Theresa May: The Mummy Has Dissolved!
by Sean Gabb
9th June 2017
I was hoping for a Conservative majority of no more than twenty seats in this election. Instead, they lost their majority. They seem able to cobble together some kind of deal with the Ulster Unionists. That will keep them in office. But they will not have the blank cheque they demanded. They have not even the limited mandate I wanted for them. They and their leader have made a mess of things.
There are immediate causes of what has happened. Theresa May ran a robotic election campaign focussed on herself. Anyone who declares a cult of personality should first make sure to have a personality. She had none, and was punished for it. Also, she and her friends took us for fools. Everyone knows the Referendum was won by UKIP. She and her friends claimed immediate possession, and spent the next year crying themselves up and eternal Eurosceptics. Also, Jeremy Corbyn turned out to be far more popular than his enemies in the political and media classes hoped he was. I have been saying this for nearly two years, even if I am not among his fans.
The wider causes? I can see two at the moment. The first is that we voted last year to leave the European Union. We did not vote to make the country into an offshore trading platform stabilised by a militarised police state. Scrape away her One Nation rhetoric, and that is what the Conservatives were offering. It has been rejected.
The second is that Donald Trump has been bad for dissidence from the right. He spent last year promising what the Slovaks call blue out of the sky. He was believed and elected. Ever since then, it has been a matter of what promises he will break this week. His failure was seen in England, and Jeremy Corbyn and his brand of dissidence have been the gainers. As said, people will support conservative causes. They will not vote for them if they believe those causes are a fig leaf for the usual suspects. We have had enough of Tory Boy Utopias.
What next? The week after next, the Prime Minister must go to Brussels and start formal discussions of our departure from the European Union. If Theresa May turns up, and turns up alone, she will be laughed at. So will any other Conservative Prime Minister. This is a problem. We are committed to leaving the European Union. The European Union is committed to making this as painful for us as it can. We cannot back out of our commitment without another referendum. No one will dare call this. Even if we do ask to stay, we shall be punished. We have no choice but to press on and try for the best.
My suggestion is that Mrs May should accept the logic of what has happened. A majority of twenty would have given her the mandate she needed. A deal with the Ulster Unionists will keep her in office for a while. If she is serious about leaving the European Union, she should go into a formal or informal coalition with Jeremy Corbyn. Offer him renationalisation of the railways and some of the utilities, and perhaps abolition of the House of Lords. Ask him to support her in Brussels. They could turn up there together, and tell the Europeans they represented over eighty per cent of the British people. And this is probably what the British people want, and is nothing to be regretted. Most privatisation was a fraudulent transfer of state property into the hands of a plutocratic elite. The real House of Lords was abolished in 1998.
I have nothing more to say. It is up to the politicians to start earning the fat salaries we pay them. Certainly, if Mrs May thinks she can sit out the next five years of radical change in our internal and external governance with Ulster Unionist support, she is even more stupid than I began to think she was two weeks ago.
Well, I always say I prefer a hanged parliament to a hung parliament. But I think a coalition or alliance with the DUP will be a good thing. Arlene Foster has already called for our whole 200 mile EEZ to be got back for Britain in negotiations over fishing rights, and at least the whole negotiations won’t be done to Theresa May. It’s always pleasant to see politicians fall flat on their faces.
Agreed, the DUP are more staunchly conservative than May’s wets will ever be. This is their opportunity to have an outsized chance of changing this government into a truly conservative one.
There will be no Brexit.
It’s Brexit, John, but not as we know it.
The whole caper puts Brexit into hazard.
It seems some Ukip went back to ZaNu after Corbog’s promise on Brexit. (Yeah right).
Then we have the Beardboy turnout.
And then–as in Canterbury –a new young dynamic of Uni-based freebie-seekers keen on free-stuff Corby won’t so far have to find the cash for.
Some blogs are saying this is a new young dynamic that the right can’t beat .
What is your opinion Sean and commentators?
Right now, the only thing I am interested in as far as mainstream politics is concerned is Brexit. That is the job the Tories have been given. They had better deliver.
There is much talk about Boomers – I agree, the Worst Generation – but here we have the younger Millennials voting for their own destruction with aplomb. It doesn’t auger well. Against that background, I care little for who happens to be the Prime Minister today, next week or in a year. I think Theresa May is probably the best person to lead Brexit anyway – and at least she now has her own mandate, with a socially conservative and patriotic DUP behind her – but it better happen. If it doesn’t, then I really don’t want to contemplate what might happen in this country.
The other pressing issue is the Moslem demographic group and whether they should remain in the country. I don’t expect mass deportations from a government led by Theresa May, but I do expect her to do something. If she won’t, then as soon as Brexit is secured, she has to go.
Corby has already said he will not leave the EU negotiation table under any circs.
Which was the Camoron’s position when he tried for a deal with the EU.
They gave him a bowl of ordure with some whipped cream on it out of a can. Except they didn’t bother with the whipped cream.
Sean you grotesquely under-estimate the degree to which Corbyn is a wrecker. No deal is possible with him in it that would be worth a damn.
Are you in a contest to think up the most outré schemes you can imagine?
Corbyn is supported by political dissidents and young, self-hating closet racists anxious-to-virtue-signal-that-they-are-not-racists, who want to “save the NHS” and scrap tuition fees.
Corbyn is despised by the old left [ still a powerful group] and anyone not overly-pleased to witness thousands of Muslims shouting “kill-all-Jews” on their way to next Corbyn platform appearance.
Old labour hands know full–well that Corbyn is a monster and they will have reality on their side – she’s a tough bitch.
Fun times lie ahead and we have everything to fight for – wish I was young.
Looking at it from the other side of the pond, it appears to me that May is what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had been elected instead of Trump. Someone not well liked, insisting on outdated policies, a neo fascist at heart and frankly not very bright (although Trump isn’t exactly either) I hope that the next PM for your country would be someone from the UKIP. Oh and lastly, that’s a great picture of May. It really looks like she is actually starting to melt!
Utterly untenable and hard to see on what grounds? That both parties combined would have greater moral weight to force an antagonistic EU into providing a better deal? Where is the reasoning for that? Where in fact is there any substance to the assertion by May that this election was needed for a demonstrable mandate in the first place, either for the Lords or the EU?
In fact if we look at Labour’s EU bottom line from its manifesto it’s for: “fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union…We will reject ‘no deal’ as a viable option and if needs be negotiate transitional arrangements to avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ for the UK economy…Labour will continue to work constructively with the EU and other European nations on issues such as climate change, refugee crises and counter-terrorism…We will seek to maintain membership of (or equivalent relationships with) European organisations…We will drop the Conservatives’ Great Repeal Bill, replacing it with an EU Rights and Protections Bill…all EU-derived laws that are of benefit – including workplace laws, consumer rights and environmental protections – are fully protected without qualifications, limitations or sunset clauses…Labour recognises the vital role that cross-border agencies such as Eurojust and Europol have played in making Britain safer and that European Arrest Warrants have been invaluable. ”
Before we even consider all the other areas that Labour members would demand a say in. Truly a frightening proposal.
Sean,
“Anyone who declares a cult of personality should first make sure to have a personality.”
This is immortal!