THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?
It was English by-election day yesterday, not just in the two Westminster seats that have received ll the coverage today, but also in three council seats. And the results in all five may be an indicator that the disastrous far right politics of 2016 are slowly being rejected.
The clearest indicator of that was in Stoke where Labour held on to their seat despite promises from ukip of an upsurge in their fortunes. This was a constituency that voted heavily to Leave in June. This result may be an indication that many of the voters there are starting to realise how badly they were conned by the Leave campaigns lies and hate-mongering. Ukip thought they had this, so much so that they chose their own toxic leader as Candidate. It's good to see he's had as much success as his frog faced predecessor, although he's got a long way to go to catch up on Fuhrage's seven failures....
Ukip are struggling for money, having had to pay back the EU after misspending public funds, and their membership numbers have fallen. Add in the internal feuding that was so apparent and it's possible this recent failure is one more step towards the fascist party's death spiral. Politics is best rid of them.
On the face of it the result in Copeland looks to be anti-progressive, with a historic win for the governing party. But it might just be part of a much needed jolt for Labour. I like Corbyn. He's got many excellent policies, has tried hard to bring a kinder face to political discourse, and appears to be a fundamentally decent person, the very opposite of the Tory leadership. But. There's too much evidence showing that he's a terrible, indeed ineffectual, people manager. And that's been fatal to Labour's ability to be an effective opposition, with the membership of the shadow cabinet changing like socks. Worse still has been his dereliction of duty in failing to do enough to oppose May's attempts to railroad though disastrous constitutional change. His failure to properly oppose the tyrannical Brexit bill is a betrayal of Remain voters who deserve effective representation in parliament, something that's been left to the numerically handicapped SNP and Lib Dems.
So a Tory win looks bad, but if it's a step on the road to having a more effective Labour party it could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
In the three council elections the Tories held on to one, but lost the other two to the Lib Dems. Not just narrowly, but on a massive swing. Maybe there were local issues that caused this, but I can only hope it's another sign of the appallingly name Bregret that is becoming mentioned more frequently, and that public opinion is steadily moving decisively against leaving the EU.
That would be good for England and, selflessly, I applaud that. Even if it may actually be a step back for Scottish independence....
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