‘I feel sorry for British voters’: our panel on how the UK election is seen around Europe

 

‘I feel sorry for British voters’: our panel on how the UK election is seen around Europe

 

Britain may be about to buck a European trend and elect a progressive government – but correspondents find Brexit amnesia bemusing and Nigel Farage’s return surreal

 

By Antonello Guerrera, Annette Dittert, María Ramírez, Tessa Szyszkowitz and Jakub Krupa

Mon 24 Jun 2024 07.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/24/mood-among-british-voters-election-europe

 

Annette Dittert: It’s bizarre that nobody’s talking about Brexit, or challenging Farage

Annette Dittert

For a German audience currently staring with disbelief at an upsurge of far-right populism on its own doorstep, the British elections are mostly a reminder of where the destructive cluelessness of populist politicians can lead a country. Nothing you want to look at too closely, when you are potentially just at the beginning of such a turn of events yourself.

 

But then there is something else. It’s not that Labour’s Keir Starmer is boring, as is often complained about here in London. (No, boring is good in Germany. It’s the ultimate German virtue.) The current mix of slight lack of interest and amazement in Germany stems from something different. It is the rather bizarre fact that nobody seems either able or willing to talk about what has happened since the 2016 referendum to leave the EU. Brex-omertà is a fascinating phenomenon, but one that is rather hard to explain in Hamburg or Berlin. It is a cliche, but we tend to acknowledge our problems, then try to develop strategies to fix them. This, however, is not what Britain generally, nor the Labour party specifically, has decided to do. And most of the UK media weirdly plays along.

 

This leaves the country with a big, problem that can’t be named, which increases the risk that past mistakes will be repeated. Seeing Nigel Farage re-emerge as the anti-establishment figure is surreal, to say the least. With some honourable exceptions, most interviewers are not willing to challenge Farage or break the Brexit taboo. Instead, they accept his deceitful narrative that he is (still) an outsider. They do not hold him to account for having used false claims and promises to lead Britain out of the EU. Instead they give him space to rant, again. It feels like a very British Groundhog Day.

 

The eerie silence around the issue seems even more absurd given that a large majority of British voters now regret Brexit. Those who would like it to be rectified have to hold their noses at the ballot box and hope Starmer is lying, or at least omitting parts of his plans for Britain’s future. If Labour does prove more radical in power than it currently appears – and to solve Britain’s economic problems it will have to be – others who vote Labour may feel they have been deceived.

 

Yet this is not a way to restore trust in politics so badly damaged by the populism of recent years. The total absence of a proper political debate on what has happened post-Brexit will also make it much harder for Labour when in office. Starmer might prove us all wrong and I genuinely hope he does, but seen from a continent that is just about to confront its own populist wave, his overly defensive tactics are hardly inspiring.

 

Annette Dittert is the senior UK correspondent for ARD German TV

 

María Ramírez: The tone is more civil than in Spain but is filling potholes really a promise in a G7 country?

Maria Ramirez

A few weeks ago, I interviewed James Hall, a British countertenor I once saw on Broadway playing Farinelli alongside Mark Rylance. He was on his final days of permitted work in the EU due to Brexit rules, and spoke about missing opportunities to sing around Europe, “maddening” bureaucracy and the sadness of British musicians who are no longer part of a “continental community”. Labour is promising to ease rules for touring musicians and Hall hoped things would change with Keir Starmer. But, talking to him, something seemed broken beyond immediate repair. The limited opportunities at home mean Hall is now singing less and seeking alternative employment as a teacher.

 

Sadness and cautious hope are common emotions I have found in my reporting from a UK on the cusp of a change that seems long overdue, considering how unusual it is to find voters declaring their support for the Conservatives.

 

The energy of “cool Britannia” which I covered over two decades ago is nowhere to be found. Promises are as underwhelming as the state of the public finances. I find it puzzling that filling potholes is an actual electoral promise of a national party in a G7 economy.

 

The tone of this election campaign is more civil, less polarised and more policy-based than what we see in Spain. At the same time, debate and interviews occur within a constrained framework of accepted truths: “net migration” is bad and everyone is tired of Brexit.

 

Pollsters and political experts keep telling me Brexit is no longer a main public concern as an explanation for why candidates and the journalists interviewing them talk so little about it.

 

Citizens may be tired of it, but my experience is that Brexit comes up in almost every conversation, especially when discussing broken Britain. No matter the topic, whether it is polluted water, a climate protest chorus, shady university donations, tomato shortages, high-speed trains or conspiracy theories on traffic filters: Brexit just comes up. When people learn that I am from Spain, they sometimes apologise to me as if the Brexit vote was an offence against European neighbours, even clarifying that they didn’t support leave. I take no offence, but I feel sorry for them.

 

María Ramírez is deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

 

Antonello Guerrera: Farage can smell blood. And Starmer should let his hair down

Antonello Guerrera

I have covered several election campaigns here in the UK and abroad, but I have never seen anything duller than this one. The Tories are destined to collapse after 14 tempestuous, sometimes scandalous years. Rishi Sunak, a pragmatic prime minister who toned down the hostile rhetoric and improved relations with the EU, has promised several tax cuts and more benefits for pensioners. Nevertheless, talking with voters along the campaign trail, a substantial chunk of the conservative base say they wouldn’t vote for the Tories this time, not even if they got their national insurance slashed by 70%.

 

The Labour party knows this well and has been playing it safe for two years. Labour invokes “change”, but there is no bold or inspirational promise. Just a pledge that they will be the good chaps, protecting Britain’s finances and restoring solidity and the country’s reputation.

 

At least Nigel Farage’s comeback to lead the Reform party has stirred things up, which tells us an awful lot about the state of the UK. Farage can smell blood.

 

To British friends and voters who advocate proportional representation, I always say: no system is perfect, but so far, first-past-the-post has saved your country from extremism or populist entities like the Five Star Movement in Italy.

 

I have travelled a lot along this campaign trail and find the British people have an overwhelming sense of disillusionment and fatalism. In Worcester, I met a young man, Muhammad Waleed, and he told me he was not sure if he would vote for Labour because he could not see real change coming. Jane, a GP and Conservative party member in Wiltshire, sounded hopeless: “The NHS gets less and less money.” Compared to other campaigns I have covered, this one has no room for dreams and big hopes, not least because the leaders sound either robotic or artificial.

 

Yet I travelled with Sunak to the G7, and I can assure you that he is way more entertaining and funny during informal chats than he appears in public. Recently, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said the same thing about her boss, Keir Starmer. It’s true, we live in a social media age where every little mistake goes viral and this petrifies both Sunak and Starmer. But if both let their hair down, showing more wit and a common touch, it would help them and British voters. Being natural and unpredictable has made the fortune of several controversial leaders, such as Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi and Farage, despite the many flaws in their political records.

 

Antonello Guerrera is the UK correspondent for the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica

 

Tessa Szyszkowitz: The Austrian right is watching closely: will the Tories turn into a Trumpist party?

Tessa Szyszkowitz

After Boris Johnson “got Brexit done”, feverish Austrian interest in Britain died down. When Brexit turned out to be what in Vienna we call a Rohrkrepierer (a dud), a tiny bit of shameful but quite delicious schadenfreude kept my readers going for a bit. But a medium-sized country with neither partners nor plans is only mildly newsworthy.

 

Now the general election has put the UK back in our news. For one, because Nigel Farage is back. Austrians, of course, like to know that their own far-right party is not the only one whose candidates entertain the public with eccentric views on Adolf Hitler. A Reform UK candidate who thinks the UK should have accepted Hitler’s offer of “neutrality”? Almost Austrian in spirit.

 

Farage is arguably a lesser threat to democracy than Austria’s far-right Freedom party. But he deserves our attention for a different reason: he could be hugely dangerous to the Tories. If the Conservative party needs a new leader after a painful defeat, the radicalised, populist right wing around Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg could try to crown the Reform UK leader.

 

Will Brexit, the poisoned gift that keeps on giving, turn the Tories into a Trumpist party like the Republicans in the US?. Austrian conservatives are watching closely since they are still reeling from the legacy of their own baby Trump, Sebastian Kurz, whose forced exit in 2021 left them directionless.

 

I went to Stevenage to take the temperature in a bellwether constituency that first voted for Tony Blair’s Labour in 1997 and has been Conservative since 2010. In 2016, 60% voted for Brexit. Today, I found no one who still supported it. On the contrary, the town needs foreign workers. Especially big companies located there, such as Airbus. Voters feel betrayed by the government.

 

After 14 years voters are turning quite naturally away from those in power. That might have happened, with or without Brexit. And now the UK, having delivered the rightwing populist project Brexit, may now get a social democratic government just as most of its EU neighbours are battling the rise of far-right parties. These parties might not be campaigning to quit the EU, but they certainly plan to undermine EU institutions and replace genuine European cooperation with nationalism. Only in the UK is the tide going in a different direction. As a result, with Labour in power, the UK might become more pro-European than some of the actual member states. The irony is not lost on me.

 

Tessa Szyszkowitz is the UK correspondent for the Austrian weekly Falter and the author of Echte Engländer: Britannien und der Brexit (Real Englanders: Britain and Brexit)

 

Jakub Krupa: With Trump and Marine Le Pen focusing minds, Poles still care about who runs Britain

 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Polish coverage of the UK elections is that there is so little of it.

 

Despite still being one of the largest economies in the world, a Nato ally, and home to as many Poles as some of the largest Polish cities, Britain has quite astonishingly disappeared from the news horizon. Donald Trump versus Joe Biden? Sure. Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in France? Up to a point. But the UK general election, not so much.

 

Some of that is due to Poland’s extremely polarised domestic politics. There is little bandwidth for international news other than the war in Ukraine and the Moscow-induced migration crisis on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus.

 

The all-but-certain change of government in London is seen primarily through that lens. Will Labour-led Britain still support a free and independent Ukraine and Nato’s defence of the eastern flank?

 

For all the criticism of Conservatives domestically, both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak made the UK seem an important and reliable ally.

 

Some in Poland vaguely recall Labour’s ambiguous defence policy during Jeremy Corbyn’s years and want clarity on what, if anything, would change under Keir Starmer. Nothing? Great – there’s not much else to see here, then.

 

After the astonishment at the descent of the UK, once seen as a paragon of political stability and common sense, into utter chaos during the Johnson and Truss years, Poles have become so inured to unusual things happening in the UK that, paradoxically, the unusual no longer seems that unusual.

 

Brexit seems largely consigned to history, primarily seen as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking they could follow the same path. There is some surprise that despite growing signs of Bregret, there is little movement to reverse the decision. Similarly, the unexpected re-emergence of Nigel Farage as a political player and the almost existential challenge to the Conservative party are both noted, but mostly as political anecdotes or trivia.

 

Britain is no longer considered a tempting place to live. In fact, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, recently even made a specific political point at Britain’s expense. On the 20th anniversary of Poland’s accession to the EU, he promised Polish GDP per capita would surpass Britain’s by 2029. “It’s better to be in the EU,” he declared.

 

There are still enough reasons for Poles to care about who runs Britain, particularly as the spectre of Trump and Marine Le Pen focuses minds on international affairs. However, the contrast with previous campaigns could not be starker.

 

Jakub Krupa is a Polish correspondent in the UK