We're Coming For You (for Ungagged 22)

Comments on the aftermath of the UK General Election 2017.

To paraphrase Jonathan Pie, Corbyn won by losing even as May lost by winning.

This was not just a victory for the working class, the common people, of the UK, this was a victory for all of us around the world hoping for a better tomorrow.

I’m ecstatic that Labour south of the Tweed beat back the Tory Trump-wannabes so far, and congratulate UK Labour on a job well done.  Scottish Labour, not so much.  You need to get rid of your Blairite riff-raff.

Sometime in the late evening on this side of the pond, early morning over there, one of the American comedians whose page I monitor on Facebook posted news of what was going down with this note: “America.  Take note.  Neoliberals, “centrist” third-way Democrats (i.e. conservative in every other developed country in the world), we’re coming for you.  #jeremycorbyn”.  Jeremy Corbyn’s victory proved utterly wrong and without merit not only Tony Blair and his ilk in the UK Labour Party, but Blair’s mentor Bill Clinton and his ilk in the American Democratic Party, those who actively cheated and robbed us of the chance to see a candidate for social justice stand against the overgrown Oompa Loompa and there by delivered America, and the world, into Baby Fist’s tiny little hands.  Lack of hope has never won an election, and lack of hope is all New Labour and New Democrats have to offer.

In the words of Jonathan Pie again, a little bit abbreviated,“Blairite, centrist, faux-left, faux socialist, faux-fucking give-a-fuck Tory-tribute actors....New Labour is dead, you fuckers, and that’s the best result of any election I’ve ever seen”.  That’s right, you sleezy champagne socialist, limousine liberal, gauche caviar, pragmatic progressive motherfuckers, your day is done, unless you trade in your running shoes for a pair of work boots and get down in the trenches with us peasants, proles, and paupers instead of sipping champagne and eating caviar with the lords of the Square Mile, Wall Street, etc., and their 1% bosses.

It might take you a while to get the message, so we started with the U.S. presidential election when your New Democrats pushed on us the most sterotypical establishment representative of all that we hate on us and we responded by staying home.  What’s that you say?  Look at Trump, look what happened because of you?  No, you wankers, you diddlers, you friggers, you monkey spankers, that’s what happens when you cheat someone actually talking about giving us what we want, what we need, out of being our candidate. 

But you still didn’t get the message.

Then came the French presidential elections.  We the people there sent Hollande home, and while they still ended up with a neoliberal, he’s not one of your ilk and seems to play a more fair game, but we will have to see.

And you still didn’t get the message.

Now we the people in UK have given to Theresa May and her Terrible Tories the biggest finger in UK politics since Labour gave to Churchill and his Tories in 1945.  Maybe now you don’t need to ask a weatherman which way the wind is blowing to know the storm is coming.

So, again, congratulations, and thanks, to everyone out there who campaigned, wrote, spoke, blogged, podcasted, stood, crossed your fingers, helped out in any way.

Now, to Scotland.  Yes, SNP seemingly got knocked back on its heels, but down was the only direction it had to go.  Let’s put this into perspective.  When SNP went into the general election in 2014, it had 6 seats in Scotland’s delegation to Westminster.  Old pre-Corbyn New Labour had 41 seats, the Tories had 1 seat, and the LibDems 11.  After the election, SNP had 56 seats and each of the other three had but 1.  That was the state of Scotland’s delegation before the election.  Some have accused SNP of being too complacent, and there is some merit to that as I must admit is true in my case, one of the pitfalls of starting a game with odds stacked that much in one’s favor.

So, yes, SNP lost 21 seats in Westminster, but the Scottish delegation now probably better represents the Scottish people.  SNP’s portion of that is still more than two-and-a-half times that of any other party, and, of course, it still has an overwhelmingly majority in the Scottish Parliament, especially alongside fellow nationalist SGP.  And it’s still more than 29 seats ahead of what its portion of the delegation to Westminster was in 2014.  In any case, despite Ruth’s screams of glee, that Parliament has already voted to pursue another indyref.

I have to say to Ruth Davidson, Ruth, you did a hell of a job, I’m glad you were not in charge down south.  Yes, I oppose nearly everything you support, but shit, you took the Scottish Tories from having one seat, which I believe is all your party has ever had, and took that  to thirteen seats, which is an accomplishment in anyone’s book.

To Nicola Sturgeon; the losses were not about Brexit or the push for independence.  It was about mixed messages and mixed metaphors.  Independence, clearly on everyone’s mind in the 2015 general election and the 2016 election for the Scottish parliament, is not the same issue as Brexit, and that’s what a lot of your party’s campaign was about this election. 

Many of those who adamantly supported Remain did so primarily for the same reason others supported Brexit; because of who the guys on the other side were.  A lot of them were like me, and once all the votes were cast, it was as if we were waking up from a weekend of drinking whisky and smoking weed going I did what?  Because there are, as I have stated in this forum on more than one occasion, many, many good reasons for despising the EU, if nothing else than because it espouses the same values and principles, if you want to call them that, as New Labour, Tories, New Democrats, French and Spanish Socialists, German Social Democrats, basically all those people to whom the people of the UK just gave the finger.

And I repeat, people really don’t like mixed metaphors, like flying too close to the sun and ending up Shit Creek without a paddle on a leaky raft.