Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The fate of the French Socialists is a warning for Boris Johnson

A party which ignores its base is destined for extinction

Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate for the French presidency (photo: Getty)

The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it marks the start of their revival. Give it two years and Keir Starmer will be waving from the steps of Number 10.

That’s one scenario. A more likely one is that the good people of Bury South will unseat Wakeford at the next general election as Labour suffer another humiliating defeat.

What so many in the Westminster bubble don’t get is that for the average voter in Bury, Basildon or Blyth Valley, ‘partygate’ is not top of their grievances with Boris Johnson. It’s often immigration, tax rises and the nonsense of net zero. The PM has it within his grasp to launch a spectacular revival of his own if he admits he got it wrong with what David Cameron described as ‘this green crap’. Johnson, and Keir Starmer, should look to France as a warning of what happens when a political party ignores its base.

Three years ago, I wrote that the Socialist party ‘no longer exists as a coherent political force in France’. The 2022 presidential election campaign has borne that out. Frankly, it’s becoming embarrassing for the Socialists. Anne Hidalgo is polling at three per cent and the announcement that Christiane Taubira, a former minister in François Hollande’s government, will stand as another left-wing candidate has not set the left alight either. Small wonder. For many working-class voters she embodies the smug progressive wing of the party, which caused them to abandon the Socialists when she was Minister of Justice.

The defection of Christian Wakeford isn’t the start of a Labour revival

It’s hard to credit, given the state of the Socialist party today, that ten years ago Hollande was elected president. In truth, he won by default, so unpopular was the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, but Hollande didn’t grasp that point.

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