Interesting piece from Matthew Goodwin on realignment of British politics.

Left and Right replaced by Brexit or Remain

Metropolitan elites have replaced traditional Labour vote who are culturally to the right but this will cost Labour seats

The Blue Wall is too small to get Labour back into power even if it falls completely.

The new model is left economically and right culturally, this will lose some of the south for the Conservatives but these losses will be substantially outweighed by gains in the North.

Identity politics won't win elections.

Goodwin is a first class analyst, he is considered to be non partisan to the extent he won Guardian Political Book of the Year

Edited by HKOwen (24 Jun 2021 12.16am)

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

That’s not really a glowing reference given most of the pieces written for the Guardian.

To be fair I don’t think it takes a specialist in politics to work out the issues with existing parties, although I don’t disagree with what he says. I’ll look him up.

I highly rate Matthew Goodwin. I can remember reading some research from him back even before 2016 when he highlighted a problem for Labour caused by UKIP because it offered many of Labours 'tribal' voters the first opportunity to rebel in what was then considered a political safe space of the European elections.

Nobody really took them seriously and turns outs were low. So if somebody who had effectively inherited their almost pavlovian instinct to tick the Labour box in general and local elections decided to be a naughty little scamp and vote UKIP in the Euro's, then no harm done. When it came to the elections that mattered, then they fell back into line just like the obedient little plebs Labour took them for.

Except that once somebody effectively dismissed as a tribal voter does cast their vote differently, they get a taste for it, as Goodwins research showed.

At the time the popular understanding of the European question was that it would tear the Tories apart and in some ways it did but that was all external bleeding. Flesh wounds that never really damaged the internal organs. Nasty, unpleasant but curable. Whereas with Labour, the damage was done internally, where it could not be seen, just a drip here and there but with the consequences far, far more dangerous to the point of Labour being on life-support now.

I genuinely think many on the Left are still so blinded by the adoration of their fuzzy, soft-focus love of the EU that they still cannot accept that it has torn them in two. And even though we have left it, the consequences are still ripping them to bits.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Brexit’s explosive division of the country by social class, geography and a deep sense of personal identity is a lasting injury.

I think the country will decline further and the union dissolve in the next 10 years.

And as the OP intimates, it will be in accordance with the new voting patterns from brexit.

Basically we are doing it to ourselves.

All lovely but ignoring the basic fact that after 2016 people like you refused to accept the outcome of the referendum and that this was what led to the division. I am convinced that if this second referendum nonsense had not emerged then not only would we still be in a customs union with the EU, and all that entails, but also probably be looking at a Labour Government. And all because dimwits failed to comprehend that 52 beats 48.

And then have the nerve to call us Leavers thick. LOL.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.