The People of Great Britain have spoken. After the exit polls – shortly after 10pm last night – predicted a huge Tory majority, the results that came in over night confirmed this. More on some of these results below – I did get up at an unholy hour to watch. There are however two questions which must be asked.

One is: how and above all why did the MSM manage to go with ‘knife edge’ and ‘hung parliament’ even on polling day? 

The other is: how come the BBC manage even now to play down the election results by giving time and voice to inane commentators with inane ‘analyses’?

To the results. Were there ‘Portillo Moments’? Oh yes there were – only not the ones the Remain MSM predicted. Boris Johnson, Raab, Redwood, JRM, Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash all kept their seats, the exertions of the LibDems notwithstanding. An interesting footnote illustrating the BBC bias was their report that Phillip Lee ‘lost’. He was the Tory backbencher, puffed up by RemainCentral yesterday, who moved to the LibDems and fought Sir John Redwood, who of course won. 

However – Jo Swinson, Leader of the LibDems, lost her seat. Yes, that’s correct: the Leader of the ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ Party got kicked out. Many other LibDem hopefuls who had crossed over and joined the Libdems were also not elected, be it Chuka Umunna, formerly Lab, then TIG (remember them?), be it Luciana Berger (formerly Lab then Libdem), be it Sam Gyimah (formerly Tory, even standing for the leadership election in July). The Tory arch remainers Grieve and Gauke both lost, the Tory candidates in their former constituencies beating them handsomely. 

Another truly ‘Big Beast’ losing his seat was Dennis Skinner (Lab). Bolsover, his seat, is now Blue.  Other seats going Blue across the North were Bishop Auckland, Labour since 1935, or Sedgefield, Tony Blair’s old seat as did Don Valley (Caroline Flint), Labour since 1922. Bridgend in Wales went to the Tories, and staying with Wales, the Tories won in Anglesey which was supposed to be a fight between Labour and Plaid. Apparently this Labour result – if it stands, at an as yet unconfirmed 203 – is the worst in nearly a century. 

A sad loss is that of Nigel Dodds (DUP). What this, and the reduced number of DUP MPs means for both BRINO and Ireland, that remains to be seen. 

Given the huge Tory win there were too many results to celebrate – mostly of Labour MPs losing their seats, MPs who have made a spectacle of themselves, but also of certain LibDems such as Tom Brake who tried to out-JRM JRM. Also gone is Anne Soubry, the spokesperson of the TIGs, formerly Tory, who kept popping up all the time.

After the tears of Labour MPs who lost or just won, we got the first Labour voices saying that this loss was due to both Brexit and therefore Labour’s disastrous Remain policy, and to Corbyn. John Mann, former Labour MP, said the losses were due to the toxicity of Corbyn and the toxicity around him: ‘if Labour doesn’t learn that lesson Labour won’t exist’. The swing in his old seat of Basset Law, he said, sums up the arrogance of Labour: ‘If that doesn’t go, Labour is finished.’

Caroline Flint (Lab) who lost her seat, blamed Corbyn for the Labour loss, saying that ‘the Corbyn project is not a project to win us elections. Moderate MPs put the pursuit of Remain at the expense of our heartland voters.’ Labour’s Momentum spokesperson meanwhile maintained that the election was sadly about Brexit and that their socialist policies played no part in their defeat … yes, really.  

The ‘Remain alliance’ between Green, Yellow and the rest simply did not materialise. Remainers are blaming this failure on hatred of Corbyn while Labour is blaming it on Brexit – both are denying that we the voters, we the people have put them both in their place.

So what about Corbyn? He announced that he won’t be leading the Party into another GE, but will remain to oversee a change in the leadership of Labour. The BBC has heard from John McDonnell who apparently will also go – allegedly together with Corbyn, but not quite yet so as ‘not to cause panic’. As for possible Labour Leader candidates – God help us: Ms Long-Bailey, Ms Emily Thornberry, even Ms Jess Phillips … words fail!

There’s another leadership election coming: as Ms Swinson  – who was going to waltz into No10 on the Remain vote, remember? – cannot now be leader of the LibDems because she has lost her seat, the runner-up, Ed Davey, will be the leader in the HoC while the LibDems have to elect a new leader. There’s also the small matter that they managed to end up with one seat less than in 2017.

And what does this resounding Johnson victory mean for Brexit? The BBC in the form of Andrew Marr was already opining that this might mean a ‘hard Brexit’, while others think he’ll now shove his BRINO through the HoC.

One point not mentioned in the MSM is that some Tory wins in the North were only possible because TBP took votes from Labour. It’s also interesting that MSM commentators are suddenly going on about the ‘Remain Alliance’ having fallen apart. I’ve been scouring the MSM religiously these past weeks – but mention of a ‘Remain Alliance’ was there none. There were lots of articles about TBP splitting the Leave vote though. That, to me, demonstrates in exemplary fashion that the issues not spoken about in the MSM are the ones that actually matter. 

Johnson re-labelled the Tory Party as the ‘One Nation Tory Party’. The result, according to Andrew Neil, shows that this election was transformative because the Tories are now more small-town, more working class, and less ‘shires’ – whereas Labour, as mentioned by Yvette Cooper (Lab) who kept her seat, is now more a metropolitan party and no longer the party of the working classes.

And so to the SNP, winning 48 seats: they believe that this result means they now have the mandate, according to Ms Sturgeon, to insist on a 2nd Indy Ref. However, as Mr Marr pointed out: by the time this can even be talked about, we may be out of the EU, meaning there will be currency problems, border problems – and Ms Sturgeon and the SNP are facing the trial of Mr Salmond for sexual offences. Circumstances change …

With just a few seats still to be counted, the Tories have a majority of 78. We’ll see how Johnson will shape his new cabinet. The MSM are opining that this might mean the end of those bad ‘hardcore’ Brexiteers in the ERG. Since the truly knowledgeable Leave Tories – Sirs Bill Cash and John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith for example – were not voted out by that ‘Remain alliance’, this could mean that the Bexiteers might have more weight when it comes to Brexit negotiations because they do not need to hold their noses and vote for BRINO so as to keep Johnson in.

As for the MSM and their use of polls: that was a huge fail. They are now left with gallons of egg on their faces. Regarding the BBC in particular, given their shenanigans about Johnson not going on that Andrew Neil interview, given the hostility -still only just veiled – of Andrew Marr, given the shocked faces of BBC presenters when the exit polls came out: this is Johnson’s chance to get rid of the BBC.

In general, the opinion of the MSM opinion makers and the Labour and LibDem losers was that this election was indeed the Brexit election, lost because the ‘Remain Alliance lost’. NHS? Socialism in one country? Rejected by us, the people.

We told That Lot that yes, we meant it when we voted to Leave – and that Johnson better get on with it, in the right way. This our vote was not ‘advisory’, and we definitely knew what we were voting for!

But don’t forget: we still don’t have Brexit. Today, there’s the EU Summit under that new leadership. So we cannot and will not rest on the laurels of today’s Tory victory, we will 

 

KBO!

 

[Personal remark: I’m shattered, so are the rest of the INDEPENDENCE Daily editors. Please forgive us for today’s ‘reduced service’, with just Debbie’s invaluable Press review, and this column.]

 

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