Thursday, 2 May 2024

Kevin Maguire predicts an annus horribilis for May and Trump

Predictions may be a mug’s game in an era of ­political turmoil…but they’re also irresistible.

So here Mystic Mag peers into his crystal ball to try and make sense of 2019.

The only certainty is that the next year will be as uncertain as the past three have proved.

Theresa May’s Blackmail Brexit

The corpse of the PM’s scam to make Britain poorer and weaker is still twitching after she postponed a vote that would have pronounced it formally dead.

Buying Tory rebels with gongs and pretending it’s her way or no way, might lure some waverers back.

Unprincipled Cabinet Minister Liam sly-as-a Fox claiming Brexit is 50-50 without her deal might tempt a few more to back it.

And the DUP’s always biddable. My hunch is she’ll still lose in the Commons in the week of January 14.

A panicky second referendum afterwards? I’m not so sure.

No Deal Catastrophe

Spending billions of precious pounds buying everything from fridges to ferries is a scandalous waste of public money when the only thing MPs agree on is Britain won’t crash out of Europe. End of.

Will we leave EU on March 29?

Yes, if May’s plot works. Though it’s worth recalling her former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab thinks we’d be better off staying in than leaving on her lousy terms and Brexit paymaster Arron Banks would vote to remain in another referendum.

No, if May’s dodgy deal’s shot down. Suspending the Article 50 exit timetable would be required to sort out a better future.

Honest Referendum

My favoured democratic way forward after the nailing of lies that there would be £350million a week freed for the NHS and Brexit would be easy were nailed.

As former mandarin Martin Donnelly memorably argued we’re giving up a three-course meal for the promise of a packet of crisps.

Yet a people’s vote is only possible not probable in 2019. Just a fifth of 650 MPs want to let us decide.

General Election

Hard to see how Jeremy Corbyn will get his 2019 wish when Tory and DUP MPs could ditch May and her Brexit but avoid an election that could put Labour into power.

Corbyn is preparing to initiate his constitutional no confidence vote in the Government late January or February. Win and it’s election on.

Tick-Tock Tedious Theresa

May’s likely to be history this time next year after promising never to fight another election in order to survive this month’s Tory rebellion.

Jeremy Hunt is favourite to replace her but Sajid Javid, Penny Mordaunt, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson fancy their chances.

Slow Lane

Britain’s fallen from one of Europe’s fastest growing economies to among the slowest since the 2016 Brexit vote. Much depends on what happens after March 29 yet wages are unlikely to return to 2008 values for years.

Austerity

Schools, Universal Credit, council housing, libraries, cops, fire – just about every precious public service – will continue to be squeezed.

Even a much-hyped NHS £20billion increase by 2024 is far less than’s needed. The Tory era rise of 1.2% since 2010 was the lowest since the health service was created in 1948, less than a fifth of the Labour years.

Jeremy Corbyn

Uneasy murmurings among the Labour leader’s followers will get louder unless he opposes Brexit as a class issue when working people will be hurt most.

He also needs to back a people’s vote and establish clear poll leads.

Corbyn’s position is unchallengeable and he could finish in No 10 but, after four years, the personality cult is waning.

Splinter Labour

Westminster’s waiting for a group of anti-Corbyn, pro-EU MPs led by Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie to quit the Labour whip in Parliament. Talk is of up to a dozen after March.

Six MPs have already gone rogue and a seventh, suspended liar Fiona Onasanya is threatening to stay as an MP even if jailed for perverting the course of justice.

Defections and rows are poised to cost Labour seats.

Liar, Liar, Trump’s Pants on Fire

The net’s closing on lie machine Donald Trump but the shameless US President would survive impeachment as Republicans hold the Senate despite the House of Representatives falling to the Democrats.

With Trump intending to run in 2020, the opposition’s searching for a champion.

Watch out for Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown and Beto O’Rourke. Oprah Winfrey and Angelina Jolie are teasing.

Elizabeth the Last

Backlashes over big public bills for Harry’s, and especially gormless Eugenie’s, royal nuptials could mean some uncomfortable scrutiny for the Royals in 2019.

The cause of the Windsors wasn’t helped by a £76million-a-year monarch sitting in front of a golden piano and lecturing us to pull together.

On The Box

Saving most or all the 4.6 million free TV licences for the over-75s will be a 2019 U-turn. The Tories aren’t strong enough to break another manifesto promise.

Far Right Off Their Heads

Trump windbag Steve Bannon is deflating as his European “Movement” fails to lift off.

Here the party’s over for purple poison Ukip and I predict in 2019 fans of jailbird Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka football hooligan “Tommy Robinson”, will fall out over how much he’s making out of once naïve Tommyettes.

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