Current Prime Minister Theresa May (possibly not for long) called for a surprise General Election the other day that could see her replaced. She believes that the circumstances under which she became the leader of this country (David Cameron f*cking up and then bailing, leaving No. 10 empty) are unfair, and she wants an election so she can see if the British people really want her in charge.
The election will take place on 8 June this year. MPs got to vote on that alarmingly close date (which leaves those running very little time to campaign) and they voted in favour of it by a staggering margin of 509.
To put that into perspective, there’s 650 total Members of Parliament, so this is a huge majority who want a new PM elected, or at least to make sure May is wanted on Downing Street.
Labour candidate Jeremy Corbyn may want a second Brexit referendum if elected
The reason May is calling for the election now and wanting to find out if she’s wanted now as opposed to several months ago when she first unfairly became the British PM is because she only just got to trigger Article 50. Now that Brexit is underway and we’re on our way out of the EU and she’s left her legacy among the Conservative Party, she’s comfortable with the possibility that she may get voted out and have to step down.
There’s a growing concern among the Conservative political community that the Labour Party will put a stop to the Brexit process if elected in.
Labour have said that under their government, they would not rule out another EU referendum, which Tories have taken as a signifier that the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, one of May’s closest competitors in the election race, wants to “disrupt” the Brexit process (which wouldn’t be such a bad thing).
Despite it only being a suggestion by the Labour Party, who have merely just refused to rule out a second referendum, the Tories have instantly jumped to Brexit’s defence and attacked Labour.
The chairman of the Conservative Party, Patrick McLoughlin, calls such a refusal “yet more evidence of chaos” in Corbyn’s path. McLoughlin claims (in a cute little smear campaign to get the Tories voted back in) that the Labour Party are unable to “provide the strong and stable leadership” that Britain requires to thrive at such a “serious moment in our history.” Tories will do everything in their power to protect the sanctity of Brexit, and they’re focusing this election on just Brexit and its surrounding complications, but according to Corbyn, it’s about so much more than that: it’s not an election to see what happens with Brexit, it’s an election to see who’s going to run the country.
Corbyn is taking an anti-establishment stance in his campaign
Corbyn’s campaign strategy for this election, as is the strategy behind most of Labour’s politics, is to go against the “rich, elite establishment.” As Piers Morgan pointed out, this strategy didn’t work out so well for Ed Miliband, but maybe Corbyn will be different. Corbyn promises voters that Labour will “prove the establishment experts wrong” by switching up the way this election is going. He tells the people of Britain that “they are the true wealth creators,” but that they are being “held back by a system rigged for the wealth extractors.”
According to Corbyn, this election is about more than just Brexit. He told voters in a speech that May will attempt to convince them that the election is solely focused on Brexit, whether it will continue to go forward or there will be a second referendum etc.
Corbyn warns that May will use this Brexit focus “to downplay the issues that affect people’s lives every day” and turn it into nothing more than “an ego trip about her own failing leadership” (which sounds about right, doesn’t it?).