Friday 2 December 2016

Richmond is simpy a protest vote by rich people looking out for their own interests

I used to stay at Roehampton which is adjacent to Richmond Park. It is one of the wealthiest  constituencies in the country and even 10 years ago you could not find a family house costing less than £1.5 million. I know, I tried.

It is full of people media types, lawyers, accountants like Ms Olney etc who have grown fat on EU largesse. Unsurprisingly in the Referendum they voted 70% to remain. They voted with their wallets then and have done it again. Farron is a little man with hige delusions of his own importance. I quote from his post result ravings reported by Guido

Tim Farron is getting more than a little ahead of himself claiming Sarah Olney’s win is a rejection of Trump and the 2015 election too. Richmond Park was a 21% swing by a Remain constituency against its incumbent Leave MP. Food for thought for Labour Remainer MPs with pro-Leave constituencies…

Thelast sentence is the telling one. If May is forced into a corner by EU loving Tories and LibDems she will have to call a General Election or resign. It will be a wipe out for pro Remain MPs sitting for constituencies with a large leave vote. Tory constituencies will largely de-select pro EU candidates and go for leavers. They will take huge number of Labour and Lib Dem seats leaving something like 5 for UKIP.

The Lib Dems always wanted a re-alignment in UK politics. I think they have achieved it. The next election will be fought out on a pro / anti EU divide. The result of the Referendum will still stand. Failure to properly implement it will cause severe civil unrest. That is what the Lib Dems will have done to our country.

2 comments:

Edward Spalton said...

Can Mrs May "call an election"?
Thanks to the Lib Dems we now have a fixed term parliament.
My understanding is that an election can only be called if
(1) the government loses a vote of no confidence which is not reversed within a fortnight or
(2) 66 per cent of MPs vote for it

I always thought this was a device to make political careers more predictable but few of the Lib Dems survived the election to benefit from
Nick Clegg's ripping wheeze.

Given the state of the Labour Party and of the opinion polls, I don't see too many sitting Labour MPs volunteering firstly for deselection by the Corbynistas, then deselection by the voters - even if all the Conservatives voted to have an election. There is still three and a half years of assured salary and pension-building entitlement to run.

With regard to Richmond, if I had been a voter, I would have been peeved to be called on to vote again because of posturing by an extremely wealthy MP, high on his sense of self importance. I probably wouldn't want another runway at Heathrow either.



Eric Edmond said...

We are now entering a land of make believe. Its quite easy for Mrs May to arrange to lose a no confidence vote. How can it be reversed? Not by Mrs May obviously so Jezzza willl have to put down a confideence vote which the tories will ensure fails again. Question is who puts down the first confidence vote? i am sure the Tory whips could think of something that will not have Mrs May's fingerprints.