"In brief, this is a clear mandate to fulfill Brexit, and fulfill it quickly, and take Britain out of Europe, and a rejection of the hard-left policies of Jeremy Corbyn. To a certain degree Boris Johnson was almost irrelevant, in that it was Brexit and Corbyn rather than the character and ability of the Conservative leader that decided all this."
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As late as Thursday afternoon there were predictions that the Labour Party could form a government with the support of the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats. Or perhaps there would be another hung parliament. Instead, Labour suffered its fourth defeat in succession, was reduced to the lowest number of seats in living memory, and lost in working-class, blue-collar ridings that have been Labour strongholds for generations. The Conservatives under Boris Johnson have a huge majority and have been given five years of government.
In brief, this is a clear mandate to fulfil Brexit, and fulfil it quickly, and take Britain out of Europe, and a rejection of the hard-left policies of Jeremy Corbyn. To a certain degree Boris Johnson was almost irrelevant, in that it was Brexit and Corbyn rather than the character and ability of the Conservative leader that decided all this.
On Brexit, the exhaustion is almost palpable. I returned from Britain a few days ago, after spending two weeks speaking with MPs, senior media figures, church leaders, and academics, and the only issue where I found consensus was the draining yet dominant status of Brexit. Whatever people thought of it — and most of those I met were opposed — they wanted it resolved. Johnson campaigned on “Let’s get it done”, while Corbyn oozed ambivalence and uncertainty.
But the problems with the Labour leader went far, far deeper than that. As Nick Cohen, one of the most perceptive and prolific commentators on British politics wrote in The Spectator, “Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition did not win a majority and could never win a majority because millions could not vote for the incompetent and indecent Jeremy Corbyn. It’s that simple.”
I spent the first 28 years of my life in Britain, and the perennial backbencher Corbyn was regarded as a fringe political figure, supporting extreme and even violent revolutionary organizations in Ireland, the Middle East and elsewhere. The idea of him being a minister, let alone party leader, was preposterous. Yet it happened, and the doors for party membership were suddenly opened to former members of hard left and Marxist groups.
The party moved left, but also took on a new harshness and intolerance, especially around the subject of Israel/Palestine, leading to often justified accusations of anti-Semitism. The culprits may have been relatively few, but they were dealt with — when they were addressed at all — far too slowly and reluctantly by Corbyn and his staff. This, a lack of obvious leadership qualities, and profound internal divisions scratched away at the party base.
Even so, Jeremy Corbyn seemed to have an apparent popularity, one that we now know was extremely deceptive, revealing the deeply misleading nature of social media. Young people, activists, and celebrities, told us on Twitter and its siblings that the tide was red with socialism and that Comrade Corbyn was the nation’s hope. The actual result could not have been more different.
Of the smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats remain a rump, the Greens were unable to advance beyond a single seat, and the Democratic Unionists, the largest party of Northern Ireland’s Protestant community, has lost the power it possessed when propping up a minority Conservative government. The Scottish nationalists, the SNP, did well in a country that is far more self-consciously European than its southern neighbour. The party will push for another referendum, and oppose Brexit, but with a comfortable Tory majority there is a limit to what it can achieve.
The Conservatives themselves are a different party now, returning to the tone and composition of what it was under Margaret Thatcher more than 25 years ago. It’s more right wing, more northern, more anti-European, than it was; as such, it could also reshape the political climate in Britain for a generation to come. Labour has to reinvent itself, shed its recent reputation, and try to expunge the “Corbynista” image. Whether it can, even if it wants to, will become clear in the coming months.
The country’s politics will be dominated by Brexit, and as such it has to face the potentially worrying challenges of Northern Ireland’s border with the Irish Republic, a member of the European Union. But there are also the enormous problems caused by the government’s austerity policy, the decline of the National Health Service, and the increasing gulf between rich and poor.
2020 will likely be the most momentous for Britain’s place in the world and its self-perception since the decline of empire and even the Second World War. Whether Boris Johnson is the best person to be Prime Minister at such a time is open to question, but it doesn’t matter as the electorate has spoken. Now, as they say, it all begins.
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