Theresa May announcement of a snap general election on 8 June was a bombshell. It was not an u-turn but a somersault. It took everyone by surprise. She kept saying No! No! then she suddenly cynically said Yes!. It was a bolt out of the blue. It seems she was under immense pressure from the hard Brexit cabinet members to do so. The Brexiters are expecting a landslide victory because of the low poll rating of a divided and faction ridden Labour Party and weaker position of the other political parties. Theresa May reckons this election will be a walk-over with a bigger majority.
Labour incidentally has shot itself in the foot because of a deep rift between the majority of Labour Parliament Party members and the membership at large who support the embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. There is no love lost between these two Labour groups. Lib-Dem are still in the doldrums and are struggling, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is snapping at Theresa May’s to better deal for Scotland or face a second referendum. So looking at the conflicting opposition interests Theresa May has taken took a calculated risk in calling this snap election to get an upper hand over them.
The lame excuse given by Theresa May for calling the unexpected snap general election was that Labour threatened to vote against the final agreement, the “unelected” House of Lords was hostile to it, the Scotland opposed it, Lib Dems said they would grind it to a stand-still. Thus she was forced to reluctantly call an early general election. What she failed to mention was the real reason behind her announcement, which was that she could not rely on her party’s slim majority of 12 MPs to take her successfully through the hard Brexit negotiations. She said she needed a larger majority and a stronger mandate, certainty and stability to negotiate with the European Union, which she only could have by winning this election decisively.
On the other hand it is good opportunity for Labour to close ranks and unite to fight a vigorous election based on Labour values (NHS, Education and Equality), otherwise they will be handing over victory on a plate to the Tories. They should aim for honourable and sensible Brexit deal to protect British jobs, and businesses. No one knows which way the dice is going to fall. It could be worse or it could be better, that will depend how the British people will vote and not what the pollsters predict.
Baldev Sharma
Harrow
