The absolute drubbing handed out to the Conservatives in last week's local elections must surely send a message to their senior management - time is up.
It's very clear that the voting public have had more than enough of both major parties with the Conservatives losing over 1,300 seats while Labour also lost seats, rather than gaining the hundreds which John McDonnell had predicted. The Liberal Democrats (a laughable name) may be celebrating their apparent 'victory' in winning 700 seats but they started from such an exceptionally low base and were no more than recipients of votes from those protesting against both Conservative and Labour incompetence at the national level. Effectively, these elections had nothing to do with local issues and were all about the failings of the two senior parties at Westminster.
The responses from Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have been pathetic. They seem to believe that carrying on as before, supposedly seeking some sort of cross-party consensus on Brexit, is the answer. Mrs May is moving ever closer to agreeing to Labour's demands for a 'customs' union' and close alignment with the European Union, while Labour will, no doubt, drop their demand for another referendum; expect an announcement before the end of the week. The result will be a non-Brexit Brexit which will satisfy no one other than those who cobble it together.
There is no doubt that Theresa May is the least competent Prime Minister for many years. Gordon Brown was poor and Jim Callaghan wasn't up to the job, but we have to go back to at least Alec Douglas-Home or Anthony Eden to find a PM who was so unsuited to the position. Not only has this obstinate and useless woman failed, she has failed so catastrophically that future generations may well refer to "doing a May" as a euphemism for making a real mess of things. Her claims of having reached an agreement with the EU will go down in history alongside those of poor Neville Chamberlain and his "paper which bears his name" agreement with Herr Hitler.
May's record is one of unmitigated failure. From the outset, her virtual coronation as David Cameron's successor in 2016, she has proved to be incapable of leading her party or her country. It took her until March 2017, 9 months after the referendum, to get around to formally beginning the process of the UK's exit from the European Union. Then, for no reason other than that opinion polls suggested the Conservatives were well ahead and could potentially achieve an increased majority in parliament, she called a general election for June of that year but which she managed so catastrophically as to ensure that her party not only didn't gain seats but actually lost the slim majority which it had previously enjoyed. Her only means of staying in power was to place her government in the hands of the Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland, which led directly to her next failure.
May entered into 'negotiations' with the European Union from a wholly wrong direction. Instead of telling the EU what she was prepared to do, she asked what they would accept. Unsurprisingly, having set all of the rules, the EU's representatives then set about making Brexit as difficult as possible. Six months of 'negotiation' resulted in the insanity of an agreement, purely so that things could proceed to the next stage, which neither many members of her own party nor of her government's supporters, the DUP could ever accept. The 'Irish Backstop' was a mechanism invented by the EU, in collaboration with the government of the Irish Republic, specifically designed to prevent any meaningful Brexit from ever occurring, and yet May signed up to it.
Over the next year, the 'Irish Backstop' became the main talking point and Brexit became dependent upon finding a way out of this appalling mistake. May simply carried on regardless, reaching a supposed 'withdrawal agreement' with the EU and then stubbornly insisting that this was the only way forward. Ultimately, Parliament rejected not only her deal but also every other option put forward, except, of course, that 'no deal' was unacceptable. May lost control of her Cabinet, with the traditional collective responsibility shot to pieces, of her government and of parliament. She no longer has any authority at Westminster and the local election results send a clear message that Conservative voters have no faith in her, or her government, either. Incredibly, she has continued to ignore calls for her to resign, simply saying that she will go once the first stage of the Brexit process has been concluded, be that next week, next year or never.
May initially said that she would deliver Brexit on 29th March 2019, and that no deal was better than a bad deal. What she's actually done is to agree an EU determined withdrawal agreement which included the 'Irish Backstop', something which was never going to be acceptable to Brexiteers. She has presided over a complete breakdown of collective responsibility within her cabinet and government, a complete loss of authority in parliament and a near disintegration of her party in the country. Despite the Labour Party having veered dramatically to the left under the leadership of hard-left Marxists, she has failed to capitalise, as has the Labour leadership on May's catastrophic leadership of both her party and country, specifically because of its own neo-Marxist unelectability. When, or even if, Brexit happens is in the lap of the Gods, 29th March having long since receded into the past and new dates being chucked around like confetti.
To add to May's record of failure, the latest example is truly bizarre. The saga of the Huawei leak is something which even seasoned mystery writers would have trouble dreaming up. A leak of information, not subsequently deemed to be of any real significance, resulted in a great furore stirred up by Mrs May's adherents and a 'leak inquiry' overseen by the Cabinet Secretary. Historically, such investigations rarely, if ever, produce anything but hot air but, on this occasion, a culprit was identified within no time at all. Secretary of State for Defence, Gavin Williamson, was named and sacked although he has vehemently denied any responsibility; Mrs May and her mates have subsequently refused to make their claimed evidence public and have refused to allow the police, or anyone else, to re-examine the matter. It all smacks of lies, convenience, duplicity and cover-up; in any normal case, Mr Williamson would be allowed the opportunity to defend himself against what he says are fallacious accusations but not, it seems, in Mrs May's world.
Where is all this going to end ? Last Thursday, I spoiled my ballot paper as did, reportedly, at least many tens of thousands of other voters, exasperated by the utter incompetence and duplicity of politicians of all parties and levels. If, or when, we are subjected to elections for the European Union's ridiculous parliament, scheduled for 23rd May, I shall be voting for the Brexit Party which seems likely to garner a large, probably the largest, percentage, of the total votes cast. Thus far, the Conservatives have failed to launch a campaign for these elections, Mrs May no doubt believing that her party is doomed to a monumentally catastrophic defeat whatever they do; so inaction, which seems to be her forté, is seen as being preferable to making a pointless effort for which she could be criticised even more.
As if to add to the turmoil, pretenders to the throne are lining up for the inevitable leadership election. Some of the potential candidates are well known - Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt - others are virtually unknown - Rory Stewart, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock. Frankly, none looks like anything more than yet another of the party hacks produced by the Conservative Party over the years; certainly, none looks like a Prime Minister in waiting; in the absence of a genuinely talented and charismatic new leader, the Conservative Party is surely doomed to oblivion.
That leaves us with Jeremy Corbyn and his Marxist, terrorist friends to inherit the earth. What a glorious prospect.
No comments:
Post a Comment