Good morning, America! We had an election here in the UK yesterday. It was a huge win for Boris Johnson and the Tories. Here’s my best guess of what happens next. (Thread) 
(UK Twitter today is consumed by the causes of Labour’s defeat; it’s a dumpster fire of despond and recrimination, with centrists attacking leftists and vice versa. Let’s focus instead on the likely effects of Johnson’s victory.)
1. The UK will leave the EU in the coming weeks. The last hope for Remain - a Labour government and a second referendum - is extinguished. I am now paying out on Brexit bets, sorry for the delay.
2. The UK’s departure will be a ‘Hard Brexit’: significant divergence from EU standards & rules, an end to free movement of people to/from Europe, alignment with (weaker) US food & safety standards. This will likely happen at or soon after the end of 2020. ecfr.eu/article/commen…
Some explaining on this one: the deal Johnson negotiated in October (which will now sail through parliament next Friday) provides for a transition period until the end of 2020 in which the UK remains closely aligned with the EU. fullfact.org/europe/boris-j…
At that point, Johnson will have three options:
(i) Reach a trade agreement with the EU keeping the UK close to the former.
(ii) Reach a trade agreement which recognises that the UK will diverge considerably.
(iii) Walk away under WTO rules, aka ‘No Deal’.
(i) Reach a trade agreement with the EU keeping the UK close to the former.
(ii) Reach a trade agreement which recognises that the UK will diverge considerably.
(iii) Walk away under WTO rules, aka ‘No Deal’.
Some big-beast journalists this morning have suggested that Johnson’s big majority will allow him to unveil his true sympathies and negotiate a soft Brexit. This is, to my eyes, wishful thinking.
Even if you believed in a gentler Johnson (and you would have to believe, there’s not much evidence), it’s crazy to suggest that the PM could push through a final deal that fails to deliver what Nigel Farage et al. have demanded.
To remind you, the last three Tory PMs have gotten progressively closer to Farage, and more successful as they’ve done so. Cameron caved to Farage’s demand for an EU referendum; May accepted Brexit but wasn’t sure about the hardest version; Johnson has given Farage everything.
If Johnson now tries to soften Brexit, he can expect the forces he’s unleashed and legitimised — anger and xenophobia on a colossal scale - to overwhelm him. He won’t do that, because he mostly cares about himself.
So expect a Hard Brexit early in Johnson’s term. Best case: we get chlorinated chicken and a caffeine jolt of Singapore-style casino banking. Worst case: huge trading disruption, economic meltdown, civil unrest. Certainly the ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan isn’t going to wear well.
3. Scotland will leave the UK. The Scottish Nationalist Party has scored another amazing win in this election, and the argument for independence would be compelling even if Britain weren’t about to immolate itself with a Hard Brexit. theguardian.com/politics/2019/…
Johnson will claim that only Westminster has the power to grant another referendum (as it did in 2014) and he won't allow one. If he is foolish enough to hold to this line, expect huge protests (and more civil unrest) as Scots stake their legitimate claim to independence.
Side note: for progressives in the rest of the UK, the loss of Scotland will be dreadful. But many of Labour’s promises in this election were already reality in Scotland (free prescription medicine, free college tuition, etc) - one reason Labour struggles to break through there.
It’s really hard for a progressive to make the case that Scotland should carry on having _any_ connection with a (mostly) English government which is far to the right of Scotland. With the wipeout of Labour AND the certainty of a hard Brexit, Scotland’s departure is certain.
4. Northern Ireland will be placed under enormous pressure. Johnson tweaked May’s deal by ensuring a border down the Irish Sea when the UK diverges from the EU in tariffs & regulations. This will clearly impact on the politics of the island of Ireland. bbc.co.uk/news/election-…
A crucial element of last night’s result: nationalist parties in Northern Ireland inched ahead of unionist parties for the first time. As with Scotland, Brexit may accelerate a longer trend towards a united Ireland. irishtimes.com/news/politics/…
That’s prob. the best case scenario; worst-case is that Johnson’s Brexit logic threatens the peace process, pushing hardline unionists & nationalists into a resumption of armed struggle. That’s not something one should mention lightly but this election has heightened that risk.
5. The UK will become even less safe for communities of colour, with a resumption or acceleration of functionally/formally racist policies like stop and search, a 'crackdown' on the traveller community plus further Islamophobia from leading Tories. gal-dem.com/open-letter-to…
Very little scrutiny has been placed on Johnson by the media in this respect; that's partly a reflection of the fact that much of the media is still staffed by white people and driven by the concerns of white people. Another failure to rue in the coming years.
6. The Labour party will select a new leader, probably from the left of the party despite Corbyn’s defeat. The dynamics at play here are brilliantly analysed in this piece by @garyyounge. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Hatred of Corbyn has been a uniting factor from the centre to the far right of British politics since 2015; it seeped through the media into the public, and although Corbyn nearly pulled off a win in 2017 he couldn’t survive the opprobrium levelled at him in the past two years.
As Younge points out, Labour supporters can't simply blame the media or ‘centrists’ who’ve viewed Corbyn as stealing their right to rule the Labour party. Corbyn’s many mistakes and weaknesses - from communication to strategy to the antisemitism debacle - have to be addressed.
But it’s also true that the people who’ve tried to cancel Corbyn since 2015 will do exactly the same thing to any successor; so Labour members and potential leadership candidates will need to learn the lessons and do much better next time around.
7. The climate emergency will get worse; the UK will offer no leadership in global debates. For all of Corbyn’s faults, Labour’s climate policies were bold & absolutely necessary. Johnson’s were non-existent. The closest he came to tackling global warming was hiding in a fridge.
I would guess that our successors in forty or fifty years, historians who are beginning to develop gills, will look with amazement on the fact that Brexit rather than the climate emergency defined the 2019 UK election. Never bet against our short-termism and delusion, alas.
I appreciate this is a bleak thread, but a sense of where we are (and where we’re heading) might be useful as we figure out strategies of resistance. Thank you to everyone who fought so hard for a different outcome; let’s hope we can come together in the months & years ahead./
