Two Cheers For This Election Result

Mustela nivalis

Two things I want to comment on with regard to the election: The predicament of Labour and the significance of the now upcoming EU referendum.

Before the election people were harping on about the fact that there had been no overall conservative victory since 1992. Well now people can say there has been no proper Labour victory since 1976. When they lost the election in 1992 it was clear to Labour that they would have to move to the centre to ever win again. And so they did. New Labour and Blairism was born. No matter what they did in actual fact, destroy liberties, overspend, start wars and so forth, their image was that they were social democrats who had learnt the lesson from head mistress Thatcher that “there is no alternative” to the principle of capitalism. Gordon Brown never won an election. When he was in power, and a more traditional thuggish-union image of Labour reappeared, he lost. Cameron didn’t win outright that time, because he and his “modernisers” had drifted too far to the left.

Speaking of “modernisers”: While outwardly moving to the centre, Labour became more “metropolitan”. They became cultural warriors of political correctness, environmentalism and multiculturalism, probably precisely because they’d lost the economic argument. However, by doing this, they left a significant part of their electorate behind, the white working class male. They were taken for granted, but they finally got the picture (Thornberry’s white van photo helped in that regard) and this time voted UKIP, or nothing, or perhaps even Conservative. Labour are in an “interesting” (in the “Chinese” sense) position now: They have to turn “right” to woo back these voters, but at the same time have to turn “left” to win back Scotland. Frankly I can’t see them ever achieving the latter however much they try, so they might as well give up that idea. But of course they won’t.

If they have any sense, they will however try to capture the English centre ground again. The English have demonstrated that they are not going to follow a left wing agenda again anytime soon. This should be immensely encouraging for every libertarian. Yes, the Conservatives are a horrible bunch who will sell our remaining freedoms down the river. But it’s the electorate I’m looking at. They perceived in Labour of 2015 a bunch of socialist dreamers and power mad fanatics who had wrecked the economy, were prepared to outlaw “islamophobia” and were poised to let Scotland and Trident disappear down a black hole. They didn’t like the alternative either, but, in an act of self-defence, voted for it. And they did so NOT because of, but despite, “conservative” gay marriage, foreign wars and landscape ruination by wind farms.

Note: They also voted in an act of self-defence despite all the intentional dumbing down of history, science and rational thinking in schools and universities over the past decades, the leftist indoctrination and propaganda from all electronic mass media and the whole culture industry from Russell Brand to whoever is in charge of the leading London theatres. Despite all this gargantuan effort to create more “right”- (i.e. “left”-)thinking people. This is remarkable. 7th May 2015 marks a crushing (but sadly not decisive) defeat for leftist cultural hegemony. That’s why they’re screaming bloody murder and desecrating war memorials.

And now for the EU referendum. I totally take on board Sean’s concerns about leaving the EU: We would be left with our ruling class and nobody to run to who could protect us from them, albeit for their own selfish reasons. But whether we vote in or out is not the crucial bit of the whole exercise. The crucial bit is the fact that we are having a referendum at all, plus the preceding “renegotiation”. 4 million UKIP voters plus another few million eurosceptic nose holding Conservative voters need to be fed something substantial, or they will revolt – and to hold them in line next time round something bigger will be required than the threat of Scotland breaking away.

Cameron’s demands from the EU are indeed quite substantial. If he wants to ensure a majority for staying in, and he does, he will at least have to bring something home that restricts early access to welfare payments for EU migrants. Or something of that calibre. He will also have to bring home more opt outs from EU regulation. Even if UKIP manage to devour themselves in their current in-fighting, my hunch is the establishment has been frightened sufficiently to actually claw from the EU what is wanted by the people.

It doesn’t matter so much whether what he brings home is sufficient to prevent a Brexit. It matters that it will need to have a good chance of preventing it. It matters that the EU will have to make substantial concessions. And that in turn means that, crucially, the whole EU project will lose its mystique of historic inevitability with regard to the vision of a United States of Europe.

I’m not worried about the new haste in all of this. It will ultimately play into the hands of the eurosceptics. I mean long term, not short term. Allegedly because of upcoming elections in France and Germany the negotiation results will have to come soon. And, as said, they will have to be substantial. The eurocrats will not like the decentralisation of power that will be implied, but they will like a Brexit much, much less. They are prepared to sacrifice a lot to prevent it. They are not prepared to risk it by offering us a damp squib. I don’t believe they are that daft. Once the substantial offer is on the table, the British public will most likely vote to stay in. But that doesn’t matter: the fact that the vote took place at all, and the fact that substantial concessions will have been made, will have holed the “ever closer union” superstate project below the waterline. It will not sink the project immediately. But sink it will.

The Left in total disarray, and the death of their beloved EUSSR on the long term horizon – that’s some cause to celebrate the election result.