There has been a shameful lack of leadership from all parties. But we can no longer tolerate Theresa May’s agenda for post-Brexit Britain

We stand on the brink of the most important – and toughest – international negotiation that Britain has faced since the Second World War. Its outcome will shape the power of the next government to confront the big economic and social challenges that are looming on the near horizon. It was last June’s decision to vote to leave the European Union that directly provoked the timing of this election.

Brexit will affect all of our futures in the most profound of ways: from economic growth to our children’s place in the world; from relations with near neighbours to a recasting of our image as closed, detached, withdrawn. It will dominate the business of government in years to come. A poor outcome would jeopardise Britain’s economic health, its standing in the world and the very future of the union.

As with the referendum campaign, none of this has been properly debated. This is because neither Labour nor the Tories have a clear idea of where they are taking us. Neither of the leaders of the two main parties is sufficiently imaginative, skilful or able to meet the UK’s biggest peacetime challenge of the modern era: Brexit. We face a chronic leadership deficit when leadership is most needed.

Britain requires radical thinking

Beyond Brexit, Britain faces a profound set of economic and social challenges. Age has overtaken class to become the key cleavage in British politics, reflecting the fact that for many young people, their economic opportunities are shrinking. Young people have never been less likely to get on to the housing ladder and their wages have been hardest hit by recession. Their benefits have been cut as pensioner benefits have been boosted. There are too few good vocational options for school-leavers and many young graduates find themselves in non-graduate jobs.

Other questions linger. What do we do about the large number of low-skill, low-wage jobs that offer poor prospects? How do we care for our rapidly ageing society? How do we ensure that transnational business giants pay fairly into the public purse of those countries where they harvest such vast revenues? How do we create good new jobs as automation and technological progress continue to displace some forms of routine work?

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These are not just pressing issues for the future, but for the present.

As Tom Kibasi, head of the influential thinktank the IPPR, writes on these pages: “Poor wages, unaffordable housing and low-quality jobs have been the reality for too many people. And the people have noticed.

“It should be blindingly obvious that the British economy is in need of deep, fundamental reform.”

Britain is hurting; these challenges require innovative and radical thinking, of which we have seen too little throughout this campaign.

May’s contradictory rhetoric

Theresa May’s campaign has underlined how undeserving she is of the country’s support. She called this election on specious grounds. She has provided no further detail about her Brexit negotiating strategy, sticking to her disastrous mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal. She has signalled immigration control will be her top priority, even though securing it will mean leaving the single market, jeopardising everything else voters care deeply about – jobs and growth and the future of our public services.

There are echoes of Ed Miliband’s social democratic priorities in parts of her manifesto and she should be applauded for signalling that unfettered free markets are not the route to social and economic justice. She sets out proposals for greater state intervention in markets that stack the odds against consumers and workers and unfairly, and often obscenely, advantage CEOs and senior executives. Dropping the commitment to the triple lock on the state pension is a tentative first step towards recognising the need for intergenerational rebalancing.

But her manifesto is thin on detail and May is no stranger to adopting contradictory rhetoric and positions. She claims to represent the interests of ordinary working people. Yet her government has cut taxes for businesses and the more affluent while imposing cruel cuts that leave disabled people and the poorest working families thousands of pounds a year worse off. Public service spending cuts have had most impact on vulnerable families and marginalised communities. From air pollution to child obesity, she has put big corporate interests ahead of the health of the nation. Her support for grammar schools shows how she privileges personal belief over empirical evidence in how best to improve the life chances of children from poorer backgrounds.

And in the most dramatic election U-turn in our political history, she abandoned her policy to fund social care. While the policy was correct in asserting that those with greater means should pay more towards the costs of care, the policy was wrong to load costs on to those individuals who will need costly care, rather than collectively sharing the risks.

May claimed she called this election in the national interest. But she has provided little evidence that this wasn’t intended as an opportunistic land grab in the face of an opposition in disarray. Far from appearing “strong and stable”, the alacrity with which she performed her social care U-turn suggested a fragile insecurity. The lady is for turning. And our friends across Europe will have noted how easily she buckled under pressure.

In the place of explicit detail about Brexit or Britain’s future, there have been vicious and personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, a dismally predictable offering from her chief boot boy, Lynton Crosby. Whatever the outcome of the election result, Theresa May will emerge as a diminished figure, both politically and personally. If she is returned to power, her micro-managing tendencies and small circle of aides who have served her so badly will come under fresh scrutiny and attack from those senior cabinet figures she marginalised during this campaign. Far from setting a new glorious course, May will probably find herself all at sea in troubled waters and with insufficient hands – or friends – on deck.

Corbyn adds value to political debate

In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign has exceeded expectations. It has been positive and competently run. Corbyn has come across as composed and energetic and, unlike the prime minister, he has looked as though he has been enjoying himself. He should be commended for the dignified way in which he has dealt with an immensely hostile media onslaught from the rightwing tabloids.

Corbyn’s focus on economic and social inequality has also added real value to our political debate since he became leader of the Labour party. He has given voice to those most affected by austerity in the past two years. His high levels of support among young people show that his ability to engage and enthuse a new generation of voters was not limited to his leadership campaigns.

But the vigour of his campaign highlights an uncomfortable truth. Had Corbyn argued forcefully during the EU referendum campaign, Britain might not now be leaving the European Union. His performance last year was disingenuous and lacklustre. The energy and enthusiasm with which he has attacked this campaign brings his woeful performance last year into sharp focus.

But Corbyn’s ability to run a decent election campaign cannot be taken as a sign he would make a competent premier. Last summer, he failed to win the support of 80% of his MPs in a confidence vote. Many had vowed to give him a chance but withdrew support on grounds of competency, with stories emerging of a chaotic operation. As leader of the opposition, Corbyn has failed to robustly hold the government to account, which bodes badly for his ability to run the country or lead Britain in its complex negotiations with Europe. Labour’s position on Europe is only marginally better than May’s: it has also pledged to end free movement, which will inevitably mean sacrificing single market membership.

A key strength of Labour’s campaign has been the fact that its manifesto contains some undeniable truths that have appealed to voters: for example, the disgrace of Britain’s unreliable railways and the stretched nature of our public services. It includes many policies that are popular and deserve support on their own terms, such as more generous funding for the NHS and schools, paid for by reversing cuts to corporation tax and increasing taxes on the most affluent.

But it also contains hugely expensive commitments that are unjustified. Scrapping tuition fees will overwhelmingly benefit the most affluent graduates, while Labour’s manifesto was unconvincing on how to build a vocational skills system that works for Britain’s service sector economy.

It fails to acknowledge that channelling more cash to schools and hospitals is insufficient to transform failing services. It has the wrong priorities, boosting pensioner benefits while failing to commit to reversing tax credit cuts for working families. While Labour claims the manifesto is fully costed, shadow ministers have hinted at expensive new spending commitments throughout the campaign, including, today, a medium-term cut in VAT.

In our interview with Labour’s shadow chancellor, he claims they have shifted the centre ground, creating a new appetite for tax and spend among voters. But this Labour vision depends on the dubious proposition that a much bigger role for the state can be financed by a combination of taxes on business and the wealthy and the proceeds of assumed economic growth.

Their policies are often blunt and old-fashioned in the face of an increasingly complicated world. Raising corporation tax is one such stunt – in an increasingly globalised world of finance, this is an out-of-date way of enriching the exchequer. As others have pointed out, a better approach would be to levy a revenue tax – at a stroke capturing hundreds of millions from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and other companies that dodge as many taxes as possible in countries where they accumulate huge sales. To convincingly tackle the challenges of the next 10 to 20 years, the Labour party desperately needs intellectual refreshment to complement its bold and laudable pursuit of social and economic justice.

A progressive future

That said, there are hundreds of decent Labour candidates across the country deserving of support. The Labour party is critical to progressive politics in Britain and a depleted party in the face of a bumbling May as she drives Britain recklessly towards Brexit would be a calamitous outcome for this nation. But these truths sit uncomfortably with the fact of Jeremy Corbyn being Labour’s candidate for prime minister. Over his near two years as leader, he has not made a convincing case for being able to manage his own party, let alone a government faced with the most critical phase in our recent history.

The Liberal Democrats have undoubtedly fought a poor campaign. But they, the Greens the SNP and Sinn Fein will at least provide robust scrutiny of Brexit.

No party has put forward a prime ministerial candidate who deserves our overwhelming support. We urge readers to vote for the local candidate most likely to advance a progressive future in Europe and at home, the one who is most likely to oppose Theresa May’s pro-austerity, hard Brexit vision for Britain.

This election is a direct fallout from the referendum last year. Now we should cast our vote in whatever way best limits the worst impacts of Brexit on Britain’s future.