Tag Archives: General Election

Britain, Government, Politics, Society

Disaffection is threatening our free and stable society

BRITAIN

FOR WHOM really was the winner in last week’s by-elections? “None of The Above” Party seems a more appropriate declaration given that 60 per cent of the electorate did not bother to exercise a right to vote in either of the seats being contested for. That’s a democratic crying shame. We elect our MPs about a dozen times during our adult lives.

Some will not try to diminish the Tory failure, but it was considerable. Nor should we assume that Labour is too weakly supported that it cannot win a General Election, for it is not. Or that the Reform Party is not a major threat to Rishi Sunak, because it is. Disaffected Tories are moving in their droves to Reform, unsettling for the Conservative Party if they have ambitions of holding on to power. More than ten per cent of Conservatives have already migrated. Yet, these simple truths are mere squalls on the surface of British politics.

Troubled depths lie beneath, which are full of potential dangers for our stable and free society.

Politics in the UK has fractured over the past quarter of a century. Until the eras of Thatcher and Blair, this country was still divided politically on much the same lines that had divided it in 1950. One big party stood for the industrial working class, the inhabitants of council estates and 19th Century terraces, and also for a small layer of city-dwelling radical intellectuals. The other stood for tree-lined suburbs and the countryside, white-collar workers, for small businessmen and professionals.

But by the time Mrs Thatcher had finished, and Mr Blair had begun his swinging social revolution, we were a different country.

All the old frontiers had melted away, just as the Iron Curtain bulldozed down made headway for a new Europe. Vast new problems grew and overshadowed the old ones: the replacement of industrial jobs with high-tech work or with call-centre drudgery, the flood of women into the workforce and away from the home, the astonishing expansion of universities, the transformation of family life, the computer revolution, and, perhaps above all, large-scale immigration.

Loyalties shifted and blurred, as the Brexit referendum showed beyond doubt. Politics had become troubling and deeply divisive.

In spite of that, Tory and Labour politicians still sought to win votes by using the old spells and incantations, which no longer worked – more police officers on the beat on one side, ever-expanding promises to fix the NHS on the other. The wider public, unfooled, look on with increasing dismay.

How is it so many pledges and promises are never fulfilled? Why is a rich country, full of skills and talent, now so lacking in good government that we navigate our lives amid a maze of potholes and crumbling roads, unprotected by an absent police force, and the many who are stuck in queues for everything from a dental appointment to hospital admission for a medical procedure or major operation? Public angst is growing.

We should not, however, despise our politicians; of whatever affiliation they may be. We live in an ancient and free democracy, and it should be allowed to thrive. Most people will understand that politicians bear a heavy responsibility and in many cases are personally devoted to serving their constituents. The great majority of parliamentarians are honest and well-intentioned.

But something has gone badly amiss in their relationship with those they represent. If left uncorrected, and the widespread discontent and disengagement now rife among us are not assuaged, a portal will open through which dangerous extremists can enter mainstream politics.

Such extremism is personified in the worrying figure of George Galloway, who appears now to have a real chance in the chaotic Rochdale by-election. As a lone maverick, Mr Galloway can do little harm. But what if other, similar figures, begin to profit from discontent and disaffection? A gateway certainly exists for trumping exploitation.

Our mainstream politicians should stop trying to placate voters with mere slogans and instead recognise that their concerns are real and pressing. The whole point of democracy is that such discontents be addressed.

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Britain, Government, Politics

Britons will vote again on June 8 in a snap general election

UNITED KINGDOM

It is less than two years since the last UK general election, ten months since the Brexit referendum and some nine months since the present occupant of 10 Downing Street replaced David Cameron. They say a week is a long time in politics. Yesterday, the prime minister announced that the country would face yet more upheaval: a snap general election on June 8. Polls suggest that Theresa May’s Conservative Party will win comfortably. However, what shouldn’t be in doubt is that Britain’s negotiations with the European Union will make the election a far more complicated contest than Britain has seen in many years.

Under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011, Mrs May needs the backing of two-thirds of the House of Commons to validate the calling of an election. Curiously, her own MPs will have to vote in favour of a motion-of-no-confidence in the government in order to bring the election about. But the sanctioning seems likely to be a formality: the leaders of the main opposition parties have already said they are in favour.

Whilst opposition parties could hardly be seen to turn down a chance to eject the government, the glaring truth is that for many in the Labour Party the election is uncomfortably timed. The official opposition trail the Tories in the polls by more than 20 percentage points, attributed mainly it is said to the unpopularity of Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Mr Corbyn, a far-left socialist, was chosen with enthusiasm by the party’s members in 2015, and again in 2016, but who has failed uncharismatically to appeal to voters more widely.

What seems more probable is that Mrs May will easily extend her working majority, which currently stands at just 17. An electoral boost will give her a freer hand both in her EU negotiations and in setting an agenda at home (where she has so far proposed very little). A lack of obtaining a direct mandate is likely to be weighing heavily on the prime minister’s mind: she has never won a general election, having succeeded her predecessor at the helm of government only via a Tory Party leadership contest.

In Mrs May’s statement, she went further than announcing her intention to seek an election. She implied, too, that it was a chance to heal divisions over Brexit. “The country is coming together, but Westminster is not,” she said. In fact, something like the reverse is true: whereas polls and street marches show that a large minority remain bitterly against Brexit, in February MPs dutifully backed the legislation allowing her to trigger it by 492 votes to 122. Nonetheless, winning a general election would allow Mrs May to claim popular backing for her “hard” approach to Brexit—including taking Britain out of the EU’s single market—something that the referendum did not specify.

For the prime minister to go to the country as she has carries risks. One immediate penalty for doing so is giving up nearly two months of the government’s time and energy, when it has just two years to negotiate its exit terms with the EU. Notwithstanding a window that was already deemed narrow, the government’s agenda for agreeing Brexit terms looks even more hurried. Time is scarce and the clock is ticking. Mrs May might have calculated that not much really is going to happen until after the German elections in September, so there will be little to lose.

Another complicating factor is the unstable situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Only recently Mrs May turned down a request by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, for an independence referendum in Scotland, on the basis that it would be irresponsible to hold such a vote when the terms of Brexit were not yet clear. It is hard to see why the same cannot be said of holding a general election now in Britain. In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, the power-sharing government is currently suspended, and there is the prospect of a fresh election to its devolved assembly.

The divisions over Brexit and the unpredictable consequences in how people will cast their vote is likely to be the biggest complication at home. The populist UK Independence Party was jubilant after achieving its defining ambition of Brexit last summer, and was billed by some as a future rival to Labour in many parts of England; it has, however, since flopped in by-elections. The left-leaning Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, have defined themselves as the opponents of Brexit, a strategy which has seen them picking up seats in council and parliamentary contests since the EU referendum. Some senior Conservatives worry that the Lib Dems will deprive them of victory in many parts of London and the south-west. These factors meant that the decision to go to the country was harder than it might have looked for a prime minister with a near-record lead in the polls.

Last year Mrs May ruled out an election before 2020. In performing a U-turn, she seems to have decided that the gamble is one worth taking.

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Britain, Government, Politics

Theresa May calls for snap General Election on June 8

UNITED KINGDOM

Theresa May calls for a snap General Election on June 8. Because of the Fixed Term Parliament Act the House of Commons will need to vote and the Government will need a two-thirds majority for a General Election to be held as proposed.

This is the full statement made by the Prime Minister announcing that a general election is to be held on June 8:

“I have just chaired a meeting of the Cabinet, where we agreed that the Government should call a general election, to be held on June 8.

“I want to explain the reasons for that decision, what will happen next and the choice facing the British people when you come to vote in this election.

“Last summer, after the country voted to leave the European Union, Britain needed certainty, stability and strong leadership, and since I became Prime Minister the Government has delivered precisely that.

“Despite predictions of immediate financial and economic danger, since the referendum we have seen consumer confidence remain high, record numbers of jobs, and economic growth that has exceeded all expectations.

“We have also delivered on the mandate that we were handed by the referendum result.”

“Britain is leaving the European Union and there can be no turning back. And as we look to the future, the Government has the right plan for negotiating our new relationship with Europe.

“We want a deep and special partnership between a strong and successful European Union and a United Kingdom that is free to chart its own way in the world.

“That means we will regain control of our own money, our own laws and our own borders and we will be free to strike trade deals with old friends and new partners all around the world.

“This is the right approach, and it is in the national interest. But the other political parties oppose it.

“At this moment of enormous national significance there should be unity here in Westminster, but instead there is division.

“The country is coming together, but Westminster is not.”

“In recent weeks Labour has threatened to vote against the deal we reach with the European Union.

“The Liberal Democrats have said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill.

“The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain’s membership of the European Union.

“And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.

“Our opponents believe that because the Government’s majority is so small, our resolve will weaken and that they can force us to change course.

“They are wrong.

“They under-estimate our determination to get the job done and I am not prepared to let them endanger the security of millions of working people across the country.

“This is your moment to show you mean it, to show you are not opposing the Government for the sake of it, to show that you do not treat politics as a game.

“Let us tomorrow vote for an election, let us put forward our plans for Brexit and our alternative programmes for government and then let the people decide.

“And the decision facing the country will be all about leadership. It will be a choice between strong and stable leadership in the national interest, with me as your Prime Minister, or weak and unstable coalition government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, propped up by the Liberal Democrats – who want to reopen the divisions of the referendum – and Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.

“Every vote for the Conservatives will make it harder for opposition politicians who want to stop me from getting the job done.

“Every vote for the Conservatives will make me stronger when I negotiate for Britain with the prime ministers, presidents and chancellors of the European Union.

“Every vote for the Conservatives means we can stick to our plan for a stronger Britain and take the right long-term decisions for a more secure future.

“It was with reluctance that I decided the country needs this election, but it is with strong conviction that I say it is necessary to secure the strong and stable leadership the country needs to see us through Brexit and beyond.

“So, tomorrow, let the House of Commons vote for an election, let everybody put forward their proposals for Brexit and their programmes for Government, and let us remove the risk of uncertainty and instability and continue to give the country the strong and stable leadership it demands.”

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