Initial Reaction to the British National Election

This post is to offer my first reaction to the confusing outcome to the recent British national election. As an American, it is my view that our political system has become entirely toxic as the Left (which lost our last election) is apoplectic with what some call “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as they try to weaken President Trump and tear him down if they can. I’ll do a post on our American politics before too long, but this post is about British politics. Besides examining ramifications that the media will cover about the British election, I’ll examine a couple matters the mainstream media will not touch.

I must admit that British elections fascinate me. When they occur, I like to watch the results come in on cable-TV if possible, and on the Internet if that is the only option available. The last time the British had a national election I watched it on Sky News whose coverage was being transmitted “live” on the Fox Business Channel.. This time, it was hard to find coverage on American TV networks because they were utterly absorbed with reactions to the testimony of ex-FBI Director James Comey before a Congressional panel. The BBC website had good coverage of the election returns, but the best coverage I found was at the website for The Guardian. I’ve enclosed their interactive election results page for the entire British election as the first link. You can click your cursor over any election district and get the final vote tallies, and their color-coded maps are excellent to understand the geographical distribution of each party’s strength. Unlike American elections where we have two political parties fighting a political version of the Civil War to impose their respective view of things on the nation, the British parliamentary system had at least nine political parties on ballots in all or parts of the United Kingdom. Given this system, it is a small miracle in my eyes for one political party to gain an absolute parliamentary majority so they do not have to share power with another party or parties to form a parliamentary majority.

The current British Prime Minister, Theresa May, already had a parliamentary majority for her party, the Conservatives (or Tories). Her party was so far ahead in the polls that she thought she could call a “snap election” (a British government can apparently call an election whenever they are in the mood to do so). She made what turned out to be a colossal mistake. While the Tories did easily win the most seats of any political party in the recent election, it lost its absolute majority in the Parliament so they will need a smaller party to join them to form a government. The second link reports this process is already underway as the Tories, the winner of the most seats, asked the Queen for permission to form a new governing coalition.

I admit that when I first heard the news that Prime Minister (PM) May had called a new election, I thought “What on earth is she doing?” When you have an absolute majority and don’t need to call an election for years, why call an election and risk it all so soon? As it turned out, she lost the absolute parliamentary majority for the Tories, and her party is, rightfully, “hopping mad” about it. PM May made a major miscalculation when she decided to call that sudden and unexpected election. The voters do not like to be bothered on so regular a basis and subjected to too many election campaigns. [In America, our campaigns never end, so the British are ahead of us in that respect–their campaigns are far shorter.] However, PM May made an even greater mistake. She had promised British voters that she would not call a “snap election,” but did so anyway. I think it is fair to say that this action resulted in a situation where her party was more popular than she was. Voters don’t like to be lied to. If a leader lies brazenly about a commitment, voters can think “what else are they lying to us about?” I realize the British election was about many very real domestic issues also, but PM May may have lost this election by deciding to call for it. There is an American precedent on this matter. When President George H.W. Bush was President, he made a solemn pledge to the US voters when he emphatically promised them “No New Taxes!” He then brazenly broke his promise to the voters and raised taxes anyway. Bush then lost the next election to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas in the 1992 election. [For American readers, just think! If Bush had not broken his solemn promise to the voters, he likely would have won the election and Bill and Hillary Clinton might have ended up running a law firm in Little Rock, Arkansas for the rest of their lives. Think how America would be a different nation today if President George Bush Sr. would have kept his promise! But I digress…]

The British Parliament has 650 members so it takes 326 to form a majority government. However, the Irish-Independence party in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein, refuses to seat its members in Parliament and they won seven seats so that lowers the number of seats needed to form a government to 322 seats. The Tories won 318 seats, so they are only a very few seats short of a majority. They need a smaller party to join them in a governing coalition to form a new government. The only one which seems likely to join them is the Democratic Union Party which won ten seats in Northern Ireland. If their ten seats are added to the Tories’ 318 seats, the Tories can form the next government. This seems to be the likely outcome, as the second link notes. Some very interesting developments resulted from this election which could change the political outlook within the United Kingdom on several levels. The Labour Party won 262 seats, making them a strong second-place finisher. However, they could claim a moral victory as they won so many more seats than was expected when the snap election was called. There was a strong possibility before the election that Scotland would call a second regional election on whether to secede from the United Kingdom to protest the Brexit vote. The Scottish National Party (SNF), which favors such a succession from the UK, won virtually every seat in the Scottish region in the last national election so it felt it had a mandate from the Scottish voters for such a vote and a succession. However, the SNF was drubbed in the recent election, losing 19 seats in their own region. The Tories won 12 new Scottish seats, which made their loss much less than it could have been. The bad performance by the SNF also makes it likely that there will be no second Scottish independence vote and that Scotland will stay in the United Kingdom–that is a good outcome in my view.

Now let’s consider the impact of this election on Brexit. It was presumed that PM May wanted to get a huge Tory majority in Parliament so she could impose a “hard Brexit” in the negotiations with the EU over the UK’s exit. I’m not at all convinced that was true. Theresa May during the Brexit vote, was pro-EU and was on the side of those who wished to stay in the EU! While the Leave side won, the new British government ended up in the hands of someone on the Remain side who had opposed the Brexit vote! How could this happen, I asked myself as it seemed most odd. With a pro-EU PM like Theresa May in charge, a huge win by the Tories in the recent election may have resulted in her imposing a “soft Brexit” on the negotiations with the EU or dragging the talks out so long the Brexit never really got implemented at all. Just as the American population is witnessing the massive and strident attacks of the “Deep State” on President Trump and his populist agenda, the British “Deep State” did everything possible to reverse the Brexit vote in the courts, in forcing a new Parliamentary vote on the matter, etc. The Brexiters won each step of the way. However, now that the British election resulted in a “hung Parliament” with the Tories needing the votes of the Democratic Union Party (DUP) to form a new government, let’s consider how it will affect the Brexit talks.

The DUP is anti-EU and is very socially conservative (they are for traditional family values and oppose gay marriage). In order to form any government at all, the Tories will need to make some concessions to the DUP’s very conservative agenda. Concerning Brexit, the British government will now need to take a nationalistic positions in those talks, meaning a “hard Brexit” is more, not less, likely, in my viewpoint. Indeed, there is much talk that Theresa May will have to step down as head of her party after her dismal showing in the recent election, and I think that would be a most logical outcome. If she is forced out, the conservatives will need to choose a new Prime Minister from their party. The most likely is Boris Johnson, the former Mayor of London. The third link notes that he is rather like a British version of Donald Trump–nationalistic, speaks bluntly (and sometimes outlandishly) and even has Trumpian hair. If Boris Johnson becomes the next PM and the DUP joins the Tories in a new government, the chance of reversing the Brexit vote outcome is next to nothing and the likelihood of a “hard Brexit” has grown. This will not be pleasing to the EU’s leaders. If the negotiations go nowhere and the two-year deadline is reached for the UK to leave the EU, a new strongly anti-EU government could act in a force majeure manner and simply impose its will on its own exit and leave the EU bureaucrats empty-handed. We’ll see what happens. This situation deserves close watching.

Now let’s look at some biblical ramifications to this vote. My books, audio messages and articles at my website all document the very strong secular/historical and biblical evidence that the British people are the modern descendants of the ancient Israelite tribe of Ephraim. They are one of the two tribes descended from the biblical hero, Joseph. Their “brother” tribe is Manasseh, which my books identity as the United States of America, the Anglo-Saxon “brother” nation to the British nation. Briefly, Genesis 49:22-26 gives a prophecy about “Joseph” (both tribes) in the latter days, and verses 22-24 foretell that while they will be hated by their enemies, God will make them strong nonetheless at the end of our age. The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh inherited the “birthright” blessing first given to Abraham and passed down through Isaac, Jacob/Israel and Joseph. These two tribes will have the “lion’s share” of global wealth, power and stature. Genesis 48:16 says these brother tribes will become a multitude on the earth, and that Ephraim will inherit his blessing first before Manasseh inherits it after Ephraim (verse 20-21). This happened in world history as the British Ephraimites ruled over the British Empire for centuries, and then were eclipsed after World War II by the rising United States of America. Genesis 48:19-20 prophesied the Manassehites would be one single nation in the latter days, while the British Ephraimites were to become a multitude of nations (the British, the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, etc.). Too few realize the famous ancient Greek and Roman Empires were small compared to the global scope of the British Empire at its zenith. The Bible even records one distinctly-Ephraimite genetic trait. Judges 12 records a brief and unfortunate war between the Ephraimites and Manassehites. The tribe of Manasseh won and 42,000 Ephraimites died in one battle. The members of both tribes looked so much alike that, physically, you couldn’t tell the difference between them. However, captured Ephraimites had a genetic trait that uniquely identified them as Ephraimites–which resulted in them being killed as the Manassehites were taking no prisoners that day. The Ephraimites “dropped their h’s” when they tried to say words with an “h” in them (verse 6). It was so well-known in the ancient world that Ephraimites dropped their h’s that life-and-death decisions could be made on that one phonetic trait. Which nation in the modern world drops its h’s, and is well-known for that genetic trait? It’s the British who have this Ephraimite trait, and the movie, My Fair Lady, made it a theme within the movie. Those who wish more information on these (and all Israelite tribes) in the modern world are urged to order my books, Israel’s Tribes Today, and my E-book, The “Lost” Ten Tribes of Israel…Found!

It would have greatly weakened the British/Ephraimites if they had become subsumed into the EU and Scotland had left the United Kingdom. God had prophesied he would strengthen both tribes in the latter days, and the Brexit vote and a firm implementation of the Brexit process would fulfill that prophecy. Now let’s consider Scotland. My books identify the Scots (and some other Celtic people) as being members of the warlike Israelite tribe of Simeon. The Scots, though outnumbered by the British, were very tough fighters during wars vs. the English in previous centuries (as shown in the movie, Braveheart). Genesis 49:5-7 prophesied the Simeonites (and Levites) would not have a nation of their own during the latter day period of time. If the Scots are a part of the modern Simeonites, a Scottish independence from the British would conflict with that prophecy. The recent British election has made it far more likely that Scotland will stay in the United Kingdom, making both the English and Scots more powerful together than apart and also creating a political reality consistent with biblical prophecy.

Those who desire more information regarding whether the above-cited prophecies apply to our modern times are invited to read my article, Are We Living in the Biblical Latter Days? I think any reader of that article will agree there are abundant proofs in the modern world to confirm that the answer is “yes.” In conclusion, the British political situation is in a state of flux, and there could even be another election in the near future if current parties cannot form a government with a parliamentary majority.

Initial Reaction to the British National Election

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