The national care service, abolishing the House of Lords, a wealth tax: one by one, the Labour party has identified its best proposals and destroyed them. The green prosperity plan, arguably its centrepiece policy, has been gutted. There’s a powerful negative reason to vote for Labour: evicting the Conservatives. But then what?
If Keir Starmer delivers frustration and disillusionment, the system we call democracy will yet again break its promise. I suspect this might be Labour’s last chance: if it cannot significantly change our lives for the better, in subsequent elections it will shrivel to a dot, as centre-left parties have done elsewhere in Europe. But I also fear this could, for a long time at least, be British democracy’s last chance. If our hopes are dashed yet again, anti-democratic forces will enter the vacuum.
