While the entire Parliamentary Labour Party will vote against any Chequers-based deal, those who insist that the Conservatives are the party of Leave are delirious with joy at the unconfirmed possibility that 40 of that party's MPs might do likewise.
Forty. Out of 316. About one in eight. 276 Conservative MPs, seven out of eight of them, will therefore vote in favour of whatever Theresa May brings back. And that is on the best estimates of the fantasists who believe that the Conservatives are the party of Leave. Meanwhile, the entire Parliamentary Labour Party will vote against any Chequers-based deal.
But then, of the five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015, by far the most Eurosceptical has won both of them, including the 2016 one that was held after the referendum and which was very much fought on this issue.
Also after the referendum, the Conservative Party gave its Leadership to Theresa May without a contest. All five people who have contested Labour Leadership Elections since 2015 have been more Eurosceptical than Theresa May, and all four of them who are still in the House of Commons will vote against her deal.
Whereas no more than 40 Conservative MPs, and probably not even that many, will do so. After all, why would the rest? Not only will they agree with it, but they are justifiably scared out of their wits of losing their seats to the Liberal Democrats in the Remain heartlands for which they sit. Ask them. They will tell you. They will tell you in no uncertain terms.
There are still those who forlornly try to fight it, but the perception has well and truly taken root that the EU referendum result was pretty much a straight North-South split between Leave and Remain, that it was the first in centuries of Northern revolts to have succeeded, that it was the rejection of a generation of Thatcherism by those who had suffered the most as a result of it, and so on. The composition of today's march will more than confirm that perception.
Jolly good. We need to make that work for us. We Are The Masters Now. Thankfully, another hung Parliament is coming. Our people need to hold the balance of power in it. My crowdfunding page is here, or email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com for other options. That address accepts PayPal.
Noes to Left? Only 37% of Labour voters voted Leave. vs 70% of Tory voters.
ReplyDeleteNoes to the Right.
Even if you are right, then no one believes you, and they never will. This is how everyone is always going to remember it, except perhaps a few academics writing for each other, but possibly not even then.
DeleteWhether or not the North and the Left won the referendum strictly in itself (and we undeniably cast the decisive votes), then we have won everything to do with it hands down. The new Britain will have to suit us, "because we voted for Brexit." Jolly good. So long as we hold our nerve.
Everyone thinks that the South voted Remain. And by electing the seven eighths pro-Chequers Conservative Party, it did. That party's only fear is that the South will vote even more Remain next time, by voting for the Lib Dems, if what it had been given by then had not been Remain enough for it.
Meanwhile, all Labour MPs are going to vote against anything that had come out of Chequers, "because we voted for Brexit." And because Jeremy Corbyn is more Eurosceptical then anyone whom he has ever beaten for Labour Leader, while all of those are more Eurosceptical than Theresa May.
Theresa May, whom the seven eighths pro-Chequers Conservative Party, the party of the places that would go Lib Dem if there were ever anything like a real Brexit, made its Leader by acclaim.
It's obvious, isn't it? Why would the people who'd done well out the changes to Britain since the Seventies vote to overturn the whole system? Why would the people who'd done badly not vote to do that? As Mr. Lindsay says, whatever the subtleties, that's what everyone thinks and always will. Let's make the most of it.
DeleteLet's.
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