Theresa May’s Coalition of Chaos

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn, moral victor of the General Election, and possibly soon to be Prime Minister?

In last week’s blog I wrote about the emerging chasm between scientifically and socially responsible governments and reality denying nationalistic despots. Britain now has a weak and unstable minority Tory government dependent on the backing of the DUP. The DUP are a very weird bunch who dismiss climate change and evolution, are virulently homophobic, anti abortion and socially regressive, and deeply connected to protestant paramilitary terrorism. Those Tories who have more scientifically and socially responsible attitudes must be deeply unhappy with Theresa May’s leadership. I do not expect this government to last very long.

Climate change and other macro ecological symptoms of contemporary consumerist culture were hardly mentioned throughout the campaign, with the predictable and honourable exception of the Green Party. Caroline Lucas did increase her majority, but tragically no other Green MP’s were elected.

The case for Proportional Representation is overwhelming. The DUP got ten MP’s from just 292,316 votes, whereas the Greens got just one MP from 525,371 votes. All six of Cornwall’s MP’s are Tories, yet they got less than 50% of the county’s votes. With PR the UK would now probably have a progressive, scientifically and socially literate coalition government, offering far greater strength and stability than the hapless Theresa May can hope to achieve.

The result is a personal victory for Jeremy Corbyn. Despite the most blatant mudslinging from the Tory press he has led Labour to greater success than most people thought possible just a couple of weeks ago. Out canvassing in Herefordshire and Bristol I found a strong degree of enthusiasm for him that I’ve never seen for any leader of one of the main parties. Many people who had never voted before did so because of him and the sense of hope that he embodies.

The emerging progressive alliance has notched up some successes: sadly not nearly enough. I had hoped Dr Louise Irvine of the National Health Action Party would beat Jeremy Hunt in South West Surrey, and it would have been good to have seen a few more Tories lose their seats to LibDems and Greens. With Theresa May leading a weak and unstable government another election seems very probable in the not too distant future and a better government may yet emerge.

Carole Cadwalladr and a number of other excellent investigative journalists have been doing great work uncovering the web of dark money that is so corrupting the democratic process in countless countries. The DUP seems to have been the recipient of rather a lot of this dubious funding. (See Ramsay & Geoghegan, also Monbiot). Now that they are pivotal in government no doubt more information will emerge. Negotiating a Brexit deal now seems impossible given the corrupt and illegitimate nature of this Tory-DUP coalition of chaos.

2 thoughts on “Theresa May’s Coalition of Chaos

  1. len marlow

    It is important to take the idea of PR forward and its clear Jeremy believes in local representation so it is not on his agenda. But the house of Lords is on his agenda and a good step forward would be to make the Lords representative:
    the house of Lords should be a reflection of any general election and so the total votes should be divided amongst, say, around 500 seats in the Lords in proportion to the votes cast. This would mean 100,000 votes before a party could hold a seat. This would have put 11 green representatives in the Lords in 2015 (and 11 UKIP representatives). There may be still a place for “elders” which could be limited to 100 ex MP’s.
    One of the big pluses would be that the public would be engaged in attempting to elect MP’s because even if their voice was elected they would be influencing the make up of the Lords. Slowly there would be more parties and hence a better representation would appear in House of commons.

    I also think MP’s salaries should reflect their role and so should be at the national average wage. This would discourage career politicians and bring passion and service back to the job.

    Reply
    1. Richard Post author

      Hi Len

      Some systems of PR do combine local representation with being proportional, and I wish Jeremy Corbyn would work with Make Votes Matter to help get something he is happy with for the House of Commons. You may be right that the House of Lords is the better place to start.

      Reply

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