For three years and more, British politics has taken a fearful battering. Two Conservative prime ministers have gone, broken by Brexit. Parliament has polarised; the two-party system has splintered. The gulf in trust between the public and the political class has never yawned so wide.
Yet rarely have Britain’s political leaders seemed so ill-equipped to respond adequately. The Conservatives and Labour, colonised by populists, have abandoned the centre. Both have purged voices of moderation. Both offer illusory remedies that hark back to a half-imagined past — Boris Johnson’s nationalist Tories to the days of warm beer and empire; Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left Labour to the state control of the 1970s.
These hard facts make the coming election singularly difficult for the Financial Times. We have long embraced liberal democracy, free trade, and market-based economies. We believe in private enterprise, even if we advocate reform of corporate capitalism. We believe the UK’s ties with the EU are central to its engagement with the world — all the more so when dealing with climate change, a rising China, and a US president seemingly bent on undermining the multilateral rules-based system.