Nancy, are you listening?

Let’s start with a joke:

• Knock knock!
• Who’s there?
• Jeremy Corbyn
• Jeremy Corbyn who?
• A week’s a long time in Politics…

It has been a week since the United Kingdom Parliamentary Election returned the Conservative Party to Westminster with a stunning victory, and handed the Labor party the most crushing defeat in nearly a century. While I am delighted, I cannot say that I am surprised; the commentary that I have heard from British voters has been less about “keeping BoJo in” than it has been about “Keeping Corbyn out“.

Following the awful news, Mr. Corbyn said “I will not lead the Labor party into another general election”. That’s a typically English understatement; barring unforeseen circumstances, the next election is five years away. After the pasting he has taken, I would be surprised if he is still leading the party in five weeks. After all, Margaret Thatcher was ousted by her own party for far less.

Large swathes of lifelong labor voters have held their noses and voted Conservative; many for the first time in their lives. But why did they do it?

Reason #1: Corbyn: Jeremy Corbyn has a documented history as a Marxist. Under him, Labor has embraced such socialist stalwarts as re-nationalizing everything, free education, tax increases (but only for those evil wealthy people, honest!), etc. Many labor supporters, and almost all Conservatives, are aghast at this.

Reason #2; Brexit: Boris Johnson has campaigned on a “Let’s Get Brexit Done” platform. In the past, Corbyn has tried to push for a second referendum, a stance which is highly anti-democratic — if you need a second referendum, then the first was not enough. If one referendum was enough to get us into Europe in the first place, why is it not enough to get us out? And that is the crux of the matter; too many folks are trying to re-write history and overturn the expressed will of the people, with repeated calls for vote after vote until they get the result they wanted in the first place. This isn’t Democracy, it is fascism.

What is interesting is that Scotland moved away from Labour to vote overwhelmingly for the Scottish Nationalist Party, which is pro-remain. So north of the border, at least, it wasn’t about Brexit, it was about Corbyn.

The moral of this cautionary tale? If you allow your party to become hijacked by the hard left, you run the risk of being destroyed at the polls as moderates turn their backs on their party en masse. You have been warned.