Our constipated political class will face an election at the mercy of the real bosses: The Voters
WHEN the First World War started in 1914, some optimists said it would be ”over by Christmas”.
Yesterday we had the welcome news that our Brexit civil war could be settled by mid-December. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.
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For the past three years, our useless political class has pulled every trick to try to stop Brexit. PM Boris Johnson, desperate to end the gridlock, has now shamed these democracy-blockers into holding a general election. It’s a risky move.
The electoral system is skewed against the Conservatives. But if opinion polls are right — and if Boris can inspire voters with his optimism and brio — Brexit really might be unblocked by Christmas. At last!
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, after weeks of political constipation, took a dose of prune juice yesterday and, amazingly, reached a decision. Did you see his face afterwards? Pure relief. He hadn’t been that happy for months.
Finally he had seen off the shroud-waving, do-nothing, block-everything Blairite Remainers in his parliamentary party — among them his deputy, Tom Watson.
They had wanted to keep commie Corbyn swinging in the wind for a few more months. They were still moaning last night that he had blown this anti-Brexit Parliament’s last chance of securing a second referendum.
COMMIE CORBYN
Corbyn’s repeated refusals to go to the country were making him look like a politician who was scared of the people. Reaction on the doorsteps to his indecision was terrible. No wonder he finally caved.
But if the Labour leader yesterday seemed liberated, there were plenty on his Commons benches who were aghast at the idea of an election in December.
“It’ll be too dark!” they wailed. “It’ll be too cold! People will be too busy preparing for Christmas! The students won’t be at university any more!”
Too dark and too cold? Does that mean we should only ever have general elections in high summer?
It was even put about that Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill had advised Boris against calling a mid- December election because church halls would have been booked for school nativity plays.
Now I’m as soft as any doting dad about kiddies dressing up to play Joseph and Mary but sorry, a general election to free our country from this Brexit impasse really might be more important.
FEELING TWITCHY
Why were some MPs so miserable yesterday? Most obviously, it was because lots of them think they’ll lose their seats. Anyone with a majority of fewer than 5,000 will probably be feeling twitchy, particularly if he or she spent the last three years resisting the public’s will on Brexit.
Money was another factor. Fighting an election is expensive for MPs. They not only lose their Westminster income once Parliament is dissolved (diddums, and so do members of the House of Lords) but they also have to dig into their pockets for expenses and election costs.
All those leaflets, all that petrol and shoe leather, all those late-night takeaways with volunteers — the sums soon add up. A Tory MP once told me that an election campaign cost him £30,000.
But Parliament needs rebooting. At the 2017 election, both Labour and the Conservatives promised to respect the Leave vote — and they duly won most of the seats.
But Labour broke that promise, as the antics of Corbyn, Keir Starmer, Hilary Benn and Co showed. Leave voters in Labour seats are less likely to be fooled a second time.
'CRITICAL JUNCTURE'
The one unknown in the election will be Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. Could it yet lose the election for Boris by taking votes away from the pro-Brexit Tories? What an own goal that would be.
Ben Bradshaw, arch- Remainer Labour MP for Exeter, called yesterday’s election moves “outrageous”. We were at a “critical juncture for our country”. He plainly thought that only MPs should have a say.
Keep the unwashed voters where they belong, eh, Ben? Barry Sheerman, another Remainer Labour MP, professed himself “puzzled and deeply disappointed” by Corbyn’s support for an election.
Sheerman feared “the elderly” would not be able to get to polling stations on a December day. Mr Sheerman himself is 79. If we all took his patronising attitude, we might ask how the old dearie manages to totter down to Westminster from his Huddersfield constituency every week.
At such an advanced age, how does Barry remember to tie his laces, let alone make his terrible speeches in the Commons? But no one does ask that, thank goodness, because we do not treat older people like simpletons.
On Monday Labour MP Seema Malhotra fretted about students losing their right to vote in a December election because they might have ended their college terms by then and have moved back home. She called this “voter suppression”.
Oh come off it. She and her Remainer mates were the only ones trying to “suppress” voters — by trying to prevent a clearout of this rotten House of Commons.
MOST READ IN OPINION
Does she really think students are too dim to know where their votes are registered? If so, they won’t be much good at their exams. Anna Soubry, the former Tory MP who quit her party in a Remainer tizzy, claimed that “an election will solve nothing”.
Former Labour MP John Mann shouted: “It’d solve you — you’d lose your seat.” And not just Soubry. Lots of these anti-democrats are now at the mercy of the real bosses of British politics — the voters.
I think we’ll just about manage to get to the polling station, don’t you?
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