Tag Archives: Labour Party

Brexit, elections, Party Politics, Uncategorized

EU Elections 2019 in Review: Labour

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Labour did not do well at the EU elections: 3rd-placed with 2,347,255 votes, a 13.7% vote share, and 10 MEPs (down from 20). Labour only got two-thirds as many votes as the LibDems, and far less than half as many votes as Brexit Party attracted.

Remain whiners are saying that that happened because Labour did not proclaim itself as anti-Brexit and/or pro a second EU referendum. That is a doubtful proposition, in that it seems that more Labour voters voted Leave than Remain in 2016. What probably is correct is in saying that Labour’s message was mixed, or that Labour and Corbyn were “fence-sitting” re. Brexit (true, but what else can he do?). Parties that had a clear Brexit message (Brexit Party, LibDems, Greens) did better than those with mixed messages (Conservative and Labour). In the Russian proverb, “if you chase two hares, you won’t catch one”.

True, Change UK and UKIP had clear messages either way on Brexit and both failed miserably, but in the case of UKIP, Brexit Party simply took its votes and was seen as the bandwagon on which to jump; Change UK was just seen as a joke (there was something of that in UKIP too, it having joined with the “alt-Right” wastes of space “Sargon of Akkad” Carl Benjamin, “Prison Planet” Paul Watson and “Count Dankula” Mark Meechan).

Labour did not come in 1st place in any of the EU constituencies and, in the 5 constituencies where it came 2nd, was far behind Brexit Party (and typically with less than half of the votes of Brexit Party), with the sole exception of London, where Labour came 2nd to the LibDems (23.9% vote, LibDems on 27.2%).

Labour’s campaign was weak, and the Jewish-Zionist element was, as always, still there, sniping from cover at Corbyn and his (as far as I can see) very limited if even existent “anti-Semitism”.

Labour’s best argument in respect of Westminster elections has been, for the past 9 years, that it is not the Conservative Party. That trend has continued and strengthened under Corbyn. Is that enough?

True, Labour has policies designed to appeal to the middle-of-the-road voter (public ownership of some utilities, rail lines etc, a fairer deal for tenants, promises of more money for NHS etc).

On the other hand, if a voter wants to really give the Conservatives a kick, particularly in usually-Conservative-voting areas or in marginal Con-LibDem (Westminster) constituencies, that angry former Labour voter or floating voter might well do better to vote Brexit Party rather than Labour, because in strongly Conservative areas, Labour has no chance anyway in most years, whereas the LibDems are often the second party in such areas. Such a voter could (obviously) just vote LibDem straight off. Many voters, though, if there is a 3-way Con-LibDem-Brexit Party split (realistically), may want to vote Brexit Party rather than LibDem in the hope that a BP candidate can come through the middle to win, or because the LibDems enabled the 2010-2015 “coalition” government.

As to the impact of Brexit Party on Labour seats in the North and Midlands, I should assess it as potentially very damaging, but difficult to quantify. It is not just that Corbyn is said to be unpopular. It is also a question of Labour’s failure to stand up for (real) British people, for white neighbourhoods and communities. Labour failed to stem mass immigration and in fact encouraged it (of course, we now know from a whistleblower that Labour Jews such as Barbara Roche, and Phil Woolas, deliberately imported millions of non-European immigrants in order to destroy our race and culture).

There is also the connected fact that Labour never even admitted the nature and extent of the sexual exploitation of young girls by Pakistani gangs across the country, and particularly Northern England. In fact, Labour covered up the crimes, assisted by Common Purpose organization members in the police and in local councils.

The Labour voters who voted Green in the EU elections (held under proportional voting) will mostly return in a Westminster election (held under FPTP voting) because in the Westminster election, a Green vote is a wasted vote, without doubt.

If Brexit Party can take away 10% or more of what would otherwise be the Conservative vote, the Conservative Party is badly damaged (as when UKIP got 12% in 2015). If Brexit Party can get an overall 20%, the Conservative Party is toast except in a few very safe seats. Labour voters should therefore (whatever they think of Farage and his party) vote Brexit Party and not Labour, unless Labour is in a very strong position to win in any particular seat.

Labour has a good chance of forming a minority government or even a (small?) majority one if a general election is held soon, meaning in 2019, maybe 2020. The Conservatives are despised, divided, and weakened both internally and by the upstart Brexit Party. I blogged recently about how the Conservatives might try to limp on to 2022, when the reduction in MP numbers to 600 and accompanying boundary changes will cost Labour as many as 30 MPs. Much depends also on whether Brexit Party is a flash in the pan or a growing menace to the Conservatives.

I wrote the following after the Stoke-on-Trent by-election of 2017:

“Labour has been declining for years. Corbyn is both symptom and cause. The disappearance of the industrial proletariat has swept away the bedrock underneath Labour, replacing it by the sand of the “precariat”. Labour imported millions of immigrants, who are now breeding. The social landscape becomes volatile. The political landscape too.”

I see no reason to change my view.

Notes

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

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

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7198329/Labours-secret-plan-to-lure-migrants.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7095191/DAN-HODGES-Labour-declare-party-smug-metropolitan-elite.html

Update, 6 June 2019

The tweet below, from the Peterborough by-election, illustrates my often-posted belief that the Labour core vote is now largely composed of the “blacks and browns”:

More proof…

In other words, Labour is now the party of the blacks and browns.

Update, 21 September 2019

…from the Independent, “reporting” on beach patrols at Dover; all too typical of the sort of persons now prominent in “Labour” and what is left of the trade unions:

“Riccardo La Torre, firefighter and Eastern Region Secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, branded the coast patrol “despicable” and said: “These have-a-go, racist vigilantes have no place in any kind of enforcement or emergency activities and will only serve to make conditions and tensions worse.”

“These groups claim to be the voice of the working class, but now they want to act as an arm of the authorities by patrolling beaches to apprehend struggling working-class people desperately trying to get to safety.”
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-britain-first-beach-patrols-calais-dover-anti-migrant-a9113471.html]

So “Riccardo La Torre” (que?), a regional secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, thinks that migrant invaders from Africa and the Middle East are “working class people”, who are “trying to get to safety”?!

Safety from, er, France? There you have in a nutshell, the craziness that is much of “Labour” now. Alien migrant-invaders are “working class people”, who should be allowed to occupy the UK at will (and be subsidized too)! Note the fag-end “Marxism”, trying to shoehorn the facts into some 1980s polytechnic back-of-postcard Marxism-Leninism.

Alt-Right, Brexit, free speech, Ian Millard, immigration, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized, white flight

Peter Hitchens and His Views

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I am impelled to write a few words about Peter Hitchens after having just seen an interview with Owen Jones [see below], which interview dates from 2017.

I have already written a blog post about Owen Jones:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/a-brief-word-about-owen-jones/

To examine the views and influence of Hitchens in detail would necessitate a blog article of inordinate length, but Wikipedia has a considerable amount of information about him:

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

I should like to focus mainly on a few matters raised in that interview.

As to Hitchens himself, he is an odd fellow, apparently fairly well-educated. His family background had elements of tragedy (his mother bolted with an unfrocked priest, and the couple later died via a suicide pact in an Athens hotel). Not mentioned in the interview is that Hitchens (like Owen Jones) has part-Jewish roots, his maternal grandmother having been half-Jewish, in that her mother was Jewish. It was on that basis that Hitchens’ even more eccentric brother, Christopher, declared himself in latter years to be “Jewish” (taking the traditional Jewish course of deciding via the matrilineal side alone).

The interview mentions his having attended a naval school, but that must have been in early years, he then having attended The Leys School, Cambridge, an institution which has schooled a number of well-known people: at least one Rothschild, a few kings (albeit from Bahrain and Tonga), a number of MPs and journalists (in some cases both, as with Martin Bell).

Hitchens then went on to the City of Oxford College (a college of further education) and finally to Alcuin College, part of the University of York.

It may be that the university education and milieu that Hitchens found in Alcuin College permanently influenced his attitude. Wikipedia says of Alcuin College that,

“From early days of the college an uproar for secession of the college from the remainder of the university has been present.[3] It is a self-styled Separatist Movement and at times presented as a running gag at the University of York about Alcuinites….For many years Alcuin College was very much the outcast on the university campus, the only college physically separate from the others except for a bridge from the library…“

The photograph of Alcuin College in winter shows an almost Soviet bleakness and isolation.

Alcuin_College_in_Snow_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1691889

Hitchens, though characterizing himself in the Owen Jones interview as having been a “joiner” in his youth, has also been an outsider, defector and maverick. I wonder whether he applied to the University of York because Oxford and/or Cambridge (in both of which cities he had attended school) refused his application, or perhaps he made no application to Oxbridge because (I speculate) his developing extreme socialist views made him reject such “bourgeois” places of learning. A better interviewer than Owen Jones, such as the late and great Brian Walden, might have explored all that.

Hitchens was from 1968 (aged 17) to 1975, a member of the Trotskyist “tendency” called the International Socialists [IS], the forerunner of the Socialist Workers’ Party [SWP]. He joined two years before he went to York. Later, in his forties, he became a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party, but only for the six years 1997-2003, and —typically— at the very nadir of Conservative fortunes, which is interesting, psychologically. Does he court unpopularity? Does he deliberately express unpopular or contrary views?

Hitchens is known as what might fairly be called a “reactionary”, someone who thinks that Britain was a better place in the 1950s, no ifs no buts. In fact, I believe that I watched him say that or something like that on TV once. My own view is different, that some aspects of life in the UK are better now, though many are certainly worse. This blog post is about Peter Hitchens, not Ian Millard, but in my view, things that are better now than in the 1950s (which I scarcely remember, having been born in 1956) or the early 1960s (which I certainly do remember) would include

  • central heating as the norm;
  • wider selection of fruits and vegetables (and in general a healthier or at least more varied diet);
  • less antiquated snobbism;
  • more understanding of animal welfare;
  • far easier access to information (via Internet);

Whereas, on the other side, the aspects of British life now that mean that UK life is worse (than in the early 1960s, anyway) are (and Hitchens has a point, because it is a longer list by far)

  • the general pressure of life now (of course, I was a child in, say, 1963, so my perception is affected to that extent but I think the judgment is still valid);
  • pervasive lack of freedom of expression;
  • pervasive “political correctness” etc;
  • the cost of living, though that is a complex question; it includes
  • the cost of real property both for sale and rent, and the impossibility for most people to buy a property without family money;
  • British people swamped by mass immigration;
  • real pay and social benefits etc generally reducing;
  • hugely less choice of employment for most people;
  • many people in full-time work unable to live on the poor pay offered;
  • unwanted millions of immigrants and their offspring;
  • congested roads and railways (and refer to the above line);
  • a huge new mixed-race population;
  • a huge amount of crime;
  • public and private housing shortages (refer to immigration, above);
  • huge numbers of drug-contaminated persons;
  • workers exploited in terms of having ever-shorter lunch breaks etc, “on call” after hours etc;
  • public services near to collapse in some respects;
  • intensive farming, with consequent harm to wildlife;
  • standards in all areas (NHS, schools, social security, Westminster MPs, police etc) falling like a stone

We often hear (eg from very young Remain whiners) that, eg, “foreign travel is easier now”, whereas that is mostly illusion. True, there were some silly aspects “back then”, such as being restricted as to foreign currency taken on holiday (you even had to have the amount, bought from somewhere like Thomas Cook, written in your passport!), and that silliness (a kind of postwar sacred cow) lasted until Mrs Thatcher stopped it in 1979 or 1980! Yes, true, but that was about it.

If you listen to Remain whiners (esp. the under-30s), you read or hear that Brexit will mean either no visa-free travel to the EU states, or no travel allowed at all! They really believe that, pre-1972, British people were almost imprisoned, as if Cuban, Chinese or Soviet citizens!

Until blacks and browns abused it in the 1980s to import relatives illegally, you used to be able to get a “British Visitor’s Passport” from post offices for a small amount; the passport was valid for short visits to almost all Western European states (not many people went to Eastern Europe as tourists until the 1990s). I had one in 1978 or 1979, in between possession of two ordinary passports, when I wanted to travel to France at short notice. I think that it cost about £5 and took about 5 minutes to be issued at Lanark Road Post Office, Little Venice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_passport#The_British_visitor’s_passport

Transport to the European mainland: true, there were no budget airlines as such in the 1950s, 1960s, but there were routes and ways not now in existence: in the 1950s and 1960s, people could take their cars by air to France! The main route was Lydd (Kent) to Amiens. This was not only for the rich: 5,000 cars (20,000 passengers) as early as 1950, and over 50,000 cars (250,000 passengers) by 1955 (incredible when you recall that rationing lasted until 1955!):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_City_Airways#The_1950s

Yes, you might have to show your passport or wave it (you still do…)

There were excellent hovercraft services (though only from 1970-2000) across the Channel.

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

The idea that some Remain whiners have that young people will be unable to travel if the UK leaves “Europe” (meaning the EU) is laughable to those who know. As a child I travelled with parents; and then (from 1971) as a teenager, I travelled alone to Paris, Amsterdam etc. No visa required, UK not in EEC (the then EU).

I might add that it actually takes longer to fly to Paris in 2019 than it did in 1970 or even 1960!

Anyway, back to Hitchens and his views.

True, the early 1950s did still have rationing (until 1954), the result of the stupid and terrible war against the German Reich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Timeline

One cannot say that Hitchens approves of that aspect of 1950s lifestyle, though, and (if I understand him aright), he thinks that the British war against Germany could have been avoided, but I may be mistaken here. He certainly thinks that of the First World War, which he says, surely rightly, destroyed British naval supremacy and economy.

Where Hitchens is certainly mistaken is in saying (in the interview) that Churchill’s refusal to countenance the German peace proposals of 1940 was “unquestionably the right and moral thing to do”. Oh really? Right and moral, to continue a war only started because triggered by a treaty obligation that could never have been fulfilled (the Anglo-French worthless “guarantee” to Poland) and when an honourable peace via armistice was on the table?

Such a peace might have been bought at the price of German victory in the East, but would that have been so bad? The destruction of the Stalin/Bolshevik regime? The saving of most of Eastern Europe from both wartime destruction and post-1945 Stalinism? The prevention of the enormous damage, loss of life and hurt across Western and Southern Europe and North Africa? Hitchens says, however, that he is “sceptical” about Churchill overall.

Hitchens is on surer ground when he says that British history has gone, in that no-one knows British history. He cites David Cameron-Levita being unable to translate the two words “Magna Carta” from Latin! After 6 years at Eton! That was when “Scameron” was a guest on the Letterman Show. Shaming for the whole country. Not just the Magna Carta bit. Cameron came over more like a part-Jew public entertainer (and not a good one) than a British statesman. Oh…wait…

[the bit about Magna Carta starts around 8 minutes in]

Scameron was also proven, though I think on another occasion, not to have heard of the Bill of Rights! Hitchens cites an apparently intelligent 6th-former whom he met, and who had passed exams in English History, and yet who did not know which side Oliver Cromwell was on during the English Civil War!

I have had similar encounters. Few people under 40 now know even the most basic facts about British history, and less about European history generally. An indictment of the British educational system. One should, though, be wary of thinking that this kind of ignorance developed overnight. I recall having a brief conversation with a South London couple I met by a swimming pool in Sousse, Tunisia, in 1986, and who, it transpired, had no idea at all that what is now Tunisia had been (part of) a Roman imperial province. Not knowing who was Nelson or Drake, though, is arguably of a different order.

Hitchens says, again correctly, that “we” “have no idea now what it means to be English or British”, but does not go on to examine the racial implications. Come to think of it, that may be one reason why so many people in the UK want to denounce others to Twitter, Facebook, the police, employers etc for holding the “wrong” views, i.e. because the denouncers have no idea of the English historical struggle for free speech (John Hampden etc…) and no respect for it.

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Owen Jones talks about how open-minded (he says…) Corbyn is, and implies that he, Jones, is the same. Oh yes? Take a look at my blog post about him…

Hitchens himself is really little different. He once had a short and at first reasonable discussion with me on Twitter about the early Zionists, in 2017 or 2016, but then a Jew tweeted to him about how I was apparently an evil “neo-Nazi”, after which, just like Owen Jones, inter alia, Hitchens blocked me. I was unaware then that Hitchens is part-Jew, though not to the extent that would have rendered him liable to sanctions under the 1936 Nuremberg law(s), his maternal grandmother having been only part-Jew (Mischling) and his maternal grandfather not a Jew. In fact, under those laws he would even have been able to work as a journalist.

Hitchens says that Enoch Powell’s so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech “was a disgrace”. Why? He dislikes its tone, it seems. What about its truth, though? He also says that “the intermarriage [resulting from immigration] is great”. I begin to wonder what major part of modern British society he does dislike, when push comes to shove! To be fair to Hitchens, he does disapprove of the ghetto communities established by Pakistanis and others in, mainly, the Midlands and North of England. He is certainly not “white nationalist”, let alone social-national. If he were, he would be sacked at once. Long live freedom!…

An area in which I do find myself largely in agreement with Hitchens is in intervention by the “West” (in my terms, “NWO/ZOG”) in the affairs of the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya. He opposes it. That’s something.

As to Russia, Hitchens seems to take an objective view (informed by better historical knowledge than most msm scribblers), eg:

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/russia/

I apprehend that Hitchens likes the social conservatism of most Russians.

So what is my overall view of Peter Hitchens? I should say that he is someone of considerable intellect, though nowhere near as intelligent as he himself imagines. Someone of considerable education, but who imagines that he knows more and better than almost anyone else, and believes that it is his role in life to pronounce on the truth of any given social, political, historical or ethical topic. Someone who harks back to a supposed golden age prior to, perhaps, 1959, or 1989 (at very latest). Someone who sees what is wrong in the present society but appears to have no programme or (Heaven forbid!) ideology to move from here to there (to a better society).

Hitchens takes a reasonable view such as “the family is a good thing” and tests it to destruction. Likewise, in his critique of both socialism and the contemporary Conservative Party, he goes to an extreme, saying that the Conservative Party is “extreme Left-wing”, by which he means “socially liberal”. He defends traditional marriage and his arguments here have force.

Hitchens thinks that the Conservative Party is dying (understandable, looking at its MPs and ministers) but, yet again, goes to an extreme, wishing that it could have lost the 2010 General Election so that it might have died, and so made room for a new and socially-conservative party. I wish that it had lost too, but for other reasons!

Hitchens reminds me of two other scribblers of note, Peter Oborne and (now rather forgotten) Paul Johnson.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Johnson_(writer)

All three are often intuitively correct on some issues, risibly mistaken on others. They are alike in other ways, too. As the Russians say, they are all “Maximalisti”.

Hitchens (like Owen Jones) blocked me on Twitter for ideological reasons. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) makes a very comfortable living from the System msm. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) poses no danger to the existing state of affairs, despite making much noise. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) is a mass media pussycat pretending to be a tiger.

I like to read Hitchens’ words occasionally. He is often right, not always. However, his words are commentary, not inspiration. He says in the interview that Britain is finished and that the only serious history of contemporary Britain will one day be written in Chinese! Maybe, but God moves in mysterious though sometimes sanguinary ways. As a Christian and a student of history, Hitchens should know that.

Notes

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcuin_College,_York

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK)

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens#Early_life_and_education

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling#Jewish_identity

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689

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

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/mass-hysteria/

Hitchens’ most recent Mail on Sunday article:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7045469/PETER-HITCHENS-green-seats-prove-careering-catastrophe.html

Other recent articles by Hitchens:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6993553/PETER-HITCHENS-time-view-police-just-like-failed-industries.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7019091/PETER-HITCHENS-country-slowly-choked-death-rights-wrongdoers.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7070715/PETER-HITCHENS-did-warn-Marshmallow-Lady.html

Hitchens’ recent book (which I have not yet read, but which promises to be at least as myth-shattering as those of the unjustly neglected historian Correlli Barnett)

Update, 18 September 2020

Since the above was written, Peter Hitchens has been almost a lone voice struggling against the “Coronavirus” panic and the allied government-proclaimed fear propaganda.

Update, 24 April 2022

Hitchens is now in the small minority of public figures unwilling to go along with the msm noise against Russia, and for Ukraine (meaning the Kiev regime of the Jew-Zionist Zelensky).

Party Politics, Uncategorized

What Will Be Conservative Strategy Now? Will It Be to Stay in Office until 2022?

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I have repeatedly blogged in the past year or two about how the Conservative Party, as a party of government at least, faces an existential challenge. MSM scribblers and talking heads have caught up now and discuss the situation frequently.

The opinion polls must make sobering reading for Conservative MPs. For the upcoming EU elections, the Conservatives are rated as between 11%-15%; for the next general election, the figures are 24%-25%.

That might translate into a loss of Westminster seats numbering somewhere between 50 and 200 out of the 312 that the Conservatives currently hold [the Con Party also has 247 out of 782 peers of the House of Lords, 18 out of 73 UK seats in the European Parliament, 31 out of 129 Scottish Parliament seats, 12 out of 60 Welsh Assembly seats, and 8 out of 25 London Assembly seats].

As my previous blogs explored, the Conservatives are menaced by several trends and facts:

  • an ageing membership (largely of pensionable age) and voter profile (only 16% of those under 35 intend to vote Conservative, and only 4% of those under 25);
  • a burgeoning ethnic minority population in the UK; most ethnic minority voters who vote, vote Labour (with the exception of Jews);
  •  increasing numbers of urban and other renters, as opposed to property-owners; many renters are paying very substantial sums for their rent, and are subject to perceivedly unjust rental situations;
  • very many former Conservative voters defecting to Brexit Party by reason of the events around the EU Brexit situation;
  • dissatisfaction with Theresa May and, to a lesser extent, with the mediocre or poor level and performance of Conservative ministers and backbenchers;
  • Conservative voters tactical-voting for the LibDems in Lab/LibDem marginals and in former Conservative safe seats where Brexit Party has undermined the Conservative vote;
  • financial problems (recent msm reports that the Conservative Party cannot easily pay the rent on its head office), meaning, eg,  that publicity cannot be bought;
  • reports that as many as 60% of 2017 Conservative voters will not vote Conservative next time.

The upshot is that the Conservative Party is in deep trouble. The UK, especially England and Wales, that the Cons have created since 2010, is just not working for most people. This is perhaps not the place in which to detail that statement, but I have done so in earlier blog posts.

What can the Conservatives do to recover their situation? Obviously, as a social national thinker, I hope that the Conservatives do not recover, but these matters must be examined. Conservative plans may include

  • ditching Theresa May: this is mooted daily in the msm, but she seems to be hanging on for the Summer, until August/September and possibly even until the Conservative Party Conference which starts on 29 September 2019, though no doubt her MPs would much rather have anointed a new leader by then;
  • once Theresa May is gone, election of a new leader. This presents another problem, in that the existing candidates are mostly of very poor quality. Even the most popular (allegedly) in the country, Boris Johnson, in fact (as opinion polls have revealed) is not very much supported by voters: only 20% think that he would be the right candidate (though he still scored higher than all others);

What else might the Conservative Party do to improve its position? Well, there is one thing, though it would be an extremely risky stratagem: not to call a general election until 2022.

The law brought in by David Cameron-Levita’s government in 2010 mandates a general election in 2022. It can happen before 2022, but that date is the backstop.

At present, the Conservatives have no chance of getting a Commons majority or even being the largest party in the Commons without a majority, if a general election were to be held this year. I have long held the view that a general election could be held in 2019, and it might well be held. The msm (again) lag behind and now the most likely date is indeed thought by the msm to be 2019, once the Conservatives elect Theresa May’s successor. It seems to be the msm/System wisdom-of-the-moment that the new Conservative leader will want to have his or her election approved by the votes of the people. I wonder. Now, however, we have to factor-in Brexit Party.

I begin to think that the general election will be delayed until 2020, 2021 or even 2022.

It has been a convention not amounting to a Constitutional convention that, when a Prime Minister of the UK stands down, the successor holds a general election to “sanctify” the new order via public approval expressed in votes. Those Prime Ministers afraid to do that (rapidly) usually lose out. Look at Gordon Brown. However, the situation now may impel a different decision.

When Theresa May goes, her successor will have to face the fact that Brexit Party is taking somewhere between a third and a half of Conservative votes. If the new Conservative leader calls a 2019 General Election, it will be akin to a turkey voting for Christmas. The chance of a Conservative win (meaning a Commons majority) would be unlikely. There is every chance that the Conservatives would lose seats. There is every chance that the Conservatives would lose many seats. There is a good chance that Labour would be the largest party in the Commons and so able to form a minority government (or possibly a Lab-SNP-LibDem coalition). There is even a chance that Labour might get a Commons majority, something all but impossible prior to the emergence of Brexit Party.

Faced with the above, the new Conservative leader might simply refuse to call a General Election (in effect, leaving aside the details) until (as would be hoped, no doubt) the enthusiasm for Brexit Party wanes. Who knows what might happen in a year, or three years?

There is another point here. The boundary changes decided upon a few years ago take effect in 2022. Reduction of MP numbers from 650 to 600. The seats lost will mostly be Labour and LibDem seats. If a General Election is deferred until 2022, the Conservatives will be about 30 seats better off.

A risky stratagem, and one that could backfire, but it might be the only chance for the Conservative Party.

Tweets

The tweet below displays typical twitterati wishfulness: says “must” when he means “can” or, indeed, “need not”…

Update, 18 May 2019

Straw in the wind?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/05/17/early-election-will-kill-brexit-warns-health-secretary-matt/

but:

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

Alt-Right, Brexit, elections, Jewish lobby in UK, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized

What Is Brexit Party? Why Does It Exist? What Are Its Chances?

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A comet has appeared in the UK’s political skies. Its name is Brexit Party. It is running at about 30% in the opinion polls re. the EU elections to be held on 23 May 2019, while in respect of Westminster elections, it is on about 15%. The EU elections may not be of much importance except as a popularity contest, but for a new party without any policies at all (except to get out from under the EU) to be at 15% indicates a groundswell of public disquiet which may have huge consequences one way or another in domestic UK politics.

[note: even as I write, the polling figures above are out of date! One very recent poll now has Brexit Party at 34% for the EU elections and 20% re Westminster voting intention, with Conservatives only on 19% for Westminster and 13% for the EU elections; has the Conservative vote ever been that low? I think not; even in the Blair-Labour landslide of 1997, the Conservatives polled in the actual election at 30.7%].

It now looks as though some of my early blogging was prescient indeed, if I myself may say so. “Give that man a cee-gar”!

https://twitter.com/Fair4all3/status/1127361421258436610

There are signs of panic in the main System parties:

“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]

I come from a certain direction: I recall the limited but real popularity of the National Front [NF] in the mid-1970s, and saw at first hand how outside forces made use of internal dissensions in order to destroy the NF as an effective party and movement. I believe (though without having any direct or personal knowledge) that similar events may have happened to explode the British National Party [BNP].

The National Front and BNP were both broadly social-nationalist, whereas UKIP is broadly nationalist but lacking the para-socialist element ideologically. Brexit Party has taken on UKIP’s “nationalist” or “patriotic” mantle despite having no published policies at all beyond leaving the EU.

It is easy to speculate about why the course of events happens, harder to pin down the exact or even approximate facts. Many casually blame, or designate as important, the operations of Zionists, Israel, MI5, SIS, MOSSAD, unnamed State agencies, freemasons, occult spiritual groups etc.

Every party or movement has internal tensions. As a John le Carre character remarked, “Jesus Christ only had 12 agents, and one of those was a double” [meaning “double-agent”].

The art of influencing events from the shadows is not to be identified or identifiable as a moving force.

Coming back to Brexit Party, there are known facts. The extraordinary political showman (as some would have it, “snake-oil salesman”), Nigel Farage, was leader of UKIP for decades. He in fact was in UKIP almost at the start, and is often termed one of the founders, though he was not the actual founder, who was an academic called Allan Sked.

“Sked is a member of the British-American Project, which exists to promote Britain’s political ties to the U.S.” [Wikipedia].

“During the administration of President Bill Clinton in the US, the Australian journalist John Pilger attacked the BAP as an example of “Atlanticist freemasonry.” He asserted in November 1998 that “many members are journalists, the essential foot soldiers in any network devoted to power and propaganda.” [Wikipedia].

Here is one msm drone who belongs to that British-American Project:

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Yes, that’s right. Yasmin-Alibhai-Brown, the supposedly “radical”, “anti-imperialist” “journalist” (in fact, totally unqualified and inexperienced in true journalism, just a ranting loudmouth).

Another member of the very same organization is BBC journalist James Naughtie, most of whose views are, at least superficially, totally different from those of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown…

The British-American Project contains a large number of UK-based (and other) journalists (and others), of supposedly diverse views. I wonder if their views and motives are as “diverse” as they seem to be at first blush.

Only today, on the Andrew Marr Show [BBC 1 TV], Marr tried to trash Nigel Farage and Brexit Party, but Farage was able to crush Marr easily in the end.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-andrew-marr-show-brexit-party-polls-interview-bbc-a8910206.html

System drones like Marr do not seem to understand that populist movements such as UKIP (a few years ago) or Brexit Party (now) are the last chance for the System to listen to the British people and so avert an explosion of justified political hatred which will, otherwise, roll over them like a tank over a cockroach.

Marr’s own (rarely admitted) views:

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A typical pro-NWO, pro-ZOG, pro-EU msm drone, paid until recently a million pounds a year by the BBC out of your “licence fee” (enforced tax) monies (apparently somewhat less now, after public uproar about the absurd salaries paid by the BBC to key propagandists).

Was the secret aim of UKIP to draw off nationalist sentiment from parties such as the BNP, i.e. to neutralize effective political opposition to NWO [New World Order] and ZOG [Zionist Occupation Government] in the UK by containing it, controlling it, monitoring it? Or was UKIP just a typically English amateur effort which mushroomed into something bigger. Or both of those?

“Sked has since been a vocal critic of the “ racist” direction in which Farage has taken UKIP. He told the Guardian in 2014: “The party I founded has become a Frankenstein’s monster.”

Already, in looking at UKIP, we see the difficulty of unravelling the skein of motives: secret forces, public faces, ambitions, ideals, various personalities etc.

As recently as last year, Alan Sked said that “I founded UKIP. It’s a national joke now and should disappear.” [The Guardian]. Is that just sour grapes from a founder left behind? Is there anything else there? Had UKIP “done its job”, and so could be binned?

Until 2010, the BNP did better in all or almost all elections than did UKIP. It is hard to recall that, now that the UKIP star has risen and fallen and now that the BNP is just a tiny handful of back-room zealots. In its heyday, the BNP was more successful by far than UKIP. The BNP even had two MEPs (Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons).

Brexit Party is UKIP, but a UKIP which, like a snake, has shed its “skin” of various unwanted people, unwanted history etc and, unlike the snake, miraculously become far far more powerful, far more slick, far more able to capitalize on its “unique selling point”, the sheer hatred which many many people now feel for UK society as it now is (and also for the EU dictatorship).

Farage is the star of Brexit Party, as he was when in UKIP. Look at the clip below. Farage enters a hall packed with supporters. It echoes in a minor key the entrance of Adolf Hitler into the hall at the end of the 1935 Leni Riefenstahl film Triumph of the Will.

Farage can draw large crowds, as in this recent rally at Peterborough, where 2,000 supporters are said to have paid £10 each just to hear Farage speak. Few other politicians in the UK could get 200 (or even 20, in many cases) to turn up to hear them, even for free!

Farage is the key to this. No Farage in UKIP means, effectively, no UKIP. Were there no Farage in Brexit Party, that party would also rapidly cease to exist.

Despite his public profile, Farage is to some degree an enigma. A metals trader, he was in employment as recently as 2003 and possibly even after that. He was elected as an MEP in 1999. He seems to have been a “Eurosceptic” (anti-EU) for a long time, voting Green Party in 1989: the Green Party was, at that time, Eurosceptic and not pro-mass-immigration. One wonders whether, had it not become a kind of middle class virtue-signallers’ party, Green Party might have had greater political success.

Farage created UKIP (not founded perhaps, but created) in his own image: anti-EU, free marketist (softened for tactical purposes), English more than British, not social-national, not “racist” (racialist), despite Farage making a few innocuous comments that only echoed what most white British people believe or feel. Brexit Party may or may not follow those lines, but we cannot say for sure, because Brexit Party, almost uniquely, has published literally no policies at all, save for Brexit itself.

I say “almost uniquely” because the surely-doomed Change UK, which can be taken to be the opposite pole to Brexit Party, also has no published policies (beyond staying in the EU). This is in fact consonant with earlier blogs and, until I was expelled from Twitter, tweets, i.e. that people in the UK, at least in England and Wales, are now voting against rather than for parties; voting tactically to block parties they dislike, rather than supporting the party they like. I have blogged before about this and how it is an outcome of the ludicrous UK electoral system.

I take Farage to be sincerely anti-EU, anti-socialist, possibly anti-immigration, but not to have any sophisticated socio-political or economic ideas. I have said before that Farage does not understand politics well, a surprising statement in view of his stellar public political performance. What I meant is that he has not developed any ideology, as such; neither has he a political programme; also, he has not much developed a party machine (with UKIP; we shall see what happens with Brexit Party).

I take Farage at face value, more or less; the same with his mass following. As to others, I am looking and seeing a strong Jewish element. Brexit Party already has a “Brexit Party Friends of Israel” group. There are other indications; the Brexit Party Treasurer is indirectly connected by marriage to the Rothschilds:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6984699/New-Brexit-Party-treasurer-father-ex-Page-Three-model-married-Nat-Rothschild.html

Brexit Party not only has Jewish influence but is open in general to persons of other and various ethnicities. Many candidates are not really British, certainly not of British origin.

Despite its paucity of policy and its multi-ethnic candidate list, many of those who support Brexit Party and also many of those who oppose it seem to think that it is somehow “nationalist”. It may be, but only in the very broadest sense.

In respect of candidates, one aspect I find very odd is that, out of about 60 or so Brexit Party EU election candidates, Brexit Party has no less than 3 who are former members of the (1978-1997) Revolutionary Communist Party. Remarkable from a tiny party which had so few members. If I were to suggest State involvement here, it would be without any real evidence, but it does give me pause all the same.

The Great Replacement, otherwise known as “migration-invasion” of Europe, is no mere “conspiracy theory”. United Nations and EU documents have laid out the conspiratorial globalist plan time and again. Only recently, EU and other political heads met in Marrakesh, Morocco, to pledge to assist African and Asian invasion of Europe, to replace European populations with alien black and brown populations.

This anti-white, anti-European campaign was built into the EU right from the start and conflated with the idea of a European “superstate”:

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Jean Monnet was one of the principal freemasonic architects of the EU:

“Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet (French: [ʒɑ̃ mɔnɛ]; 9 November 1888 – 16 March 1979) was a French political economist and diplomat.[1] An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Jean Monnet has been called “The Father of Europe” by those who see his innovative and pioneering efforts in the 1950s as the key to establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, the predecessor of today’s European Union.[2] Never elected to public office, Monnet worked behind the scenes of American and European governments as a well-connected pragmatic internationalist.” [Wikipedia]

“He was the first to be bestowed Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European Council of the European Union, for extraordinary work to promote European cooperation on 2 April 1976. Following this he became the first person alive to be pictured on a German stamp who was not also a German head of state.” [Wikipedia]

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

Another one was Coudenhove-Kalergi:

“In his book Praktischer Idealismus (Practical Idealism), written in 1925, he describes the future of Jews in Europe and of European racial composition with the following words:

The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today’s races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals. […]

Instead of destroying European Jewry, Europe, against its own will, refined and educated this people into a future leader-nation through this artificial selection process.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi

“Nazis considered the Pan-European Union to be under the control of Freemasonry.[27] In 1938, a Nazi propaganda book Die Freimaurerei: Weltanschauung, Organisation und Politik was released in German.[28] It revealed Coudenhove-Kalergi’s membership of Freemasonry, the organization suppressed by Nazis.” [Wikipedia]

“Hitler did not share the ideas of his Austrian compatriot. He argued in his 1928 Secret Book that they are unfit for the future defense of Europe against America. As America fills its North American lebensraum, “the natural activist urge that is peculiar to young nations will turn outward.” But then “a pacifist-democratic Pan-European hodgepodge state” would not be able to oppose the United States, as it is “according to the conception of that commonplace bastard, Coudenhove-Kalergi…”” [Wikipedia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi

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There are secret occult forces behind the founding and expansion of both USA and EU. They are not exclusively Jewish or Zionist, but there is a strong link, as there is to Freemasonry, and also to other groupings not publicly named. Forces of Evil.

and see:

http://www.westernspring.co.uk/the-coudenhove-kalergi-plan-the-genocide-of-the-peoples-of-europe/

Look at the tweet below, from the World Economic Forum at Davos, and retweeted by a pro-EU public relations drone, and which purports to show a wonderful “economic plan” to create a “trade route” (corridor) from Malta and the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. What is the real purpose here? To create a funnel from Africa to Northern Europe, through which migrant-invaders will be funnelled through the heart of Europe to destroy it racially and culturally.

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1127141453161955328

The EU was never meant to be just a mutual-benefit trade bloc. It was always meant to be a monolithic superstate in which the white European populations could be mixed, eventually, with blacks and browns. Of course, that was never conveyed to the peoples of Europe, only to the self-appointed “elite”. In fact, some naive people supported the EU (and still do) because they imagined that it was European in race and culture and not only in geography. Thus we see the deliberate conflation by Remain drones, in the msm or on social media, of “EU” and “Europe“, as in “if Brexit happens, we shall be leaving Europe“, rather than “…leaving the EU.” The UK is part of Europe and always will be; it need not be part of the already-dictatorial EU superstate, which is deliberately importing the culturally inferior by the million.

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How is it possible, though, for both EU and Brexit Party to be heavily influenced by the same forces (ZOG, NWO etc)? Think of a bet whereby you could, in a two-horse race, win whichever horse puts its nose in front. Likewise, in the UK there are or were two or three main parties. The fix was/is into all of those parties. It does not matter (or did not, until Corbyn took over Labour) which party wins, because ZOG/NWO is embedded in all three “main parties” (things are changing now, though).

Brexit Party may have been partly set up with secret aims in mind, but these plans do not always go as planned. Brexit Party has mushroomed, almost exploded, in a way which was perhaps unforeseen even by Farage himself. These things happen in history. The events of the Russian Revolution spiralled out of control, or to use a different metaphor, spread like a wildfire from its modest beginnings in one city in the corner of a huge empire.

Why are voters flocking to Brexit Party? It cannot be because of Brexit Party’s policies, because it has none, or at least only one. I identify these factors:

  • the wish to have the Referendum of 2016 properly respected and complied with; but beyond that
  • the wish to hit out at the System parties and especially the mis-named “Conservative” Party, which under the influence of Jewish Zionism and globalism has trashed the UK (especially England and Wales) to the point where nothing works properly, where most people have neither security nor freedom, where the population is only about half really British now, and where standards in all areas are dropping like a stone (NHS, transport, education, real pay, State welfare benefits, animal welfare, environment etc). There is also the repression on thought and socio-political expression. “Free speech” scarcely exists now in the UK.

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The wish to lash out is very strong now. The people can see that Brexit Party has the popular support to make it a credible vote at both EU and (so far) Westminster elections. People know (whether intellectually or instinctively) that a vote for Brexit Party is one that hits the Conservatives hard, much harder than voting, say, Labour. In any case, Labour itself is not supported by most people (not so much for policy reasons as because white English people especially do not like what they see around Corbyn: the blacks and browns, the semi-literate Angela Rayner types who would be in Cabinet, the creaking 1970s comic-book “Marxism” etc).

A vote for Brexit Party hits the Conservative Party hard not only in areas where Labour is strong but in areas where the Conservatives have prevailed for decades. As I blogged previously, if (as polls suggest) the Conservatives lose 60% or even 50% of their votes, they will lose 50-200 seats, to Labour, to Brexit Party itself, and, here and there, to the Liberal Democrats. That means (as I also blogged previously and to which the msm is now catching up) that

  • Brexit Party may actually win some —possibly 50, even 100— seats at Westminster;
  • The Conservative Party, which has outlived its usefulness, will fade and go the way of the Liberal Party after the First World War; and
  • Labour will (as I have predicted for 2 years) probably be largest party in the Commons, but will be unable to do whatever it wants, because it will be a minority government (almost certainly). People may well prefer that to a majority Labour government.

It can probably be said that, in Westminster constituencies where Labour is not now the first or second party in elections, even former Labour voters would be better to vote Brexit Party than to vote Labour, because in “Conservative” Westminster constituencies, a vote for Labour is going to be a wasted vote, whereas a vote for Brexit Party will quite possibly help to unseat the Conservative MP in question.

Speaking now from a social-national viewpoint, why do I welcome Brexit Party?

That is a simple question to answer. No matter what forces may be behind Brexit Party, no matter what forces influence it, its importance to me lies in its ability to smash the “three main parties” scam-system in the UK. A weak government, esp. Labour, would open the way to real social nationalism in a way never seen before.

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Notes

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

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

https://news.sky.com/story/jeremy-hosking-former-conservative-donor-revealed-as-major-backer-of-brexit-party-11716597

https://www.ft.com/content/9f89051e-730f-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5

https://thebrexitparty.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_(UK)

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

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukip-founder-alan-sked-the-party-should-dissolve-disappear-2016-7?r=US&IR=T

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/22/founded-ukip-national-joke-disappear-henry-bolton-alan-sked

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/tony-blair/news/103814/tony-blair-says-labour-and-tories

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

http://www.dutchanarchy.com/coudenhove-kalergi-plan-genocide-white-peoples-europe/

http://www.westernspring.co.uk/the-coudenhove-kalergi-plan-the-genocide-of-the-peoples-of-europe/

The unreality of the “Remain” crowd can be gauged by the tweet below. Like so many of the twitterati, this fellow over-values Twitter. He actually thinks that he is achieving something by having a few hundred or a few thousand other Remain whiners in his echo-chamber retweet or “like” his pointless tweet. Result? Nothing, but he feels warm and justified. In fact, he is a public relations man whose Twitter output is largely a one-sided and pro-EU song of praise. I predict that 24 May 2019 will not be a pleasant day for him!

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1126988777304526848

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Afterthought

Looks as if Boris Idiot and Amber Rudd might both lose their seats at the next General Election. Conservative MPs will not be voting for either of them to be leader if there is every chance that they might lose their seats…Happy day!

Update, 17 May 2019

Update, 18 May 2019

Someone called Casper Hughes, writing in The Independent [see below], says that Brexit Party will have no effect on Westminster elections. That statement, I think, is probably wrong. For the following reasons:

  • first of all, like most unthinking scribblers and talking heads of the present time, he has not managed to free himself from the idea that there is a spectrum going from “far left” through “hard left”, “soft left”, “centre-left”, “centrist”, then to “centre-right”, “rightwing”, “hard right” and finally the —demonized— “far right”;
  • Casper Hughes labels, simplistically, a huge group as “rightwing voters”. It’s a meaningless phrase; it shows lack of real understanding;
  • politics is more nuanced now. People from all parts of the outdated “right”/”left” spectrum can, for example, be allied on animal rights, environment, economic outcomes (and even policies: rail and utility renationalization for example). It was Jack London who said “I am a socialist, but a white man first”;
  • it is a mistake to imagine that Brexit Party support is all about Brexit. The System betrayal of the EU Referendum result is one example of how the System has, in vulgar terms, shat on the white British people over and over, especially in the past 30 years or so. The Brexit Party is a chance (like the 2016 EU Referendum itself) to kick the System “parties” (which form, to a large extent, one party with 2-3 faces).
  • people are currently (since at least 2015) voting against, not for. The article does to some extent acknowledge that. That means that people are voting not for Brexit Party and its sole policy, but to stamp on Con and Lab (and LibDem) as well as voting —yes— for Brexit, i.e. to leave the EU properly, without strings;
  • people generally now realize that a conspiracy is stealing Brexit, against the “democracy” we are supposed to have in the UK; they want to fight against that; the traditional voters for the “main parties” are not as dominant as they were. In 1950, 97% voted LibLabCon. Now? Maybe 50%;
  • also, many traditional voters feel betrayed: Labour betrayed its core vote by turning into the Blair finance-capitalist, mass immigration, “ignore-Pakistani-child-rapists” “New Labour” or fake-Labour party. The Conservatives betrayed their core vote by continuing with mass immigration, by increasing taxes to an extent not seen under Blair —or even Callaghan in the 1970s—, by destroying much of the mental landscape that made England England, by conspiring to dishonour the 2016 Referendum result, and in other ways;
  • the article says in terms that the present situation is a re-run of UKIP in 2014-2015. It is not. People saw that UKIP was cheated in 2015 (1 in 8 people voted UKIP in 2015 and were cheated by a rigged electoral system) and are angry at that, but even more angry at the corruption, freeloading and dishonesty of the main 2 parties, as well as at their incompetence and arrogance;
  • the article supposes that the so-called “right-wing” voters will “coalesce” around the misnamed “Conservatives” as a “stop Corbyn” tactic. Don’t count on it. After 3 years of Jewish propaganda contra Corbyn, Labour is riding higher than ever; and many former Con voters actually like many Corbyn-Labour policies;
  • the article says that Brexit Party is unlikely to win many if any Westminster seats. Let’s see. The SNP was founded in 1934, and did not get many MPs until 2015, before which it often had 0, 1, 2 or a few MPs most of the time (81 years!); then it reached that FPTP tipping point and had 59. Brexit Party may or may not get to the tipping point, but the idea is no longer ludicrous, if it opposes, say, Labour under Corbyn and Conservative Party under whoever (possibly Boris-Idiot);
  • the very fact that Boris Johnson is spoken of as possibly Prime Minister is proof enough that the System is sick and the Conservative Party terminally so;
  • the article seems to imagine that if Brexit Party gets only the same vote as UKIP in 2015, then its effect is meaningless. No, because even if Brexit Party gets the 12% UKIP got in 2015, and if the others stack up as Lab 35%, Con 35%, LibDem 10%, that leaves the Conservatives, though largest party, 32 seats off a majority: https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html (only a couple of points more for Labour and Labour are largest party, though 18 off a majority);
  • the article’s conclusion is predicated on traditional tribal Conservative loyalty, but that is breaking down fast and very many older voters are dying. A recent poll said that less than half of 2017 Conservative voters intend (at present…) to vote Con next time. That would cull anything up to 200 Conservative MPs if it were to become reality;
  • the EU elections will be a guide, the Peterborough by-election even more important.

I noticed that the article ends on an uncertain note.

https://twitter.com/casperhughes2/status/1129386694476795905

Update, 19 May 2019

Brexit Party now on 24% for the next general election (Con 22%, Lab 29%).

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-party-poll-election-farage-tories-labour-lib-dems-change-uk-a8920371.html

If actual voting reflected that, the Conservatives would lose about 172 seats and be left with about 145; Labour would be the largest party in the Commons, with 297 MPs (up 35), and Brexit Party would have a bloc of 105 MPs. LibDems might have 18. That would mean Corbyn as Prime Minister of a minority (or coalition) government, 29 seats short of a Commons majority.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

Brexit Party is now holding two rallies daily! Not pathetic little meetings like those of Change UK (a Change UK meeting yesterday had 9 people on the podium and 5 —yes, 5— people in the audience!) Here is the Thursday May 16 2019 Brexit Party meeting in Willenhall, West Midlands, a town with a population of about 29,000; the meeting had about 1,000 attending, obviously mostly locals:

and here (same day!), another Brexit Party meeting in the same region, in Wolverhampton, this time with 1,200 attending! So at least 2,200 people had turned out to support Brexit Party in the same region and on the same day! This seems unstoppable, whatever some msm twitterati and chatterati are saying!

Meanwhile, at a Change UK “rally” (8 members of the public and 2 reporters? Or was it 5 members of the public and 5 reporters?…)

Update, 23 May 2019

Here we are. Election day. Every indication shows Brexit Party powering ahead, leaving Con, Lab, LibDems, let alone Greens and Chukup, in its wake and floundering. I saw an interesting Twitter thread analysis about it all (see below):

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/104114/brexit-party-could-rout-senior-tories

Update, 27 May 2019

Update, 30 May 2019

The Peston show on ITV got a psephologist to work out what would happen in the (unlikely but possible) contingency that the next general election saw the same voting as the recent EU elections. The result? Brexit Party 441 seats, Conservatives 1 seat!

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1133780/Brexit-news-latest-Brexit-party-Nigel-Farage-ITV-Peston-Theresa-May-eu-elections

 

Update, 20 November 2019

Well, much water under the bridge! Brexit Party was polling around 12% when Farage decided to pull 317 Brexit Party candidates only 4 weeks before the election. That was followed by another 38. That, in return for a worthless promise from Boris Johnson, a man of no credibility, no integrity, a useless beneficiary of the UK’s sick political system.

Farage‘s ridiculous decision (taken unilaterally and without consultation with the candidates themselves, who had all paid to be considered as candidates) collapsed Brexit Party overnight. Farage killed his party as surely as if he had shot it in the neck.

Now, at time of writing, Brexit Party is in the polls at around 4% and, with 3 weeks to go, is not a serious contender in the General Election. Brexit Party might have won a number of seats while depriving the Conservatives (mainly) of a number of others, but now will be lucky to win even in those constituencies where it had a chance (e.g. Hartlepool).

Why did Farage destroy his own party? I am not the conspiracy theorist some imagine but I do speculate whether this is some kind of Russian operation.

Russia, we are told, wants the UK out of the EU (and, in Putin’s wildest dreams, NATO). Taking that as correct, it may be that Russian strategists were (are?) hoping for “hard Brexit” or “no deal Brexit” (real Brexit), because it weakens the EU (as part of the New World Order or “NWO”) and because a real Brexit might both cause economic/political discontent in the UK down the line and also stimulate Scottish nationalism, with the possibility that Scotland might break off from the UK, and then possibly (probably) decommission the nuclear missile submarine bases there. A break-up of the UK would be a stunning coup for the Russian state in terms of Atlantic geopolitics.

Still speculating, if an immediate “hard Brexit” seemed likely to be blocked by Parliament’s Remain majority in the event of another hung Parliament, then Russian strategists might have decided to strengthen Conservative Party chances by taking out Brexit Party.

Brexit Party is a dictatorship of one man, Farage. To take Brexit Party out of the General Election, Farage alone had to make that decision. He did. So the question is why did Farage take that decision? To my mind, there is no logical reason based on ordinary politics why Farage should take the word of a proven and continual liar such as Boris Johnson. On the other hand, if Farage is or has become an agent under control, then it makes perfect sense.

How do we know that Farage has not been promised (or even paid already) a large sum (£20M is good, £50M is even better) offshore? It makes sense in baldly venal terms but it also makes sense for Farage politically, if Farage has become convinced that a Boris prime ministership with a large majority would result, in a year or two, in a “hard” or even “no deal” Brexit. That way, Farage gets a secret fortune and the political result he has wanted to see since the early 1990s.

True, Farage is wealthy anyway (is supposed to be), but so what? As to whether the Russians would pay really large sums for such purposes…well, the wife of an “oligarch” paid the Conservative Party £160,000 just to have a tennis game with Boris Johnson and David Cameron-Levita. On that basis, £50M to change the whole course of British policy and strategy seems cheap at the price.

There is no direct evidence that Farage is an agent of the Russian state, but he has been shown to have close links with some leading “oligarchs” etc. The Russia of Putin is not the Soviet Union. It operates partly via the uber-wealthy who are beholden to Putin; the Soviet Union operated in this sense in a different way, bureaucratically, via the KGB and its predecessor agencies (NKVD etc), GRU and, pre-WW2, the Comintern.

As we have seen (google, or see my earlier blogs), Boris Johnson, like Farage, is or has been close to some Russian or Russian-Jew “oligarchs”. Then there is the role of Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s “adviser” (who however has been reported as having actually overruled Johnson on some occasions!). I blogged about Cummings a few months ago: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/les-eminences-grises-of-dystopia/

There have been those who have implied that Cummings is a kind of Russian agent. My previous assumption was that he might have been an agent of SIS (British agent rather than salaried officer, perhaps, but who knows?) for a while (when he was in Russia for about 3 years after having graduated from university) but again that was just my speculative thought. Still, one would not necessarily preclude the other, especially over time.

I have no evidence that Farage has been paid a huge bribe by Russia; I have no evidence that Cummings has, either. Still, I do wonder. “Thoughts are duty free”, even in the EU…

There is, of course, also the fact that the British Intelligence assessment of some connected matters is not going to be released until after the General Election. It has been held up by Johnson and Cummings. Why?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/31/boris-johnson-accused-report-russia-dominic-grieve

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48874147

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/boris-johnson-once-outed-mi6-spy-for-a-laugh

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/boris-johnson-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-conservative-labour-1-6374964

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/dominic-cummings-links-to-russia-1-6355329

https://dominiccummings.com/about/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/09/12/dominic-cummings-playing-dangerous-game-relying-heavily-data/

Brexit, by-elections, elections, immigration, MPs, Party Politics, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized, white flight

Notes from the Peterborough By-Election

23 Comments

Background

Fiona Onasanya has drunk her last draught from the taxpayers’ trough and has now been removed as MP, the Peterborough seat having been declared vacant on 1 May 2019. We therefore move to the question of who will replace her.

Peterborough

The constituency covers the majority of the city of Peterborough and some rural areas to the East. I myself have visited the city but once, in 1975, and the city I saw in a few hours and 44 years ago is a very different place now. The population increased about 50% in the years 1971-1991 alone, since when it has increased again hugely. The city of 1971 had about 100,000 inhabitants but now has about 200,000 and still increasing. Even that does not tell the full story.

A few years ago, Peterborough was said to have the second-fastest population growth of any city in the UK. In 2007, the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire noted that, as recently as 2003, 95% of the teenagers in the county had been white (ie English), whereas the figure in 2007 was radically different and the population “diverse”. What is that figure now, I wonder? 50%? Probably far below that.

The true scale of the change is probably covered up. The city’s inhabitants are now 82% white (officially), but many of the white inhabitants are of recent Eastern European origin.

Peterborough constituency and by-election candidates

15 candidates are declared at close of list:

https://pcc-live.storage.googleapis.com/upload/www.peterborough.gov.uk/council/elections/ParliamentaryElectionForPeterborough-StatementOfPersonsNominated-May2019.pdf?inline=true

Conservative Party

The constituency has been a Con/Lab marginal for decades, with the two parties usually but not always within a few points of each other. The Liberal Democrats have come third in every election for decades, except in 2015 when the LibDems came fourth after UKIP (there was no UKIP candidate in 2017).

Stewart Jackson was the Conservative MP from 2005 until 2017, his vote share gradually declining from 42.1% in 2005 to 39.7% in 2015 before, ironically, peaking at 46.8% in 2017, in which year he was replaced by Labour’s Fiona Onasanya (she got 48.1%).

I have blogged previously about Fiona Onasanya, who has wisely decided not to bother standing again (Labour has another candidate, but Fiona Onasanya could, in theory, have stood as an Independent, despite her conviction and brief imprisonment).

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-fiona-onasanya-story/

The Conservative candidate for the by-election, Paul Bristow, is a local businessman who says that “I run my own public affairs and PR business centred around the medical device industry.” I dare say that Bristow, though one of the most likely to succeed candidates, will have an uphill struggle, the way things are with a Conservative Party in meltdown; I also wonder whether voters will want a “multikulti” public relations man (see Bristow’s website in the Notes, below) as their MP. We shall see.

Labour Party

The Labour candidate is Lisa Forbes. A trade union official, she was Labour candidate for Peterborough in 2015, at which election she apparently fought a fairly strong campaign, finishing second with 35.6% of the vote (the Con vote was 39.6%). For the by-election, she beat one other woman in a contest held using a women-only shortlist.

Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK

The LibDem candidate is Beki Sellick, about whom a local newspaper reports:

“The Liberal Democrats have selected Beki Sellick as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Peterborough. The engineer fought the seat in the 2017 election, finishing third with 1,597 votes. She said: “I’m an ordinary person who’s had a variety of jobs – nationalised and privatised, shop floor and management, full-time and part-time, redundant. And then I started my own business in Peterborough two years ago. I chair our residents association where we run a monthly community café.””

The LibDems (same candidate) got a vote share of only 3.3% in the General Election of 2017, which result was even below the 3.8% they scored in 2015 (cf. 2010—19.6%, and 2005— 14.5%). I cannot see the LibDems winning. They are probably fighting for fourth or fifth place.

One interesting aspect is that Change UK, the new pro-EU and pro-Israel party, is not putting up a candidate. I read somewhere that the very strongly pro-EU and anti-Brexit parties (LibDems, Greens, Change UK) were going to not stand against each other in Peterborough and elsewhere, so as not to split the Remainer vote. Well, it looks like someone forgot to tell the Greens, who are standing, their candidate being one Joseph Wells, about whom nothing much is known.

The Green Party website says about their by-election candidate: “Candidate for Peterborough. Joseph Wells. No Candidate [sic] information at this time. Please check back.”

What a joke the Green Party is! Here we have a by-election held after a scandal. The ideal place for a small party to get some publicity and maybe save its deposit, yet on the day the nominations close, the useless creatures cannot even put out a few basic facts about the poor sap they have chosen as their doomed candidate! Not that it makes much difference: the Greens got 1.8% in Peterborough in 2017. Like the pro-Remain and pro-immigration LibDems, the Greens are unlikely to do well in an area which was over 60% Leave and where many of the English people feel (and have been) swamped by mass migration or “migration-invasion”.

The list closed at 1600 hrs. It is now 1611 as I write. At 1555, 5 minutes before closure of the list, Mark Pack, who does LibDem publicity, was tweeting this!

https://twitter.com/LibDemNewswire/status/1126500859070885888

The LibDems are as useless as the Greens and the new joke party, Change UK!

What is more significant is that Change UK have effectively chickened-out of this contest. Either that or they are just too incompetent even to register a candidate for the only by-election being held! Either way (and as I have previously blogged), they are a total waste of space.

Below, two of the wastes of space of “Change UK”:

So there it is: Change UK are too frightened or too incompetent to put up a candidate at Peterborough (voters might like to remember that at the 23 May EU election too…and at the next general election).

This means that, at the by-election, the Remain or pro-EU vote, which at best is probably no more than 40% of the electorate anyway, will be split between Greens and LibDems (and Labour). Bearing in mind that, in 2017, the combined vote for the LibDems and Greens was only 5.1%, it may be that most Remainers in Peterborough will vote Labour; neither of the two smaller parties has any real chance.

Minor candidates

UKIP is standing, thus splitting the hardcore Brexit vote, but is running at only about 3% in nationwide opinion polling. The candidate is John Whitby, a former UKIP councillor, who came last out of 5 candidates in the recent local election for Fletton and Stanground ward, Peterborough (he got 320 votes out of about 2,000):

Hard to predict UKIP’s vote share at the by-election, except that it will be below 5%. I am guessing that it will be around 2%.

The former journalist and UKIP MEP, Patrick O’Flynn, who now fights for the (post-1990) Social Democratic Party (SDP), is standing, but I would be surprised if he were to get above 1% of the vote. In a way, he was a loss to UKIP, in that he was probably one of UKIP’s more intelligent leaders, particularly on economic issues.

Why O’Flynn has chosen to ally himself with the SDP dead parrot party, God knows. Maybe because he did not want to be an Independent. He, in himself, is not a bad candidate, but the SDP is just silly: in 1992, it put up 10 candidates at the General Election. Total vote was over 35,000 or 0.1%, but individually they did not do badly at average 3,500 votes each. However, since then, their few candidates have registered not thousands, not even hundreds, of votes (at the General Election 2017, 6 SDP candidates stood, and got a total of 469 votes, about 75 votes each; in national terms, statistical zero).

Now we come to the bottom of the barrel: the Christian People’s Alliance (not to be confused with the Christian Party Alliance; yes I know…Judean Popular Front etc…) is standing a Dr. Rogers (not I think a medical doctor, but someone with a Ph.D who is a local teacher). I sometimes puzzle over why people even bother standing for silly no-account organizations like this. Still there it is. He may get 50 or 100 votes, who knows?

There are 2 Independents.

One Goldspink is standing for the faux-“nationalist” English Democrats.

There are candidates for “Common Good” and “UK European Union Party”.

There is a “Renew” candidate. There was one in the recent Newport West by-election: that candidate got nearly 4% of the vote there.

“Howling Lord Hope” of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party needs no introduction: the fat little man wearing a white or yellow suit is a veteran of dozens of elections and in fact was actually elected (unopposed) in a local council election at Ashburton, Devon, many years ago. I imagine that he will beat some of the Peterborough candidates who take themselves more seriously.

Brexit Party

Brexit Party has burst upon the political scene (or should that be “swamp”) and may change everything just by existing. Needless to say (to regular or frequent readers of this blog), I would never “support” a party which is not fully social-national, let alone one that has a “Friends of Israel” section already…Having said that, anything that helps to fragment the “three party” or “two party” FPTP scam, that is conventional politics in the UK, has my blessing.

Brexit Party is mushrooming and now has somewhere around 100,000 “supporters” (by any other name, members) who have, apparently, each donated between £5 and £200,000 (the average is about £30, giving Brexit Party somewhere in the region of £5 million in battle funds).

Below, Nigel Farage, the leader of Brexit Party, arriving in Newport, Wales, to a rapturous and almost ecstatic reception:

and here is a comment about both Brexit Party and Change UK rallies (well, Brexit Party’s 2,000-strong Peterborough rally and Change UK’s pathetic almost empty London meeting…)

another tweeter:

I have blogged recently about the effect of Brexit Party on UK elections from now on:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/what-now-for-general-election-2019/

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

These were the results of the 2 May 2019 local elections in Peterborough:

Brexit Party of course not standing.

The bookmakers have Brexit Party favourite to win the by-election: just odds-on, but closely followed at 11/10 by Labour. The Conservatives are on 20/1, the LibDems 50/1, Change UK 66/1 (rather ungenerous since they now seem not to be standing!), 100/1 bar. So Greens and UKIP are both 100/1. William Hill are similar but more generous. They have SDP at 125/1 and Green at 150/1.

A week ago, Labour were the favourites. That though was before Nigel Farage and Brexit Party had 2,000 people attend a rally in Peterborough for which, it seems, tickets were sold at £10 a pop. This is not British politics as we know it…most System candidates would struggle to get 200 (or, in some cases, 20) voters to turn out for a meeting where entrance is free!

Britain Elects has, a minute ago, tweeted the following polling for the EU elections:

Those figures might inform us re. the Peterborough by-election, except that Change UK is not, it seems, a factor.

The Brexit Party candidate is Mike Greene, a multi-millionaire businessman and considerable local philanthropist, who supports 40 local charities and good causes. He comes from modest origins and is a local resident who was brought up in or near the city. He was a Conservative until recently.

Conclusion and forecast

Unless something absolutely stunning happens in the next 4 weeks, this is a straight fight between Brexit Party and Labour. The Conservatives seem to be toast. In fact, now that that is plainly the case, I should expect many more Conservative voters to vote tactically for Brexit Party, in order to keep out Labour.

The Remain vote will probably gravitate to the LibDems, but the Greens will take quite a few Remain votes. Other parties can be more or less disregarded.

There is also the point that, on 23 May, halfway between now and the by-election, the EU elections are expected to be a triumph for Farage and the Brexit Party. The Conservatives are forecast to come 3rd or even 4th.

It looks as though this will be the Westminster victory that might launch the —as yet, policy-free— Brexit Party. Second place will go to Labour. Third? Either LibDems or Conservatives. Quite possibly the LibDems.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Peterborough_by-election

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

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-fiona-onasanya-story/

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

https://news.sky.com/story/former-tory-businessman-revealed-as-brexit-party-candidate-in-peterborough-by-election-11715137

https://www.paulbristow.org.uk/about-paul-bristow

https://labourlist.org/2019/02/labour-selects-lisa-forbes-to-replace-fiona-onasanya-in-peterborough/

https://my.greenparty.org.uk/candidates/106132

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/politics/peterborough-by-election-christian-parties-alliance-confirm-candidate-1-8921620

https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/council/elections/local-elections/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O%27Flynn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)

https://cpaparty.net/

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Peterborough_by-election#Candidates_and_campaign

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/what-now-for-general-election-2019/

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

view/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7198329/Labours-secret-plan-to-lure-migrants.html

Update, 21 May 2019

Current betting as of today (21 May) is: Brexit Party as odds-on favourites (8/13), though challenged fairly closely by Labour on 5/4. The rest of the field is comprised of also-rans, it appears: Conservatives 20/1, LibDems 50/1, and 125/1 bar those four.

Update, 23 May 2019

There has been movement in the betting market for the by-election: Brexit Party hardening and now at 8/15; Labour less firm and out to 7/4; Conservatives at 9/1 (from 20/1 only two days ago); LibDems sliding to 70/1; 125/1 bar those four.

https://www.betfair.com/sport/politics

Update, 24 May 2019

Just saw the clip below from BBC News. It exemplifies the BBC way of doing bias in political coverage. The whole clip lasts well over 2 minutes (2:16), out of which Mike Greene, the candidate for Brexit Party, was given 5 or 6 seconds! Brexit Party is way ahead in the betting and polling for the by-election, but the BBC chose to present the three System party candidates as the “serious” ones, each of whom got a number of short slots within the clip. Even the lady standing for the LibDems got two or three slots, despite the fact that the LibDems have no chance, are 70/1 to win, and when the same lady stood in Peterborough for the LibDems at the 2017 General Election, she only got 3.3% of votes cast!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-48356295/peterborough-by-election-candidates-debate

I am not a “supporter” of Brexit Party, as such, but the BBC’s bias against it is really showing now.

Update, 26 May 2019

By-election betting now shows Brexit Party hardening to 2/5, and now strong odds-on favourite; Labour slightly out at 15/8; Conservatives, who went from 20/1 to 9/1, are now again sliding and are at 12/1; LibDems in from 70/1 to 50/1; still 125/1 bar those four.

Update, 27 May 2019

After the stellar victory of Brexit Party in the EU elections, the odds on Brexit Party smashing the Peterborough by-election have hardened again, now to 4/11. Labour’s dispiriting results in the EU elections have lengthened its odds to 5/2. The Conservatives’ odds have slid back to 16/1, whereas the LibDems’ odds, also at 16/1, are hugely shorter now (they were 50/1 only yesterday!); 125/1 bar those four.

As my blog, written 9 May, said, this is a contest between Brexit Party and Labour, but now the LibDems are complicating the issue. If all anti-Brexit voters gathered behind one candidate, the Brexit Party could not win. The question arises: which one party and candidate? The Remain-oriented side is split, and there are other issues. It may well be that many Con voters and others will switch to LibDem for the by-election, but many Labour voters will recall the LibDems’ dreadful and dishonest support for the Con Coalition 2010-2015. My prediction is that the Brexit Party is going to win this by a goodly margin in the end.

Update, 29 May 2019

The betting continues to firm for Brexit Party. Now 1/5 odds-on (from 4/11). Labour has weakened to 4/1 (from 5/2). The LibDems are still at 16/1, but the Conservatives are still sliding, now at 20/1 again (from 16/1). As far as the bookmakers are concerned, it’s all over.

As my initial blog post speculated, Conservative voters are now flocking to Brexit Party, either out of conviction or because it is the best way to deny Labour the prize. It may be that, after the Fiona Onasanya fiasco, Labour is badly damaged. The candidate for Labour seems to be not very intelligent, which hardly helps (though I understand that she is at least anti-Zionist. On can rarely have everything.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/27/nigel-farage-sets-his-sights-on-party-winning-peterborough-byelection

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/29/peterborough-byelection-labour-and-tories-fear-brexit-party-surge

Update, 30 May 2019

Latest betting: Brexit Party still strong odds-on favourite at 1/5, Labour still 4/1 (both unchanged from yesterday), but LibDems and Cons have now both slid to 25/1. 125/1 bar those four.

Update, 31 May 2019

Brexit Party still at 1/5, Labour still at 4/1. LibDems have recovered to 12/1 after opinion polling suggesting that, nationwide, the LibDems are now, suddenly, the most popular party in England and Wales! Conservatives are available at 25/1 for the by-election. 125/1 bar those four.

Meanwhile, the newspapers converge on Peterborough to seek opinions…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7092845/Peterborough-voted-replace-disgraced-MP-favourites-parties-vocal-Brexit.html

“A disillusioned Tory, his message is clear that the Lib Dems ‘may sneak in here’. He says Peterborough is ‘an absolute dump’ with poverty rife. People are so poor they think twice about buying even a multi-pack of crisps.” [Daily Mail]

“Back in Lincoln Road, at a cafe bar, I talk to Janet Tobolik, who is 65 and half Polish. A devout Eurosceptic, she says only one party cares about Peterborough’s problems. She is voting UKIP. ‘There is rubbish on the streets. This is my country and you suddenly find a settee in the middle of the road. Peterborough is a slum. They drop everything these immigrants.’” [Daily Mail]

“Down the street, a 73-year-old man who called himself Mr Dhillon, said: ‘I have lived here since 1967. I always supported Labour. But they and the Tories have done no good for Peterborough. I think we should leave the EU and then we can start again.’”

“Yes, as it stands, it is Farage who is on a roll. He is hoping to bury his opponents in Peterborough, just like Catherine of Aragon, and the odds are hugely on his Brexit Party’s side. Next Thursday we’ll discover if the people of this city will change the future of British politics.” [Daily Mail]

Update, 2 June 2019

The betting market has moved as far as Labour and the LibDems are concerned. Brexit Party is still strong odds-on favourite at 1/5, but Labour is now closer at 10/3 and the LibDems , who were 12/1 yesterday and 70/1 only a week ago, now move to 9/1. The Conservatives are still on 25/1; and 125/1 bar those four.

As I commented earlier elsewhere, the battle for second place at Peterborough is intensifying. The Brexit Party seems unchallenged now for 1st place. The only way for Brexit Party to lose would be if those opposed to Farage all clustered round one other party standing. That is obviously not happening. Labour is fighting hard for the seat, but the LibDems are “playing a blinder” bearing in mind that they only got 3.3% in 2017 and 3,8% in 2015. Even at the height of 2010 Cleggmania, they only managed (just under) 20%.

The Conservatives are toast and have no chance. Labour is battling not to be toast. A 2nd place at Peterborough would keep Labour in the game nationally. If Labour drops to 3rd at Peterborough, heads may roll.

Brexit Party tweets cleverly: their tweet (below) is in fact correct, but from the purely electoral point of view helps Brexit Party, because Labour is still the main enemy of Brexit Party in this Peterborough by-election. Tactically, Brexit Party very much knows how to run a campaign.

Update, 3 June 2019

Three days before polling day.

The Guardian reports from Peterborough [link below]. Well worth reading.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/peterborough-prepares-for-byelection-that-could-see-first-brexit-party-mp

“…many Peterborians feel life is getting worse; nothing catastrophic, but a noticeable unravelling. Stagnation of living standards and diminishing prospects, as much as Brexit and migration, are likely to shape how they vote.”

“…people also sense deeper changes to the social fabric, caused in part by the march of buy-to-let property investors, the retreat of the state from providing housing for the working class and ever-shrinking funding for maintaining the fabric of neighbourhoods. With Brexit dominating the byelection, there is little room to debate much of that.”

The BBC has also posted a not very illuminating analysis:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-48300812

As for the betting market, Brexit Party is now even more firmly odds-on, prohibitively priced at 1/6. Labour has gone out again, returning to 4/1. The LibDems are now also further out at 10/1, while the Conservatives have all but given up the ghost at 33/1 (out from 25/1).

The LibDems were always going to be on the back foot in Leave-friendly Peterborough (in the 2016 Referendum, 61% voted Leave, on a high turnout of over 72%), but their apparent lack of success is a warning light about taking their 2019 EU elections performance and more recent opinion polling too seriously (particularly now that it seems that pollsters have been deliberately suppressing Brexit Party in some polling).

When push comes to shove, can the LibDems hack it? Their performance electorally over many years and in government from 2010-2015 would suggest not.

As to the Conservatives, I suggest that my initial analysis was right: former Conservative voters are backing Brexit Party both for itself and because they have lost confidence in the Conservatives as a potentially-winning party. A Conservative vote in Peterborough is now a wasted vote. The tactical option to keep Labour out is therefore to vote Brexit Party. They are obviously deserting the Conservatives in droves; incredible when you consider that Peterborough has had a Conservative MP for most of the years 1945-2019. A symptom of the general and possible terminal decline of the Conservative Party.

Labour is the only party now likely to come close to Brexit Party in the by-election. The “blacks and browns” (etc), comprising a fifth of the inhabitants, will vote Labour if they vote at all. Remain voters are more likely to vote LibDem now. The non-Brexit-Party vote is thus split. Brexit Party may get 50% of the vote, it may get only 40%, but it does seem likely to win.

Note: in the few hours since I wrote the above update for 3 June, the betting market has moved again. Now Brexit Party is in at 1/7, Labour has gone out to 5/1, the LibDems have slumped to 14/1 and the Conservatives are still in outer darkness at 33/1 (125/1 bar those four).

It is pretty clear that the punters and bookmakers have decided that Brexit Party is unassailable at Peterborough. I think that Brexit Party will be elected, and maybe on as much as 50% of the vote.

The Labour candidate has been (supposedly) damaged by her (again, supposedly) “anti-Semitic” online statements of some time ago (my problem with her is that she has recanted, and cravenly “apologized” to the Jew-Zionist lobby). She will probably get 2nd place, and on a vote of about 25%.

The LibDems have no realistic chance now. They will be looking to get the bulk of the Remain vote in a city where most people (61%) voted Leave in 2016, and where the LibDem core vote has been between 3% and 4% for several years (and even in 2010 was only 19% or so). I shall be surprised if the LibDems can get to 2nd place in this by-election. My guess as to their vote share would be somewhere around 20%.

Conservatives? They are just going through the motions. If their vote exceeds 10%, I shall be surprised.

…and the msm “journalists” are still making assumptions based on their belief that the System parties (LibLabCon) are eternal and immortal. Those parties will all be dead soon. “Protest vote” does not begin to cover what is happening.

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-06-03/protest-vote-expected-in-peterborough-by-election/

Update, 4 June 2019

Early in the morning. The betting is now 1/9 Brexit Party, 6/1 Labour, 14/1 LibDems, 33/1 Conservatives. It is already over.

ps. this tweeter makes a good overall point:

https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1134879812621864960

Update, 5 June 2019

So here we are, the day before polling day. The betting has moved in a little. Brexit Party still heavily odds-on but a little out from yesterday (1/7 from 1/9); Labour has come in to 9/2 (from 6/1); the LibDems are at 14/1 (from 16/1), Conservatives still 33/1 (125/1 bar those four).

There was a late attempt in the Guardian to connect Mike Greene, the Brexit Party candidate, with the retention-of-freehold-rights scam/scandal, but it seems to have had little impact for various reasons, not least that 99% of Peterborough voters never read the Guardian.

Brexit Party looks, on the face of it, as if it is going to walk this one.

Update, 6 June 2019

The moment of truth. The polls are open. Brexit Party is still at 1/7 in the betting odds, with Labour again firmer at 4/1; the LibDems and Conservatives have settled together at 20/1.

and at 1330 on polling day…

The betting has altered “in play”, so to speak: Brexit Party still at 1/7 and looking on the face of it like a shoo-in to win; Labour firmed today, to 7/2; as to the others, both the LibDems and the Conservatives have been sliding, the LibDems to 25/1, the Cons to 50/1. (125/1 bar those four).

If the current betting reflects what will be announced tonight or tomorrow, this is disastrous for the Conservatives, who not only provided the MP for the constituency for most of the past 80 years but also had the tactical advantage of the recent history of Labour in Peterborough: Fiona Onasanya etc: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-fiona-onasanya-story/

It is clear that the Conservatives are going to go down very badly. How badly, we wait to see. This may prove to be the most significant by-election since 1945.

(as a light ending, until the result, I reproduce—see below—the most stupid, also the funniest tweet I saw today!)

https://twitter.com/MatthewMahabadi/status/1136626475174699009

Update at 1615 hrs on polling day:

Betting: 1/6 Brexit Party, 11/4 (from 7/2) Labour.

As I predicted weeks ago, it is between these two now. Labour struggling hard not to be too badly beaten. Many of the Remain votes will go Labour, and almost all of the votes of the blacks, browns etc, and those of any immigrants eligible to vote.

The LibDems are only 40/1 in the by-election betting now. Cons 50/1, others 125/1 or more. As usual, the LibDems talk a good game but rarely follow through. They wasted their chance of getting proportional representation in 2010. That sank their party and many of Britain’s people.

Just saw this, illustrating my point that Labour’s core vote is now “the blacks and browns”:

Aftermath, 7 June 2019

Labour won, unexpectedly (and because of the organized ethnic minority vote, including postal vote), and on 31% of the votes cast (Brexit Party got 29%).

My post-poll thoughts are here:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/peterborough-by-election-post-poll-analysis-and-thoughts/

Carl Benjamin, Deadhead MPs, elections, Jewish lobby in UK, Labour Friends of Israel, MPs, Party Politics, Sargon of Akkad, Uncategorized

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Jess Phillips Story

29 Comments

Apologia

So here we are again, in the “deadhead MPs” zone. The problem I have is that so very many MPs are now deadheads, meaning MPs who fall below the bar even for mediocrity. Mediocrity alone does not qualify an MP to be immortalized here. The MP must be outstandingly poor. How to say where that line is set, when so many now qualify? Anyway, having already chosen a number of MPs to participate in this series, here is a well-deserving example: Jess Phillips MP [Lab, Birmingham Yardley].

Jess Phillips

Background

Jess Phillips is the daughter of two “socialist”-oriented persons, who apparently walked around naked all the time at home, in front of their children. Very odd. Even the East Germans (some of them) only did that on specified Baltic beaches. The online magazine, Conservative Woman, commented thus:

“‘Teach girls at school about orgasms, says Labour MP’. That startling newspaper headline, alone, would have been sufficient for most readers to guess that the source was an interview given by that shameless self-publicist Jess Phillips.“

“Her interview also revealed that not only was Phillips brought up in a ‘naked household . . . an environment where nothing was embarrassing’, today in her own home she often goes around nude. Jess further boasts of being ‘open about sex’ with her two sons, currently aged 10 and 14, which must be delightful for them, though it is unclear whether or not she is clothed during their intimate chats.”

“If Phillips’s tale of home nudity is actually true and not a wind-up, far from being charmingly eccentric, it is revolting. Were a father revealed to be exposing himself to school-age daughters, with whom he frankly discusses sex, it would likely be career-ending, certainly for an MP, and might also interest both social services and police.”

“But don’t expect Jess Phillips to have her collar felt – she won’t be wearing one.”

Readers of the profile were not complimentary to Jess Phillips:

“Phillips is as mad as a barrel of polecats anyway. The fact that people actually vote for her is astonishing.”

and

“I’d like to like Jess Phillips, because at least she seems to have an infectious laugh. The trouble is, I remember her laughing also at male suicide statistics. Seemed to think it funny that suicide is the leading cause of death in British men aged 20-49. Not so funny really.”

It seems that her parents, though “socialist”, set up a private company in order to make money out of the NHS, her mother having been Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation and Chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust. That private company was active from 2003 until at least 2010, but is now defunct. Jess Phillips’ mother died in 2011.

Jess Phillips attended a local grammar school for girls, then the University of Leeds (Economic and Social History and Social Policy, a “soft” degree); she then took a post-graduate diploma in Public Sector Management at the University of Birmingham.

“At 16 I was a raver, a party animal to say the least. Weekends would start early on a Friday night, round at my friend’s house where we’d get ready. Then we’d be out, maybe to a local party at someone’s house. Then on Saturday it was an all-night rave until the wee small hours of Sunday.”

The only known jobs done by Jess Phillips are working for her parents until 2010 (when she was 29), and (from 2010) working as a business development manager at Women’s Aid domestic abuse charity. It is unclear for how long this position lasted. In the 2010-2015 period, Jess Phillips was also engaged in paid political activity as a councillor and as a member of at least two local quango panels. On occasion, Jess Phillips has made reference to having done waitressing and other work, but I think that we can be sure that we are talking days or weeks rather than months or years, assuming that she ever did those jobs at all.

Jess Phillips is married to one Tom Phillips. They have two children. I have been unable, as yet, to discover whether her husband is of Jewish or part-Jewish origin or indeed whether she herself is.

Controversies as MP

Jess Phillips

  • was selected as candidate not by open competition but via an approved “all-women shortlist”;
  • is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has made a number of pro-Jewish interventions; Jews on Twitter etc often seem to give her support (may be part-Jew);
  • invented an altercation with Diane Abbott MP in which, Phillips claimed, “‘I roundly told her to fuck off.’ When asked what Ms Abbott did after that suggestion, Ms Phillips replied: ‘She fucked off.'” According to Diane Abbott in a January 2018 Guardian interview: “Jess Phillips never told me to fuck off. What was extraordinary is that she made a big deal of telling people she had”. Phillips later apologised.” [Huffington Post]
  • “Phillips told Owen Jones in December 2015 that she had told Corbyn and his staff “to their faces: ‘The day that … you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front‘”, if it looked as though he was damaging Labour’s chances of winning the next general election. Responding to criticism about her use of language, Phillips said on Twitter: “I am no more going to actually knife Jeremy Corbyn than I am actually a breath of fresh air, or a pain in the arse” [Wikipedia]
  • walks around in the nude at home, despite having two sons living with her;
  • has quarrelled with UKIP MEP candidate Carl Benjamin aka “Sargon of Akkad”, who said, in 2015, that “he would not even rape her”. Jess Phillips has now dredged that up, four years later, and has been making her usual and no doubt well-paid round of the TV and radio studios in order to make more publicity for herself out of it; she has even made complaint to the police about it, four years on (and, no doubt coincidentally, during the EU election campaign)!
  • has threatened several times to resign from the Labour Party but somehow never quite manages to do it (see below for details of how much money she drags down solely by being an MP);
  • “In July 2018 it was reported that Phillips served as deputy editor of The House, the in-house Parliamentary magazine published by the Dods Group, which had been purchased by Conservative Party donor and former Tory vice-chairman Michael Ashcroft, earning an annual salary of £8,000 for two hours’ work per month.” [Wikipedia]. So she does maybe 2 hours work each month for that obscure magazine, which pays her about £700 per month, i.e. about £350 an hour. Not bad compared to most of her poverty-stricken constituents, who are probably lucky to get £10 a hour!
  • draws a salary of £80,000 and also claims a quarter of a million pounds each year in expenses, most of which consists of “staff pay”, which includes £50,000 a year paid to her husband as “Constituency Support Manager” (house husband?); she also claims about £30,000 a year for accommodation (about 50% more than average);
  • constantly makes the rounds of TV studios, radio studios, Press interviews (all or mostly paid…)

Ambition

“In March 2019, she said: “I think I’d be a good prime minister” and that “I feel like I can’t leave the Labour Party without rolling the dice one more time. I owe it that. But it doesn’t own me. It’s nothing more than a logo if it doesn’t stand for something that I actually care about – it’s just a f***ing rose.” [Wikipedia]

Conclusion

The mystery is (or would be, were it not so common in the House of Commons now) why this ignorant, uncultured, foul-mouthed creature was ever thought suitable to be an MP. Birmingham Yardley is a safe Labour seat, and it seems that no way exists for her to be removed, unless her local Labour Party deselects her. Incredibly, despite her saying time and again that Labour means nothing to her, she has been reselected. She makes a very good living out of being a caricature loudmouth MP, and I see no possibility that she will leave Labour unless another party offers her a continued sinecure. Unfortunately.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Yardley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

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

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05747465

https://www.bigissue.com/interviews/letter-to-my-younger-self/jess-phillips-i-found-early-motherhood-horrendous/

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/over-exposed-jess-the-naked-mp/

https://www.mpsexpenses.info/?#!/mp/757

Tweets and published remarks about Jess Phillips

In case people think that I select only tweets hostile to Jess Phillips, here is one from (another) “Labour” and pro-Zionist doormat, Stella Creasy MP (Labour Friends of Israel etc), who wants to make “misogyny” [meaning trenchant criticism of any female, female MP that is] a “hate crime”! Note: Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips are both personal friends and members of Labour Friends of Israel.

and here is another tweet supporting Jess Phillips, this time from vastly privileged System mouthpiece Dan Snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Snow  , the son of BBC talking head Peter Snow. Dan Snow: St. Paul’s School, Balliol College, Oxford, married to the second daughter of the 6th Duke of Westminster (who was one of the richest men in Britain). “Snow presented his first programme in October 2002 just after graduating from university, co-presenting the BBC’s 60th anniversary special on the Battles of El Alamein with his father” [Wikipedia]. “With his father”?…Oh, that’s handy… Nepotism Central…Also a Remain drone (of course), Dan Snow thinks that making a silly remark should “instantly” disqualify a political candidate! He’s a well-educated, er, idiot…(correction, a well-educated and above all well-connected idiot).

and here’s another, but this time obscure, idiot who also believes that only “approved” and uncontroversial candidates should be allowed. Oh, right, like in Asian fake “democracies” such as China…

https://twitter.com/Judechina1/status/1125729138084646913

Here (below), a tweeter commenting on how Jess Phillips manages to rip off the taxpayers for hundreds of thousands of pounds a year:

https://twitter.com/patrick161616/status/1117423762025193473

I have to admit that I found the following tweet rather funny!

and here are some people who seem to think that Jess Phillips has been telling untruths about being the target of an attack. Surely not…

https://twitter.com/VanishingPoin_t/status/1177511730957520898?s=20

Update, 6 October 2019

Jess Phillips is an even more horrible bitch than I thought…

https://twitter.com/groovyguyzone/status/1180448166778474496?s=20

Update, 18 January 2020

I have seen it written that Jess Phillips’ husband is no longer employed by her on her Parliamentary expenses (or at all).

Update, 31 July 2020

Jess Phillips is so ignorant about basic facts and procedures in law and public life that she committed a plain contempt of court at or near the end of the recent trial of ex-MP Charlie Elphicke. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/30/former-tory-mp-charlie-elphicke-guilty-sexually-assaulting-two/

I expect that the judge and police/CPS will turn a blind eye. I myself think that she should suffer some penalty. What an incredibly stupid woman she is.

Update, 15 November 2023

Update, 6 July 2024

Narrowly re-elected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Yardley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s

Update, 18 July 2025

It just occurred to me that, with Jess Phillips, the apple did not fall far from the tree. She, like her parents, combines pseudo-socialism with grabbing as much money as possible, and with using Labour Party networking in order to do that.

I saw tweets about her today:

Just a straight-out enemy of the future of white Europe.

Update, 25 October 2025

Brexit, Party Politics, Uncategorized

What Now for General Election 2019?

3 Comments

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 UK Local Elections Have Been Held: My View

3 Comments

Introduction

The 2019 local elections are at an end and the results collated and endlessly analyzed in the msm. I had predicted a seat loss for the Conservatives of well beyond 1,000 seats, somewhere between there and 1,500. In that, my prediction was correct. Where I went wrong was in thinking that Labour would do well.

What I got right was the disgust and despair voters generally now feel in respect of the Conservative Party. What I got wrong, mainly, was in assuming that voters in the North and Midlands would vote Labour to spite the Conservatives, even if only as a choice between evils and not much supporting Labour as such.

The facts

The system of voting for local councillors etc in the UK is as antiquated and convoluted as one might resignedly expect: not all councils are elected in the same year, and some councils only elect a third of their councillors in any one election. Absurd.

The actual result of the election nationwide, where 8,798 seats (between a third and a half of all the 20,712 local government seats in the UK) were being contested was:

  • Con 3,562 (loss of 1,334) seats;
  • Lab 2,023 (loss of 82) seats;
  • LibDems 1,350 (gain of 703) seats;
  • Others 1,310 (mostly Independents). The Greens did well and now have 265 councillors (a gain of 194). UKIP did badly, and now have only 31 councillors (a loss of 145).

Analysis

The two major System parties are now widely despised. More than that, the political/electoral system is now despised; people have little or no trust in it or in those who are making their living from it. Those facts are reflected not only in the votes cast, but in those not cast. Turnout varies depending on the type of body being elected, but seems overall to have been only about 30%, if that. In addition, unprecedentedly huge numbers of ballot papers were spoiled, some being endorsed with the words “Brexit” or “Brexit Party” or a drawn Swastika. Unsurprising, when one considers that, in many local council seats, there was no real choice.

In many areas of Southern England, the Conservatives were not opposed by even System party opponents from Labour or the LibDems. That explains the way in which disgusted voters voted for anyone not tainted by System connections: Independents (despite most being completely unknown to most of those who voted for them; complete wild cards); Residents’ Association candidates, Greens. How though to explain the relative success of the LibDems (a System party)? How to explain the collapse of UKIP (a non-System party)? In fact, there is no difficulty in understanding those apparent anomalies.

The LibDems were obviously voted for by voters who liked the LibDems’ focus on local affairs, those who are Remain supporters voting for the LibDems as an anti-Brexit protest vote, and by those former Conservative voters who wanted to punish the Conservatives generally, but who were unwilling to vote for Labour, Greens or for complete wild cards. For those people, I suspect mainly in the South of England, the LibDems were an acceptable compromise “dustbin” vote.

The Greens were probably mostly voted for as a pure protest vote, as well as an environmentally-oriented protest vote.

UKIP lost out badly and now, out of a possible nearly 21,000 councillors, has only 31. I think that one can see why that has happened. I have been tweeting/blogging for years that UKIP peaked in 2014. Since then, UKIP has been sliding. The good, but not good enough, 2015 General Election result led to a precipitous plunge in UKIP’s fortunes. Its new leader, Batten, has slowed the plunge, but not stopped it.

UKIP had insufficient troops and funds to fight these local elections hard. It did not contest the vast majority of seats anyway. Apart from that, it is clear that the connection with the “alt-Right” wastes of space (“Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin, “Prison Planet” Watson, “Count Dankula” Meechan) has damaged UKIP badly. Benjamin’s spat with ghastly “Labour” (Labour label) MP Jess Phillips was probably a huge turn-off for many voters. This is the end of the road for UKIP, even re. the EU elections (if any are held in the UK), because defections to Brexit Party have already left UKIP with only 3 MEPs, and BP is running at 30% or more in the opinion polls, while UKIP is now down to about 3%.

Conclusion

These were elections in which voters clutched at straws, weakly trying to damage the main parties of the System. In most seats, there was no non-System candidate standing. The aftermath has been that Con and Lab are now trying to cobble together a faked-up “deal” (“Brexit In Name Only”) so that both parties can avoid having to hold EU elections at all on the 23rd of this month..

We are coming to the end of even the pretence of representative democracy in the UK. Any means will soon be entirely justified in replacing the present corrupt, decadent and totally incompetent system with a better one. The present political system is just not working.

Notes

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-05-03/why-tories-and-labour-should-be-petrified-by-local-elections/

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

http://www.heritageanddestiny.com/early-ukip-gains-as-voters-turn-against-main-parties/

Update and afterthoughts, 4 May 2019

There were almost no candidates ostensibly “nationalist”, still less social-national. A few did well where they stood, here and there. The standouts were Karen King and Julian Leppert, both of whom were For Britain Movement candidates..

Julian Leppert was elected for the “For Britain” party in Waltham Abbey, Paternoster ward, in Epping Forest, Essex. The one-time BNP councillor received 40.7% of the vote, 321 votes; the Con in second place got 227. Turnout was only 23%. About 808 votes were cast in toto.

Karen King, in Hartlepool, de Bruce ward, won with an even more striking 49.5% vote. “The turnout for the elections was 27.18% with 19,284 verified votes from an electorate of 70,943” [Northern Echo]. That of course relates to all Hartlepool and not simply the ward picked out, where Karen King/For Britain Movement got 694 votes, Labour 527, Con 180.

Hartlepool Borough Council councillors now consist of 13 Labour, 8 Independent Union, 5 Independent, 3 Conservatives, 1 UKIP, 1 Veterans’ and People’s Party, 1 For Britain Movement and 1 Socialist Labour Party. Such fragmentation is interesting. The old “three party” or “two party” System stitch-up is just not working any more.

Of course, readers of this blog will know that I have little time for “For Britain Movement”, and 2 councillors is a very small contingent out of the nearly 21,000 in the UK, but looking at those results in isolation, one can only congratulate the candidates.

I shall blog separately about the prospects for the main System parties.

Conservative Friends of Israel, Deadhead MPs, elections, Jewish lobby in UK, MPs, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Karl McCartney Story

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This is the latest in my occasional series about those whom I consider to be “deadhead MPs”. The lucky politico this time is Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln 2010-2017.

 

I would not usually bother with someone who is no longer an MP and who is very unlikely to be returned to the House of Commons. In McCartney’s case, I have decided to make an exception. The reason is because McCartney’s combination of brash overconfidence, unpleasantness, personal moneygrabbing and expenses blodging, lack of interest in the poorer part of society and unimpressive academic and work background is now, and has become, over the past decades, almost typical of MPs (and by no means only on the Conservative side of UK System-politics). That such people can become MPs is an indictment of the selection and election procedures in place in the UK.

Lincoln is considered to be an “ultra-marginal” and a “swing seat”. In 2010, McCartney and the Conservatives won with 37.5% of the votes cast, as against 35.2% for Labour and 20.2% for the LibDems (BNP 3%, UKIP 2.2%, English Democrats 1.3% and an Independent on 0.5%).

In 2015, McCartney was re-elected: Con 42.6%, Lab 39.6%, UKIP 12.2%, LibDem 4.3%, TUSC 0.7%, Lincolnshire Independent 0.6%. The key points were the collapse of the LibDem vote by 16 points, the non-appearance of the BNP and English Democrats, and the rise of UKIP —by 10 points, though that was modest bearing in mind that the BNP and EDs did not stand. Both Con and Lab increased their percentages.

In 2017, the result was Lab 47.9%, Con 44.7%, UKIP 2.6%, LibDem 2.6%, Green 1.2%, and two Independents (0.6%, 0.3%). A pattern seen in many constituencies: UKIP slumping back to a 2010 or pre-2010 level and the LibDems failing to recover from the 2015 debacle and indeed slipping further. While the Con vote percentage did slightly increase –2 points– in 2017, Lab did far better–8 points higher. That despite the UKIP slump, despite McCartney favouring Leave/Brexit, despite the appearance of a Green candidate likely to impact the Labour vote. It is hard to escape the view that the Con loss was the result of popular judgment on McCartney himself.

McCartney was exposed from 2010-2017, in various ways, as unsuitable.

A lecturer at the University of Lincoln blamed McCartney’s laziness and complacency for the loss (see Notes, below) and was too polite to mention McCartney’s alleged porn-trawling (though that was, admittedly, in 2014), his employment of his wife at £50,000 a year via Parliamentary expenses, or his expenses generally.

“On 28 February 2013 McCartney apologised to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) for the content of notes he had sent to staff. The notes were described by IPSA Chief Executive, Andrew McDonald as ‘abusive’, ‘offensive’ and ‘condescending’. McCartney’s apology stated, “I apologise unreservedly to IPSA for my comments” [Wikipedia]. and

“The following month he claimed that IPSA’s incompetence had forced MPs from all parties to borrow money and that he had had to ask his parents for financial assistance.[30] McCartney also said that he had been told by a “senior IPSA official” that the organisation intended to “damage MPs as much as possible,” a claim that IPSA said was “wild ..simply untrue.” [Wikipedia].

An idea of McCartney’s character can also be gained from the Twitter exchange printed in a local newspaper: https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/bitter-row-breaks-out-twitter-1447360

The readers’ comments section under that newspaper report was harsh:

“Poor old Karl. He really needs to wipe away those tears and get on with his life. He is an arrogant, rude and bitter loser. And they are his good points. Lincoln and the Conservatives are better off without him. Ignore him Karen.”

and

“Happiest day last year was when he walked away in a huff and refused to speak to anyone or congratulate at the election result which pretty much summed everything up.”

As to what McCartney is doing now, I think that the answer may be “very little”. I notice that, as I write this piece, around 1800 hrs, he has already tweeted or retweeted 29 times today, so far. His website seems to say that he will be the Conservative candidate at the next general election. It is hard to know why. One can only speculate as to why the local Conservatives have chosen him. He was a lay magistrate at one time; he is a Freeman of the City of London (see Notes, below), having “worked with”, his website claims, more than one Lord Mayor in the late 1990s. Freemason? I do not know.

McCartney obviously did pretty well financially in his 7 years as MP: salary of (then) about £70,000 pa, and wife’s salary (paid out of his expenses claimed) £50,000 pa; also possible other (outside) sources of income (I do not know about this). His overall expenses alone over his time as MP totalled well over a million pounds. He does not appear to have a job at present (there is nothing mentioned on his website); perhaps his wife has found another job, now that her well-paid work as her husband’s assistant has gone.

Readers of The Lincolnite (online newspaper) were as harsh as those commenting on Lincoln Live (above):

“A totally useless MP, more concerned about himself and his expenses than he ever was about Lincoln – amazed that they’ve reselected this waste of space.

John Bercow (Speaker, House of Commons) summed him up nicely with this in a parliamentary debate when McCartney let himself (and us) down yet again:

“Mr McCartney, calm yourself. Be quiet, young man. We do not need to hear from you. You add nothing and you subtract from the proceedings.”

Then there were the abusive notes (for which he had to apologise) he sent to the parliamentary expenses staff when they queried his expenses.”

and
“Unvelievable! [sic] A sure fire way for the Conservatives to lose votes.”
and
 
“It’s not what you know but who you know ,Roll your trouser leg up, funny handshake and fancy apron crowd.”

What are McCartney’s chances of getting back as Lincoln’s MP? Very slight. I have blogged elsewhere about the impact of Brexit Party (and slightly revived UKIP) on the Conservative vote, assuming that Brexit Party contests a general election. That alone would sink the Conservatives in an ultra-marginal such as Lincoln.

Another point is that present Labour MP, Karen Lee, who worked in shops for years before spending 14 years as an NHS nurse, still puts in some shifts at a local hospital, donating her NHS earnings to charity! What a contrast to greedy, moneygrasping and “entitled” McCartney! His work in the City of London in the 1990s was obviously so unimportant that even his own website says almost nothing about it (neither does he seem to have done much outside Con politics in the decade up to his election in 2010).

In addition to all that, Karen Lee is local in origin, whereas McCartney was born in Birkenhead, “Murkyside” (Merseyside), and was educated there and in Wales.

Well, there you are. My latest “deadhead MP”, who is hoping to resume his place at the trough soon. Over to you, voters of Lincoln…

Notes

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Lee_(politician)

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/27/tory-mp-karl-mccartney-tweet_n_6232142.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIKZhoa8XJCbB18xVaaWRBehkKE5w89EpDknuZJaJ8VfUfEduIH82JL8WXecZ0k7u8-GT4528zeaV2gMoMCe7kQ5jN5eBgSwNM6ayc1OQI9PIsXSsHYaEO29QoJ2fz2DE1esHEBaKTjrJD2ZQ9ShET86lXCWEgNmlpCKEmDNbwgz
Tory MP hastily deletes Twitter favourites after porn ‘gaffe’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-30230261

https://labourlist.org/2014/11/tory-mp-favourites-graphic-porn-tweet/

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/11/karl-mccartney-mp-and-twitter-porn/

https://www.anorak.co.uk/352433/money/karl-mccartney-shocked-that-politicians-can-be-treated-like-any-poor-sod-waiting-for-benefits.html

https://www.karlmccartney.co.uk/

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/former-lincoln-mp-karl-mccartney-111161

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/bitter-row-breaks-out-twitter-1447360

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24790/karl_mccartney/lincoln/votes

https://adrippingtap.wordpress.com/tag/karl-mccartney-mp/

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2019/03/lincoln-conservatives-re-select-karl-mccartney-for-mp-candidate/

https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2019/03/mccartney-selected-as-the-candidate-for-lincoln-his-former-constituency.html

Note re. “Freeman of the City of London”:

“In England, the most established borough freedom is that conferred by the Freedom of the City of London, first recorded in 1237. This is closely tied to the role and status of the livery companies. From 1835, the freedom “without the intervention of a Livery Company” has been bestowed by a general resolution of Common Council, by “redemption” (purchase), at one time for an onerous sum. Now the Freedom can be obtained by servitude, by patrimony, by nomination, or by presentation via a Livery Company. Freedom through nomination by two sponsors is available for a fee (known as a “fine”) of £100, but is free to those on the electoral roll of the City.” [Wikipedia]

Update, 1 May 2019

I am writing this update just after 1400 hrs. McCartney took to Twitter today at about 0600 and, by my reckoning, has, in the intervening 8 hours, tweeted or retweeted at least 52 times (I think that I have left out a few retweets). Quite a few of his tweets and retweets seem to be about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party. McCartney must have been part of the “Friends of Israel” crowd (like 80% of “Conservative” MPs). He obviously wants to remain (((onside))). I have no idea whether Lincoln’s deadhead former MP actually has a job at present. I doubt it. He seems an extremely unpleasant person either way.

Update, 18 July 2019

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2019/07/karl-mccartney-on-lincolns-climate-emergency-fine-words-butter-no-parsnips/

In the article above, written for The Lincolnite (local online newspaper), McCartney again obsesses about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party, saying that Labour peers have raised the issue again. Well, about 50 or 60 have, out of 179…

I wonder whether the voters of Lincoln share McCartney’s obsession with speaking out in favour of the Jewish lobby? I doubt it! As for the rest of his article, the Lincolnite needs a sub-editor to correct spelling errors (“buses” is right, “busses” is not) and grammar.

Some of the few readers’ comments on the above article have been unkind:

“FAT303

Why are you giving this failed Tory a voice he spent 1000s on a letter folder, and employed his wife as an assistant on 45k a year. He doesnt give a toss about us he just wants his expenses back…“
 
and
 

“Graham R Peck

I am assuming the Lincolnite has decided to join his very early election campaign hence the article. I assume we will get more of the same until a General Election. As it stands he is a nobody and yet has got 3 times more space than the sitting MP who represents which Party? Well blow me“
 
Seems that McCartney and his wife, a local councillor, are living rather well off the hump, despite having had their joint income reduced since his 2017 election failure:
 
 
 
Update, 3 November 2019
 
Well, it seems that McCartney’s leech-like tenaciousness in Lincoln might (against the odds and all reason) pay off. Corbyn-Labour is suffering a crisis of public confidence, while (by reason of that) Boris-Idiot and the misnamed “Conservatives” are riding high in the opinion polls.
 
People vote (mainly) according to party label and national trend rather than for or against the individual candidate. That plays to McCartney’s advantage here, however unfair that may be. At present, the Conservatives are favourites in the betting to retake Lincoln (1/2) whereas Labour is on 11/8:
 
He remains not universally popular in Lincoln, though:
 
 
Update, 24 November 2019
 
Update, 26 November 2019
If I myself say so, it was rather prescient of me to have included Karl McCartney in my Deadhead MPs series, inasmuch as the tides have turned, at least temporarily, in his favour, which means that he may well be back as MP for Lincoln (well, MP for His Own Benefit, His Wife’s Benefit, and, maybe, Lincoln) by 12 December.
The betting odds have McCartney favourite to retake the seat on Polling Day. That must reflect the general/national public sentiment against Labour, mainly, as well as McCartney’s pro-Brexit stance in a Leave constituency.
Brexit Party is standing, but is probably of no great significance now, Farage having shot his own party in the head (now at 3% or so in the opinion polls). UKIP stood at Lincoln in 2017, but only received 2.6% of the total vote.
Update, 13 December 2019
Well, the voters of Lincoln have evidently eaten too many potatoes. McCartney has been elected again as MP. He must be celebrating his return to paid “work”, generous (whatever he says) expenses, and perhaps to getting his wife back on the gravy-train (£50,000 pa as “assistant” or whatever, yet again via expenses), though the rules were changed for MPs elected in or after 2017, so it may be that he at least will be prevented from blodging in that way.
McCartney was elected this time because the Brexit Party candidate withdrew on his own initiative. What an idiot…his (guessing) several thousand intended votes probably did it for McCartney, who beat the far better Labour candidate, Karen Lee, by about three and a half thousand votes.
Update, 5 July 2024
The people of Lincoln have finally removed McCartney, who came a very poor second in the 2024 General Election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s

He will have to find another job, if he can.

Update, 29 January 2026

After McCartney lost his seat again in 2024 (he scored 23% as against the Labour candidate’s 43.8%; Reform scored 18%, so even had Reform not stood, McCartney would still have lost), he tried to be selected as Conservative Party candidate for the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral contest, but did not make it onto the shortlist; in any event, the ex-Con Party ex-MP, Andrea Jenkyns, standing for Reform, soundly beat the Con Party candidate, by 42% to 26.1%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Greater_Lincolnshire_mayoral_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_McCartney#Post_Parliament

McCartney is now 57. His loyalty to the Jewish lobby and the Israeli cause may have helped him stay as MP for a total of 12 years, but his political career, such as it was, is now at an end.

Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Some More Thoughts About the Next General Election in the UK

4 Comments

A 2019 General Election?

A recent ComRes poll indicated that only about half of those who voted Conservative in the General Election of 2017 are intending to vote that way in the next general election, which might come any time between Summer 2019 and early June 2022. I have been thinking and blogging etc for a year or so that 2019 might be the year. Mainstream commentators have recently been gravitating to the same view.

The Brexit chaos has highlighted the incompetence of the Theresa May and other Conservative Party governments stretching back to 2010: roads, rail, social security/”welfare”, the migration-invasion (mass immigration), crime etc.

As I have more than once blogged and (before I was banned in our “free” country, tweeted), the choice for many may be between a Labour Party government which may well prove to be incompetent, and a Conservative Party government which has already, time and again, proven its incompetence.

Labour, Conservative, UKIP, Brexit Party

Labour is now slightly ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, probably because

  • UKIP, though effectively washed-up as an electoral force, has managed, under its latest leader, Batten, to halt its downward slide;
  • Brexit Party now exists and is taking votes mainly from the Conservatives;
  • also, Theresa May is now finally seen almost universally as the disaster she is.

No-one expects UKIP to win seats in any general election this year; after all, 1 in 8 voters voted UKIP in 2015, but the rigged/unfair UK electoral system deprived it of its merited success. On strict PR voting, UKIP’s 12.6% popular vote would have given UKIP about 80 MPs. Indeed, had many not seen a vote for UKIP as a wasted vote, that number could have been doubled or even trebled. In Mrs. May’s now-famous screech, “nothing has changed!” as far as that is concerned.

UKIP will probably get a few percentage points of the vote in English and Welsh constituencies, maybe even 5%, but that will not win any seats. What it will do, though, is deprive the Conservatives (mainly) of those votes (nearly 600,000 in 2017). Many constituency seats are won and lost by less than a thousand votes.

Now we have Brexit Party, which I had thought would fight only the EU elections, but which, it seems (see Nigel Farage’s comments in Notes, below), now intends to fight the next UK general election.

My initial skepticism about Brexit Party has been proven wrong, at least in the opinion polls. Brexit Party is now running at anything up to 30% re. the EU elections, and, in initial polling, 14% in respect of Westminster elections. That latter polling may already have been superseded by events, but even 14%, at a general election, is huge, inasmuch as it means that Brexit Party and UKIP in aggregate may take away from (mainly) the Conservatives as much as 20% of the votes in any given English or Welsh constituency. In an average constituency with average GE turnout that works out at about 8,000 votes!

As usual, most of the Twitterati get it wrong. Look at the tweets below by one Tom Clarke, who seems to be a fairly typical Remain and anti-nationalist tweeter. He says, probably correctly, that 27% is not enough to “take power” but fails to see the side-effects in terms of depriving others of power…He also bleats about “mandate”. What about the 52% who voted Leave in 2016?

In fact, Twitter is a poor guide to elections and popular votes. The twitterati voted Remain in 2016 (losing side), thought that Trump had no chance of becoming US President (wrong again), and are (or often seem to be) almost all pro-immigration, virtue-signalling idiots etc…

Core votes

The Labour core vote, though no more than 25% of eligible voters, is solid because it is composed of those unlikely to be enticed by other parties presently around, and particularly by the Conservative Party: almost all “blacks and browns” (and other ethnic minorities, except for Jews); almost all of the poorly-paid, unemployed, and disabled. Others, while not “core vote”, add up to possibly another 10% of the eligible electorate: those 18-24 (only 4% favour Conservative), voters under 35 (only 16% favour Conservative). Increasing numbers of persons in their 30s, 40s and older are victims of buy-to-let parasites and bully landlords, or are not getting much personal or social benefit from their work. Labour’s policies speak to them. The Conservatives have nothing to say to such people except “pay up or get out! And don’t complain about repairs!” and “poor pay? Get a different job!”

When one thinks “who today would vote Conservative?” the answer, in broad brush terms must be

  • the wealthy
  • the affluent
  • buy to let parasites
  • those who own their homes outright and are financially stable
  • those elderly who are stick-in-the-mud creatures of frozen voting habits

That is the 25% or so core vote, to which must be added

  • those who hate Labour or Corbyn enough to vote Conservative simply in order to keep Labour and/or a Labour candidate out.

Here is an important point: the Labour core vote may be and probably is growing; the Conservative core vote is shrinking.

The Brexit Party and UKIP strike both at the Conservative core vote and the potentially-Conservative non-core vote.

Would Boris Johnson make a difference?

Doubtful. I concede that I am as anti-Boris as almost anyone could be, but my antipathy is matched by many voters: Boris is apparently the choice for Con leader (and so, unless there is a general election, Prime Minister by default) of about 70% of Conservative Party members (if one can believe sources such as the Daily Express), but even if correct, that is 70% of (at most) 120,000 Con Party members, i.e. 84,000 voters out of at least 40 million (in 2017, about 32 million voted).

In polls of the wider public, Boris Johnson is only a few percentage points ahead of other possible Con leaders.

Conclusion

Since 2017, I have thought that the most likely result of the next UK general election is Labour to win most seats, but not enough to have an overall majority. Now, for the first time, I am questioning that and wondering whether a strong general election campaign by both Brexit Party and UKIP might weaken the Conservative vote to the point where, nationally, the Conservatives might get as little as 30% (could it drop even to 25%?) as compared to 42.4% in 2017 and 36.9% in 2015.

I am of course no psephologist, but using online tools etc, it seems not unlikely that, if the Conservative vote falls to 30% and Labour is five points ahead, Labour might end up with about 300 seats and the Conservatives about 250. Others, about 100. No overall majority.

If, though, the Con vote were 25% and the Lab vote five points ahead, the Conservatives would end up with perhaps 225 or fewer seats, while Labour might get about 320. Yet again no overall majority for Corbyn, but closer.

However, we are uncharted territory, and in the “glorious uncertainly” of the British electoral system, it is not impossible that, in dozens and perhaps hundreds of constituencies, the Conservatives might come in second rather than first, their vote sapped by voters voting for UKIP, Brexit Party and others.

The ComRes poll cited at the start of this article said that only just over half of 2017 Con voters were planning to vote Con next time. In 2017, about 13,600,000 or so voted Con. If that is reduced to about 7 million, then the Conservative Party is toast.

In that event, the parliamentary Conservative Party would be reduced to a half, even a quarter of its present strength, and Labour under Jeremy Corbyn might actually be elected with a considerable majority. After that, anything might happen.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party#House_of_Commons_2

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/nigel-farage-thinks-his-brexit-party-can-win-general-election-1-5998829

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/24/nigel-farage-brexit-party-use-eu-elections-oust-remain-parliament

Afterthoughts, 25 April 2019

In my concluding sentences, above, I explored what might happen if Brexit Party (and/or UKIP, but Brexit Party is plainly taking off in a way that UKIP now is not) were to take away a large number of votes from the Conservatives. I examined what would happen if, nationally, the Conservatives went from 35%-45% down to 30% or 25% (or even lower).

Nigel Farage has made comments indicating that Brexit Party might make inroads into the Labour vote too, especially in the North where Labour was once monolithic in its supremacy in most constituencies.

The polling percentages and national vote percentages can only take you so far. In 2017, Theresa May led the Conservatives to inconclusive victory-defeat and 317 MPs, despite getting 42.4% of the national vote, a level not achieved by any political leader since Mrs Thatcher in 1983. In 2015, David Cameron-Levita’s Conservatives only got 36.9% of the national vote, yet 330 MPs. Only in an electoral system as Alice in Wonderland as that of the UK could that make any sense.

In other words, predictions are tricky when it comes to exact or even inexact numbers.

However, in my view, Brexit Party (and what is left of UKIP support) will hit the Conservatives harder than Labour. Indeed, some voters in seats where Labour never wins may vote tactically to unseat Conservatives, even if the result is that a LibDem or other may get in as a result. One can easily imagine seats fought until now as effectively a two-way split which may now be fought as a three-way or even four-way split.

If Brexit Party can go up from its 14% polling (Westminster voting intention; in EU elections the figure may be as high as 30%) to 25%+, that raises the serious possibility of Brexit Party MPs being elected. If about half the 2017 Conservative voters are not going to vote Conservative (as ComRes reports), are they going to abstain or vote elsewhere? The fact that they bothered to vote before seems to suggest that they will vote again. That means that even in the handful of seats where the Conservatives won in 2017 with over 60% of the vote, the Conservative share of the vote might go from 60% or so to 40%. (the safest Conservative seat is North East Hampshire: 65.5% in 2017).

In the circumstances above, defending a 60% vote share and ending up with perhaps 40%, the Conservatives would still win in most cases, but that would not be the case in more typical constituencies, where the Conservative MP won in 2017 with 50%, 40% or an even lower percentage of the votes cast. A Con MP who got 40% in 2017 might end up getting 30% or even 20% next time.

If Brexit Party can maintain momentum, it (with UKIP’s effect added) will cripple the Conservatives, who will lose swathes of seats. For example, in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson received about 50% of the vote in 2017. Most of the rest (40%) went to Labour. Were half or even a quarter of the Conservative votes to be cast elsewhere, Labour would win (even if the votes “cast elsewhere” were not cast for Labour). In that example, Boris would end up with less than 40% and (if Labour’s 2017 40% vote were to hold up), the Labour candidate would win. That could be replicated in hundreds of seats, in theory. Most would fall to Labour, a few might go to or revert to LibDem, but it is also possible that some would fall to the Brexit Party. At present, unreal though it feels, it is not totally impossible to foresee Nigel Farage’s Frankenstein coming to life (energized by the Brexit hullabaloo itself) and actually ending up as a bloc of anywhere between a few MPs and as many as 50.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxbridge_and_South_Ruislip_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/insights/ge2017-marginal-seats-and-turnout/

https://fullfact.org/news/how-many-seats-are-safe-and-how-many-votes-count-under-first-past-post/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkaOb1Ivr4QIVDFXTCh3Ing2pEAAYASAAEgK6fvD_BwE

and Farage has now confirmed that Brexit Party will fight the next general election. The Conservatives are toast.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/8938714/nigel-farage-brexit-party-general-election/

Update, 27 April 2019

Times columnist Iain Martin tweeted on 27 April 2019 that “Disintegrating Tories need a leader who can get the Brexit Party to shut up shop.” It is clear to him, quite evidently, that Brexit Party, even if only as a “super-protest”, has the ability to smash the Conservative Party forever by reducing a typical Conservative vote in a marginal or even hitherto “safe” constituency by anything up to 8,000 votes…

The corollary is —almost— equally true: if Brexit Party (and UKIP) either did not exist or were not popular, the Conservatives would be well ahead of Labour for the next general election.

27 April 2019

Interesting analysis from 2017: had Labour won 7 more seats (requiring only 2,227 votes!), Corbyn might now be Prime Minister!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-election-results-votes-away-prime-minister-theresa-may-hung-parliament-a7782581.html

and here is John Rentoul, writing in The Independent, saying outright part of what I have been saying (I think that he is the first msm commentator of importance to have done so), that is that the Conservative Party is a dead duck (he says “smoking ruin”!) and likely to run only third after Labour and Brexit Party at the next UK general election:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-betrayal-corbyn-pm-farage-european-elections-a8888991.html

Not sure that Rentoul is right about Labour manifesto policy though: Corbyn might just continue to sit on the fence. It is working for him so far…

Meanwhile, Britain Elects tweets thus:

If that polling is right, the combined Brexit Party and UKIP vote at the possible/probable 2019 General Election is now running above 20%. Today 21%, tomorrow 25%, even 30%? Anything above 10% (as in 2015—UKIP got over 12% that year) is pretty bad for the Conservatives; anything above 20% will kill them stone dead. They would lose not even 100, but 200 MPs.

Update, 1 May 2019

With only 1 day to go before the UK local elections, I saw this tweet:

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).