Uncertain Terrain: The Realignment of the Political Blocs and the Regressive Alliance

Ken Spours

For about 18 months following the May 2017 General Election there had been an electoral stalemate of the Conservative and Labour parties, both obtaining about 40 percent of voting intentions. During 2019 this electoral binary has given way to a highly unusual ‘four-way’ party situation driven by Brexit polarisations. This is evolving rapidly with the Conservatives now dominating the Brexit Party and thus leading the ‘Regressive Alliance’, but the potential ‘Progressive Alliance’ more split between Labour and the Lib Dems.

 

As well as exploring the dynamics of this new political landscape, the paper also attempts to apply ‘political bloc analysis’ to help analyse how the different political parties, including political and social forces beyond the four parties, could be seen to be coalescing into longer-term ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ political and ideological formations that take us beyond the Remain/Leave binaries that dominate before the Brexit Window eventually closes.

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