I've Been Wrong Before

It's horrible when you're wrong. People say that it takes real character if you're strong enough to admit you're wrong. So how come I don't feel fantastic?

In September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn became elected leader of the Labour Party with a huge 59.48% share of the vote. I had voted against him. My main problem was that I believed that Jeremy Corbyn was not leadership material, and was not electable.

After the EU referendum, Labour MP's passed a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn. In September 2016, Jeremy confounded the pundits by not only winning his second leadership contest in a year, but also securing a higher 61.8% share of the vote. During this contest I had been in a Labour Party meeting speaking up for his opponent, Owen Smith, to be elected as leader of the Labour Party.

So I had voted against Jeremy twice. I can't have been proved more wrong.


Over the last few weeks of this snap election, Jeremy Corbyn has proved that he is, in fact, a leader and capable of great statesmanship. He never raised his voice and he has always adhered to attacking policy decisions by the Tory government rather than personalities. Little wonder he has been and is now doing well in the polls. People now seem to be seeing his 'politics of hope' message.

It's a strange outcome for a general election where neither party has won. The Tories have won, in respect of the amount of votes cast. However, Jeremy has achieved 41% of the vote, which would have, in normal circumstances, delivered him to Number 10 with a comfortable majority. It gets more bizarre in that Theresa May actually won more votes than was won by David Cameron in the 2015 general election, which delivered a small majority of 5 seats.

So what has happened is a disaster. Theresa May sought to increase her majority by gambling on a snap election. She clearly didn't take into account how people might react to an exercise that seemed less than genuine in seeking a mandate. Judging by the growing popularity of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, people don't buy Theresa May's desire for continuity as a reason for staying at number 10. Add a very frightening manifesto for older people and it's easy to see why the result is a no-score draw.

It gets worse. Theresa May is now obliged to form a government with the DUP. A party which is extreme. Opposed to gay marriage, climate change and equal rights. Their thuggish, bigoted views have no place here in a much more free and liberal Britain. Even more serious than that, the DUP is one of the involved parties in the Northern Ireland Peace process. This Tory/DUP partnership explodes the UK government's impartiality that is crucial if it is to continue to broker the Northern Ireland peace process.

What is so important about Theresa May's government that it needs to flirt with both a circumvention of democracy (however temporary it may be) and also risk inflaming the DUP's political opponents?

No. This is simply a price that is not worth paying. We not only prostitute our democracy, our core principles, our ethics but we also gravely risk our continuing peace.

Bluestown

If ever there was something that should never have happened, it was the referendum result on Thursday 23 June 2016. Usually, these things are mere political preference. where people see their colours roundly condemn the other colours and, once again, it's their turn, until the next time. On early Friday morning, (as I can never sleep when these contests are taking place), it became mathematically clear that Britain had voted to leave the European Union. I believe that Brexit happened because we let it happen.

When Labour, my preferred political party, loses an election, (which seems more often than not), I feel dejected for a few days and when I have concluded that my arms and legs haven't dropped off because the Tories won again, I can get on with my life quite normally. After all, won't we get another opportunity to chuck the Tories out in 5 years time? Of course! Moreover, I always understand why we've lost an election. It's almost always because our lack of party discipline and unity is worse than the Tories.

There is no such turning back, with this referendum result. The 'leaves' will be in power for the rest of eternity. I suppose it is possible that Britain will re-join the EU, but not very likely. Not in my lifetime, I am sure. Another possibility, after that time, would there be an EU to rejoin? Again, it's possible that the EU may fail after this. First, Norway and then Britain.

The other dreadful possibility is that a sizeable number of the vote leaves may well think differently now and if given the chance would vote remain instead. After all there was only a difference of: 1,269,501 votes between Vote Leave and Vote Remain. Hardly an electoral chasm.

I remember a schoolteacher in my secondary modern school telling us about Sir Winston Churchill having passionately advocated a 'United States Of Europe'. The then Conservative government also saw it as a force for good. We had won the war, at a terrible cost, in both human and economic cost, a war, that in all honesty, we so could have lost. If we had have lost, then the most evil forces ever seen during the entire history of our planet would have ruled over us. Britain, the USA and Europe could so easily have lost this war and was the drive to form the organisations that eventually led to the formation of the European Union.

If all European countries were traded freely, and dare I say it, we adopt common laws and a common currency as well, then I saw it as a case for us all being richer and stronger together. People saw EU common laws as anathema. I took the opposite view and regarded law making by the many as being safer, not more dangerous. We still had the power to make around 87% of our laws. Many of the 13% were laws that had a pan-European element to them. To afford ease of movement across the EU of people, labour, goods and capital.

A prolific paedophile Andrew Tracey was brought to justice after a 30-year reign of terror, Cory Baptiste, Craig Shaw and Jeremy Forrest were others who were arrested, charged and convicted under the European Arrest Warrant. A European Arrest Warrant takes typically 3 weeks to complete, an extradition can take between 6 to 9 months.

My feelings about us leaving the European Union therefore are of horror. It was so many people's (unfounded) fear of immigration that lost us the referendum. People voted leave because they perceive immigration to be completely out of control. 'Let us have our borders back!' they say, which much mystify everyone else in the EU countries as we're the only the only nation that actually has border controls similar to those pre-EU.

The vast majority of people who speak to me seem to believe immigration is out of control. And yet, Britain has had the toughest immigration controls. As tough as the USA and Australia and yet no-one here believes that.