BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION : MUCH WORSE TO COME

Jeremy Corbyn and Labour were defeated by a dishonest Tory campaign that claimed that post Brexit Britain would become an economic wonderland and everyone would benefit. In reality what remains of the British welfare state is now under threat of dismantlement and the living conditions of those hardest hit by years of neoliberalism will be further reduced. Many working class people seduced by Boris Johnson to vote against their own self-interests, are about to find out they have been conned. 

IT WAS A BAD defeat for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Any optimistic hopes that Labour could build on its 2017 success and finally enter 10 Downing Street were swept aside by a Conservative Party offering little more than some sloganeering about 'getting Brexit done', a load of empty promises, and appeals to anti-immigrant nationalistic fantasies about making Britain great again.

But it worked.

Even though the Tories got barely more votes than in 2017, Labour's vote declined. But it still got more than Ed Miliband's Labour Party in 2005 and it won some seats that it was not expected to win. And many of those seats that Labour lost are held with tiny margins. Blyth Valley in North East England (where I grew up as a child), has been a solid Labour seat since it was established in 1950  and was captured by the Tories by little more than 600 votes. Realistically this working class community that was founded on the coal mining industry will not remain in  the grip of Tory hands for long. But the damage has been done, however temporarily.

As well the Labour defectors who left for the 'green pastures' of centrist politics were all defeated. They joined another centrist, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, on the rubbish dump of history. This can only be considered an appropriate fate for people like Chuka Umunna who spent their entire Labour Party careers trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. It was only two years ago that Umunna was praising Jacinda Ardern as the kind of modern politician that we should all be inspired by. Labour Party supporters here who think Jeremy Corbyn's defeat is confirmation that Jacinda Ardern is on the right path should think again.

But while the Tory vote barely moved the unpalatable fact that is that some three million people who voted Labour in 2017 simply didn't show up at the polling booths in 2019. While Labour was generally successful in getting the vote out in London and the South it failed to do that in the North. It seems that many Labour voters were not convinced by Labour's compromise position on Brexit but neither were they going to vote for the Conservative Party. So they didn't vote at all. It will be Labour's job now to regain their confidence.

in many ways Johnson's success in the Midlands and the North mirrors that of Trump's in the rust belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. While Trump convinced those voters that he would 'Make America Great Again' and they would benefit, Johnson convinced enough former Labour voters that their path to prosperity was via his 'Get Brexit Done' catchphrase. Jeremy Corbyn and Labour were portrayed as standing in the way of progress and subverting the will of the British people. It was an outright appeal to English nationalism but Johnson's vision of a 'New Britannia' is more of a 'Little England', as the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis has observed.

It is unlikely (I'm being charitable) that Boris Johnson will be able deliver for these communities assuming he even has any intention to. The independent economic reports tell us that. It was just three months ago that the London School of Economics released a comprehensive report warning that there will be a significant reduction in real incomes in post-Brexit Britain. It also warned of the dangers threatening sectors of the British economy and the threat of substantial job losses. All this was swept under the carpet by the Tories and largely ignored by the media. But when the proverbial hits the fan  it won't be the political establishment who will be in the firing line. This is incredibly frustrating and, yes, heartbreaking, because Britain really did have the opportunity to move beyond neoliberalism and toward a more equal and just Britain.

A dishonest campaign waged against Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Corbyn was enormously popular with both Labour Party activists and young people but there was unfortunately a lot of antipathy toward him in the areas that Labour lost heavily. But when asked why they didn't like Corbyn many couldn't really say why. Some said it was 'a gut feeling'. They didn't like Corbyn and at the same time some were prepared to vote for an anti-working class and racist politician like Boris Johnson.

This antipathy had much to do with the concerted campaign that was waged against Jeremy Corbyn ever since he became Labour leader. He represented a threat to powerful interests and he had to be damaged. It was an undeniably vicious campaign orchestrated by the political establishment and its allies in the corporate media. At various times Corbyn was vilified as 'anti semitic' (the most popular 'charge'), a supporter of terrorism, a Stalinist, and a threat to national security. He was even attacked by the media as 'unpatriotic' after he said he wouldn't be watching the Queen's message at Christmas, even though most of Britain doesn't either. It was also not mentioned that Corbyn spends his Christmas Day working at a homeless shelter.

It was a deeply offensive campaign that involved many within the political establishment and its hangers-on, including the Chef Rabbi of Britain, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the BBC's political editor Laura Keunssberg,   and author and Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. He's apparently one of Kim Hill's favourite commentators on British politics these days. Television personality Rachel Riley even produced a t-shirt that faked a photo of a younger Jeremy Corbyn protesting against apartheid. It altered the placard that he was carrying to read 'Corbyn is a racist'.

Like Riley's t-shirt the anti-Corbyn campaign was manufactured, fraudulent and entirely evidence-free.

Now that Corbyn has resigned the right will seek to blame him for Labour's defeat. But the same Brexit nationalism that defeated the left also defeated centrist politics. The fact is that Brexit nationalism was the vehicle for Boris Johnson's success.

Britain is in line for much worse times under the Conservative Government of Boris Johnson. While Johnson might waxing lyrical right now about 'national unity', we can expect the ravages of austerity to chew up British society in ways we have not yet seen. The British left, however demoralised it may be feeling, will have to organise and steel itself for the battles head. The backlash against Boris Johnson and the Tories may arrive more quickly than we expect.