My analysis of the Warlingham by-election, Surrey, and why the Brexit amendments could stick us in a vicious circle

Readers, the result of the Warlingham by-election, the sole British local by-election this week and the first in 3 weeks, were as follows:

Surrey CC, Warlingham: Conservative 1199 (48.1%, -8.1%), Liberal Democrats 990 (39.7%, +10.8%), UKIP 176 (7.1%, -2.9%), Labour 126 (5.1%, +0.3%).

Surrey as a county has seen some shift to the Liberal Democrats in recent years as a result of Brexit chaos, especially from its comfortable commuter population who fear for their long term prospects post-Brexit. However, the wealthier parts of the division, containing million pound houses often owned by retirees with gold-plated pensions (e.g. former company directors), blunted the swing to just 9.4%, guaranteeing an easy Conservative hold in this safest of Conservative county council divisions.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Parliament debated several crucial amendments to the Brexit bill regarding the backstop, even though the EU has made it clear no renegotiation of the initial deal is possible. One unfortunate occurrence was when by a majority of just 23 (298 to 321), an amendment by Yvette Cooper (Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford) which would have prevented a no-deal Brexit was rejected, even though this happened minutes after an amendment by Dame Caroline Spelman (Conservative MP for Meriden) to not leave the EU without a deal of some type passed by a majority of 8 (318 to 310).This happened due to the rebellion of 14 Labour MPs (including my current MP, Gareth Snell), all of whom advocated for a Leave vote themselves and/or who represent traditionally working-class constituencies with a heavy Leave vote (both in John Mann's case, for example). Meanwhile, the majority of the Conservative rebels who could have allowed the amendment to pass were not only supporters of Remain but also most of them represented constituencies in the Home Counties not far from London where there is a strong affluent pro-European vote, and where normally high house prices could be hit hard by a no-deal Brexit. Unsurprisingly, a key rebel was once again Dominic Grieve, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield, one of the richest constituencies in the UK.

All in all, these recent votes will get Britain nowhere and with only eight weeks before the official withdrawal date. Even the backstop is unlikely to be renegotiated in time at this point. Given how bad the deal will be if Britain accepts it, it is clearly time to see sense and stop Brexit altogether. As the Independent and others have said, "Parliament voted to go round in circles": https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/brexit-no-deal-amendments-cooper-brady-parliament-backstop-a8753231.html




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more