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Theresa May Remains Prime Minister
Theresa May has been to Buckingham Palace and will continue as Her Majesty’s Prime Minister. One seat is yet to declare the result of yesterday’s general election. That it is Kensington, one of the safest of Tory strongholds, and that it is in doubt is the election in a nutshell; Mrs May gambled on gaining and lost her base. From working majority to minority government in six weeks and blowing the largest slice of goodwill the Conservative party has enjoyed in a generation.
Already we have calls that the Conservatives were not left wing enough, that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour with its hard socialist message shows the electorate has moved left. Utter rubbish. The Tories got their largest vote share in decades despite their ruinous manifesto. What we have just had is a re-run of the referendum from last year with no one really mentioning it. Mrs May was right to believe that UKIP’s vote would collapse and totally wrong on how to woo them. Mr Corbyn’s vague promises on Brexit going ahead was enough to tempt former Labour ‘kippers back into the fold once Mrs May failed to follow up her Brexit rhetoric with any conviction. Worse still her policy proscriptions showed a complete failure to diagnose the Brexit coalition, to treat it as a malady rather than a rejection of the governing consensus. Endless time has been spent trying to determine the reasons for Brexit, with no concrete answer because there is not one. Rather there were a whole host of reasons, the one unifying theme was that the liberal elite were taking the country down the wrong path, whether that was immigration policy or sovereignty issues or any of the other reasons people voted to leave the EU. If the vote last year was a rejection of Third Way centrist Blairism, offering a Blairite manifesto was the height of idiocy. Failure to galvanise this base with a positive vision of the future – as the Leave campaign did last year – while the remnants of the Remain campaign quietly and carefully coordinated their side with a simple stop ‘Hard Brexit’ message, was the real reason for this complete cock-up.
Mrs May had a twenty point lead in the polls despite being the least media friendly Prime Minister in recent memory. She was Judi Dench’s M from the recent James Bond films, competently in the background organising her more flamboyant operatives while simultaneously showing she had bigger balls than any of them; Margaret Thatcher without actually having to be Maggie. Calling an election and putting herself front and centre like a presidential candidate destroyed that image and thrust her own brand of ‘Red Toryism’ into the limelight. It had gone down like a cup of sick with the Tory faithful, who were willing to see it as an olive branch to the media crowd but not campaign on it. Insulting the libertarian wing of the party (well over a third of the activists and certainly the more Brexiteer members) in a speech is one thing, equating them with socialists twice in the manifesto was another. The most common phrase of conservatives was “if it wasn’t for Brexit…” before disavowing the very Milibandesque manifesto they were supposed to sell. Consequently the public were hardly enthused, indeed the MP responsible for it lost his seat.
The silver linings from this disaster are there for those willing to read the runes. The most obvious is the fall in support for the Scottish Nationalists, kicking a second independence referendum into the long grass. While acknowledging I scoffed at the idea of a dozen Tory seats north of the border, I would have to counter that it cost a majority south of it. Whether that will be worth the instability now on offer only time will tell. Secondly, the Remain elements of the party are now weakened while the Leavers are enhanced. While this may look paradoxical the morning after the night before, if ‘Theresa’s Team’ had won a majority approaching the three figure mark the Thatcherite free market wing of the party would have been sidelined. As they have actually been the most loyal of all Mrs May parliamentary troops, we now have the chance to see them promoted. The fate of the Boris-bashing Amber Rudd, whose five thousand majority shrunk to less than four hundred in Brexit-voting Hastings, shows how the referendum last year has changed the game. The fact that Mrs May elevated this woman to succeed her as Home Secretary, and then sent her out to bat as her surrogate in the TV debate, illustrates how out of touch Tory high command are; Mrs Rudd goes down well with the media class but not the base. Again this is a lesson for the Conservative party, no matter how they pander to the political correct crowd it will never be enough to induce them to vote Tory and only alienates supporters. After the BBC quite shamelessly put its thumb on the scales in this election (and they are hardly hiding their glee this morning either), the Tories would be well advised to start taking a leaf out of President Trump’s playbook and fight back. They could follow his lead on terrorism and climate change too….
Mrs May will probably continue as a caretaker PM – the Brexit negotiations are due to start in ten days time – but she is weakened, perhaps fatally. On the other hand governing as Chairman rather than the Cabinet CEO offers her the best path to redemption. She wished to craft her own agenda to leave as a legacy instead of grasping that a successful Brexit would be her best chance at history. In the long run this election might just be better for the country, though you could put a safe bet on the Tories tacking further left in reaction to this debacle.
Published in General
Steve Baker yes, but too fringe and Eurosceptic to gain widespread support in the parliamentary party I suspect. Also not very well known. James Cleverly’s just too new and inexperienced.
But Rees-Mogg, hohoho! “One might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb”!
Somewhat disappointingly, however, it appears that May will survive after ditching Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. I’m reminded of Thorpe’s comment on Macmillan: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life.”
Graham Brady? I know he’s chair of the ’22 but he therefore knows all the factions…. We don’t have an obvious leader in waiting so we need a manager.
It’ll end up being BoJo though, won’t it?
If not now then when for him? I think if he’d run last year the media would have destroyed him a la Leadsom, they were totally feral at that point and had he won it would have been a similar story to Trump-Russia. If it turns out that it was a May interregnum then he at least has a chance of making a success of it. Summer recess?
Judging from what I’m seeing in the Telegraph online this evening, I wonder if she can even make it to summer recess. The Conservative Home poll will give any plotters some courage, no doubt; and now that the DUP deal has been done, there is some breathing room. Not much, admittedly… but how bad would it be if the Brexit negotiations had to be delayed? All speculation, of course.
As for how the media would or will treat Johnson, I don’t think he’s an easy target, really. But we may find out.
Michael Walsh on what he calls Teresa May’s “well deserved defeat”:
This thing Mr. Walsh has to say is ridiculous in every aspect. The man should have the honesty to say, Americans & British made different kinds of choices faced with a crisis of democratic confidence, & it’s not clear which is better, or if either is worthwhile–but both are understandable in the circumstances.
England has rejected PM May’s attempts at transformation. She’s a time server, largely because the people don’t know what they want or how badly they want it. She made them an offer they would have been wiser to accept, being that they would not have sold themselves to the Tories, nor lost any other opportunities. They instead have now nothing but confusion.
America has elected Mr. Trump & it has gotten another kind of confusion, far more public & tumultous. Scandals are constantly emerging & there is now no evidence whatsoever–not even a smidgeon!–that waging war on the Deep State is what’s happening or should be happening or can happen. But there’s lots of evidence that Americans hate each other even more this years than the previous–& that they’ll hate each other with even worse animal ferocity the next.
As for terror attacks, it is not Trump but the Deep State that actually protects America–if there is anything protecting America. It is not your Mr. Walsh or anyone like him actually doing anything to stop terror–it’s the very reviled national security bureaucracies & agencies.
It is worse than disgusting to talk about what the Tories have gotten in return in Britain, as though they had caused them by provocation or some cause-&-effect mechanism. How in all hells is American policy any different to British here that America is spared terror?
The Deep State protects themselves, and only themselves. They care nothing for the fate of ordinary Americans.
That’s of necessity not true. It’s not like the rest of America is drowning in Islamic terrorists! Who can really believe that there are no plots stopped by America’s national security bureaucracies & agencies? Surely–they’re not all plots against D.C. & the like.
But on the other hand, it is true that D.C. governing classes–& most governing classes members in America–are way more protected than & therefore share way less in risk with most Americans! (It should also be said that chance plays a part, too–rural Americans are far less exposed to terorrism than urban Americans…)
The governing classes do not seem anymore to care for the consent of the people. That’s the problem. Not that they don’t care for the fate of people–in certain ways, they care too much. Then, too, there is much they do without caring–the security theater of the TSA–that costly, undignified harassment is not about caring, but about projecting what Tom Wolfe calls The Power–the cop attitude. It’s reassuring to some, infuriating to others, but it’s not the means to American safety on planes…
It absolutely is true. Do you think there would be so much opposition to the building of a wall on our southern border were D.C. located on the Rio Grande rather than the Potomac? It is to laugh.
Well, San Diego is on the border & they don’t want to build a wall–that’s true more broadly of California. Texas is on the border & they’re not going crazy over building the wall.
Self-interest cannot explain this either for conservatives or liberals.
This is not to say that in practic the governing classes don’t isolate themselves from the rest of America.
But it’s also true that lots of Americans also do this–pretty much anyone who can afford it!
Whether a wall does it or not, Americans do need to take limits on immigration & thinking through the powers & dangers of tech-based national security far more seriously. The governing classes do need to learn to respect the fact that they need popular consent–which won’t happen until they get shocked far more seriously thant Mr. Trump has hitherto managed to do. But the people also need to learn that they have to take their participation in public debates more seriously, if there is to be any consensus or majority opinion on immigration, the deep border, &c.
So far, the people who demonize the Deep State have not managed to get the majority behind them; the people who demonize these people have not managed it either. Both are however obviously successful at making money by persuading Americans to hate each other in a monstrous way-
Persuading? The hatred is quite genuine, borne of a ruling class (including but not limited to the Deep State) that intends to impose its vision upon the entirety of the nation and erase all those who oppose it. To put it more succinctly, we (the country class, to use Codevilla’s term) didn’t choose the cold civil war, the cold civil war chose us.
I don’t think the faults are all on one side. I think Mr. Codevilla is quite right & it seems obvious to me that freedom cannot live with as much administration as administrators want to administer. & freedom is preferable to administration, if it comes to a conflict between the two.
But the faults are not all on one side & right is not all on our side, either. As Mr. Codevilla points out: In the Cold Civil War, Americans must learn to live somewhat apart & to tolerate each other over their divides, if at arm’s length. Some things, he says, must be the same for all: Citizenship & the sacred character of voting. Others must be different for different Americans: Let all conservative states outlaw abortion & dare the feds to sneeze. But let also California do what it will with sanctuary cities.
That’s what moderation in passions & prudence in government seems to require-
Walsh seems a bit confused about the Scottish vote:
“and the Tories’ unexpected boost from the Scottish National Party (which saved them from utter defeat)”
The Scottish Conservative party won seats, as did all unionist parties; the SNP lost them. He is right to point out the potential dangers in Northern Ireland (where the Tories do not put up any candidates) but one silver lining from the election map is that the Conservatives are a more British party now rather than just an English one.
As long as David Davis has recovered his spine after election night, he has always been the man to lead the negotiations so he can crack on regardless IMHO, his appointment was the main reason I trusted May. Having a new leader who was a Remainer would put that course in jeopardy.
True today and true before he came out for Leave. But recall there was a very strong Anyone But Boris movement with the Remain (Tory) MPs and the Europhile media after the referendum. If he were to run for leader now the campaign to stop BoJo has lost its mojo, especially with Amber Rudd so personally weakened.
For members who have no idea who Graham Brady is, here is his rock solid interview from this morning.
This should end the Boris speculation….
Because their coalition depends on the Ulster Unionists?
But the Deep State (which is not the professionals who toil in the trenches) is the feckless [expletive]weasels in powerful positions in the bureaucracy who can even think such thoughts let alone speak them from positions of authority:
London police chief: Attack victims show city’s diversity
It’s being able to mouth and enforce Newspeak like that which put her where she is.
Nonsense. The Deep State is the Comeys who, for example, lie to create an impression which calls for a special prosecutor and then appoint another Deep State operative to carry on the resistance. The interests of the Deep State to some extent overlap those of the USA but they are not the same. That Comey may well have helped protect the country is not because of his Deep State loyalty.
Here’s an academic mouthpiece:
And, moreso, because they penetrated Scotland:
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40176349
As I read the changed seats map, DUP flipped two seats and SF three in Ireland, while in Scotland, Labour added 9 to the Conservative 11.
Update: I misread the map. Here’s Melanie Phillips:
The wishful thinking in the last paragraph makes me a bit skeptical of the whole thing.
Over here in Oz the leader who mops up after a set back gets tarred with that failure – is it different in the U.K.?
Point being, if BoJo (real thing?) is a serious option, wouldn’t it make sense for him to hang back, let May cop the negative backsplash and only ride in on a white horse when the public and the party are both ready to move on?
Makes a lot of sense to me…
That seems to be the scheme. May will have to face the 1922 committee tomorrow when her MPs will either back her or sack her.
Yes, but in the Conservative party now everyone and their dog, and even perhaps Ken Clarke, will have an effective veto over any deal… so it may in fact end up the case that all the negotiations come to naught, and it may not matter whether a Leaver or a Remainer is PM. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, though, except perhaps electorally — though it seems impossible to predict the views of the electorate at present.
Yes, I remember ABB, and agree that now Amber Rudd seems like a nonentity (like Hammond — lawdy!). And for some peculiarly English reason the public still seems to like BoJo, and it’s always been thought he would do well with party members, if it isn’t conclusively decided by the Parliamentary party (note for those not familiar with the process: party members choose the leader unless there is only one candidate, as was the case with May who won by showing enough support amongst MPs to cause everyone else to fold, except Boris who had already been shafted by Michael Gove). It also feels like, as in days of yore with Conservatives and Republicans, it’s “his turn”.
As for Boris’s semi-public statement to which you linked, my guess is he realised the danger of launching a leadership bid at such a difficult time, perhaps giving rise to another election, and is doing what @Zafar says (as we all seem to agree) in hanging back till the time is right. May will realise she can’t fight another election as leader, so perhaps ideally for Boris a year before the end of the 5-year term she’d resign and he could come along trying to look serious and not a buffoon.
I would expect to see Boris starting to use his position at the Foreign Office to do more public stuff and get himself seen on telly more often. He’s been amazingly quiet until now in that post.
P.S. Yes, @Zafar, “BoJo” is a thing!
P.P.S. Great news about Michael Gove making a return to the Cabinet.
Every day something new!
* “People don’t understand. They think that we serve a political agenda. They think that just because
that we, the EU’s diplomatic corps, want anything other than to negotiate a successful Brexit.”
The EU hacked British democracy?
Well their job is to make it successful for the EU rather than worrying about whether it’s easy for Britain.
The real question is why Theresa May was so eager to
take Juncker’s adviceget rolled by the EU. As you say, the “professionals'” job is to get a “successful deal” for the EU. They have no need to make it difficult for Britain. Her “victory” is doing a good job of that.Labour’s youth turnout was yet another vote for “free stuff” and the DUP and Davidson both more or less ran on “almost as much free stuff as Labour” plus “soft Brexit” (aka open borders.) If this weren’t really happening it’d be a lot of fun to watch.