Just 49 days to Brexit as Johnson set for landslide
Election disaster for Labour as Conservatives win majority
BREXIT has moved a step closer as Boris Johnson is set to be returned as UK Prime Minister with a significant Conservative Party majority.
According to a general election exit poll, Mr Johnson is predicted to win 368 seats which will give him control of the House of Commons and allow him pass the Brexit deal he agreed with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. If the opinion poll result is accurate, Mr Johnson is on course to deliver on his commitment to leave the EU on January 31.
As UK voters went to the polls yesterday, Mr Varadkar said he hoped UK voters did not return another “hung parliament” in the ‘Brexit election’.
Speaking before an EU summit in Brussels, the Taoiseach said he hoped the electorate returned “a large majority” for Mr Johnson or for the combined parties who backed remaining in the EU.
Mr Varadkar said the worst outcome for Ireland would be another British parliament without an overall majority, which would mean more inaction on Brexit.
ACHEER went up from the back of Kensington Town Hall as the returning officer was addressing his staff ahead of the count.
Tory activists heard the result of the exit poll at 10pm. The first boxes hadn’t even arrived at the count centre.
But the election was over and the night already belonged to the Conservatives.
Kensington was the most marginal seat in London, with Labour holding a 20-vote majority over the Tories.
The arrival of a former Tory minister and Brexit rebel Sam Gyimah added to the intrigue.
The stakes were high. Labour’s Emma Dent Coad was still tipped to hold off the Tory Felicity Buchan.
Nonetheless, Boris Johnson scored an emphatic victory across the country.
The implications of the clear-cut result were immediately apparent:
:: Johnson will have a substantial majority to ‘Get Brexit Done’;
:: Jeremy Corbyn is finished as Labour leader after delivering the worst result since 1935;
:: The second Brexit referendum is dead in the water;
:: The Liberal Democrats pro-Remain argument has flopped miserably;
:: Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party was also done with as it failed to win seats again;
:: The SNP’s swoop puts a Scottish independence referendum argument back on the table, but is likely to put off by Johnson.
Northern Ireland’s future in the union also comes into sharp focus now.
In years to come, this night may well prove to be a stepping stone towards a United Ireland. Delivering the best Tory Party result since Margaret Thatcher in 1987 will make Johnson more bullish. Winning an extra 50 seats was at the high end of Conservative Party hopes. He leads a party that is now more influenced by the north of England, more working class and more Brexiteer.
Johnson will take the result as a clear mandate for his policy of ploughing on with Brexit.
Heading into the closing days, one in four voters was undecided. They were trying to decide between the lesser of two lessers.
The presidential nature of the campaign, focusing on Johnson versus Corbyn, cast British politics in a poor light.
In any circumstances, the ground was favourable for an opposition party – just not this opposition party with this leader.
The government party had presided over a decade of austerity and was in the quagmire of a policy position it frustratingly couldn’t pass through parliament.
The sitting prime minister can politely be described as a charlatan and a philanderer with a questionable relationship with honesty.
His government has had more ministerial resignations and MPs having the whip removed than any other.
And yet Johnson was given a pass by voters. When compared to his opponent, he just couldn’t lose.
Corbyn’s personal polling figures are the worst of any opposition leader since
Sajid Javid was hidden away to avoid the economy being a topic for debate. It’s Brexit, stupid, is the message
records began.
Many voters struggled to take him seriously as a prospective prime minister.
What was striking in his election was the number of people in his own party who openly lamented his leadership.
Corbyn’s name came up on the doorsteps everywhere – and not in a positive way.
A point in this campaign which symbolised the Labour malaise came in the closing days. Johnson was on the ropes over the state of the NHS.
When presented with a photo of a four-year-old child with suspected pneumonia on a hospital floor, he blathered and blustered.
Rather than look at the image, he took a journalist’s phone and put it in his pocket.
The affair summed up the perception of the Tories as uncaring and neglecting the health service.
Corbyn has made his campaign all about funding and protecting the NHS.
It was perfect Labour territory to capitalise upon.
Within 24 hours, it was gone off the agenda, replaced by a Labour frontbencher saying his party’s prospects were “dire” under Corbyn’s leadership and his fumbling on Brexit.
The sorry saga summed up the inadequacies of the Labour camp and their leader. Within minutes of the exit poll, the sniping at Corbyn had already begun. The heave is on.
The Tories’ parallel campaign focused solely on Johnson’s callow promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’.
Copying Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ playbook, he repeated the plain message ad nauseam.
Johnson has ducked and dived his way through the campaign, evading interview, avoiding questioning, even escaping into a freezer to dodge scrutiny.
Hidden
There was little or no detail on the trade agreements he claims will fall into place.
Meanwhile, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid was hidden away to avoid the economy being a topic for debate. Incredible.
It’s Brexit, stupid, is the message. Frustrated into submission by three years of interminable debate on Brexit, the British voters have been fed a superficial solution.
And they swallowed it, maybe because they had no alternative on offer.
Treated like children, their politics has become as facile as in the United States.
The once enviable British political system has been reduced to this mortifying monstrosity.