Melanie Phillips succinctly explains what happened in the recent British election that gave the left such an enormous victory, and why
It can be difficult for Americans to understand the way British elections work. I think Phillips gives the clearest explanation I’ve heard. The recent overwhelming victory by Labour gave the left enormous power, and because of the margin of victory the PM Starmer will remain in power for five years. That is more than sobering; it’s awful, because an enormous amount of damage can be done in that time to Britain and to the world.
Of course, the Conservatives were pretty awful themselves; that’s why this happened. But as Phillips points out, Labour is worse.
The gist of what happened isn’t that the left is popular in Britain. It’s not, and it got nowhere near a majority compared to the votes on the right. But the right was split into two factions, and in many many instances that meant that, although the right got far more votes than the left, the left won the seat.
Phillips explains (the segment I’ve cued up is about eight minutes long):
Another thing Starmer did was pretend to be more moderate than he actually is. Sound familiar?
Unlike in France, where the non-“far right” agreed to reduce their candidates in each district to one (and not split the vote), the non-far left in Britain did not.
Similar to the 1992 election which gave us a 43% Clinton presidency.
jvermeer:
Excellent point. The left in France was smart. The British right was not.
I’ve read different things about the net effect of Perot in 1992, though, in terms of who he hurt most.
What are British voters going to complain about now? That the left is being the left? That their country is on the road to being taken over by Islam? What?
An EU Commissioner (ie, the Real Power behind their Technocratic Throne) warns Elon Musk about the dire consequences of his coming X interview with President Trump…if Elon lets him speak too freely!
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24218738/the-eu-warns-elon-musk-about-tonights-donald-trump-livestream-on-x
T J:
From a bunch of stuff I’ve read lately, I think the Brits are looking to extradite and try Musk and send him to prison, like the left wants to do with Trump here.
If Harris is elected, she might just allow Musk to be extradicted, and the left would cheer.
She barely mentioned Islam and immigration, which were really at the core of the Tories’ collapse. I wasn’t about sewage. It was the fact that the government was simply unwilling to do anything about the hordes of mostly Moslem immigrants. Further, they actually subsidized them.
I watch a fair number of Brit news shows. IMO, she missed that, and didn’t clearly state that it was almost entirely a collapse in support for the Conservative party that led to the problem. Yes, the conservative vote was split, but a very large number of former Tory voters didn’t show up at all.
Another point: under the British system the Starmtroopers may not actually last 5 years in power. Maybe they will, but it’s not certain. It depends on whether they can avoid a split within Labour.
Eeyore:
Did you watch Phillips’ whole video? She covered a great deal of territory, including lots about Islam.
She wrote the book Londonistan in 2006, for example. See this. She’s been talking and writing on the topic for ages.
If the Brits try to extradite Musk, I will be willing to put ammunition in my pump shotgun and defend him. He has single-handedly restored some degree of free speech to the US and to the world.
An ancestor of mine was on the ship in Boston Harbor throwing British tea overboard.
The gaullists decided not to vote national party and so they find ourselves with a hung parliament
Good for you, Kate! Seriously.
What are the English left going to do when Islam asserts itself regardless of English law? Law enforcement already makes decisions so to as not offend Islam. Then, in Belgium there’s this:
https://nypost.com/2024/08/12/opinion/belgium-bans-jews-from-sporting-events-like-it-was-world-war-ii/
@ Kate > Party like it’s 1773!
I used to follow UK politics fairly closely. Their political class is fairly small and everyone knows everyone else. James Delingpole and Toby Young went to school with Boris Johnson, he of odd looks, odd hair and Churchill quotes. He could always pull the birds, they said, meaning he got hot girls. And he won a huge majority, and they thought he would come in and implement all those policies he always talked about.
And then Johnson let his girlfriend (now wife) decide environmental policy. Some said she had something over him. And immigration was boring so leave that to someone else also. Covid? Well we have to trust the science, of course.
And Young and Delingpole realized that Boris just wanted to be PM. He didn’t want to do the hard work of governing effectively. And none of those who followed had enough support to impose hard policies, or didn’t want to.
It’s dead easy to stop the boats. Have the navy intercept them, unload into life rafts, tow the life rafts within a few yards of the French coast, cut the lines. Boat now owned by HM King Chuck. Do that three times, no more boats. The Aussies did just this, and it worked.
The Irish are now discovering that their government would rather please the EU than please their own voters. Immivants now are crossing the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic, for free housing, food and more. Ireland is the size and population of a middling state. When the government dumps 200 immivants in a town of 1200, life will not be the same.
neo on August 12, 2024 at 4:50 pm said:
Eeyore:
Did you watch Phillips’ whole video? She covered a great deal of territory, including lots about Islam.
She wrote the book Londonistan in 2006, for example. See this. She’s been talking and writing on the topic for ages.
_______
I didn’t say it stunk. But I didn’t see anything special about it. Very conventional for a conservative.
Her analysis of Israel’s birthrate is, as she admits, circular. But that is to say it doesn’t really explain. IMO, the closest she gets is the “everyone’s doing it” line. That doesn’t fundamentally explain, but it’s at least pointing in the right direction. I doubt, though, that secular Israeli Jews will do any better than secular Americans (gentile and Jewish) at continuing, unless the reviled Orthodox remain important in the culture.
On Britain, many have gone deeper. In a nutshell, it was suicide by the Sunak Tories. They absolutely refused to do what their supporters wanted. I will point out that her comment on the oddity of the first-past-the-post system is just wrong. It works, IMO, better than proportional systems, except when there is a convulsion, as now. Happened to the Liberals post WWI, and our Whigs when the Republicans too their niche.
@ Gordon > “Immivants now are crossing the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic, for free housing, food and more. Ireland is the size and population of a middling state. When the government dumps 200 immivants in a town of 1200, life will not be the same.”
So — Jews displacing Muslims is colonization, oppression, and genocide; but Muslims replacing Irish (mostly Christians?) is progressive diversity.
Got it.
I can well understand wanting to stick it to the pathetic Tories who for 14 years were Labour Lite but voting for Labour was self destructive. Keir (“Two Tier” Policing) Starmer is a more refined version of Trotskyite Jeremy Corbyn. Bad news for Britain and for British Jews.
Phillips’ analysis would explain Herr Stermer’s deep insecurity, nowhere more visible than in his threat to jail everyone on X temper tantrum.
Even in free countries, the poorer working class are not free(cannot afford) many of the aspects of the good life they see others enjoying every day.
I suspect a diffuse resentment awaits a seemingly specific injustice as a detonator. And enough is enough. Point is, riots like this have more fuel than the most recent, visible event.