For the Many, Not the Few: How the UK Elections were a Proxy Battle for US Democrats
Some important takeaways from the UK election that you might not hear in the MSM:
Firstly, we should consider that this was a proxy election for the US in many ways, in which the two sides of the Democratic Civil War were going at each other:
Barack Obama openly supported Theresa May and the Conservatives. Indeed, May hired Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign strategist, to run her election campaign. My Democratic friends will recognise Jim Messina’s name from the countless fundraising emails you received from him during the 2012 election. I find it amazing that a Democratic President and a “Democratic” strategist would work to oppose what is clearly the Democratic analog in Britain (or should be). But that is just indicative of how far right the Democrats have gone.
On the other side, a group of Bernie Sanders staffers went over to help Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Bernie himself was openly supporting Corbyn at every turn.
So — the neoliberals are banding together to fight the progressives on both sides of the pond. And I guess we can see how well each side did. The Conservatives (let’s call them the Clintonites) called a “snap” election with very little time to campaign; Labour had been excoriated by the mainstream media, and even so-called “liberal” media attacked Corbyn as “unrealistic”, “too far left” and so on. Rumours were spread that he would pull the UK out of NATO, disband the Army, He was smeared personally — especially by “left wing” media, as an attention-seeker, a prideful zealot, who would destroy the Labour Party and the “liberal” cause.
Sound familiar?
So — how did it turn out? Well, in the brief time that Corbyn actually was able to campaign and get some attention, he managed to close a 26–30 point gap down to only about 3–7 points, depending on the poll. And now we find that the Conservatives, who so pridefully and confidently called for the snap election (when they didn’t need to) made a huge miscalculation. They lost 11 seats in Parliament, whereas Labour gained 29. The Conservatives have lost their majority, and now we have a “hung” Parliament, wherein the Conservatives may or may not be able to cobble together a majority coalition. It could even happen that Labour are actually able to form a government by allying with the Scottish National Party, the Greens, etc. who share their same progressive anti-austerity policies.
More interesting: in the popular vote, it was 42% Conservative to 40% Labour. That’s damn close, and can only be seen as a huge victory for a Labour Party and a Leader who has been viciously attacked, denigrated and smeared not only by the opposing party, not only by the media, but also by members of his own Party!!
Indeed, Tony Blair, famous neoliberal Labour Leader and co-inventor of “third way” neoliberalism along with Bill Clinton, has refused to endorse Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister.
And of course, because he was attacking a fellow “Leftie” Blair had to go low, with a personal smear based on character and not policy: “I cannot countenance endorsing him for a role which I think even he, although he may say different in front of the cameras, does not think he is fit to carry out.”
In other words — pure sabotage from Bush’s Poodle.
It is just like in the US. The neoliberals would rather lose to conservatives than win with progressives.
