I strongly believe that this election gives everyone in this country a fundamental and clear choice: between an efficient, strong, organised and popular leader in Theresa May and the Conservatives, and the toxic, outdated relic from the failed 70’s/80’s socialism that is Jeremy Corbyn. Quite frankly, the British people deserve better from the Labour Party, which has been perpetually weaker in its role as Her Majesty’s Opposition than the Lib-Dems, and whose leadership has been inept and woeful.
This election is not being held by the whim of a power hungry Prime Minister who wants to crush the opposition; it is quite the reverse. This election can be used as a sign for every party in this great nation that the political ground on which they walk has shifted. For the sake of a healthy democracy in this country, for the sake of a functional opposition and any real challenge brought to the government which will be elected on the 8th of June, Corbyn must go! Labour needs to be rebuilt; the prospect of them winning a majority in the election is bleak - though, I will not rule it out entirely, given the elections we have had over the last 2 years. This election is a chance for the British people to elect a government which will fight for what we all believe in, carry out the will of the referendum result and ensure economic recovery. The only way this can be guaranteed is by voting for a strong Conservative majority in the election.
20 years ago, Tony Blair won by a landslide one of the most interesting elections in the British political history. Blair won on a platform of hope, prosperity and a feeling of patriotic optimism that things were going to get better. Why, therefore, is the Labour party led by two men who hark back to a time even their own party was trying to escape from? Jeremy Corbyn was part of an organisation which believed that the British people “only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it”, while supporting the troubles in Ireland and backing the IRA and Sinn Fein. This is disgusting! In reference to the then Prime Minister, Corbyn’s same magazine wrote: “We refuse to parrot the ritual condemnation of ‘violence’ because we insist on placing responsibility where it lies…. Let our ‘Iron Lady’ know this: those who live by the sword shall die by it. If she wants violence, then violence she will certainly get.”
To put this into context, Corbyn and his magazine were suggesting that violence against the democratically elected leader of Her Majesty’s Government was acceptable. Could that mean that if Corbyn does win the upcoming election, and he authorises any form of military operation at all, can he ‘die by the sword’?
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, the man desiring to be responsible for the finances of the nation, was also opposed to the NI peace process, saying in 1998: “An assembly is not what people have laid down their lives for over thirty years”.
A matter of days ago, McDonnel spoke at a rally in front of pictures of Stalin, a man variously claimed to have killed between 6 and 20 million people while in power, and a flag associated with the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who very recently has been barrel bombing men, women and children, or using chemicals to attack his own people. As if that were not enough, there was also a communist flag. Twenty years ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world since it sits on the world's largest proven oil reserves. Upon the death of its socialist president, Hugo Chavez, Corbyn said: “Chavez showed us that there is a different and a better way of doing things… It’s called Socialism”. Venezuelans are starving. Socialist utopia? Corbyn thinks so.
In the spirit of fairness, I shall refer to the other main political parties.
UKIP are finished, they are a spent force. The local election results prove they are done and therefore, need to fade away quietly. The Lib-Dems have failed to make any of the gains predicted and their campaign has started horribly. Their ‘fightback’, which was supposed to start at the local elections, saw them losing 37 seats.
This election is a chance for every party to regenerate, stand up and get on with the job of governing, or actually becoming a functional opposition.
For you cannot strive forwards into the future without first looking at the past.
Photo: Flickr, Ninian Reid