British election will ultimately affect SA

The British public go to the polls today with Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May under fire on several fronts.

The confident majority she held in the public opinion surveys since she called for a snap election on April 18 has been steadily eroding.

May, who has never fought a general election as leader of the party – having taken over in July last year following the resignation of her predecessor David Cameron in June 2016 – is still tipped to win by most pundits, but it is increasingly looking like a close-run thing.

Labour’s bumbling leader Jeremy Corbyn has – many say despite his left-wing outbursts – steadily attracted the growing endorsement of younger voters who have been all but frozen out of the housing market.

The debate over Brexit has also heated up considerably since 51.98% of the electorate voted to leave the European Union in last June’s referendum – most notably among the Scottish Nationalists under firebrand leader Nicola Sturgeon, who has used the Brexit vote to try to engineer another referendum on a Scottish breakaway from Westminster rule.

With the South African economy officially adrift in a recession and our currency wallowing in the limbo of non-investment status, whatever rocks the boat in the United Kingdom causes wavelike effects here.

The UK is one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment to South Africa.

From 2003 to April 2013, total capital investment of R96.77 billion was recorded, creating 32 271 jobs.

In our circumstances – and the assertions from the ratings agency that the downgrades were due largely to “political instability” – that seems unlikely to be repeated, especially in the light of this country having to broker its own deals in Britain post-Brexit.

Whatever happens at the British polls is certain to concern us in the long term.

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