Comment
LEO MCKINSTRY
THE Labour party's sordid attempt at a Marxist revolution has been crushed and British common sense has triumphed over extremist dogma - hurrah!
Instead of facing the nightmare of misrule by Jeremy Corbyn, the public can today bask in relief that the country is in the hands, not of a hardline socialist regime, but a solid Conservative government dedicated to national freedom and prosperity.
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While yesterday Twitter was awash with Labour supporters shouting so loud about victory they drowned out the truth, today shows the red bubbles of London are out of touch with what the rest of the country want.
Tories crumble Labour's 'Red Wall'
There was everything to fear from Corbyn’s premiership - but nothing to fear from the continuation of Boris Johnson’s.
This was Labour’s worst electoral disaster since 1935.
In the unfolding Friday morning massacre, a string of Labour MPs in previously safe seats were brutally axed.
From Burnley and Blyth Valley, to Warrington and Workington, the so-called “Red Wall” crumbled as the Tories built up a crushing majority and the electoral map of England turned blue.
The sheer scale of Corbyn’s landslide defeat amounted to a wholesale rejection of his leadership and ideology by traditional Labour voters across the North and the Midlands.
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Astonishing defeats across UK
In Bassetlaw, there was an incredible 18 per cent swing from Labour to the Conservatives, while in Dudley South the Labour candidate lost by 15,000 votes.
For the first time since the Second World War, the Staffordshire city of Stoke has no Labour MPs.
In the Nottinghamshire seat of Ashfield, Labour finished in third place behind the Tory and independent candidates, having held the seat in the 2017 General Election.
Due to the defeat of left-wing rising star Laura Pidcock in Durham North West, the famous Miners’ Gala there – one of the highlights of the Labour movement’s calendar – will take place next year in a Tory territory, something that would have been unthinkable until today.
Apart from Pidcock, other Labour scalps included Caroline Flint, the former MP for Don Valley, Mary Creagh, who sat for Wakefield and ran for the leadership in 2015, and Dennis Skinner, the left-wing firebrand who had represented Bolsover in Derbyshire since 1970.
His citadel fell on a massive 11.5 per cent swing to the Tories.
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Corbyn slammed by MPs
Corbyn and Brexit were two of the prime factors in this historic catastrophe for Labour.
The Leader was widely despised for his combination of loony left radicalism and chronic ineptitude.
“He couldn’t lead the working class out of a paper bag,” the former Cabinet Minister Alan Johnson told the BBC this morning.
It was a view echoed by several defeated MPs, like Ruth Smeeth, beaten in Stoke.
Almost as damaging as Corbyn was his party’s refusal to honour the 2016 referendum result, a stance which alienated the five million Labour voters who had backed Leave.
But on a deeper level, Labour’s high command had long abandoned the values of its hard-working supporters in its traditional heartlands.
In line with the fashionable progressive elite, the party chiefs preferred globalism to patriotism, identity politics to immigration controls, transgender rights to toughness on crime.
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Boris' personal triumph
This election has shown the door to the metropolitan chattering class. Those who inhabit the political bubble of London don’t know what has hit them.
But the result was not just a humiliation for Corbyn.
It was also a remarkable personal triumph for Boris Johnson, who has emerged as the dominant figure in the British political landscape.
Like no Tory politician since Margaret Thatcher, he has shaped events to his own will through the force of his magnetic personality.
After all the abuse he has taken, with critics constantly portraying him as a charlatan and a bumbling buffoon, his win is a majestic vindication of both his character and his political strategy.
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From backbenches to dynamic PM
His success has been astonishing.
Only a few months ago, he was out of Government and on the backbenches, his Ministerial career apparently finished.
Even when he emerged as Tory leader in July after the resignation of Theresa May, there seemed little chance of any advance.
Divided over Brexit and devoid of a Commons majority, the Conservatives were in desperate trouble.
In the recent European elections, the party had sunk to just nine per cent of the vote and an embarrassing fourth place.
But Boris’s dynamism and vision immediately transformed the Tory’s prospects.
In defiance of all predictions from his critics, he achieved a withdrawal deal with the EU, galvanised the Downing Street machine, outmanoeuvred the Remainers, and secured Parliamentary approval for a General Election.
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During the campaign itself, he concentrated on a single, compelling message: to “Get Brexit Done”, while his well-crafted manifesto gave no hostages to fortune.
His charismatic leadership just emphasises how useless his predecessor Theresa May had been.
She squandered a Commons majority through her incompetence and cowardice, whereas he gained a new army of Tory MPs.
Biggest Tory majority in 32 years
Only once before – in 1992 – has a sitting Government won a fourth term in office. Even more impressively, he has won the largest Tory majority since 1987.
Neither the strength of his mandate nor his command of the Westminster scene can be disputed.
After three years of dither and delay, he will be the politician who finally delivers Brexit.
Once that task is completed, he will be able to implement his domestic agenda, including police recruitment, more funds for the NHS and the expansion of affordable housing.
This classic, one-nation Tory programme will make a mockery of the lurid claims that he is some kind of hard right reactionary.
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Broken Labour sliding into civil war
Boris’s position will be all the stronger because of the opposition’s disarray.
As the Conservatives increasingly become the authentic voice of the working-class, the beleaguered, broken Labour Party will slide into civil war.
Indeed, the strife has already started with Corbyn’s announcement that he will soon be resigning.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats must also search for a new leader after the defeat of Jo Swinson in her East Dunbarton constituency.
Her loss symbolised a dire campaign for her party, during which they lost support even from Remainers through their undemocratic demand for Brexit to be overturned without another public vote.
As a child, Boris famously said that he wanted to be “King of the World”. After his historic victory today, he is at least the undisputed chief of the Commons.
Inevitably, as he begins work again in Downing Street, he faces huge problems.
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More in opinion
Especially difficult is the threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom from the surge behind the SNP in Scotland, which gained 13 seats, and the decline of unionism in Ulster, which makes a united Ireland look inevitable.
But Boris has regularly confounded his detractors. Just as he did over Brexit, his creativity and originality will find solutions despite the narrative of doom.
Contrary to the sneers, he has the capacity to be one of our great Prime Ministers.
Jeremy Corbyn refuses to answer questions as he arrives home at Islington in North London
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