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UK Politics: Who Pays the Andyman?


Tywin Manderly

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I just wanted to express my deepest sympathies to all my UK friends. It’s just dreadful to see what’s going on in the US and now this election in the UK. We just escaped a right wing government here in Canada, knock on wood, but we could be in the same boat a few years down the road.

 

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It's never going to happen in most Western democracies, but I wonder what compulsory voting would have done.

And as much as people might hate Alastair Campbell and the Blairites, I think he's got a point when he says that if Boris serves out a full term, it will be 50 years since a Labour leader other than Tony Blair won an election. Either the Conservatives have been playing dirty tricks to steal elections for all of that time (perhaps a partial explanation), or Labour just hasn't ever got its act together with a winning message for the electorate (more likely).

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7 minutes ago, Jeor said:

It's never going to happen in most Western democracies, but I wonder what compulsory voting would have done.

And as much as people might hate Alastair Campbell and the Blairites, I think he's got a point when he says that if Boris serves out a full term, it will be 50 years since a Labour leader other than Tony Blair won an election. Either the Conservatives have been playing dirty tricks to steal elections for all of that time (perhaps a partial explanation), or Labour just hasn't ever got its act together with a winning message for the electorate (more likely).

Compulsory voting does not seem to have kept right wing parties out of govt in Australia. So somewhat puts the lie to the suggestion that non-voters / voter suppression depresses the left vote. Unless of course one can advance an argument that, since the Hawke era, Australia has swung considerably to the right and moreso than other countries. It seems among those who don't vote the political leanings are more or less proportionally the same as among those who do vote. They just don't seem to care enough one way or the other to actually go out and vote.

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10 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Compulsory voting does not seem to have kept right wing parties out of govt in Australia.

Right-wing parties might have won government in Australia just as many times as they have in other Western democracies, but I suspect that compulsory voting has still moderated them to a certain extent. Anywhere else in the world, Malcolm Turnbull would never have been a conservative leader; in Australia, the Coalition voted him in as their leader because he was seen to be "electable" and would steal votes from Labor, which was an argument strengthened by compulsory voting.

It's not a panacea (after all, Australia has still produced Tony Abbott as PM and the jury is out on Morrison), and the extent of how much it helps is up for debate, but I certainly don't think compulsory voting would make anything worse.

I should have also added that compulsory and preferential voting in combination would be interesting to explore. At least in theory both things should help candidates stick more closely to the center.

One other slight silver lining in this very great big cloud is that Democrats in the US might take this as a warning that Trump's reelection is a very, very real possibility and they might just have enough time to learn from it and prevent it from happening. Although the UK and US electorates are very different.

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As a child of a Third World country who got to move to the US and really truly believed in the goodness of the US and UK for most of my life, I am filled with sadness at the prion disease death of our nations, and I am sad for the world my son will grow up in.

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Also, does the SNP's strong showing mean that Scotland may actually get a second referendum to Remain and (if it succeeds) secede from the UK?

Jo Swinson has been voted out of her seat. Nationwide looks like an absolute disaster for the LibDems and nowhere near the revival they would have been planning for.

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12 minutes ago, Jeor said:

One other slight silver lining in this very great big cloud is that Democrats in the US might take this as a warning that Trump's reelection is a very, very real possibility and they might just have enough time to learn from it and prevent it from happening. Although the UK and US electorates are very different.

I wish I shared that optimism, I fear the lesson they will take away is to not stand for anything which is not an approach that works for left wing parties. The odds of a Biden or Buttigieg nomination have gone up imo.

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4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Next up Scotxit, or whatever the Scottish version of Brexit is called. “Self rule rules!” The world is making more sense already.

There's a fair chance Scottland would simply rejoin the EU. Which, yeah sort of makes sense. But I'm guessing not for the reason you think. 

”Self-rule” in regards to Brexit just appears to mean being exploited by foreign corporations, the US(especially) and India. It does not make sense for a person concerned about immigration eroding their culture(even if they can't even articulate what parts specifically they're concerned about) to support Brexit-which will flood the country  with immigrants from places with a far more different culture, than the immigrant groups that would be limited by Brexit.

The Tory party have shown they'd erode any checks against the executive meant to keep it from acting dictatorial, so it doesn't makes sense for a person supposedly interested in the populace being free to continue to support them or see, them winning, as good thing for Democracy. 

4 hours ago, Liffguard said:

The thing is, Brexit itself was a decision largely driven by values and identity politics rather than any sort of utilitarian analysis. Scottish independence could very well follow the same route. Even if you could conclusively show that Scotland would be better off in the UK and out of the EU, there might well be enough Scots willing to, essentially, tell England to fuck off anyway.

To the bolded, kinda yeah. I think ”Identity politics” is seen by many as just meaning when none-whites, or none-heterosexuals, etc are complaining about things that negatively impact them especially.

American Evangelicals actively deride any attempts in the US for any talk of fair treatment in terms of religion, and largely only vote for a politician who'd cater to their specific religious dogma.  People from the LGBT community vote for Candidates who Are heterosexual All the time. Most Evangelical Christian evangelical Christians would find the idea of voting for a person who says they're not Christian unpalatable.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Today just shows again that you guys are the radicals, and in the major English speaking nations people mostly don’t share your views.

This accusation of being radical seems a tad hollow from someone who thinks Christians wanting to throw homosexuals in cages  or destroy any sense of secularism in society are just being good Christians.

You also seem to commit a rather a hasty generalization. Sanders’ is still Generally popular in the polls, and even Clinton(who was immediately further to the center) managed to win the popular vote in the US. 

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28 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I wish I shared that optimism, I fear the lesson they will take away is to not stand for anything which is not an approach that works for left wing parties. The odds of a Biden or Buttigieg nomination have gone up imo.

Yes, I think Biden and Buttigieg will get a boost from this, and this will add to the doubts about Sanders and Warren in a general election.

I'm not sure whether any of those are good or bad things.

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3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just wanted to express my deepest sympathies to all my UK friends. It’s just dreadful to see what’s going on in the US and now this election in the UK. We just escaped a right wing government here in Canada, knock on wood, but we could be in the same boat a few years down the road. 

 

Possibly. Climate-change will be a real bitch(well a far bigger one than it is currently) and there's nothing that heightens nativisism more than loads of poor foreigners doing some mass migration. The Christian right will act with great Christian sympathy and meet these wayward souls with guns, by proclaiming that these people should just stay where they are and die. 

It’ll be interesting to see how/if this turmoil will help get more social conservatives to be less enchanted by capitalism possibly seeing it as having allowed certain ideals that are progressive-or at the very least not hardline conservative-to be propagated. Ideals that they'll inevitably blame well everything. 

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It's an election where Labour win Putney and Canterbury, while losing Bolsover. I am sure the usual suspects will vilify Corbyn, but honestly, it's a Realignment - Labour are gaining among the middle-class, and losing among the working-class.

Welcome to the world of the Culture War. 

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5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Will Labour and LD voting in favour of this GE (the only way this GE could ever happen) go down in UK history as the worst political decision/calculation ever made? No matter your political leanings, you have to conclude that Labour and the Lib Dems were mind numblingly stupid to vote in favour of this election.

If one is the Opposition, it looks a bit daft to say "no, we don't want a chance to be the Government. We want the Government to stay!" Sure, the threat of No Deal buys time, but it's otherwise blocking an election with a dysfunctional Parliament is politically impossible.

Besides, the worst British political decision of the post-war era remains Jim Callaghan not calling an election in October 1978.

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1 minute ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

If one is the Opposition, it looks a bit daft to say "no, we don't want a chance to be the Government. We want the Government to stay!" Sure, the threat of No Deal buys time, but it's otherwise blocking an election with a dysfunctional Parliament is politically impossible.

Besides, the worst British political decision of the post-war era remains Jim Callaghan not calling an election in October 1978.

Well, they had the numbers to roll the cons and form a govt for long enough to have another referendum and then a GE. So no, they didn't need to stay in opposition and be spoiler. They just lacked the pragmatic will to do what was necessary.

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44 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

It's an election where Labour win Putney and Canterbury, while losing Bolsover. I am sure the usual suspects will vilify Corbyn, but honestly, it's a Realignment - Labour are gaining among the middle-class, and losing among the working-class.

Welcome to the world of the Culture War. 

Bizarre isn't it?  It's a world in which people who would have spat at the mention of the Conservatives, 30 years ago, in the coalfields of Durham, Derbyshire, and South Yorkshire, now vote Conservative.   Conversely, people who would have loathed the striking miners, in Putney, Kensington, North Leeds, are now Labour loyalists.  It's disorienting to have all the political assumptions I grew up with, turned on their head.

Both the English & Welsh and Scottish results, show how devastating first the post is, if a party can assemble 44% of the vote.  Voters really doubled down on voting pro or anti Brexit, except crucially, for some affluent Conservatives who were petrified by Corbyn.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Bizarre isn't it?  It's a world in which people who would have spat at the mention of the Conservatives, 30 years ago, in the coalfields of Durham, Derbyshire, and South Yorkshire, now vote Conservative.   Conversely, people who would have loathed the striking miners, in Putney, Kensington, North Leeds, are now Labour loyalists.  It's disorienting to have all the political assumptions I grew up with, turned on their head.

Both the English & Welsh and Scottish results, show how devastating first the post is, if a party can assemble 44% of the vote.  Voters really doubled down on voting pro or anti Brexit, except crucially, for some affluent Conservatives who were petrified by Corbyn.

If the affluent Tory Remainers were ever going to switch, they'd have jumped to the Liberal Democrats. As it is, they're rusted on, and I don't think Tony Blair himself could have prised them loose.

 

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6 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Will Labour and LD voting in favour of this GE (the only way this GE could ever happen) go down in UK history as the worst political decision/calculation ever made?

Maybe, but it is important to remember that in the case of almost every poor tactical and strategic decision ever made, there were reasons why at the time it seemed like the best course of action. First off, Parliament wasn't able to do anything, and this was turning the public against the opposition more than against the government, indeed riding this out seemed to be Johnson's strategy for a while. Secondly was that remainers were basically relying on the EU to keep giving the UK extensions and being willing to talk to us for as long as they were not in power. For as long as a GE was delayed, no deal Brexit by default could not be entirely ruled out. Thirdly, Johnson is a PR disaster, and could be trusted to botch any campaign. In this they were correct, but the English public love Johnson, so they weren't bothered by him hiding in a fridge, avoiding questions, bumbling like an idiot and just generally being a total cretin.

 

6 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

There is still a school of thought that the Corbyn faction wants Brexit, but it doesn't want to be blamed for it. So it doesn't mind the Tories winning this round, because the Corbyn faction is making a 300 IQ play for Labour rule to dominate for the next generation because of how badly the Tories will muck up Brexit. I wonder if this alleged 300 IQ play will end up being more of a 30 IQ play.

This is absolutely false. Everyone who is even close to a Corbyn supporter is very conscious of the damage that the Conservatives under Johnson could do with a working majority, and they were giving everything they had to avoid it in most cases.

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34 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

If the affluent Tory Remainers were ever going to switch, they'd have jumped to the Liberal Democrats. As it is, they're rusted on, and I don't think Tony Blair himself could have prised them loose.

 

Those people would never had voted Labour, and as you said the Lib Dems failed utterly, and worked to weaken the Labour party as they did so. The worst part is that they have made no headway towards regaining any of the seats they lost in 2015, the entire English countryside is Tory, so they only need a few seats in Scotland, Wales and urban England to get a large majority.

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Unfortunately Raab still won :(, small silver linings though, Zac Goldsmith and Emma Dent Coad both lost their seats.

So a workable Tory majority, while this doesn’t fill me with the same sense of dread that it does most people on here I’m still a bit disappointed as it means Brexit is really going to happen now.

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Tory remainers liked the lies about "keep Corbyn out" (I will allow that they were mostly exagerations rather than outright lies; and allow some leeway here).
Labour leavers liked the lies about "get brexit done" despite knowing full well that they were lies.

A victory for duplicity, prejudice and bigotry

I've never been more ashamed to be British

The only glimmer of silver lining is that 53.3% voted for pro-EU parties, compared to 45.7% voting anti-EU - even though that's completely irrelevant in our FPTP system

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1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

If the affluent Tory Remainers were ever going to switch, they'd have jumped to the Liberal Democrats. As it is, they're rusted on, and I don't think Tony Blair himself could have prised them loose.

 

They switched in Metropolitan seats like Putney, Battersea, Wimbledon, Ealing Acton, but not in very large numbers outside London, save St. Alban's.  I guess that affluent Remainers in the Stockbroker Belt think differently to their colleagues in London.

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