There were local elections in England and Northern Ireland in which the Tories of Prime Minister May were the biggest losers. May's party lost about 1300 seats in these elections. The main opposition Labour also lost seats although "only" about 100 of them. UKIP also lost over 100 seats. The big winner appears to be the Liberal Democrats who gained over 700 seats. Independents also fared quite well winning hundreds of seats. The Green party picked up some seats as well.
The media did projections that translated the results of these local elections into what would be found in a national election with the same electorate. It showed that both the Tories and Labour would get about 28% of the vote with the Liberal Democrats third at 19%. All the rest get 25%. These are astounding results.
Let's back up to look at a little history. Prior to World War I, the big parties in the UK were the Tories and the Liberals. After that war, Labour overtook the Liberals and replaced them as one of the two main parties. The Liberals didn't completely disappear. They continued to win some seats, especially in places like Scotland, but they rarely made much of an impact. Every prime minister of the last 100 years has been either a Tory or a Labour party member.
Now, the country seems ready to get rid of one or both of these main parties. For the Tories, the problem is Brexit. The Tories are split on the issue. They control the government right now, but they have been unable to approve the deal negotiated by May for Brexit. They have been unable to approved a hard Brexit. They have been unable to do anything except fight about Brexit. Ministers have resigned. MPs have left the party. A new party, the Brexit Party, has been formed to push forward with the British departure from the EU, and the majority of its support has come from the Tories.
For Labour, Brexit is also a problem, but there is also the matter of institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party. The leader of Labour, Jeremy Corbyn has been repeatedly castigated for his anti-Semitic views. Major bigoted outbursts in the party have been tolerated for the most part by the party hierarchy. The result has been that a group of Labour MPs resigned from the party and formed a new one. This siphoned off a big batch of supporters. Couple this with the failure of Labour to have a coherent Brexit policy, and that party is also in turmoil.
The result has been that a big chunk of the population has gone to the traditional third party Liberal Democrats. It's not so much that the Liberals have coherent policies. Rather, the biggest draw of the Liberals seems to be that they are neither Tories nor Labour.
As the mandate of the Tories diminishes, there will be sooner rather than later a new election. The results of such an election will likely be a major change from the past 100 years. We may see an entirely surprising new government in Britain.
The media did projections that translated the results of these local elections into what would be found in a national election with the same electorate. It showed that both the Tories and Labour would get about 28% of the vote with the Liberal Democrats third at 19%. All the rest get 25%. These are astounding results.
Let's back up to look at a little history. Prior to World War I, the big parties in the UK were the Tories and the Liberals. After that war, Labour overtook the Liberals and replaced them as one of the two main parties. The Liberals didn't completely disappear. They continued to win some seats, especially in places like Scotland, but they rarely made much of an impact. Every prime minister of the last 100 years has been either a Tory or a Labour party member.
Now, the country seems ready to get rid of one or both of these main parties. For the Tories, the problem is Brexit. The Tories are split on the issue. They control the government right now, but they have been unable to approve the deal negotiated by May for Brexit. They have been unable to approved a hard Brexit. They have been unable to do anything except fight about Brexit. Ministers have resigned. MPs have left the party. A new party, the Brexit Party, has been formed to push forward with the British departure from the EU, and the majority of its support has come from the Tories.
For Labour, Brexit is also a problem, but there is also the matter of institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party. The leader of Labour, Jeremy Corbyn has been repeatedly castigated for his anti-Semitic views. Major bigoted outbursts in the party have been tolerated for the most part by the party hierarchy. The result has been that a group of Labour MPs resigned from the party and formed a new one. This siphoned off a big batch of supporters. Couple this with the failure of Labour to have a coherent Brexit policy, and that party is also in turmoil.
The result has been that a big chunk of the population has gone to the traditional third party Liberal Democrats. It's not so much that the Liberals have coherent policies. Rather, the biggest draw of the Liberals seems to be that they are neither Tories nor Labour.
As the mandate of the Tories diminishes, there will be sooner rather than later a new election. The results of such an election will likely be a major change from the past 100 years. We may see an entirely surprising new government in Britain.
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