Road to a landslide

How the Tories have divided and conquered the political landscape

With June 8th fast approaching we could see Theresa May’s Conservative party win over 400 seats. A true victory for the forces of Conservatism and the far right. Labour, branded as unelectable under Jeremy Corbyn seem their only opposition. The Tories may win a landslide. Yet if polling is to be believed Jeremy Corbyn’s party will win 33% of the vote, only 2 points less than Tony Blair’s 2005 victory when Labour achieved 355 seats. The consequences of the first past the post system. May’s victory will not be caused by good governance or a rapidly growing economy but instead a divided opposition that the Tories have destroyed piece by piece until they had complete victory.

The Liberal Democrats, Scottish Labour and now UKIP have all fallen to other forces. Labour dragged down by the Greens and the SNP.

The catalyst for this chaos, New Labour. No force has done a greater job at dividing the left in this country than Tony Blair.

His disregard for Labour Heartlands allowed the SNP and UKIP to sneak into view. His Pro War stance on Iraq bolstered the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. The opposition to Tory policy became de-centralized, and unstable. When the Tories re-took power in 2010 everything was set up for them to destroy their opponents one by one and collect their supporters.

It began with the Liberal Democrats, bringing them into power which allowed them to self destruct. Which they did. Whether you believe they sold their soul or lost their spine the Liberal Democrat betrayal on student fees made them lose 49 seats in 2015. Slipping back into 4th place. They were no longer to be trusted. The victor, the very people who their voters should have been equally angry with, the Conservatives. Taking 31 seats of them of Liberal Democrats.

In 2015 saw the rise of the SNP, winning 56 seats in Scotland. Winning seats from disgruntled and dissatisfied Labour voters who had seen Blair and Brown take them for granted. Labour denied English voters who didn't want the SNP to be the kingmakers in government. Labour drained of seats that could have made governing for Cameron’s Conservatives very difficult in this parliament. Instead we got Scots who didn’t care enough to help stop Tory injustice, they simply wanted freedom. Yet again playing into the Tories hands. Westminster without Scotland is much bluer. Independence for Scotland could be another piece in the vast Tory jigsaw of power.

With the 2016 EU referendum falling the way of Leave, 2 more pieces fell into place. UKIP a party with 4 million votes wiped out with a single stroke of a pen. The signing of article 50 to be precise. This has caused their decimation in the council elections, it looks like they’ve been collected up by the fanatically far right Brexiteering Tories. Labour's working class seem to have turned against them. The struggle between metropolitan Remainers and Heartland Leavers has caused both groups to be unhappy. No prizes for guessing the benefactor of this lack of unity. Theresa May.

Divided the forces that opposed the establishment fell, and it is too late to unite once more. The Tory landslide will mark utter defeat for the forces of the working man in this decade. If the Tories navigate the minefield of Brexit, they will reign for decades to come. The cause came from New Labour’s desertion of its voters, the solution may unfortunately be a Brexit recession. The Left must remember from its mistakes, it must never divide again.

#LabourParty #2017GeneralElection #Politics #Conservativeparty