Saturday 10 June 2017

Was June really the end of May?

Following the media and political furore of Friday 9 June 2017, the day after the snap General Election, we all now know the outcome.  As always, the social media platforms were awash with comments and rants, pretty much straightaway.  After the EU referendum last year, I also began ranting straight away.  This time, however, I have purposefully waited at least 24 hours before commenting - I wanted to have time to digest and assimilate, think and contemplate, reflect and meditate, before making my opinions known.  So, here goes.

Although I began yesterday morning thinking this was a good result, and that a weaker Tory government and stronger opposition was the best possible realistic outcome, now I'm not so sure.

There are, of course, positives, of which there were many yesterday.  Here are a few:
  • Positive #1: May, and the Tories in general, got a well-deserved pounding, and May emerged yesterday visibly battered and bruised.  She made a massive gamble, and it spectacularly backfired.  She was arrogant and ran a complacent campaign, assuming that the people would simply fall in line.  She refused to interact with real people and U-turned on several issues.  She is now paying the price.
  • Positive #2: Corbyn did an amazing job.  I will admit I was against him at the beginning, and still am against some of his policies.  However, I will take my hat off and congratulate him on a really good campaign.  He galvanised the youth resulting in an unprecedented turnout, brought back politics from the traditional sleazy image and achieved a huge increase in support.  He, and Labour supporters, should see this as a big victory, and I will eat humble pie and think much better of him from now on.
  • Positive #3: The increase in left-wing support and decrease in right-wing ideology proved to the world that, despite Brexit, we are not all inward-looking self-serving citizens, and the virtual destruction of extreme right-wing parties (such as UKIP) is something of which we should be very proud.
  • Positive #4: On a personal note, my constituency finally got rid of that Tory bastard Rob Wilson - who has repeatedly ignored several personal pleas of mine - and we are now Labour.  A well-deserved end to a nasty piece of work.
However, I'm not convinced we should be celebrating as much as some people have been.

At the end of the day, no matter how well Labour did, they still lost - and not by a slim margin.  Admittedly, it was always very unlikely they would win - and they didn't.  Likewise, although my chosen party made small gains, we still lost.  We were always completely unlikely to win - and we didn't.  The other parties in the progressive alliance either stayed the same, or in some cases made losses.

I therefore fail to see how it is the good news that some people are claiming.  Corbyn can call for May's resignation as loudly as he likes, but she will ignore him.  The Labour Party can try as hard as they like to put together a minority government, but the Tories are still larger.  The people have spoken and have demonstrated a rise in left-wing ideology, but the Tories don't care.  Ultimately, they are still in power.  They will still be able to get through all of the nasty policies they proposed, some of which will impact upon me profoundly.

Even worse, their failure to secure a majority has meant that their only option is to request support from the DUP, and undoubtedly will have to make concessions in order to get this support.  Until now, not many of us knew much about the DUP.  However, this is a party that was founded by the Rev Ian Paisley, the embodiment of hardline Unionism, and has been described as "one of the most extreme political entities in the British Isles...".  This is a party that is anti-LGBT+ (and especially anti-gay marriage), anti-abortion, anti-climate change and pro-Brexit.  Of course, assurances have been made by May that these sort of divisive and nasty opinions won't penetrate into Westminster - but if you believe that, you'll believe anything.  Of course they will.

Regarding Brexit: what sort we will have is still very unclear, as is the impact of the DUP on this process.  However, now that May has a stronger opposition, she will be forced to rely more heavily on her own MPs in order to get any agreement made.  Many of them, as we know, are hell-bent on a rock-hard Brexit.  So, in my mind, it's very plausible that she will be forced to go even harder than at present, just to get them on side.  The purpose of the election, according to May, was to destroy the opposition intent on confounding the Brexit process.  Another purpose however, much less publicised by May for obvious reasons, was to gain more of her own MPs, in order to be able to outvote the really hardline Tories.  This plan failed, meaning she now has to rely on these hardline Tories to get anything through.  So, for those of us against the process, this is a far worse situation then it was on Wednesday.  Moreover, she has now shown herself to be the exact opposite of strong and stable, which the Europeans know full well and will punish her for it.  She still believes she is the best person to negotiate, so I fear she will go into the negotiations next week and be eaten alive.  This will undoubtedly result in either no deal, or a terrible one.  I'm not sure which is worse.

So as I said, on balance, I'm now not so convinced that progressive liberals like myself should be celebrating yesterday's surprise result.  Corbyn said repeatedly that people, especially young people, voted for hope - however, sadly, hope lost.  If anything, this will just show the youth that their vote doesn't matter after all.  Labour might be a stronger opposition and Corbyn might be energised by this, but they still have no power.  Although bruised, May's control is still absolute.  She even managed to successfully retain her core vote, the older generations, despite seriously attacking them with a triple-whammy of the pensions triple lock, the dementia tax and winter fuel means-testing.  Yet they still voted for her.

So, returning to the title of this piece, I think the answer is absolutely not.  Whether or not she survives her own party over the coming months is unclear, but on the assumption that the Tories do make an agreement with the DUP, they are still in power and will be for several years.  Opposition is stronger, but still nothing more than that.  Therefore, how was yesterday cause for celebration?