In the end it was much worse than we feared. The exit poll gave Johnson a projected 86 seat majority although that's down to 72 as I type this morning. It is an utter disaster, made especially worse after a day tramping the streets of a cold, wet Wakefield getting the vote out. Last night there was a lot of Twitter activity about the potential 'youthquake' and queues at polling stations giving a hope that we might have got a hung parliament. It was not to be.
December 2019 will mark a watershed in UK politics. It is a point of no return. The SNP are scheduled to win around 50 out of 59 seats and Nicola Sturgeon will be even happier than Boris Johnson. Indyref2 is now a certainty and we may have just participated in the last UK wide general election.
For months we have been clutching at straws. Tactical voting, the youth vote, underestimated remainers were all cited as secret weapons. They were not. In truth we underestimated the leave voter. A second referendum is now out of the question. Forget it. The People's Vote campaign and all the groups affiliated to it must take a long hard look at ourselves and develop a whole new strategy. Brexit is the greatest foreign policy mistake for generations and we must find a way to finally persuade our fellow citizens of it.
Johnson wasn't toppled in Uxbridge (he increased his majority) but Jo Swinson was. Nigel Dodds lost his seat to the SDLP. Northern Ireland for the first time has a nationalist majority in Westminster seats which can only point to an eventual united Ireland. With the SNP virtually sweeping the board in Scotland, the break-up of the United Kingdom is not so much a threat anymore but the declared will of the English.
For months we have been clutching at straws. Tactical voting, the youth vote, underestimated remainers were all cited as secret weapons. They were not. In truth we underestimated the leave voter. A second referendum is now out of the question. Forget it. The People's Vote campaign and all the groups affiliated to it must take a long hard look at ourselves and develop a whole new strategy. Brexit is the greatest foreign policy mistake for generations and we must find a way to finally persuade our fellow citizens of it.
Johnson wasn't toppled in Uxbridge (he increased his majority) but Jo Swinson was. Nigel Dodds lost his seat to the SDLP. Northern Ireland for the first time has a nationalist majority in Westminster seats which can only point to an eventual united Ireland. With the SNP virtually sweeping the board in Scotland, the break-up of the United Kingdom is not so much a threat anymore but the declared will of the English.
We now have to learn to stop looking down our nose at America and Trump and acknowledge our own voters are just as persuaded by lies and liars as any simple red necked farmer in the mid-west. It is a dangerous moment. Politicians will learn there is no downside to telling porkies as long as you do it with a half-knowing smirk and an optimistic note. The Tories have lost many honest moderating influencers. Dominic Grieve lost his seat as did Gauke, Lee, Sandbach and others. Ken Clarke stood down.
Johnson might style himself as a One nation Conservative and Unionist but he will be controlled by the ERG and newly elected Brexiteers from the hard right. Some commentators thought he might even be able to face down the ERG and opt for a soft Brexit. This is wishful thinking. The ERG after this election will only get stronger. The Unionist suffix will soon have to be dropped.
Labour are on course to lose 59 seats in a crushing defeat for Corbyn. A decent man, he may want to help the poor and the deprived but he forgot that unless you gain power you are helpless. And to gain power you must reach across to gather support from outside your traditional supporters. In the end he couldn't even hold on to seats that have been Labour since Nelson was a cabin boy. In the next election they will need to win back their own supporters before even thinking about getting new ones.
This is the first election that I have campaigned for any political party. It has been an eye opener for me. On doorsteps across Yorkshire, the overriding impression you got was the sheer number of people who could not or would not vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Virtually any other Labour MP would have made a better fist of it than him. Labour's performance has been almost as bad as Michael Foot's abysmal effort in 1983. Labour MPs must have known this for months but kept quiet because of sheer tribalism.
That he must go and go quickly is clear but to replace him with another out of the same hard-left mould would be a big mistake. Labout need someone from the centre but it is by no means assured that the membership will accept it.
I believed at the end of September, when opposition parties had a 43 seat majority, they could have formed a coalition government and called a referendum on Brexit. Last night's result showed clearly it would have been terribly dangerous. A second referendum might have been lost, or won narrowly and the Brexit arguments would have raged on. In hindsight, it may be better to let Brexit play out for a few years managed by a Tory party led by an incompetent buffoon. Johnson may turn out to be our secret weapon in a battle to rejoin the EU.
There is no point dwelling on the result. Remainers must become rejoiners or reuniters. We must continue to press the case for EU membership and redouble our efforts however long it takes.
There is now no downside to Labour adopting a firm policy of rejoining the EU. Brexit is a disaster that will carry them to electoral success in 2024 and they might as well oppose it and take advantage of it. There is no benefit in taking any blame at all for something they have always opposed and should continue to oppose. Brexit is now a 100% Conservative problem and it will one day bury them.
One of the anomalies thrown up by this result is that many more deprived inner city areas will have Tory MPs representing them in Westminster. This may well impact future Tory policy.
Many of these Labour voters are not natural Tories, to say the least. They THINK they want Brexit but the fruits of it will not be to their liking.
In Wakefield a local resident told me the city had become a distribution centre. Empty factories and offices are testament to it. Manufacturing has already been hollowed out even before Brexit and it's hard to see how leaving the single market will bring about a renaissance. Opening our market to cheaper imports is also likely to put more jobs at risk. When the smoke drifts away and the true consequences of Brexit become clear there will be a lot of very unhappy leavers.
A month ago Sherrelle Jacobs wrote in The Telegraph that Labour was "on the brink of the most seismic wipeout in British election history". I rather hoped she would be proved wrong but she is close to the mark. Labour will not be wiped out but they will take many years to recover.
As for the country, the United Kingdom is on life support and is not expected to survive.
As for the country, the United Kingdom is on life support and is not expected to survive.
