Britain's traditional
two-party system
is cracking up under
the strain of Brexit.
We saw that very clearly in
last week's European Parliament
elections.
Nigel Farage's new
Brexit party won
the vote, won the election with
over 30 per cent of the votes
cast - most of the seats.
At the same time,
the pro-European,
anti-Brexit Liberal
Democrats came second
with 20 per cent of the vote.
And what you saw there was
immense pressure on the two big
parties - the ruling
Conservative party,
which got 9 per cent of the
vote - and the Labour party,
which won just 14
per cent of the vote,
drawing very different
conclusions from the results.
You've got contenders in
the leadership contest
that will soon follow with the
resignation of Theresa May,
saying that they should
take Britain out of the EU
whatever happens on
the 31st of October.
A no-deal Brexit - the
Conservative party moving down
very much a hard Brexit route.
We will call for a general
election and a referendum
to decide on the future.
And, at the same time, you've
got the Labour party agonising
over the fact that so many
pro-European Remain voters left
Labour and voted for,
unequivocally, pro-EU parties -
whether it's the Liberal
Democrats, the Greens,
Change UK, which did
remarkably badly -
actually only won 3 per cent
of the vote - and in Scotland,
the Scottish National party.
An immense pressure
now on Jeremy Corbyn,
the Labour leader, to get
off the fence on Brexit
and to promise the Labour will
campaign for a referendum -
a second referendum on the EU
- and a remain vote in that
referendum.
So you can see there is a
centrifugal force operating
on the two main parties
in British politics
pushing them out to the
edges of the Brexit debate.
And think back to Theresa
May's resignation speech
on the steps of Downing Street.
To have had the opportunity
to serve the country I love.
She said that compromise was
the only way forward on Brexit.
The results of the
European elections
seems to me to make
compromise much less
likely as the two main
parties move further apart.
It feels more to me
like this will be
a fight to the death on Brexit.
