Johnson In, Corbyn Out. Cue Hysteria...

In a sweeping victory last night Boris Johnson was reelected Prime Minister of Great Britain, but from the outpouring of posts on social media you would think that it was the trigger for the apocalypse...

Most of my immediate family immigrated to Canada from England, which means that we often keep up to date on the goings on across the pond. Outside of the headlines, our many friends and relatives there give an inside, and more personal, view of the proceedings.

For the last three years, Britain has been in the throes of BREXIT after a referendum on leaving the European Union (EU) saw a majority of voters vote yes. It's been an ugly ongoing mess where it seems like any kind of real governance has been lost to a name calling spat between two sides unable to make good on the referendum results.

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party seems intent only to try to press another referendum, while offering to shower the average voter with a plethora of wonderful new benefits under his pointedly liberal government should he get elected.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has been tasked with leadership of the Conservatives and was most recently the prime minister. His goal is to "get BREXIT done". As far as tenable platform goes, that is up for discussion but he has a clear opinion about leaving the EU.

This should be a slam dunk for Labour, but it isn't.

Corbyn could promise the world and it won't make any difference.

Corbyn might be one of the most despised leaders in the running. Even his own party members have been heard to say that they believe that the ONLY reason that Labour doesn't win IS Corbyn.

In the meantime, Johnson has managed to put forth the idea that only an election will decide the fate of BREXIT. A vote for Boris is a vote for BREXIT. This is a pretty smart call on his behalf because it allows him to run on a rather weak platform without having to counter Corbyn's fire sale on benefits, while actually having a sort of referendum on BREXIT at the same time.

It was a risky play but it turns to have panned out in Johnson's favour.

Yesterday Boris won a resounding majority over Corbyn. The kind of win where there is little doubt of the public's desire to "get BREXIT done". In fact, in plenty of news footage Labour supporters are found to say that they support Labour but voted Conservative to get BREXIT over with.

"It's just been dragging on, it's time to get it over with and move on," an unidentified interviewee is seen to say in one newscast.

She's not alone, plenty more Labour supporters admit the same thing.

On social media however, it's a whole other story completely...

“This nation looked at photos of people unconscious on hospital floors, children at food banks, and they decided it was worth it if there were less immigrants," an 18 year old daughter of one Facebook commenter is quoted as having said. Followed by a great trope of admiration for what a brilliant young lady she was for such an observation.

The litany of posts, comments, tweets, condemning the newly elected Conservatives and claiming they are about to "empty the hospitals into the streets" and "line the sick up to watch them fall dead" are commonplace this morning.

Not to mention rubbish.

The fact that these same people are not completely aghast at the lack of actual legislative business during the last three years while both sides have been fully distracted by BREXIT goes to show how little they understand the politics of it, and possibly why they don't understand why Corbyn is such a liability to the Labour Party in the first place.

An article from the The Guardian by Gary Younge said it best when he stated: "Labour had three years to come up with a coherent offer to counter Tory bluster and failed. Given that its biggest losses were in leave areas, the notion that it should have cast itself as an unequivocal party of remain and a second referendum makes no sense... Labour knew Brexit would dominate and aimed to shift the conversation to public services and the environment. It failed there too... instead promising more things each day, displaying a lack of message discipline that felt like a metaphor for potential lack of fiscal discipline. Corbyn was deeply unpopular. On the doorstep most couldn’t really say why they didn’t like him. They just didn’t. Some either thought he was too leftwing, antisemetic or the friend of terrorists... But they did not invent it all. Corbyn was a poor performer. Time and again he had chances to nail Boris Johnson for his lies and duplicity, but he refused to do so. He’d say it’s not his style. But his style wasn’t working."

That doesn't stop the devout Labour supporters - the ones who actually voted Labour, from blaming Boris and his supporters for spoiling what was supposed to be their race to lose.

If you think that Boris is going to trigger the apocalypse or somehow bring about the downfall of Britain you may just think about the steady dog paddle of legislative inactivity that has been going on for the last three years and possibly see things differently.

With BREXIT finally on track to completion, the British government might actually be able to act like the government again and start doing something about those issues that Britons were so keen on Labour sorting out; because, truthfully, if Corbyn would have been elected they'd still be dealing with BREXIT for a long time to come, during which time, none of those promises would be being done.

#brexit #borisjohnson #jeremycorbyn #ukelection2019 #seasonsintheabyss