Because many Italian observers struggle to understand the success of Boris Johnson

Domenico Maria Bruni’s analysis, taken from a Policy Brief of LUISS School of Government, On the Conservative victory in the May 6 election. A strategic and communication change of the Tories emerges (as well as a continuing labor crisis)

The Conservatives, as it did at Hartlepool College and local administration, have reunited the line-up to the right of center, thanks to the eclipse of UKIP and the Brexit Party. All this while the political alignment to the left of the center is fragmented: in the face of a decline in labor, the Lib-Dems hold and the Greens move. It is a dynamic that can be replicated in upcoming electoral contests.

More generally, conservatives’ positive electoral outcome in all regions of the United Kingdom is widely explained by their ability to withhold requests for “protection” (in relation to some of the negative effects of globalization) in voters. Not only this: Starting with the Brexit referendum, it has become clear that there is an identity and cultural discourse that also matters to a large part of the country. As a result, the Tories have radically modified their image, but also their strategy and their political proposition. As confirmed by the traditional speech in Parliament in these hours, with which Queen Elizabeth II outlined the priorities of the Johnson government (11 May), the traditionalists have reshaped their economic policy, for example, Have become proponents of a more decisive public intervention. The economy – on infrastructure, health and housing, for example – particularly in support of areas such as the Midlands or the North of England which have been most affected by the effects of economic globalization. It is no coincidence that Prime Minister Johnson is now “Jabs! Jobs! Jabs!”, Ie “TK! TK! TK!”, To “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”, “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”. Such a cultural and political change may also have consequences on the sport of the Scottish referendum, which strengthens consensus for the Conservatives, who are rooted in economically and socially connected areas in the south of Scotland to the north of England Are, thus shifting the balance to the side. Federalists.

Finally, the strong influence of this vote on Johnson’s leadership should not be underestimated. In Italy we have often confined ourselves to portraying the current Prime Minister as a somewhat folkloric character, ignoring some aspects of the more abstract. Johnson has always been a “folklorist” and despite this he was twice mayor of London, won an election at his college in Westminster, and eventually led the Tories. In short, for the British, Johnson is not a “find” who knows where it came from. In addition, his past as mayor has developed a critical ability for him to “listen” to voters. Finally, while decisive in completing a divorce from the European Union, Johnson is not a “Thatcherian”, and therefore may be the right leader to materialize the current development of conservatives.

The prolonged labor crisis in opposition across the country since 2010 also deserves some deeper analysis. One can begin with the words of Khalid Mahmood, a Labor exponent, the first Muslim elected in Westminster in 2001, who resigned from the shadow cabinet in mid-April last year, touting the “removal of labor from the working class” . Change of party. Now also focuses on “London-centric issues” and is composed of a “brigade of fighters for social justice of an ‘awake’ matrix”. In other words, feeding on identity politics, the party expressing only minorities has condemned itself to become a minority in the country. Certainly the long wave of Tony Blair’s post-crisis (Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007) has not yet passed: an identity-political project has not emerged from the left that reconnects social and economic interests and then forces them Capable of being put together. Nothing positive has been offered to the remnants of the “working class”, or in any case of the part of the population that grew up with that type of mindset that experienced a decline of productive and social models on its skin Have done. In this respect, it is highly symbolic, that Labor lost control of County Durham after nearly 100 years, a historic place in the memory of miners, the quintessential British working class of the 20th century. The current Labor Secretary, Keir Starr, has placed bets on La Jeremy Corbyn’s agitator, but the management of the epidemic has forced him to choose between the role of “patriot rival” and “whichever opponent”. Starr chose the first path, but then did not offer a positive vision and hope for the future. Getting over it is, in the coming months, the toughest challenge for Labor, although poor management of the first days after the election does not seem to be a good practice.