The United Kingdom will hold a general election on Thursday, December 12. Voters will not only decide who should be their next prime minister—Tory’s Boris Johnson or Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn—but also the fate of their nation, which isn’t only about Brexit. Should Corbyn become the next PM, Britain will remain in the European Union while undergoing a socialist revolution.
The most recent YouGov poll predicts that Johnson will win, and that his Conservative Party will become a majority in the Parliament, with 38 seats more than the opposition Labor Party. However, Johnson and his Conservative Party should not relax and completely rely on this prediction, as polls can be notoriously unreliable.
Just a few weeks ago, the same poll illustrated that Johnson’s Conservative Party led by as much as 68 seats. As election day gets closer, his party’s lead is shrinking, and that’s a troubling trend. Which party will win the election depends on how voters feel about four things.
1. Brexit, Obviously
The first is obviously Brexit. Since the 2016 historic vote to exit the EU, Britain has been the laughingstock of the world, because the majority of the British Parliament has actively sabotaged every effort to make Brexit happen. They voted down former Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal multiple times, and eventually May was forced to resign. They passed the “Benn Act” this year, stipulating that if the current Prime Minister Johnson couldn’t get the MPs to approve a new Brexit deal by October 19, he must request a three-month Brexit extension from the EU by 11 p.m. that day.
However, when Johnson, against all odds, brought home a newly negotiated and much better Brexit deal on October 18, the Parliament chose not to even vote on the deal on Saturday, October 19. Their inaction triggered the Benn Act, which forced Johnson to request yet another delay from the EU. The EU grudgingly extended the Brexit deadline to January 31, 2020, but the EU’s patience has run out.
The European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, said, “the uncertainty of Brexit has gone on for far too long. This extra time must deliver a way forward.” Sounds like an ultimatum.
The “leave” camp is more motivated than ever now. They are fed up with this Parliament and feel this election is their only chance to get Brexit done. Not only do they have to keep Johnson at No. 10 Downing Street, but also make his party a majority by voting out those MPs who have ignored the people’s will and have put the nation and millions of its people through three years of manufactured chaos and humiliation.
2. Is Remain Worth Antisemitic Socialism?
While the “leave” camp has a clear and straightforward choice, the choice for those “remainders” is much more complicated. They essentially have to decide which option is worse: leaving the EU, or having Corbyn in charge.
Therefore, the second factor that will influence the election outcome is whether a sufficient number of remainders decide that putting Corbyn and the Labor Party in charge is far worse than leaving the EU. Corbyn made the decision easier for them by publishing a Labor Party Manifesto recently, detailing how he plans to revolutionize Britain’s social and economic systems if he becomes the prime minister.
Like all socialists, Corbyn promised lots of free stuff: free broadband for all, delivered by partially nationalizing British Telecom; a £3 billion plan to offer adults in England free access to retraining; £75 billion to build 150,000 new council and social homes each year, within five years.
In health care, Corbyn promises free annual dental check-ups, free prescriptions, and free personal at-home care in England for those over 65 who are most in need of it; an annual budget increase of 4.3 percent for National Health System, and a lifetime cap on the maximum people have to pay for care.
Of course, Corbyn proposes “green” initiatives too: reinstating 3,000 bus routes that have been cut; setting up a £250 billion Green Transformation Fund, to be paid for through borrowing, to fund 300,000 new “green apprenticeships” and loans for people to buy electric cars. To please unions, he pledges an immediate 5 percent pay rise for government workers, with year-on-year above-inflation pay raises to follow and mandates for a “real living wage” of at least £10 an hour.
It is estimated that Corbyn will have to raise an additional £83 billion a year to fund these expensive programs. Few voters believe Corbyn can deliver all these outlandish promises.
However, Corbyn has expressed that he would make corporations and “the rich” pay, rather than the rest of the voters. He would raise corporate tax rate and impose a new financial transaction tax; increase dividend and interest taxes; impose a value-added tax on private schools; add a second homes tax equivalent to 200 percent of the property’s council tax bill; and increase income tax on those who make more than £80,000 a year. Clearly, the middle class in Britain will take the biggest financial hit under Corbyn’s socialist revolution.
Corbyn also promises to nationalize Britain’s key industries such as railroads, mail, water, and energy, which a government agency estimates would cost at least £196 billion initially, with future additional costs unknown.
Besides causing significant economic distress, Corbyn plans to transform the United Kingdom in other ways. He proposes to place a third of elected “worker representatives” on corporate boards, and to hire “human rights advisers” to set up a Social Justice Commission at the Foreign Office and make an inquiry into “fake news” in the media.
Many Brits voted for “remaining” in the EU because they believed that leaving the EU would cause disruptions to Britain’s economy and their quality of life. However, under Corbyn, the British people would not only experience far worse economic prospects, but also experience erosions to their political freedom.
3. Labour’s Open Antisemitism
The third factor the “remainers” have to wrestle with about a government under Corbyn is the Labor Party’s culture of antisemitism. Corbyn has been accused of not only unwilling to deal with antisemitism within his party but also of potentially sharing antisemitic views himself.
In an November 26 op-ed, Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, said Corbyn is unfit for the prime minister’s position, and called Corbyn’s failure to address antisemitism within the Labor Party “a failure to see this as a human problem rather than a political one. It is a failure of culture. It is a failure of leadership. A new poison – sanctioned from the top – has taken root in the Labour Party.”
He concluded by asking “every person to vote with their conscience. Be in no doubt, the very soul of our nation is at stake.” When Corbyn was asked about the rabbi’s op-ed, he said he welcomed a dialogue with the rabbi, but refused to apologize to British Jews.
Probably by Divine intervention, The Sunday Times obtained and published leaked files from the Labor Party that revealed how disturbing some of the Labor Party members’ antisemitic comments and behaviors are, exemplifying that Corbyn’s “zero tolerance” policy was a blatant lie. According to The Sunday Times, “Labour members likening Jewish people to killer viruses, labelling them ‘bent nose manipulative liars’ and calling for the ‘extermination of every Jew on the planet.'”
When facing complaints about fellow members’ antisemitic comments and behaviors, party leadership has been slow to act. Some cases have been left unresolved for a long time, and others were resolved with a “slap-on-the-wrist” kind of lenient sanction.
Here is an example from the leaked files: “One Labour member from Nottingham wrote that ‘Jews represent a viral infection that need to be completely eliminated’ and said he wanted the ‘complete extinction of all Jews.’ It took more than 10 months for the party to expel him after his case was first reported in 2018.”
After the Times reported on the leaked files, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, another diehard socialist, apologized to British Jews for the first time, and admitted that the party’s poor handling of its members’ antisemitic comments and behaviors has damaged its prospects in the upcoming general election.
4. The Recent London Terror Attack
The fourth factor that will influence how Brits will vote on Thursday is the recent terrorist attack in London, in which a supposedly rehabilitated jihadist stabbed two people to death and wounded three more before he was shot to death by police.
Corbyn has more than a soft spot for terrorists. He admitted in his own words: “I’ve been involved in opposing anti-terror legislation ever since I first went into Parliament in 1983.” He condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden. Recently, when pressed by BBC host Andrew Neil in an interview (prior to the Dec. 1 London Bridge attack), Corbyn refused to say whether he would give the order to shoot an ISIS terrorist who refused to surrender.
On crime and security issues, voters usually trust the Conservative Party more than the Labor Party. After the London Bridge attack, a poll showed that “the Conservatives have solid public leads over Labor — by 36 percent to 19 percent on law and order, and 39 percent to 15 percent on defense.” Johnson has vowed to increase the number of police and impose harsher sentences on dangerous criminals. Since this event took place at a time so close to the general election, it may influence voters who prioritize security, law, and order to vote for Johnson and the Conservative Party.
This upcoming election is much bigger than just Brexit. Voters face two starkly contrasting choices, two different ideologies, and two very different futures for Britain. If the “remainders” let their desire to keep the UK within the EU to override their judgment and conscience, voting for Corbyn on December 12 might be the biggest mistake of their lives.
