The Best of British Luck !

The British general election is over and there is no doubt it delivered a resounding win for prime minister Boris Johnson.  The Conservatives surged to a plurality of seats not experienced since the reign of Margaret Thatcher and that delivered a clear mandate for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

Depending on how you view the result, it either changed everything - or it changed nothing !  The terms under which Brexit will happen are yet to be negotiated and when they are independent Britain will have to learn to live in a world where financial success depends on what trading terms it can establish with the rest of the world.  There is every reason to think that the EU countries will have good reason to make things difficult to reinforce the solidarity of the trading block and discourage other countries of thinking of leaving.

Britain has a monopoly on financial services from the days of empire and London is clearly the financial capital of Europe.  Britain has an entirely different currency to the rest of Europe and there is no doubt that both France and Germany will seek to dismantle that monopoly in favour of their own financial centres.  That will put at risk a huge quantity of very well paying jobs centred on the city of London.

The other big unanswered question is the future of Scotland ?  The Conservatives made small gains north of Hadrian's Wall but the vast majority of Scots held firm to Nicola Sturgeon's SNP and she is demanding another referendum on Scottish independence.  Boris Johnson has vowed to block that and he has the numbers to achieve that but probably at the cost of the sort of insurgency that has wracked Spain when a similar bid for independence for Barcelona led to intervention by the army. The fact that the SNP won 48 of the 59 seats in Scotland gives a clear view of Scottish loyalties.

Then there is the Irish question  ?   There are elements within the IRA which would welcome a return to the " Troubles " and the stability in Ireland is only skin deep. Johnson may manage to cobble together some sort of compromise on that border question but a British ruled enclave will be an affront to Irish sovereignty as lone as it remains.  It seems to be a case of an unmovable object meeting an irresistible force in the minds of both sides.

Perhaps the greatest loser in this election was the Labor party. Jeremy Corbyn, its leader with nationalistic aspirations was utterly destroyed and has vowed to resign.  A lot of Labor voters cast a vote for the Conservatives for the first time in their lives.  That changer of allegiance is only temporary and should Johnson turn to Thatcher characteristics Labor could revive massively under a new, charismatic leader.

Brexit set Britain on a collision with its own destiny.  A deeply divided country made a decision without a clue about what the decision would deliver and not even Boris Johnson can accurately  predict how the country will emerge five years from now.   For the people of Britain it is a matter of waiting to see what the Boris era delivers  !