The UK is suffering a deep gasoline shortage, with panic buying, long lines and even violence at gas stations breaking out all over the country.  Oh, there’s plenty of gasoline, but it can’t get to gas stations.  Why, you ask?  No truck drivers.  No truck drivers? Where did they go?  The answer? Back to their homes in Eastern Europe.  When isolationist conservatives in the country managed to pull off the almost impossible task of pulling out of the European Union, all free immigration between member countries and the UK came to a screeching halt.  So, not only did EU trade agreements end with Brexit, so did immigration.  So, the jobs that Brits don’t want, wait staff, dishwashers, slaughterhouse workers, housekeepers, and yes, truck drivers, have gone unfilled because of the isolationist policies of conservatives who push the same policies pushed by Trumpist Republicans in the US.  Boris Johnson has just put the British army on standby to put them into trucks to move gasoline from the ports to gas stations.

If you’re looking for how Trump’s plan to stop immigration would work out, you only need to look at the UK. Trying to wall off the country doesn’t work, has never worked, and will never work.  Countries’ economic prosperity is dependent on being a member of a global society which includes global markets and the ability of people to move to where the jobs exist.  That’s not what we’re seeing the in the UK, and conservatives in the US are trying to run us over the same cliff.

Boris Johnson picked up 88 seats in Parliament yesterday assuring that Britain will leave the EU.  Scotland may very well secede from the UK and stay in the Union.  It’s a disaster for the Labour party and I believe a disaster for Britain, a move which could easily kick off a widespread recession.  Indeed the British pound is off today from both the US dollar and the Euro.

Beyond the economics and politics of Britain, are there any lessons for the US and our upcoming elections in 2020?  My answer is yes, and it’s a really serious lesson.  The Labour party, lead by Jeremy Corbyn, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, got slaughtered.  This is the worst result for Labour since 1935, and could easily set up a minority for them for a decade.  Boris Johnson sold smaller government, spouted anti-European rhetoric pitting Europe against England.  He also favors killing the National Health Service and privatizing virtually everything.  In short, he’s just a slightly less childish and offensive Donald Trump.  Did the Russians help?  Certainly, but Labour was its own worst enemy.  Corbyn is a terrible leader.  He and his colleagues are hard left and tone deaf.  While the voting populace was being bombarded with images of scary dark-skinned people and a long list of grievances, Corbyn stuck to his playbook of vilifying Britain’s colonial past and focusing on social issues (gender, social justice) and was self righteously pious, acting as if everyone who disagreed was somehow morally flawed.  The result was predictable – Labour lost voters in traditionally labour areas.  Corbyn got Trumped by Johnson (pun intended).

The lesson here is for the Dems to avoid the same mistakes.  They need to focus 2020 on one goal, and one goal only – beating Donald Trump.  Many of my Dem friends are having deep, thoughtful discussions comparing Warren’s and Sanders healthcare programs to Buttigieg’s and Klobuchar’s.  They dither over free college education and college debt forgiveness.  That’s just plain stupid and tone deaf.  Don’t get me wrong – these are all important issues that we need to deal with, but they don’t mean a goddam thing right now.  The Dems need a candidate that can win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.  That candidate needs to be competitive in Florida and Ohio.  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.  Period.

Warren and Sanders are Jeremy Corbyns’ doppelgängers.  They are losers in the general because Trump will beat them in the swing states.  Klobuchar could be a good VP candidate because of her midwest appeal.  Like Warren and Sanders, Buttigieg is also a national loser, but for different reasons.  He needs to go home and win a statewide election in Indiana and comeback in 2028.  The Dems need to focus on winning, and stop focusing on their navels and esoteric policy questions.  The policy questions should be left for January 21, 2021.  The British Labour party got their asses kicked by Boris and his thugs while Corbyn dithered over policy and social issues.  This is not the time, and Corbyn proved it.

Many of you will hurl insults for this, but in my mind there is one prime candidate who can win the general, and that’s Joe Biden.  Bloomberg is interesting, but he has the billionaire baggage that I’m not sure he can shed.  Biden is the choice, especially with a strong VP who also has broad appeal.  Everyone else needs to go home.

OK, ignore the lessons of yesterday and reach for the torches and pitchforks. Ready, set, go…

80 years ago today Great Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland.  At the same time, Winston Churchill was appointed Lord of the Admiralty to fight the Germans.  He was later elected Prime Minister.  Ironically, today, 80 years to the day, Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, was notified he was being ejected from the Conservative Party, along with 20 other conservatives, for daring to vote against Boris Johnson Trump who is trying to crash the UK out of the EU without an exit plan.

Republicans in Congress can take a lesson here.  Soames, who’s been in Parliament for 37 years, is not allowed to stand for re-election as a conservative.  He disregarded this threat from Johnson and put his country before his own career.  If only our own spineless Congress would do the same here.  I’m not holding my breath.