Boris Johnson landslide, Corbyn quits as election leader

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson won an overall majority for his Conservative Party in Parliament on Thursday, as general election results suggested his campaigning on one issue — Brexit — had paid off for the party among voters.

Mr. Johnson should have the support he needs to take Britain out of the European Union early next year, a huge victory for him after months of division, vitriol and chaos at home over how to complete the divorce with the Continent.

Now Mr. Johnson, whose bare-knuckled tactics in the Brexit battle provoked a rebellion in his own party and a rebuke from the Supreme Court, is poised to lead Britain through its most significant transition in 50 years.

At his constituency early Friday, he said that it looked as though his government had received “a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done,” and in a subsequent speech in central London, he vowed that it would happen “on time, by the 31st of January.”
“Let’s go out and get on with it,” Mr. Johnson said.

Updating its exit poll with official results, the BBC projected that the Conservatives would win about 363 seats in the House of Commons, and that the opposition Labour Party would win about 203: about a 75-seat majority for the Conservatives, when the smaller parties are factored in.

Holding a minority government and facing intractable opposition in Parliament, Mr. Johnson gambled that a general election could reshuffle the cards in his favor, and win support for the Brexit plan he negotiated with the European Union. His predecessor, Theresa May, similarly sought to improve her position with a general election in 2017 — only to see her plan backfire.

This time, the vote seems likely to influence Britain’s immediate future.

It seemed certain to quash what hope “Remainers” still had for a second referendum. It would free Mr. Johnson from relying on lawmakers from Northern Ireland who had propped up his government — and opposed the terms of his Brexit plan. And it was a crushing blow to the Labour Party, which is projected to have one of its worst defeats in decades.

Speaking to supporters in the borough of Islington early Friday morning, Jeremy Corbyn said he would not lead the Labour Party in “any future general election campaign,” acknowledging the emphatic defeat his party suffered.

But Mr. Corbyn said he would stay on as leader for the time being, saying he wanted to ensure a process “of reflection on this result and on the policies that the party will take going forward.”

He added, “I will lead the party during that period to ensure that discussion takes place, and we move on into the future.”

With almost all seats decided, the opposition Labour Party was headed for a historically bad defeat, an outcome so damaging that it has put Mr. Corbyn under huge pressure to resign. In his statement, Mr. Corbyn called it “a very disappointing night.”
The Conservatives’ significant margin over Labour will be a difference the opposition will have to live with for as long as five years, and it could take a decade or more to overcome, analysts said.

The centrist Liberal Democrats, who campaigned against Brexit and were once touted as potential kingmakers in Parliament, also experienced major losses. Their defeated candidates included the party leader, Jo Swinson, who lost her seat to a member of the Scottish National Party.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and Mr. Corbyn’s close ally, told the BBC on Thursday night that the result was “extremely disappointing.”

The centrist Liberal Democrats, who campaigned against Brexit and were once touted as potential kingmakers in Parliament, also experienced major losses. Their defeated candidates included the party leader, Jo Swinson, who lost her seat to a member of the Scottish National Party.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and Mr. Corbyn’s close ally, told the BBC on Thursday night that the result was “extremely disappointing.”

As to Mr. Corbyn’s future, he promised “appropriate decisions,” but blamed the projected outcome on the election’s being dominated by Brexit rather than Mr. Corbyn’s agenda of nationalizations, tax increases and an enormous rise in social spending.

If Labour’s seat tally dips as low as projected, that would make it the party’s weakest performance since before World War II — worse than the 1983 result achieved by Michael Foot, who offered the country a left-wing manifesto that was described by one Labour politician at the time as “the longest suicide note in history”

Having failed to win two consecutive general elections, Mr. Corbyn’s position looks increasingly untenable. The last party leader to fail twice was Neil Kinnock, who resigned after losing general elections in 1987 and 1992.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party wasn’t the only projected big winner in the general election on Thursday. The other, the exit poll says, was Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, known as the S.N.P.

That could spell trouble for Mr. Johnson down the road.

The S.N.P.’s projected win of 49 of Scotland’s 59 seats would exceed all expectations and put the party in a position of almost total dominance in Scottish politics. That would mean that once Mr. Johnson breaks the deadlock on Brexit, he may well confront a growing constitutional crisis over Scottish independence.

Mr. Johnson is unpopular in Scotland, where his bumbling, upper-class, English persona tends to go down badly. But the Tories had expected to hold many of their 13 seats there by playing up their opposition to Scottish independence, on which public opinion there is about evenly split.

The results suggested, however, that most Scottish voters placed greater emphasis on stopping Brexit. With that now certain to proceed, the tensions between London and Edinburgh are almost certain to increase.

The results would be the second best in the S.N.P.’s history, a few seats short of the 56 it secured in 2015 before it fell back to 35 two years later.
Mr. Johnson has ruled out the possibility of another vote on Scottish independence, which was rejected in a 2014 referendum. But Ms. Sturgeon, citing the changed circumstances introduced by Brexit, has demanded the right to hold another vote.

I hope everyone voted Tory yesterday...

Looks like the angry hateful people who wish cancer upon others didn't get their way.

Looks like the angry hateful people who wish cancer upon others didn't get their way.

Looks like the angry hateful people who wish cancer upon others didn't get their way.

While not a British citizen, how can half of your fellow countrymen and women all be devolved?

It seems to me that in both US and UK there is a resentment against voters who do not abandon their own interests, in favor of those less fortunate. I am supportive of those in need of disability benefits. I have often mentioned my one little granddaughter who is autistic. She is six and receives $800/mo in disability. That began when the Liberals were in power and remains while the Conservatives are in power. She gets Medicaid, etc... I don't see how my vote for Trump has harmed her.

This is how the current UK system appears to me, an outsider: If the UK doesn't overhaul the NHS and stop allowing so many to take advantage of those services (open borders), they are going to run out of money. They have overloaded the system with too many people and the plan is always tax, or revenue generated by EU participation. When the land mass isn't getting any bigger, the hospitals aren't getting any bigger, the providers are not superhuman can't handle the unlimited need, even if they had the money. There are more people swamping the UK, stressing the system further while putting nothing back into the economy, only taking from it. So, in essence the average UK citizen lives to put a roof over their heads, eat and know that they can be treated within 3-6 months if they get cancer of the butthole (which isn't all that great a time frame to begin with). Forgive me for being so unevolved, that's not my idea of life. I would argue that half of the UK population has lowered the bar so much, they see the hope for something more or better than mere survival as selfish. Just how an outsider views it...