The old parties are failing because they do not understand the driving forces of modern Britain: identity, authenticity and runaway disgust. For much of Westminster and the media, the only identity that matters is the identity of the working-class Leave voter. He is usually male and always white – for the ethnic minority working class has been forgotten. His authentic disgust will make the nation tremble if we do not bow to his wishes and give him the hardest Brexit imaginable.
Forget that most of the Tory shires voted Leave or that young, working-class voters supported Remain or that the greatest predictor of attitudes to the EU is education, not class, or that the only solid promise the Leave campaign made was to keep us in the European free trade zone. The story of the angry white working class is set and everyone is sticking to it.
Rather than arguing, look instead at the new pro-European identity. Despite the “citizens of anywhere” jibe invented by David Goodhart and coarsened by Theresa May into “citizens of nowhere”, it is a patriotic identity. Pro-Europeans hoped Britain could be a moral leader and example to the world. Now it has become such a joke that even continental far-right parties have dropped their opposition to EU membership for fear of meeting Britain’s fate. Every account of immigrants being taunted on the streets threatens pro-Europeans’ sense of who they are and what their country is. I admit there is a British exceptionalism among pro-Europeans as powerful as among the Little Englanders. Few realise that, in a world dominated by China, the US and India, British “leadership” won’t be wanted, although our relative decline strikes me as an excellent reason for protecting ourselves by sticking with our European allies.
Pro-Europeans instinctively understand, however, that Brexit has shredded notions of Britishness and not only by threatening the union and the Irish peace. Has ever a national myth been as thoroughly destroyed as the British belief that we are a commonsensical people who reject wild ideologies? The honoured idiots of some at the BBC, the fascistic contempt of the Tory press for the independence of the judiciary, civil service and parliament and the assurance of the Brexit party and the right of the Conservative party that a no-deal Brexit will hardly hurt at all show that whatever Britain may once have been, it is another country now.
The reaction against the extremism on the right is cosmopolitanism, mobile and young. It can be intolerant, for no movement is without prejudices, and if it does not win in the end its members will feel a scaring alienation from their country; not as scaring as the insecurity of millions of Europeans in Britain and Britons on the continent, who have their sense of belonging torn up, but comparable nevertheless.
The Tories will suffer most. A centre-right party can’t push a policy that is so against the national interest and hope to prosper. It is not just ignoring but gleefully scorning the aspirations of the young, the most dynamic sectors of the economy, the educated and the millions of Tories who voted Remain. Like Trump’s Republicans, British Conservatives will become ever more isolated from modernity.
Few will mourn the Conservative party’s passing, if its leaders are suicidally stupid enough to curse it with a no-deal Brexit. But for now, the argument is fixed on whether Labour can become an authentic opponent of Brexit. The ignorance about the forces shaping the country is leading at least some in Labour to pretend that it can prosper if Corbyn sacks his far-left courtiers and pretends to convert to Remain. It’s as if socialist journalists believe that inside the modern Remainer there’s a Russian peasant struggling to get out.
Our loving tsar does not want Brexit, they imagine us crying as we pluck the straw from our hair. His wicked advisers have tricked him into backing the demands of the right. Send these evil men, who are, to continue the Russian theme, the actual inheritors of the Stalinist tradition, to the equivalent of a Siberian salt mine and Tsar Jeremy’s goodness will shine through like sunshine after the wind has blown the clouds away.
Labour frontbenchers are not alone in believing the party can be saved if Corbyn can “pivot” to Remain. The dominant faction in the People’s Vote campaign is as convinced that all that is needed is a tactical switch. Far from being heartened by the surge in support for pro-Remain parties, it is terrified. The absolute priority is converting Corbyn to a second referendum. Once he’s mouthed the right words, millions will unite behind Labour and ensure that the Tories don’t waltz through the hopelessly divided centre left.
The argument doesn’t work and not only because Tsar Jeremy has shown no desire to sack his evil advisers or come out for Remain. Few would believe him if he did. In the 21st century, it is not enough to mutter slogans. Voters demand that their leaders are authentic, especially voters as angry as Britain’s Remainers. Perhaps Corbyn could have appeared authentic if he had admitted mistakes after the European election debacle. Instead, he expelled Alastair Campbell for doing what millions of potential supporters had done and voting for a Remain party.
The extremism on the right has produced a reaction among pro-Europeans. Hardly anyone was arguing to overturn the referendum in the summer of 2016. The People’s Vote campaign wasn’t even founded until April 2018. If rightists had moderated their demands, Britain would be out of the EU by now. As it was, they talked as if half the country were traitors and rushed to the fanatical fringe. So great has been the backlash that, without any politician organising them, six million signed a petition calling for article 50 to be revoked.
As the opportunities for compromise vanish, runaway rage will deepen. If I were a Labour or Tory politician, I’d worry it could blow me away.
• Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist
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