The 2019 General Election has rightly been regarded as momentous. The first Conservative landslide since 1987 has redrawn the British political map.
Perhaps more significant still, with the second highest number of votes in post-war British history, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives came close to matching John Major’s forgotten record of 14 million votes set in 1992. The collapse of Labour’s so-called ‘red wall’ of Leave-voting constituencies has triggered much soul searching amongst the official opposition and sparked a discussion on the new working class Toryism.
This event will review Britain’s new social and political divides focusing, in particular, on the challenges facing the Labour Party in Brexit Britain. Was this the Brexit election? Is the Tory vote a cry of ‘left behind Britain’? What challenges do the Conservatives facing in holding their electoral coalition together? And how important is the so-called ‘culture war’ between social liberals and social conservatives to these new political divides? And what advice should be given to Labour on how it rebuilds?
Christabel Cooper (@ChristabelCoops) a co-author of The Devastating Defeat: Why Labour lost and how it can win again (Europe for the Many, 2020). She is a professional data analyst, Director of Sensible Analytics Ltd and a Labour Councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham where she is Lead Member for Business Intelligence and Analytics. She has published original research and comment on politics and Brexit in national media outlets including the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Huffington Post.
Luke Cooper (@lukecooper100) is a co-author of The Devastating Defeat: Why Labour lost and how it can win again (Europe for the Many, 2020). He is an academic in International Relations and Political Science, an associate researcher in the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at the London School of Economics, a co‑host of the Another Europe podcast, and a co-founder of the campaign group, Another Europe Is Possible. He has written extensively on the Brexit crisis and the challenges facing European democracy including commentary for the Guardian, Open Democracy and Red Pepper.
Sir John Curtice (@whatukthinks) is Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, a Fellow of The British Academy for Humanities and Social Sciences and President of the British Polling Council. Widely regarded as Britain’s leading polling ‘guru’ he is a frequent commentator on the BBC and other media outlets, and is heavily involved in the General Election exit poll.
Chair: Professor Mary Kaldor (@KaldorM) Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at the London School of Economics.
Hard copies of The Devastating Defeat: Why Labour lost and how it can win again (Europe for the Many, 2020) will be available on the door free of charge on a first come, first serve basis.
This event is hosted by The Conflict and Civil Society Unit (@LSE_CCS).
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