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Dani McCabe is a member of the steering group of Standing 4 Women. We discussed several court cases surrounding the Cervical Check controversy.
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I wrote a piece on the website last December about Brexit, with the title that might have sounded a little pessimistic. It was called It’s Over. Brace for Catastrophe. There’s No Hope. At this point, I don’t think that was pessimistic.
. At this point, I don’t think that was pessimistic.
I can’t see any plausible way forward for the UK that does not lead to disaster, to further disaster. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, just like nobody knows exactly which cups and plates a bull in a china shop will smash, but we don’t need to know those details, to know that it isn’t going to end well.
It seems pretty clear now that Theresa May will be gone in a fortnight. The thing that will happen between now and then is what? The fourth doomed vote on her deal with the EU? No. Well, yes it will happen but it’s not relevant, the outcome is certain and it will change nothing.
The thing that will happen between now and then is the European Parliament elections. This will have a much more profound impact on UK politics. We can see what’s going on in the polls. At the time of writing, the Nigel Farage fan club, otherwise known as the Brexit party is a mile in front with 35 per cent. Back nearly 20 points comes the Lib Dems, on 16, then Labour on 15, then the Greens on 10, have you worked out what’s missing yet? Something not quite normal? Yes, behind them all, in fifth place come the Conservatives with a whopping nine per cent of the vote.
And it’s not just the voters who are refusing to support the Conservative Party. 40 per cent of Tory councillors have said that they will go against their own party, in the Euros, and vote for Farrage instead. That’s not just Conservative party members, it’s Conservative members of local councils, and almost half of them are going to vote for a rival party.
And within a week of that, the leader of the Conservatives is going to resign, and there must be a leadership contest. They have quite a smart way of electing their leader, I have to say. Conservative MPs vote, and the top two candidates among the MPs are then sent on to a ballot of party rank and file. This is to give the party members a say in the leader, but prevent the crazy situation of electing of someone who the vast majority of party MPs disagree with. Jeremy Corbyn.
And those MPs, selecting the two candidates to put to the membership, will be doing it while they are pouring over their local European election results where they will see that, if it were repeated in a general election, the Conservative Party would win ooh, about zero seats.
And they will see their voters – and their members and even their councillors defecting in droves to the Brexit Party. That will have a profound impact on the way that they will vote. There is no chance in hell that one of those two candidates will not be a hardline Brexiteer. In all likelihood, both of them will be hardline Brexiteers.
And if you look at the membership of the Conservative Party, it’s much more in favour of a hard Brexit than the party MPs, and certainly more so than the wider population.
And all these people have been telling themselves for months that only for Theresa May, they would have stomped off to Brussels and wagged their chubby fingers at Johnny Foreigner and said “Listen here chaps…” and that evil Barnier would have been rumbled and would have given the British everything they want.
And that sounds like the fantasy of a dying empire, because that’s exactly what it is. The nature of the electoral process within the Tory party is such that it is certain to return the most extreme of Brexiteers, the least realistic, and the least thoughtful about the consequences of their actions. That is, as I said before, probably also the one with the worst haircut – although that almost doesn’t matter any more.
It doesn’t matter anymore because whoever gets the job will be in an utterly changed political environment. We can talk about it now, but its effects won’t be felt until it arrives, and when it arrives it will change everything.
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party getting anything like a third of the vote will simply upend the entire political landscape in the UK. Remainers may well point out that if you add up the votes for the strongly anti-brexit parties – the Lib Dems, and the Greens together make 26 per cent. Add in Change UK, that’s 31 percent and throw in the SNP and Plaid Cymru and the save Kiddeminister Hospital Party, that puts them marginally ahead of the Brexit party, but it doesn’t matter.
The bottom line is the shift of Conservative and to a lesser extent Labour voters, in droves, to a party that’s a month old. That will force the new Conservative leader into a position where, for domestic political reasons, they must demand from the EU concessions that simply can’t be made. Buckle in for crash-out Brexit.
