UK: Conservatives predicted to win election with commanding majority

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Oh, and before I forget, it needs to be remembered @Zzyzx_Road that Boris Johnson got his victory in England because he caved into the EU’s original demands (rejected by sincere ‘British Unionist’ Theresa May, which is about all that can be said for her) to put Northern Ireland in a separate EU customs territory.

In other words, the “price” of Johnson’s victory was the de facto absorption of part of the UK, one of its constituent nations, into the EU regulatory sphere in perpetuity, with a customs border down the Irish Sea.

Johnson took the bauble waved before his eyes, for the sake of a “deal” to present to the public that removed that vexing Northern Irish business (i.e. the border between Republic and North that the Troubles where fought over before the Good Friday Agreement). He is a mercurial creature and has no fixed values or beliefs.

The entire thing is stitched-up is what I’m saying, and the saddest part of this is that while Scotland will (eventually) get what it wants, most working-class Brexiteer voters in Northern England have been sold a mess of pottage (English Remainers an even bleaker situation, in the short - medium term, but not necessarily the long-term). Brexit is not about to get “done”. The UK will legally exit the EU on or around January 31st 2020, but the “real” negotiations will then begin - years of wrangling over England’s future relationship with the EU (it took more than 7 years for the Canada - EU free trade agreement, CETA), all the while the SNP rallies up support and resentment for Scotland’s eventual secession from the UK (using Johnson’s initial refusal to concede a vote as part of the “democratic deficit” argument) and re-accession to the EU as 28th member in place of the “rUK” (rump UK), and Northern Ireland completes its course of being politically joined to the Republic of Ireland and the EU just as it will already be economically post-Brexit courtesy of Johnson’s betrayal of the Ulster Unionists for political advantage in England.

Whether Johnson claims to pursue a harder or softer Brexit, the EU wins i.e.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1203975930936483841

https://twitter.com/x/status/1203975933486612481

https://twitter.com/x/status/1203975934828843008

https://twitter.com/x/status/1203975936070373377

That’s the truth. Johnson has a simple choice between caving in to yet more EU demands, as he’s done already, or being held in limbo by them like Theresa May. But because he has a big majority, he’s no longer beholden to the Brexit ideologues in the ERG like May was.

Politics has become very predictable now.

I’ll refer back to this post in another 5 years if we’re all still posting.
 
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CradleRC58 said:
Appalling, isn’t it ?
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Utterly.

Johnson is the worst sort of human being, a loathsome opportunist.

But the truth of the matter is that no one, apart from the SNP and perhaps the Irish Nationalists too, are going to have a smile on their faces by the end of the next decade, or even just five years from now.

Those in jubilation the most at the moment are in for the hardest of hardest knocks with brute reality in the coming years, betrayed by the Brexiteer leaders who have led them thus far - especially Johnson.

Johnson betrayed and sold the DUP / Ulster Unionists down the river for political advantage - and very quickly at that. Might be a warning encoded in that somewhere. The DUP also believed in him…

In the history of political-wheeling and dealing, I’m not sure I’ve ever quite come across a national leader of an advanced economy who has agreed to parcel a substantial amount of his state’s territory to the economic regime of another entity (after promising he’d rather die in a ditch than do so), for domestic political advantage, and gone on to win huge approval for it from his electorate…It’s mind-boggling. But it’s happened so, yeah, guess that’s one for the history books right there!

Johnson, I freely concede, played his cards well. He knew that for the ERG Brexit extremists and their base, Brexit was the be-all-and-end-all. The details can go hang. Or rather, Corbyn lost so badly because he was just anathema to most of the country and Labour voters didn’t turn out to vote for him.

The EU, though, have found a leader far more pliable, diplomatically, than Theresa May in behind-the-scenes negotiations but also far more engaging, defiant and populist to English voters in public. That’s useful from their POV, in the coming stage 2 Brexit trade negotiations.

The situation and facts have not changed, its just that Johnson has proved a better spokesperson for the deal than May ever was, with the added benefit of chucking in Northern Ireland for good measure and likely (in the longer-term) Scotland as well. So the EU preserves the integrity of its single-market on the island of Ireland and Johnson gets a domestic majority in the House of Commons.

But as for me, well - I choose the winning side, a possibility that may be on offer for Scots before not too long…
 
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I honestly don’t know much at all about British politics.

I understand a little bit more after reading your post, but still not enough to offer any meaningful thoughts of my own.

All I’m getting out of the election is that the voters want out of the EU.
 
Vouthon said:
The joys of first-past-the-post. My sincere commiserations
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Thank you. I joined the Liberal Party nearly 60 years ago, so I’m used to waking up to dismal days after elections. But none so freighted with dread as this morning.
 
I think that ‘tipping point’ has finally been reached, as is evidenced by the Alliance party picking up votes from disgruntled NI unionists. There’s so much justified rage.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1205283821719080961

The last cut is the deepest. This is one betrayal too many, because they are actually now separated from the rest of the UK by a customs border.

I get the feeling there is recognition, at last, amongst the more pragmatic-minded Ulster unionists that they have been sold down the water and its translating for the first time into political change with the rise of Alliance.
 
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Indeed, I do find myself sympathising with them.

They have a strong sense of loyalty / attachment to their national identity, yet have been so appallingly treated by the Conservative “unionists” in Westminster.

From speaking to a few friends in Northern Ireland, I’m getting the sense that young Unionists have been particularly drawn to Alliance with its pro-Remain messages.

I think, if they’re smart, Irish Nationalists have the potential now to win these unionists round - adding to the rising Nationalist demographic that already favours them in a future border poll with every passing year.

And, it looks like even older UUP types - thinking along the lines of Mike Nesbit - are potentially winnable.

Its also the case that because the Republic has now embraced a more secular culture, and is much less confessional politically (even though still majority Catholic in population), it looks a lot less threatening now to Protestants in NI than it once did.
 
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@PickyPicky Not that it helps us, but…

UK general election 2019: Protests despite Boris Johnson call to 'let the healing begin' – as it happened | Politics | The Guardian
Overall, the Electoral Reform Society claim that 45.3% of votes did not get any representation, because of the number of voters who didn’t support the winning candidate.

More than 330,000 votes were needed to elect a Liberal Democrat, compared to 50,000 for Labour and 38,000 for Plaid Cymru and Conservative candidates.
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As I said, its a disgraceful voting system but with a Tory majority under FPTP, its unfortunately here to stay, delivering unrepresentative results for decades to come (by the looks of things).
 
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This too, is a sobering fact:


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Interestingly enough, however, while we were within the EU, we had constitutional restraints against arbitrary government.

The EU had introduced American-style constitutionalism to the UK.

Once we’ve left, then we go back to having absolutely no inalienable constitutional liberties other than those recognised by common law precedent and retained by the sovereign will of Parliament.

Many are critical of unlimited British parliamentarian voluntarism under Dicey’s doctrine of supremacy, as it is not the most (theoretically at least) ideal system for ensuring the rule of law if, god forbid, authoritarianism does cement itself.

https://www.wlv.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/wlv-blog/2017/who-will-protect-us-from-westminster/

Who will Protect Us from Westminster?​

08/05/2017 - 11.34​

John Cotter - Senior Lecturer in Law

There are a number of causes for disquiet about human rights protection in the UK post-Brexit. This blog post looks at two inter-connected concerns:

(a) Brexit will result in the loss in the UK of judicial mechanisms for the protection of rights against legislative interference;

(b) The judicial human rights protection mechanisms against legislative interference in the UK constitutional system are weak.

The Weak Judicial Protection Mechanisms in the UK Constitutional Order​

The preamble to the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) refers to “the inherent dignity and … the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”.

The UK’s constitutional system, however, has never regarded human rights as inalienable or antecedent to positive law. The cornerstone of the UK constitutional order is parliamentary sovereignty.

Legal systems based on the credo that rights exist before and are superior to positive law tend to impose checks on legislative power. In such legal systems, or constitutional democracies, a court will be granted jurisdiction to review the validity of parliamentary legislation and strike it down where it breaches constitutionally protected rights.

However, as a result of parliamentary supremacy, no such review of legislation is possible in the UK.

As discussed above, the Government proposes to remove the CFREU from the UK legal order, thereby eliminating the only basis upon which courts may review the validity of parliamentary legislation.

This author argues that the return to the traditional unfettered power of Westminster to interfere with fundamental rights without any binding judicial remedy for the victim is concerning

It is, in this author’s view, naïve to believe that the ballot box or decency constitute sufficient checks against majoritarian excesses.
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Another argument in favour of Scottish Independence.
 
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We’ll have to wait and see. It’s not like Unionists have ever had a deep and abiding love affair with Westminster. While I think the odds of a united Ireland are higher today than they were, I still think it’s a long way off. And as I’ve said here before, there are many in Westminster who probably wouldn’t shed many tears if NI reunited with Ireland, it’s been an endless pain in the you-know-what for decades. But perhaps Johnson’s betrayal of DUP, and their now being relegated back to political impotence may be the final straw.
 
As a Canadian, I have some experience with minority governments under the FPTP system. They almost inevitably invite constitutional crises. Pretty much every significant constitutional crisis, from the Pacific Scandal in the 1870s all the way to the 2008 Prorogation Crisis, was sparked because a minority government was pushing the boundaries to fend off the opposition parties.

Johnson certainly pushed far beyond what any modern PM has done, but by and large this is a product of the ill-conceived Fixed Term Parliament Act, which removed the Royal Prerogative of Dissolution. This Act was passed to protect the Conservative-LibDem coalition, but effectively removed one of a Prime Minister’s most important political tools, the ability to call an election. May engineered a dissolution, but to do it, she required an overly ambitious Labour Party to take the bait, and this time around it was the same. Whether out of hubris or simply wanting to put the last Parliament out of its misery, the opposition parties played ball. Of course, anyone with any sense at all would have known that Corbyn was electoral poison.

There’s a reason the British Conservative Party is the most successful political party in modern history. Tories may hate each other, they may spend inter-election periods carving pounds of flesh off each other, but when push comes to shove, they know how to regroup. I doubt even many Tories like Johnson, but they knew Corbyn was toxic, that the British electorate would never willingly put him in Number 10. To put it bluntly, the one thing that united a majority of Leavers and Remainers in England, at least, was the desire to keep Corbyn from even becoming PM, even by accident.
 
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niceatheist said:
While I think the odds of a united Ireland are higher today than they were, I still think it’s a long way off.
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I think it’s more of a drip-feed.

Northern Ireland, under Johnson’s deal, will already - without a border poll - have a closer economic relationship with the Republic / EU than it does with the UK, because it will be in a form of single market membership. There will likewise be a de facto customs territory on the island of Ireland under EU standards.

So Johnson, ironically, has kick-started NI’s distancing from the UK mainland. Its a reality now and under international law in the form of the withdrawal agreement too.

Unionists know this and feel betrayed. With the stroke of a pen, over creme brulee and cakes, a British Prime Minister has achieved something close to what Irish nationalists fought for and failed to achieve throughout decades of civil war in the province.

So, really, Northern Ireland is moving outwith the UK sphere and into the Irish one anyway.

Political integration is much more feasible later on, after some years of this arrangement. If your already functioning as almost a single economy with the Republic, eventually you might want to have some agency and say over the rules you’ve got to follow. Ergo, why not join 'em.

In the end “re-unfication” - when it comes - will be more or less a legal courtesy.

There’s also an interesting Scottish angle to this: a lot of Scottish Tory Brexit voters are NI-linked “unionists”. Many of them have roots in Ulster and links through things like the Orange Order and the Orange Walk / 12th of July celebrations.

If their Irish brethren give up the ghost, they’ll probably likewise cease being, in any meaningful sense, British loyalists and just resign themselves to an independent Scotland.

Likewise, if Scotland becomes independent - that makes the British union much less attractive to some Northern Irish unionists, as most of their fellow Orangemen are no longer part of it and the English have already forsaken them. Scotland really takes the stuffing out of the whole thing.

So the Scottish and Irish cases are linked, and I expect both will be watching the other closely.
 
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The papers tomorrow:

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Uh-huh.

Funny how after all the Brexit drama, in the end it all comes back down to the fraught, millennial long relationship between Scotland and England.
 
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Vouthon said:
The Scottish Parliament has a form of proportional representation
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It does, although I’m not very much in favour of party lists (even though it’s only partly based on party lists, of course).
 
Vouthon said:
Once we’ve left, then we go back to having absolutely no inalienable constitutional liberties other than those recognised by common law precedent and retained by the sovereign will of Parliament
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And with our charming prime minister pledged to increase the power of the executive and reduce the power of the courts, we are entering dark times.
 
One of the really weird things about these forums is that your post can be deleted as inappropriate, or whatever, but it’s often still ‘there’ because some poster has quoted it!
 
Well I see the sour grapes are out in full force.

You’ve had your second referendum. It voted Brexit, again.
 
FirstFiveEighth said:
Well I see the sour grapes are out in full force.

You’ve had your second referendum. It voted Brexit, again
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Actually a majority voted for parties backing a second referendum. But all that is water under the bridge. It’s not sour grapes. The Tories have a big majority of seats. Those of us who fear the future fear the future. Is that OK? We allowed to say that?
 
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