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markk

markk

Absolutely heartbroken

— feeling sad

With the semester coming to an end I was looking forward to a couple weeks of blessedly uncommitted reading time, which I was going to use to read some more of my collection of Ace Doubles and a nice meaty biography or two. My buoyant mood, though, was crushed by the news of the general election results in the U.K.

 

For as long as I can remember, Great Britain has had a special place in my heart. When I decided to embark on my career as a historian it didn't take me long to settle on modern British history for my specialization, the study of which only deepened my appreciation for that quirky, overachieving island. Over time I drew from that study certain ideas for what Britain's future might be, and I hoped that they might rise to fulfil them.

 

Instead for the past few years the British have been locked in a downward spiral of austerity, desperation, and toxicity. Instead of providing the direction and the leadership to break out of it politicians from across the political spectrum have either dithered for a lack of will or sought to exploit it for their own ends. To me the current prime minister embodies the worst aspects of this, and has demonstrated his eagerness to drive his nation to ruin in order to cement his position. Yet in the end the fault lies not with him but with the voters who have just given his party enormous latitude to impose their beliefs upon the country.

 

The irony is that in doing so they will effectively repudiate everything their party stands for. For nearly a century and a half the bedrock of the Conservative Party has been its unshakeable belief in Unionism — so much so that they even renamed themselves the Unionist Party for a generation to underscore this. Now thanks to their determination to pursue Brexit to its end they may very well shatter that union for good. Northern Ireland is about to discover what southern Unionists learned a century ago, which is the practical limits of unionist rhetoric. Even more momentous will be the drive of Scotland for independence. The independence referendum was defeated in 2014 in no small part because of the warnings that independence would mean being forced out of the EU. If the U.K. leaves the EU, Scottish Nationalists will be able to denounce the "remain" campaign as nothing more than a bait-and-switch. Should they get a second independence referendum the vote to leave will probably be overwhelming, which undoubtedly is why the Tories won't grant them one. What follows could make the Troubles look like a period of peace by comparison.

 

So congratulations, Conservatives. You have won your greatest electoral victory in over thirty years — and all it may cost you is the nation you once claimed you would die to preserve.