As I woke up on July 5th 2024, Independence Day from the Tories was most certainly on my mind.
I was totally thrilled with the results of the UK general election but I was close to choking on my cornflakes as I realised I am still living in the Tory constituency of Orpington in south London where the local candidate secured 17,504 votes, Labour 12,386 and Nigel Farage’s Reform 8,896.
There was a valiant attempt to turn red in Bromley, the constituency beside where I live, where the Tory margin was reduced to just 302 votes, but in a map of London that is mostly red, there is a very big blob of blue in south London
I know my immediate neighbour does not vote Tory, but meeting a lady from the parish on my way into London last week, who told me she and her husband voted Reform and she was a fan of Kemi Badenoch for the Tory leadership, really depressed me.
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But why am I remotely concerned about how my neighbours voted?
Well, this election has been different. It stoked up very unpleasant memories of what it was like in England during the days of the Brexit referendum.
Having been in England for nearly 40 years, I am proud to say I have retained my Irish accent and have been active in the campaign to rejoin the European Union over many years. I have been a member of the UK Labour Party as well.
Politics and campaigning are in my family DNA and that passion and interest in politics has meant many extra weekend trips to Kildare this year to support my sister Lorraine who was a local candidate for the Green Party.
My brother Seán also came over from New York for a month. It was a unique time for us siblings to bond. Sadly, she did not get elected, but canvassing door-to-door in Kildare town has certainly opened my eyes to the social problems gripping Ireland today.
All the expected subjects and two local issues got my firm attention: the lack of special needs education places and the poor water quality in south Kildare. Standing outside a supermarket and watching trolleys with many bottles of drinking water in them was a scandal. Perhaps Ireland needs Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, to come over and highlight these issues as he did with such passion, enthusiasm and commitment during the UK election campaign?
Ireland’s huge social issues are mirrored here in the UK, but Tory policies have increased levels of poverty and social depravation. How could they understand real people’s lives when money and self-interest dominated their thinking?
The Conservative Party was a party for the few not the many, and the rich have most certainly become richer under the Tories. But I am so optimistic now for the future of the UK and in a way it’s personal
In June 2022, while attending a cost-of-living march and rally in central London, I bumped into Angela Rayner in Parliament Square. She was happy to chat to me for a few minutes and anyone who asked her to have photos taken was accommodated, but she whipped the phone out of my hand and she took selfies of the two of us. No drama, no close protection to stop her talking to ordinary people as she mingled in the crowds on Parliament Square.
For me, Rayner embodies hope for the UK, a working-class woman who was forced to leave school pregnant at 16 and now she is the deputy prime minister with immense opportunity to bring about positive change.
Only 4 per cent of the new Labour cabinet went to private school compared with 64 per cent of the last Tory cabinet. Real-world experiences matter and I believe Labour will over time deliver for the whole of the UK and force the bigoted, racist and misogynistic figures of a certain party back into retirement they belong.
We have grown-ups in 10 Downing Street now. They appear to understand Ireland, North and South, but crucially they understand people and making a difference to real people’s lives.
Trouble may never be far away, but a government for the people is novel and it’s a lesson that all of Europe needs to pay attention to and support. Good government means the right and left are deprived of the oxygen of hate and division.
So how did I celebrate this historic shift in power? Perhaps the only way an Irishman could, by attending and enjoying in the pouring rain with family the final UK tour by the Wolfe Tones in London’s Finsbury Park on Friday, July 5th.
With humble apologies to the three lads in the Wolfe Tones, there could well be “nation once again” here in the UK.
Peter Benson left Naas, Co Kildare, in September 1987 and is now working as an accountant for an Irish construction recruitment firm in London
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