Friday 18 October 2019

It Turns on a Sixpence: Tories Boom, Labour is Finished?

At this moment in time, Thursday evening, it looks like the Tories will win the vote and the deal with the EU will go through.

The reason why is almost all the ejected Tories, except those who changed party, will vote for the deal. The ERG right wingers, the English Nationalists for sure, will vote for the deal. But crucially many Labour MPs will vote for this deal.

The Tories and Boris Johnson in particular will romp into a General Election. He will have achieved all his key wishes. The Amber Rudd criticism about him is answered.

The whole thing is turning on a sixpence. What was going to break the Tory Party looks like it will destroy the Labour Party.

The party will be shown as split, and the Tories will exploit it mercilessly (just as they attacked their one-time coalition partners). The Labour leadership will be shown as incompetent, on top of the reappearing (in the media) anti-semitism. The 'remain' Labour MPs will find themselves homeless.

A huge argument to drive this is fatigue - to just get any deal across and move on.

People like me who wish to stay in the EU with our friends, who believe in the European project, are going to have to think fast. At the moment, the argument is on the deal side. The argument will become one of how long it takes to negotiate free trade deals, and the reality of the economic downturn, and the loss of political influence.

The political revolution as such is still coming, but it won't be the destruction of the Tory Party but of the Labour Party. And Johnson's whole project was to save the Tory Party. Like he said, The Brexit Party are Tories, and bring them back. And he might just do that as well.

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