UK Politics: Post-May Edition

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

23 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I agree with abolishing the triple lock.  The mistake was to issue a manifesto which simply took things away, and offered nothing in return to the voters.  As Pierre Trudeau put it, you have to offer the voters some prizes.

Quite why anyone thought abolishing free school lunches was a good idea escapes me, since the cost of providing them is peanuts in the scheme of things, but it was precisely the kind of measure that angered people in the 35-44 age bracket, where the Conservatives did so badly.

The Conservatives could have absorbed any one or two of a big lead for Labour among 18-34 year olds, a swing to Labour among 35-44 year olds, or a drop in turnout among 55+ year olds, and still won a majority, but they couldn't absorb all three.

Its like they looked into all the possible policies that could piss people off, that couldn't be spun in a positive way, and selected those as the best option. I will never know what they were thinking, unless they simply hoped to lose. Triple lock was a good policy that was difficult to make look good amongst core voters. Dimentia tax was possibly a good idea, badly proposed. Even school lunches I could accept. But including Fox Hunting does nothing but make the tories appear even more elitist.

Put them altogether and you have made a declaration that you are against everyone. No wonder there was the response there was. 

But I disagree with Mormont, I think that Brexit was a secondary issue for most people. If Brexit was important it was because it was a bit of an awakening for some that they can't sleepwalk through politics because life will not always change in their favour.

Most Labour concerns were to do with austerity, and portraying the tories as evil Mr Burns clones. There was very little talk of Brexit. In fact if Brexit was an actual concern of people then maybe people should anticipated the chaos of the result and how problematic it is for the coming negotiations. 

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Its like they looked into all the possible policies that could piss people off, that couldn't be spun in a positive way, and selected those as the best option. I will never know what they were thinking, unless they simply hoped to lose. Triple lock was a good policy that was difficult to make look good amongst core voters. Dimentia tax was possibly a good idea, badly proposed. Even school lunches I could accept. But including Fox Hunting does nothing but make the tories appear even more elitist.

Put them altogether and you have made a declaration that you are against everyone. No wonder there was the response there was. 

But I disagree with Mormont, I think that Brexit was a secondary issue for most people. If Brexit was important it was because it was a bit of an awakening for some that they can't sleepwalk through politics because life will not always change in their favour.

Most Labour concerns were to do with austerity, and portraying the tories as evil Mr Burns clones. There was very little talk of Brexit. In fact if Brexit was an actual concern of people then maybe people should anticipated the chaos of the result and how problematic it is for the coming negotiations. 

I think there were places where Brexit mattered, and places where it didn't.  I think that in Scotland, being the party of both the Union and Leave, benefitted the Tories hugely.  In some constituencies where UKIP were previously strong, in the East and West Midlands, the Tory vote really shot up.

But, then you get the constituencies where there had been big votes for UKIP, and this time the Labour vote shot up (Luton North and South being good examples of this).  Such voters would still have supported Brexit, but trusted Labour not to reverse it, and their economic concerns came to the fore.

Then you have a number of wealthy constituencies where Tory Remainers were plainly very angry about Brexit, and were willing to vote for anyone who could beat the Tories as a result, places like Kensington, Battersea,  Oxford West, Twickenham, Southgate were lost.

But other Tory Remain constituencies, where I thought Remainers might vote against the Conservatives (eg Wokingham, St. Alban's, Guildford, South Cambridgeshire) produced easy wins.  

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

But I disagree with Mormont, I think that Brexit was a secondary issue for most people.

Then how do you explain the trend I noted above, of a consistently larger swing to Labour in Remain-voting constituencies?

[polishgenius]

It's amusing me that it seems like by far the most anticipated act of Glastonbury this weekend is Corbyn's introduction for Run the Jewels.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

On 6/22/2017 at 1:25 PM, mormont said:

Then how do you explain the trend I noted above, of a consistently larger swing to Labour in Remain-voting constituencies?

I put it down to a general reaction against the Tories and their poor handling of basically every issue. I'd say there was a correlation between being a remain voter and being more left leaning and liberal, and so labour would be a more natural fit. This election gave the middle class liberal something to get angry about, but I don't think Brexit was the first thing on their minds. 

Corbyn barely spoke of Brexit in comparison to a general message of equality (maybe because most people wouldn't trust him in negotiations?)  and most of the conversation seemed to lay around the issues of cutbacks, and austerity. 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I put it down to a general reaction against the Tories and their poor handling of basically every issue.

That wouldn't explain why that reaction seems to vary in a way that corresponds to the referendum vote.

In percentage terms, if your explanation were true, we would expect a uniform swing to Labour across the board. That didn't happen. There has to be something about 2017 Labour voters in Remain constituencies that is different from 2017 Labour voters in Leave constituencies: and if it isn't the obvious, ie whether they voted Leave or not, it has to be something else. It can't be 'a general reaction against the Tories' because it's not a general reaction. I'm trying to find other ways of saying this but I am repeating myself, so to sum up: your explanation doesn't explain and the question stands.

[Paxter]

I suspect a few here would appreciate this.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

On 2017-6-24 at 5:50 PM, mormont said:

That wouldn't explain why that reaction seems to vary in a way that corresponds to the referendum vote.

In percentage terms, if your explanation were true, we would expect a uniform swing to Labour across the board. That didn't happen. There has to be something about 2017 Labour voters in Remain constituencies that is different from 2017 Labour voters in Leave constituencies: and if it isn't the obvious, ie whether they voted Leave or not, it has to be something else. It can't be 'a general reaction against the Tories' because it's not a general reaction. I'm trying to find other ways of saying this but I am repeating myself, so to sum up: your explanation doesn't explain and the question stands.

Well firstly I'm not sure there was that huge a correlation between the Remain areas and where Labour made gains over the conservatives, it happens in some areas but not in others.  Nor is it even that hard to tell because the difference between Leave and Remain was close to 50/50 almost everwhere with slight majorities (part of the problem with the Brexit Vote). Areas like Brighton and Poole are traditionally very left leaning and liberal, especially if you get the young vote out, and they swung over to labour. 

Secondly if Brexit was a primary factor in the minds of remain voters then you would have seen a far larger upswing in votes for the Lib Dems, who threatened a second referendum and tried to cancel Brexit. But that didn't happen. Lib Dems didn't make very many gains at all. 

Thirdly Corbyn's position on Brexit is unclear. He was never very firm on opposition to Brexit, in fact he might even have been for it. His election promises for Brexit centred around not going the Tax Haven route, and maybe a slightly softer Brexit. But at the same time he never wanted to cancel it, he was very wavey on how he was going to deal with immigration. Brexit was down the pecking order of his policies. 

Anecdotally I know a few hardcore Corbyn supporters, friends of mine who went door to door campaigning for him. Brexit was never mentioned by them, it was far too complex an issue for them to be dealing with. Their main focus was cuts the NHS and local services, austerity and inequality, and younger voters were bribed by the unrealistic promise of the removal of tuition fees. 

I think we also need to accept that the UK is a divided country, it has large metropolitan areas which are generally more middle class, liberal and leftist, and you have more working class areas which while years ago might have got a labour vote are now more right wing and conservative. I don't think that changed massively. What we've seen since the last election was a far more left wing alternative to the conservative party in Labour, the falling apart of UKIP since Brexit, and an incompetent Tory government in power.

Brexit was certainly a factor in this election , but only in so much as I suspect it changed the overall tone of the country and divided it further. But overall the core battlefield of this election was Austerity and deficit cuts.




 

[Lyanna Stark]

On 2017-06-21 at 4:38 PM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I'm not saying the article is especially wrong, but its also coming from the perspective that Britain in the EU was already totally fine and there were no problems, and so leaving is idiotic. Leaving is rather silly, but mainly because the penalties for doing so are seemingly so prohibitive. The EU is really not such a great institution, the EURO has been quite disasterous for many, and we are looking at a future where countries start to lose even more sovereignty in the cause of ever closer union. It might be that we are better off outside of that in the long run, even if in the short term things look quite bad. 

There are quite a few EU countries who never adopted the Euro though, so that the Euro has severe issues isn't the same as dismissing the EU-membership as a whole.

Are you sure that the trade-deals and legislation aren't far more prohibitive, long term, than cost? After all, all numbers I have seen on this seem to indicate that the toll free union, free movement of goods, services and people, plus harmonised regulations are *huge* and could cause enormous issues for the UK should there be a "no deal" solution.

The Scandinavian countries are quite anxious that the UK is leaving, since from what I understand, it was seen that the UK was often a more natural ally on many issues, and worked as a counterweight to France/Germany domination. Especially from the non-Euro countries, it seemed that they felt they had more oomph with the UK in their corner as well.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

15 minutes ago, Lyanna Stark said:

There are quite a few EU countries who never adopted the Euro though, so that the Euro has severe issues isn't the same as dismissing the EU-membership as a whole.

Are you sure that the trade-deals and legislation aren't far more prohibitive, long term, than cost? After all, all numbers I have seen on this seem to indicate that the toll free union, free movement of goods, services and people, plus harmonised regulations are *huge* and could cause enormous issues for the UK should there be a "no deal" solution.

The Scandinavian countries are quite anxious that the UK is leaving, since from what I understand, it was seen that the UK was often a more natural ally on many issues, and worked as a counterweight to France/Germany domination. Especially from the non-Euro countries, it seemed that they felt they had more oomph with the UK in their corner as well.

I don't doubt that it would be huge with a 'no deal' solution, and really that scenario would be a nightmare. But then 'no deal' IMO was a negotiating position and nothing more. 

I would always have preferred to have stayed in the EU if it was possible to change it from within. The UK as you said was a good counter measure and seemed to hold the EU back from its relentless push to create European Super State. Without us inside it now I worry that there is nothing stopping that happening. A total collapse of the Euro when the next debt crisis occurs ( and it certainly will happen)  might stop that, especially if you have another Greek situation. The UK is also not the only country to be concerned about immigration, and tension there will boil over even more. 

 

[mormont]

54 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well firstly I'm not sure there was that huge a correlation between the Remain areas and where Labour made gains over the conservatives, it happens in some areas but not in others. 

Well, if you're not sure, here's some analysis.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21723438-turnout-youth-and-brexit-three-things-sank-tories-post-mortem-britains

https://www.ft.com/content/dac3a3b2-4ad7-11e7-919a-1e14ce4af89b?mhq5j=e1

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/06/15/was-this-a-brexit-election-after-all-tracking-party-support-among-leave-and-remain-voters/

There's a variable effect, particularly in the last where they point out that after a certain point the correlation falls away, but the overall trend is clear.

54 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

 Secondly if Brexit was a primary factor in the minds of remain voters then you would have seen a far larger upswing in votes for the Lib Dems, who threatened a second referendum and tried to cancel Brexit.

Not necessarily. See me previous post: it's not necessarily about reversing Brexit but about the direction of negotiations. Voters may not be (and likely aren't) keen on another referendum, but that doesn't mean they're against doing whatever can be done within the process of leaving to maintain some sort of close relationship with the EU.

54 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Thirdly Corbyn's position on Brexit is unclear.

Which likely benefits his party, if voters were looking for some way to express concerns about Brexit without asking for a new vote on it.

[SeanF]

I was privately amused by an acquaintance who was so pissed off at Brexit, that she switched from Conservatives to Labour.

She lives in Vauxhall.  I didn't have the heart to tell her who her MP is.

[Maltaran]

So the price of the DUP deal is £1 billion extra for NI plus a promise to keep paying farm subsidies after Brexit. Is it worth it?

[Isis]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I was privately amused by an acquaintance who was so pissed off at Brexit, that she switched from Conservatives to Labour.

She lives in Vauxhall.  I didn't have the heart to tell her who her MP is.

She doesn't know who her own MP is?

[SeanF]

19 minutes ago, Isis said:

She doesn't know who her own MP is?

Many people don't.  A high profile MP can build a personal following, but usually, people are voting for a party.

[Werthead]

Quote

 

So the price of the DUP deal is £1 billion extra for NI plus a promise to keep paying farm subsidies after Brexit. Is it worth it?

 

The look of apoplexy on the faces of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists being interviewed today was quite entertaining, but ultimately I have to think not. It's a preposterous amount of money to spend to try to buy off the DUP.

What is interesting is the two year limit, which seems to suggest that May doesn't have much faith in her coalition of chaos making it past 2019 and then we'll have another election at that point.

[Maltaran]

I suspect the two year limit is more likely the DUP's lack of faith in May, and thus ensuring they get all the money before Corbyn can take it away.

[williamjm]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

The look of apoplexy on the faces of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists being interviewed today was quite entertaining, but ultimately I have to think not. It's a preposterous amount of money to spend to try to buy off the DUP.

A few years ago some of the Scottish Conservatives flirted with the idea of breaking away from the UK party, if they had then I guess Theresa May would also have to be bribing them to join her coalition.

[Isis]

17 hours ago, SeanF said:

Many people don't.  A high profile MP can build a personal following, but usually, people are voting for a party.

People should know who their MP is before voting in a GE. It's dead easy to find out. I'm not saying everyone needs to be 'politically active' every single day or anything but yes, they should find out who their MP is before they vote for them. Also, it's actually written on the card - so no excuse to not know by the time you cast your vote.

[mormont]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

The look of apoplexy on the faces of the Welsh and Scottish nationalists being interviewed today was quite entertaining, but ultimately I have to think not. It's a preposterous amount of money to spend to try to buy off the DUP.

To be fair, until yesterday the Tory Scottish Secretary was talking about there being Barnett consequentials (ie more cash for Scotland) from the DUP deal so it's fair that people would be pissed off at the sudden volte-face on that.

But while the anger from the nationalist parties is real, it's also ameliorated by the fact that this is pretty tremendous ammunition for them. Theresa May's government can never again credibly plead poverty or talk about austerity when the devolved administrations ask for cash.