UK voters sent strong message to May and Corbyn for soft Brexit

Most political analysts agree that the results of last Thursday’s local elections in Britain were a strong slap by voters primarily to the governing Tory PM Theresa May and, secondly, to the major opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. There is also widespread acceptance that the impressive electoral gains of the Liberal Democrats come mainly from voters who changed from Brexit to ‘stop Brexit’, following the Lib-Dem’s anti-Brexit stance during the past tumultuous months. Sir Vince Cable, the party’s President said, “ every vote received is a vote for stopping Brexit”. The same is true for the Greens who have been bluntly opposing Brexit and last week made substantial gains in the polls. A positive surprise also was the heavy losses of the extreme right wing, Brexiteer, populist UKIP of the harlequin politician Nigel Farage. This is the deduction when reading the British local election results of last Thursday. Gains for anti-Brexiteers Unfortunately, practically all British mainstream media commentators avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that those results secure a clear win for the ‘remain’ side, in case a referendum was held now. At least the result opens the way for the approval in the Commons of a soft Brexit agreement with Brussels. Undoubtedly though a second plebiscite would bedim the luster of the oldest parliamentary democracy of the world. Still, simple political logic says the votes for Labor, fewer after the last election, must be entirely credited to the ‘remain’ or at least to the soft Brexit side. In any case, after last Thursday’s results, the majority of the MPs in favor of a soft Brexit has emboldened. Soft-Brexit arithmetic This is particularly true for the Labor Party to stand by its long held solid position for the UK to remain in the Customs Union, the Internal Market and all the important agencies of the EU. Add to that 19% of last Thursday’s English voters who chose the fully anti-Brexit Lib-Dems, plus the Scottish National Party, the Welsh and the Northern Irish who had voted ‘remain’ in 2016 and the ‘no Brexit’ side may well exceed 60% in a possible referendum. If this arithmetic presents any problems for some vowed Brexiteers, the European election will clarify things in less than three weeks from now. On 23 May, the UK voters will deliver a clear message that their vast majority is now convinced Brexit will be a catastrophic option. All the monstrous lies about the EU used in 2016 by leading press groups and Brexiteer politicians of the likes of Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage have clearly proved to be a huge fraud. After three years of endless Brexit deliberations those persons have lost any credibility, after it was proven they were just selling greener grass and deceitfully demonizing EU membership. A divided country True, the Brits are deeply divided on this issue. There is still a good part of the population who dislike the EU and together with it all the ‘bloody foreigners’. However, today they represent today a much smaller group than the 52% vote for Brexit in the 2016 referendum. Soon, the 23 May European election vote will certainly send a resounding message to the British politicians to compromise on Brexit. This newspaper will feel justified if Theresa May and David Corbyn find the courage to put the result of such a political conciliation on Brexit to the Commons for ratification. Surely, the Parliament will approve a mild divorce version. Then, a second referendum will not be needed.