Has George Osborne single-handedly kept Britain in the EU?

Before David Cameron's game-changing-but-not-really-game-changing speech (details here) I put a couple of Tweets out:

Things we know about Cameron's migration speech 1: it won't be enough for Philip Hollobone or Peter Bone and the rest of the Tory 'outers'

— Adam Drummond (@AGKD123) November 28, 2014

Things we know about Cameron's migration speech 2: Labour will either say it was their idea or (shamefully) that it doesn't go far enough

— Adam Drummond (@AGKD123) November 28, 2014

Things we know about Cameron's migration speech 3: It will keep immigration at the top of the agenda which benefits nobody but Nigel Farage

— Adam Drummond (@AGKD123) November 28, 2014

Things we know about Cameron's migration speech 4: some scandal will happen before May forcing Cameron to make more concessions to the right

— Adam Drummond (@AGKD123) November 28, 2014

I'll check in with these predictions later on but to focus on the speech, the major news is that it's going to be about cutting in-work benefits rather than anything more restrictive (and illegal under EU law) like imposing an absolute cap or any sort of points system that would have been impossible to implement without the UK leaving the European Union.

It's not really a game-changer but it does set down a bit more clearly what form the 'renegotiation' will take and will no doubt calm the nerves of pro-Europeans (and businesses) who were afraid that Mr Cameron would be forced by backbench pressure to demand utterly unrealistic fundamental changes and then be forced to campaign for an exit when he failed to achieve them.

The problem Mr Cameron has always faced is that the gap between the minimum that the Conservative backbench 'awkward squad' will accept and the maximum that other EU states will give is unbridgeable. He was always going to have to make a choice between pragmatism and keeping the 'outists' happy and it looks like he's finally chosen the former.

Reports are that the Chancellor, George Osborne, is the one who spiked the possibility of an emergency brake or arbitrary cap on the number of EU migrants who can come to the UK in favour of a the cap on in-work benefits. As the master strategist, Mr Osborne has no doubt noticed that a central part of Labour's appeal to business is that EU membership would be safe under a Labour government but at risk under a Tory one. Today's speech, while obviously aimed at pacifying Tory backbenchers and appealing to Tory-UKIP defectors, will also be aimed at neutralising that advantage.

The Conservative leadership's hope was that this speech would dislodge immigration as an issue enough to be able to talk about the economy and make that the focus of their 2015 campaign. It remains to be seen whether this will be the case but, as my predictions show, I wouldn't count on it.

Waiting for the inevitable Conservative split

The universe does not want David Cameron to lead a united Conservative party.

To an extent, I think what we're seeing here is party sorting whereby politicians (and "civilians") held together in uneasy coalitions within parties start to rearrange themselves into structures that fit their views better. Namely, someone like Mark Reckless moving from the Conservatives to UKIP because of his views on immigration and the EU.

Despite them being personally very close (along with Daniel Hannan), Reckless is quite different to Douglas Carswell, the first UKIP defector (with apologies to Bob Spink). The article I linked to there mentioned that for Carswell, his Euroscepticism stems from his convictions about direct democracy and legitimacy while for Reckless, his belief in referendums comes from his desire for one on EU membership where he believes people will vote to leave. In this way, Reckless seems a more appropriate fit for UKIP than Carswell who seems closer to a Whig than a Ukipper. In a fascinating interview with the Guardian just after his re-election there is clearly a thought out and coherent philosophy to Mr Carswell's beliefs but the overwhelming question you are left with is "why did this man join UKIP?!"

Mark Reckless is closer to what the media think of as a typical UKIP defector. Not withstanding the compelling evidence that most UKIP support since 2010 has come from working class voters, Mr Reckless is a typical small state Thatcherite and it appears that it's his views on immigration and the EU that have caused his defection. UKIP itself is starting to see the contradiction between its Thatcherite origins and the more left wing views of many of the voters who have joined it in the last year or two as the attempted defenstration of former Express journalist Patrick O'Flynn demonstrates.

All of which draws attention to the ongoing civil war taking place within the Conservative party which has been simmering away since Margaret Thatcher's resignation. The tensions between the various factions that make up the Tory tribe are becoming harder to contain and more than one columnist is talking about the benefits of the 'UKIP' faction leaving for the benefit of the remaining party.

The Conservatives have always been a combination of "patriotism" (stressing the importance of state institutions and 'traditional values' like the family and church) and what we'll call "economism" (pro-business, resistant to new protections for workers or new forms of state spending). In other words, between social conservatism and what the Americans refer to as fiscal conservatism. Traditionally the interests of those groups have aligned, or at least not directly conflicted. The last time they conflicted was when the Tories split over free trade and the corn laws in the 1850s. There are starting to conflict again now, most clearly over Europe and immigration.

Whatever the complaints about over-burdensome regulation, the free trade and pro-business side is firmly pro-immigration and is happy to take the rough with the smooth of EU membership as long as it retains access to the single market.

In the other corner is the "patriotism" side, concerned about being told what to do by foreigners and the disruptive effect of immigration. Despite the economic benefits of immigration they dislike it on a cultural and emotional level which trumps any perceived benefit. Nigel Farage indeed once said he'd be happy for the country to be a little poorer if it meant less immigration while Jose Manuel Barroso's criticism of the current Conservative line on Europe is that it is a betrayal of the Thatcher era when the economism side was firmly in control but, more accurately, when the conflicts between the economism and patriotism sides weren't sufficient to affect the party system.

Even if the Conservatives don't win a majority in 2015, holding a referendum on EU membership will be a deal-breaker for any coalition agreement with another party, particularly since David Cameron has promised to give Tory MPs a vote beforehand. The pro and anti EU sides will split and become viceral enemies and, as Scotland has shown, divisions are hard to heal after taking a different side in a high-stakes referendum.

If UKIP is here to stay then the potential is there for a much more significant realignment than has taken place so far with Nigel Farage's party becoming a primarily socially conservative party.

All parties are coalitions based on the compromises of members and voters between competing values. Wealthier voters for whom social liberalism was more important than potentially higher tax rates voted Labour. Socially conservative working class voters went with the Conservatives. What's happening now is that there is a new party which, unlike almost any other, social conservatives are more influential than social liberals.

Labour, having absorbed much of the social democratic faction of the Liberal Democrats (in many ways reversing the original split from 1981),  is finding splits between wine and beer drinkers pitting socially conservative working class voters against the 'metropolitan elites' epitomised by Ed Miliband. It's not hard to imagine a large chunk of the beer drinking faction who value social conservatism over economic interests, moving to UKIP.

There's a line in one of the later, more forgettable, series of the West Wing where someone says "if this were Europe the Republican party would be three parties" and there are a few interesting models for how British parties could divide if we had a more proportionate, continental style electoral system.

Tim Montgomrie, the conservative commentator who had a fascinating debate with Matthew Parris a few weeks ago on this subject, wishes there were a "National party" of the kind in this split and the Economist has another inspired by the excellent Danish series Borgen. In both cases, there's a party containing Nigel Farage and prominent Tory right-wingers (Norman Tebbit or Liam Fox).

It's hard to believe that David Cameron wouldn't prefer to be in a party with Kenneth Clarke than with either of those two.

The wrong brother

Ed Miliband has been leader of the Labour party for four years and people still call him David.

Ed Miliband has terrible approval ratings but this has been true for most of his leadership. Opinium (on which I'm a reasonable authority) has had him on as low as -31% net approval before, but that was back in 2012.

The reason why there are public grumbles now is because the overall Labour lead previously insulated him from criticism but that lead has now evaporated (or at least shrunk to statistical insignificance).

The conventional wisdom is that the job is Alan Johnson's if he wants it, despite the structural protections that Labour leaders enjoy, but it's hard to see how any of the factors afflicting Labour would have been significantly different under a different leader, particularly if that leader had been the 'right' Miliband brother.

I completely agree with this piece by Mike Smithson and the Fraser Nelson piece he references that Labour chose the better Miliband in 2010. The things that have given Labour boosts under Miliband have been his opposition to Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking and the energy price freeze policy, neither of which would have happened under his brother. Most important of all has been the defection of 2010 Lib Dems to the red column. That has reduced quite a bit in recent months but I remember polling showing that the group most supportive of Ed were these left-leaning Lib Dem defectors. If Blairite brother David had been elected would this group have come over in such numbers in the first place or would they have moved straight to the Green party as many seem to be doing now?

Labour's problems are structural. The continuing fragmentation of British politics, the challenge of immigration to a pro-European Labour party, the widespread (if unfair) perception that Labour crashed the car the last time they were at the wheel and the fact that most Labour policies involve spending money that is in short supply.

The one thing that makes me think that David Miliband's Labour party might be in a better position now than Ed's is the 'looks like a prime minister' question. Embarrassing banana photos aside, David Miliband was foreign secretary for three years and there are photos of him with Hilary Clinton and other world leaders whereas Ed has this. Regardless of what you think of David Cameron's actual performance as prime minister, there's never been any doubt that he looks the part.

Also, although they would be going after any Labour leader, it's possible David would have had an easier time from the press. There wouldn't have been the complaints about him being the candidate of the unions imposed on Labour, no "red Ed" and no confusion with his brother. Hostile media coverage has been a constant of Ed's tenure as Labour leader and one of the reasons why his team are so keen on TV leaders debates is the opportunity to talk to voters unfiltered. Maybe David wouldn't have had such an issue.

Of course the Miliband brother who would have made the biggest impact is this one

Lessons for Britain from the US Midterm elections

Nothing.

No seriously there's almost nothing here that's relevant for Britain from the US elections and that's for a two main reasons:

1. This was a mid-term election, not a presidential-year election and the electorate that turns up for each one is completely different. Mid-term voters, particularly 2014 and 2010 are older, whiter, richer and more conservative than in presidential election years. Yes the entire House of Representatives was up for re-election and that is extremely important and analogous to the House of Commons but American voters don't treat mid-term elections the way British voters treat General Elections. The proper parallel is with presidential elections and even then the lessons are slim because...


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It's what leaders do rather than who they are that shifts votes

So Jim Murphy, one of the few on the unionist side who came out of the referendum looking better than he went into it, is in the running for leadership of the Scottish Labour party.

Aside from historically having more factions than members one of Scottish Labour's biggest problems since devolution and the creation of the Scottish Parliament has been that all of their 'big beasts' have tended to stand for election in Westminster rather than Holyrood leaving the SNP to mop the floor with a subs bench of Labour talent.

One of the more compelling arguments I heard from Yes supporters in the referendum campaign was that separation from the UK would prevent the brain drain of many of the brightest Scottish minds moving South (although the rest of the UK would still be stuck with the brain drain of everyone moving to London).

Jim Murphy's decision may have more to do with the fact that he backed the losing Miliband brother in the 2010 Labour leadership contest but the fact that a senior Labour figure wants to become First Minister of Scotland rather than be in the cabinet, the first since Donald Dewar made that decision in 1999, may reverse this effect a little.

There are polls that say otherwise though and that Labour would do as badly, if not worse, under Mr Murphy than they have done under Johann Lamont and Iain Gray before her.

I'm very sceptical of alternative leader polls and Anthony Wells has a good rundown of the faults of some Lib-Dem polling done after the European elections. These were the polls that were part of Lord Oakeshott's abortive coup against Nick Clegg that backfired so spectacularly.

Essentially the issue is that most alternative leaders aren't very well known to the public who can't know how they would actually react if that person took over. So many people still think David Miliband is leader of the Labour party that any polling on Ed vs. his brother is pointless. With Lord Oakeshott's polls very few people had heard of any of the contenders apart from Vince Cable. Political junkies know who Tim Farron is but ordinary voters don't unless they live in his constituency.

For some better known politicians (Boris Johnson springs to mind) voters might have an idea whether they'd be more likely to vote for that party and this may be the case with Jim Murphy but mostly it's still to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The real reason why we can't know the impact of a different party leader is that party leaders themselves change the context of polling by their actions. Your opinion of Ed Miliband comes from what they do, how they respond to the media and events, how people and commentators and other politicians react to that.

Changing party leader is a major change to the political narrative. Look at this chart, again from UK Polling Report. Even without the annotations you'd be able to tell when David Cameron replaced Michael Howard and when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair. Similarly, look at the Labour line when the financial crisis hits in 2008 and the bank bailouts began.

We overestimate what politicians and political strategy can do all the time but in this case, what they do matters more to voters than showing their name in a poll question.