2019 United Kingdom general election

The 2019 United Kingdom general election (also known as 'the second Brexit election' or 'the Boris election') was the second snap election in as many years, due to the continued fracturing of the ruling Conservative Party over the Brexit logjam and the inability of Theresa May and then Boris Johnson to successfully build a majority on the form of 'deal' that they desiredThe EU's needs/desires apparently immaterial.. This election was notable for several reasons; it was the first time since 1974 in which there had been two snap elections in a row, the first December election since 1923, the first time since 1992 where a party won four elections in a rowThe Conservatives were the largest party in 2010, though were 18 short of a majority. and one where the Conservatives won the most seats since 1987 and on the highest vote-share since 1979. It is also notable for being the eighteenth and final held during the reign of Elizabeth II.
==Background==
This Parliament was the most unstable in recent British history; only the oldest of heads drew comparisons with the late 70s (under Callaghan's 'Lib-Lab PactThe Politics of Necessity: Lessons from the 1977 Lib-Lab Pact Young Fabians, 9 November 2017) for the sheer complexity of issues faced and fractiousness of both the political class and general public on how to solve them. In a time of need of political titans, Britain got pygmies - three of them which between them all showed major defects in partisan blinkeredness, selfish motivations, managerial incompetence, defects of leadership and personal 'unlikability' (though in differing levels).
===Theresa May===
We last saw the Conservative leader having 'gambled and almost lost' on a snap election of her own making, managing to cut a deal with the rabidly Eurosceptic DUP to stop her government from being felled by a vote of no confidence (stuffing their mouths with a billion pounds of taxpayer's money being a major plank)Theresa May and the DUP deal: What you need to know BBC News, 26 June 2017. The British Government then set to work; starting formal negotiations with the EUEU hands Britain a two-month deadline on Brexit talks The Scotsman, 18 July 2017 while starting the 'unpicking' of EU legislation within the UKEU Withdrawal Bill: A guide to the Brexit repeal legislation BBC News, 13 November 2017 - but within days after the election the EU began to warn that they weren't in the mood for turningBrexit negotiations: Barnier rules out 'concessions' BBC News, 19 June 2017 - a warning which proved ultimately correct.
Put glibly; in both 'withdrawal' and 'future' stages of the negotiation, the EU 'beat' the UK. The British failed to appreciate the economic size disparity between themselves and the bloc (about 1:5), hugely overestimated the strength of their hand (and thus delusional about possible outcomes)Brexit gaps appear between EU and UK BBC News, 1 May 2017, was muddle-headed in deciding on what they actually desired and resorting to faith-destroying antics such as using EU citizens resident in the UK as a bargaining-chipsFears over human rights of EU nationals being used as ‘Brexit bargaining chips’ The Independent, 19 December 2016 and repeatedly threatening to 'walk away'5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks Politico, 30 December 2020.
This wouldn't have been so bad if May had been a reasonably competent politician domestically, working on building up a majority for 'her form of Brexit' with both people and Parliament - but she did notSecretive, rigid and never honest with the public about Brexit: Theresa May’s failings LSE Blogs, 30 May 2019. Not only was she not honest with the British public on the realities of both negotiations and possible resultsBrexit 'delusions' risk putting UK into crisis, warns Ivan Rogers The Guardian, 13 December 2018, she didn't bother in trying to reach out to opposition parties in the (reasonable) expectation that it was impossible to reach an agreement with the EU which also pleased the DUP and hardline 'European Research Group' (ERG) faction within the ConservativesWhat was in Theresa May's Brexit deal and why was it so unpopular? Euronews, 29 January 2020Theresa May has finally realised she desperately needs Labour's backing on Brexit – here's how she could secure it The Independent, 11 January 2019Either of which could cause May to lose a vote.. The results were depressingly predictable; public discourse became increasingly poisonous as 'Leavers' doubled-down on the belief that concessions to reality was 'thwarting the will of the people', buoyed up by 'cakeist'As in 'having your cake and eating it'. promises from the likes of the Daily Mail, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-MoggThe origins of ‘cakeism’: the British think tank debate over repatriating sovereignty and its impact on the UK’s Brexit strategy Journal of European Public Policy, 20 May 2022, while 'Remainers' getting increasingly cranky about the previous' imperviousness on the risks and difficulties of 'doing Brexit', their frequent lapses into 'nostalgia poisoning'Brexit: Too many older Leave voters nostalgic for 'white' Britain, says Cable BBC News, 11 March 2018Britain Is Drowning Itself in Nostalgia New York Times, 23 March 2019 variants of British exceptionalismEmpire 2.0: the fantasy that's fuelling Tory divisions on Brexit The Guardian, 8 November 2018 and a marked increase in xenophobia and racismThe Brexit vote unleashed a nasty tide of xenophobia, racism and bigotry in the UK – I no longer felt welcome The Independent, 22 June 2021.
The truth was simple; despite claims to the contrary, May only really cared about her own political skin; that revealing the compromises given in negotiations would have resulted in the ERG attempting to depose her (which they finally attempted in December 2018Theresa May survives confidence vote of Tory MPs BBC News, 12 December 2018) and was so tribal that the concept of cooperating with Labour on this topic was such an anathema to her she only started to attempt it after her deal was rejected twiceBrexit: Theresa May's deal is voted down in historic Commons defeat BBC News, 15 January 2019Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal for a second time BBC News, 13 March 2019
Theresa May Will Reach Out to Corbyn in Bid to Avoid Disorderly Brexit New York Times, 2 April 2019. Alas, it was too little, too late; and at the end of May she announced her quitting as leaderTheresa May quits: UK set for new PM by end of July BBC News, 24 May 2019.
===Jeremy Corbyn===
With the government party in disarray and it's leader at a political dead-end, it was one of the rare times where the main opposition - the Labour Party - actually had a real chance of making a tangible contribution to the country. In a land with cakeist promises to one side and calls to scrap the entire thing on the other, they did try to 'square the circle' with their 'soft Brexit' solution - one which 'respected the referendum result' but avoided most of the economic damage from quitting the world's largest trading blocU.K. Labour Seeks Soft Brexit in Bid to Force Defeat on May Bloomberg, 5 June 2019. Alas, in Jeremy Corbyn Labour had a leader who was as incompetent, internally divisive and politically blinkered as May was, which meant Labour was also unable to build a cross-party coalition for this vision of Brexit. Didn't help that Corbyn's heart didn't seem to be in fighting for thisJeremy Corbyn fans flames of Labour’s internal row by failing to back EU single market membership The Independent, 7 September 2016, something effectively confirmed four years laterJeremy Corbyn is ‘in his heart of hearts a Brexiter’, says Diane Abbott 'The Independent, 15 February 2023.
For this was the other primary political tale in this relatively short parliament; the continued civil war within the Labour Party. Despite being thrice-beaten in as many yearsLost the 2015 leader election, failed the 2016 coup attempt and proven incorrect in that the 2017 election would be a wipeout., the 'rightist' rump of Labour decided to continue their utmost to bring down Corbyn by sniping, moaning, rebelling and generally proving to be a complete pain in the arse to the point you could appreciate that some moves to get rid of them may have been spontaneous actions from pissed-off local party members. Perhaps this was deliberate; desiring to cause a reaction which they could then dress up as 'persecution' done by Corbyn and his allies (which could then be paraded in the front of the Tory-supporting media as to proof that Corbyn was unelectable). By late 2018, both 'sides' were becoming increasingly trenchantJeremy Corbyn allies launch bid to purge moderate Labour MPs amid warnings of party splits The Telegraph, 3 September 2018The Corbyn ultimatum New Statesman, 25 April 2018, with Brexit also causing more bad blood within Labour ranksBrexit: Labour admits unity ‘fraying around the edges’ following party split over no-deal plan The Independent, 30 January 2019Most of the 'Blairite' faction were also strongly pro-Remain, putting them at direct odds with official Labour policy.. Yet Corbyn proved himself incompetent as a party leader; ending up engaging in 'molehill mountaineering' when dealing with a tiny rump of technocratic nonentities who ended up starting their own little outfit called 'Change UK'Change UK: the Technocrats Who Suck at Their Jobs Vice UK, 21 May 2019. And all this came to a head over the issue of antisemitism. 
Like most modern British left-wingers, Corbyn has had a pro-Palestine 'tilt' since the 1980sAbout the point where Israelis stopped being portrayed as 'left-wing refugees of the Holocaust' and more as 'right-wing oppressors of Palestinians'. and he'd not been shy in showing his support on countless pickets and marchesLondon hosts anti-Israeli protest CNN, 13 April 2002. This created significant political baggage (example; meeting Hamas politicians in 2010Labour MPs under fire as they meet Hamas The Jewish Chronicle, 11 November 2010) which The Jewish Chronicle listed during his 2015 leadership campaign as 'questions Corbyn must answer'The key questions Jeremy Corbyn must answer The Jewish Chronicle, 12 August 2015. The questions were reasonable ones, however the little issue was that the newspaper's motivations were suspect; clearly pro-Israel and conservative-leaning, apparently in agreement with the World Jewish Congress' stance that 'anti-Zionism is antisemitism'Defining antisemitism: Why anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism World Jewish CongressAnti-Zionism - facts (and ﬁctions) The Jewish Chronicle, 28 July 2010 and has a tendency to lose libel complaints (almost wholly regarding making accusations of antisemitismPress regulator slams Jewish Chronicle for ‘misleading’ and ‘inaccurate’ stories about a Corbyn supporter The Canary, 30 November 2019 and/or supporting terrorismJewish Chronicle pays out £50,000 and apologises for wrongly linking charity to terror group Press Gazette, 3 September 2019) while maintaining a rather hyperbolic 'we won't be cowed by attempts to bully us into silence' stanceJewish Chronicle ‘will never be cowed by attempts to bully us’ as IPSO responds to call for standards investigation Press Gazette, 25 August 2023‘Unacceptable’ Jewish Chronicle Puts Sham Press Watchdog IPSO on the Spot Byline Times, 31 July 2023. 
Moves were made; Corbyn answered the Chronicle's questionsJeremy Corbyn answers critics' 'ludicrous and wrong' anti-semitism questions The Independent, 18 August 2015, obvious cases of antisemitism were dealt withKen Livingstone suspended from Labour after Hitler remarks The Guardian, 28 April 2016 and Labour commissioned an inquiry into the whole issueChakrabarti inquiry: Labour not overrun by anti-Semitism BBC News, 30 June 2016. But it wasn't enough; questions regarding certain murals continued to burnIf you can’t see antisemitism, it’s time to open your eyes The Guardian, 28 March 2018, his hostile response to a Commons enquiry on antisemitism really did no favoursJeremy Corbyn responds to scathing report by Home Affairs Select Committee Campaign Against Antisemitism, 16 October 2016It has to be noted the Committee was personally scathing of Corbyn's competence in tackling antisemitism within the Labour Party; it also stated "no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other party." and a growing 'bunker mentality' which saw all complaints as just another angle by the right wing to defeat 'the Corbyn project'The Media Against Jeremy Corbyn Jacobin, 9 July 2016Is Jeremy Corbyn a ‘threat’ to British Jews? Al Jezeera, 7 December 2019 - not without decent reasons for said suspicion eitherWho knew Jeremy Corbyn's antisemitic beetroot would cause such anger at the Daily Mail? The Independent, 5 April 2018. It became a kind of a 'self-fulfilling feedback loop'; in which continuous media reports of 'Labour's antisemitism'Labour Stumbles in Polls as Accusations Mount Der Spiegel, 21 August 2018 (based on half-truths, nutpicking and whataboutism) made British Jews feel increasingly unsafeMore than 85 per cent of British Jews think Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic The Jewish Chronicle 13 September 2018 which continued to circle around to the point where even traditionally leftish publications became convinced that Labour's left was riddled with antisemitesThe roots of Labour’s antisemitism lie deep within the populist left The Guardian, 12 July 2019. All of this caused increasingly poor polling for Labour; not just those who genuinely believed the above, but those who came to the conclusion that the issue had shown Corbyn and allies as poor leaders and incompetent party managers (as proven by their lack of ability to end this 'running sore').
===Boris Johnson===
Watching all this with barely-suppressed glee was the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who had quit from the Government the year before due to his increasingly intransigent position on ever offering anything to the EU which might be seen as 'a concession'Boris Johnson quits: Profile of ex-foreign secretary BBC News, 9 July 2018. Johnson's election strategy was simple enough; that he would court the support of the Brexit 'ultras' in Parliament by grandstanding such as refusing to 'pay Brussels any money'Johnson threatens to withhold £39bn from EU as he wins support of hardline Brexiteers The Independent, 9 June 2019 and talking up the possibilities of a 'no deal' crashoutEU PANIC: Brussels fears no deal Brexit 'IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP' now – 'hard Brexit a reality' The Express, 24 May 2019 to get him into the 'final two' for the membership ballot, then to win that through a combination of appealing to greedTory leadership contest: Boris Johnson pledges income tax cut for high earners BBC News, 10 June 2019The proposed tax cuts would favour high-income individuals and particularly wealthy pensioners... which is basically, the majority of the Conservative Party membership who'd be voting for him. and using his Churchill impressions to handwave away any and all problems. Unfortunately for the country, he won with a landslideBoris Johnson elected new Tory leader The Guardian, 23 July 2019.
His general strategy was fairly simple; anyone/thing who didn't toe his line would be thrown overboard in a level of autocratic bloody-mindedness not seen since the latter years of Margaret Thatcher. The goal; 'to get Brexit done'. First, a game of chicken with the EU, chanting 'no deal is better than a bad deal' and blithely stating the former option wouldn't hurt the UKThis Week in Brexit: Boris Plays Chicken Slate, 2 August 2019. A majority of the Cabinet didn't support this approach, so they were sacked and replaced with people who did (ie other Brexit 'ultras')Boris Johnson: new PM takes his revenge and sacks over half the cabinet The Guardian, 25 July 2019. When folks said 'this is a game of chicken', he decided to up his bet by repealing the keystone bit of legislation holding the UK within the EU to 'prove they were serious'Steve Barclay signs order to scrap 1972 Brussels Act, ending all EU laws in the UK Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation 18 August 2019It's estimated about 60% of post-1972 laws (much of them very technical in nature, like product regulations) have at least some underpinning in EU laws, thus their instant repeal would cause huge legal chaos, though only within the UK.. When various MPs started screaming over this new strategy, he got the Queen (as head of state) to order a suspension of Parliament, to effectively stop the legislature from stopping the executive from 'running down the clock' to a 'no-deal' crashoutParliament suspension: Queen approves PM's plan BBC News 28 August 2019. Alas, this was ultimately ruled to have been unlawfulBlame was pinned on Johnson and Rees-Mogg however, not on the monarch (as she has 'acted on their advice' as per convention). and Parliament re-assembled at the end of September - but it still had 'wasted' three weeks before the deadlineJohnson's suspension of parliament unlawful, supreme court rules The Guardian, 24 September 2019. Not that this mattered too much, however; because seething MPs - utterly aware of what Johnson was pulling without a panel of judges to confirm it - rammed through in the couple of days they had left a law which ordered Johnson to request a deadline extension until JanuaryBrexit: MPs back bill aimed at blocking no deal BBC News, 4 September 2019. The fates of the 'rebel' Conservative MPs who had voted for this was predictable; expulsionTory whip removed: The 21 Conservative MPs who voted against Boris Johnson's government The Standard 4 September 2019. 
Smarting over the defeats, Johnson issued the request and started to the renegotiate the withdrawal agreementBrexit: Varadkar sees ‘pathway to an agreement in coming weeks’ Irish Times, 10 October 2019 and soon enough produced a 'new' agreement; almost identical to the 'May agreement' rejected twice earlier in the year - save having the Northern Irish protections removedHow much of Johnson's 'great new deal' is actually new? The Guardian, 18 October 2019. The DUP were understandably furious with being another victim to Johnson's 'breaking the rules' (in this case, the 2017 agreement that 'Ulster' would remain within the UK fully) and came out in opposition to his regime. When it became clear that the Parliamentary arithmetic wouldn't allow this 'great new deal' to be passed by the Commons and the Conservatives now was around 40 seats below a majority, the movement towards a new snap election was unstoppable; Labour (slightly surprisingly) consented to the vote to hold one forthwithUK set for 12 December general election after MPs' vote BBC News, 29 October 2019. Which was most likely Johnson's plan all along...
===And...===
Non-Brexit events of importance during this period was the Grenfell Tower fire, the collapse of the outsourcing giant Carillion, the Russian assassination attempt of the Skripals in Salisbury, the 'Windrush scandal' and the start of the 'English Channel migrant crossings'. Naturally, the continued 'run down' of the British economy and living standards continued due to Austerity – and said policies had a negative effect on all the above events save the Russian assassins.
==Campaign==
If you'd accidentally fallen asleep after the last election, you'd have been a little confused by the situation; the EU referendum was seemingly being re-fought by the Conservatives (Leave) and the Liberal Democrats (Remain) - the 'figures on the bus' this time being a pledge for forty new hospitalsTory pledge to build 40 new hospitals under fire as minister admits funding in place for just six The Independent, 29 September 2019. The SNP was re-fighting the 2014 Scottish independence referendumThe vote that could destroy the United Kingdom CNN, December 2019 and Labour was running a rehash of their 2017 manifesto and had the amusing delusion that it was some kind of general election, not a vote on the grand 'oven ready deal' that The Boris had so wonderfully provided for the people of Britain.A deal is oven-ready. Let’s get Brexit done and take this country forward The Telegraph, 5 November 2019
The campaign was rather depressing to behold; the Conservative offering was basically blank with a leader who hid in safe spaces and ran away when confrontedBoris Johnson takes reporter’s phone and dodges question on shocking emergency room picture CNN, 9 December 2019Boris Johnson hides in fridge on live TV while dodging interview on eve of election The Independent, 11 December 2019 while a clearly desperate and disorganisedClashing egos and 'policy incontinence': inside Labour's campaign The Guardian, 13 December 2019 Labour 'went for broke' under a heaviest welter of press attacks to datePress hostility to Labour reaches new levels in 2019 election campaign Loughborough University 19 December 2019 . Spirits rose a little when Farage wheeled out his UKIP re-tread cunningly called the 'Brexit Party' to contest all mainland seatsBrexit party to contest more than 600 seats in election, says Farage The Guardian, 4 November 2019 but then fell into gloom when they were withdrawn in Conservative-held seats so they wouldn't split 'the Brexit vote'General election 2019: Brexit Party will not stand in Tory seats BBC News 11 November 2019. The Liberal Democrats... well, it was hard to really take them seriously after their leader had announced 'I could be the next Prime Minister' at the campaign launchI can be next PM, says Jo Swinson at launch of election campaign The Guardian, 5 November 2019.
The now-usual tussle over the television debates raged and shockingly it was the Conservatives who dicked about it, again. The British people (excepting special output to cover the regional parties) ended up with a Corbyn-Johnson tussle which was regarded as 'a draw'Corbyn-Johnson TV debate watched by 6.7 million people The Guardian, 20 November 2019, a 'Biggest Four' tussle on Question Time, a series of individual sit-down interviews with famed political anchor Andrew Neil - apart from JohnsonGeneral election 2019: Andrew Neil issues interview challenge to Johnson BBC News, 5 December 2019. Oh I wonder why... could it be that Neil sacked you in 2005 for, well being you and was worried what he might say?Andrew Neil has shared why he stopped working with Boris Johnson at The Spectator The Scottish Daily Express, 8 July 2022. The other memorable event was when the Conservative and Brexit leaders replaced by ice sculptures (to show their no-show) at a Channel 4 debate, which led the Conservatives indirectly threatening the broadcaster and complaining.Channel 4 cleared of bias for replacing PM with ice block in debate The Guardian 3 December 2019.
As the country moved towards the election, Labour managed to pick up a decent amount of uplift in the polls - but so did the Conservatives (mainly from Reform), so the margin between the two remained about the same. Millions of voters were facing a most depressing choice (rather like Americans did in 2020) - between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
==Results==
The polling was less wonky than last time; predictions put the Conservatives at 340-350 while the result was 365 – giving them a 'working majority' of 80. The Labour vote got squeezed in all directions; anti-Corbyn types and pro-EU voters went Liberal Democrat while the firm 'Brexiteer' vote went to either Conservative or Farage. However, it was clear enough; Labour had lost this election – the worst result since 1983Their vote percentage share, however was 4.5% higher than 1983 which means the analogy isn't exact. and the wound was deeper because a significant amount of loss was in their traditional 'Red Wall' heartlands which had been the very spawning-ground for the party. Naturally, they began in earnest arguing whether it was Corbyn personally, their Brexit policy or being 'too radical' which had caused their defeat. Chances are, it was a mainly a combination of the first two, though the third would have had an effect too. But the truth was perhaps more simple; that the electorate were utterly worn out from effectively four years of debating Brexit and like the sick person wearily welcoming their coming operation, chose to vote Conservative (or to allow them to win in their seat) simply to 'get over and done with'.
The vagaries of the electoral system ironically punished the Liberals despite their vote-share going up by a comfortable margin, leading to the ignominy of the 'I could be the next PM' leader Jo Swinson losing her own seatBecause several Liberal seats were in 'Brexity' rural areas and thus vulnerable to Johnson's appeals. . The SNP shot up, managing to handily combine a 'not Corbyn, leftish pro-EU' vote into a winning coalition while the Greens continued in their almost-invisible growth. And 'Change UK'? Barely surpassed the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Turnout: 67.3% (-1.5%)	Seats	Change	Vote %	Change
Conservatives 	365 	+48 	43.6 	+1.2
Labour 	202 	-60 	32.0 	-7.9
SNP 	48 	+13 	3.9 	-0.8
Liberal Democrats 	11 	-1 	11.6 	+4.2
Other 	24 	0 	8.9 	+1.6
==External links==
*BBC 'Election 2019' website, still functional.
*A famous Conservative ad on the Brexit issue parodying Love Actually.
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Brexit
Category:Elections
Category:British politics
Category:UK general elections