Following the Brexit vote and Theresa May’s call for a snap election, the political future of the United Kingdom is more uncertain than ever. An analysis by Wolfgang Gei\u00dfler. <\/p>\n
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Theresa May’s bold move has paid off. The Parliament of what may still be the United Kingdom today has voted by 522 votes to just 13 against, a majority of 509, in favour of an early general election on Thursday, 8 June 2017. <\/p>\n
Consider this: on 23 June 2016, 52% of Britons \u2013 with a 72% turnout \u2013 voted to leave the EU. At the end of March 2017, the British Prime Minister applied for withdrawal from the European Union in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. On 18 April, a somewhat blustery day, the Prime Minister, with a cool but windswept short haircut, presented herself before Number 10, Downing Street, to the waiting pack of journalists and, encapsulated in many bombastic platitudes, announced: the next parliamentary elections will be held on 8 June 2017. Theresa May aims to strengthen her position in the upcoming BREXIT negotiations (\u201cBritish prime minister says election needed because country is coming together but Parliament is not\u201d). This might succeed domestically. However, it is not to be expected that the EU will change its negotiation strategy. <\/p>\n
It is interesting, however, that Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s Labour Party opted for the snap election with a large majority (incidentally, so did the Liberal Democrats, who immediately gained 5,000 members as a result; only the Scottish National Party abstained), which led former Tory minister Swayne to remark that Labour were like turkeys \u201cwho were voting for Christmas\u201d. As is well known, cohorts of unsuspecting turkeys are slaughtered on the island at Christmas time to fill the bellies of Britons with roasted \u201cRoast Turkeys\u201d on Christmas Day. \u201cTurkeys voting for Christmas\u201d is a synonym for irrational, suicidal behaviour, which is not entirely unknown in politics. Just think of our quaint Greens in the beautiful city of Vienna. Swayne\u2019s judgment is therefore quite understandable, as it is to be expected that the incompetent leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, an old Marxist and a true fossil, will not even win a dried-up flowerpot on 8 June. <\/p>\n
The United Kingdom faces a true ordeal. Much is prattled about the British people or the British nation! For example: \u201cThe people have spoken\u201d. Yet, a single British people or \u201cnation\u201d exists no more than a single Austro-Hungarian people once did. (Cf. the Emperor\u2019s address: \u201cTo My Peoples\u201d). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has four constituent peoples or nations: an English, a Welsh, an Irish, and a Scottish. The United Kingdom is thus, like Austria-Hungary once was, a multinational state. <\/p>\n
While on 23.6.2016 the majority in England and Wales voted for BREXIT, the voters in Scotland (62%) and Northern Ireland (56%) were predominantly against it. BREXIT opponents hold a majority in the parliaments in Edinburgh and Belfast. Truly disturbing is the somewhat shocking fact that the enormously, indeed catastrophically negative effects of BREXIT for Northern Ireland, as well as for the south of the Irish island, were not even mentioned during the debates before the referendum. Not to mention the poor inhabitants of Gibraltar, 96% of whom voted against BREXIT! This speaks volumes about Westminster\u2019s prevailing understanding of democracy, as well as the colonial arrogance of the English towards their other peoples. <\/p>\n
As already stated, what now? The Tories will almost certainly emerge from the battlefield as the big winners on 8 June, although we can only speak of England, as Scotland was never fertile ground for the Blues (the colour of the British Conservatives), yet the Lib-Dems had great successes there many years ago. The (Scottish) Labour Party, as an unconcealed Unionist party (pro-British) and BREXIT supporter, will be crushed between the blocs of the pro-European Scottish National Party and the resurgent, also pro-European, Liberal Democrats. In England, however, many disappointed pro-European Labour voters, as well as Tories, will cast their votes for the Liberals. <\/p>\n
On 29 April, the EU announced the guidelines for the withdrawal negotiations. The 27 are currently united. I assume this will remain the case, unless, God forbid, Marine Le Pen wins the presidential election in France! The United Kingdom must not receive better terms than it had during its membership. This means: <\/p>\n
Great Britain’s negotiating position is, to put it mildly, rather weak.<\/p>\n
A convincing Tory victory will bring, apart from the usual austerity programme (\u201cmuch of the same\u201d), cuts to the NHS (social and health insurance), infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and universities (Scotland, as a form of autonomy \u2013 Devolution \u2013 will not have to go along with most things. However, this depends on Westminster\u2019s equalisation payments \u2013 the Barnett Formula \u2013 and thus has a rather limited budgetary scope), but increased spending on military hardware to participate in the global theatre in the slipstream of the USA, perhaps a softening of the current hard BREXIT mentality, which is actually to be hoped for. Otherwise, things look bleak: BREXIT remains BREXIT, and no one will be able to shake that. This must mean that for Northern Ireland and Scotland, who absolutely want to remain in the EU, only the path to independence, in Scotland’s case, or a bloody reunification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, seems open. Thus, the demise of the United Kingdom is heralded. <\/p>\n
As a friend told me yesterday: \u201cFasten your seatbelt, it\u2019s going to be a rough ride!\u201d<\/p>\n
About the author: Paneuropean Wolfgang Geissler is a board member of the Austro-British Society (ABS) and lived as an entrepreneur for 40 years in England and Scotland.<\/p>\n
The featured image shows British Prime Minister Theresa May with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at their meeting in London at the end of April. \u00a9 European Union 2017 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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