Has the political centre disappeared?
We started NoMansLand as a lament for the loss of the political centre. At the time, around the turn of the year, the Liberal Democrats were showing no sign of recovery from their collapse following the 2015 general election. This coupled with the move of first Labour and then the Tories to harder left and right positions had left a chasm in the centre of British politics. Regularly there was discussion of a new centrist party.
We finally got one in The Independent Group, as they were then called, in the late Spring; but then under our feet the landscape changed. The delay of Brexit and the EU elections led to the redrawing of the political map, certainly in as far as opinion polls are concerned. The Libdems are now back to heights not hit since 2010 and ‘Cleggmania’ — polling at over 20% and with heady projections of being competitive in 200 seats.
Yet despite their resurgence it does not feel like the same can be said of centre ground politics. That is not because the two big parties have moved yet further towards their respective bases. Although that does not help. It is because the country is now split on two axis not one. In our podcast this week, we discussed Brexit identity with Paula Sturridge of the University of Bristol. Her work describes how the “Liberal-Authoritarian axis” best captures the Brexit divide.
The NoMansLand with which we started was a gap on the traditional economic left-right axis. The current economic policy of the Libdems is unclear, but they will to some extent fill that space. However, on Brexit, the biggest issue of the day the Libdems are on the extreme remain side, corresponding with the far liberal end of the Liberal-Authoritarian axis.
This was crystallised by the their party conference vote to revoke Article 50 without a second referendum. The Brexit Party are of course on the other end of that extreme. The only party to ofter some measure of compromise on Brexit is Labour — now for holding a referendum but being neutral on which way it should go — yet they are of course moving firmly left on all other issues.
What we have now is not a system of parties in one line from left to right, but a system split on two axis with one party on each extreme. If you are moderate on both Brexit and economic issues you occupy the NoMansLand we are now left with.
