From US to UK, the Conservatives are Winning
From US to UK, the Conservatives are Winning
With Friday’s win of the conservatives in the United Kingdom, it appears the wave of conservatism has spread from the United States to Britain.
President Donald Trump has congratulated British Prime Minster, Boris Jonson, hinting s new deal between the two super nations.
Trump wrote a heartfelt message addressed to Johnson, saying that Britain and the United States “will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal” post-Brexit.
“This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the EU,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Celebrate Boris!”
Johnson vowed to “get Brexit done” during a Conservative Party event following the results of the general election in central London on Friday morning, having made a net gain of 47 seats in Britain’s national election with just two seats left to declare.
In a landslide win, the Conservative Party secured 364 seats in the Houses of Parliament, making Boris Johnson’s party the largest Tory majority since 1987. The Conservatives needed 326 seats total to win.
It served as a crushing defeat for the opposition Labour Party. Its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, announced he was to step down after a “process of reflection,” having secured 203 seats in the election.
“We did it, we pulled it off didn’t we,” Johnson began to a cheering crowd, adding that the Conservatives had “broken the deadlock” and “smashed the roadblock.”
“A new dawn rises on a new day,” Johnson said in his victory speech addressing the nation, paying tribute to his colleagues who lost votes in the snap general election.
After his sweeping election win, Johnson declared Britain would leave the European Union by Jan. 31, “no ifs, buts, no maybes,” adding that the election result would “put an end to all those miserable threats of a second referendum.”
The Brexit divorce represents Britain’s biggest political and economic gamble since World War II, cutting the world’s fifth largest economy adrift from the vast trading bloc and testing the integrity of the United Kingdom.
Nearly half a century after Britain joined the EU, Johnson faces the challenge of striking new international trade deals, preserving London’s position as a top global financial capital, and keeping the United Kingdom together.
That last goal was looking more challenging as the election results rolled in, with Scotland voting for a nationalist party that wants an independence referendum, and Irish nationalists performing strongly in Northern Ireland.
In a political earthquake in England, the Conservatives won large numbers of seats in the opposition Labour Party’s so-called Red Wall, traditional working class heartlands once hostile to Johnson’s party.
In his speech, the prime minister described Brexit as now the “irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people,” promising those in traditional Labour areas who “lent” their vote to the Conservatives that he would not let them down.
“And in delivering change we must change too” and “recognize the incredible reality that we now speak as a One Nation Conservative Party,” he continued.
“As the nation hands us this historic mandate we must rise to the challenge and to the level of expectations.”
“Parliament must change so we in Parliament are working for you the British people,” Johnson added.
President Donald Trump’s win of the Democratic Party in 2017 was almost least expected. The elite, including the powerful media ran against Trump. But at the end, there emerged a message that the US preferred conservatism to being the choice of the world.
British Prime Minster, Boris Johnson appeared elated speaking in Downing Street of the UK election. He said he would seek to repay the trust placed in him by Labour supporters who had voted Conservative for the first time.
“We are going to unite and level up” – Boris Johnson said
Boris Johnson has said he hopes his party’s “extraordinary” election win will bring “closure” to the Brexit debate and “let the healing begin”.
Speaking in Downing Street, he said he would seek to repay the trust placed in him by Labour supporters who had voted Conservative for the first time.
He said he would not ignore those who opposed Brexit as he builds with Europe a partnership “of sovereign equals”.
The Tories have won a Commons majority of 80, the party’s largest since 1987.
The Conservatives’ victory in the 650th and final contest of the election – the seat of St Ives, in Cornwall – took their total number of MPs up to 365. Labour finished on 203, the SNP 48, Liberal Democrats 11 and the DUP eight.
Sinn Fein has seven MPs, Plaid Cymru four and Northern Ireland’s SDLP has two. The Green Party and NI’s Alliance Party have one each.
The Brexit Party – which triumphed in the summer’s European Parliament elections – failed to win any Westminster seats.
The Conservatives swept aside Labour in its traditional heartlands in the Midlands and the north of England and picked up seats across Wales, while holding off the Lib Dem challenge in many seats in the south of England.
‘Break from wrangling’
Speaking outside No 10, Mr Johnson thanked lifelong Labour supporters who deserted Jeremy Corbyn’s party and turned to the Conservatives, saying he would fulfil his pledge to take the UK out of the EU on 31 January.
“I say thank you for the trust you have placed in us and in me and we will work round the clock to repay your trust and to deliver on your priorities with a Parliament that works for you”.
Mr Johnson, who earlier accepted the Queen’s invitation to form a government, also addressed those who did not vote for the Conservatives and still want to remain in the EU.
“We in this One Nation Conservative government will never ignore your good and positive feelings of warmth and sympathy towards the other nations of Europe,” he said.
When they return to Westminster next week, MPs are due to begin the process of considering legislation paving the way for the UK to leave on 31 January. Talks about a future trade and security relationship will begin almost immediately.
Nevertheless, Mr Johnson said the UK “deserves a break from wrangling, a break from politics and a permanent break from talking about Brexit”. “I urge everyone to find closure and to let the healing begin.”
He said he would use his new-found parliamentary authority to bring the country together and “level up” opportunities, while he said he recognised that the NHS remained the “overwhelming priority” of the British people.
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the PM’s appeal for unity marked a striking change in tone to when he first became prime minister in July.
Jeremy Corbyn: “There is no such thing as Corbynism”
At 33%, Labour’s share of the vote is down around eight points on the 2017 general election and is lower than that achieved by former leader Neil Kinnock in 1992.
Mr Corbyn has said he will not fight another election as Labour leader and that he expects to stand down “early next year” when a successor has been chosen by the partyBut he insisted he had done all he could, adding that he had received “more personal abuse” from the media during the campaign than any previous prime ministerial candidate.
Senior Labour figures have sought to defend the party’s strategy, arguing that many of its policies were popular but that Brexit had crowded out all other issues for many voters.
Wes Streeting, the newly elected MP for Ilford North, said the party’s “far left” manifesto had jarred with the electorate and blaming Brexit was an attempt to “kneecap” credible centrist candidates such as Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry.
Meanwhile, Jo Swinson has quit as Liberal Democrat leader after losing her Dunbartonshire East seat to the SNP by 149 votes.
While she admitted her “unapologetic” pro-Remain strategy had not worked, she said she did not regret standing up for her “liberal values” and urged the party to “regroup and refresh” itself in the face of a “nationalist surge” in British politics.