The British Election
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Boris and his troops demolished Labour's red wall...
The fall of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ is a moment to celebrate
Brendan O'Neill
13 December 2019
Spiked
The ‘red wall’ has fallen. Brick by brick. Almost every bit of it. Seats held by Labour for decades have been seized by the Tories. To me, this is the most exciting thing in this extraordinary election. It feels almost revolutionary. Working people have smashed years and years of tradition and laid to waste the nauseating, paternalistic idea that they would vote for a donkey so long as it was wearing a red rosette.
The ‘red wall’ results are staggering. In Bolsover, held by Dennis Skinner since 1970, the Tories now have a 5,000+ majority. Former mining towns like Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield — Tony Blair’s old seat — fell to the Tories.
Caroline Flint lost Don Valley — a shame, given Flint was one of very few Labour MPs who sensed that the party’s betrayal of its working-class, Brexit-voting communities would cost it dear.
Blyth Valley has a Tory MP for the first time in its 69-year history. Dehenna Davison, a Sheffield-born, Hull-educated 25-year-old, is Bishop Auckland’s first Tory MP in its 134-year history. She has a majority of nearly 8,000.
And on it goes. Stockton South, Darlington, Wrexham. Seat after seat that Labour bigwigs presumed for decades would naturally vote Labour — because that’s what working-class people do, right? — have turned blue. Get this: former Welsh miners and the northern working classes trust an Eton-educated bumbling eccentric more than they do the Labour party.
It’s worth letting that sink in. The plummy culture warriors of Momentum and the Corbyn-loving sections of the Twitterati constantly played up what a toff Boris is. Eton! Bullingdon! That voice! He is utterly out of touch with normal people, they said. And yet now we know those normal people felt far more distant from the performative bourgeois radicalism of Labour’s new woke set than they did from a Boris-led Tory party that at least said to them: ‘Listen — we will respect that important, meaningful vote for Brexit that you cast in 2016.’
That’s the thing. For all the naff, sixth-former ‘eat the rich’ posturing of the Corbyn cling-ons, most voters don’t really care what accent or background a politician has. They care what he or she says. And Boris, in his posh, bumbling tones that will sound so alien to the people of Blackpool South and the Vale of Clwyd — more new Tory seats — said he would uphold Brexit. That’s what millions wanted to hear.
The red wall, which stretched from North Wales and across northern England, was demolished by the Tories
Did the ‘red wall’ crumble because of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership or because of Labour’s betrayal of Brexit? This debate has started in earnest and it will rage for weeks. It is likely to have been a combination of both. Surely one incredibly important lesson the political class will learn from this is that if you disrespect people’s democratic votes — as Labour did with its promise to cancel Brexit and hold a second referendum — then people will punish you. Denigrate democracy and democracy will have its payback.
The insults of the ‘red wall’ inhabitants will fly thick and fast. The over-educated middle classes who make up the membership base of Corbyn’s Labour party will say these people were hoodwinked by tabloids or brainwashed by Bozzer.
Class contempt of Victorian proportions is already being visited upon these good people, in fact. Enraged Corbynista Paul Mason is describing the election result as a ‘victory of the old over the young, racists over people of colour, selfishness over the planet’. These people seem blissfully unaware that it is such seething contempt for ordinary voters that turned so many people off the newly woke, post-working-class Labour party.
Key Corbynista Ash Sarkar wrote in the Guardian a couple of days ago:
‘It is a myth that Labour has lost the working class.’
That hasn’t aged well. Across the country the working classes have abandoned Labour, because Labour abandoned them. It sneered at their vote for Brexit; it looked down its nose at their cultural values; it called them racist and xenophobic for being critical of the European Union and concerned about mass immigration.
Labour embraced an agenda of identity politics over community values, EU neoliberalism over British patriotism and radical virtue-signalling over the ideals of family, work and togetherness. And its working-class base said no, no, no.
This is a warning to the entire political class. Do not take voters for granted. Do not insult them. Do not demean their democratic voice. Because, whatever you might say to the contrary, they have minds of their own, and they will soon make up their mind that you are a patronising git who may no longer represent their community.
Nobody should mourn the collapse of the red wall — it is one of the best things to happen in the political life of this country for decades.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/the-fall-of-labours-red-wall-is-a-moment-to-celebrate/
The fall of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ is a moment to celebrate
Brendan O'Neill
13 December 2019
Spiked
The ‘red wall’ has fallen. Brick by brick. Almost every bit of it. Seats held by Labour for decades have been seized by the Tories. To me, this is the most exciting thing in this extraordinary election. It feels almost revolutionary. Working people have smashed years and years of tradition and laid to waste the nauseating, paternalistic idea that they would vote for a donkey so long as it was wearing a red rosette.
The ‘red wall’ results are staggering. In Bolsover, held by Dennis Skinner since 1970, the Tories now have a 5,000+ majority. Former mining towns like Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield — Tony Blair’s old seat — fell to the Tories.
Caroline Flint lost Don Valley — a shame, given Flint was one of very few Labour MPs who sensed that the party’s betrayal of its working-class, Brexit-voting communities would cost it dear.
Blyth Valley has a Tory MP for the first time in its 69-year history. Dehenna Davison, a Sheffield-born, Hull-educated 25-year-old, is Bishop Auckland’s first Tory MP in its 134-year history. She has a majority of nearly 8,000.
And on it goes. Stockton South, Darlington, Wrexham. Seat after seat that Labour bigwigs presumed for decades would naturally vote Labour — because that’s what working-class people do, right? — have turned blue. Get this: former Welsh miners and the northern working classes trust an Eton-educated bumbling eccentric more than they do the Labour party.
It’s worth letting that sink in. The plummy culture warriors of Momentum and the Corbyn-loving sections of the Twitterati constantly played up what a toff Boris is. Eton! Bullingdon! That voice! He is utterly out of touch with normal people, they said. And yet now we know those normal people felt far more distant from the performative bourgeois radicalism of Labour’s new woke set than they did from a Boris-led Tory party that at least said to them: ‘Listen — we will respect that important, meaningful vote for Brexit that you cast in 2016.’
That’s the thing. For all the naff, sixth-former ‘eat the rich’ posturing of the Corbyn cling-ons, most voters don’t really care what accent or background a politician has. They care what he or she says. And Boris, in his posh, bumbling tones that will sound so alien to the people of Blackpool South and the Vale of Clwyd — more new Tory seats — said he would uphold Brexit. That’s what millions wanted to hear.
The red wall, which stretched from North Wales and across northern England, was demolished by the Tories
Did the ‘red wall’ crumble because of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership or because of Labour’s betrayal of Brexit? This debate has started in earnest and it will rage for weeks. It is likely to have been a combination of both. Surely one incredibly important lesson the political class will learn from this is that if you disrespect people’s democratic votes — as Labour did with its promise to cancel Brexit and hold a second referendum — then people will punish you. Denigrate democracy and democracy will have its payback.
The insults of the ‘red wall’ inhabitants will fly thick and fast. The over-educated middle classes who make up the membership base of Corbyn’s Labour party will say these people were hoodwinked by tabloids or brainwashed by Bozzer.
Class contempt of Victorian proportions is already being visited upon these good people, in fact. Enraged Corbynista Paul Mason is describing the election result as a ‘victory of the old over the young, racists over people of colour, selfishness over the planet’. These people seem blissfully unaware that it is such seething contempt for ordinary voters that turned so many people off the newly woke, post-working-class Labour party.
Key Corbynista Ash Sarkar wrote in the Guardian a couple of days ago:
‘It is a myth that Labour has lost the working class.’
That hasn’t aged well. Across the country the working classes have abandoned Labour, because Labour abandoned them. It sneered at their vote for Brexit; it looked down its nose at their cultural values; it called them racist and xenophobic for being critical of the European Union and concerned about mass immigration.
Labour embraced an agenda of identity politics over community values, EU neoliberalism over British patriotism and radical virtue-signalling over the ideals of family, work and togetherness. And its working-class base said no, no, no.
This is a warning to the entire political class. Do not take voters for granted. Do not insult them. Do not demean their democratic voice. Because, whatever you might say to the contrary, they have minds of their own, and they will soon make up their mind that you are a patronising git who may no longer represent their community.
Nobody should mourn the collapse of the red wall — it is one of the best things to happen in the political life of this country for decades.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/the-fall-of-labours-red-wall-is-a-moment-to-celebrate/
Boris Johnson's shock 'n' awe: How the PM only expected a small majority on election night - before celebrating his huge victory by tucking into a curry made by Carrie Symonds, breaking his alcohol ban and giving David Cameron a 'man hug'
HARRY COLE: As the PM awaited his fate on Thursday evening, sitting in Margaret Thatcher's old study on the first floor of 10 Downing Street, it was the spectre of another female Tory leader that haunted him. Despite having run a sophisticated data-driven campaign, months in the planning and ruthlessly executed, he could not escape the fear he might repeat Theresa May's 2017 Election disaster. But before long, Mr Johnson was heralded the most successful Tory leader in a generation, thanks to a remarkable result that saw old party allegiances ripped up, Labour strongholds obliterated and the people's decision to leave the EU finally cemented. Mr Johnson could finally celebrate in a truly British fashion: a homemade chicken curry cooked by girlfriend Carrie Symonds (couple, left at the Uxbridge count). At 3.45am, with the Prime Minister growing his personal majority, he thanked his boozy staff (top right). The party went on until 5am. It had been a draining campaign, and the clearly exhausted Prime Minister was bumbling even more than usual at his victory party on Friday evening (bottom right).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...M-expected-small-majority-election-night.html
HARRY COLE: As the PM awaited his fate on Thursday evening, sitting in Margaret Thatcher's old study on the first floor of 10 Downing Street, it was the spectre of another female Tory leader that haunted him. Despite having run a sophisticated data-driven campaign, months in the planning and ruthlessly executed, he could not escape the fear he might repeat Theresa May's 2017 Election disaster. But before long, Mr Johnson was heralded the most successful Tory leader in a generation, thanks to a remarkable result that saw old party allegiances ripped up, Labour strongholds obliterated and the people's decision to leave the EU finally cemented. Mr Johnson could finally celebrate in a truly British fashion: a homemade chicken curry cooked by girlfriend Carrie Symonds (couple, left at the Uxbridge count). At 3.45am, with the Prime Minister growing his personal majority, he thanked his boozy staff (top right). The party went on until 5am. It had been a draining campaign, and the clearly exhausted Prime Minister was bumbling even more than usual at his victory party on Friday evening (bottom right).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...M-expected-small-majority-election-night.html
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TONY PARSONS Labour got what they deserved for abandoning their traditional working class supporters
COMMENT
Tony Parsons
15 Dec 2019
The Sun On Sunday
THE LABOUR Party thought it could do it without the working class and it was wrong.
Labour reckoned it could be openly contemptuous towards its traditional supporters — you know, the ones who are not avocado-munching Marxists, the ones who live beyond the London bubble, the ones who didn’t go to private schools, the ones who never touched a copy of the Guardian in their life — and somehow still muster enough support to win the General Election. Wrong.
The PM swept to power by millions who never voted Tory in their lives and now he has to keep them
There are simply not that many avocado-munching Marxists in the country, comrade.
Labour has spent years calling the 17.4million people who voted to leave the European Union stupid, *racist, pig-ignorant peasants.
This is just in — calling people stupid is not a vote-winner.
And now, this sorry excuse for a Labour Party has been given the apocalyptic kicking it so richly deserved.
Under the extremist stewardship of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and the brain-dead thugs of Momentum, Labour happily abandoned the working class. And now the working class has abandoned Labour. My guess — for ever.
'OUT-OF-TOUCH'
The North is blue. The Red Wall has fallen. Great Grimsby. S****horpe. Even Bolsover — home of Dennis Skinner, the erstwhile “Beast of Bolsover” — is Tory today.
And Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton North East and Sedgefield — Tony Blair’s safe Labour seat for so many years — are sending Conservative MPs to Westminster.
The great mystery is how Labour ever deluded itself that this country could embrace a party leader who has licked the grimy toenails of Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA and indeed, it seems, any Brit-hating terrorist that would cheerfully do a jig on all our graves.
This country will never elect a leader who openly despises the nation he seeks to represent. Why would we?
Labour — this jaw-droppingly out-of-touch Labour Party, this North London protest group masquerading as a serious political party — forgot why it was founded more than a century ago.
And no, it wasn’t to represent a bunch of privately educated revolutionaries in Islington. It was to stand up for the working man and woman.
Labour spat on the very people it was meant to represent. And now watch Labour choking on its own spit.
Brexit — and the endless sneering at Brexit, and the thwarting of Brexit, and the endless attempts to abort Brexit — was just the start of Labour’s spectacular fall.
Corbyn’s Labour never understood the working class.
Hear this, comrade — the working class do not want handouts. They are not victims. They can’t be bought with glass beads, shiny trinkets and promises of free broadband.
And they do not think they should apologise for being British and for loving this country and its history.
TORIES ARE THE WORKING CLASS PARTY
All across our nation, working-class communities decided that the Conservatives were the true party of the working class.
And let’s be honest, those Labour-voting heartlands have always had plenty of reasons to NOT vote Tory.
Although Boris’s spectacular victory is being compared to Mrs Thatcher’s glory years, Maggie was always heartily despised in the regions where they built ships and mined for coal and did jobs where you got your hands dirty.
For when these hard-working communities were tossed on the scrapheap of changing times, there seemed scant sympathy or understanding in Maggie Thatcher’s Conservative Party about the human cost of deindustrialisation.
These proud working-class communities in the North and the Midlands were never Tory. Until now.
Analysis by the Financial Times shows that the more low-paid, low-skilled workers living in a constituency, the better the Tories did.
Think about it — the Tories are the party fighting for struggling families now.
And their victory is so complete that the leaders of the two opposition parties, Jo Swinson and Jeremy Corbyn, have either resigned or are about to resign.
These men and women in those post-industrial communities saw their families suffer dreadfully when the old industries died.
They were never going to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and his Communist clowns.
But getting them to actually break the habit of a lifetime and vote Tory signals an historic change in our politics.
Families that suffered from the decline in industry were never going to vote for Corbyn and his metropolitan elite Credit: PA
ress Association
After this week, the old tribal party loyalties have gone for ever.
It no longer matters a damn how your parents and your grandparents voted.
Boris Johnson has been swept to power by millions who never voted Tory in their lives. Now he has to keep them.
And he has to show he is a Prime Minister who understands that there is a country beyond the M25.
Brexit is just the start.
The Prime Minister’s in-tray is piled high with the housing crisis, rising crime and communities across our nation that feel totally forgotten by Westminster. Brexit should have been done and dusted years ago.
And the only reason it is not is because the establishment cynically thwarted the result of the 2016 EU referendum.
But all the yakking about revoking Article 50, and a second referendum, and arcane Parliamentary procedures, and cobblers about a “People’s Vote” is suddenly in the past.
If Remainers want us to be members of the EU then they must now be prepared to campaign for decades.
The Brexit debate is over and Boris Johnson has a mandate to reshape our country as a global nation that is open to trade with the world.
Frankly, Boris’s election campaign was uninspired.
Boris’s victory is being compared to Thatcher’s glory years but Maggie didn't have the support of miners and was despised in traditional Labour areas Credit: Getty - Contributor
Boris beat Corbyn the way that boxer Anthony Joshua beat roly-poly Andy Ruiz Jr in Saudi Arabi — safety first, nothing fancy, just stay on the end of your jab and, above all, WIN. Because the consequences of losing were just too bloody awful to contemplate.
But if the campaign was uninspiring, Boris remains an inspirational politician.
People like him. He gives them optimism and hope. He puts a smile on faces.
His enemies paint him as a racist, right-wing bigot but the man is exactly the opposite.
Boris is a tolerant, big-hearted, one-nation Tory with a razor-sharp mind and an endlessly generous spirit.
The newspaper article that is always cited as evidence of his racism — the one where he compared women in full-body burkas to a letter box — was actually advocating their right to dress any way they choose, no matter how ridiculous it looks.
There is no hatred in Boris Johnson. There is no poison. And God knows there has been a poisonous atmosphere in our politics for years.
I live in an inner-city, safe Labour seat, and usually there would be the leaflets of three or four parties represented in the windows of our neighbourhood.
But there were no leaflets in windows at this election. Because there is too much hatred abroad, too much toxic division, too many idiots willing to stick a brick through the window of someone who dares to disagree with them.
BEGIN TO HEAL
Whatever our beliefs, the great hope now must be that we can start coming together as a country, and begin to heal, and start building some kind of national unity.
A Tory Prime Minister elected by the working class seems a good place to start.
My parents — a Labour-voting mum and a Liberal-voting dad — despised the Tories as the party of the rich, the privileged, the out-of-touch toffs.
That sentiment has been shared by millions of *working-class men and women since the end of World War Two. Until now.
From the Black Country to Blyth Valley, we are all Tories now.
It is ironic that it took an Old Etonian Oxford graduate (although he was a scholarship boy at both Eton and Oxford) to make the Tories the natural party of the working class.
And now Prime Minister Johnson and his new Tories must prove they are worthy of all those working-class votes.
LABOUR MUST SOUL SEARCH
And let us hope that the Labour Party can find its soul again.
Let us hope that this formerly great party of compassion, social justice and equality can kick out all the bigots, middle-class Reds, IRA groupies, friends of Hamas and Hezbollah and the anti-Semites who would rather wave the Palestinian flag than the Union Jack.
But it is likely that *Labour has already been dumped in the recycling bin of history.
Because this doesn’t feel like a defeat for the Labour Party. It feels more like a death.
It is hard to see how Labour can crawl out from under this landslide.
These last years have not really been about party politics. They have been about the will of the people coming into direct conflict with the will of the establishment.
The combined forces of the House of Commons and House of Lords, the BBC and Channel 4, the Supreme Court and expensive lawyers, RADA revolutionaries like Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and Emma Thompson, all placed themselves above people.
All of the political paralysis, and the national humiliation of never getting Brexit done, and the endless frustration of seeing democracy being cheated stems from an arrogant establishment that refused to accept the largest vote for anything in our history.
What a shameful, anti-democratic place this country would be if they had won. But they lost. Now let us move forward at last.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10553894/labour-wrong-abandon-working-class/
COMMENT
Tony Parsons
15 Dec 2019
The Sun On Sunday
THE LABOUR Party thought it could do it without the working class and it was wrong.
Labour reckoned it could be openly contemptuous towards its traditional supporters — you know, the ones who are not avocado-munching Marxists, the ones who live beyond the London bubble, the ones who didn’t go to private schools, the ones who never touched a copy of the Guardian in their life — and somehow still muster enough support to win the General Election. Wrong.
The PM swept to power by millions who never voted Tory in their lives and now he has to keep them
There are simply not that many avocado-munching Marxists in the country, comrade.
Labour has spent years calling the 17.4million people who voted to leave the European Union stupid, *racist, pig-ignorant peasants.
This is just in — calling people stupid is not a vote-winner.
And now, this sorry excuse for a Labour Party has been given the apocalyptic kicking it so richly deserved.
Under the extremist stewardship of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and the brain-dead thugs of Momentum, Labour happily abandoned the working class. And now the working class has abandoned Labour. My guess — for ever.
'OUT-OF-TOUCH'
The North is blue. The Red Wall has fallen. Great Grimsby. S****horpe. Even Bolsover — home of Dennis Skinner, the erstwhile “Beast of Bolsover” — is Tory today.
And Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton North East and Sedgefield — Tony Blair’s safe Labour seat for so many years — are sending Conservative MPs to Westminster.
The great mystery is how Labour ever deluded itself that this country could embrace a party leader who has licked the grimy toenails of Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA and indeed, it seems, any Brit-hating terrorist that would cheerfully do a jig on all our graves.
This country will never elect a leader who openly despises the nation he seeks to represent. Why would we?
Labour — this jaw-droppingly out-of-touch Labour Party, this North London protest group masquerading as a serious political party — forgot why it was founded more than a century ago.
And no, it wasn’t to represent a bunch of privately educated revolutionaries in Islington. It was to stand up for the working man and woman.
Labour spat on the very people it was meant to represent. And now watch Labour choking on its own spit.
Brexit — and the endless sneering at Brexit, and the thwarting of Brexit, and the endless attempts to abort Brexit — was just the start of Labour’s spectacular fall.
Corbyn’s Labour never understood the working class.
Hear this, comrade — the working class do not want handouts. They are not victims. They can’t be bought with glass beads, shiny trinkets and promises of free broadband.
And they do not think they should apologise for being British and for loving this country and its history.
TORIES ARE THE WORKING CLASS PARTY
All across our nation, working-class communities decided that the Conservatives were the true party of the working class.
And let’s be honest, those Labour-voting heartlands have always had plenty of reasons to NOT vote Tory.
Although Boris’s spectacular victory is being compared to Mrs Thatcher’s glory years, Maggie was always heartily despised in the regions where they built ships and mined for coal and did jobs where you got your hands dirty.
For when these hard-working communities were tossed on the scrapheap of changing times, there seemed scant sympathy or understanding in Maggie Thatcher’s Conservative Party about the human cost of deindustrialisation.
These proud working-class communities in the North and the Midlands were never Tory. Until now.
Analysis by the Financial Times shows that the more low-paid, low-skilled workers living in a constituency, the better the Tories did.
Think about it — the Tories are the party fighting for struggling families now.
And their victory is so complete that the leaders of the two opposition parties, Jo Swinson and Jeremy Corbyn, have either resigned or are about to resign.
These men and women in those post-industrial communities saw their families suffer dreadfully when the old industries died.
They were never going to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and his Communist clowns.
But getting them to actually break the habit of a lifetime and vote Tory signals an historic change in our politics.
Families that suffered from the decline in industry were never going to vote for Corbyn and his metropolitan elite Credit: PA
ress AssociationAfter this week, the old tribal party loyalties have gone for ever.
It no longer matters a damn how your parents and your grandparents voted.
Boris Johnson has been swept to power by millions who never voted Tory in their lives. Now he has to keep them.
And he has to show he is a Prime Minister who understands that there is a country beyond the M25.
Brexit is just the start.
The Prime Minister’s in-tray is piled high with the housing crisis, rising crime and communities across our nation that feel totally forgotten by Westminster. Brexit should have been done and dusted years ago.
And the only reason it is not is because the establishment cynically thwarted the result of the 2016 EU referendum.
But all the yakking about revoking Article 50, and a second referendum, and arcane Parliamentary procedures, and cobblers about a “People’s Vote” is suddenly in the past.
If Remainers want us to be members of the EU then they must now be prepared to campaign for decades.
The Brexit debate is over and Boris Johnson has a mandate to reshape our country as a global nation that is open to trade with the world.
Frankly, Boris’s election campaign was uninspired.
Boris’s victory is being compared to Thatcher’s glory years but Maggie didn't have the support of miners and was despised in traditional Labour areas Credit: Getty - Contributor
Boris beat Corbyn the way that boxer Anthony Joshua beat roly-poly Andy Ruiz Jr in Saudi Arabi — safety first, nothing fancy, just stay on the end of your jab and, above all, WIN. Because the consequences of losing were just too bloody awful to contemplate.
But if the campaign was uninspiring, Boris remains an inspirational politician.
People like him. He gives them optimism and hope. He puts a smile on faces.
His enemies paint him as a racist, right-wing bigot but the man is exactly the opposite.
Boris is a tolerant, big-hearted, one-nation Tory with a razor-sharp mind and an endlessly generous spirit.
The newspaper article that is always cited as evidence of his racism — the one where he compared women in full-body burkas to a letter box — was actually advocating their right to dress any way they choose, no matter how ridiculous it looks.
There is no hatred in Boris Johnson. There is no poison. And God knows there has been a poisonous atmosphere in our politics for years.
I live in an inner-city, safe Labour seat, and usually there would be the leaflets of three or four parties represented in the windows of our neighbourhood.
But there were no leaflets in windows at this election. Because there is too much hatred abroad, too much toxic division, too many idiots willing to stick a brick through the window of someone who dares to disagree with them.
BEGIN TO HEAL
Whatever our beliefs, the great hope now must be that we can start coming together as a country, and begin to heal, and start building some kind of national unity.
A Tory Prime Minister elected by the working class seems a good place to start.
My parents — a Labour-voting mum and a Liberal-voting dad — despised the Tories as the party of the rich, the privileged, the out-of-touch toffs.
That sentiment has been shared by millions of *working-class men and women since the end of World War Two. Until now.
From the Black Country to Blyth Valley, we are all Tories now.
It is ironic that it took an Old Etonian Oxford graduate (although he was a scholarship boy at both Eton and Oxford) to make the Tories the natural party of the working class.
And now Prime Minister Johnson and his new Tories must prove they are worthy of all those working-class votes.
LABOUR MUST SOUL SEARCH
And let us hope that the Labour Party can find its soul again.
Let us hope that this formerly great party of compassion, social justice and equality can kick out all the bigots, middle-class Reds, IRA groupies, friends of Hamas and Hezbollah and the anti-Semites who would rather wave the Palestinian flag than the Union Jack.
But it is likely that *Labour has already been dumped in the recycling bin of history.
Because this doesn’t feel like a defeat for the Labour Party. It feels more like a death.
It is hard to see how Labour can crawl out from under this landslide.
These last years have not really been about party politics. They have been about the will of the people coming into direct conflict with the will of the establishment.
The combined forces of the House of Commons and House of Lords, the BBC and Channel 4, the Supreme Court and expensive lawyers, RADA revolutionaries like Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and Emma Thompson, all placed themselves above people.
All of the political paralysis, and the national humiliation of never getting Brexit done, and the endless frustration of seeing democracy being cheated stems from an arrogant establishment that refused to accept the largest vote for anything in our history.
What a shameful, anti-democratic place this country would be if they had won. But they lost. Now let us move forward at last.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10553894/labour-wrong-abandon-working-class/
Surprise, surprise! The Left are showing once again that they hate democracy when it doesn't go their way. As Antifa take part in anti-Boris protests, smug Guyanan bitch Gina Miller still wants to overturn Brexit, despite the people voting for it yet again. What has Miller got to hide?
The moment Boris Johnson leaps out of his chair in celebration, and Britain's "First Lady" Carrie Symonds also celebrates, when the exit poll predicting a Tory win is revealed at 10pm
Boris Johnson 'orders a review of the BBC licence fee' amid claims ministers are BOYCOTTING the broadcaster's flagship Radio 4 Today programme
Boris Johnson is considering a move to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC licence fee in a move likely to further worsen relations between Number 10 and the broadcaster.
Every adult in the UK watching TV channels or listening to radio channels - the vast majority of adults - must have a TV licence, which costs £154.50p a year.
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DAN HODGES: The Corbynites lost because they hate working Britain - and the feeling is reciprocated
By Dan Hodges For The Mail On Sunday
15 December 2019
The Blue Army advanced onto working class, traditional Labour areas
Around Thursday lunchtime, I took a break from my chilly polling-station vigil in West Auckland and nipped for a sandwich in the nearby Eden Arms.
Waiting for it to arrive, I opened Twitter and began to acquaint myself with Jeremy Corbyn’s triumphant march on Downing Street.
London’s polling stations were grinding to a halt in the face of a ‘youthquake’. Iain Duncan Smith was being routed in Chingford.
This is Boris’s victory, and his moment. When I left Westminster on the final day before Parliament rose, I couldn’t find a single Minister or MP who could identify a credible path to a Tory majority. Boris – guided by his mercurial adviser Dominic Cummings – found one
Dominic Raab’s leafy citadel of Esher was set to fall. Labour activists were being ordered to Uxbridge, where they would deliver the coup de grace to the reviled Boris Johnson.
But then I started to catch snippets of a conversation taking place at the bar. People were talking across each other, and Spanish football highlights were playing on TV. But the gist of it went like this. ‘Yeah I voted… you too… Conservative… of course… Corbyn… he supports the IRA… despise him.’
If you believe – as many do – that Brexit is the biggest challenge facing the nation since the war. And if you believe – as many clearly did on Thursday – that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party represented the biggest peacetime threat to the stability and security of that nation, then we have just lived through the most seismic domestic political event of our lifetime.
In County Durham, everywhere I went on Election day I was met by the same staccato drumbeat. West Auckland Memorial Hall. ‘Brexit… Corbyn… IRA.’ Jubilee Fields Community Centre. ‘Corbyn… IRA… Brexit.’ Shildon Civic Hall. ‘IRA… Corbyn… Brexit.’
The man who loved to paint the Conservatives as the party of avarice and self-interest never attempted to address his toxic associations, but simply relied on stuffing the voters’ mouths with gold
At 9.30pm, I drove over to Trimdon in Tony Blair’s old Sedgefield constituency to watch the exit poll. The Royal pub is about three minutes’ walk from Myrobella, the double- fronted cottage where Blair once played host to George W. Bush.
When I arrived, I got chatting to Robert Martin, a carer who had just returned from his mother’s funeral. I explained I’d been visiting Bishop Auckland, which was vulnerable to the Conservatives, but said I thought this seat was probably safe. ‘Here? It’ll go Tory,’ he told me.
As Big Ben struck ten, and the exit poll flashed on the screen, I asked security guard Philip Solomons what he thought.
‘Unbelievable,’ he said. Unbelievably good or bad? ‘Oh, good.’
Pharmacy manager Andrea Hughes seemed less sure. I presumed she’d voted for sitting Labour MP Phil Wilson. She shook her head. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve always voted Labour. But I just couldn’t this time. I voted Green.’
In last week’s Mail on Sunday, after a month and a half travelling from Bolsover to Canterbury, St Ives to Chingford, Wrexham to County Durham, I predicted that Labour’s vaunted Red Wall was on the brink of collapse. I was wrong.
It didn’t collapse. It was smashed into a billion pieces. Atomised by the arrogance, ideological blindness, self-righteousness and viciousness of Jeremy Corbyn and his cultish followers.
As Election day approached there was fevered speculation that traditional Labour voters would hold their noses and return to the party of their parents and grandparents. They didn’t
When first elected in 2015, they inherited a battered but proud and functioning party. By the time The Absolute Boy made his graceless resignation speech in the early hours of Friday morning, all that was left was the political equivalent of the Manson clan.
I’ve often been critical of Boris Johnson. And part of me still finds something distasteful about the way Theresa May – a woman who dedicated herself with flawed but unflinching purpose to the service of her country – was hounded from office, leaving Britain’s Greatest Showman to sweep in and reap the plaudits and rewards.
But neither life nor politics are fair. This is Boris’s victory, and his moment. When I left Westminster on the final day before Parliament rose, I couldn’t find a single Minister or MP who could identify a credible path to a Tory majority. Boris – guided by his mercurial adviser Dominic Cummings – found one. The scale of their triumph is dwarfed only by the scale of Corbyn’s defeat.
This morning there is an understandable sense of relief – even jubilation. The Corbynite danger has passed. The Brexit log-jam is about to be broken. The post-referendum political turmoil has been ended, at least for the next four or five years.
But we need a serious national inquest now. Into how we got here. How we came so close to disaster. And how the British people were again required to save our entitled political class from itself.
The first thing everyone needs to grasp is that while Thursday was a Conservative victory, it was not a victory for backwards-looking conservatism. There is a settled narrative, shared across the political spectrum, that the working men and women of Britain are terrified of change.
This argument says that traditional communities, still reeling from the loss of inter-generational industries, are rebelling against the transformation they see all around them. Immigration. The break-up of the extended family. The insidious, all-intrusive penetration of social media.
For the past three years, politicians have been lecturing the voters about how they got it wrong. That they didn’t really understand Brexit. Or didn’t want a particular form of Brexit. Or didn’t want Brexit at all. People are pictured celebrating after Sunderland voted Leave in 2016
But the constituencies I visited were not packed with 21st Century luddites, longing for a return to a sepia-tinted 1950s Britain. No one in Bolsover wanted the pits reopened.
Few people I spoke to in St Ives expressed a longing for their children to earn a living from the sea. Their anger wasn’t generated by the fact the world was changing too fast.
It was that it wasn’t changing fast enough. And the change that did occur was being imposed, rather than reflecting individual or community will.
For Labour there was also a very specific lesson. The clue to obtaining the trust of the British working class lies in the name. They are the working class, not the freebie class.
Everything they own they have worked for. They harbour an innate suspicion of anything gifted, not earned. And an even greater suspicion of the person hawking it.
Jeremy Corbyn never understood that. But then there’s no reason why he should. He has spent his political career focusing on the hard-pressed communities of Gaza and the Chagos Islands. Wrexham or Chingford are like another country to him. Former Labour MPs like Phil Wilson do understand.
Speaking before a single vote had been counted, he told me why he’d lost Sedgefield.
‘People here are genuinely patriotic. Lots of them in this part of the world have links to the military. And when they see what Jeremy Corbyn says about the IRA or national security, they resent it.’
I’ve often been critical of Boris Johnson. And part of me still finds something distasteful about the way Theresa May – a woman who dedicated herself with flawed but unflinching purpose to the service of her country – was hounded from office, leaving Britain’s Greatest Showman to sweep in and reap the plaudits and rewards
Ironically, to Labour’s leader, this concept of a deeper collective consciousness is anathema. The man who loved to paint the Conservatives as the party of avarice and self-interest never attempted to address his toxic associations, but simply relied on stuffing the voters’ mouths with gold.
Fifty billion for WASPI women here. Twenty billion for free broadband there. What was a little historic fraternisation with the gunmen of the IRA and Hamas, when one trillion pounds of public spending could buy him the keys to Downing Street?
And to be fair, why would such moral – not to mention fiscal – turpitude seem out of place when you look at the rest of his party? A party that stood back and allowed its Jewish Members of Parliament to be driven from its ranks.
That cowered and vacillated as Momentum’s boot-boys issued de-selection punishment beatings to anyone who crossed them. And responded with nothing more than craven appeasement and the plaintive cry: ‘What can we do? We have to stop Brexit.’
But it’s not just Labour that has lessons to learn. All of the parties now have to take a crash course in what happened on Thursday.
Because this is their last chance. And it is the country’s last chance.
British democracy is on its final warning. Never, ever again can our parliamentarians set themselves with such blind disregard against the expressed wishes of the people.
For the past three years, politicians have been lecturing the voters about how they got it wrong. That they didn’t really understand Brexit. Or didn’t want a particular form of Brexit. Or didn’t want Brexit at all.
But they did understand. In Bolsover and Canterbury and Wrexham and Bishop Auckland and St Ives and Chingford and Sedgefield.
They understood all too well.
That Jeremy Corbyn literally had no position at all on the biggest issue facing the country for a generation. That Jo Swinson’s policy of unilateral revocation was an affront to basic fairness, let alone democratic principle.
And that Boris, for all his clumsy prorogations and broken deadlines, was sincere in his pledge to get Brexit done.
But there is a further lesson that will need to be learnt from Thursday’s demolition of the Red Wall. And it is that the era of missionary politics has finally ended.
The British working class are no longer going to be instructed by munificent benefactors how best to improve their lives. Brexit has given them agency, and they will not be revoking it.
As Election day approached there was fevered speculation that traditional Labour voters would hold their noses and return to the party of their parents and grandparents. They didn’t. They were intent on making a statement. And that statement was ‘No one takes us for grated any more’.
Boris certainly can’t afford to. The Northern Blue Wall is wide but fragile. A phrase I heard echoed by more than one successful Conservative candidate was: ‘I’ve been told these votes are on loan.’
This morning there is an understandable sense of relief – even jubilation. The Corbynite danger has passed. The Brexit log-jam is about to be broken. The post-referendum political turmoil has been ended, at least for the next four or five years
Yes, fledgling Tory MPs such as Mark Fletcher, Sarah Atherton and Dehenna Davison will be granted a bit of time. But no Prime Ministerial badinage about the virtues of a US trade deal will save them if Wrexham High Street remains a nocturnal desert, or the promised Bolsover police station sits unmanned, or A&E isn’t brought back to Bishop Auckland.
But if the Tories now need to secure the trust of working Britain, at least they don’t have to do so from the position of having betrayed it. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, and his acolytes. Labour’s vanquished leader has promised a period of ‘reflection’. But after a month and a half out on the hustings, I can save him the time and trouble.
The Corbynites lost because for all their liberal pretensions, they hate working Britain. And working Britain reciprocates. A sense of patriotism. A strong work ethic. A pride in community and of place.
To the ideological fanatics of the New-Left these are heresies. They believe the scrapping of Trident, a four-day week and freedom of movement are what the working men and women of Britain crave. And if they don’t, they’ll just have to be forced to accept them anyway.
For four long years, Jeremy Corbyn and his minions have not spoken to or for Britain’s working communities, but at them.
And their message to the people of Bolsover and Wrexham and Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield has been the same.
‘If you’re not one of us, then you can bugger off and join the Tories.’ So on Thursday, they did.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...s-Johnsons-smash-election-victory-coming.html
By Dan Hodges For The Mail On Sunday
15 December 2019
The Blue Army advanced onto working class, traditional Labour areas
Around Thursday lunchtime, I took a break from my chilly polling-station vigil in West Auckland and nipped for a sandwich in the nearby Eden Arms.
Waiting for it to arrive, I opened Twitter and began to acquaint myself with Jeremy Corbyn’s triumphant march on Downing Street.
London’s polling stations were grinding to a halt in the face of a ‘youthquake’. Iain Duncan Smith was being routed in Chingford.
This is Boris’s victory, and his moment. When I left Westminster on the final day before Parliament rose, I couldn’t find a single Minister or MP who could identify a credible path to a Tory majority. Boris – guided by his mercurial adviser Dominic Cummings – found one
Dominic Raab’s leafy citadel of Esher was set to fall. Labour activists were being ordered to Uxbridge, where they would deliver the coup de grace to the reviled Boris Johnson.
But then I started to catch snippets of a conversation taking place at the bar. People were talking across each other, and Spanish football highlights were playing on TV. But the gist of it went like this. ‘Yeah I voted… you too… Conservative… of course… Corbyn… he supports the IRA… despise him.’
If you believe – as many do – that Brexit is the biggest challenge facing the nation since the war. And if you believe – as many clearly did on Thursday – that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party represented the biggest peacetime threat to the stability and security of that nation, then we have just lived through the most seismic domestic political event of our lifetime.
In County Durham, everywhere I went on Election day I was met by the same staccato drumbeat. West Auckland Memorial Hall. ‘Brexit… Corbyn… IRA.’ Jubilee Fields Community Centre. ‘Corbyn… IRA… Brexit.’ Shildon Civic Hall. ‘IRA… Corbyn… Brexit.’
The man who loved to paint the Conservatives as the party of avarice and self-interest never attempted to address his toxic associations, but simply relied on stuffing the voters’ mouths with gold
At 9.30pm, I drove over to Trimdon in Tony Blair’s old Sedgefield constituency to watch the exit poll. The Royal pub is about three minutes’ walk from Myrobella, the double- fronted cottage where Blair once played host to George W. Bush.
When I arrived, I got chatting to Robert Martin, a carer who had just returned from his mother’s funeral. I explained I’d been visiting Bishop Auckland, which was vulnerable to the Conservatives, but said I thought this seat was probably safe. ‘Here? It’ll go Tory,’ he told me.
As Big Ben struck ten, and the exit poll flashed on the screen, I asked security guard Philip Solomons what he thought.
‘Unbelievable,’ he said. Unbelievably good or bad? ‘Oh, good.’
Pharmacy manager Andrea Hughes seemed less sure. I presumed she’d voted for sitting Labour MP Phil Wilson. She shook her head. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve always voted Labour. But I just couldn’t this time. I voted Green.’
In last week’s Mail on Sunday, after a month and a half travelling from Bolsover to Canterbury, St Ives to Chingford, Wrexham to County Durham, I predicted that Labour’s vaunted Red Wall was on the brink of collapse. I was wrong.
It didn’t collapse. It was smashed into a billion pieces. Atomised by the arrogance, ideological blindness, self-righteousness and viciousness of Jeremy Corbyn and his cultish followers.
As Election day approached there was fevered speculation that traditional Labour voters would hold their noses and return to the party of their parents and grandparents. They didn’t
When first elected in 2015, they inherited a battered but proud and functioning party. By the time The Absolute Boy made his graceless resignation speech in the early hours of Friday morning, all that was left was the political equivalent of the Manson clan.
I’ve often been critical of Boris Johnson. And part of me still finds something distasteful about the way Theresa May – a woman who dedicated herself with flawed but unflinching purpose to the service of her country – was hounded from office, leaving Britain’s Greatest Showman to sweep in and reap the plaudits and rewards.
But neither life nor politics are fair. This is Boris’s victory, and his moment. When I left Westminster on the final day before Parliament rose, I couldn’t find a single Minister or MP who could identify a credible path to a Tory majority. Boris – guided by his mercurial adviser Dominic Cummings – found one. The scale of their triumph is dwarfed only by the scale of Corbyn’s defeat.
This morning there is an understandable sense of relief – even jubilation. The Corbynite danger has passed. The Brexit log-jam is about to be broken. The post-referendum political turmoil has been ended, at least for the next four or five years.
But we need a serious national inquest now. Into how we got here. How we came so close to disaster. And how the British people were again required to save our entitled political class from itself.
The first thing everyone needs to grasp is that while Thursday was a Conservative victory, it was not a victory for backwards-looking conservatism. There is a settled narrative, shared across the political spectrum, that the working men and women of Britain are terrified of change.
This argument says that traditional communities, still reeling from the loss of inter-generational industries, are rebelling against the transformation they see all around them. Immigration. The break-up of the extended family. The insidious, all-intrusive penetration of social media.
For the past three years, politicians have been lecturing the voters about how they got it wrong. That they didn’t really understand Brexit. Or didn’t want a particular form of Brexit. Or didn’t want Brexit at all. People are pictured celebrating after Sunderland voted Leave in 2016
But the constituencies I visited were not packed with 21st Century luddites, longing for a return to a sepia-tinted 1950s Britain. No one in Bolsover wanted the pits reopened.
Few people I spoke to in St Ives expressed a longing for their children to earn a living from the sea. Their anger wasn’t generated by the fact the world was changing too fast.
It was that it wasn’t changing fast enough. And the change that did occur was being imposed, rather than reflecting individual or community will.
For Labour there was also a very specific lesson. The clue to obtaining the trust of the British working class lies in the name. They are the working class, not the freebie class.
Everything they own they have worked for. They harbour an innate suspicion of anything gifted, not earned. And an even greater suspicion of the person hawking it.
Jeremy Corbyn never understood that. But then there’s no reason why he should. He has spent his political career focusing on the hard-pressed communities of Gaza and the Chagos Islands. Wrexham or Chingford are like another country to him. Former Labour MPs like Phil Wilson do understand.
Speaking before a single vote had been counted, he told me why he’d lost Sedgefield.
‘People here are genuinely patriotic. Lots of them in this part of the world have links to the military. And when they see what Jeremy Corbyn says about the IRA or national security, they resent it.’
I’ve often been critical of Boris Johnson. And part of me still finds something distasteful about the way Theresa May – a woman who dedicated herself with flawed but unflinching purpose to the service of her country – was hounded from office, leaving Britain’s Greatest Showman to sweep in and reap the plaudits and rewards
Ironically, to Labour’s leader, this concept of a deeper collective consciousness is anathema. The man who loved to paint the Conservatives as the party of avarice and self-interest never attempted to address his toxic associations, but simply relied on stuffing the voters’ mouths with gold.
Fifty billion for WASPI women here. Twenty billion for free broadband there. What was a little historic fraternisation with the gunmen of the IRA and Hamas, when one trillion pounds of public spending could buy him the keys to Downing Street?
And to be fair, why would such moral – not to mention fiscal – turpitude seem out of place when you look at the rest of his party? A party that stood back and allowed its Jewish Members of Parliament to be driven from its ranks.
That cowered and vacillated as Momentum’s boot-boys issued de-selection punishment beatings to anyone who crossed them. And responded with nothing more than craven appeasement and the plaintive cry: ‘What can we do? We have to stop Brexit.’
But it’s not just Labour that has lessons to learn. All of the parties now have to take a crash course in what happened on Thursday.
Because this is their last chance. And it is the country’s last chance.
British democracy is on its final warning. Never, ever again can our parliamentarians set themselves with such blind disregard against the expressed wishes of the people.
For the past three years, politicians have been lecturing the voters about how they got it wrong. That they didn’t really understand Brexit. Or didn’t want a particular form of Brexit. Or didn’t want Brexit at all.
But they did understand. In Bolsover and Canterbury and Wrexham and Bishop Auckland and St Ives and Chingford and Sedgefield.
They understood all too well.
That Jeremy Corbyn literally had no position at all on the biggest issue facing the country for a generation. That Jo Swinson’s policy of unilateral revocation was an affront to basic fairness, let alone democratic principle.
And that Boris, for all his clumsy prorogations and broken deadlines, was sincere in his pledge to get Brexit done.
But there is a further lesson that will need to be learnt from Thursday’s demolition of the Red Wall. And it is that the era of missionary politics has finally ended.
The British working class are no longer going to be instructed by munificent benefactors how best to improve their lives. Brexit has given them agency, and they will not be revoking it.
As Election day approached there was fevered speculation that traditional Labour voters would hold their noses and return to the party of their parents and grandparents. They didn’t. They were intent on making a statement. And that statement was ‘No one takes us for grated any more’.
Boris certainly can’t afford to. The Northern Blue Wall is wide but fragile. A phrase I heard echoed by more than one successful Conservative candidate was: ‘I’ve been told these votes are on loan.’
This morning there is an understandable sense of relief – even jubilation. The Corbynite danger has passed. The Brexit log-jam is about to be broken. The post-referendum political turmoil has been ended, at least for the next four or five years
Yes, fledgling Tory MPs such as Mark Fletcher, Sarah Atherton and Dehenna Davison will be granted a bit of time. But no Prime Ministerial badinage about the virtues of a US trade deal will save them if Wrexham High Street remains a nocturnal desert, or the promised Bolsover police station sits unmanned, or A&E isn’t brought back to Bishop Auckland.
But if the Tories now need to secure the trust of working Britain, at least they don’t have to do so from the position of having betrayed it. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, and his acolytes. Labour’s vanquished leader has promised a period of ‘reflection’. But after a month and a half out on the hustings, I can save him the time and trouble.
The Corbynites lost because for all their liberal pretensions, they hate working Britain. And working Britain reciprocates. A sense of patriotism. A strong work ethic. A pride in community and of place.
To the ideological fanatics of the New-Left these are heresies. They believe the scrapping of Trident, a four-day week and freedom of movement are what the working men and women of Britain crave. And if they don’t, they’ll just have to be forced to accept them anyway.
For four long years, Jeremy Corbyn and his minions have not spoken to or for Britain’s working communities, but at them.
And their message to the people of Bolsover and Wrexham and Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield has been the same.
‘If you’re not one of us, then you can bugger off and join the Tories.’ So on Thursday, they did.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...s-Johnsons-smash-election-victory-coming.html
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Boris Johnson plans radical overhaul of the Civil Service to guarantee ‘people’s Brexit’…
Boris Johnson is plotting a dramatic overhaul of Whitehall after his landslide election victory, in a drive to demonstrate that the Government “works for the people”. Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief aide, is to spearhead plans for radical reforms to the civil service, including a review of the processes for hiring and firing officials, to ensure Whitehall delivers the Prime Minister’s agenda. He has previously complained that “almost no one is ever fired” in Whitehall, during a lecture in which he set out a “to-do list” he had maintained in case “I ever manage to get control of No 10.” It suggests Mr Johnson’s programme for the next five years is likely to be much more radical than the agenda he set out after taking over from Theresa May in July. Plans discussed by Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings for reform of Whitehall will also form a major part of the Prime Minister’s vision. Sources said Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings were planning to review human resources structures within the service, including the recruitment, training and dismissing of officials. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
…as it is confirmed the EU Withdrawal Bill will be back before Christmas
In his triumphant Sedgefield speech, Mr Johnson expressed his glee at the prospect of having a Commons majority at the Tory party’s disposal for the first time in more than two years. The Queen’s Speech on Thursday, setting out the Government’s agenda for the new Parliament, will give legislative force to the policy priorities which secured Mr Johnson’s landslide win – delivering Brexit and pumping billions of extra pounds into the NHS. The new MPs will be sworn in on Tuesday, followed by the State Opening of Parliament on Thursday and then the introduction of the Withdrawal Bill on Friday in what Mr Johnson has described as ‘an early Christmas present’ for voters. The Bill has to be passed by January 29 in order for it to be ratified by the European Parliament in time for Britain to leave the EU by the deadline of 11pm on January 31. The legislation was blocked by MPs in October, but is certain to pass now that Mr Johnson has won his 80-seat majority. Cross-party talks to agree ‘an enduring solution to the challenge of social care’ will also start within Mr Johnson’s first 100 days. A No 10 source said: ‘This Election was as much about delivering on the people’s priorities as it was about getting Brexit done – and the Prime Minister understands that. – Mail on Sunday
Britain is on collision course with the EU over trade rules in Brexit talks…
Boris Johnson is on a collision course with Brussels when the second phase of Brexit negotiations open — as a former Downing Street aide warned that Whitehall is not “match fit” for the talks. The prime minister will reject calls from EU leaders for Britain to accept a “level playing field” on regulations, which would mean the UK adopting many of the same rules as the rest of the bloc even after Brexit. EU leaders agreed a joint negotiating position last week in which they want Britain to agree to regulatory alignment in exchange for a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal. However, Johnson’s team make clear that when they outline their demands in February Britain will seek to maintain the ability to set its own rules in key areas, even if that means some tariffs are imposed. “We don’t want to be in alignment,” the source said. “We want a free-trade deal with as close to zero tariffs as they are happy to do. But if they think we are going to be signing up to stick to their data laws and their procurement rules, that’s not going to happen.” – Sunday Times (£)
…but Johnson is warned by Brexiteers not to back down on Brexit deadlines
Boris Johnson is under pressure from his Conservative colleagues not to use his “stonking” majority to sideline Brexiteers in his approach to negotiating a free trade deal with the European Union. It comes as Nigel Farage admitted that the Brexit Party has “disappeared” as a threat to the Tories, with its MEPs waiting to lose their jobs in the coming weeks once Brexit happens, but he warned in The Daily Telegraph that “pressure will have to be reapplied” if the Prime Minister fails to take the country out of the EU. Mr Johnson returned to office with a majority of 80, which MPs said should enable him to be flexible in trade talks with Brussels after passing his withdrawal deal into law by extending the transition period that follows in order to finalise the best deal. “With a majority this size, Boris can revert to the centre ground,” a minister told this newspaper, arguing that the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory Brexiteer backbenchers “won’t have the same power”. But another warned that it would be “electorally disastrous” if Mr Johnson decided next summer to extend the transition period beyond December 2020. “He already has a problem with credibility, so going back on this would be catastrophic,” he added. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
Lord Heseltine concedes the battle for Britain to remain in the EU has been lost…
Michael Heseltine, the europhile former deputy prime minister, has admitted that the battle for Britain to remain in the European Union has been lost. The 86-year-old – who lost the Tory whip after urging people to vote against his party to stop Brexit – fears it will be 20 years before the issue of rejoining the EU is raised again. Lord Heseltine endorsed the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign and said their candidates represented “the best chance I can see for stopping the enormous self-harm of Brexit”. Following the Conservatives’ sweeping gains in England and Wales in the election, he conceded that “Brexit is going to happen” in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Asked whether the Remain fight is over, Lord Heseltine said: “Well we’ve lost, let’s not muck about with the language. We’ve lost, Brexit is going to happen and we have to live with it. I’ve made my views pretty clear and there will now be a long period of uncertainty, but we can’t escape from that, so we must do the best we can.” – Telegraph (£)
Downing Street boycotts Radio 4’s Today over election bias as Number 10 slams the BBC for ‘speaking to pro-Remain Islington, not the real world of Wakefield and Workington’
Downing Street has boycotted the BBC’s flagship news programme amid ongoing rows over the Corporation’s Election coverage and questions over the future of the licence fee. No 10 pulled Ministers from yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme and intends to ‘withdraw engagement’ from future broadcasts of the show. The bitter stand-off comes as the BBC is facing intense criticism over alleged bias in its Election coverage, which included presenter Andrew Neil delivering an on-air monologue criticising Boris Johnson for failing to agree to be interviewed by him. Tory strategists were also infuriated by the lead item on Monday’s BBC News At Ten, which gave extensive coverage to the row over a four-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia forced to sleep on a hospital floor. They say the Corporation failed to properly report the swing in support from Labour to the Tories along the ‘Red Wall’ in the Midlands and the North which swept Mr Johnson to victory on a tide of support for Brexit. Last night, a No 10 source called on the BBC to mount an internal investigation into its performance during the campaign, saying: ‘The BBC speaks to a pro-Remain metropolitan bubble in Islington, not the real world represented by Wakefield and Workington. There has been a failure by senior management at the BBC, and we expect them to launch an internal review of their performance.’ The BBC angrily denies the allegations of bias. – Mail on Sunday
Janet Daley: The people have got their revenge against the hateful Remainer diehards
It wasn’t just about Brexit. At least, not just about the actual, concrete reality of leaving the European Union. That may have been the initial spark but had that whole national argument been handled differently – had the concerns and resentments of real people not been treated with open contempt by this country’s governing class and by EU officialdom – it might not have grown into a conflagration that has ripped apart the old political settlement and enveloped the public discourse in a miasma of vitriol and hatred. I have written many times, in what must by now seem a tiresome refrain, about my shock and disgust at the shameless loathing which has been poured over the ordinary people of this country by those whose privileged existence leaves them utterly ignorant (one of their own favourite epithets, as it happens) of what life is like for those without their advantages. First they tried instilling fear and when the great mass of Leave voters did not flinch, they insulted and bullied them, and brazenly wished them dead. As snobbery mutated into what sounded like eugenics, something snapped in the electorate’s consciousness. Well, the people have got their revenge. They have humiliated their tormentors and, as many times before in their history, refused to buckle. – Janet Daley for the Sunday Telegraph (£)
https://brexitcentral.com/today/brexit-news-for-sunday-15-december/
Boris Johnson is plotting a dramatic overhaul of Whitehall after his landslide election victory, in a drive to demonstrate that the Government “works for the people”. Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief aide, is to spearhead plans for radical reforms to the civil service, including a review of the processes for hiring and firing officials, to ensure Whitehall delivers the Prime Minister’s agenda. He has previously complained that “almost no one is ever fired” in Whitehall, during a lecture in which he set out a “to-do list” he had maintained in case “I ever manage to get control of No 10.” It suggests Mr Johnson’s programme for the next five years is likely to be much more radical than the agenda he set out after taking over from Theresa May in July. Plans discussed by Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings for reform of Whitehall will also form a major part of the Prime Minister’s vision. Sources said Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings were planning to review human resources structures within the service, including the recruitment, training and dismissing of officials. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
…as it is confirmed the EU Withdrawal Bill will be back before Christmas
In his triumphant Sedgefield speech, Mr Johnson expressed his glee at the prospect of having a Commons majority at the Tory party’s disposal for the first time in more than two years. The Queen’s Speech on Thursday, setting out the Government’s agenda for the new Parliament, will give legislative force to the policy priorities which secured Mr Johnson’s landslide win – delivering Brexit and pumping billions of extra pounds into the NHS. The new MPs will be sworn in on Tuesday, followed by the State Opening of Parliament on Thursday and then the introduction of the Withdrawal Bill on Friday in what Mr Johnson has described as ‘an early Christmas present’ for voters. The Bill has to be passed by January 29 in order for it to be ratified by the European Parliament in time for Britain to leave the EU by the deadline of 11pm on January 31. The legislation was blocked by MPs in October, but is certain to pass now that Mr Johnson has won his 80-seat majority. Cross-party talks to agree ‘an enduring solution to the challenge of social care’ will also start within Mr Johnson’s first 100 days. A No 10 source said: ‘This Election was as much about delivering on the people’s priorities as it was about getting Brexit done – and the Prime Minister understands that. – Mail on Sunday
Britain is on collision course with the EU over trade rules in Brexit talks…
Boris Johnson is on a collision course with Brussels when the second phase of Brexit negotiations open — as a former Downing Street aide warned that Whitehall is not “match fit” for the talks. The prime minister will reject calls from EU leaders for Britain to accept a “level playing field” on regulations, which would mean the UK adopting many of the same rules as the rest of the bloc even after Brexit. EU leaders agreed a joint negotiating position last week in which they want Britain to agree to regulatory alignment in exchange for a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal. However, Johnson’s team make clear that when they outline their demands in February Britain will seek to maintain the ability to set its own rules in key areas, even if that means some tariffs are imposed. “We don’t want to be in alignment,” the source said. “We want a free-trade deal with as close to zero tariffs as they are happy to do. But if they think we are going to be signing up to stick to their data laws and their procurement rules, that’s not going to happen.” – Sunday Times (£)
…but Johnson is warned by Brexiteers not to back down on Brexit deadlines
Boris Johnson is under pressure from his Conservative colleagues not to use his “stonking” majority to sideline Brexiteers in his approach to negotiating a free trade deal with the European Union. It comes as Nigel Farage admitted that the Brexit Party has “disappeared” as a threat to the Tories, with its MEPs waiting to lose their jobs in the coming weeks once Brexit happens, but he warned in The Daily Telegraph that “pressure will have to be reapplied” if the Prime Minister fails to take the country out of the EU. Mr Johnson returned to office with a majority of 80, which MPs said should enable him to be flexible in trade talks with Brussels after passing his withdrawal deal into law by extending the transition period that follows in order to finalise the best deal. “With a majority this size, Boris can revert to the centre ground,” a minister told this newspaper, arguing that the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory Brexiteer backbenchers “won’t have the same power”. But another warned that it would be “electorally disastrous” if Mr Johnson decided next summer to extend the transition period beyond December 2020. “He already has a problem with credibility, so going back on this would be catastrophic,” he added. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
Lord Heseltine concedes the battle for Britain to remain in the EU has been lost…
Michael Heseltine, the europhile former deputy prime minister, has admitted that the battle for Britain to remain in the European Union has been lost. The 86-year-old – who lost the Tory whip after urging people to vote against his party to stop Brexit – fears it will be 20 years before the issue of rejoining the EU is raised again. Lord Heseltine endorsed the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign and said their candidates represented “the best chance I can see for stopping the enormous self-harm of Brexit”. Following the Conservatives’ sweeping gains in England and Wales in the election, he conceded that “Brexit is going to happen” in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Asked whether the Remain fight is over, Lord Heseltine said: “Well we’ve lost, let’s not muck about with the language. We’ve lost, Brexit is going to happen and we have to live with it. I’ve made my views pretty clear and there will now be a long period of uncertainty, but we can’t escape from that, so we must do the best we can.” – Telegraph (£)
Downing Street boycotts Radio 4’s Today over election bias as Number 10 slams the BBC for ‘speaking to pro-Remain Islington, not the real world of Wakefield and Workington’
Downing Street has boycotted the BBC’s flagship news programme amid ongoing rows over the Corporation’s Election coverage and questions over the future of the licence fee. No 10 pulled Ministers from yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme and intends to ‘withdraw engagement’ from future broadcasts of the show. The bitter stand-off comes as the BBC is facing intense criticism over alleged bias in its Election coverage, which included presenter Andrew Neil delivering an on-air monologue criticising Boris Johnson for failing to agree to be interviewed by him. Tory strategists were also infuriated by the lead item on Monday’s BBC News At Ten, which gave extensive coverage to the row over a four-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia forced to sleep on a hospital floor. They say the Corporation failed to properly report the swing in support from Labour to the Tories along the ‘Red Wall’ in the Midlands and the North which swept Mr Johnson to victory on a tide of support for Brexit. Last night, a No 10 source called on the BBC to mount an internal investigation into its performance during the campaign, saying: ‘The BBC speaks to a pro-Remain metropolitan bubble in Islington, not the real world represented by Wakefield and Workington. There has been a failure by senior management at the BBC, and we expect them to launch an internal review of their performance.’ The BBC angrily denies the allegations of bias. – Mail on Sunday
Janet Daley: The people have got their revenge against the hateful Remainer diehards
It wasn’t just about Brexit. At least, not just about the actual, concrete reality of leaving the European Union. That may have been the initial spark but had that whole national argument been handled differently – had the concerns and resentments of real people not been treated with open contempt by this country’s governing class and by EU officialdom – it might not have grown into a conflagration that has ripped apart the old political settlement and enveloped the public discourse in a miasma of vitriol and hatred. I have written many times, in what must by now seem a tiresome refrain, about my shock and disgust at the shameless loathing which has been poured over the ordinary people of this country by those whose privileged existence leaves them utterly ignorant (one of their own favourite epithets, as it happens) of what life is like for those without their advantages. First they tried instilling fear and when the great mass of Leave voters did not flinch, they insulted and bullied them, and brazenly wished them dead. As snobbery mutated into what sounded like eugenics, something snapped in the electorate’s consciousness. Well, the people have got their revenge. They have humiliated their tormentors and, as many times before in their history, refused to buckle. – Janet Daley for the Sunday Telegraph (£)
https://brexitcentral.com/today/brexit-news-for-sunday-15-december/
Hey, don't get me wrong. The Tories won. I still won't believe Brexit until I see it with already one lie under BoJo's belt about it, but do agree that it's more than likely now finally.
And I'm glad they had the vote; now they can say for sure that BoJo has the mandate.
This is a great summation of things though, IMO. "What did they expect?"
And I'm glad they had the vote; now they can say for sure that BoJo has the mandate.
This is a great summation of things though, IMO. "What did they expect?"
Jonathan Pie:
"When will you learn that reading The Guardian doesn't win you an election?"
"The real world is not on your Facebook feed!"
I like this YouTube comment:
etocadet
2 hours ago
Johnathon pie hates Tories. He doesn’t hate Tory voters. That’s the difference between him and people like Owen “I’m offended” Jones.
Surprise, surprise! The Left are showing once again that they hate democracy when it doesn't go their way. As Antifa take part in anti-Boris protests, smug Guyanan bitch Gina Miller still wants to overturn Brexit, despite the people voting for it yet again. What has Miller got to hide?
Not a chance in hell of Brexit being overturned now, Blackie especially with the HUGE majority won by the Conservatives. Antifa dolts like this one are a pox on society.
No, that's it. Done. If Miller thinks she can overturn democracy using a court or some other means, she can think again.
By the way, the magic number to get a majority in the 650-seat House of Commons is 326 - half of 650 plus 1. Get 326 or more, and you get a majority.
So you would think that with the Tories having won 365 seats, their majority is 39. But it isn't. It's 80: because there are 365 Tory MPs there are 285 MPs from all the rest of the parties. 365-285=80.
Effectively, though, the Tories have a majority of 87. That's because Sinn Fein MPs never take their seats. Seven Sinn Fein MPs were elected in this election, so the Tory majority is effectively 87.
So you would think that with the Tories having won 365 seats, their majority is 39. But it isn't. It's 80: because there are 365 Tory MPs there are 285 MPs from all the rest of the parties. 365-285=80.
Effectively, though, the Tories have a majority of 87. That's because Sinn Fein MPs never take their seats. Seven Sinn Fein MPs were elected in this election, so the Tory majority is effectively 87.
Drain the swamp, Boris.Boris Johnson plans radical overhaul of the Civil Service to guarantee ‘people’s Brexit’…
Boris Johnson is plotting a dramatic overhaul of Whitehall after his landslide election victory, in a drive to demonstrate that the Government “works for the people”. Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief aide, is to spearhead plans for radical reforms to the civil service, including a review of the processes for hiring and firing officials, to ensure Whitehall delivers the Prime Minister’s agenda. He has previously complained that “almost no one is ever fired” in Whitehall, during a lecture in which he set out a “to-do list” he had maintained in case “I ever manage to get control of No 10.” It suggests Mr Johnson’s programme for the next five years is likely to be much more radical than the agenda he set out after taking over from Theresa May in July. Plans discussed by Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings for reform of Whitehall will also form a major part of the Prime Minister’s vision. Sources said Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings were planning to review human resources structures within the service, including the recruitment, training and dismissing of officials. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
…as it is confirmed the EU Withdrawal Bill will be back before Christmas
In his triumphant Sedgefield speech, Mr Johnson expressed his glee at the prospect of having a Commons majority at the Tory party’s disposal for the first time in more than two years. The Queen’s Speech on Thursday, setting out the Government’s agenda for the new Parliament, will give legislative force to the policy priorities which secured Mr Johnson’s landslide win – delivering Brexit and pumping billions of extra pounds into the NHS. The new MPs will be sworn in on Tuesday, followed by the State Opening of Parliament on Thursday and then the introduction of the Withdrawal Bill on Friday in what Mr Johnson has described as ‘an early Christmas present’ for voters. The Bill has to be passed by January 29 in order for it to be ratified by the European Parliament in time for Britain to leave the EU by the deadline of 11pm on January 31. The legislation was blocked by MPs in October, but is certain to pass now that Mr Johnson has won his 80-seat majority. Cross-party talks to agree ‘an enduring solution to the challenge of social care’ will also start within Mr Johnson’s first 100 days. A No 10 source said: ‘This Election was as much about delivering on the people’s priorities as it was about getting Brexit done – and the Prime Minister understands that. – Mail on Sunday
Britain is on collision course with the EU over trade rules in Brexit talks…
Boris Johnson is on a collision course with Brussels when the second phase of Brexit negotiations open — as a former Downing Street aide warned that Whitehall is not “match fit” for the talks. The prime minister will reject calls from EU leaders for Britain to accept a “level playing field” on regulations, which would mean the UK adopting many of the same rules as the rest of the bloc even after Brexit. EU leaders agreed a joint negotiating position last week in which they want Britain to agree to regulatory alignment in exchange for a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal. However, Johnson’s team make clear that when they outline their demands in February Britain will seek to maintain the ability to set its own rules in key areas, even if that means some tariffs are imposed. “We don’t want to be in alignment,” the source said. “We want a free-trade deal with as close to zero tariffs as they are happy to do. But if they think we are going to be signing up to stick to their data laws and their procurement rules, that’s not going to happen.” – Sunday Times (£)
…but Johnson is warned by Brexiteers not to back down on Brexit deadlines
Boris Johnson is under pressure from his Conservative colleagues not to use his “stonking” majority to sideline Brexiteers in his approach to negotiating a free trade deal with the European Union. It comes as Nigel Farage admitted that the Brexit Party has “disappeared” as a threat to the Tories, with its MEPs waiting to lose their jobs in the coming weeks once Brexit happens, but he warned in The Daily Telegraph that “pressure will have to be reapplied” if the Prime Minister fails to take the country out of the EU. Mr Johnson returned to office with a majority of 80, which MPs said should enable him to be flexible in trade talks with Brussels after passing his withdrawal deal into law by extending the transition period that follows in order to finalise the best deal. “With a majority this size, Boris can revert to the centre ground,” a minister told this newspaper, arguing that the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory Brexiteer backbenchers “won’t have the same power”. But another warned that it would be “electorally disastrous” if Mr Johnson decided next summer to extend the transition period beyond December 2020. “He already has a problem with credibility, so going back on this would be catastrophic,” he added. – Sunday Telegraph (£)
Lord Heseltine concedes the battle for Britain to remain in the EU has been lost…
Michael Heseltine, the europhile former deputy prime minister, has admitted that the battle for Britain to remain in the European Union has been lost. The 86-year-old – who lost the Tory whip after urging people to vote against his party to stop Brexit – fears it will be 20 years before the issue of rejoining the EU is raised again. Lord Heseltine endorsed the Liberal Democrats during the election campaign and said their candidates represented “the best chance I can see for stopping the enormous self-harm of Brexit”. Following the Conservatives’ sweeping gains in England and Wales in the election, he conceded that “Brexit is going to happen” in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Asked whether the Remain fight is over, Lord Heseltine said: “Well we’ve lost, let’s not muck about with the language. We’ve lost, Brexit is going to happen and we have to live with it. I’ve made my views pretty clear and there will now be a long period of uncertainty, but we can’t escape from that, so we must do the best we can.” – Telegraph (£)
Downing Street boycotts Radio 4’s Today over election bias as Number 10 slams the BBC for ‘speaking to pro-Remain Islington, not the real world of Wakefield and Workington’
Downing Street has boycotted the BBC’s flagship news programme amid ongoing rows over the Corporation’s Election coverage and questions over the future of the licence fee. No 10 pulled Ministers from yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme and intends to ‘withdraw engagement’ from future broadcasts of the show. The bitter stand-off comes as the BBC is facing intense criticism over alleged bias in its Election coverage, which included presenter Andrew Neil delivering an on-air monologue criticising Boris Johnson for failing to agree to be interviewed by him. Tory strategists were also infuriated by the lead item on Monday’s BBC News At Ten, which gave extensive coverage to the row over a four-year-old boy with suspected pneumonia forced to sleep on a hospital floor. They say the Corporation failed to properly report the swing in support from Labour to the Tories along the ‘Red Wall’ in the Midlands and the North which swept Mr Johnson to victory on a tide of support for Brexit. Last night, a No 10 source called on the BBC to mount an internal investigation into its performance during the campaign, saying: ‘The BBC speaks to a pro-Remain metropolitan bubble in Islington, not the real world represented by Wakefield and Workington. There has been a failure by senior management at the BBC, and we expect them to launch an internal review of their performance.’ The BBC angrily denies the allegations of bias. – Mail on Sunday
Janet Daley: The people have got their revenge against the hateful Remainer diehards
It wasn’t just about Brexit. At least, not just about the actual, concrete reality of leaving the European Union. That may have been the initial spark but had that whole national argument been handled differently – had the concerns and resentments of real people not been treated with open contempt by this country’s governing class and by EU officialdom – it might not have grown into a conflagration that has ripped apart the old political settlement and enveloped the public discourse in a miasma of vitriol and hatred. I have written many times, in what must by now seem a tiresome refrain, about my shock and disgust at the shameless loathing which has been poured over the ordinary people of this country by those whose privileged existence leaves them utterly ignorant (one of their own favourite epithets, as it happens) of what life is like for those without their advantages. First they tried instilling fear and when the great mass of Leave voters did not flinch, they insulted and bullied them, and brazenly wished them dead. As snobbery mutated into what sounded like eugenics, something snapped in the electorate’s consciousness. Well, the people have got their revenge. They have humiliated their tormentors and, as many times before in their history, refused to buckle. – Janet Daley for the Sunday Telegraph (£)
[/I]
Prog mantra:One man, one vote, one time.
Labour's Communists Double Down!
The problem, comrades, is not with we socialists, but with the electorate itself!
