Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Bad Labour Campaign Sets up Tory Majority
A week from today, the count in the British general election will be winding up. Unless there is a change or a major oversight in polling and election modeling, the Conservative Party led by Boris Johnson will be elected with a majority in the range of 25-35 seats. The electoral system and population concentrations favor the Tories to begin with, but Labour has run a miserable campaign and has failed to engage in an electoral pact with the other non-Tory parties.
The key figures are 70% turnout and 42% of the vote going to the Conservatives. In the last election, turnout as 68.8%, and the statistics suggest that the Tories will be the main beneficiaries of any result below 70%. Moreover, if the Tories win 42% of the vote or more (on turnout under 70%), they will be able to claim a majority of seats.
Turnout is affected by a couple of factors: the weather and the passion of the electorate. The UK does not encourage early voting the way America does, so the weather on polling day matters. An election in December is almost a guarantee of dicey weather, and on Thursday, rain is expected in London and snow in Scotland. In between will be a mix, but the one thing that is certain is the sun won't be out all day to encourage low-motivation voters.
The passion of the electorate matters a great deal as well, and one gets the sense that the average Briton is sick of Brexit, dislikes both Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Conservative Prime Minister Johnson and is more concerned about Christmas than Polling Day. That suggests that turnout will not exceed the 70% threshold. There is a great deal of motivation among the party bases, but this election (like most) will be determined by those who don't consider party affiliation as part of their personal identity.
The polls (which must be viewed with skepticism at all times) suggest that Labour will struggle to do much better than one vote in three. The Conservative Party has made this election about Brexit ("Get Brexit Done"), and Labour has decided to be on both sides of the question. The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, the Greens and Plaid Cymru have arranged a limited electoral pact among themselves as solid Remain parties. Labour declined to participate in any kind of arrangement with other parties. That means its 1/3 of the vote is not going to enjoy the kind of leverage in certain seats that it could otherwise have won.
Labour claims that the Liberal Democrats are at fault for demanding the departure of Jeremy Corbyn as leader in exchange for a deal. Labour is certainly entitled to choose its own leader, but by sticking with Mr. Corbyn, Labour is saying that it is better to lose with him than win with someone else. The Liberal Democrats probably should have held off on that demand until after the election. If they held the balance of power and could put Labour in power with their support, the departure of Mr. Corbyn would be less provocative.
Where Labour went wrong, however, was not with its choice of leader (directly). Its failure to choose a side in the Brexit debate is the cause of its likely loss. Offering a second referendum one a Labour negotiated deal with the EU without taking a side (Mr. Corbyn's offer) is gutless. The argument made was that about half of the Labour voters opted for Leave in the referendum. Mr. Corbyn feared splitting his party over Brexit. This journal takes the view that the Labour Leaver vote is more Labour than Leaver. He didn't have the nerve to find out, and while his party hasn't split over Brexit, it won't win a Brexit election now.
He has six days to prevent a disaster greater than Suez. The world was created in six days, but despite what his backers believe, Mr. Corbyn is not God.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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