Jingle all the way…

The winter wonderland has generated a romantic euphoria in the United Kingdom a fortnight before Christmas. Boris Johnson and the Conservative party have won a famous victory in the third election in as many years. The contentious issue of Brexit is now almost a certainty by 31 January… close to four years after the affirmative referendum, albeit with a wafer-thin margin. That momentous development, eventually at the threshold of attaining fruition, must transcend the superlatives that have greeted the triumph ~ a “great victory” and a “landslide win”.

The Tories can now boast a sizeable majority with 365 seats ~ up from the 48-margin in the previous Parliament. Mr Johnson will now be in a position to govern for a full term with a working majority, a distinct advantage that the Conservatives had not achieved for 32 years. On closer reflection, there are two facets to the victory. It is a party triumph not the least because the Tories have recovered their claim to be Britain’s most enduring governing force.

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Equally, is it a personal triumph for Mr Johnson, who seized the opportunity of yet another election and with spectacular effect. Contretemps there will be on the freshly paved path to Brexit, and even after it materialises. Buoyed with the numbers in the House of Commons, it would be reasonable to expect that Mr Johnson will be in a position to overcome the odds, should they crop up. In the immediate perspective, he has verily choreographed the political map.

For now, Labour and the Lib Dems, once partners together in governance, have been relegated to the also-ran category with a distinctly stronger psephological swing. Brexit will pass and the political class will be riveted to Scottish independence. This election and its aftermath will thus open a new political landscape, verily a new phase in Britain’s constitutional history. In terms of historical definition, the United Kingdom thus showcases the difference between an event and a phase.

Mr Johnson now has a mandate to complete the process signalled by the 2016 referendum and to take Britain out of the European Union. Regretfully, so convincing a mandate had eluded Brexit’s brainchild ~ Mrs Theresa May. It is the way history often works. A critical feature of the election must be the denouement that has been suffered by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. More accurately, the party’s 203 seats is its lowest total since 1935. In a span of 18 years, Labour has lost more than 50 per cent of the seats it won in 2001.

The losses were nationwide. This dismal performance reflects mistrust in Mr Corbyn. Labour’s manifesto pledges have turned out to be unconvincing. The other factor is also, of course, the intra-party divisions over Brexit. Has there been an erosion in the party’s traditional support base ~ the middle class and the working class? Maybe Labour needs a new leader. And that is perhaps yet another parable of this election.