How Britain could end up with new parties and a national government this year

In these strange times, good journalism is at a premium. The email provided by Tim Shipman of the Sunday Times every weekend has long been invaluable if you want to understand what is really going on. To that during this crisis he has added classic Sunday newspaper long-reads that lead the reader carefully and calmly through the battlefield that British politics has become since early June. It is riveting stuff.

In his latest coverage at the weekend, there was the first suggestion that after all the abstract theorising about the party system coming apart at the seams, and the usual talk of “realignment”, something seismic really is stirring in the aftermath of the EU referendum. In the Westminster undergrowth, conversations are taking place about splits, new parties and new governing arrangements.

I’ve picked up a bit of this myself from a few MPs and Peers. There are some Tory Remain refuseniks going around strategising to block Brexit, with one Tory Peer even sugesting to Remain MPs an alliance with Labour and the Lib Dems. I do think that Peer needs a holiday, or the attention of a doctor. Speaking of other professionals who should know better, 1000 barristers have written a letter saying that the referendum is not binding and that it may be null and void because of the claims made in the campaign by Leave (Osborne’s fantasy emergency Budget anyone?).

One can only marvel at the metropolitan ‎muppetry involved in that lawyers’ letter. If you really wanted to provoke public fury in the places that voted for Brexit, you would try to overturn the biggest vote in British history – in which the winning margin was clear and 33 million people took part – and imply that the 17.4m on the winning side were too thick to know what they were doing.

What needs to happen is for the UK to leave the EU‎, but in a civilised manner and with a deal that might in time win the approval of many Remain voters. A bit of compromise – an essential component of a civilised society – is required.

The only available way to achieve this – and the route to at least a measure of stability – is a Theresa May victory in the Tory leadership contest. She has committed to ‎delivering Brexit, but she may be able to engineer sensible compromises along the way. She is backed by Leavers such as Chris Grayling, David Davis and Liam Fox. As they understand, there is a deal to be done that takes the UK out of the EU but which maximises trade and cooperation with our neighbours.

If May loses – and that is perfectly possible if she cannot convince Tory members that she means to deliver and be Brexity enough – then Andrea Leadsom becomes Conservative leader. Here it is not hard to see the Tory party splitting. and soon. Indeed, some Leadsom supporters spent the weekend encouraging the idea, with one MP saying on social media that there was no downside if modernisers such as Nick Boles and Anna Soubry left the Conservative party. This is high risk stuff, when one considers that the Tories only have a majority of 12.

Where does all this infighting lead? It could lead to new parties and a national government this year. Here’s how:

1) ‎Andrea Leadsom narrowly wins the leadership. The Queen is about to send for her, but a group of 50-150 Tory MPs say they will resign the whip and sit as Liberal Conservatives on the basis that they judge her a menace to the nation. Leadsom has no majority. There would be an irony in pro-EU Tory MPs destroying the hopes of the Maastricht rebel veterans backing Leadsom, but there you go. It’s a funny old world. David Cameron has to stay on as caretaker.

2) Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn made it onto the Labour leadership ballot, and thanks to every far left drongo in the land signing up, he wins an even bigger mandate. Labour as a moderate centre-left party is finished. The SWP – with the help of union boss Len McCluskey and assorted ‎other useful idiots – has won.

3) Around 150 moderate Labour MPs, and the party’s Peers, have no option. They have been invaded and Labour destroyed by an alliance of far left and hipster morons. The moderates must split, forming a new party. Perhaps it could be called “The Democrats”, which has a nice ironic ring to it in the circumstances. They have weight in numbers in parliament and can apply to get the short money (public money to fund parliamentary operations) and take over the opposition frontbench, sending the official Labour Party (AKA The Corbynite Rump) to the backbenches.

4) In this way the two main parties have split by the Autumn. Hold on, says everyone bar the extremists, at this point, we need a government of grown-ups. This effort falls at the first fence if it is used as an opportunity to nix Brexit, for reasons I made clear above. It’ll be pitchfork time if Brexit, even in a compromise format, doesn’t happen. But as long as Remain refuseniks don’t try it on, the cry then goes up for a National Government to be formed. The Liberal Conservatives and the Democrats come together “in the national interest” (that cant-laden phrase) and could even be joined by the SNP if part of the agreement was for devo ultra devo max, and the creation of a federal UK alongside Brexit. As we seem to be once again in line for QE and nobody caring about the deficit, economics is not even an obstacle to this arrangment, in the short term…

5) Who would lead such a National Government and cross-party cabinet? Boris Johnson? Only joking. It couldn’t be Theresa May if she had lost. How about Hilary Benn with a Liberal Conservative Chancellor and Foreign Secretary.‎ What a delicious irony that Brexit would have to be seen through by the pro-EU son of Tony Benn, who was a leading Eurosceptic.

Of course there is a simple way to avoid all of this chaos. ‎That is for the Tories to elect Theresa May as their leader. No pressure.