Salvaging Jerusalem

How Britain’s left got into its crisis—and how it can get out

NESTLED between Birmingham and Leicester, Nuneaton is the humdrum English suburb from central casting. Neat flower beds full of petunias punctuate the lawn outside the bus station. On benches between the chain stores in the pedestrian precinct, old folk throw the crusts of their sandwiches to the pigeons. On the outskirts new, faux-bucolic housing estates sprawl between their pre-war forerunners.

Since 1983 this town has voted for the winning party in every general election but one. It was among the target seats the Labour Party recognised that it needed to win last year. The announcement, early on election night, that its Conservative MP had been re-elected with an increased majority was the point at which the party realised it had been trounced.

Nuneaton rejected Labour. Labour subsequently rejected Nuneaton and all that it represents. In September 2015 the party elevated Jeremy Corbyn, a stalwart of its far left, to its leadership. Voters in Middle England, doubtful about the party’s competence and credibility even before its new leader took the reins, have been unimpressed by his tenure—as the burghers of Nuneaton willingly attest. Shoppers express cautious support for Theresa May, the new prime minister. They speak as one when it comes to the leader of the opposition: “Abit of joke”; “I don’t think he knows what the world is actually like”; “Nah”.

In opinion polls the Tories now consistently post double-digit leads over Labour. This, along with massive internal dissent and the effect of changes to constituency boundaries that were announced this week, leads pessimistic MPs to suggest the party could lose up to 100 of its 230 parliamentary seats at the next election.