Brexit party splits the vote and lets Corbyn in

Supporters of the Brexit party revel in making the case that their cause is propelled by revolutionary fervour and a righteous surge of popular feeling sweeping away the legacy parties. Leading Brexit party figures use the term revolution to describe their clean Brexit movement. The strength of the “will of the People” for the cleanest possible Brexit is supposedly so overpowering that it is blowing up the old system and propelling Nige’s new vehicle to certain victory.

If that is true – irresistible surge sweeping the country, a mega-manifestation of what “the people” want – then how come the Brexit party failed to win the Peterborough by-election this week?

Labour’s Lisa Ford topped the poll with 10,484 (31% of the vote). The Brexit party’s Mike Greene was in second place on 9,801 (29% of the vote). The Tories and Paul Bristow were third on 7,243 (21% of the vote). The Lib Dems, Beki Sellick, came fourth with 4,159 (12% of the vote.) Turnout was healthy for a by-election at 48.4% and the Labour majority is 683.

In the aftermath of Labour’s win in pro-Brexit Peterborough, the Brexit party supporters – on the airwaves and social media sounding defensive – have decreed that their defeat was down to the Brexit party not having adequate data on the habits of local voters. Beaten by Labour, they have switched from talking the language of revolution to talking much as a supermarket marketeer facing the sack would when explaining the failure of a particular two for one offer.

An epic, surging, spontaneous revolution defeated because of inadequate data collection? Doesn’t sound like much of a revolution.

This is not to downplay the extraordinary achievement of the Brexit party. In just two months it has gone from nowhere to topping the highly volatile national polls and challenging in a by-election. But in a seat in which the Labour MP went to jail, and the Labour candidate in the resulting by-election was exposed on anti-semitism, the Labour party won and the Brexit party lost. No prizes for second place in this system. Labour won.

The message should be pretty obvious. The rise of the Brexit split the anti-Labour vote and the pro-Brexit vote, letting Labour and Jeremy Corbyn through the middle to win.

Not at all, said Nigel Farage and his aides post-Peterborough. This was the dying Conservative party splitting the vote and letting in Corbyn. That is a good and amusing line, although it will be a lot less amusing if this carries on and in a general election the Brexit party and the Tory party split the anti-Labour vote and let Corbyn into government. Even as the head of a minority government, a Prime Minister has considerable executive power of appointment, patronage and policy.

And that is the central problem here, for anyone who thinks it is a terrible idea for Britain to get its first Marxist Chancellor and a Prime Minister who includes in his closest team Leninists and Stalinists. If the Tory party fails to deliver Brexit, and the Brexit party continues as it is now, then Corbyn with a very low vote share could end up as Prime Minister following an accidental general election.

That need not happen, and the Tories have to get the UK out of the EU this autumn. But the Brexit party’s most enthusiastic supporters should surely reflect on where their crusade could lead.

Defeat for the Brexit party is clearly a significant setback for the Faragists.

In that spirit, I suspect that the impact of Peterborough will be most significant behind the scenes, in the battle for donor money. The Tory donors are on strike, over May and the abject failure on Brexit. To expand and build a proper national operation, difficult without a councillor network, the Brexit party will need many millions.

Right now, those wealthy people wanting to stop Corbyn, and thinking about where to deploy their resources in the next year, are looking for clues on what to do. The Conservative party is in desperate trouble facing an existential crisis, but even in its weakened state its vote did not collapse in Peterborough.

It is possible, of course, that potential big donors to the Brexit party (former Tory donors waiting to see what happens) feel sorry after Peterborough for the Brexit party’s lack of a data collection operation and absence of local networks. Some could be inspired to put their millions into helping the Brexit party get properly set up. Or the bulk will be unsentimental and brutally realistic, choosing to pour their money back into the Tory machine under a new leader sworn to getting Britain out of the EU and preventing the far left Corbyn get into office.

At which point, later this year or next year, Brexit party supporters will have a choice between the new Tory leader or letting in Corbyn.

Some don’t accept that this is the choice. The ultimate stupidity of the May regime was in agreeing an extension which allowed the European election to happen, facilitating the establishment of a populist party that can command a quarter of the vote. Many Brexit party supporters have got a taste for rebellion and say they will never go back to the Tories.

That’s fine, as long as they understand what that means. It means a divided centre-right and sooner or later the far left in Number 10.