as Trump acolytes say the Brexit vote presaged Trump’s own victory. And Britain’s Remainers, as those opposed to Brexit are known, never fail to try to tie the unpopular Trump to pro-Brexit Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The populist leaders’ character flaws are also election issues. Trump’s are well known in both countries, but Americans are unfamiliar with just how out of the ordinary Johnson’s past is. Like Trump, Johnson is known for multiple marriages and many affairs. Johnson’s foes say he doesn’t have the sober temperament needed for politics, while his allies say his energy, charisma and out-of-the-box demeanour are exactly what the country needs. So is IK in Pakistan. Sounds familiar. Johnson’s Tories are also challenging free market orthodoxy just as Trump’s populism is leading Republicans to rethink their economics. So is IK doing here in Pakistan. The Tory manifesto eschews cuts in personal or corporate income taxes in favour of cutting a payroll tax paid by all. It also unleashes a flurry of government spending on services and projects favoured by formerly Labour voting working class voters. If Johnson wins with a stable majority, this visionary platform is likely to become an inspiration for post-Trump Republican reformers. This election in the United Kingdom will decide the fate of Brexit, unification and Boris Johnson. This is why British election 2019 is considered to be nation’s most crucial and important since World War II.
— The writer is book ambassador, columnist, political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad.
