Labour's red wall destroyed. The Lib Dems' Jo Swinson losing her seat.
The SNP making huge gains and Boris Johnson now Prime Minister again.
Matt Cole, did the Tories win the election or did Labour lose the election?
Brexit won the election. This was effectively a second referendum. A second
referendum that all the losing parties have been asking for ironically and very
clearly what happened is that whilst the Conservatives were the party winners and
it's Happy Christmas for Boris and his team and empty stockings for the
opposition, this was an election in which the voting patterns were determined very
very largely by firstly to some extent leadership, but mainly how voters have
voted in 2016. So the Labour Party lost six percent of its votes in those areas
where remain won in 2016, it lost 8% of its vote nationally but it lost 12% in
those areas which had voted to leave including those Labour areas which had
voted Leave particularly the red wall. So in the West Midlands and the Black
Country, in Wolverhampton, in West Bromwich, Labour lost heavily the sort of
or safer seats that had held for decades, sometimes since before the
Second World War. In Birmingham it lost one seat - the seat that was 63% Leave in
in 2016 and in which the Conservative Party had invested a very very strong
candidate and lots of campaigners. So this was an election about Brexit. Corbyn
and Johnson had their impact on this but largely because of their perceived
management of Brexit and the echo of other issues that that gave.
But what about Jeremy Corbyn a lot of people say
that he just was not a vote winner when it came to people when they knocked on
the door? Well Corbyn became a symbol of Labour's
weakness - he became the tag by which people described their dissatisfaction
with the Labour party and his persona and his management of the party was
legitimately part of their concern, however it's a normal feature of
elections that people when they're not going to vote for a party will name the
leader as the symbol of their dissatisfaction. People would talk about
Blair or Iraq when Tony Blair was the leader they were talk about Brown when
they were unhappy about expenses and unhappy about the collapse in the banks
and they would talk about Cameron when they were unhappy about the coalition so
the use of a single word usually a leader's name as a symbol for other
things that are wrong with the party for which they legitimately hold the leader
partly responsible is a normal pattern. What we have to
ask ourselves is if Jeremy Corbyn was the sole reason the Labour party did badly
or even the principal reason how did his
party get 40% in the vote two years earlier and how did his party lose only
five or six percent of its votes in a lot of seats and yet lose a lot more in
others. It wasn't because he visited the seats where they lost more and he upset the
local population it was because the issue of Brexit was the
defining issue of this election. Now Boris Johnson - two terms Mayor of London
and now sitting on an 80-seat majority would you say he's a political genius?
Sorry, is he perceived to be an electoral genius?
He's perceived to be an enormous electoral asset by the Conservative
Party and clearly faced with a leadership choice between Boris Johnson
and Jeremy Corbyn the number of people that found Johnson an attractive
option was clearly much higher than the number of people who found Corbyn an asset
however that does not mean to say that Boris Johnson was a positive recruiting
device for the Tory Party - one of the most commonly heard phrases going round
on the campaign trail and listening to the candidates reporting back what
they'd heard was 'best of a bad lot' and that's how Johnson was largely perceived
and it was of course his management of Brexit and getting Brexit done and
ending the pain even for remainers that he was seen as being a necessary even if
unattractive option so the Conservatives can rightly identify him as being a
success in this election and having achieved more than for example there is
the important comparison not with Jeremy Corbyn but with Theresa May as having
presented a more confident and positive and dynamic vision of Brexit that was
attractive to a large number of people on mobilize those people and importantly
destroyed the Brexit party in effect as a political actor but that does
not mean although they've had a happy Christmas they're not going to
necessarily have a great new year because the job of Brexit when
done will leave a large political vacuum for the Conservatives and we don't know
yet whether Boris Johnson will be a big enough figure and whether his team
will be a big enough source of ideas to fill that vacuum - bear in mind that Boris
Johnson's manifesto had the three words Get Brexit Done, it had a large number
of public expenditure promises which will have to be fulfilled if the party's
not to be embarrassed and it had very little else - the word legislation does
not appear in his manifesto, it appeared in every of the Tory manifesto of 1974
onwards and that means he doesn't have a mandate to do anything
Isn't that typical Boris not to have a mandate just do
what he wants?
Yeah he is the he is the the largest-ever version of the doctors
mandate of saying I'll fix it leave the details to me but even when we
go to the doctor for advice we still expect to feel better at the end and the
question is in five years will the public feel better will they think hmmm
Boris Johnson's confidence as a potential prime minister or as a
potential implementer of Brexit was very attractive - as a man has been in
office and has left us feeling less good is not
necessarily an asset. Now the Lib Dems did really well in the
European elections and a lot of people who under the impression Jo Swinson was
going to become the next prime minister the way she was going but she lost
her seat well what does that mean for the Lib Dems?
Well the Lib Dems are the people who come out of this with the
least, they campaigned on two main themes -
the first was Jo Swinson who was front and centre of their election manifesto, it
was Jo's manifesto, they presented her and she presented herself as a potential
prime minister and they took a very strong line on Brexit which is the
other major theme, now both their major things have gone. Jo Swinson is no
longer a member of parliament she lost bear in mind it is not because of
the popularity of the Conservatives but because of the popularity of the Scottish nationalists.
But their two identifying USPS being the most anti-Brexit party
and having Jo Swinson as a leader have both been taken away and they have been
taken away because they did not work that well so the Liberal Democrats have
a big vacuum of their own immediately however it has to be said that the
Liberal Democrats did gain some seats, some of their target seats they did add
4 percent of their poll, they're back in double figures in the national poll for
the first time in nearly 10 years and they have a history of having their
their death reported early - in the 1950s everyone thought the Liberal party would disappear,
in the 1980s when they merged with the
Social Democrats and formed the Liberal Democrats everybody thought the project
would fail and in 2015 of course the reports of the Liberal Democrats' death were
widespread and yet it comes back - it has an historic function to perform which
means that it may become very very small at some points it may be very very weak but
it's a it's very difficult to kill off. Difficult to kill off, now as we move
into the new year already there's a lot of topsy-turvy arguments about Brexit
about the state of the United Kingdom and the future of the United Kingdom and
the future of the Labour Party do you expect a quieter 2020.
I think it will be a more static 2020 if you like. The
issue of Brexit has been removed as an electoral issue - no party is seriously
going to advance the proposition that Brexit should not be undertaken now. The parties
who are the most opposed to it will still vote against it in parliament, the Labour
party will have to think about whether it wants to abstain or vote
against but it will go ahead either way it will remain in the air a bit sort of without
wanting to pick too dramatic a historical comparison a bit like
appeasement after the Second World War - the idea of who was in favour and who was
against will hang in the air and of course the fact that Boris Johnson will
own Brexit now will make him responsible for the results he will be the only
person who can and his team will be the only people politically who can answer
for what happens as a result of Brexit but the the issue was whether we proceed
with it has gone now. In that sense things will be quieter - two of the
opposition parties haven't a leader and will be focusing on
their internal politics and the only debate that will be about Brexit will
be within the Conservative Party about the terms of the new agreement, so yes in
the first part of 2020 things will proceed in a more predictable and less
confrontational way - we will have to move on to new issues, we will have to look
for projects and aims that the parties haven't yet fully identified. The Labour
Party will be concerned about austerity, the
Conservatives will be pressing ahead with Brexit and with their proposed
infrastructure projects, the Liberal Democrats will be looking to try and
consolidate on their local government gains from this year and their European
gains which at least still give them a platform and so people will be as it
were like athletes back in training waiting for the next big event but it
may not be as far away as we think. Training still to take place. Interesting
days ahead!