Battersea Dogs Home, London, England (Accredited Times) – Yesterday in the British Parliament, Boris Johnson saw his EU Withdrawal Bill sail through with a winning margin of 124 votes; as some commentators noted, this was a majority of MPs significantly higher than even that by which he “won” the General Election, namely 80. When even highly accredited former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, now concedes that the Remainer battle to prevent Brexit is lost, progressives can be forgiven for indulging in despondency.
The feeling of gloom is only accentuated by hearing BoJo’s threats to decriminalise the non-payment of the UK TV Licence, which essentially funds the BBC. Does Johnson truly mean to destroy the world’s most accredited media organisation? If so, it is simply because – almost alone in the right-wing dominated media – the BBC dares to report facts with the utmost neutrality and objectivity, as required by its Royal Charter. Now, more than ever, we need the BBC to speak Truth Unto Power as a bulwark against the alt right media.
I personally don’t share in the general pessimism among progressives. In fact, to paraphrase Chairman Mao Zedong, I’ll go one Great Leap Forward more and declare that Corbyn actually won the election, although I’d be the first to acknowledge that it doesn’t seem that way. Hold on, you say, surely Corbyn not only lost the vote but was utterly routed by the largest landslide in UK political history? Well, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Allow me to explain.
Firstly, the Conservative Party absolutely did not win the popular vote. Boris Johnson won only 44% of all votes, meaning that a majority (56%) voted against his party. Let that sink in for a moment. If follows from this logic that if Johnson didn’t win then Corbyn couldn’t have lost. That’s the first bit of good news, but it gets better.
Although 45.8 million people were registered to vote, only 67% of them actually voted on the day. Using simple math, we can determine that only 13.5 million people actually voted for Johnson. Based on a UK population of about 67.5 million, Johnson’s policies were therefore only backed by 20% of the UK public. This is pitiful.
Turning to Labour, Corbyn successfully attracted 32.2% of the popular vote. Although this is lower in strict percentage terms than the Conversative vote, when applied to the general population of 67.5 million, it means that Labour’s policies won the nod of 21.73 (i.e. 32.2% x 67.5m) million people, around 8.2 million more than Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. If this feels counter-intuitive because Johnson ended up with 365 seats versus 203 for Labour, relax, you are not alone in scratching your head. The UK’s antiquated First Past The Post electoral system can lead to such vagiaries, which is precisely why reform is needed urgently.
Technically, our above figures are overstated because not everyone who wanted to vote was allowed to do so. Specifically, emerging adults (people aged 0-18) were cynically denied the vote. Given that Labour policies (free tuition, free Broadband, free healthcare, free Pocket money, free games) appeal to those who prefer instant gratification and have underdeveloped reasoning powers, we are certain that they would have voted Labour.
Secondly, as Jeremy Corbyn himself stated in the Guardian’s sister paper, the Labour Party actually won where it most counted – the arguments.
As Corbyn wrote, with no hint of the self-delusion his roughly 14 million critics claim, “I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate. But I regret that we did not succeed in converting that into a parliamentary majority for change.
There is no doubt that our policies are popular, from public ownership of rail and key utilities to a massive house-building programme and a pay rise for millions. The question is, how can we succeed in future where we didn’t this time?”
As I re-read the above, I am struck by the sheer unfairness and insidiousness of a broken electoral system that would see Johnson come to power – to serve the few – instead of people’s champion, Jeremy Corbyn. He won the arguments, let us not forget, and should be in 10 Downing Street today instead of BoJo.
Alas, we now have at least 5 years of Tory rule before justice will again have a chance to shine on the downtrodden of the United Kingdom. Until then, the shadow of inequality will continue to cover the land as the greedy fat cat billionaires laugh all the way to the bank, as they are prone to do. It pays to recall some hard but basic economic facts. In the zero sum game that is the economy, wealth Simply can’t be created through ‘enterpreneurship’, ‘innovation’, ‘adding value’, ‘inventions’ or ‘technological progress’. These are Tory lies to encourage the working classes to aspire to a ‘better life’ rather than remain with the victim status we afford them.
Tragically, despite the support of Hugh Grant and other progressive celebrities, Labour failed to convert its winning arguments into a majority for change. We will be back, however. We will overcome one day.
The only race he won was the race to the grave
What’s baffling to me is that he didn’t win despite disclosing his preferred gender pronouns on more than one occasion. Knowing how popular the trans issue is, and not at all because it’s been astroturfed by global corporations, it would stand to reason that Corbyn’s loss is only possible due to Russian interference.
#accredited-times-pick
Are you older than Santa Claus?
As a Boomer, I was born sometime between 1946 and 1964.
Do you compare yourself to a fine wine or a fragrant cheese?
Because wine can go bad in as little as 2 years, while cheese is forever.
I’ve not seen the full voting analysis yet but I’ll wager that Corbyn crushed Johnson within the LGBTQIAMA community. Johnson seemed to devote his energies to the ‘average voter’ in the middle and working classes, which should have backfired on him. Our woke corporations wisely never invest their advertising and marketing campaigns in this way so I’m baffled at how BoJo got in
Yes that’s very strange. Anyone who watches our approved advertisements might come away with the impression that so called western countries are majority LGBTQ+, People of Color (POC) and interracial couples where the womyn is white and the man is not. Obviously, advertisers are looking to reach a wide and representative audience to maximize profit and are not deliberately pushing propaganda. Therefore, such blunderous messaging by the Boris Johnson campaign only lends more credence to our fears of foreign meddling.
It’s not that they’re the majority – it’s just that they’re really, really important and wealthy (so I assume). It must be that without the transgender consumer for example, many companies would go bankrupt.
If you were not the moderator your last sentence should get you a blue rectangle. What a delightful article too.
I’m really surprised that many working class voters weren’t taken in by his plea to open Britain’s borders and extend free movement and full voting rights to many countries beyond the EU. I would have thought this would have been a popular policy. His view on the climate emergency and the need to shut down large swathes of obsolete and unsustainable portions of Britain’s economy should have been a winner with the working class too – but apparently not. I think we really need to go back to the drawing board and work out what we’re doing wrong as progressives. Maybe we’re just not doing enough to tackle racism and sexism, and that’s why our white working class core voter base isn’t taking to us like they used to?
Boris will not be allowed to ruin the economy by pandering to racists and limiting immigration, more sensible heads within the civil service will stop him.
Yes, we need to rub the gammon’s faces in diversity, but manifestos must promise reductions (then open the borders anyway when in office, as Cameron did when he broke Blairs immigration records).
Every opinion pole since 1947 has shown that Brits are racist and lazy and dont want the vibrancy and competition for jobs and housing from hard working POC. It is the duty of the political and media elite to make sure the borders remain open anyway, and that those who want limits are shown up as the lazy greedy stupid bigots (aka gammons) that they are.
It seems you’re in your own castaway corner of the world. Here’s hoping you can cope with a White Christmas.
I agree that the theme of this song is highly incendiary. That said, the song’s author is one Israel Isidore Beilin, a Jewish man. This is one of many songs that various Jewish people wrote to cope with the unbearable oppression of being Jewish during Xmas. Imagine how you’d feel if you were bombarded with anti semitic tropes for a whole month out of the year. As a right leaning progressive, Judeo-Christian Boomer who supports traditional marriages like that of Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten, I find that songs like “White Christmas”, although problematic, put us on the right path to secularizing the holidays and making them more inclusive.
…as does our first Jewish president, Donald Trumpstein.
This is why Oliver Cromwell (also a fan of Israel) wanted to ban Christmas and make it a day of fasting. White people being happy and enjoying themselves is deeply offensive to many people who are taken aback by white people having something that doesn’t include them.
Is he still alive?
You a windmill-tilting impediment to progress, son.
Great to see you back Pbier – how was your species-dysphoria therapy retreat? This is a very convincing argument, and I never doubted for a moment that Jeremy Corbyn was the true winner of this historical election. Personally, I was rooting for Joe Swinson as I thought she had the best vision for the country and was right on the mark when it came to flat out ignoring the ridiculous Brexit referendum result. I’m very disappointed to see her lose her seat in parliament, and it just goes to show that doing the right thing isn’t always rewarded in this often unjust and cruel world.
Britain needs a SECOND GENERAL ELECTION!!
Maybe the threat of chlorinated chicken never hit home? I mean, seriously, CHLORINATED CHICKEN?!?!? Do these people want to die??
Why anyone would want to defund the BBC is beyond me. If anything my only fault is being too honorable.
Excuse me, and how’s the dog biscuits? To address your difficulties with math, I suggest you lick your testicles rather than scratch your head.
Please lose that damn pic too. Makes me sick to see that phony mulatto with that fake halo.
And your caption misattributes a quote to Obama. It comes from Edward Snowden who used it against Obama.
“I’m the first sitting president to come from Kenya.”
oops
About the only thing he owes them is a set of defective genes
Abandoned by one and then abandoned by the other.