Exit polls just released predict that the Conservatives will win 368 seats out of the total of 650, and are heading for a majority of 86. If the final results are close to this, then Boris Johnson will achieve his goal of taking the UK out of Europe and selling off the National Health Service.
Mano Singham
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In ten years they’ll realize (too late) that it wasn’t the immigrants who destroyed the country.
They met the enemy in the mirror.
Yesterday I asked if Brits were as stupid as we Americans. I’m forced to conclude they are stupider. We never had a NHS equivalent -- they did, and will now lose it. Congratulations.
Intransitive @#1
People never realize this. It’s always easier to blame somebody else for the consequences of your own mistakes.
I know prayers don’t work, but please pray for us while we willingly fuck our country over, our vulnerable citizens, and take revenge on foreigners.
To be clear (#4), I’m going to fight against it as best I can. This is more awful than I could have imagined.
Here’s hoping the exit polls are very inaccurate and the result is much better than that.
It baffles me still how anyone but the disgustingly wealthy can vote Tory. Particularly after a lost decade of austerity and corporate raiding. Particularly with Boris Johnson at the helm of the most eye-wateringly right wing Tory front bench since Thatcher. Particularly when there is a bold, progressive and real alternative for the first time in my lifetime.
I despair for my fellow countrymen. How much worse does it have to get before they realise what utter amoral bastards the Tory establishment are?
Christ I hate politics.
It baffles me that anyone would believe mophead when he says the NHS is safe, not for sale, will get oodles of cash. And it scares the crap out of me because I need it. We are truly fucked.
Its time like this that I wonder -- Are we the fools ? What are we not seeing ?
@Matt G(#2):
40 plus years of politicians of scapegoating the EU, blaming the EU and generally being negative about the EU to advance their own agenda(s) has helped.
Then add in the belt tightening (again at least partially blamed on the EU) while there are more foreigners showing up (again courtesy of the EU) to ‘steal’ work and benefits that the people, their parents and grand parents in the UK earned. Perhaps that is more important, the people being afraid of losing the good things they have now and losing it to some people who (in their view) haven’t earned the right to take those good things.
It is just a shame that that hasn’t been countered by the remain group by pointing out the good that has come instead them going all technical.
It is very depressing.
The biggest consequence of this election, more important than the vast harm that will be done to society by leaving the EU (wave goodbye to your employment rights, consumer rights, data protection rights and environmental protections), more important than the likely break-up of the UK (wave goodbye to Scotland and Northern Ireland), and yet something which most people don’t seem to have realised yet (can’t blame them given just how fucking awful this is) -- there is now 0 chance of reducing our emissions by any kind of meaningful level. There is 0 chance of the UK (or ENGLAND ‘n’ wales) doing our part in what needs to be done to fight global heating and minimise the effects of climate change.
We are all completely fucked.
Thanks everyone who voted Leave in 2016 and Tory yesterday! You completely deserve everything that’s going to happen you. Those of us who weren’t fooled, we don’t deserve what will happen to us. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I will never forget, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive.
Fuck this country.
Worst opposition “leader” ever. That’s all. Corbyn and his cronies are entirely to blame for this debacle, and I can’t believe he hasn’t had the decency to resign already. Their placing of power within the party over power over the country will cost us the NHS, and I will never forget.
@sonofrojblake
I see it as a bit more complex than that. There’s Brexit, which Corbyn completely fudged, from both Leave and Remain perspectives, but nevertheless there was a perception that Labour wanted to stop Brexit. Under the circumsnces, trying not to take a position just made it look like Corbyn was refusing to engage with reality. Then there’s the fact that he’s spent his entire leadership under attack from within the party as much as without. The Labour figures dum ping on Corbyn last night were pretty much the same people who’ve been dumping on him for years. If a significant part of the Labour party is consostently telling the public that Corbyn is no good, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m not a fan of Corbyn personally, because I think he’s an ineffectual leader, ineffectual debater and uninspiring public speaker. I don’t, however, believe that he is a terrorist sympathiser, or a racist, or a security risk, or mentally incompetent, or physically infirm.
He, and those close to him, do have to bear responsibility for Labour’s failure. The buck stops with him, and he has not been good enough. But some responsibility has to go to those who’ve constantly undermined him. And the ultimate blame has to lie with the voters for choosing to vote for Johnson’s Tory party, even after this election campaign showed Johnson for the shameles, gutless, ruthless, amoral liar that he is. Corbyn was a failure, Labour didn’t do anywhere near enough -- but that does not absolve those who chose to vote Tory of their responsibility.
I think it’s pretty clear, having seen how the results panned out, that mostly the public wants Brexit DONE- not necessarily because they support it but because it’s a road block to anything else.
Any other kind of result just draws it out -- this was not an election about the NHS or Labour’s manifesto verse other parties. It was about Brexit, which the country is sick of.
It doesn’t resolve all of Brexit but it sets a direction.
Poor bastards, there’s just a colossal mess of problems colliding for them.
I voted Labour as i always do ,voted to remain in 2016 .Don’t think i can take another 5 years of tory rule .
It beggars belief that the majority of voters would vote for someone under which the vast majority of people will be worse off. Now all there is to look forward to is the grim told-you-so satisfaction of ticking off all of the horrible consequences as they occur.
The one crumb of comfort I take from the result is that Alexander Johnson no longer needs to pretend to give a flying fuck what the creationist anti -- abortion scum in the DUP think or say about anything. He can safely throw Northern Ireland completely under the bus, staring with clawing back the billion bribe his predecessor forked out for their support last time. I doubt he’ll stop there. Ireland United in the EU by 2030? I wouldn’t bet against it.
It’s good news, because the EU finally will get rid of the UK. The Remainers, assuming they have a proper education and proper skills, are more than welcom in several countries on the continent. As MS wrote in his previous blogpost: just give up on patriotism.
Mortally depressed as I have been all day (I actually like Jeremy Corbyn. I think he’s a breath of fresh air. I wish we had more like him), I still think there is some cause for hope. Not the kind of bright, shining, new dawn hope an actual victory for actual leftists with sensible policies would have brought, but some.
A third of the country was not put off by a firmly and proudly left-wing manifesto. The Tories only got their extra votes from deluded Brexiteers. Once the leaving process begins, the economic diminution starts to hit, and the next global financial crisis begins (we’re several years overdue), the Tories and their supporters will have no posturing left with which to save themselves.
It will get worse before it gets better. But I think it will get better. I just wish the price was not the deaths and suffering of so many of the disadvantaged.
cartomancer @20: I took some comfort from the fact that the large Northern cities (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, and others) stayed firmly red. It was the outlying areas which switched. Of course, it’s a lot easier for me to take comfort from across the ocean…