Why should it be that in huge and vital areas of British life it is considered a dirty word to be a Conservative?”
Boris’ opponents were played and they never even realised it. They failed to grasp that the most salient issue for ordinary British voters is not any one specific policy, but the simple question of whether voting ever changes anything. In the unedifying spectacle of their efforts to block Brexit, culminating in the Benn Act, Parliament’s remain alliance set about demonstrating to an appalled public that if it were left to them- voting would never change anything, ever. An ever-growing number of issues have been ring-fenced by mechanisms that are not easily subject to change by normal democratic processes. These are the unaccountable quangos and EU treaties against which, in the words of Jean-Claude Juncker, “There can be no democratic choice”. The electoral fightback against this has been the path to victory.
The ugly story of elite resistance to the Leave vote after the 2016 referendum has done nothing to reassure the electorate that anything had changed. Voters have been treated to salvo after salvo from well-funded, well connected insiders hell-bent on retaining their prime means of evading democratic accountability on favoured policies. This culminated in Boris’ unofficial election campaign. Throughout September and October this year, the nailbiting finale to the Brexit drama saw Boris’ team baiting Parliamentary Remainers into deploying every means at their disposal to bypass parliament. They tried to use the judicial system as well as every constitutional trick in the book to stop the EU referendum result being implemented. The brazenness of this effort cut through even to that majority of the electorate which is largely apolitical. It has, quite rightly, triggered outrage.
Most people in the UK have no avenues for political influence other than their vote. No seats on quangos, no friends in thinktanks, no contacts in the media or in lobbying firms or Parliament. Is it any wonder ordinary voters, even in such obdurately Labour constituencies as Leigh and Bolsover, have handed a thumping majority to the only party that appears willing to do as voters ask? Aided by Corbyn’s unappetising combination of elite wokeness and hardleft anti-Semitism, the Conservatives have taken working-class constituencies some of which have been Labour for decades. Many of these felt abandoned by a Labour Party that considers their small-c social conservative outlook old fashioned and their votes as a given. These communities wanted their voice back, and were horrified by the prospect of an ostensibly left-wing alliance working in plain sight in Parliament to deny them this.
Why should it be that in huge and vital areas of British life it is considered a dirty word to be a Conservative? Why are more than 85 per cent of University lecturers Left-wing? Why is every BBC and Channel 4 political programme so painfully politically correct and left leaning? The response (a huge Gasp of dismay) to the 10.00 pm exit poll on the Channel 4 studio audience was very revealing. Where do they find these audiences? Clearly not from the hard working person on the street, they are too probably busy and too far away from the metropolitan bubble to give up their evenings? Why do the masterships of so many academic institutions go to former Labour cabinet ministers and editors of left supporting newspapers and media enterprises? Why did the Civil Service only ever leak with a pro-Remain bias? This, and the Left’s control of so many quangos and arts organisations, must be addressed. If the Left continues in control of all of the commanding heights of our political culture except for the House of Commons, they will be able to pour their anti-capitalist bile into the minds of our youth for another half-decade before the next election. Already the Left is closing down free speech in our universities, so complete is their control. The Italian Marxist political scientist Antonio Gramsci argued that the Left did not have to win election after election, but instead only needed to take over all the key institutions of the State and then indoctrinate the people. That has been happening to such an extent that no fewer than one-third of the electorate voted for a pro-IRA, anti-Semitism-stained Marxist to become prime minister on Thursday.
The idea of Freeports and significant investment in northern cities to promote entrepreneurs, new tech ideas and investment opportunities seems very much as though Boris’ team are cutting their cloth according to the Isle of Man’s tailoring.
We will instead have a politics where pop stars and actors do their thing and sing and act, rather than lecturing us on how to vote against the Conservatives, and where has-been politicians who had their day in the limelight decades ago and those recently washed away in a cleansing tide of democracy, realise at last that we are definitely not interested in their bitter, tiresome gripes against the democratic will as expressed by this election and the vote to leave the EU in 2016. We need Boris to institute a Gramscian countermarch through the institutions, liberating one after the other from the grip of the left. The economic and political battles are not the whole struggle. In five years’ time it should be possible to be openly a conservative in the BBC, a Scottish university, an NHS Trust, the Channel 4 board, or even a major trade union. So how does this affect us here in the Isle of Man? A successful Corbyn outcome might have benefitted the Isle of Man by precipitating a mass exodus of money and talent from the UK.
On the upside I don’t see an early resumption of hostilities in what could have been a constitutional crisis over company substance requirements led by MPs Mitchell and Hodge. I suspect that MoneyVal and other EU supranational bodies will have less inclination to accept that our rules and Regulations comply with various EU and OECD rules on a variety of subjects that lie close to the financial industry of the Isle of Man- AML for example. But a new Boris Britain? The idea of Freeports and significant investment in northern cities to promote entrepreneurs, new tech. The ideas and investment opportunities seems very much as though Boris’ team are cutting their cloth according to the Isle of Man’s tailoring. The Isle of Man is in danger of being side-lined as Westminster tries to create international low tax powerhouses out of northern cities combined with a good quality of life- in fact just like Douglas.