And quite literally since their chosen colour is blue. But anyway, as you should all well know by this point the Tories or as they are otherwise known, the Conservatives, have won a major majority in the UK’s (my country’s) General Election, a huge 80 seat majority, more than anything I had expected and it is clearly an absolute disaster not only for Labour who have experienced their worst defeat since the 1930s, nearly dropping below 200 seats, but also for the Remain camp, which now seems all but defeated for at least the next 5-years.
What this means is that without a single doubt BREXIT will now be happening within around about a month-and-a-half time. Boris Johnson has already committed to passing his BREXIT Deal through parliament before Christmas which will set the path to formally leaving the EU on 31st January 2020, which is when the transition period will then begin, which will last about a year’s time in which the UK will continue to negotiate trading relations with the EU and the rest of the world before fully leaving in December 2020.
What the Tories have achieved in this election is way beyond what I had predicted, believing that at-most they would be getting a 40-seat majority, but clearly that was doubled. There was even speculation of a tiny majority or even a hung parliament by the final ComRes poll, but it did not come to fruition which makes sense as it was an outlier compared to all the other polls giving the Tories a 9-12-point lead, rather than a 6-point lead. A repeat of 2017 that Labour voters were hoping for did not come to fruition.
The night was also a slap in the face to the Liberal Democrats who didn’t even have net gains like the exit poll had predicted, but in-fact finishing off with a net loss, only picking up a few seats from the Conservatives, but also losing other seats to the Conservatives and worst of all Jo Swinson, the party’s leader, losing her seat to the SNP, one of the biggest shocks of the night. For a party that did fairly well in the EU elections and had built up from many defections before the election, it is a dramatic climb down. Most of all it appears the Brexit Party pulling out of Conservative seats did help the party against the Liberal Democrats, who did increase their vote share across the board, but of which was not concentrated enough. None of the defectors who joined the Lib Dems or any of the former rebels of the major parties that ran as Independents or with Independent Group for Change won or made any difference to the result at all. The Tories also won back the Brecon and Radnorshire seat that they lost to the Lib Dems in a by-election earlier this year.
Further on though another big winner of the election night was the Scottish National Party, although they did not reach the 55 seats that the exit poll claimed they would, they still made big gains ending on 48 of the 59 Scottish seats, taking seats from both the Conservatives and almost all of the Labour Scottish seats bar one and as already mentioned they took the scalp of the Lib Dem leader. With BREXIT a certainty now it is inevitable that the union is going to be strained with the SNP now hammering further for independence from the UK. As well as this in Northern Ireland the DUP saw setbacks including the loss of their deputy leader and former Commons leader MP Nigel Dodds to Sinn Fein, for the first time Nationalists have more seats in NI than Unionists do, perhaps putting further strain on the union as NI also voted to remain in the EU.
Despite the big win for the SNP in Scotland though, which many predicted would lead to a hung parliament for the Tories, in fact did not happen as the North of England, Midlands and even parts of Wales fell to the Tory tsunami, including seats that have never ever became Tory since their creation, such as the shock in Blyth Valley, the first big upset of the night. Not only did the Brexit Party make things harder for Labour but there were also clear swings straight from Labour to the Conservatives in many of the gains and it was also quite clear that Conservative remainers likely in large part stuck with their party. All in all, Labour leavers were split, Labour remainers were split, while Conservative leavers and remainers were practically consolidated. Seemingly nearly everything that could have went wrong for the opposition (excluding the SNP) went wrong. Including the South-West remaining largely in Tory hands, staving off the Lib Dem assault, which is why we see such a huge majority despite Scotland falling to the nationalists once again.
But what exactly went wrong? There are a number of things we can point to such as the Lib Dems support of revoking article 50 being unpopular, the unlikability of Jo Swinson, the major dislike of Jeremy Corbyn and perhaps of his party’s radical policies which the country simply isn’t ready for yet. The fence sitting on issues such as Brexit and Scottish independence by Jeremy Corbyn among many other things. It is clear that Labour now needs to reflect and elect a new leader and decide where the party stands, will it remain further left or will it move further back to the centre again? We must wait and see over the coming months.
With such a huge majority Boris Johnson can pretty much shape things in any image of which he would like, he is no longer constrained by any faction within his party and the opposition do not have enough seats to make any difference to Johnson’s plans. Barring some kind of intervention from God, the Conservatives will be leading this country for a full 5-years and with the biggest majority they have had since Margaret Thatcher, it will be interesting to see what they now do with such freedom and maneuverability at their hands. It will all begin today, Monday, with the first big vote coming on Thursday (the Queen’s Speech) and soon after that, giving Boris sticks to his promise, the Brexit Deal will be rushed through and put into law, paving the way towards the 2nd phase during the transition period after January 31st – the negotiations that will form the UK’s future relationship with the EU and that will put in place new trading relations with the EU and many others around the world.
Thank you for reading, there will be two more posts this year, one coming this Wednesday talking about Kamala Harris who recently dropped out of the 2020 US Presidential Race and a post the following Monday that will talk about what is to come for this blog in the new year of 2020.
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