Tuesday 18 April 2017

It's a big meh from me.


So an election. More or less everybody thinks that Labour is going to tank and that Mrs May will walk it. They are probably right. Judging by Twitter the election is going to be a tedious re-run of the referendum where their great white hope is Tim Farron who is presently under fire for not being able to give a clear answer on whether being gay is sinful.

Ordinarily he would be attracting howls of rage but if you're a leftist any hypocrisy is allowed. Straight off the bat, I couldn't care less what he thinks but if you have god botherer opinions you should at least have the courage of conviction to admit them otherwise what is the point?

If it is to be a shadow referendum then remain has already lost it given that their options are split and they've spent the last year telling most people they're thick and xenophobic. I think it's fair to say that the Lib Dems will achieve a restoration of a sort but there's not much to get excited about. It is possible that they could form the next official opposition but by then Mrs May will have all the mandate she needs to do whatever she wants. There will have been a referendum, a parliamentary vote, article 50 and a general election. We are leaving the EU and that's the end of it.

What's interesting is that the Lib Dem campaign is already being forged by supporters without any official line announced by the party. Many seem to think they represent the last chance to remain. In this you really do have to marvel at dissociative dynamic in play.

Just supposing that by some accident of numbers the Lib Dems won the election, what exactly do they think would happen? That we can just wave a magic wand and the last two years of politics disappears and everything goes back to that blissful political consensus slumber? Just how trusted a member of the EU would Britain be with EU member states knowing that the UK's continued participation is only through a political connivance?

Moreover should they manage to defeat Brexit I cannot help feeling that all bets are off in terms of political stability. As toxic as politics presently is, I think they would be unleashing a darkness that could not be repaired. Whatever genie has been uncorked cannot be put back. The vote last June of itself was enough to send a real message.

This is though is all hypothetical. It's just not going to happen. This is why I fail to get excited about it. For a month or so we will have a high volume of political noise and then we shall have a Tory government headed by Mrs May with a weak opposition. No change basically. It remains to be seen whether Scotland will continue to vote for chippy grunting misanthropes but that is more an article of electoral curiosity than actual power play. Scotland isn't leaving the Union nor is it rejoining the EU.

So really the only question is not whether we leave the EU but how. In that there is still everything to play for and I shall continue to do what I have done from the start - to make the case for a measured, achievable and economically neutral Brexit. For me, today changes nothing.

No comments:

Post a Comment