UK Public To Remain Deeply Divided After General Election - Former EU Lawmaker

The United Kingdom's general election will not be able to heal the deep divide in society that the Brexit referendum left behind, as the country will likely remain this way until it finally leaves the European Union and returns to dealing with its domestic problems, Steven Woolfe, a former European Parliament member for North West England, told Sputnik

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th December, 2019) The United Kingdom's general election will not be able to heal the deep divide in society that the Brexit referendum left behind, as the country will likely remain this way until it finally leaves the European Union and returns to dealing with its domestic problems, Steven Woolfe, a former European Parliament member for North West England, told Sputnik.

The election, held on Thursday, was called by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the hopes of gaining a working majority for his Conservative Party to finally "get Brexit done." According to exit polls, the Conservative Party is set to get the desired majority. In light of the poor results for the country's main opposition force, the Labour Party, which had failed to take a clear stance on Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn announced on Friday that he would resign as party leader.

"The division is not going away. In fact, the division is going to harden in the next few years ... No matter who wins in the elections, neither of them are capable at this particular stage to rectify that division. They created that division in the last three years. The only way, in my view, we can settle this is what happens in Britain normally. We leave the European Union," Woolfe, a pro-Brexit campaigner, said.

He said that the divide would heal within 5-15 years once people eventually forgot about Brexit and returned to hearing about "transport, the rain and the politicians who never do what they have promised to do," as they did before.

Woolfe went on to say that the most unfortunate thing to come out of the Brexit referendum was Remainers claiming that Leavers were "racist and xenophobic," and did not know who they were voting for.

"The clear idea was to drive a line between young people and old people; North and South; rich and poor. They have managed to do that. They felt that by doing this division Brexit could be ended within a very short period of time," he continued.

Speaking of the consequences for the Conservatives, the ex-lawmaker said he believed that Johnson would now gain "much more power" since he had gotten rid of a lot of Remainers within the party ranks.

"The Conservative central office managed to change some of the seats to put in people that they know would be too frightened to say 'no' to Boris Johnson: they are too young, they want a career. People control them because of that age and inexperience and newness in parliament," he said.

In the previous parliament, a string of Tory defections saw the prime minister lose his majority. The rouge lawmakers were punished by being stripped of their whip, which effectively means being kicked out of the party.