A Thumping Victory

I feel sorry for British voters that their two major parties are represented by the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit.  At least Scots had the SNP as an alternative, which they overwhelming voted into the British Parliament, setting up what very well could be another secession referendum next year.

Boris got what he wanted, a yes vote from the English and Welsh people that Lower Britain should withdraw from the European Union.  The low countries voted Tories in by a yuge percentage.  The largest ever seen since the Thatcher years.  This finally forced Jeremy to step down from his horrible leadership of the Labor Party, which saw his party blow a golden opportunity to regain control of the Parliament.

Look who's gloating!  Given how well the Brexit vote worked for him back in 2016, little wonder Trump (a.k.a Mr. Brexit) sees the snap general election as a referendum on his own administration.  He is not alone in this opinion.  Even Mayor Bloom sees the British vote as an ominous foretelling of next year's general election in the US, calling it a "canary in a coal mine."

You can expect these kinds of reactions these days because politics have become a reality show of the lowest order.  Everyone overreacts to everything, much like the woman yelling at a cat memes.  You can make your own meme out of this situation.

There is quite a bit wrong with all this doom and gloom scenario, at least from the Democratic point of view.  An entirely different scenario set up this special election.  Boris was unable to get the votes he needed to get his Brexit deal through Parliament, especially after he had tossed out nearly two dozen conservative MPs, so he threw a Hail Mary in calling for a new general election. 

Boris was so sure the will of the people was behind him that he took Brexit back to the countryside.  He sheared sheep, chased chickens and paraded around in funny hats.  The Lower Brits ate it up.  Here was their man of the people, their scruffy little urchin made good.  All a dour Jeremy Corbyn could do was look on, as he was no match for the charm offensive put on by Boris.

Why more Brits didn't vote for the Liberal Democrats is beyond me.  The Libs did very well in the EU Parliament elections, winning 16 seats, but all they could muster were 11 seats in the UK General Election.  In the end, the Lib Dems and Labor cancelled each other out, whereas Nigel Farage joined forces with Boris Johnson to mop up in local elections.

Part of the problem is how these seats are divvied out.  As you can see from the results, the Tories won an astounding 365 seats, or 56% of the chamber.  They did this with only 43.6 per cent of the popular vote.  Put another way, the Conservative Party won nearly twice as many seats as the Labor Party (365 - 202) with only a percentage difference of 11.5 between them (the voting share of the Liberal Democrats).  The SNP scored an even better return on their miniscule 3.9 per cent share of the popular vote, given the size of the Scottish voting block in the British Parliament.

This general election victory doesn't in anyway reflect the actual feelings of Brits toward Brexit.  All it shows is that the Tories did their math better than the Labor Party and scored more seats in local elections.  London overwhelmingly voted for Labor, but is just a little island of red in Lower Britain.  The colors are reversed in the UK. You thought our Electoral College was bad!

It doesn't matter, Boris is now cuddling his recently adopted dog and claiming he has a mandate to exit the EU forthwith.  Tally ho Little Britain!  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.