Pinch Point

With reports that one of the big reasons – perhaps the biggest – why last week's election was called at all was because the EU's Jean-Claude Juncker told PM Theresa May that her then (small) inherited majority wouldn't serve her well enough when it came to the 'pinch points' in the Brexit negotiations, we are starting to see some of the bigger picture.

In particular, a somewhat squeezed Mrs May, trying to do the best job for Britain, while undoubtedly not trusting Juncker (who would?) nevertheless must have felt that it was better to go for it than to leave things be. At the very least, it wouldn't let the EU negotiators be able to claim that our Prime Minister hadn't had the guts to try.

This and many other behind-the-scenes activities are what I have to try to discover and take into account when making my own predictions and formulating my own approaches to all the reasonably probable outcomes and consequences of what is happening out there in the political world.

As some 'old hands' here already know, my own (admittedly modest) influence is done mostly invisibly, and primarily through extending public knowledge of what the players are really up to, via a complex network of channels and other structures.

In practice, it is like a hysteresis loop, with the effect somewhat lagging behind whatever I (and no doubt others) do, and out of phase with it for a while. Steering a boat, especially at close quarters with another vessel, feels a little like it as well. Nonetheless it is the best anyone can do while respecting the population's right to self-determination – which I always do.

Most people eventually grow up politically, which is why the majority of the older generation end up no longer conned by the Left's false promises and attempted bribes, and tend toward the political Right in their leanings. Over time, the wiser heads die off, though, and the newly-indoctrinated – so mostly Left-leaning – youths reach voting age, so the whole learning cycle begins again.

Thus this is a never-ending scenario, and we all have to use our brains more effectively if we are to become a better and stronger nation in the near future. One vital aspect of that in the current time-frame is to get out of the EU completely, regardless of the outcome of last Thursday's election, and that is something we can still do.

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

As many of those folk who have known me for a long time, and especially in close-up, will already know, I am a very strong believer in a healthy democracy. This needs at least two (but hopefully not too many) political parties with credible policies and a reasonable hope of being elected to government.

We have increasingly lacked that proper structure here in Britain, which is why I have (as many readers will be aware) been playing a small part in trying to fix the issue. For the past nearly seven years this has meant trying to find a replacement main opposition party to the Conservatives – whose ongoing tenure in government seemed to me assured for many years to come – in the knowledge that Labour were going to more or less destroy themselves in about half a dozen years.

As I told people in the second half of 2010 and later, I knew that Labour had set themselves upon an irreversible path to their own demise once they had installed Ed[ward] Miliband as their party leader – though I doubt any of them believed me back then. The party was turning to the left, and then some. Now, of course, those people perhaps understand at least something of why I made that bold claim, and with such conviction.

Fast-forward to today and what do we find?

Labour continued to turn leftward, eventually and inevitably installing the real party-killer (Ed-M was just the catalyst that made it not only possible, but just about unavoidable) Jeremy Corbyn. It had to happen. Equally predictably, this move allowed the ever-lurking out-and-out Communists to infiltrate and dominate the party, using the movement they created called Momentum. Their long-awaited day had come!

Thus today's Labour party has become the wolf in sheep's clothing, and is busy transforming the party from within. The parliamentary party has, as they'd have expected, become a serious problem, because of all those pesky 'moderate', 'Blairite' or 'blue Labour' MPs as the current leadership (and especially Momentum) brands them.

Thus we are seeing a number of more 'suitable' candidates for the upcoming General Election being parachuted in to safe Labour seats, while the less safe seats are becoming more marginal in the present political climate so will probably be voted out of office anyway – not a significant issue, then.

The Labour party manifesto for this election reads like something that wouldn't have gone amiss in former Communist East Germany – and its supposedly draft version was leaked to two news outlets so that it became in effect de facto policy. As I posted on social media less than a day ago, the idea was to make it effectively impossible for the party to materially change anything – and indeed at the meeting to discuss any such changes that was held later in the day, it was reported as just 'tinkering' and making no substantive alterations.

Thus the Corbynite faction have what they have sought all along: the leader they wanted, the now-official policies they wanted, and their own/preferred people forming a majority of their parliamentary party a month from now.

This was the real reason they embraced the 'snap' election so readily: not to win it (they knew that wasn't possible) but to transform Labour into a genuine Communist Party disguised as something else, even if the camouflage isn't exactly fooling most people. Still, they have enough supporters for their needs, considerable evidence of which I continually find in various places.

Such a wolf can never again be a suitable alternative party to the Conservatives. As I said seven years ago, Labour had set itself upon a one-way street to destruction: there can be no way back. Perhaps, as some have surmised, they will split as they once did when the SDP was formed by 'the Gang of Four' more than a generation ago. If so, though, it will be for the same actual reason (i.e. not the public face) which will be currently-elected members seeking to avoid losing their seats – self-interest, in other words, so this would not make a breakaway party trustworthy.

With UKIP now losing support hugely, the party falling apart internally (which has been going on for some time now) and rapidly becoming a 'dead end', as I labelled them a few years back; the Greens continuing to fool nobody so with barely three percent support; and a slowly resurgent Liberal Democrat party as the only other even vaguely realistic alternatives; it is the last of these that – for all its faults – looks like being the only conceivable future opposition party out of those currently in existence.

What about possible new parties, though?

The wealthy UKIP financial supporter Arron Banks has been rumoured to be creating a new party, a kind of UKIP Mk 2 that is provisionally being called "The Patriotic Alliance" – but all has gone very quiet on that front for the past two months; i.e. from well before the snap election was called, so the current hiatus wasn't caused by that.

So, in conclusion, what we expect to happen in the next few months? Theresa May's Conservatives look set for a landslide win in next month's General Election. After that, Labour might or might not split, Arron Banks' new party might or might not be launched, and the Lib Dems might or might not continue to climb up the pecking order. It looks like interesting times ahead!

Snap Election

I had been wondering for some time just how much longer Prime Minister Theresa May could put off seeking a snap General Election in the wake of all the derailing threats that other parties were making in the Commons, more especially in the Lords, and elsewhere in the country regarding the Brexit process. Although I wasn't exactly expecting it to happen, I had been watching daily for signs of a change of heart from the PM's previous position.

It has now happened, in a clear-cut case of cause-and-effect. If the others had not behaved as they did (and still are) then this would not have become necessary. It is as simply and correctly stated as that. The election will be held on 8 June, just seven weeks from tomorrow.

Because of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, this has necessitated a Motion to be voted on in the House of Commons, and Royal assent after that. The first hurdle was completed a few hours ago as I write this, with well over 500 MPs agreeing to the General Election, and just 13 (nine of them Labour) MPs voting against. This comfortably exceeds the requirement of at least 2/3 of the full House assenting – the minimum thus being 434 out of the 650.

The general assumption is that the Conservatives will hugely increase their majority, which was just 12 seats after the previous election. I believe top psephologist Michael Thrasher (of Thrasher & Rallings fame) anticipates an overall majority of something like 120 or so. My own estimate, just for the record, is 165 plus-or-minus 9% of that figure: in effect, between 150 and 180.

A new spanner in the works, though – if it goes ahead – is a move to create an 'unholy alliance' of main opposition parties (Labour Lib Dems, SNP, perhaps Green) to field just one cross-party candidate in each target Conservative seat, so that all the non-Conservative votes will (they think) go to that candidate. As many Conservative MPs were elected with less than 50% of the actual vote, this suggests that the one significant opponent could take the seat, ultimately depriving Mrs May of an overall majority.

Thus goes the theory, demonstrating one-dimensional thinking in the process. Of course we can ignore fringe candidates like the perennial 'Save the NHS' and others of a similar nature, as well as the likes of TUSC and the always-entertaining Official Monster Raving Looney participants. This is nitty-gritty stuff. On the other hand, there is also UKIP, but their influence is waning.

If this scheme should go ahead, it makes two fatal errors: (1) that the electorate will vote the same way they did last time, or in the current polls, polarised into voting for any candidate who is not-Conservative regardless of party designation. The news is that they will not: people are already declaring wholesale that they will vote Conservative this time. Number (2) is the same for UKIP voters from last time and who have stated so to pollsters: they too are switching in large numbers to the Blue candidate.

Thus such an approach seems likely (I think certain) to fail; and if anything it will probably result in Mrs May gaining an even larger overall majority than my seemingly optimistic estimate. I say 'estimate' because – as those who have followed my prediction will know by now – I don't make any firm predictions until I know who is on the ballot paper, the day the Statements of Persons Nominated are published.

That is how I have been able to be so devastatingly accurate in the past…