The Political Thread

[IndigoPrime]

When I totted it up, parties in favour of a second referendum got 53%. Those against: 46%. (Then there's the rabble, and I couldn't be arsed trawling through that.) In short, we got fucked by FPTP. Again. Labour got fucked by FPTP. Again. Labour SUPPORTS FPTP. They are part of the problem.

As for the why, from advocates I've been following, for every person who switched to Con due to Brexit, four switched due to Corbyn. He's deeply unpopular. Bar for a brief period after GE2017 when he was merely somewhat unpopular, that's always been the case. Is that unfair? Possibly. But that is where we are at and it has long been a known factor. Even now, Corbynites  are fighting against this, arguing they somehow won the argument, and that this was a 30-year project anyway.

Couple this with Labour's arrogance in refusing to stand down anywhere AND vehemently campaigning against LDs in a few key seats and you see the problem in the future. (There are a ton of people noting that at the death, they switched a ton of on the ground Labour to where Berger was campaigning, to ensure she would lose.)

We need Corbyn out. Labour must find a middle ground between his approach and Blair. Then it needs to make peace with not winning a majority and enter an electoral pact with the Lib Dems and Greens. Try to get the Greens an extra seat or two. Cede bits of the south to the LDs. Give Labour a clear run at its traditional London seats, and almost the entirety of the midlands and the north. Exceptions only for incumbents. For rare Lab/Lib marginals, split them 3:2 in Labour's favour. Then we might have a sliver of a hope of getting the Tories out next time around.

[Richard]

That's a very sensible and evidence-based proposal, which is why it certainly won't happen.

[Robin Low]

Obviously you guys here are ok, but we would appear to be in a bubble. 

We're not the only bubble. The gaming forum I'm on is largely anti-Tory, as is my deliberately small FB circle. There are a lot of differences in the details, but the generalities are the same.


Regards,

Robin

[Robin Low]

We need Corbyn out. Labour must find a middle ground between his approach and Blair. Then it needs to make peace with not winning a majority and enter an electoral pact with the Lib Dems and Greens.

Definitely agree with the first two sentences, and have a lot of sympathy for the third. I sometimes think if Blair had had the sense to keep out of Iraq and Brown had settled for second best they'd still be in charge.

Frustrating though it seems, I'd not get too hung up on FPTP. From someone else's analysis I saw, FPTP would have given the Brexit Party 13 seats. If that's correct, the last thing we need is that lot having a foundation to build on.

Regards,

Robin

[Professor Bear]

One of the arguments I've seen against PR is that overnight it would legitimise parties like the BNP/UKIP/Brexit, but they seem to be a constant presence anyway.

[IndigoPrime]

Frustrating though it seems, I'd not get too hung up on FPTP. From someone else's analysis I saw, FPTP would have given the Brexit Party 13 seats.

Good. People deserve representation. Either you believe in it or you don't. If you don't, then fine, but that means we'll never have more than one Green, and the Lib Dems will remain scrabbling around with about 1.5% of the seats on 12% of the vote (or, at their very best, 9% of the seats on 23% of the vote). And with Scotland lost to anyone but the SNP, we won't even bounce back and forth between Con/Lab majorities voted in by a minority of the people – it'll just be Tory forever, when the numbers are consistently there for progressive coalitions.

FPTP doesn't work. It's only worked once in a hundred years, when Baldwin's Tories won a majority actually backed by a majority (although, of course, the seats Baldwin got were massively higher than the vote). Arguably, 2010 was representative too, in the sense at least the government we ended up with had the backing of a majority – and 59.1%, which was the largest backing since 1868(!), unless you tot up all the parties Wilson eventually had to do deals with in the mid-70s.

One of the arguments I've seen against PR is that overnight it would legitimise parties like the BNP/UKIP/Brexit, but they seem to be a constant presence anyway.

The other argument is that by denying them representation, other parties have to play for their votes. So Labour and Tory policy alike has gone more UKIP, which split the former, and resulted in an effective takeover of the latter. If we had a PR system, these parties could split without fear of electoral oblivion. 'Corbyn' and 'Blair' Labour parties could co-exist and potentially come together in coalition. One Nation Tories could have removed themselves from the more right-wing in the party, and would have had options regarding who to work with. This is what happens in democracies all over the place, but we sit there complaining about the prospect of a 'hung parliament', which is what people from plenty of other countries would call a 'parliament'.

[Robin Low]

Frustrating though it seems, I'd not get too hung up on FPTP. From someone else's analysis I saw, FPTP would have given the Brexit Party 13 seats.

Good. People deserve representation. Either you believe in it or you don't. If you don't, then fine, but that means we'll never have more than one Green, and the Lib Dems will remain scrabbling around with about 1.5% of the seats on 12% of the vote (or, at their very best, 9% of the seats on 23% of the vote). And with Scotland lost to anyone but the SNP, we won't even bounce back and forth between Con/Lab majorities voted in by a minority of the people – it'll just be Tory forever, when the numbers are consistently there for progressive coalitions.

It's not so much that I don't believe in PR, more that I believe in the law of unintended consequences.

And while I accept there may well be the numbers there for progressive coalitions (and frankly that's what I was hoping for), the last three years do suggest that the willingness and competence is sorely lacking.

Regards,

Robin

[IndigoPrime]

And while I accept there may well be the numbers there for progressive coalitions (and frankly that's what I was hoping for), the last three years do suggest that the willingness and competence is sorely lacking.

We've no way of knowing for sure how voting patterns would change if we had PR, nor what realignment would occur under such a system. But if we look at 2010 and even take the vote we got as the basis, things would have been fundamentally different. The Lib Dems would have been de facto kingmakers. They would have had the choice of an almost 1:1 coalition with Labour or a 3:2 coalition with the Tories. Even with this week's vote, you have the numbers for Con+LD or Lab+LD+SNP+Green.

Perhaps it's naive to think that we can escape the us or them politics that's poisoned this country's politics. But it's pretty clear that unless some major shifts happen, Labour won't ever win a majority again. Therefore, it in the short term needs to figure out how to win enough seats to lead a coalition (so: a pact), and then make the likelihood of that occurring again increase (PR). And PR also has the knock-on effect of quite simply making elections fairer.

Of course, unintended consequences can then occur. We could end up with two conservative parties joining forces after a strong election showing. But even so, that's representation. And I'd take that alongside the greater likelihood of progressive and/or centrist coalitions than the shitshow we have now.

[Funt Solo]

I was disappointed, pre-election, when there was talk of a caretaker government, but it required that either Corbyn step-aside to allow a more neutral figure to lead it (he refused and wouldn't budge on that position) or that the Lib Dems would be okay with Corbyn leading it (they refused and wouldn't budge on their position).

Now, he's strapped himself to the wheel of the Titanic, and Jo Swinson's coracle went down in stormy seas.

[Funt Solo]

On the topic of Scottish nationalism, I don't see it as a xenophobic trend to tribalism: it's just clear from endless rounds (years) of voting that the people of Scotland want to manage their own affairs (as part of Europe: so to an extent) and that being tied to Westminster just doesn't allow that. You can see this from the most recent election in an incredibly stark and obvious, colour-coded way. Scotland wants something different:




Scotch nationalism is where we fight to turn the country into a whisky-themed amusement park. Take a wild ride in the Cragganmore Corryvecken Cork-Boat Calamity!

[sheridan]

Perhaps protest votes (voting for racist parties like BNP, UKIP and Brexit even though the voter wouldn't actually want to see them get in) would be less common if there was more of a chance that your actual vote had any effect?

[Professor Bear]

How to cope if your mental health is suffering because of the election result.

[JOE SOAP]

Only reason BJ hasn't agreed to IndyRef2 is he needs to appease the Unionist faction of the Conservative party, otherwise it would be a done deal and Tory's would have their perpetual rule copper-fastened – but he can't say no forever. Norn Irn is similar: now that a non-unionist vote is the majority in NI for the first time ever (unionist seats taken in unionist jerrymandered constituencies), it holds no political value and is only a drain on the Treasury.

[M.I.K.]

Does anyone remember a documentary (possibly a series) from about 30 odd years ago in which some bloke was looking at various forms of nationalism around the globe? Don't remember much about it except for said bloke getting to Scotland and summarising that it was the weirdest kind of nationalism he'd encountered because it seemed much more of a grievance with who was running things than tribalism and everybody seemed to have English grannies.

[Robin Low]

Jonathan Pie's Election Aftermath! sums up a lot of the problem to me. Not what a lot of people want to hear, but it's not wholly wrong, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0nIhL4v6bY

Regards,

Robin