My view is that the electorate certainly backed Brexit. I'm sorry SQ but I don't really follow the gymnastics one has to do to say otherwise.
My parents-in-law are staunch Tories, they voted Remain.
And now, not only did they vote Tory because they always have and would, but they would also vote Leave if there was another referendum.
Not because they think they got it wrong the first time (they'd still vote Remain if we re-did the first one) but because they think it's too late now, they EU would take the p**s out of us if we backed down now, in for a penny, in for a pound, and all that.....
But I do not think that Brexit was the only, or maybe not even the biggest, issue - Corbyn was unelectable.
And so Boris will pass the Brexit Bill in the next few weeks with huge hoo-hah and bunting and dancing in the streets.
However, like Bob says, I think there's then a good chance that in the leaving negotiation phase, Boris will be a lot 'softer' because it will all be a lot lower visibility, the 'show' event will be done, and he won't want to skupper all our economic prospects....(at least, that's my hope)

Coup Droit wrote:

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My view is that the electorate certainly backed Brexit. I'm sorry SQ but I don't really follow the gymnastics one has to do to say otherwise.

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Summary
I just pointed out that the overall data was contrary to the result delivered by FPTP elections.

I'm not arguing with the result or asking for a redo of the election, or the referendum or attempting to delegitimise the results in any way. Apologies if stating the numbers appeared so to do.

Yet more detail - don't I ever shut up
In total, more people did vote for the fractured diaspora of parties aligned to remain than did for those aligned to leave. Both overall and in each nation. Why is that at all controversial or gymnastic?

The increase in vote share of the landslide party was just +1.2% over a performance that (in 2017) was lambasted as woeful. You would not think that +1.2% would mean such a massive majority. Also, if before the election I had said Johnson would get just +1.2% more than May's 2017 shambles *her own party's assessment) I douvt highly that anyone would have suggested that would mean a+80 seat majority.

But it did, so why was that, and I offered a reason.

No doubt at all that Corbyn was awful in many respects, and that had a heavy toll.

But if the Lib Dems and Labour had made a pact to exclude from each others strongholds like the Brexit party did, then the - and OK, let's divorce it from Brexit entirely then - anti-Tory vote would not have gotten diluted amongst 2-3 parties but been one big number. Such as it was for the Conservatives in those places where Brexit party withdrew. That would have led to more seats for non-Conservative MPs - the totals, as in Kensington. where 30K Lab+LD was split evenly and so 16.6K Tory won (it's not the best example as Brexit party did stand there for 300 votes).

Tories would still have won, as the extra MPs would be split between 2 parties, but the Tory majority would have been down to about 15-20, and thus much more in line with the +1.2% vote share that they actually secured.

As for hopes about Johnson, each to their own, and no prejudice about anyone else's conclusions and judgements about that. We should all hope for the best for the country, and the old-fashioned sense of duty to once more direct our representative rather than personal ambition.

That said, I am sadly peculiarly well averse of Johnson's entire career, of the last 30 years.
He has never changed in all that time from the grasping rapacious mendacious schemer that he has always been. I can't in honesty find any evidence to bring myself to suggest that he will change now. Especially as his self-avowed goals and ambitions of power well beyond just being PM are now tantalisingly within reach.

But, I guess we settle on hope There is no real chance for a viable opposition from any party forming over the next decade, as is the way of these things, as in-fighting overcomes them etc So an unchecked Tory free run it is. I spoke earlier (at, unsurprising, great length )  about the precedents for voters thinking they can reign in parties they have enabled on what some of them imagined where singular or qualified occasions.

I think it is naieve given how precariously our democracy has recently been shown to hang by threads of good faith and gentlemans agreements, conventions and traditions, none of them enforceable or with actual recourse to stop  some one willing to chance their abuse. Indeed, ripe for abuse, should the wrong party get their hands on them. Given his history, I believe Johnson is such a threat, and the ecosystem that includes Cummings & Bannon does nothing to disuade me that there will be any moderating or restraining influence brought to bear. The power gra and erosion of the norms has worked in a couple of dozen countries in the last decade where it was previously supposedly unimaginable.

Do you think our Democracy so strong that we can withstand those headwinds? When all over the world people demand strong unitary executives and are willing to ignore what would be seen in the 20th century as corruption and cruelty in order to enable them. When our now PM has been taking advisement from the architects of such succesful power grabs, and has already followed the playbook in his tenure to date?

Maybe hope will suffice. Such has not been my experience, but mileage may vary.

 

Hear hear

twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1205278729200492544

Ed Balls and George Osborne nodding vigorously. She may be one of the past Labour MP's and unacceptable in the modern day, but Yvette Cooper would be someone I would support to lead going forwards. Jess Philips I also like but maybe not ready to lead. Starmer lacks the personality. But there is enough moderate and passionate Social Democratic talent around to push forwards over the next 5 years

JonH comes home wrote:

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The biggest irony in all this - the Conservative and Unionist Party, who believe so strongly in the United Kingdom at the heart of its politics, will through this push for Brexit actually be the likely architects of the break up of the Union with Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland on course to move for referendums.

And the sad truth is that most of the people who voted this way dont get that that is what they voted for, against what they actually believe in

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 If voting changed anything they'd ban it (I think that was Red Ken) many moons ago.

www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/rentier-capitalism-breeding-neo-fascism-vote-wisely/

"In conclusion, we are faced with a crisis of awesome proportions. If the right-wing rump of the Conservative Party wins the General Election, the drift from rentier capitalism to a neo-fascist authoritarianism will be predictable. The only parties offering elements of a strategy for re-embedding the economy in society are the Greens, Labour and the SNP. Vote wisely!"

(final paragraph of the above).

Someone switch the lights off please when they leave

I watched some of the electoral coverage late into the morning, it was interesting to hear Aaron Banks speak, I had not heard him before, cold calculating and remorseless jubilant. Boris did a great job, you lost!

Tactically the Torys have been superb, brazen damage mitigation by ruthlessly control of their exposure. I do expect support in their newly won seats to dwindle as the fiscal reality for their new supporters bites however I am certain they are already calculating how to manipulate all environments open to them to maintain their position at the next election. Historically they have recruited the best PR managers in the business, the Labour Party could never employ tobacco industry apologists, but lets face it they are superb at what they do. You name it they will test it, weigh up the odds and chance it.

At Easter I had a very interesting conversation with a Labour MP deselected by own local members who was really concerned about the labour parties inability to reinvent itself as an electable political party. There is some talent in the centre left but will they get an opportunity to flourish or merely be crushed by idealists with little ambition to govern or insight into how that is achieved. An egg that needs unscrambling.

One person that always cheers me up is Jess Phillips particularly her quote about olives, she said before she went to Westminster she thought posh people were people who ate olives, she has now met some properly posh people and would not trust them to hold her pint. I would trust her to hold mine.

Oakland2002 wrote:

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I watched some of the electoral coverage late into the morning, it was interesting to hear Aaron Banks speak, I had not heard him before, cold calculating and remorseless jubilant. Boris did a great job, you lost!

Tactically the Torys have been superb, brazen damage mitigation by ruthlessly control of their exposure. I do expect support in their newly won seats to dwindle as the fiscal reality for their new supporters bites however I am certain they are already calculating how to manipulate all environments open to them to maintain their position at the next election. Historically they have recruited the best PR managers in the business, the Labour Party could never employ tobacco industry apologists, but lets face it they are superb at what they do. You name it they will test it, weigh up the odds and chance it.

At Easter I had a very interesting conversation with a Labour MP deselected by own local members who was really concerned about the labour parties inability to reinvent itself as an electable political party. There is some talent in the centre left but will they get an opportunity to flourish or merely be crushed by idealists with little ambition to govern or insight into how that is achieved. An egg that needs unscrambling.

One person that always cheers me up is Jess Phillips particularly her quote about olives, she said before she went to Westminster she thought posh people were people who ate olives, she has now met some properly posh people and would not trust them to hold her pint. I would trust her to hold mine.

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 Mustn't forget andy Burnham,  hes someone who is moderate left and leading a large city, a decent man and that route of mayor seems to have done the current PM no harm.