What a year, a reflection

The political landscape has changed so much in the last year.

The Tories started the year with Theresa May and an unpopular withdrawal deal that had already been delayed due to unpopularity. She had suffered from resignations from her cabinet, and had only recently survived a vote of no confidence. The Tory party was riven with dissent. The decades long schism in the Tory party on Europe was still present and on full display.

The Withdrawal deal went down three times, as did the Tory polling. They did very very badly in the EU elections, coming fifth! It looked like the Tories may be on their last legs.

The Labour party also did badly in the EU elections, coming third. But they had their opportunity to create real problems for the Tories. Theresa May had offered talks with the Labour party on a compromise to present to the House Of Commons. If the Labour party had engaged to a significant degree and agree a compromise they would have split the Tories down the middle.The party would have split and there would inevitably have been a general election in all likelihood leading to a Labour victory. Or maybe a Brexit victory.

The Labour Party were presented with proposals by the Conservatives, which had been lifted from a document by Sir Keir Hardy, Labour's Shadow Exiting the EU secretary. But inexplicably Sir Keir and Labour rejected it. They rejected their own proposals. It was clear that Labour could not compromise. Too many on their front bench could only see Remaining via a second referendum as the way forward.

Labour played their hand very badly.

Theresa May stood down. So did Vince Cable.

In came Boris Johnson and Jo Swinson. Boris had said he would make sure we left on 31st October. Jo said if there was General Election the Lib Dems would revoke article 50 and stay in the EU, ignoring the result of the referendum.

Parliament was prorogued. I think the reason was to give the PM space to negotiate with the EU without continual mouthings off in Parliament, but he used the pretence of a Queens Speech. It was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court, who happened to create new law for the purpose!

In the space between the prorogation announcement and the prorogation, the Benn Act was passed saying that if there was no deal by October 19th the PM would have to ask for an extension past 31st October. In order to pass the act control of the order paper had to be passed to the opposition parties. Tory MPs who colluded in doing this were threatened with losing the whip, and twenty of them did so. In doing this, Boris showed steel and called their bluff. They were gone. Twenty troublesome MPs had been told, as indeed had the Brexit party of Boris's intentions.

All the while there were negotiations going on with the EU, and after the first attempt failed, a meeting between Boris and Irish PM Leo Varadkar lead to some swift progress and Boris had a new deal without the dreaded backstop.

The new PM brought the deal back to parliament on a special Saturday sitting on 19th October. The rebels again thwarted the passing of the deal by changing the meaningful vote to a meaningless vote. This meant that the extension had to asked for anyway.

The Withdrawal Agreement passed its first and second readings but the timetable motion (which would have allowed us to leave on 31st October) was voted against.

It became clear to everyone that Boris Johnson had tried absolutely everything to deliver on his promise of leaving on 31st October, but Parliament had been desperate to thwart him.

But Parliament had Boris where they wanted him. They could have forced his deal through with some amendments, but Boris knew it wouldn't be the deal he wanted so pushed for a General Election instead. The Lib Dems and SNP relented, and reluctantly Labour did too.

Boris Johnson's message of 'Get Brexit Done' was simple and put together with all the shenanigans in Parliament it was a winning message. The Labour Party had misunderstood their Northern, Midland and Welsh heartlands who had voted to leave the EU in the referendum. They thought their re-negotiation of a deal which was Brexit In Name Only and then put to a referendum was a plan just to have remain win and saw through it. They also disliked Jeremy Corbyn intensely, his unpatriotic past was very unpopular. Individual Labour policies may have been popular, but that's because most people like something for free, but people know it has to be paid for. The Brexit party stood down in Tory held seats: that ousting of the twenty rebels working wonders.

The result? A Boris landslide. A Labour result worse than anything since 1935. The Lib Dems policy choice of revoking went down very badly and so they went backwards to only 11 seats with Jo Swinson losing her own seat.

As we head into 2020 the picture is so different. Boris Johnson had ousted the ardent remainers and got every candidate to promise to approve the new deal. We will leave the EU on 31st January and the arguments of the last three years will be over. The Tory party schism that has endured for forty years will now be over. There will be a settled position. The Tories need to deliver for the 'Red Wall' seats, and I think Boris may just do it.

Labour is facing a real problem now. It needs to be centrist but is likely to go for a choice between Continuity Corbynism, Real Corbynism on Provisional Corbynism. The likely winner is Rebecca Long Bailey. It is possible there will be a split when the Labour moderates realise that there is no saving the Labour party from within from the far left.

It could have been so much different. I'm so glad it isn't.

Squiffy.

2019 is over. Here comes 2020.

It has become extremely difficult to predict what will happen in politics for the last few years, but I suspect it may get a bit easier. 2019 was a bumper year for a bumpy year!

Let's first look at what I thought might happen over the last year:

1. Lewis Hamilton will win the World Championship again.  1 point 
2. Sebastien Vettel will be beaten by Charles Leclerk.  1 point
3. Max Verstappen will be 2nd in the World Championship.  0 points, it was Valtteri Bottas
4. Theresa May will lose the vote on EU Withdrawal deal.  1 point (maybe it should be 3 points!)
5. Attempts to force a second 'public' vote will fail.   1 point
6. We will leave the EU on a managed no-deal basis    0 points
7. Theresa May will resign and Dominic Raab will become Prime Minister after we have left the EU.   1/2 point as Theresa May resigned but Boris Johnson took over
8. The Labour Party will split after we leave the EU and there will be a new centrist party.   1/2 point, there was a small split for Change UK.
9. At the end of the year the Tories will still be at 35%, Labour at 23%, A new centrist party 24%, Lib Dems 5%, UKIP 1%.    0 points (the missing of the 29th March deadline changed everything)
10. UKIP will file for bankruptcy.    0 points, but who are UKIP?
11. Moves to impeach Donald Trump will fail.     1/2 point, ok he was impeached in the House of Representatives but we've not had the resolution in the Senate yet. 

In total 5 1/2 points. That's not too bad given how much has changed in the last year. That failure in March 29th changed the whole political outlook for 2019, UKIP all but disappeared but the Brexit party came from nowhere to lead in the EU elections, the Tory party nearly died then rose like a phoenix from the flames.

Here's what I predict for 2020, hopefully I will get better results this time (I'm not putting leaving the EU on 31st January - as it is now a given): 

1. Lewis Hamilton will win the World Championship for a seventh time.
2. Sebastien Vettel will be beaten again by Charles Leclerc.
3. Sebastien Vettel will announce his retirement at the end of the year.
4. Max Verstappen will be 2nd in the World Championship.
5. The early trade talks with the EU will founder on fishing rights and there will be a walk out.
6. There will however be a deal by the end of 2020.
7. Rebecca Long Bailey will become leader of the Labour Party.
8. Angela Rayner will become deputy.
9. There will be a bigger Labour split this year when centrists finally realise they have lost their party,
10. Layla Moran will become Lib Dem leader
11. The Brexit party will not morph into the reform party and will disappear entirely. 
12. The polls at the end of the year will be Tories 42%. Labour 21%. Lib Dems 10%, New Centrist Labour party 22%.
13. Elizabeth Warren will win the democratic nomination
14. Donald Trump will win a second term as US president.

Squiffy.

Woohoo, so much better than I expected. Boris Johnson is PM again.

In the morning of the election I predicted a Tory majority of 38, but as the day wore on I started to get more and more nervous. Reading Twitter, as I do, did not help as some started to say that it was now 50/50 for a hung parliament.I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were heading to a repeat of the 2017 result. I felt like I wanted to cry.

I sat there for a few minutes waiting for the exit poll to come out. When it did my relief was overwhelming. Out came the Cava and I felt able to relax. The UK is still not ready for full blooded socialism.

How did Boris do it? How did he win all those solid Labour seats in the North, Midlands and Wales?

As a Northerner myself I think I have some insight. I think there's four aspects to this:

1. Brexit.

The North generally voted for Brexit. They were then told that they were stupid, xenophobic or didn't know what they were voting for. The Labour party said in 2017 that they would respect the result of the referendum but then did everything but.

For 2019 the Labour party was then saying they would have to have another referendum in order to leave, but this time on a new deal which would still be in the EU Customs Union and very close if not in the single market. These would not represent the Brexit that was posted through the letter boxes on the Leave vote leaflets in 2016. It was also said that the franchise was to be extended to 16 and 17 years old, and also to EU nationals. Talk about gerrymandering the result to overturn the 2016 referendum!

Northerners are not thick and could see through this. Brexit was a disaster for Labour.

2) Jeremy Corbyn.

Not well liked over the UK, he is especially disliked up north. What is not widely recognised, the north is incredibly patriotic. Unlike the liberal south there is not the shame of the UK's past. Sure, the UK made mistakes but we should not live constantly shamed by those. Jeremy Corbyn represents that shame. He hates the UK, he sides with our enemies, whether they are terrorists such as the IRA, Hamas or Hezbollah or countries such as Iran and Russia.

It was noticeable in the Labour manifesto that there were sections showing our shame, such as requirements to teach our colonialism in history lessons in schools. There were also mentions of making reparations for our past and saying sorry for it.

He also allowed antisemitism to fester in the Labour party. He shares the world view of the vast members of momentum that joined Labour to get him elected as Labour leader in 2015. He could not wheedle it out as it is his world view that is the problem and shares with a reasonably large section of the the far left members.

3) It's too good to be true

The Labour party manifesto had a lot of individually popular policies (ones that I would disagree with, but popular amongst a lot of people), but put together very expensive in total. People did not believe that this could all be paid for by the richest people in society.

Northerners and the working classes are not stupid enough to believe in the magic money tree, and they know that they would end up paying in either higher taxes or prices.

4) Boris Johnson

Boris is a cheerful character. He's also more popular person up north than down south. He's interesting without seeming too weird and righteous, unlike Jeremy Corbyn. I know hardened Labour voters who like him but find Corbyn too angry and unlikable. 


If you put all those together it is quite compelling to see how the 'red wall' fell. Unlike 2017, when it looked like the Labour party could go along with Brexit it was clear that this time it would not. Jeremy Corbyn did not have any personal bounce like he did last time in 2017, and Boris Johnson's campaign was much better than Theresa May's.

It's quite funny when reading the far left tweets of the angry momentum types. They would quite often say to any moderate Labour types 'Why don't you just f**k off and join the Tories'. Funnily, they did that and then the momentum types complain that they didn't win the election!


Moving on, Boris Johnson has made some great speeches trying to re-unite the country. He seems to be a different figure now that he has his own mandate and Brexit will be 'done'. I just hope that he can now make some real changes to those communities that have gone to the Tories for the first time in decades. To have broken the Labour stranglehold is one thing and it makes it easier for people to vote Tory again, but the Tories really need to deliver now.

Squiffy.