By M. Babajide-Alabi
The UK 2015 General Elections is a few days away. To be precise it holds nationwide on Thursday May 7. How times flies. It seemed like yesterday that the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown exited 10 Downing Street.
That is to say it is five years already when David Cameron was handed the keys to the No. 10 apartment. In 2010, the Conservative Party won the General Elections but not with a majority to form a government. Therefore, the Tories had to call on Nick Clegg to lead his party, the Liberal Democrats, in a political marriage to form the government.
It was tagged the unusual coalition between two strange bedmates. Theirs became the first full coalition government since 1945 and David Cameron became the 52nd Prime Minister of United Kingdom after 5 days negotiation between the parties. As much as Labour Party, led by Gordon Brown desired to hold on to power, the proposed deal with the LibDem failed when Clegg decided to go along with the Tories.
The coalition successfully sent Labour to the opposition and also afforded it opportunity to regroup and position itself properly for the 2015 elections. It also brought to an end the thirteen year ‘power’ hold by the party, from the emergence of Mr. Tony Blair to the take over by Brown.
By 2010, the massive support the Labour Party enjoyed in the early days of Blair government had waned considerably. The citizens did not in anyway hide their disappointment on many of Labour’s policies and the handling of the economic recession that swept through the world at the time.
In all, the decision of the Blair government to support the United States’ George Bush-led war on Iraqi was a big turn off for the citizens. At the height of the war, the UK government and Labour Party had lost the support of the people. All that was needed was a call for an election and the fate of the party was sealed. And exactly what was obtained in 2010.
Five years after losing out to the Tories, the Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, is hoping it will be able to form the next government. Although this is proving to be an uphill task for the party, as the latest polls are suggesting a hung parliament after the elections of Thursday. None of the parties is capable of forming the next government on majority wins.
However, one thing the parties have in common this time around is their ambiguity in making public who they would do deals with to form the next government. While the Tories are making so much out of a Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and Labour Party coalition. At every opportunity Miliband has been stating categorically that the party has no plans for any deal with the SNP.
The discerning minds (voters) can definitely see through the game plan of the Tories. They are making Miliband out as a weakling that will be propped up in government by a Scottish political party. The possibility of this happening is nauseating and annoying to an average English voter.
To be honest, David Cameron appears as a desperate politician holding on to every straw to stay in office. While he goes about accusing other parties of desperation, his body language clearly shows he would do anything to keep the keys to No. 10.
Policy wise, the coalition government led by David Cameron has been the ‘harshest’ against immigrants from outside the European Union. The government did not hide its ‘disdain’ for these sets of immigrants. By the various immigration “policies” of the coalition, many non-EU immigrants have been left “mid-space”. The students are worse off, as all the routes to their settling down in the UK blocked, while their rights to work in the country has been seriously curtailed.
As we await Thursday, there is no hiding the fact of where my sympathies lie. My vote will be for a party that rather than alienate part of the population, will legislate to support the multi-racial society that UK is.
R
