Vocal Voices

Well deserved.

A populist referendum called to save the party - that went the wrong way.

An opportunistic election, breaking the spirit of the law, to boost the party has also gone the wrong way.

A strong and stable leadership avoiding a coalition of chaos has disappeared except for Tory + DUP perhaps, maybe, possibly, on some things.

Oh joyous day - goodbye May.

I said at the time this election was called that dreams of Labour's decimation were baseless, and I was right.

I also said that the election was up for grabs and was shot down in flames, but I was right.

And I told you all that Corbyn was more connected with real people than your dreams and the media were letting you believe, and again I was right.

Today is a fantastic day for democracy in this country, and a well deserved size nine in the family jewels of the press and TV for daring to think that they could swing the election their way. Those days look to be over: Thank goodness.

The downside is that Brexit is now in deep trouble, but let us put the blame fairly and squarely where that lies, it is with the Tories. Hopefully we will all remember that for a long. long time.

I wouldn't be quite as eulogistic as you, WM, but I am quietly pleased that Theresa May came unstuck, and the SNP got a kicking north of the border.

In actuality all this shows, to me, is that Cameron was a very astute politician who has been pilloried in the press over and over and over. This is just one more example of that.

In 2015 Cameron turned a coalition into a Conservative Majority in a climate where the government was quite unpopular. He did this with two things. First he kept the core Conservative vote happy. Second he sucked enough Brexit aligned Labour voters away from UKIP, with his referendum promise, to use UKIP to cripple the Labour vote.

Nobody saw that and I'm not going to say that I saw all of it either, I saw Cameron desperately trying to keep UKIP at bay. I did not see the Tories taking quite so much from Labour that even with the UKIP vote split, the Tories would still prevail.

As I pointed to, yesterday, with the article on UKIP voters and where they would vote, it was really the UKIP voters election yesterday. What I did not anticipate is how many of them would see Labour as a safe bet for Brexit. Had it been otherwise the Lib Dems would have done much better last night.

I did, however, predict what happened in Scotland. That 38% of the vote which had voted for Brexit came out in force and voted in a huge number of Tories, the most since Maggie first came into Government. I see this as confirmation that a good chunk of Scots voted Yes in indyref in the hope they would be able to keep Scotland out of the EU. Once the EU was taken out of the issue, SNP got a good kicking. Really the story of the night was SNP losing almost 40% of their seats on a single issue. Since 2015 we have had to listen to Sturgeon crowing about SNP making a "difference" in UK Politics. In fact the only thing they did was deny Miliband a victory in 2015, not quite the result they were hoping for. On the other hand the Scots made a "huge" difference yesterday. They kept the Tories in power, denied a grand coalition and ensured that Brexit will go ahead. Vote for Vote, those 38% of Scots had a real say yesterday. As did the NI Brexit voters who gave the DUP a two seat boost.

The story of the night? The tail wags the dog!

So back to the UK as a whole. Where did the UKIP voters go and why? Well if you take a step back hindsight is a wonderful thing. Corbyn put a 3 line whip on the A50 negotiations. Corbyn whipped his party into shape for voting with the Tories to trigger A50 and, essentially, UKIP voters must have felt that pressure on their Labour MP's would be a stronger measure than bringing in a Tory.

This, if you have actually read the Labour manifesto, is a chimera. Those UKIP voters did not Believe in Corbyn (his fitness to rule polls stayed low the whole time), per se, they voted on his record of supporting A50 allied to the promises he made because he fully expected that he would never have to deliver on them. If those UKIP voters had fully read the manifesto, then gone back and read everything the EU had said, they would have realised that the Labour stance was impossible and something would have to give. The thing that would have given would have been open borders and customs union and ECJ control of UK laws and a €100bn Brexit bill. In short the UK in a far worse position than actually being in the EU itself.

What has happened and what have those UKIP Labour votes achieved.

1. There is no chance of May making her "social program". The non "social" tories simply won't vote for it.
2. May herself is likely to be replaced, sooner or later, with a hard Brexit, hard Tory leader.
3. The Tories must now ally themselves with the DUP, they are the most ideologically aligned and campaigned on hard Brexit with a soft NI border.
4. The Tories are now focused under a hard Brexit manifest. They must stand together or fall. Rebels will not be allowed.

Personally I believe that those UKIP voters who voted for Labour yesterday did not get what they were hoping for. In fact they have completely ensured that they will not get what they are hoping for. I just hope that May gets outsted by BoJo before the vote on the Brexit deal. That, for me, would be the complete circle in the whole Greek Trajedy. We could align fully with the US and have more than half the worlds nuclear power in the hands of blonde buffoons....

Yes some crowing of a Tory kicking will go on. But, remember, May got more votes than Cameron in 2010 and people felt Brown was more fit to lead than Corbyn.

I see in the news that May has already "done the deal" with the DUP and is heading to form a government.

The runners are in the starting blocks, the Tories are still in charge, the arch Brexiters are still carrying out the negotiations with Brussels.

What changed?

May won't get her social program through.

Own goal?

Ossie, I am eulogising to the nth and will do so for some time. I am not anti-Tory by any means, but if it was not for Ruth Davidson and the ScotCons May would be nowhere.

I am over the moon that we got the hung parliament we all so richly deserved.

I am delighted that the SNP got the damned good kicking it deserved in Scotland.

And I am smugly satisfied that Labour connected with real people to the ire of the ideologues who hate them so much.

The real winners in this election were the people, the ordinary people, and we all should thank them.

I think one of the first big tests of whether the Tories have "got the message" from the people or not will be whether Timothy and Hill get shown the door; Timothy certainly. As I understand it, he was the moving force behind the dementia tax debacle. I believe it will have cost the Conservatives many, many votes amongst the old generation. It cost them my vote, certainly ....

They are still the biggest party, so it's not all bad for them. May called an unnecessary election, rolled the dice and came out worse at the other end.

As Kevin Maguire (and I don't like him) has pointed out the DUP in Northern Ireland hold a strong hand now. Only 8 MP's but they make the difference.

They don't want a "hard" border with the Republic. So what does that mean for Brexit? No "hard" Brexit?

Suff, Cameron may be an astute politicians but re Brexit he has landed us in a right mess now.

He called the referendum, he lost it.

He said he would "Initiate Article 50 the next day" if he lost the referendum - he didn't.
He said he would guide us through the leaving process - he didn't, he bailed out.

So we are where we are, in a mess.

I would say you are in a mess, and if Theresa May is depending on the DUP, then god help you all. You do know about them, don't you? This affects NI and not in a good way - Arlene Foster must be doing cartwheels of joy. It amazes me that the press in the UK excoriated Jeremy Corbyn for meeting with Gerry Adams - what will they say now that May has allied herself with a terrorist group?

Osc wrote:what will they say now that May has allied herself with a terrorist group?

Sadly Osc, very little because that is the way that the media and politics go in the UK. A lot was made about a Labour tie up with the SNP as being a disaster. Tory DUP? Not a match made in heaven for peace and prosperity. The main difference I'd say is that the DUP will focus on NI issues and leave GB to GB issues. Unlike the SNP who seemed to delight in interfering in English only issues.

It's going to be a mess but at least it's my preferred mess and not Corbyn's mess or Farron's mess or Sturgeon's mess.

The funny thing is that over the last 30 years the Tory who has delivered more of everything for me is Cameron...Go Figure.

That is very norty, Osc.

Next you'll be telling us that the DUPpies are anti gay, anti abortion and a bit dodgy when it comes to finances, and that they had direct links to UR and the UVF.

As an ex serviceman at the time of the troubles I cannot even begin to tell you how much the proposed tie up sickens me.

Suff, spin it all you like, lay out your excuses and pledge your love for May, but she did the impossible - she won and lost at the same time. Suck it up. Her and that pillock Cameron have put the country in deep sh1t for party political purposes and I hope the country never forgets.

I'm with you Frank. A clear message to the Tories, and a triumph of people power!!!!

Osc I get your point, but I would honestly not expect this situation to last for long xxx