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UK Politics MCMXXXIX: Should I stay or should I go now?


Hereward

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Our Speaker is supposed to be impartial too - but we've never had the uncontested Speaker tradition of Britain, to the point where two incumbent NZ Speakers lost their seats in the 1990s. Screwing over the inhabitants of a particular area for a decade or more at a time feels unfair.

I've never understood why Speakers can keep coming back term after term after term. I think there should be a two-term limit maximum for them (one feels a little short as it can take a while for them to really get to grips with controlling the House) and then someone else should have to do the job, for the sake of their constituents.

It is only convention that they are unopposed, though, not a hard rule. Farage tried to take advantage of that in 2010 and actually got a decent number of votes, but not enough to unseat Bercow.

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Just now, ab aeterno said:

Considering... perhaps Labour holding an open primary would be a reasonable compromise. 

But then they'd have to pay for it, whereas an election is taxpayer funded.

 

Thomas Mair has given his name in court as "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain ". Just in case anyone doubted his motivation.

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10 minutes ago, Maltrouane Fellaini said:

But then they'd have to pay for it, whereas an election is taxpayer funded.

They'd be getting an uncontested seat, so I personally don't think their paying to hold an open primary is particularly unfair. They'll save money on campaigning anyway. In the interests of full disclosure, I think all the parties should use open primaries anyway.

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Of the polls we've just had only survation was conducted wholly after the shooting.

So, it is possible that the relatively large swing there is a Neo-Nazi effect. The question is, is that useful for Remain? Are people really going to change their opinions on the day because of what happened, or have some people just returned odd answers because the murder was at the forefront of their minds?

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3 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Of the polls we've just had only survation was conducted wholly after the shooting.

So, it is possible that the relatively large swing there is a Neo-Nazi effect. The question is, is that useful for Remain? Are people really going to change their opinions on the day because of what happened, or have some people just returned odd answers because the murder was at the forefront of their minds?

The Yougov poll which seems to have been done primarily before the shooting is showing the same percentage swing so it's difficult to tell if there is any effect. It's long been predicted that Remain could make gains in the last few days as wavering voters deciding to stick with the status quo (as happened in the Scottish referendum), so that could be why there are some positive swings for them.

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42 minutes ago, williamjm said:

The Yougov poll which seems to have been done primarily before the shooting is showing the same percentage swing so it's difficult to tell if there is any effect. It's long been predicted that Remain could make gains in the last few days as wavering voters deciding to stick with the status quo (as happened in the Scottish referendum), so that could be why there are some positive swings for them.

True. Although the last yougov poll produced a strong Leave lead, so maybe something of an outlier being corrected?

Late status quo swings often happen on the day itself, and aren't picked up by polls at all. This was the case in the Scottish referendum, actually. Polls were basically steady from late August, when Yes narrowed the gap, through to the ref.

edit: yougov have just stated they think the weakening in the Leave position is nothing to do with Cox (and that they noticed the swing in unpublished polling earlier) and is instead due to more people coming to believe Brexit will impact on their finances.

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Some of the shifting to Leave may be an impact of The Sun's declaration for Leave, but that's usually a case of the paper following the opinion of its readers rather than vice versa. The Times has gone for Remain. The Times is read by a lot less people, but they are overwhelmingly more likely to vote.

We seem to be exactly at 50-50. So the question is how much vitiriol will be expended (by either side) if we vote for either outcome, but not by 1 or 2% but by 0.1 or 0.2%? That would make a demand for another referendum within a decade very hard to resist. If it's for Remain it might give the government additional firepower to get more concessions from Brussels though.

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Anyone want to play call the referendum so you can look stupid after polling day?

My prediction: 52/48 Remain. Looking at the polls, and taking into account a status quo swing I feel that might be on the low side for Remain, but I also think the stay side in this case is much weaker than BT was in Scotland, so I struggle to see them getting near the 55.3% we saw in Scotland.

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