General Election 2019 Profile

DAVID MORTIMER

31 October 2019. This was both the day that was lauded as the exit date for our departure from the European Union, and the date that the third general election was held in a four year time span. As has been the zeitgeist since the 2016 Referendum, Brexit has proved to be the most controversial and reviled issue that grips this nation, a fact that the Conservatives were eager to capitalise upon in calling the election, with polls suggesting the public resonated with Boris Johnson’s ‘Get Brexit Done’ rhetoric.
According to Yougov, the Conservatives were going into the general election with a 15% lead.

The Liberal Democrats would also benefit from the focus on Brexit. They have branded themselves the Party of Remain, promising to revoke Article 50, the process of leaving the EU, on day 1 if they were to get into office. Their manifesto is also designed around the idea of a ‘Remain Bonus’ of £50 billion, should the UK stay within the EU.

The Labour Party would undoubtedly want to shift attention away from Brexit, and onto other issues, such as the NHS, that the Labour Party and others are claiming will be subject to negotiations in trade talks with Donald Trump. They would also want to shift focus on issues such as homelessness, which has been on the rise. They have pointed to the statistics by Shelter suggesting that homelessness has been on the rise constantly since 2010.

Another area where Labour promise serious change is the environment. They promise to make get the UK to net zero carbon emissions by the 2030s. This is in contrast to the promise of the Conservatives to have the UK to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Conservatives, perhaps understandable considering their branding as the party of business, would not want to change policy in a way that would disrupt British industry. In contrast, Labour want to have what they call a ‘Green industrial revolution’. The lib dems can be considered middle of the road on this issue, wanting net zero by 2040.

Perhaps the biggest point of interest about the impending General Election is the sheer, military grade lying that is being employed by what seems to be every party and individual that has a stake in this election. I am writing this paragraph at 6 in the evening on Monday the 18th of November. Within the past twelve hours, both leaders of the two main political parties have made easily disprovable lies to the public.

Boris Johnson said at the CBI Conference in London about corporation tax that Jeremy Corbyn would ‘whack it straight up to the highest levels in Europe’. This is a lie. Labour’s proposed level of income tax is 26% by 2022, which, as demonstrated by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, would still leave us with a lower corporation tax rate than France, Greece and Portugal.

Jeremy Corbyn himself claimed that Britain has the lowest rate of recycling in Europe. This is similarly demonstrably untrue, as shown by the European Environment Agency, who finds the UK’s recycling rate to be 39%, the exact of EU rates.

This is quite impressive work for just one day, and can definitely be considered vindication for those who believe that we now live in a post-truth age, where facts truly don’t matter. This rather macabre realisation has led an increased use for ‘fact checkers’. Charities and websites, such as fullfact.org that take the claims of politicians and assess them for their accuracy are increasingly common. News organisations such as the BBC and Channel 4 has been starting to take on their responsibility to scrutinise with new fact checking services. 

After all of the battle, debates and conflict of this campaign, the result is going to define our generation. We are presented with two incredibly distinct options of where our country should be in five years time, in terms of Brexit, in terms of the environment, in terms of the economy. The decisions made by whatever government is elected is going to be possibly irreversible, the mould that could shape our nation for decades. If you have the vote, I implore you to use it on the 12th of December, and have your imprint upon the most decisive result of a generation.