Following the results of the UK European Parliament election announced on Sunday, all political parties and Brexit factions are trying to spin the results in different ways, in favour of their own previously-held position. They’re causing anger and frustration at their failure to take on board the simple message that, like it or not, the majority of voters want Brexit delivered, and soon.
But, what the results definitely and unambiguously do mean, is that there will be no snap General Election called by a newly elected Conservative Party Leader in a few months’ time. The reasons are those of self-interest on the part of three major political parties.
The Conservatives were warned, prior to Theresa May’s majority-destroying and unnecessary election in 2017, that history shows the electorate does not like being asked, more than once, what it desires. Voters made it clear that they wanted a Conservative Government and to leave the European Union. To have returned to them with a third national poll in such a short space of time, with the sole justification of increasing the Conservatives’ majority went down badly, May was punished, and following a dreadful campaign, the Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority.
Conservatives would be dismembered
Calling a further General Election in the false hope that it would lead to a Conservative majority prior to Brexit being delivered – actually delivered not kicked down the road like the proverbial rusty tin can that it risks becoming – would see the Conservatives rightly dismembered by the surge of the Brexit Party to whose members it would be red meat to be devoured. The threat from the two main Remain parties, The Lib Dems and the Scottish Nationalists is a clear and present danger. Get caught in the killing fields of the salvos from both those Brexit forces simultaneously and the Tories would be toast.
Labour has no appetite
Labour has absolutely no real interest in pressing for a General Election either. The Remain parties hoovered up great gobbets of the Labour vote in London and the South East, whilst the Brexit Party did the same in its heartlands. Labour, too, needs Brexit settled before it dare actually deliver a no-confidence vote in any new Prime Minister. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
ChangeUK’s day is over
Change UK? Absolutely not. They’re nowhere near General Election ready and will probably never have the impact they would need to see any of their members returned to the House of Commons. They have no infrastructure to deliver a grassroots campaign and, frankly, given the Farage bandwagon on the roll and the resurgent Lib Dems, there will be little airtime to give them the oxygen of publicity.
DUP will hold fire for now
Even the DUP have no interest in the chaos and risk of a General Election, particularly before they see the whites of the new Conservative Leader’s eyes and are clear about his or her intentions for the Northern Ireland backstop. They will hold fire for now.
Tories will avoid political burial
The new Prime Minister will have to find a way of delivering the best Brexit that they can. Only then can they seriously contemplate going for a General Election unless, Theresa May having dug a hole for the Conservative Party, that new Leader intends to push the Party in, bury it, and dance on its political grave!
