This election has seen most voters decide to support parties that accept Brexit. It looks likely that the Lib Dems who advocated a second referendum on EU membership will poll badly. Most people have seen that any such suggestion would undermine the UK’s negotiating position with the EU over our future relationship and leave us much weakened and diminished as a country. There is no reason why the EU should offer us better terms if we had the chance to vote down the terms agreed, and every reason why they should offer us worse terms if they think there is a chance to retain our full contributions and other obligations upon us.
It also looks as if the SNP will poll less well than in 2015 because they back a second referendum on independence for Scotland. Just four months after they proposed a second poll, they spent much of the campaign playing it down and trying to talk about something else, as they came to see it was making them less popular.
The UK has enjoyed plenty of democratic votes recently, with 2 General Elections and two major constitutional referendums. This election is sending a clear message to the next government. It’s now time for the elected politicians to deliver the wishes of the people as expressed in those referendums, and to get on and govern.
Published and promoted by Fraser Mc Farland on behalf of John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG 40 1XU
June 8, 2017
If the exit polls are to be believed then it looks like we may have a hung parliament. Why, oh, why did Mrs may flunk this election when it should have been a walk in the park? If labour get control with the SNP then it won’t be long before they are out as and it will be back to major austerity. Are the public really that stupid?
June 9, 2017
She was showing true British spirit – only England could have a 20-nil head start and end up with a penalty shoot-out.
Thank God for Ruth Davidson’s guys north of the border.
June 9, 2017
Maybe it was deliberate?
June 9, 2017
I predicted this outcome weeks ago. No one produces a stupid manifesto like that. Two key issues, she attacked the elderly and her record after the London terrorist incident came into focus. Namely, cut in police, no border controls and nothing of substance to protect us from Islamic terrorism.
What this deliberate or was she stupidly duped into this approach? We want our Nrexit no matter how much the treacherous remaining Tories are prepared to wreck the process. She did not need an election, all the other challenges had come to an end. So this was the only other obstacle that could be thrown at leaving. JR, if your party remains in power you all need to get more leavers in cabinet to hold May’s feet to the fire.
June 9, 2017
Dear Fedup–It seems that they are–Even if they didn’t entirely buy Corbyn’s ability to hand out quite as much as he promised, their thinking will have been that half an immediate loaf is better than none, bearing in mind that (apparently) nobody cares about the hardly mentioned Debt and in any event the rich will pay, not me, or if necessary it will somehow be magically written off. Total twaddle of course.
June 9, 2017
What a mess.
June 9, 2017
You keep giving us leaders we do not want.
June 9, 2017
Even that is a very generous statement.
June 9, 2017
True, and sadly the country must pay the terrible price for that. The Tories need a strong Conservative for a leader now to reverse the momentum that May handed Corbyn on a plate or they will truly be toast at the next election. That means literally disavowing everything May (and Cameron) stood for (including bashing the pensioners) and instituting Conservative policies again for the first time in a quarter of a century.
June 9, 2017
@Former Conservative; Not leaders, polices that we do not want.
June 9, 2017
@Jerry ; both leaders and policies we do not want.
June 9, 2017
I think you are reading a bit too much into our motivations. Perhaps you ought to have sent some of your party workers round to ask us – your constituents – what we think.
I’m sure you will still be heading back to Parliament next week, but you and your party have not convinced me and my friends and family that you have any kind of vision for the future.
I have family who work in the City who are facing a very uncertain future thanks to Brexi. Other family members who work in education are at their wits end due to the changes in curriculum your ministers have wrought.
Theresa May’s bluff and bluster at Europe has not been convincing, nor has there been any sign prior to Article 50 of your government actually doing anything to prepare for the inevitable issues we will face (e.g training and education, recruitment of negotiators etc).
The remain vote in this area was 56% in favour of remain. I understand that you are a hard brexiter, but you represent us. We understand that we are leaving the EU, but we need to know more about what will be coming next. We expect better and we deserve better than what we have been getting from you. Theresa May’s mantra of “nanny knows best” isn’t good enough.
Finally I have to say I was disgusted that our PM did not publicly rebuke President Trump for his weasel words about the Mayor of London following the awful terrorist attack in London. So much for standing up for Britain.
June 9, 2017
Wokingham (including Shinfield) was lumped in with Maidenhead for the referendum, it wasn’t held on a straight constituency basis. Don’t forget that Mrs May was/is a Remainer
June 9, 2017
Dave, Leaving the EU means becoming as independent of the EU as the vast majority of other nations on the planet. There is nothing terrible, or terribly difficult about that, as far smaller nations than the UK have found.
Britain’s ex-colonies were glad to take their independence from us. We should be glad to take our independence from the EU empire. There is nothing admirable about wanting to be subservient to Brussels.
In fact we could have been out of the EU by this July, if the Conservative government had just given 12 month’s diplomatic notice. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess. As for the subsequent trade, security, etc, negotiations we would have been in a much stronger position.
And I don’t know where you’ve got the idea that the “recruitment of negotiators” was an issue. Our civil servants have been negotiating with (well, alright, going soft on) the EU for 44 years, for example in the Council of Ministers. But then you too seem to want to go soft on the EU.
June 9, 2017
Rubbish. Khan deserved to be held to account for who he shared a platform with and saying this is part and parcel of living in a city. Trump is spot on. Pity we did not have someone represent g the people of this country first and foremost.
June 9, 2017
@Hope; Nonsense. It is very difficult for anyone in the USA to criticise the actions of UK politicos if they have never spoken up against people in the USA funding NORAID…
June 9, 2017
“I have family who work in the City who are facing a very uncertain future thanks to Brexit.”
And I know lots of tax-payers who make EU contributions for absolutely no gain at all.
June 9, 2017
@getahead; “I know lots of tax-payers who make EU contributions for absolutely no gain at all.”
Whilst I know lots of tax payers who make contributions to the UK Exchequer for absolutely no gain at all – hence why both the Labour party and (more surprisingly) the LibDems made gains against the Conservatives.
June 9, 2017
“This election reduces uncertainty . . .”? No no JR, this will never do. This is a catastrophe for Brexit and a catastrophe for Britain.
If there is – as seems likely – another election within a year, we will almost certainly see in Downing Street a man whom our own security services warned was a threat to democracy. His neighbour at the Treasury, controlling over a third of Britain’s income, will be an avowed Marxist who wishes to destroy capitalism. In and out of their doors will swagger their paymasters the trade union leaders, looking for their money’s worth.
These people will have been placed in power by voters who expect them to plunder the wealth of the country – by which I mean of course the wealth of individuals – and squander it on transitory indulgences.
Brexit negotiations in the meanwhile will be hamstrung. Those who remember the 1970s will recognise the pity and contempt with which the name of Britain will be greeted by our European neighbours and the rest of the world. Thereafter inexorable Parliamentary arithmetic will mean that Brexit is lost. The cost in treasure and prestige will be incalculable and permanent.
Debt will explode. The currency will be trashed. Shareholders and pension funds will be robbed. Business and capital will flee. Tax receipts will collapse. At last the iron laws of economics will assert themselves, as in Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Our dismayed allies, on whom we depend for our security, will no longer trust us with their secrets and abandon us to the dangers of the world.
The Constitution will be under threat, as it always is wherever Marxists take command. Will the Union survive? Free institutions? A free Press? The monarchy?
To complete the horror, when British servicemen are sent to defend our interests in the world with their lives, they will find themselves obeying the orders of a man who for decades gave comfort and countenance to the murderers of their colleagues.
And none of this need have happened.
June 9, 2017
With 100 results in it looks like a bloody disaster for the present Conservative Party leader.
Who would have thought that such a sitting duck election just four weeks ago, could have gone wrong on this scale.
I did say I thought it was an error of judgement to call an election when it was originally announced, simply because you can never calculate for the unexpected.
The unexpected was the absolute disaster of an own goal that was social care robbery plan, and the withdrawal of any form of social help for millions of people who had paid a lifetime of contributions for the safety of such cover.
John, you may still be the largest Party, but now the Conservatives are weaker than before, and Labour are emboldened.
All sensible policies are now going to be more difficult to get through Parliament, as well as sensible Brexit terms.
Clearly the result is better than having Corbyn in charge, but what a mess.
Afraid I do not see the proposed result in quite the same simple terms as you describe.
June 9, 2017
Whoever thought it was a good idea to have an election at the end of term when all the snowflakes, having been ridiculed for not voting last time, were free and minded to rebel?
And in our unreformed banana republic electoral system, how many of them got two votes?
June 9, 2017
Hear hear. Mrs may should be told she is primus inter pares, not a CEO. A strong Brexit minister be given full authority over the negotiations. I don’t like being right on this but when she was appointed pm I said that’s the end of Brexit. Delay, obsession with detail, secondary issues, loopy pet policies and irrelevant, cannot delegate, listens too long to the wrong people, no vision of uk in five years time, no understanding what Britain needs to be fully sovereign and capable of self government, a product of a parliament and government that are mere puppets of the eu. Sorry but iPad, caps too. Difficult on train. Bloody difficult woman? Just the first adjective.
June 9, 2017
@Peter gardner; “A strong Brexit minister be given full authority over the negotiations.”
Only trouble with that is Mrs May has no mandate to do so, and even if she does, on the current likely numbers of sitting MPs how does one define a “strong Brexit minister”? It is clear that someone who might want or accept an exit on WTO rules has no mandate, indeed with the likely paring with the DUP it could be argued that even an exit without remaining in both the Single Market and Freedom of Movement has no mandate…
June 9, 2017
This was TMs mission, she was a Remainer so needed to sabotage Brexit.
June 9, 2017
Judging from the expression on her face this morning, she has realised that she is the biggest bungler since Ted. Her main aim was to be PM and put her own agenda into law. The PC PCs had already started.
June 9, 2017
Sad but true Sid
June 9, 2017
“The election reduces uncertainty about the future of the UK”???!!? Please ……
Mrs May had a working majority of about 30 before the election, now it will be down to about 5 with the DUP. One certainty – Mrs Maybe won’t be PM by next week. The other certainty – we won’t actually fully leave the EU (aka Hotel California).
June 9, 2017
I wish I shared your confidence that the clueless May will be out on her ear, but I don’t think the Tories have got the guts to get rid of her and install a leader of substance in her place. If they don’t though they will soon be history and this country will be history as well.
June 9, 2017
What is shows is that you should not go into an election promising people a punishment beating in the manifesto (and indeed NI muggings just before the election). Especially when the opposition is promising them he is Father Christmas with a magic money tree. You are also far better off with a leader who has some positive vision, sensible policies and at least a little charisma, rather than one with only the ability to monotonously repeat the phrase “strong and stable leadership”.
May after the last election made a joke, ‘Can Boris Johnson stay on message for a full four days’. Give me someone with vision any day, over one just endlessly repeating the same vacuous “on message” phrases.
I blame (the vat on school free enthusiast/socialist) Michael Gove for knifing Boris in the 2015 leadership and May for pretending Ted Heath in drag and pushing socialist drivel. Give us a leader with some positive, conservative vision and some efficient management of the bloated state sector – it will not be easy now given the wafer thin position.
Still on the positive side at least Nick Clegg and Alex Salmon have gone.
June 9, 2017
Cameron lied to us that was the main problem, he then went back on what he said he would. May was appointed by treacherous Tory remainers, against our wishes, she lied and we have this situation planned by Tory remainers who put EU before country.
June 9, 2017
“The election reduces uncertainty about the future of the UK”. Does it?
June 9, 2017
No
June 9, 2017
@hefner; Indeed it does no such thing, what is more, whilst it might have settled Scotland it has thrown NI into doubt, I can not now see how problem with the power sharing government can settled when one of the main players (and some say the cause of the problem) is central to propping up Mrs May and her minority government.
June 9, 2017
Corbyn offered the voters a magic money tree mirage and a con trick and Theresa May and Hammond just offered them more kicks in the teeth and more pain.
More voters fell for the Corbyn mirage (or did not fancy the kick in the teeth) than I expected. May has left the next leader of the Tories a very difficult tax indeed.
June 9, 2017
Dear Lifelogic–I told you it would be much closer than you thought–Maybe the next leader (has to be sooner rather than later–else how negotiate with EU?) will get some kind of supportive sympathy vote. Simply has to be Boris. “Perfection spells paralysis” and he is our best shot, like it or lump it.
June 9, 2017
@LL; Wrong way around, it was May who offered the uncosted magic money tree.
June 9, 2017
If you think the Labour manifesto was costed then you are deluded
June 9, 2017
@libertarian; Except it was, try reading the appendixes -unlike the Tory manifesto. Was it correct, that’s another argument.
June 10, 2017
libertarian: “If you think the Labour manifesto was costed”
Yes it was, £2000 per police officer. From no less an authority as Diane Abbot.
June 9, 2017
JR as I said on Tuesday something must be up if the bookies were offering odds on Boris being PM on the 1st of July. Mrs May failed to see that a vast bulk of the population is living through a period of great economic dislocation. Did she really think anybody cares about fox hunting? As I noticed when I was living in Poland during the 90s, during such times, voting behaviour becomes very volatile. As quickly as Solidarity took power the reformed communists were just as quick to take advantage and seize it back. If you are serious about winning in October its got to be David Davies this time.
June 9, 2017
@DRW; If it is David Davies as leader in Oct (or when ever) then there will be a Corbyn government [1], the right wing (Thatcherite) faction have just go to accept that their time has passed with the nation even the party has not yet moved on.
Brexit is not in danger, just how we leave and perhaps when.
[1] even more so if the SNP rejuvenate their own fortunes by dropping their obsession with indyRefs.
June 9, 2017
We shouldn’t be negative about the Election result. The positives for the Tory Party are
June 9, 2017
Disaster !
Brexit is not happening now. Not in any true sense and it won’t be the Tories doing it.
This was deliberate.
June 9, 2017
Anonymous
No, there will be no genuine Brexit. Mrs May delayed it for a year and then called a Fake Election. All she had to do in reality was to put blank pages in the Manifesto, keep silent, do nothing. It does look deliberate. Her staying on after this Election result looks a deliberate move to discredit everying about Brexit and the Tory Party. She cannot succeed.
June 9, 2017
I am very surprised by how many voters fell for the Corbyn con trick and his blatant attempt to buy votes with pork barrel politics. Promises he could clearly never have kept.
As Corbyn did not win he will not even be seen to fail to deliver. He will not even be seen as the con tick he is. The Tories will now struggle to do anything sensible at all whoever leads it.
It is a complete disaster. What a socialist, plonker May has been. Was she actually trying to lose perhaps?
The Tories now have to rely on people like Anna Soubry! At least Ken Clark has retired. They can do little about the hugely pro EU House of Lords.
It could have been worse I suppose with Corbyn as PM and Sturgeon in power. But it is very bad Indeed. I still blame Gove for stabbing Boris. At least he could win elections and was a leaver.
June 9, 2017
Un-propertied millennials have no reason to vote Tory.
For every Tory voting landlord there are several renter serfs.
June 9, 2017
Lifelogic
Was she actually trying to lose perhaps?
In a word YES
June 9, 2017
May wanted to hammer the elderly, self employed, cut services while giving away £14 billion to overseas aid, her appalling record for not keeping us safe became clear over the London tragedy. She knew this when calling the election, which she did not have to do, she knew what was being written the manifesto and she knew there were no other obstacles before negotiations started. This was deliberate. She is a remainer like Cameron before her, who also spun lies and deceit to keep us in the EU. Or EU light.
June 9, 2017
Oops…looks like your crystal ball is faulty 🙂
What now?
June 9, 2017
Hammond for PM 🙂
June 9, 2017
@bratwurst; Not a chance, not if the Tory party want to be re-elected when this minority government falls, remember that as Chancellor he went after the SE with a NI rate hike – and then stood on a manifesto that basically admitted that very same NI tax is nothing but a Ponzi scheme.
There’s more of a chance for Kenneth Clarke to be PM!
June 9, 2017
Yes Jerry. You obviously missed the smiley 🙂
June 10, 2017
@Jerry; “more of a chance for Kenneth Clarke to be PM!”
When I wrote the above I was jesting, but the more I think about it!
After all, almost as many people voted Lab as voted Con, and if the other left of centre parties are considered more people did not vote for right of centre polices. But of course it can not happen, since 1997 the party has always dogmatically knee-jerked to the right after defeat when the logical thing to do was to move to the centre – hence why Mrs May is talking to the DUP and not the LDs…
June 9, 2017
Oh dear oh dear oh dear
Once again the buffoons, incompetents and detached bubble dwellers of the Conservative Party have been completely shafted by NOT listening to their own core voters
May has been an incompetent, out of touch, throwback
A manifesto and campaign about dementia taxes, fox hunting and closing the internet doesn’t seem to have resonated with the voters….. who’d have thought it eh!
My constituency has just returned a Labour MP for the first time in over 100 years. Despite the local Tories being told repeatedly , over and over and over again that they were getting it all wrong locally and nationally.
Well thats another dead party then
I hope before I shuffle off this mortal coil that a new party that actually represents my basic views and wants from a government gets formed soon.
The biggest lesson the Tories ( and the Blairite Labour party and Lib Dems) need to learn is that the public want change, we are sick and tired of the old politics. Unfortunately our undemocratic and out of date electoral system doesn’t facilitate this so we have make irrational voting choices in order to send signals that we want change. Its a shame you never listen.
May needs to go BUT the Tory party must never be allowed to pick their own leader again… It must be down to the voters and supporters
Oh and you can forget Boris…. that is just a media wet dream and never a serious proposition to get elected
June 9, 2017
Good morning
Hear hear.
It is time to put the past behind us and move on.
June 9, 2017
This is a defeat for Mrs May and her ivory tower academic duo at No. 10, and therefore for the rest of us who wanted a ‘full’ Brexit!
1. They convinced the English elderly that their homes, savings, possessions etc would be used to pay for care leaving the magnificent sum of £100,000 inheritance for their children and grandchildren.
2. They convinced the English OAP’s that future pension increases were not assured, and that they would be means tested for the Winter Fuel Allowance.
3. They ignored Social Media where Students and other young were building a campaign to vote Labour because of the promise to not only kill student fees but pay back those already paid. Estimates now put this vote at an additional million or more.
4. Strong and Stable Government rang hollow after the Manifesto backtrack.
Oh dear!
June 9, 2017
“At least Ken Clark has retired.”
You wish !
June 9, 2017
The reshuffle will now be very interesting.
Would you serve if asked now your wing of the party is strengthened. You all got back in.
It was the South East remainers who bore the brunt
June 9, 2017
Ye gods, what a shambles. Rather a pity about Theresa May though: I’m no Tory myself, but I still believed she was the right choice for the job. Oh well, that’s politics I suppose. My money will be on either David Davis or Amber Rudd now. (Please God, not Boris.)
It seems to me that the Conservative Party can take comfort from this fiasco in precisely one respect: it still has Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Opposition to play the part of its bogeyman when it wants to frighten those of a nervous disposition into voting for it again at the next General Election – which could possibly be quite soon. Had the Tories won more convincingly, Corbyn might have quit – and been replaced by someone with the gravitas and clout needed to defeat them next time. At least it doesn’t have that little complication to worry about now.
June 9, 2017
Realpolitik: ‘politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises.’ (Wikipedia)
The result does however say something about the people of Britain, in the mixed-up, fractious world of 2017. Mrs May did her best, and was worthy of a better outcome.
June 9, 2017
How’s your day Mr Redwood ?
The UK position is now so weak & muddled that the EU officiels are afraid there will be no one with a clear mandate to negotiate with.
Please sort yourself quickly so we can get on with the nasty business of Brexit. The sooner this is done, the earlier the EU can focus on a further round of integration.
The EU does indeed appear as a beacon of strength & stability compared to the UK right now.
June 9, 2017
The EU was never a beacon of stability, it was always a disaster waiting to happen and it won’t get any better without the UK to restain its utter stupidity
June 9, 2017
The EU a beacon of strength and stability?
Not so stable in Spain it would seem with news this morning of a referendum ref. Catalonian independence.Not to mention Greece,Italy and their money worries,Hungary and Poland getting really annoyed with Merkel etc.
June 9, 2017
My doubts about Theresa May have been proven to be well founded. An election that the Conservatives should have won easily was lost by bungling incompetence of her and her place men and her obvious own lack of acumen. Margret Thatcher was quickly removed when the grandees lost faith in her and she was many times a better person than T May so no time should be lost in replacing Theresa now. Give me Gove or Andrea Leadsom or even Boris. Andrea would have been a better choice than Theresa despite her inexperience at least she displayed a much higher degree of competence, good judgement and organisational skills.
June 9, 2017
According to the Guardian (I know, I know…): The results show an 8% swing from Conservatives to Labour in those seats that voted remain in last year’s referendum. In seats that voted leave there was a 1% swing from Labour to the Conservatives.
If that the case then we have just witnessed the revenge of the remoaners who until now had been asked to kindly stay quiet and put up with the hardest of Brexit.
June 9, 2017
The only good thing to come out of this election is that the SNP MP count has been reduced..
….but where to lay the blame for this disaster, that nearly saw the worst possible armchair communist getting close to being in number 10….
A lot of blame can be attached to the remoaners who were clearly stirring up issues of no merit…..
TBH though, it shows not just how fickle the UK electorate are, it shows that so many cannot evaluate the most simple choices – ‘Oh my graddady voted for labour so i will as well!’ Labour under corby are a total mess, so why would anybody vote for him?
The uneducated illiterate and brain dead clearly are the problem, and I don’t just mean those in the labour party, but their supporters – it is time we had a better educated country then perhaps we wouldn’t get so many awful labour administrations.
June 9, 2017
“This election has seen most voters decide to support parties that accept Brexit. It looks likely that the Lib Dems who advocated a second referendum on EU membership will poll badly.”
Absolutely correct.
It is clear that the electorate voted for the two main parties who have not only accepted Brexit but also accepted that we will no longer be members of the Single Market and hence that freedom of movement will end.
This is very important because remainers have previously argued that the referendum was not as important as a decision made by the HOC as we are a representative democracy. The outcome of this GE means that the country has voted for the MPs of parties who support Brexit and have made this clear in their manifestos.
June 9, 2017
The majority of voters believed the two main parties when they said that they both supported Brexit and it was now inevitable that we were leaving the EU.
As a result the UKIP vote collapsed and the GE was then fought on everything but Brexit.
Labour did a great job promising everything to everybody safe in their belief that there was no chance they would have to actually implement these promises.
At the same time the Conservative’s campaign was dire.
June 10, 2017
Absolutely, I believe that was the main driver for the rise of Corbyn – He/Labour knew that they would never be called on to implement their give-away manifesto.
Then May gave them an open goal with her dumb manifesto.
June 11, 2017
@Original Richard; Nonsense, unless you are suggesting that the 1945 & 1964 Labour manifestos were also put to the nation in the knowledge that they would never be called on to implement it…
Also you are wrong on Brexit, all this result means is that your preferred Brexit might not happen, but I suspect that was always off the cards anyway once the last eurosceptic candidate removed herself fro the race to become leader last year.