General Election 2019: a look back at week one

And they’re off

Well, it had to happen at some point. After three years of parliamentary impasse, the UK’s political parties have all agreed to shake things up with a general election.

The election is designed to deliver a clear result in parliament that will allow a government to take shape and act decisively to get Brexit done in whatever way they deem to be the right one.

While this is a welcome idea to many, this election is far from guaranteed to deliver the kind of result that will ‘get Brexit done’, if you’re the Tories; ‘get Brexit done harder’ if you’re the Brexit party, ‘get a different Brexit negotiated then have a vote on it’ if you’re Labour; ‘get Brexit undone’ if you’re the Lib Dems; ‘get Brexit voted on again’, if you’re the greens; or ‘get Brexit undone or at least voted on again but then leave the UK and re-join Europe’ if you’re the SNP or Plaid Cymru.

All clear? Good.

The truth of the matter is that, with so many versions of Brexit and unBrexit on the table, the UK’s political system is simply not designed to pick one choice from a pool of many. The Westminster ‘two-party system’ does mean that the likelihood of securing a government majority is something only really available to the Conservatives and Labour. However, given the number of other options on show, the chances of one of them getting the majority is as low as the calibre of contestants on this years' I'm a Celeb.

Consequently, it may be the case that the Conservatives and the Brexit Party will have to join forces to get a version of Brexit done. If the remain side wants to form a government to renegotiate a deal or to have a second referendum, it will likely need to contain Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, Greens (and, at this rate, perhaps the House of Commons janitor).

But, but, but

It’s not even that simple. As we know, people can’t agree on Brexit (otherwise they’d have flipping done it by now), so if neither the Conservatives or Labour have a majority, we’re back into the situation where no one can agree on a way to go forward to form a government and deal with Brexit.

For the sake of all our collective sanity, we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

So what’s happened so far?

Politically, this week has been as enjoyable as a sunset walk along a tropical beach... if the sand was interspersed with loose bits of lego and drawing pins, that is.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was first to dig the Conservatives dug into by implying he would have survived the Grenfell tower disaster because he’d have gone against the advice of the fire brigade and tried to leave the building. The damage of this grossly insensitive comment was compounded by Andrew Bridgen who said that what Mr Rees-Mogg had said was ok because Mr Rees-Mogg was smarter than those in the tower block.

This has prompted many to suggest that many in the Conservative party are out of touch with voters and have an imperious attitude toward the general public.

Beyond this, the Conservative Secretary of State for Wales has had to resign for lying about his knowledge of one of his staffer’s sabotage of a rape case; nine Conservative party donors have been implicated in the Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in UK politics; and the Conservatives have U-turned on their ban on Fracking and a decision to hold an internal investigation into Islamophobia.

Two candidates were also forced to stand down – one for saying those on the TV programme Benefits street should be ‘put down’ and another for denying the existence of food poverty in spite of the large rise in foodbank use and making sexist comments about Labour MPs.

Labour hasn’t done much better.

Not least because many people are still unclear of their policy stances on a lot of issues, but the popularity (or lack thereof) of Jeremy Corbyn is hampering them at every turn. More instances of antisemitism have been voiced and two of their candidates have been stepped down for sharing images of people about to kill Theresa May in one instance and the SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC in the other. Keith Vaz has also been forced not to stand after evidence emerged showing him offering to buy cocaine for male prostitutes.

And the Lib Dems?

Yep, they’re at it too. Jo Swinson was caught out in an excruciating interview in which Sky News' Sophie Ridge revealed the shocking attempt of the Lib Dems to skew figures in a campaign leaflet to make it look like they had a chance of winning in a constituency where they were in third place by a considerable margin.

What’s more, Swinson’s campaign is centred on the premise that she can actually become Prime Minister. For this to happen, it would require a voter swing larger than has been seen in any democracy in the world at any time in history. Journalists have been keen to point out this level of delusion reduces the credibility of the Lib Dems to about the same level as if Jo Swinson had launched a campaign to become Prime Minister of Pluto. This has annoyed many supporters who feel the Lib Dems should be more pragmatic and offer a pact to a potential Labour government to delay or stop Brexit, or at least have a second referendum.

One successful move this week has been the decision of the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru not to contest a number of seats where one of their candidates has a good chance of beating a Brexiteer. The 'Remain Alliance' could bear some fruit, though it is doubtful whether the gains will have any real impact on overall parliamentary arithmetic.

Back in the pro-Brexit camp

One of the most unlikely events this week came from Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, who made the only genuinely altruistic move in the name of 'the greater Brexit good' and decided not to stand candidates in the 317 seats previously won by the Conservative party.

While Nigel Farage would have liked nothing more than standing candidates in all seats in order to gain maximum coverage and support, he admitted that the party's own polling showed that their standing in traditional Tory seats would split the Brexit vote and see Lib Dem gains.

The Brexit party are terming the move as the creation of a 'leave alliance'. The greater truth would be that the Tories have snubbed the Brexit party and this was the only path for them to take without damaging the Brexit cause and looking pretty silly while they did it. Equally, even if the Tories won all these seats, as we know, 317 seats is not enough to win a majority. What's more, the Brexit party are still contesting constituencies that were previously Labour seats, meaning the chance of a split of the pro-Brexit vote in Labour constituencies could increase the chance of Labour holds and a hung parliament.

And that was just week one.

One month today the polls will be open. Results will come on Friday 13 October, which can only be a good sign…