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.