The Great Betrayal by Rod Liddle

Author:Rod Liddle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781472132376
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2019-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

8

THE CALLING OF THE 2017 ELECTION

A Downing Street spokesperson told a briefing of journalists in Westminster on Monday morning: ‘There is no change in our position on an early general election. There is not going to be a general election.

Independent, 20 March 2017

In the mid-morning of 18 April 2017, the Westminster press corps was informed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister would be making an important statement in a short while. The hacks didn’t have a clue what was going on, so all they could do was speculate, on air and off. Most assumed Theresa May was ill – maybe something to do with her diabetes – and that she might be stepping down, either temporarily or permanently. They certainly didn’t think she was going to call a general election because she had told them repeatedly that she would not consider such a thing.

And so, just before lunchtime, Theresa May announced to the country that there would be a general election on 8 June. She stood just outside the front door to 10 Downing Street, wearing a smart grey suit that betokened seriousness and grave import. She spoke with the earnest and implacable confidence of a village idiot and mentioned the word ‘stability’ several times. There is a string on Theresa May’s back, hidden from the cameras. If you pull it, she’ll say ‘stability’, over and over again, and sometimes ‘certainty’. Someone had given it a good tug that lunchtime.

This announcement of a snap election took everyone, not just the Westminster journos, by surprise for a couple of reasons. First, we are now supposed to have fixed-term parliaments (with the next one therefore due in 2020) and, second, as I mentioned, she had spent the last six months assuring anyone who enquired that there was not the remotest prospect of her calling an election because it would not be in the country’s interests to do so. What the country needed at this moment in time, she would go on to say, as the cameras rolled, was stability and certainty – and you don’t get that sort of thing by calling an election. Her office last denied there would be a snap general election less than one month before she actually called one, as you can see from the quote above.

Why did she call it, then? Simple answer: to provide the country with more stability and certainty, she explained. She had just chaired a meeting of the cabinet and they were all agreed, she kind of implied just outside No. 10: we must have an election. This decision was presented to the public as a case of the Prime Minister, representing Brexit, versus parliament, representing remain. The Augean stables needed clearing out, to give her a clearer majority and therefore a stronger mandate to continue negotiations with the EU. This was to be a Brexit election, then. Except that it wasn’t. Brexit was the dog that didn’t bark throughout the entire, lamentable campaign. But it was also her attempt to

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