Obligatory "2012 in review" post

So it's that time of year when newspapers and websites fill the gap in actual news over Christmas by reminding us all of what happened in the year we're about to finish.

This is my (mini) attempt at something similar from a political polling perspective and for me 2012 (compared to this time in 2011) has really been about two things:

1. Ed Miliband has gone from being "that guys brother who accidentally became Labour leader" to possibly the most secure of the major party leaders.
While David Cameron and Nick Clegg both have to worry about "kings across the water" in the forms of Boris Johnson and Vince Cable, rumblings about Miliband's leadership have quietened down as his performances at PMQs improve and his lack of close ties with the Murdoch empire saw him immunised against the revelations of the Leveson Inquiry.
As the government (and David Cameron) have seen their ratings decline, Miliband's rise is more a case of looking good by comparison than any consequential achievements on his part. But after setbacks in 2011, Labour have performed the role of opposition effectively with by-election and local election victories as well as Miliband's well received "One Nation Labour" speech and other signs that the party is trying to put together a serious answer to the question "what would you do differently?"
This is also related to the more general point that since the Budget, Labour have opened up a traditional mid-term opposition lead of about 10 points. While Labour people should be a little nervous that their lead is only 10 points in a time of double dip recession and government screw-ups, it is at least an improvement on 2011 when the two main parties were much closer and, in the wake of David Cameron's EU veto in December 2011, the Tories actually pulled ahead briefly.
(There's a useful chart illustrating the change in approval ratings that I'll be adding as soon as I finish compiling it but the voting intention chart is here)

2. The (polling) rise of UKIP.
As the voting intention chart shows, UKIP started 2012 on something like 7% but they end it on just over twice that with 15% in the latest Opinium/Observer poll.

UKIP is an odd one. On the one hand they came in second in the 2009 European Parliament elections (and may come first in the 2014 round) with 16.5% of the vote, beating Labour and the Lib Dems into 3rd and 4th place respectively. Yet in the general election a year later, they were back down to 3% of the vote, no MPs and Nigel Farage failed to win Buckingham despite it being almost tailor made for a UKIP breakthrough.

It's tempting to think of the current UKIP surge as being fuelled by former Conservative voters disillusioned with the government's performance on Europe and other issues. The chart shows some correlation between the drop in the blue line and the rise in the purple one but while 2010 Conservative voters make up a large block of current UKIP supporters, they are not the majority.
Another explanation comes from (Lord) Michael Ashcroft. Say what you will about Lord Ashcroft, he does produce a lot of (sometimes useful) polling data and has conducted another of his super-sized jumbo polls on UKIP's threat to the Conservative party. The results suggest that UKIP considerers, from all parties, are driven by more than just the EU and are more generally dissatisfied with modern Britain in general.
Particular topics that come up tend to be immigration and political correctness as well as Europe with 80% of UKIP "considerers" agreeing with the statement that "UKIP seem to want to take Britain back to a time when things were done more sensibly".
With gay marriage set to become law and the census revealing that Britain is getting less religious and less white, UKIP seem to be turning into the vehicle for resisting these changes and this is probably quite a natural response given that the three main parties are all lead by metropolitan (social) liberals.

We'll have to wait and see whether UKIP have reached a natural peak or whether this surge will continue. With the EU likely to be in the news A LOT in 32013, my money is on the latter.

I tend to be a bit of a grinch when it comes to new year's eve (overcrowded bars and lots of spilt drinks made even worse by the fact that they cost twice as much as usual) so my evening is going to be spent with a can of Fosters and possibly crisps in a bowl if I really want to celebrate.
2012 has been a fairly decent year for me personally so here's hoping 2013 will be pretty decent as well.

Happy new year.

Expect to hear more Tories making this argument

So I mentioned a little while ago that we're starting to see some response from what we're going to term the "realist right" to the idea that Britain could be drifting towards leaving the European Union.

There was the Economist article last week citing the likely costs of leaving the EU and now (well five days ago) we have Damian Green calling out the "free market only" position as a fantasy.

Crucially he points out that the reason why it's a fantasy is that any change in the arrangement would require the agreement of the other EU states. If this comment from Francois Hollande is any indication, that's not going to happen.

It's looking more and more like the key decision on whether Britain will remain in the EU will be made by Angela Merkel. She'll have to determine what level of concession Germany would be prepared to accept to allow David Cameron to save face and secure a "renegotiation" in return for keeping a potential pro-austerity ally in the EU.

For David Cameron's part he needs to lower expectations for what a potential renegotiation could secure so that what he manages to eventually wring out doesn't seem like a complete surrender. Killing off the idea that Britain can reduce it's EU membership to the single market alone is the first step in that process.

Boris Johnson's high wire act on Europe and other quick points

I mentioned a few posts ago that the issue of whether to leave the European Union or remain a member would split the Conservative party between its business backers, who would want to stay in, and its more emotional (or, to use a nicer term, idealistic) members and activists who would instinctively want to leave.


Two things in the last week or so have illustrated this quite nicely.


The first is that Boris Johnson had originally called for a referendum on EU membership some time ago but recently seemed to hedge his bets by talking up the virtues of the Single Market and appeared to back away from the referendum idea. He has since tried to merge these positions together by calling for the UK to remain a member of the "single market council" while stripping away most other elements of EU membership.

Boris is essentially trapped between two opposing constituencies on this issue. As Mayor of London, a city which relies extensively on being an international harbour for capital and services, he must do whatever he can to prevent anything which might harm the prosperity of the city (and the City). This means reassuring the business community that the increasingly eurosceptic tone of the Conservative party doesn't portend anything which would hamper their ability to make money, much less the massive instability and economic chaos caused by a "Brexit".

However, as a potential candidate to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader, he must pass the Conservative party's eurosceptic litmus test whereby even mentioning the benefits that EU membership brings the UK is heresy.

Boris has in the past been more than happy to take unpopular stands on behalf of business (witness his regular condemnation of banker bashing) but in those cases his stands were more popular among the Conservative party than the general public whereas on Europe the situation is reversed.
To solve this dilemma he has adopted the line favoured by most Tories who aren't in favour of total withdrawal: taking the good bit (membership of the Single Market and the benefits for British business that it brings) and trying to separate it from the bad bit (everything else about EU membership). The problem for Boris, and David Cameron, is that getting the good without the bad isn't really an option.

This brings us to the second thing which was the Economist, in a leader article and an extensive feature, making the business case for remaining in the EU. The article calls withdrawal a "reckless gamble" and says that "Britons would suffer far more than they currently realise" if that route were taken.

But aside from listing the potential downsides of leaving the EU the real service that the Economist provides is explaining why the holy grail of a renegotiated relationship, involving Britain keeping all the benefits of the Single Market but being bound by fewer obligations and rules, is a pipe dream.

This matters because "renegotiated" membership is the most popular choice among voters as well. When presented with a straight choice between "in" and "out", voters choose "out" by some margin. However, if a middle option of a renegotiated, looser relationship were on offer then the YouGov poll cited shows that 46% would choose it while only 26% would withdraw.

However, any renegotiation of Britain's position in the EU would require the consent of the other member states (that's what "negotiation" means) and not only would demanding all of the benefits but none of the obligations of EU membership be difficult at the best of times but the other states are becoming increasingly annoyed at Britain's posturing and refusal to help resolve the euro crisis. The Swiss and Norwegian positions that eurosceptics so often cite are less attractive than they appear but also completely unrealistic for a country the size of Britain, particularly given that the EU already regrets the arrangement that was granted to Switzerland.

Some push back against the possibly looming Brexit appeared a few weeks ago mainly in the form of articles in the Guardian and Observer but now we're starting to see other publications come at the topic from the right. It will be interesting to see which approach proves most convincing in the event of a referendum.