Theresa dismayed; Conservative Party seen as a casino

During the past year the Western world has been rocked if not split apart by extremist right wing populism and liberal democracy, with Russia allegedly playing some role.  In Britain yesterday, the new Prime Minister Theresa May was obviously dismayed when the Conservative Party suffered a stunning setback, though it won a shaky 318 seats in the 650-seats House of Commons or Westminster.   

Many world news analysts described the Conservative Party as being like a casino. In June last year the then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron - though he had a comfortable majority in Parliament - took a major gamble by calling for a referendum on whether Britain should pull out of the European Union. Though most opinion polls predicted that Premier Cameron’s ‘remain’ camp would comfortably win the referendum, the result was a shocking upset with the so-called Brexit camp winning by a small majority. Mr. Cameron resigned immediately and the then Home Secretary Theresa May was elected to replace him, Ms. May who also was a ‘remain’ supporter, took a hard-line after she became Prime Minister and said she would take a tough stand at Brexit talk with European Union leaders. The talks were to begin this month with a deadline of two years to work out a deal.   

Saying she wanted to consolidate her position as Premier so that she could get the best deal for Britain, Premier May surprised the world on April 18 by calling for a snap General Election which was held on Thursday. Most opinion polls had showed she had a comfortable 20 percent lead over the Labour Party led by the controversial Jeremy Corbyn. But the official results, as announced around 3.30 pm (Sri Lanka time) yesterday showed that the Conservatives had won 318 seats, a loss of 12, while Labour had won 262, a gain of 30. With the results of all 650 seats now declared, no single party will be able to secure the 326 seats needed for an overall majority, with a hung parliament now confirmed, the Daily Telegraph reported. That means that Ms. May’s path to power will possibly require a deal to be done with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which increased its representation from eight to 10. The DUP has signalled it is ready to discuss working with the Conservative or Tories on issues such as Brexit and keeping the United Kingdom together. With the party in a position to hold the balance of power at Westminster, senior MP, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the DUP would be “serious players” in the hung parliament, telling the BBC: “This is perfect territory for the DUP because obviously if the Conservatives are just short of an overall majority it puts us in a very strong negotiating position and certainly that is one we would take up with relish,” the newspaper reported.   

Around 5.00 p.m. (Sri Lanka time) yesterday, Ms. May met Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace and sought permission to form a minority Government. She said later, she would stay on as Prime Minister with support from Northern  Ireland’s DUP.

Some analysts believe US President Donald Trump’s shocking upset victory in November last year may have had an impact on British voters. Britain is considered as the mother of parliamentary democracy with a moderate policy, checks and balances and a rejection of extremism on racial issues specially.   

The parallel with Sri Lanka is the gamble that failed when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa called an early Presidential Election on January 8, 2015—almost two years ahead of schedule. He suffered a stunning defeat to the rainbow coalition led by President Maithripala Sirisena and we hope the National Unity Government will take the right lessons from what happened in Britain. Most world economic analysts believe that another major reason for the backfiring of Ms. May’s gamble was the party’s austerity policies and the reduction of the budgetary allocations for vital areas such as health and education. That may be the main lesson for the National Unity Government here.