Tag Archives: Farage

Brexit, Party Politics, Uncategorized

What Now for General Election 2019?

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Introduction and background

I have blogged within the past day about the result of the UK local elections:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/the-uk-local-elections-have-been-held-my-view/

We have seen what happened in those elections:

  • the Conservative Party humiliated and suffering a defeat worse than many (but not I) anticipated;
  • the Labour Party, though losing few seats (82), also humiliated, in that, at this point in the conventional electoral cycle, the norm is for the governing party to lose and possibly lose heavily, but for the official Opposition party to make gains, perhaps considerable gains;
  • the Liberal Democrats, who have not, in general, recovered since their rout at the 2015 General Election (and who in fact did worse at the 2017 General Election in terms of popular vote share —7.4% in 2017 as against 7.9% in 2015— though better in terms of House of Commons seats —12, up from 8), had a “good” result in these local elections, more than doubling the number of LibDem councillors.

Local councillors elected (only about a third of the over 20,000 total were in contest this time) were 3,561 (Con), 2,023 (Lab) and 704 (LibDem); others (mainly Independents) elected numbered 1,310, a large increase.

The totals of local government seats now held (mostly council seats) by the three main System parties: Con 7,615, Lab 6,327, LibDems 2,576.

The 2019 local elections gave the System parties the following vote shares: Con 28%, Lab 28%, LibDems 19%, Others (and spoiled votes) 25%.

The electoral swing percentages: 7% down for Con, 1% down for Lab, and 8% up for the LibDems.

It can be seen from the above that these elections were disastrous for the Conservatives, not successful for Labour. As to the LibDems, their upsurge was mainly a protest vote by pro-Remain former Conservative voters. Not very important. I do not want to waste more time than I have already on washed-up UKIP or on the Green protest vote.

Had the Nigel Farage vehicle, the Brexit Party, been contesting the local elections, the Conservative and Labour parties would have done very much worse, the LibDems about the same (their votes coming exclusively from Remainers and from those who think that mass immigration actually somehow benefits the people of the UK).

The 2019 EU election

It is now too late for the EU election not to be held in the UK. The pathetic “deal” cobbled together (as I write this, not quite agreed between Theresa May and Corbyn) will not be able to prevent the EU election happening. Thus Brexit Party comes into play.

Look at the film clip below. Nigel Farage arriving at a rally in Newport, Wales, on 30 April 2019. His reception is not just warm or supportive; it is ecstatic, an ovation by followers who seem almost to worship him.

Reminiscent of the entry of Adolf Hitler into the speech hall at Nuremberg in 1934, as shown in Triumph of the Will [dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 1935]. None of the substance and depth, of course, but superficially rather similar.

Opinion polls: Brexit Party was recently running at about 30% (2 May) and may by now be higher, maybe even 35%. That figure, though, relates purely to the upcoming EU elections

As regards Westminster elections, Brexit Party was running at 14% a few days ago, but it might well rise, perhaps considerably, from there. Labour is on about 30% and Conservatives around 25%.

Brexit Party is pretty much the only game in town as regards the EU election in the UK. Indeed, if Conservative/Labour do agree some unsatisfactory last-minute and cobbled-together “deal” to put to the EU, i.e. “Brexit In Name Only”, Brexit Party might well do even better on 23 May.

Possible General Election 2019

The System parties are assuming that, if some kind of limited faux-Brexit is presented to the British people, with or without a fake “Second Referendum” or “People’s Vote”, that that will shoot the Brexit Party’s fox. I’m not so sure.

There is huge dissatisfaction around, not only around Brexit (from both main directions), but also around the continuing other issues that bedevil the UK: the continuing low levels of pay and “welfare” (social security), overcrowded rail, poorly maintained roads, the spending cuts of a decade now impacting services such as NHS and police; immigration is continuing on a very large scale, too.

The msm and Westminster Bubble crowd have not fully caught up with what is happening. Look again at the Con, Lab and LibDem local results. Labour did not do well in terms of pressing ahead, but did not much slip back. The Conservatives suffered a really big hit. The LibDems did well mainly at the expense of the Conservatives.

In any 2019 General Election, the Conservatives, under whoever is their new leader, would face a three-front war: against Labour, LibDems and Brexit Party. It has been assumed up to now that Brexit Party would take the role and have the effect of being a spoiler alone. Maybe now it might be more than a mere spoiler. Half the Conservative voters of 2017 are saying that they will not vote Conservative next time. I have already blogged about how that could mean a loss of 100 or even 200 Commons seats for the Conservatives. Most ex-Con voters will vote Brexit Party.

It may well be that Brexit Party can do well enough to create its own bloc of seats. Maybe 50. Maybe even 100. Labour will also benefit from the Conservatives losing votes to both Brexit Party and the LibDems.

I cannot see the LibDems doing better than staying at about the same level that they are on now (12 MPs), but votes for them from former Conservative voters may easily let in either Labour or the Brexit Party, depending on the seat in question. Having said that, it is not impossible that a small number of LibDem candidates might slip past the Con, Lab and Brexit party candidates in closely-fought 3-way or 4-way splits.

So the Conservatives will be losing Remain votes to the LibDems, Leave votes to Brexit Party. It may be, also, that those floating voters whose priorities lie elsewhere than with the EU/Brexit situation will go with Labour.

The Conservatives may be left as a niche party for the wealthy, the smug affluent, the buy to let parasites, the Zionist Jews etc. In a sense that was always so, but other categories of voter made up the weight in elections.

The Conservative Party may be permanently reduced to a hard core of 25% of the electorate, and perhaps to an even lower level than that. The ethnic minorities (except the Jews) are estranged from the Conservatives and are fast-increasing in number. The “blacks and browns” etc vote Labour. Many of the English/British (i.e. white) middleaged and elderly are either disappearing by effluxion of time or are defecting to Brexit Party; only 16% of voters under 35 favour the Conservatives; only 4% of those under 25. Very many of the young or quite young vote Labour or Green.

The msm seems to be saying now that the most likely outcome is a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives as biggest party in the Commons. I tend to stick with my prediction of 2+ years standing, that Labour will be the biggest party, though without a majority, if an election really is called this year. There is an outside chance that Labour might get a majority, but if its remaining Northern English base continues to erode, a Commons majority is not going to happen.

Notes

https://news.sky.com/story/local-elections-what-bruising-results-mean-for-labour-and-the-conservatives-11710446

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_local_elections

Some tweets

In the clip immediately below (from Sky newspaper review), journalist Brendan O’Neill, with loudmouth “Fleet Street Fox” (Susie Boniface), addresses the Labour lack of success in the local elections:

In fact, there were no less than 39,000 spoiled papers in all! Many had “BREXIT”, “Brexit Party” or Swastikas drawn on them…

https://twitter.com/EddieDempsey/status/1124075048984350727

and here below we see Lisa Nandy MP trying to avoid mentioning that the Labour vote is now at least partly (in some areas, almost entirely) an ethnic non-white vote. Seems that the Conservatives of Smethwick, at the famous 1960s by-election, were right: “if you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour”! Lisa Nandy is trying to say that “graduates” (meaning “the educated”?…hardy ha ha in the era of “everyone gets a First” degrees) prefer Labour. Everyone and his dog is now a nominal “graduate”, who has gone to “uni” and got a crap (in many cases) “degree” leading to (also in many cases) a low-wage job, thus (ditto) leading to socio-political dissatisfaction…

 

Afterthought

My main article, above, says nothing about Change UK, the new party for Remainers and pro-Zionists. The article does not cover Change UK because Change UK is doomed and (as I said in another blog post) all but pointless. It is running at about 4% in the opinion polls re the EU elections, but better (some polls even had it recently at 10%!) re. any general election.

Readers will recall that UKIP had support, at the 2015 General Election, of 12.6%, yet gained no MPs (except for the ex-Con MP, Carswell). UKIP’s support was evenly spread throughout England and Wales; it had no Schwerpunkt or concentration of support in a few constituencies (which is how the LibDems and Greens, both with lower levels of support nationally, score). It follows from that that Change UK, even with 10% of votes (5% is more likely) has no chance of getting anywhere in any general election in 2019.

The significant thing about Change UK is that it will pull even more votes from the Conservatives, already losing votes to Brexit Party and LibDems.

Update, 7 May 2019

In the past days, while “Change UK” has apparently already sunk without trace (and almost nothing is heard about it), Brexit Party is really developing into something. Today, it was announced that there will be EU elections in the UK on 23 May, only 16 days from today. Brexit Party looks odds-on to be largest UK party and perhaps to take most of the seats allocated to the UK.

and nearly 2,000 people (see link below) turning out for Farage and his Brexit Party in Peterborough, where a by-election will be held in early June.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/nigel-farage-brexit-rally-peterborough-16240485

Update, 11 May 2019

“A ComRes poll for the Sunday Telegraph showed that if a Westminster general election were called, Labour would reap the largest share of the vote with 27%; the Brexit party would garner 20% ahead of the Conservatives on 19%. The Liberal Democrats would win 14%, followed by ChangeUK (7%) and the Greens (5%) with Ukip trailing on 2%.” [The Guardian]

Update, 18 May 2019

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7042737/Ministers-threaten-bring-government-accept-Boris-PM.html

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1128326/Brexit-news-Michael-Portillo-UK-EU-withdrawal-general-election-Brexit-Party-Theresa-May

Brexit, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

The Political Mood is Changing

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There has been a see-sawing between the two main System parties for several years. At first, say in 2014-2015, it looked as though Labour was about to go into possibly terminal decline. I have no doubt that, had any of the pro-Israel, pro-EU candidates in the first post-GE 2015 Labour leadership contest (Liz Kendall, Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper) won, that would have come to pass. As we know, Corbyn won that contest, and Labour, though it came in second at the 2017 General Election, reduced the Conservative government to minority status. Since then the parties have generally been close together in the opinion polls, with the Conservatives usually slightly higher.

Since the 2017 election, the only difference between the two is that Corbyn has been favoured by fewer as a potential prime minister. Theresa May had the edge but no ringing endorsement (a typical result was Corbyn 25%, Theresa May 35%, Don’t Know 40%). I have not seen a recent poll about the System party leaders, but there have been recent polls vis a vis the upcoming EU election and re. Westminster voting intentions (the next general election might in theory only be in 2022, but there seems to be an acceptance that it might in fact be this year, as I predicted was not unlikely).

Here are recent poll results (questions asked about 3-8 days ago), collated by Britain Elects. The position of Nigel Farage’s pop-up Brexit Party is volatile, but it is plainly one of the two most favoured; UKIP is evidently some way behind all of Brexit Party, Labour and Conservative Party, but the important point is that both Brexit Party and UKIP will take votes mainly from the Conservatives in the EU elections (always assuming that the UK participates) and (if Brexit Party and UKIP put up candidates) in the general election of 2019 (if it happens). There are also local elections coming (2 May 2019) but the beneficiary there will be Labour, UKIP not being able to fight most seats and Brexit Party not standing at all.

It can be seen that YouGov is more bullish on Brexit Party’s chances than is ComRes, and that BP’s ratings vary daily or so even from a single pollster. However, there is some reason to believe that Farage’s new vehicle is riding even higher now (some estimates put its reach at over 30%).

An amateur or perhaps semi-professional psephologist has come up with this seat prediction for the EU election in the UK (based on a YouGov opinion poll):

https://twitter.com/OwenWntr/status/1118497987045613568

Well, that’s for the EU Parliament. What about Westminster? The msm consensus now is what I have been predicting for a couple of years, Labour probably the largest party, but without overall majority. Where does that leave the Conservative Party? Quite possibly up a certain well-known creek without a paddle.

As I said here above, only a few years ago Labour looked like collapsing into becoming a niche party with maybe a 25% popular vote. Now things look very different: Corbyn has bent like the bamboo before the wind as the Jews (and the heavily Jew-influenced msm) have accused him of “anti-Semitism” (the Circuit judge in the Alison Chabloz appeal hearing recently confirmed that “anti-Semitism” is not a crime in England anyway…pass it on…).

The Zionist storm has been ferocious around Corbyn since 2015, but he simply sways with the wind. If I had not read that Corbyn scarcely reads books (one of his ex-wives said that he read not one book during their 4 years together!), I would take Corbyn for an acolyte of Sun-Tzu.

Well, much has happened since Corbyn took over. A membership/support base of about 200,000 has become one of 500,000+, Labour no longer has financial problems, its members and supporters are often young, and its poll ratings are finally improving.

Now it is the Conservative Party that may be facing an existential crisis. We read that only about 5% of Conservative rank and file members want Theresa May to stay as Leader, that donations have completely dried up, that the median age of Conservative Party members is 51 (with many over 80 or even 90), and that the supposed 120,000+ membership number is either only a paper figure or shows huge numbers of completely inactive members who take no part in the party even locally or socially, but are signed up to bank direct debits.

Only 16% of voters under 35 intend to vote Conservative, while the figure for under-25-years is a mere 4%. True, Conservative voters have always been mainly middle-aged and elderly, but not to this extent.

The Conservatives have usually trumped Labour on competence (in public perception, but God knows why…), but that is now faltering. The Conservatives can say that a Corbyn government would be incompetent, but the voters have seen that (as with David Cameron-Levita) the Theresa May Conservative government has been proven so: the NHS deteriorating, the police incapable of stopping the rise in violent crime, the increase in Internet snooping and monitoring of ordinary white British citizens by police, MI5 etc, the numbers being made homeless or literally starved to death thanks to the incompetent “welfare” “reforms” of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith and the jew “lord” Freud etc; then there are the potholed roads, the bursting and inefficient railways, not to mention the millions of unwanted immigrants, often from backward, violent and useless ethnic groups, flooding in almost without restraint. Police stations have been closed and sold, prisons are in a appalling state, people are imprisoned for saying anything against the Jews, but given small fines for bad crimes of violence. Then there are the squeezes, over a decade, on incomes.

The appalling muddle over Brexit has crystallized such feelings about this government’s sheer incompetence.

About half the chairmen of local Conservative parties have said that they will be voting Brexit Party in the EU elections. The Conservative Party is a party which is folding. The leader has no credibility, Cabinet members have neither loyalty nor discipline, its MPs are also without discipline, and it seems that donations have dried up.

“A damning Survation poll of 781 Tory councillors today found 76% want the Prime Minister to resign – with 43% saying she must go immediately” and “One councillor questioned in the study said: “The Conservative Party is dead. It will take a strong leader to dredge it out of the mud.””

[Daily Mirror]

The Daily Mail has a similar story:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943297/Devastating-poll-shows-40-Tory-councillors-Nigel-Farages-new-party.html

“I am embarrassed to be a member at the moment. This will be a case study of (predictable) incompetence which has made our country and party a laughing stock around the world.” and “I will not vote Conservative nationally again. I have been a lifetime supporter and a Conservative councillor for 33 years.”

[Daily Mail]

It was the early symptom of the membership demographic problem (aka “an ancient membership…”), from 2010, that led to the Conservative Party trying to plug the door-knocking gap by bussing in hordes of young Con activists and/or employees via the disastrous Mark Clarke tour, because many constituency associations had almost literally no-one willing to canvass voters, mostly because, while some constituency associations had 200 or even 300 members, all of them were either infirm or far beyond retirement age.

More generally, it can be seen that there is a move to radical and even revolutionary politics. MSM scribblers are starting to take notice:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943195/The-political-centre-disappearing-grave-danger-lies-ahead-says-JOHN-GRAY.html

To listen to strong “Brexiteers”, one would imagine that Brexit is the only issue. Poorly-educated and perhaps not very intelligent msm scribblers, such as Susie Boniface, the so-called “Fleet Street Fox” (a Remain partisan), make the same mistake in reverse. Susie Boniface writes that the voters of Newport West, in the recent by-election, voted for a Remain-supporting (Labour) MP despite the fact that the area (not the exact area) voted Leave in 2016. She infers from that that voters have changed their mind on EU membership. No, they simply wanted a MP who (supposedly) believes in public services, decent pay and fair benefits for those that need them. Is it so hard to understand such things? Maybe if you are a London-based scribbler making a few hundred thousand a year and writing to an agenda…

We can see, looking ahead, that people are turning away from the System parties because the needs of the British people are simply not being met on any of the issues raised above. For the moment, those for whom Brexit is all-important have the safety-valves of UKIP and Brexit Party; on other issues, for many, Corbyn-Labour will fill the gap, for a while. In the end, though, only real social nationalism can offer a future for the real British people. 2022 may be the decisive year.

Note on Voting Percentages

The “glorious uncertainty” of British politics (oddly-drawn constituencies, FPTP voting etc) makes popular vote percentages of less importance than would be the case in a system of even passing fairness.

As can be seen from the linked charts, below, the Conservatives under Theresa May got a higher popular vote percentage (42.3%) in 2017 than the party had managed since Margaret Thatcher in 1983 (42,4%), yet only 317 MPs (currently 312) as against Mrs. Thatcher’s 376! In 2015, under David Cameron-Levita, the Conservatives got a popular vote of 36.9%, yet ended with 330 MPs!  That’s the British system of voting— ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK)#UK_general_elections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_the_United_Kingdom#Current_composition

General Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susie_Boniface#Personal_life

Update, 22 April 2019

recent msm comment:

Note that the percentages shown below relate to the views of Conservative councillors, and not those of rank and file members (or ordinary voters):

Labour has problems as well…; but it is a measure of how angry and frustrated voters are that not even the prospect of Diane Abbott (here seen drinking a canned alcoholic mojito on the Underground/Overground) as Home Secretary is (much) denting Labour’s poll rating now!

Meanwhile…

https://twitter.com/GID_England/status/1115664510306672641

 

https://twitter.com/GID_England/status/1117507705810321408

https://twitter.com/GID_England/status/1118575863073837062

The racially and culturally inferior are allowed to flood into the UK and the rest of Europe, and in the UK are tolerated, given housing, given food money and more if they start breeding. Meanwhile, for the British, life becomes harsher daily:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/21/stephen-smith-liverpool-seriously-ill-emaciated-man-denied-benefits-dwp-dies

Brexit, Party Politics, Uncategorized

A Few Thoughts About the EU and Local Elections To Be Held in May 2019

38 Comments

The Brexit mess, so spectacularly mishandled by Theresa May and the idiotic careerists around her, may save UKIP from immediate collapse as a party, inasmuch as many British voters will want to punish the Conservative Party one way or the other. There may be in general a “perfect storm” for the Conservative Party, pressured on two fronts by both the Leave and Remain sides.

There will soon be elections for the European Parliament, on 23 May 2019. Recent opinion polling seems to be saying that Labour will have a landslide: initial voting intentions show Labour on 37.8% (up from 24.4% in 2016); Conservatives at 23.1% (unchanged), Brexit Party (Nigel Farage’s new party) 10%, LibDem 8%, UKIP 7.5%, Change UK (the recent Lab/Con defector MPs’ vehicle) around 4%, among others.

One has to be cautious in assuming that the above opinion poll reflects the likely outcome. The same poll seems to indicate that, after discussion, many pro-EU voters prefer Change UK (which would hit Labour and LibDem levels), while anti-EU voters may prefer either UKIP or Brexit Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1112942/european-elections-voting-intentions-uk-conservative-labour-brexit-party

Before the EU elections (in which the UK may not participate at all if the UK leaves the UK before 23 May), there will be local elections, on 2 May 2019. The indications are that, in those elections, Labour may also sweep the poll, with Labour benefiting not only from the “pendulum” or “see-saw” effect of elections in a system using FPTP voting, but also from abstentions by usual Con voters (or by their voting for Brexit Party or UKIP).

As far as the local elections are concerned, Labour starts the campaign with several advantages. The decade of spending cuts has finally impacted even the most true-blue Conservative areas. Labour has a army of local activists, thanks to its membership surge under Corbyn. It also has funds from the same source.

The Conservatives have few local activists now and most are beyond retirement age. The party looks tired. The Brexit mess can only be laid at the door of Theresa May and her Cabinet. The Cons will be lucky to avoid a wipeout in the areas voting for local councillors on 2 May.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/11/conservative-mps-may-boycott-european-election-campaign

There are also strategic factors. The Conservative Party claims 124,000 members, which seems high (average 200 members per constituency). Most are elderly. Few are active. The median age for Conservative voters has also risen, to 52. Recent polling has shown that only 16% of voters under 35 support the Cons, and only 4% of those under 25 do so.

In respect of the local elections, I see them as a straight fight between Labour and Conservative, overall. Labour is obviously in a good position in every respect.

In respect of the EU elections (in England and Wales), Labour may start in pole position, but there is a long way to go. Pro-EU voters may vote Labour, LibDem, Change UK or even Conservative. Anti-EU voters may vote Brexit Party, UKIP, or possibly either Lab or Con. Hard to say. Many voters may just try to hit out at the Conservatives any way they can. The obvious way to hit at the Conservative Party government is to vote Labour, assuming that hitting out trumps Brexit issues.

I can see that, while the Jewish/Zionist attack on Corbyn-Labour has made a dent in Lab’s popularity over 3-4 years, the voters are now tired of the whole Labour “anti-Semitism” whining, not least because Labour is now suspending members who speak out against the Zionist prominence in the UK. People have real issues with which to contend. It is a mistake to think that Twitter is the same as the UK public, especially now that Twitter has purged so many dissident voices (including mine). Jews and their “useful idiots” have colonized Twitter, to an extent.

The Leave/Brexit vote will be split between UKIP and Brexit Party, weakening both. All the same, these EU elections are all about (in the UK) protest voting.

Whichever way one looks at it, Labour looks like doing very well at the local elections and fairly well at the EU elections.

Update, 14 April 2019

Some msm outlets are now predicting a solid Labour win in the expected General Election too

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6919951/Jeremy-Corbyn-win-general-election-Conservatives-face-losing-60-seats-Brexit.html

Update, April 15 2019

Despite having no policies beyond the UK leaving (really leaving) the EU, Brexit Party is already running at anywhere up to 15% in opinion polling for the EU elections of 23 May 2019.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6921149/Nigel-Farages-Brexit-Party-set-drain-Tory-candidates-EU-elections-month.html

It is reported that up to 56% of those who voted Leave in the 2016 EU Referendum will vote either Brexit Party or UKIP in any General Election held this year. It is unclear whether Brexit Party would contest a general election, but if not, its votes would presumably go to UKIP. So about 50% of about 52% = about 26% of votes. That might not be enough to win any seats (certainly not, if split two ways), but it would cripple the Conservatives.

Update, 17 April 2019

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-theresa-may-european-parliament-elections-a8873056.html

Update, 18 April 2019

Update, 18 April 2019

Brexit Party, thanks to star turn Farage, is now at almost 30% in polling re. the EU elections. UKIP cannot seem to get much beyond 8%-9%. Still, that does mean that the Cons, in particular, will crash. They are polling now below 15% re. EU elections.

As far as the UK local elections are concerned, Brexit Party is taken out of the equation (contesting no seats) and UKIP is not contesting very many seats. That must favour Labour.

Update 21 April 2019

From the Daily Mail:

“If there is any overall winner from the meltdown in British politics, it will be Jeremy Corbyn – leader of what has become by any normal standards an extremist party.

As a historian of political ideas and movements, I have studied the rise and fall of parties and ideologies in Britain and Europe. 

Today we are witnessing a meltdown in British politics with no historical precedent. Both main parties are shedding their traditional supporters at an astonishing rate.

According to a ComRes poll published last week, not much more than half (53 per cent) of 2017 Conservative voters intend to vote Conservative at the next General Election.”

[John Gray, Daily Mail]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943195/The-political-centre-disappearing-grave-danger-lies-ahead-says-JOHN-GRAY.html

Update, 24 April 2019

The mad jamboree which passes for UK democracy in 2019 continues apace. Ann Widdecombe, one of the worst Home Secretaries ever, is going to be a Brexit Party candidate (for the EU Parliament seat of South West England). She says that she will still vote Conservative in the local elections. Having just looked up her details, it seems that she is 71. I thought that she was at least 80.

The tweet below captures the mood:

At least Ann Widdecombe is an animal-lover, especially cat-lover…

Update, 27 April 2019

Britain Elects organization has just today tweeted as below:

As can be seen, and with less than 28 days to go before polling (assuming that the UK takes part in the EU elections), Brexit Party is neck and neck with Labour and has the momentum. The Conservatives are rapidly becoming also-rans as far as the EU elections are concerned. It looks as though those voters who want to cast an anti-EU/Leave/Brexit vote are going with Brexit Party, leaving UKIP to flounder around near the bottom of the poll. All or almost all UKIP votes are going to Brexit Party. Most Eurosceptic former Conservative voters are also going to Brexit Party. This is going to be interesting.

Meanwhile, in less than 5 days, there are the local elections. There, the results may also be dramatic, but not to the same extent: Brexit Party not standing, UKIP not standing for most council seats (and at present has only 101 councillors out of a possible 20,712); only about a third of council seats being contested this year. Also, in many parts of the South of England, there is little “democratic choice”, with most candidates posted being Conservative, the Labour and LibDem parties not contesting all seats.

Update, 1 May 2019

8,804 local council and other seats are in contest tomorrow, 2 May 2019. The Conservatives are contesting 96% of those seats. Labour will be contesting the majority of them. The LibDems are contesting some. UKIP have 18 candidates standing. Brexit Party is not contesting these elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_local_elections

As far as the EU elections of 23 May are concerned, the latest polls show an irresistible rise for Brexit Party, which is running somewhere around 33% now; the corollary is UKIP on only about 4%, not helped by the bizarre behaviour of UKIP’s MEP candidate “Sargon of Akkad” (Carl Benjamin), the “alt-Right” vlogger standing for the South West England constituency.

Meanwhile…

This is incredible! I am not a “supporter” of Farage or “Brexit Party”, but this is the sort of reception that few get! Reminiscent of the Fuhrer (though without the depth or substance, of course). Brexit Party is on a roll! Only three weeks to go before the moment of truth (EU elections).

Update, 11 May 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/11/poll-surge-for-farage-panic-conservatives-and-labour

Party Politics, Uncategorized

UKIP, Farage, Brexit and British Politics

11 Comments

Foreword

I have interrupted the drafting of a far more significant blog post to comment on matters arising from and matters around the resignation of Nigel Farage from UKIP, announced today.

Nigel Farage and UKIP

It is perhaps the conventional wisdom to regard Nigel Farage as a hugely–skilled politician who made UKIP into a major force in British politics. My own view is rather different.

I see Farage as an articulate, fairly intelligent fellow, not very ideological beyond an ingrained free-marketism. Certainly not a great or even wide-ranging thinker. Farage was leader of UKIP (founded 1993) from 1997 to 2016. On the one hand, Farage mobilized and organized UKIP sufficiently to gain, at peak, 24 MEPs and 2 Conservative MP defectors. On the other hand, in 25 years of operation and 19 years under Farage, UKIP never came close to having a new UKIP MP elected anywhere (mainly the fault of the British FPTP electoral system, so be it).

UKIP (as I tweeted and blogged for years) peaked in 2014. Since then it has been on the downward slope. Farage saw that and jumped ship, first giving up the leadership, then getting new and presumably lucrative work as radio talk host on LBC and as a general talking head.

Now Farage has resigned from UKIP because he says that it is becoming a single-issue party obsessed by Islam or Islamism. He also thinks that the new UKIP leader is obsessed with the idea of linking up with “Tommy Robinson” and his large band of followers. Farage’s view is mired in irony though: if there has ever been a one-issue party (or maybe two connected issues) it is UKIP, with its emphases on exit from the EU and mass immigration.

Farage’s own view seems to be that he prefers immigration (so long as notionally “high-skilled”) from India than from EU states. Despite the influx to the UK of low-wage Lithuanians and others, and also Roma Gypsy thieves and freeloaders, that is just mad, or at best very wrongheaded. After all, “race is the root, culture is the flower”.

UKIP’s Electoral Chances

As I have blogged several times, I assess UKIP’s electoral chances as close to zero. At electoral peak in 2014, UKIP might have had several MPs elected, had there been a General Election that year. As it was, the 2015 General Election saw UKIP miss the bus. Its (in round figures) nearly 4M votes (12.6% of the overall vote) were insufficient to win any individual seat, because spread evenly among English and Welsh constituencies.

Any linkage with Tommy Robinson might revivify UKIP to some extent, but in my view not enough to do well electorally. Most of Robinson’s supporters vote UKIP anyway, in all likelihood.

Down The Line

It is possible that, if Brexit either does not happen or happens in a patently false way, then UKIP might do better, but it is not the party for any radical or revolutionary new start for the UK. “Robinson’s” noisy beerswillers will contribute little to UKIP, which I think will still pretty much disappear by 2022 at latest.

Further thoughts, 8 December 2018

UKIP was a major reason why the BNP (which until 2010 often did better than UKIP in elections) failed to take off in the 2005-2010 period. The BNP, though somewhat crude, was a genuine social-national party, not (as was or is UKIP) a partly-fake conservative-nationalist party. The attitude of, eg, the BBC, made that clear. UKIP members were and still are welcome on the Daily Politics show (or whatever it is now called), Question Time etc. The BNP was only allowed on to be trashed or when law and regulation prescribed, mainly during election run-up times.

There were positive aspects to UKIP when it was a live party:

  • UKIP raised the profile of nationalism in the UK;
  • UKIP raised the subject of mass immigration into the UK and the EU, and because UKIP had a platform on msm TV, radio and Press, was able to awake some slumbering people to it and the consequential dangers of it;
  • UKIP may have been the catalyst for the EU Referendum. Even if Brexit is defeated or denied (overtly or not) the national debate has once more awakened many not only to the EU’s faults, but to migration-invasion etc.

Notes

  1. UKIP membership, at one time around 40,000, now stands officially at 23,000 and is believed to be in very steep decline.
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage
Brexit, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, elections, immigration, Jewish lobby in UK, MPs, Party Politics, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized

Reality and Semblance in the Upcoming UK General Election

3 Comments

First of all, semblance. The msm have been attacking Labour and especially Corbyn-Labour ever since his election as Labour leader. Corbyn himself is said to be “a friend of terrorists” (from the IRA to HAMAS and Black September), a paid tool of Iran, as well as (not very crypto-) Communist and “anti-Semite”. In fact, the attacks on Corbyn have come, ultimately, from only one source, the UK Jewish-Zionist lobby.  You see it on Twitter. Pretty much all of the Zionist Jews on Twitter say the same things or raise a little storm at the same time. Like a shoal of fish.

The Jewish-Zionist lobby controls the anti-Corbyn MPs in Labour. Slowly, they are being removed or are resigning. John Woodcock has resigned from Labour (though not as MP! He wants to keep getting his pay and very inflated expenses for as long as possible!); Michael Dugher resigned as MP too (and was found a suitably-lucrative job outside politics…); Simon Danczuk (like Woodcock) was mired in sex scandal –apart from anything else– and tried to get re-elected as Independent, only to be humiliated; Luciana Berger tried to get a better-paid job as Mayor of Liverpool, but failed. Others are jumping ship or being shunted toward deselection.

So there we have the semblance: the manufactured storms in the msm about “anti-Semitism” and the other stormlets re. Corbyn as IRA collaborator in the 1970s or 1980s. These mean something to an older generation, perhaps, and of course the “anti-Semite” label means something to the approximately quarter of a million Jews in the UK (hardly any of whom vote Labour now anyway).

However, the anti-Corbyn propaganda is not reaching most people under 40 and, still less, those under 30. They are mostly not much interested by the fact that Jews and/or pro-Israel persons hate Corbyn; as for the “Corbyn was pro-IRA” stuff, even if there is some truth in it, that was mostly about 40 years ago, before they were even born. The under 40s are likely to vote on the basis of reality, meaning their reality.

What do I mean by “reality”? One person’s reality is another person’s “unimportant detail” or “cloud cuckoo land”. That is what most of the msm and the “Remain” whiners failed to understand about the pro-Brexit Leave vote in the EU Referendum: for an affluent family in London or the Home Counties, what mattered was (the perception) that the UK’s economy might be depressed by Brexit, that their daughter might be prevented from taking up that unpaid intern position at a Milan fashion house, that their son might not be able to get a lucrative job as a lawyer or accountant with a transnational enterprise in Brussels, Berlin or wherever; that their holiday home in Provence might lose value; that they might not get cheap Eastern European labour to help in the house or garden; that it might take longer to drive off the ferry during holidays etc.

On the other side, a man in the North of England was asked during the Referendum campaign whether he was worried that UK GDP might suffer if the UK exited the EU. His reply: “not really, it’s only me and the dog anyway…”! Easy to scoff, but that was his reality and arguably as “real” as the paper figures for economic performance are to the staff of the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme. What matters to the soldier in the battle? That the battle was won (or lost), or that he lost his life?

Reality for huge numbers of people (potential voters) in the UK means incredibly expensive and often now basically unaffordable housing (whether rented or bought), expensive and overcrowded transport and roads, an NHS which has declined perceptibly for many years, poor pay, fewer real civil rights, a largely-destroyed social security system, a continuing migration-invasion (though perception re. that is blunted because of the huge, pervasive race-mixing propaganda everywhere, eg in TV ads).

Now when those voters vote, most are going to vote on the basis of that reality, not on the basis that Jews (who are in any case not much liked or trusted, on the whole, by most British people) dislike Corbyn or his supporters, or because Corbyn’s connections with the IRA in the 1970s were very doubtful.

The above musings explain why I think that Labour’s vote is likely to be higher than most commentators in the msm expect. In their reality, what matters is whether Labour is “anti-Semitic”, or anti-EU, or anti the (supposedly) free market, or whether “the economy” might be damaged by Brexit or by a Labour government. Those commentators inevitably think as conditioned by their own circumstances and peer group. They make £100,000 or even (in some cases) £500,000+ a year, and certainly not less than £50,000, whereas the “average” (not median) salary in the UK is only around £28,000 and many many people (either employed or not) are actually surviving on as little as half of that.

The msm commentators own their own homes, often outright; they do not have to spend a third or even half their income on rent; au contraire! Many are actually buy to let parasites themselves! They do not have to live in shared houses, or on decaying council estates.

I am willing to accept that about 25% of the voters will vote Conservative at the next general election whatever the defaults of the governments since 2010, either out of self-interest or because of an ingrained dislike of Labour (or because they see a photo of Diane Abbott on Election Day!). That percentage might even be 35%. The other 65% to 75% is in the hazard. Everything depends, in the crazy UK First Past The Post electoral system, on what happens in the 50-150 more marginal constituencies. In our electoral system, a party needs a concentration of support, a Schwerpunkt. Thus it is that the Green Party, which has about 2% support, has an MP (in Brighton…) yet UKIP, which had a nearly 12% overall vote in 2015, has no MPs.

Though no psephologist, I should say that Labour has every chance of becoming the largest party in the House of Commons after the next general election, even if falling short of a majority. Because voters will vote on their reality, not on newspaper semblance.

Final thoughts

Thinking about blocs of support, Labour has, in broad brush terms, the under-40s, maybe even the under-50s; also the ethnic minorities (except Jews); also almost anyone earning the average salary or less. I cannot see the Conservative Party winning a Commons majority.

Update, 11 December 2020

Looking at the above article more than two years after it was written, my conclusion was wrong even though my reasoning was correct. Ironic.

I underestimated the suggestive power of the mass media and overestimated the common sense of the average voter.

Having said that, only a small number of 2017 Labour Party voters moved to be Conservative Party voters in 2019. The Conservatives increased their vote over that of 2017 by only about 1 point, but Labour’s vote declined by 8 points, and nearly half of that was 2017 Labour voters refusing to vote at all in 2019.

Alt-Right, basic income, Brexit, elections, historical, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Their Last Throw of the Dice

30 Comments

The Jewish lobby (aka Israel lobby, Zionist lobby etc) have been pulling out all the stops to trash Corbyn, to make him resign or to surround him by Labour MPs, officials, NEC members, “advisers” etc who can restrain him, control him and maybe depose him.

The lobby has been gunning for Corbyn since he was first elected as Labour leader. I have previously blogged about that in some detail. “They” failed to prevent Corbyn’s election, then failed again (to prevent his re-election). In between, the lobby has applied maximum pressure on Corbyn himself, in order to try to force a resignation. They have also tried to remove key Corbyn supporters. The latest attempt to topple him even had the head of Labour group Momentum [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum_(organisation)], Jon Lansman [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lansman], a Jew, reduce support for Corbyn in the key area of supposed “anti-Semitism”. Momentum itself is actually controlled by a private company ultimately controlled by Lansman:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5002774/How-ex-public-schoolboy-Jon-Lansman-hijacking-Labour.html.

In addition, John McDonnell MP, ambiguous if not favourable to Jews, and an ambitious man who (for the first time) is within sight of a ministerial and possibly prime ministerial role, has been prevailed upon to pressure Corbyn in person. He is, arguably, Corbyn’s closest ally in the House of Commons.

The most recent manufactured storm around Corbyn and Labour has been set in motion after Labour refused to adopt the so-called “international definition of anti-Semitism” promoted by a Zionist body called the “IHRA” (which tries to ban all critical examination of the “holocaust” narrative and fakery thereof). In fact, though 30-40 (ZOG-occupied) states have adopted the definition, 155-165 have not (there is dispute about the numbers).

The storm now raging as I write has been a revelation even to me, as I realized anew how deeply the Zionists have burrowed into the structure of the UK, especially in the fields of politics, law and the mass media. Not every journalist-scribbler, editor, msm CEO, lawyer, TV/radio talking head etc is a Jew; it just seems very like it…

At time of writing, it seems that Corbyn is going to tough it out, seem to give in in part, while actually withdrawing from the fray so that the Jew-Zionists have nothing against which to press. Corbyn must have studied Sun-Tzu!

This is surely the last throw of the dice for the Jewish Zionist lobby trying to unseat Corbyn. The assault this time has been frenzied. The reason is clear: Labour recently was ahead of the Conservatives in the polls, though it is at time of writing in second place again by reason of the contrived msm storm. Labour has every chance of at least forming a minority government after the next general election. If that happens, Corbyn will be Prime Minister and the Zionists (for the first time since at least 1989) will not control or very strongly influence the British Government politically. This is their last throw.

Notes etc

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/881317/momentum-leader-jon-lansman-jeremy-corbyn-money-investment-firm-property-market-mcdonalds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War

Update, 13 October 2021

Looking back at this post after three years, I see that my basic analysis was correct, even though I was wrong in predicting that a 2018 or 2019 general election would result in a minority Labour government. That would have happened had a few connected events not intervened.

Brexit Party was formed, gained huge support initially, could have stormed to power had a destined leader been its leader, but failed because it did not become social-national and simply stayed as quasi-Conservative. Its leader, snake-oil salesman Farage, then stabbed Brexit Party in the back in 2019 by standing down most candidates, thus almost guaranteeing a Conservative Party win. The rest is history.

As for Labour, of course Corbyn was deposed by what amounts to a Jewish lobby operation, probably assisted by Israeli organs of intelligence and security. The new-ish Keir Starmer Labour Party is suffused with pro-Israel MPs; Starmer himself is married to a Jewish woman, and their children are being brought up as if fully-Jewish.