Four years ago, few would have predicted the week that just happened in British politics. Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to a resounding general election win in December 2019; Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party suffered its worst defeat since 1935. While it was hard to see the Tory embrace of the populist dream of Brexit ending well for them in the long term, even Labour MPs thought the scale of the party’s losses posed existential questions about its future prospects.
Yet Conservative electoral hopes appear to have imploded in the wake of Brexit as three successive prime ministers have struggled to unite a party around starkly different visions that go beyond leaving the EU. Rishi Sunak struggled to revive Tory chances last week as speculation about the future of HS2 dominated the party conference, and his replacement plans to improve transport infrastructure outside the south-east fell apart with scrutiny on first contact. In stark contrast, Keir Starmer’s Labour party enjoyed a huge byelection win in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. But if Starmer were to win the next general election, the most important question facing a Labour government would be the scale of the challenge it would be inheriting.
