Westminster: Has the dust settled?
There’s a wonderful Yiddish word for the goings-on of the recent U.K general election – mishegas. For those who are unfamiliar with the word it means ‘craziness’ or ‘a mess of a situation’. Apt, don’t you think? What was a blatant attempt by the Tories to manipulate a large majority in the Commons, it magnificently backfired. In fact, it was such a misjudgment that I wonder if any Prime Minister in living memory has made such an awful mishegas of things.
Consider, if you will, that Theresa May had a working majority in the House of Commons. It wasn’t brilliant but it certainly wasn’t bad. A few opinion polls at the start of her tenure seemed to solidify the Conservative position regarding Brexit and she was riding high on the back of being the popular, albeit limited, choice as Tory Party leader. Add to that bubbling, frothing mix Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent unpopularity across Middle England and the strong case for Brexit negotiation stability – it was a a potent brew. One might readily have imagined cackles of delight across the political cauldron as Tories gleefully put together a plan to cast Labour and Corbyn into oblivion.
Whether it was hubris or just good ol’ fashioned bad advice, but Theresa May sought to go in for the kill and maximize on their poll ratings. Hubris or bad advice, I personally think it was a large wobbling dollop of both. The Tories wanted an even bigger majority and the carte-blanche to do whatever they pleased for the next 5 years. The trouble with that, like witches over a cauldron concocting a troublesome charm, is that you often don’t get what you intended.
Theresa May banked on the poll ratings being correct, and hubristically assumed high poll ratings translated as popularity. That’s quite a sizable mistake to make in the first place. She banked on the idea that the public were beset by Brexit fears and the need for ‘strong and stable’ government when dealing with the knotty, irksome Europeans. To assume little or nothing else mattered in the voters’ mind is obviously a pretty outlandish suggestion, but the Tories fronted the election campaign with the central argument that it was a strong Brexit negotiation only deliverable by the Conservatives. To that end, she also banked on disenfranchised UKIP supporters moving their votes to her bunch as though they were no more mindful that drone bees searching out the next right-wing Queen Bee. She banked on the media doing their best to sully the name of Corbyn and his like-minded left wing candidates and members and more to the point, she banked on the electorate buying into that very public bullying and go along with it. She banked on the left-wing factionalism and in-fighting of the Labour Party to tear itself apart – and she would feed on the entrails, as her Tory party would rule for 20+ years.
Massively, spectacularly she was wrong. The Tories treated the electorate like shoegazing, shuffling simpletons. When questioned on public sector cuts; social degradation; increase in poverty in the young and elderly; the cruel contemptuous treatment of the NHS; the castration of triple lock pensions; the dementia tax; the cut in police numbers; the unremarkable economy; the tawdry, opprobrious approach to schools funding Theresa May displayed the body language of someone who was trapped in a room with a thick undispersing cloud of awful fart. She had no answers, other than to spin off rehearsed, robotic phrases that offered no remedial solutions to the true problems of the U.K but instead patronized and belittled genuine concerns. When asked by media cronies about Brexit, oh, she was a veritable waterfall of answers but even then, with the same idiomatic Tory spin and argot of the over-privileged smug few.
The country had an election it didn’t need. Make no mistake, that is not the same as saying this was an election it didn’t want. Ask any Labour supporter now that the dust is settling if it was an election they wanted and most, even if they’re coat-tailing on the back of their success, will tell you they absolutely did want the chance to go to the polls. Instead of going into Brexit negotiations with a party and a House of Commons largely batting off the same wicket (whether you agree with the policies or not is somewhat moot) instead we have chaos. The EU negotiation machine must be rumbling quite contentedly, knowing that the U.K is politically fragile and destined to test all of our patience with another election within the next year.
Labour can claim great success. Jeremy Corbyn has transmogrified from the risible, loony from way out left to the bona fide common man, a man of the people with policies that are sensible and achievable for the most part. I’m still not a fan, but he deserves his success and he’s becoming more palatable as the days have gone by. To say that it is a far more rewarding experience being a Labour supporter now than 12 months ago is, as political achievements go, pretty remarkable by any party leader’s measure.
As politicians are wont to do, The Conservatives can interpret the election in positive ways too. They’re still the party with the most seats and the swing vote in traditionally working class areas seems to broadly fall in line or exceed their estimates. Theresa May gets to continue as Prime Minister, even if her political tightrope has just gotten significantly thinner and a whole lot slacker.
As every political commentator predicted, the Tories turned to the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party for the small bolstering of support needed to ensure a majority in The House of Commons. Trouble is, DUP support has cost in the region of £1bn. Yep, one billion pounds sterling is to be invested in Northern Ireland as a sweetener for DUP members to vote with the Government. Laughably, the DUP is pretty conservative in their political ethos anyway and broadly speaking would have voted alongside the Government as it did in the vast majority of occasions in the last parliament. But hey! We get the idea of holding someone to ransom, right? Theresa May gets to continue as PM and she gets to call the shots, at least on the face of it. That said, that really is trying to dredge up scant consolation for what may only be described as a political humiliation for Theresa May.
Bearing successes to mind, unfortunately there are no winners in this mess, only losers and the biggest loser is us, the British people, taking aside for a moment the Northern Irish, who may find £1bn rather useful for this chronically under-invested part of the U.K.
The new parliamentary session is well under way but in the few weeks since it resumed there have been only a smattering of votes and virtually no meaningful business to speak of. Sessions have been littered with hot air filled general debates and tedious low-key bills – nothing politically juicy and virtually nothing to test the fragility of the Government. Will it pick up? Well, it has to. Brexit legislation is edging ever closer but it is slow-going. Both sides of the argument are dreading the process. Ask MP’s, from all persuasions, what their thoughts are on the upcoming Brexit processes and legislation and one is met with unlovely emotions that range from defeated resignation akin to that of a Trump White House PR adviser; to the look of chill and horror, as one who might be stupefied by the creeping, haunting shadow of Nosferatu. Really, the horror is in the build up.
The sheer seismic nature of the surprising election result and the looming storm that is Brexit ensures that Parliament will be beset by in-fighting in all parties as power struggles emerge and continue. Already, the increasingly irrelevant UKIP have dropped their leader like a hot rock, as too have the limping Liberals, whose leader struggled to reconcile his devout Christian faith with that of the dubious truth-bending machinations of being a party leader. The Scottish Nationalists took a bloody nose too as they lost a number of seats, with their Westminster leader a notable casualty.
There are some crucial questions to ponder now (and there are many). Can Theresa May realistically continue as PM when the country rejected her so profoundly? I wouldn’t bank on her being in office come the next election. Will the long knives of Boris Johnson et al come out to shank her in the murkiness of division lobbies and private meeting rooms? Will Jeremy Corbyn persuade centrist Labour members to fall behind him and go for the Tory jugular? Will Corbyn have the leadership nous to identify and remove some of the embarrassing dead wood he carried throughout his campaign? I can think of one or two Labour MP’s close to Corbyn who, even taking into account a biased media, were pretty dreadful. I think actions will speak louder than words on both of those questions. While Labour MP’s sung Corbyn’s praises in the days after the election, there’s been a Machiavellian feel about the Labour Party for some time and I’m not sure it’ll be too long before it resurfaces.
For any legislation to pass it will take no short amount of political chicanery, haggling, more bribery, shady deals and whopping great promises. Throw in a few scandals, a by-election or two, disgruntled ex-Ministers with a grudge and a fickle public and we might find that mishegas is too mild a word to describe our political life. There’ll be much gnashing of teeth and a stupendous amount of scrutiny over every minute detail of policy and planning, driven almost exclusively by the media who are currently deciding who they ought to make their next darling.
It leaves us all facing uncertain times. Until we have a government that is able to secure a majority mandate from the populous (even if that means a bona fide coalition) nothing will improve. Brexit is destined to be a disaster, the social agenda that desperately needs addressing will fester and we’ll all be poorer as bad government often transmits to bad economy and bad choices.
To finish, I’ll offer up another enigmatic Yiddish word – bupkes. It’s not a word to use in polite company. It’s what we as a nation can look forward to for the next few months/years. Look it up if you can be slightly bovvered. Oy vey!
©T G Dean
Yorumlar
Yorum Gönder