General Election 2019

Is there anything the opposition can do and what can we do other than try and help the people in need in our local communities?

1983, Thatcher had a majority with 362 seats, the Poll-Tax in her manifesto and a mandate from the country to deliver it. She won again in 1987, and brought the poll-tax into operation in 1989, the poll-tax riots were a feature of 1990, and Thatcher was challenged by Heseltine and resigned shortly afterwards, with John Major taking over.

I think the lesson is that rioting works, or at least has done in the past.

This government can and will do as they please. The Lords and the Supreme Court could provide some checks in the short term, but likely both will be neutered (one by further stuffing with Tory peers; the other by whatever Cummings has planned as revenge for overturning the illegal prorogue).

The roundly vilified Michael Foot was leading in the Polls as Thatchers 1st Recession hit and the increase in VAT from 8 to 15% bit.
Cue the Falklands, '83 GE and a Tory majority of 144.

there’s never been a landslide majority government during my adult life when I was engaged with politics and don’t have any experience of it...

You are young

There's actually not that many years between the two of you take the closest end of either, they just seem worlds apart now.

Are we fully at the mercy of Boris and the Tory government for the next 5 years?

Kind of. My hunch is that what they can do will depend largely on the degree to which the right wing press is prepared to own the inevitable broken promises and failures of brexit. As things go wrong in the economy (and they absolutely will to one degree or the other) the opposition have the opportunity to hold the Tory's (and brexiteers' more generally) feet to the fire about how badly things are going. They could claim that they would have done better or (perhaps less productively) that it's clear that brexit was sold on a set of lies by the very people now in power.

The problem is that I very much doubt that we're going to see a headline in the Sun saying "Oh shit, we made a massive fucking mistake" What I fear will happen is that the press will play up the sense of aggrievement and victimhood based on nationalism and exceptionalism, essentially claiming that other countries are not giving us what we're owed. This of course will be utter bollocks, since they owe us nothing. Brexit is (fallaciously) sold as in our national interest, and other countries will act in theirs to squeeze us as hard as they can. Even worse, the finger will be pointed squarely at immigrants and "remainers" and the claim will be made that somehow the country is still be held back by them and would ascend meteorically if only we hadn't interfered/would stop interfering. That potentially could become even more toxic than things have already.

So in short, the opposition(s) in parliament, can call out the Tories on their broken promises but it will count for fuck all if the Tories don't fear for their reputation because the press and the public can't admit that the whole endeavour (both Brexit and the Tory government) was always going to be painful and both contain epic levels of ideologically-driven bullshit.

Is there anything the opposition can do and what can we do other than try and help the people in need in our local communities?

See Conservatives organising fuel riots to undermine Blair and force a majority Goverment to change tax's on motorists