Labour Party

Brexit is a Conservative Party policy-idea that got out of hand. The collapse of the centrist and liberal Tory leadership created a vacuum for hardliners within the party, in the right-wing media, and in other smaller parties to occupy that space, and call for the reinvigoration of British exceptionalism through Brexit. Unfortunately, a political and constitutional crisis besets the United Kingdom, reducing the reality of British exceptionalism to Little England isolationism.

The Brexit referendum was called effectively to settle an inner-party struggle within the conservative Tory party. The struggle in the Tory party signifies deep divisions within the ruling elite and the state. The Brexit vote and the victory of the nationalist strand in Toryism present the spectre of disintegration of the United Kingdom.

The election of London's first ethnic minority mayor, Sadiq Khan, has tilted the political compass of the city in favour of the Labour Party. Does his election to offi ce herald a progressive future for British politics?