General Election June 2017

Keith Parkins
Light on a Dark Mountain
6 min readJun 11, 2017
Theresa May introduces her new front bench

She fought the election on the basis she wanted a personal mandate. She said vote for me. I said vote for Labour. — Jeremy Corbyn

In what could only be described as arrogance, and contempt for the Fixed Term Parliament Act, Theresa May called a General Election.

Her excuse, obstruction to Brexit in Parliament, she required a mandate.

There was no obstruction in Parliament, and she had a mandate, the British people voted for Brexit.

Her real reason, she thought she could rely on the coup plotters in Labour to derail any campaign, anything to be rid of Jeremy Corbyn, and the mainstream media ever willing to grant the coup plotters a platform.

It spectacularly backfired.

She ran a terrible campaign, called an election, but avoided the public, refused to engage in any meaningful conversation or debate and when she was questioned came across as a malfunctioning robot in need of a factory reboot. And worse still, she has seriously damaged our Brexit negotiations

Jeremy Corbyn meanwhile was addressing mass public rallies, engaging with people on a human level, relishing every moment.

Labour only made two mistakes, and these were bad mistakes, failure to deselect the coup potters, failure to show that Labour would not be a soft touch in negotiations with the EU.

Theresa May has now lost her majority, and to the revulsion of most decent people, is calling upon the DUP to prop her up. This deal has been done without any consultation with her own party.

Any politician of integrity would have resigned, as did David Cameron when he lost the referendum, as did Ed Miliband when Labour did badly in the last General Election.

The only person to have come out with his dignity intact has been Jeremy Corbyn. He has inspired people, given them hope.

The behaviour of the media, the smears, has been a disgrace. And it was not only The Scum, it was also papers like fake-left Guardian and New Statesman.

The good news, the media has little impact. They are a busted flush

As the polls closed and the exit polls released, journalists once again showed how clueless they are, we were not expecting this.

Friday night, Saturday morning, the scum in the Labour Party were given a platform by the BBC to attack Jeremy Corbyn. His programme has no popular appeal, he failed to win an election.

Jeremy Corbyn achieved what everyone said was impossible, he took Labour from a very low level in the opinion polls and won seats for Labour.

And why was Labour low in the polls? All thanks to the relentless attacks by Labour scum who the party would be well shot of.

Labour did well

  • inspiration and hope from Jeremy Corbyn
  • economic plan put forward by John McDonnell
  • hard work by Momentum
  • Theresa May robot
  • dreadful Conservative Manifesto

Had it not been for a cabal of Labour MPs, Tom Watson, Hilary Benn, Peter Kyle, Jess Phillips et al, and Tony Blair and his cohorts, Peter Mandelson et al, with their relentless attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, Labour would have won the General Election.

People supported Jeremy Corbyn and his message of hope, his policies, they did dot not vote for Labour. Were he removed and Labour return to the backward, reactionary, rotten and corrupt party it was, that support would evaporate overnight.

Think what could have happened in the US if Bernie Sanders had had the guts to stand as an Independent?

Aldershot is a run down town, more like a large inner city.

Labour in Aldershot ran an atrocious campaign. They tried very hard not to win.

A useless candidate, and little evidence of any campaigning.

But when you look at their local councillors, easy to see something very wrong.

A complete failure to make use of social media, both by the candidate and leader of the local party.

Where Jeremy Corbyn inspired people, the Aldershot candidate generated as much enthusiasm as a wet dishcloth.

Where to the Green Party?

It is an entirely pointless exercise to run candidates who have not a hope in hell’s chance of being elected. Far better to use those resources to connect with and build communities, create open coops, use faircoin, create local initiatives, follow example of Barcelona and Madrid, local citizens seize control of local town halls, then network these citizen-controlled town halls, not only within UK, but across Europe.

This equally applies to Momentum and the large social movement they have built up. Establish a base at local level that works with and on the behalf of everyone.

Difficult to imagine anyone worse than Tony Blair or David Cameron but Theresa May has proved everyone wrong.

No mandate as party leader, she was not elected.

No mandate as Prime Minister, she was rejected.

Having called an unnecessary General Election, she showed arrogant contempt for the electorate, no open public meetings, refused to engage in debate.

No mandate for EU negotiations.

She has seriously weakened UK negotiating position with EU.

She has no mandate to join a coalition with DUP, arrogance once again showing with lack of party consultation.

Decent Tories should speak out and if necessary support a Vote of No Confidence in any government that involves DUP.

She should form a minority government.

If this fails, which it will as it will fail a Vote of Confidence, then Jeremy Corbyn should form a minority government.

Only if a Corbyn led government falls, should a second General Election be called.

Yvette Cooper has made the sensible suggestion, an all party group to handle EU negotiations.

Young people, who support Jeremy Corbyn, need to wake up to how bad the EU, talk to young people in southern Europe.

We need to reach out across Europe, but also recognise, EU will be brutal, it will be determined to destroy the UK, no matter what the cost to Europe.

On Thursday night, austerity and neo-liberalism died. It has given hope across Europe.

We may have a zombie in Downing Street, but she will not last, she has no authority, no support from her own party.

If enough people put their minds and backs to it, we can change anything. We do not jump to tune of evil Murdoch Empire.

--

--

Keith Parkins
Light on a Dark Mountain

Writer, thinker, deep ecologist, social commentator, activist, enjoys music, literature and good food.