Wolff: In Britain, the end of politics

The British are having an election in May to determine the next prime minister and, many Britons believe, signal the end of traditional politics — no matter who wins.

Actually, there's a general consensus that no one can win, that Britain is headed into a new, disorganized, fractured and chaotic state: Not only will neither Labor nor the Conservatives achieve a majority, but neither will have enough of a minority to feasibly form a stable government.

This is partly because of the growing strength of the new marginal parties — the Scottish National Party (SNP), which has broken from Labor; UKIP, the far-right anti-immigration party; and the Greens, the new left-wing spoilers. And it's because of the weakness of the traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats, a centrist glue that tended to pull both Labor and the Conservatives to the middle.

But it is also because both major parties have come to engender wide scorn and general ridicule. It's hard to find an unqualified or unembarrassed supporter on either side.

The Conservatives, which in 2010 formed a coalition with the Lib-Dems through which David Cameron became prime minister, have endured many years of unpopularity and mockery, giving Labor a strong edge. Except for the fact that Labor is led by Ed Miliband who — let us try to keep the exaggeration in check — might be the most hapless and disliked man in the United Kingdom. (In a recent poll many respondents suggested that Rowan Atkinson — Mr. Bean — play Miliband in a biopic.) Miliband, however, has been able to stay in the game, because the Conservative leader and prime minister, the remote and supercilious Cameron, might be the second most-disliked man in the U.K. (The same poll suggest Colin Firth in the Cameron role.)

The major U.K. parties, exacerbating the cynicism that surrounds them, have long sought to emulate their U.S. counterparts, both because approval in the U.S. has historically played well at home, and because the U.S., in the eyes of British politicians, seems to have achieved a certain state-of-the-art ruthlessness. (House of Cards may have originated as a satire in the U.K., but its American version seems more like a how-to.)

Indeed, Miliband has hired Obama strategist David Axelrod to help bring messaging to Labor's campaign. Alas, Axelrod takes every opportunity to remind people that Ed Miliband is no Barack Obama.

Cameron and No. 10 Downing Street are a tourist stop for U.S. Republican presidential candidates looking for foreign policy attention. Most, it seems, manage to say something that embarrasses the British prime minister (Chris Christie waffled on measles vaccines in a British press conference). The Conservatives too, often thought of as the mean party, have tried to ape their U.S. counterparts in attack ads. Although political television advertising is proscribed in the U.K., the Conservatives have skirted this law and taken to YouTube, reinforcing their pitiless persona.

As both parties sink further into a fight for minority supremacy (called the 35% strategy), they face the clear prospects of having to fit themselves to the agenda of their prospective partners.

Labor, reverting to a pre-Tony Blair left-wing statism, can't hope to form a government without an alliance with the Scottish nationalists. This likely means putting Scottish independence, defeated in a referendum last year, back in the political mix. More ironically, a coalition with the SNP would give Scotland great sway over England — in a sense, a reverse takeover, foreshadowing, perhaps, an eventual vote by England to secede from Scotland.

While the Conservatives will likely lose seats, as will their Lib-Dem partners, they can hope that the Greens will take even more seats from Labor, meaning the conservatives might be able to from a government with UKIP support. The price of this is not only a more implacable immigration policy in an ever more multicultural nation, but a vote on European Union membership and the high likelihood of an exit — popularly known as "Brexit."

Both minority scenarios — under Labor, the U.K. becomes its own willful version of Greece, insisting on an old-fashioned statist economic policy, or, under the Conservatives, the U.K. retreats to extreme island status — seem to be quite opposed by the majority.

But the minority seems destined to rule.

The only hope: that the minorities are so weak that majorities can only be achieved by uniting such inimical factions that paralysis will be the outcome.

One popular, or at least pop-culture, position, is a general "no" view, with Russell Brand saying don't vote at all (the Church of England, generally left-wing leaning, wrote an exorcised public letter claiming democracy was failing and that Christians needed to counter Brand's "sex appeal"). Oasis' Noel Gallagher advocates an anti-political stew: "If they truly, truly want to f***ing better the lives of people, surely they must all realize that a little bit of conservatism married with a little bit of socialism, married with a little bit of f***ing UKIP and little bit of Green and little bit of Lib Democrats would be kind of perfect."

The election reflects an old politics, in the view of many, yet unable to comprehend the current world of post-politics, in which all traditional political behavior, language and aspirations are seen as aspects of the emperor's new clothes. In this view, the way is open for Boris Johnson, the current mayor of London. Johnson has become the most popular politician in Britain not least of all for his sly mockery of other politicians.

Johnson who, in the U.S. last week, apologized — wink wink — for characterizing Hillary Clinton as a "sadistic nurse," is expected to return to Parliament in the May election. From there, he would continue his disruption of political artifice and stand for leader of the Conservative Party — representing a new post-politics politics wherein everyone is in on the joke — when the current lot comes tumbling down.