So the UK held an election yesterday and to the shock of everyone Labour not only gained seats, but dragged the Tories to a minority government. The Tories will now form a coalition with the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionists (DUP) in order to have a working majority in Westminster. This is not what the Tories envisioned when they called a snap election three years early.
Winners
Jeremy Corbyn: Against all the odds and with the help of a healthy dose of Tory hubris and arrogance Corbyn managed to drag the Tories down to a minority government. While Theresa May sounded wooden, robotic and inauthentic (see Jim Messina), Corbyn came off as authentic and to his credit avoided any major gaffes.
He also capitalized on the Tories awful manifesto and seriously curtailed any poll advantage the Tories might have gotten out of the recent terror attacks. Plus seeing all of his critics in the Labour party squirm on BBC as they had to praise him must have felt great. For now his leadership is secure. Seeing the Daily Mail, The Sun and Express eat shit after their inflammatory front page stories on Corbyn is great too.
Still Corbyn is likely too flawed to lead Labour to government, but he has shown that Blairism is dead and Labour can win on Bernie Sanders like policies instead of regurgitated Blairism/Third Way garbage. Corbyn brought out young people to vote for him in record turnout allowing Labour to flip seats not even Blair won in 1997.
Ruth Davidson: She’s the only Tory who came out of last night’s election looking better than going in. Under her leadership the Tories went from a curse word to the most dominant Unionist force in Scotland. The 13 seats the Tories won in Scotland is their most since 1992 and made the difference allowing the Tories to offset loses in the rest of the UK and form a coalition with the DUP. The Tories must be kicking themselves that Davidson didn’t stand for parliament this time. Her star is brighter than ever.
YouGov: When Yougov came out with their projection that the Tories would lose their majority in parliament they were laughed off including by Tory campaign manager Jim Messina. Yougov more of less nailed the projections and our faith in some polling has been restored.
Brussels: Theresa May was looking forward to steamroll Brussels with an expanded majority. Now its Brussels that will be setting the terms of Brexit, not Britain.
The marvel of British democracy: In Britain when the results of a seat are announced all of the candidates assemble on stage to hear the results. It can result in scenes like this in Theresa May’s seat of Maidenhead.
Losers
Theresa May: May called this election to capitalize on Labour’s dismal poll numbers and Corbyn’s poor standing among his own MPs in order to win a massive landslide. Instead she watched her majority evaporate forcing her to form a coalition with the DUP in order to remain in office. May ran a campaign even the pro-Tory magazine The Spectator blasted as “the worst Tory campaign ever.” Now she must go to Brussels to negotiate Brexit with a significantly weakened hand. Her days as PM are significantly numbered.
She called the election intending to focus on Brexit where Labour was on shaky ground, but instead she refocused the campaign onto domestic issues where Labour was the strongest by releasing a disastrous manifesto which included the “Dementia Tax” which would force seniors to sell off their homes to the government in order to pay for their care.
Jim Messina: Since Messina managed the Tories winning campaign in 2015 he’s watched Hillary Clinton, Renzi’s constitutional reforms, the Pro EU campaign in the Brexit referendum go down in flames. No Democrat should allow Jim Messina to run their campaign ever again. He is a proven loser. He turned Theresa May into another Hillary Clinton which is the last thing anyone should have done.
Speaking of which, what charity has Jim Messina donated too? I suggest the International Rescue Committee.
Nick Clegg: Clegg, the architect of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government from 2010-2015 which imposed uncontrolled austerity on everyone except the rich in Britain lost his seat to Labour. His seat had a lot of university students who were likely attracted to Labour’s promise to make college tuition free. Clegg finally has paid for his vote to raise college tuition even though he promised not to before the 2010 election. Good riddance.
Liberal Democrats: The Liberal Democrats went into this election hoping to reverse or seriously curtail Brexit. That didn’t go so well as the Lib Dems failed to make significant inroads in London where Brexit backlash was the strongest. The Lib Dems lost the London seat of Richmond Park to Brexit supporter Zac Goldsmith who reclaimed the seat for the Tories. Current leader Tim Farron nearly lost his seat to the Tories. On the bright side notable former Lib Dem MPs Vince Cable and Ed Davey regained their seats.
Scottish National Party: The Scottish National Party (SNP) was never going to win 56 out of 59 of Scotland’s seats in parliament, but losing 21 seats (12 to the Tories, 6 to Labour and 3 to the Lib Dems) was a clear rebuke to the SNP’s plans to hold a second independence referendum. The Tories in particular devastated the SNP in their rural heartlands and defeated notable SNP MPs such as Angus Robertson (SNP leader in the House of Commons) and former First Minister Alex Salmond.
Scottish Labour Party: On paper, Scottish Labour had a better than expected night. They picked up 6 seats from the SNP including Gordon Brown’s old seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, but the party’s failure to present itself as the Unionist option after the 2014 Independence Referendum allowed the Tories to detoxify itself from the Thatcher years and become the #1 Unionist option in Scotland.
I wonder how things would have turned out last night if the Unionist vote rallied behind Labour instead of to the Tories. Also Scottish Labour rode Jeremy Corbyn’s coattails even though they’ve fought Corbyn at every turn. Scottish Labour’s call to tactically vote for the Tories backfired big time.
UKIP: UKIP’s dreams of a Hard Brexit along with the party died last night. UKIP’s vote crashed from nearly 4 million in 2015 to just 600,000 as their voters returned their natural homes in either the Labour party or the Tories. UKIP’s leader Paul Nuttall resigned and there’s already calls for Nigel Farage to return as party leader again. UKIP should have thrown a victory party after Brexit and disbanded. There’s no reason for the party to exist anymore.