By Arun Srivastava
Mocked and derided from the beginning of his career as the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has transcended expectations. He has achieved the unexpected. The individual who began his campaign to be Labour leader as a 100-1 outsider, and was systematically despised and derided as unelectable, not only increased the number of Labour seats, a prospect seen by many as unthinkable when the election was called on 18 April, but even made the powerful prime minister, May to bite the dust.
Jeremy may not have achieved the unthinkable, to emerge as the possible claimant for the office of the prime minister, but he defied the expectations of opponents and pollsters with a Labour result that may not necessarily put him in Downing Street, but could deliver a hung parliament rather than the anticipated cull of his MPs. What was most important that he could achieve this feat in the face of bitter criticism not only from his opponents but from severe leg pulling by some of his own labour comrades.
The primary reason for his triumph is he understood that voters want to be inspired rather than lectured; the young Britons aspire to usher in a new political order. Even while the elections were approaching fast, his detractors tried to spread the impression around that Corbyn disposes what May proposes. But unfortunately for his adversaries their tactics failed; there were no takers for this snide. It was for his personal appeal that the Labour registered a ten per cent increase in its support while Tory suffered 5 per cent decline.
Performance of Corbyn also cautions the political establishment not to deride and lampoon the political opponents. We have been witnessing politicians practicising this nature of politics. The leader of the ruling party, precisely the prime minister taking nasty jibes at the opponent and questioning his political acumen and credibility. Corbyn’s rebuff to May should serve as the right lesson to learn. They must not treat them as super humans, as Corbyn’s detractors disparaged him. No one knows the mood of the people. A five per cent swing in people’s mood jeopardized the future of the British prime minister.
With a hung Parliament, May and his close aides have already put their efforts to salvage the situation so that she continues to hold the office, obviously with the support from some other party, but coinciding with this move a significant number of Tory MPs have started a campaign for her removal. Their argument has been; she has failed to read the mind of the voters and motivate them to stand by her and vote for her. It is believed that the Tory MPs have already converged on the new leader, who will head the coalition government. By the early hours of Friday morning, pressure was mounting on the prime minister to quit. Tory MPs nurse “ she ought to go”
Jeremy Corbyn who is attributed to have changed the face of the British politics and rewrite the political history of UK has called for May to resign after hung parliament is confirmed. He said people ‘have had enough of austerity politics’ as pressure mounts on prime minister. Politics isn’t going back into the box where it was before. What’s happened is people have said they’ve had quite enough of austerity politics.” It is quite significant that May tasted the defeat just 11 days ahead of Brexit talks begin. True enough the general election result will be seen as a disaster in Brussels, where officials have been eager to get on with Brexit negotiations with a prime minister in command of her party.
This defeat has no doubt denied her the authority to begin the Brexit talk. May had called the election to assert her authority. She wanted a mandate. The mandate she has got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. The Corbyn jolt to May could be gauged from her own observation: “It is bad. It was a dreadful night. I’ve lost some excellent and remarkable friends. This is a very bad moment for the Conservative party and we need to take stock and our leader needs to take stock.” The former chancellor George Osborne described it as a “catastrophic” result. May’s defeat also owes to the huge societal divisions. Unfortunately the Tories preferred to ignore the emerging trend.
The failure of the prime minister’s election gamble, taken at a stage when the party was more than 20 points ahead in the polls, triggered uncertainty on the eve of Brexit talks, causing a drop in the value of sterling and pound. Corbyn sustained a string of attacks from Conservatives as well as from the media; a number of newspapers called on their readers to reject him in Thursday’s poll. They also accused Corbyn as being terrorist sympathizers.
This verdict reflects the peoples’ endorsement of his capabilities to understand and comprehend the existing political and economic condition of the country as well his alternate model to meet the challenges. His manifesto was decried by his political opponents. But the verdict is the manifestation of peoples’ approval of his programmes and policies. The young people have undoubtedly rallied behind him for his call to overhaul the education system and bring education at the doorstep of the people to empower them. The creation of job and throwing away the pretense of being the yes man of America has been widely appreciated.
Just a few weeks ago Theresa May set out on the mission to grind Labour into dust with a snap election whose express purpose was to deliver a crushing majority. In fact three weeks ago, her party had 20-point lead. But the more Corbyn unpacked his policies the lead started to narrow. However the people sent the rejection slip to her. Whoever forms the next government will still arguably have a mandate for Brexit, thanks to the referendum. During referendum Corbyn had campaigned on a soft Brexit platform stressing continued access to the single market.
Behind the façade of wisdom an insinuation campaign has been launched against Corbyn for last two years, but when the said wisdom was put before the national electorate, the Labour party emerged victorious under Corbyn, he was electable. Those who held the wisdom were the scientists. To take Labour’s prospects seriously under Corbyn was to abandon being taken seriously yourself. If May manages to get a majority, her leadership would still be weakened, as the Conservatives had been hoping for a clear cut lead in seats of up to 100. But the Britons denied her.
May toured many Labour-held target constituencies for winning over the pro-Brexit heartlands. But unfortunately her proposed shake-up of social care, which meant people would have to pay for care in their homes out of the value of their property, went down extremely badly with voters. Even her move to abandon the triple lock on pensions and withdraw winter fuel payments from the wealthy failed to get support. While Carbyn was accused of coming out with the anti-people and unpopular policies, but in the true sense it now transpires that Tory manifesto failed to catch the peoples’ imagination as it was full of unpopular policies and lacked of incentives. (IPA Service)