The country knew by 10pm on Thursday night that there had been a political bloodbath.
Contrary to all the opinion polls putting Labour and the Conservatives level the Exit Poll published at 10pm told a different story; the Conservatives had won a crushing general election victory. Labour had lost many seats and the Liberal Democrats had virtually disappeared.
An Exit Poll is pretty trustworthy and within minutes of its announcement the British Pound was surging on the financial bourses. The United Kingdom had voted for stability.
All that was left to be decided was the scale of Cameron’s victory (the Conservatives finally ended up with 331 MPs, Labour 232, the Liberal Democrats just 8) and which MPs had lost their seats. Famous names were about to disappear from the political scene.
The Liberal Democrats won 56 seats in 2010 but were heavily punished due to Nick Clegg’s pre-2010 election promise that he would abolish tuition fees for university students. He reneged once he was in coalition with the Conservatives.
For those supportive of Israel the demise of the Lib Dems is sweet. If the Israeli army was called on to defend Israelis from Hamas’ rockets Nick Clegg would call for an arms embargo on Israel.
And one has to question how Clegg can lay claim to any morals after not sacking David Ward who suggested that Jews had not learned the lessons of the Holocaust.
After minimal admonition from his party leader Ward was free to continue as a Liberal Democrat. Pleased to report that Ward has now been swept away politically by the good people of Bradford East.
And the good people of Bradford West swept away the Respect Party’s George Galloway. Maybe they felt that Galloway was far more concerned with Tehran West than Bradford West.
It would be nice to think that Bradfordians also felt uncomfortable with his venomous anti-Zionist rhetoric (he declared Bradford an Israel-free zone) and were concerned for Bradford’s small Jewish population.
It was also goodbye to Simon Hughes and Bob Russell, two more anti-Israel Liberal Democrats swept away in the political tsunami.
Meanwhile, Labour lost 24 seats from last time! Much of Labour’s Parliamentary party is still anti-Israel and Labour’s main anti-Israel firebrands survived, including the likes of Gerald Kaufman, Andy Slaughter and Richard Burden who has met with Hamas. Labour also added Rupa Huq to their anti-Israel numbers.
For five years Labour has been isolationist on the foreign policy front. It voted not to assist the Syrian people being slaughtered by Assad.
There was, however, one country on which Labour was not isolationist: Israel. Precious parliamentary time was wasted by Labour MPs these last five years smearing Israel as evil and debating, and voting for, a future Palestinian state.
But despite the election results there is no room for complacency for British Jews. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) have virtually swept away Labour in Scotland. They grew from six to an astonishing 56 MPs!
The SNP like to paint themselves as supportive of multiculturalism but there is, again, one country they are not too accepting of: Israel.
These are SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s words to the ‘Ending Scottish Arms Trade with Israel’ conference only yesterday:
“As you may be aware, during the recent conflict in Gaza the Scottish Government wrote to the UK Government urging an embargo on arms sales to Israel. The Scottish Government is a firm friend of Palestine and we will continue to press this issue after the election.”
An SNP council also once voted to ban Israeli books in its libraries.
No doubt the SNP will soon be joining forces with Labour, what’s left of the Liberal Democrats and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party to attack Israel.
In the meantime the average hard-working grassroots pro-Israel activist can enjoy some well-earned schadenfreude at the demise of Galloway and Ward.
RichardMillett's Blog 
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/As-I-See-It-Britains-nightmare-post-election-scenario-400748
Melanie has shown just how nasty the SNP is
Great that the public understood the danger this country would have had if Labour and the SNP were to have gained control of this country, that so many anti Israel MPs are now voted out, still plenty left on the labour side, the vile Kaufman and sneering Corbyn to name just two, we do know that the Scots are for the Palestinians, and anti Israel, lets hope that the new government are able to hold them at bay, all in all a good day for the Jewish population.
Well said as always, Richard. Cameron will not have it easy with such a small majority. It was great to see Galloway kicked out. Pity Caroline Lucas is still there. And I shudder at the thought of the new band of SNP MPs joining all the other anti-semites on the House of Commons benches. Israel needs her friends more than ever.
I don’t think there are any true friends of Israel amongst the British MP’s.- eg one that will speak out against the unjust slander of the people of Israel . The only MP I am aware that did that was Denis McShane. It is quite foolish to be complacent because there are one or two less people in parliament who hate the Jewish people because there are so many more to take their place from the SNP including the leader of the party. In the past even Churchill was not such a good friend as he was made out to be See http://netanyalynette.blogspot.co.il/2014/10/james-parkes-from-1945-slightly-mad.html
What the Jews desperately need is to believe in themselves and fight the injustice against our people “for if we are not for ourselves who will be for us”
Good riddance of the two worst antisemites in the UK Parliament’s landscape. At least two remain.
You left Ed Balls of your list of high profile losers Richard!! All I can say is that in looking forward to getting my winnings following this blue victory!!
Beware of what you pray for as Osborne and IDS have before the election proposed to slash child benefit to two per family maximum at any one time. Secondly the Scots Nats are a function of the demise of the Scots Conservatives when “Margaret” callously closed the rustbelt then tried the poll tax in Scotland first. That did for Scots Conservatives who till then had held half the seats as in England so the Scots turned to Labour which was prevented from delivering by the Tory grip on Westminster. Even if the Scots pretend they are hard done by Arabs (!) and now demand Canadian rights short of defence and foreign affairs costs, they are essentially a centre right party by their social policies who will fall in line with Tory England with Home Rule. Just look at Ireland since independence and consider the what if the boneheads had let Home Rule through before 1914. As for the Liberals they have been inflated from Thorpe to Clegg by the permanent anti-Establishment protest vote and the anti – Tory , can’t stand Labour lot; but these have returned to the main parties and the real balance in England is a shift of 25 seats lost to Labour and gained by Cons. Otherwise some have already said this is a bit of a 1992. The higher they climb the harder they fall – couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch – unless the soften it by introducing STV instead of FPTP.
I would not worry too much about these morons, but Ed Miliband, a classic case of anti Jew, Jew could have been dangerous if Prime Minister. Here in North Wales, Clwyd voted to cease all trade with Israel! I’m not sure how valuable that was, but doubt it will effect their economy.
Lynette is wrong that there is no one left to speak for Israel, there is one strong supporter of Israel and he has just been made Minister of Justice – Michael Gove. But as you say, Kaufman (who seems to be living forever) and Corbyn are still around. Galloway was not voted out by supporters of Israel, the Labour Party shrewdly used a Muslim candidate to oust him. There are a lot more Muslims in this parliament and we must beware. The fact that Clegg did not punish David Ward – and raised Jenny Tonge to the peerage! – shows that his attitude to the Jews is not exactly pleasant, and this is despite the fact that the old Liberal party had masses of Jewish support. As for Labour being anti-Israel, it is deeply divided. We have Louise Ellman, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement (formerly Poale Zion) but the Tories lost Lee Scott and that is almost certainly because the Muslim population of Ilford North is now predominantly Muslim.
The SNP might not have as much of a numerical grip on government as in a coalition BUT they can still play the Parnell and the Irish game, especially if the UKIP programme comes about in 2017 and the SNP walkout of the UK to stay in €U in which case the mud will be on Tory faces for ever (Ahhhh). What matters now is that the Cameron government will continue the Americanisation of UK society by selling off the buildings, schools, BBC and NHS at least in chunks to “contractors” – sorry “investors.” In such circumstances the unskilled and religious with big families will suffer badly. The Tory departmentalised idea that it is OK to spend on welfare but cut it, and bad housekeeping not to use the same money to create jobs and employ people on public projects that have been queuing for decades is utterly myopic blinkered book – keeping, but not practical one nation vision.
Lucas and Kaufmann out would have made it a perfect night . The SNP are welcome to independence , the sooner the better . They stand to lose far more than the rest of the union especially if Cameron refuses to allow them to keep the pound .
This forgets that the SNP wishes to stay in the €U and take the €uro if Cameron’s England stalks out of the €U – which would be an excellent moment to dump Ulster on the Dublin Irish who are not going to spend an extra £100 per cap on subsidising the Six Counties the way that Whitehall spoils them. Incidentally by their own policies the SNP are just to centre right and NOT, “left wing.”