Labour not listening to voters handed power back to Tories
SO it’s five more years of Boris Johnson: and probably five more years of Irish social-media bitching about a terrible, right-wing Tory government. Fintan O’Toole was, predictably, leading the troops with his comment immediately after the result: “As a friendly outsider,” tweeted Ireland’s public intellectual, “can I just say Britain and England are better than Boris Johnson?”
You can indeed say so, Fintan, but you might also be moved to say how wrong you were in your previous theories about the underlying causes of Brexit, which prompted this election. For example, in your Brexit book Heroic Failure, energetically promoted in America, whose insistent theme is that Brexit was a self-harming, nostalgic yearning for the days of Empire, promoted by toffs.
No, Fintan! This is about a reconfiguration of British politics. Brexit was about blue-collar Britain affirming sovereignty in their own country. And the swathes of Labour voters who elected Boris Johnson — Wakefield, Scunthorpe, Workington, Sedgefield, West Bromwich East — were disgusted that the Islington elite just didn’t listen to them.
Stephen Kinnock, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson all said it. Lisa Nandy — a grassroots Labour MP who retained Wigan — has said it. As have Caroline Flint and Ruth Smeeth, whose working-class constituencies in Don Valley and Stoke went Tory because Labour HQ “didn’t listen” and “didn’t respect” their base.
Caroline Flint starkly stated that Corbyn and “Uber-Remainers” in the metropolitan elite lost those 59 Labour seats — the worst result since the 1930s.
Britain and England “deserve better than Boris”? Mayhap. But bear in mind the most popular English monarch in history is Charles
II, the “Merrie Monarch”. He fathered 19 illegitimate children, loved Nell Gwynne, the “Protestant whore”, and his reign brought venereal disease to Britain. He was considered untrustworthy yet a successful monarch and had there been an election in the 1660s, he’d have swept the country.
Everyone is dumping on Jeremy Corbyn right now — because dislike of Corbyn was one of the factors that caused Labour’s defeat.
But when a man is down, why not see his good points? And here’s an Irish woman who recalls Corbyn as a Good Samaritan.
Maura Meaney, from Co Clare, now a senior citizen, was one of the many Irish nurses who went to Britain in the 1950s, contributing so much to building up the National Health Service.
A few years ago she found herself locked out of her North London flat when her house keys went missing. It happened that Jeremy Corbyn was nearby and she told him her problem.
“He couldn’t have been kinder,” she recalls. He patiently helped her search for the keys and when a replica was located, accompanied her to a locksmith.
Whether Maura voted for Jezza I couldn’t say. But she always remembered his kindness and a kind deed can illuminate a naughty world.
It’s an irony that two issues Corbyn campaigned for all his political life — a united Ireland and opposition to the European Union — are centre stage now at the expense of his own head.
I heard approving comments that more Northern Ireland nationalists were returned — especially the two SDLP members, Colum Eastwood in Foyle and Claire Hanna in South Belfast. George Osborne, former chancellor and Tory big cheese, said it presaged, eventually, a “united, federated Ireland”.
In my experience, many people in England don’t dislike the idea of a “united, federated” Ireland: losing Scotland is another matter.
And the Scottish Nationalists, who have had such a dramatic success north of the British border with their 48 seats, will be a fearsome tartan opposition in the House of Commons.
It’ll be fun seeing this loquacious Caledonian presence at Westminster: like a re-run of the Irish Home Rule party in the 1900s when they became the focal point of debate. A robust opposition is a healthy element of parliamentary democracy and Labour is leaderless and demoralised for the present.
The ScotNats probably won’t get their independence referendum under Boris’s regime: but they’ll make a great splash trying.
It used to be a tradition in Irish politics that when a TD died, his widow replaced him — the late Eileen Desmond came to prominence thus. A variation on the theme has arisen in Britain where a wife replaces a political spouse who is in a spot of legal trouble.
In the Channel port of Dover (and Deal), the main European gateway to Britain, MP Charlie Elphicke was stood down by the Conservative party after historic allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies. So — step forward his loyal wife, Natalie. She has now emerged as a more successful politician than he, winning the Tory seat with 28,830 votes — a 5pc increase on Charlie’s vote.
I saw her campaigning in Deal (where I dwell) — a trim, blonde, mother-of-two Catholic Brexiteer, much involved with local issues on hospitals and public services.
Asked by the local paper for her favourite eaterie, she nominated a popular ice-cream parlour rather than one of the finer cuisine spots. Smart move. For her role model, she cited a Dover priest, Fr Jeff Cridland, of St Paul’s, a church that runs Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for old Dover dockers.
When a wife outdoes a husband at the hustings, you wonder what the dynamics of home politics must be like.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has retained his seat in North-East Somerset, albeit with a reduced majority. But it’s reported he will no longer be Leader of the Commons. It’s not just his recent gaffes: his image is too posh, too archaic.
Yet he was a gift to cartoonists and comedians and in this probably added to the gaiety of the nation.