UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[vileplume]

I'm rather surprised that Burnham is sticking behind Corbyn right now. I think that maybe this shows Jeremy's got a fighting chance at surviving?

Or he's waiting to plunge his knife in when it will do the most damage.

No as Senator Blair said Burnham is concerned that joining this coup will wreck his chances of winning the Labour Primary for the Greater Manchester Metro Mayor. He's thinking about his future career plain and simple. If he instead thought helping to topple Corbyn was in his political best interest you can be totally sure he would have thrown Corbyn under the bus without a second thought.

As for whether it gives Corbyn a better survival chance I'm not sure but keeping a senior cabinet minister can do no harm even though it is for entirely the wrong reasons.

[vileplume]

and it's the typical lib dem seat (white, middle class professionals, progressive leaning etc)

Not really anymore. You are thinking of the Richmond of 20 or 30 years ago. Although it is not noticeable at first glance because Richmond has always been a 'nice' area but scratch beneath the surface and the demographics have shifted a lot here. The area is rapidly turning into a copy of Kensington as the progressive middle classes which form the backbone of natural Lib Dem support are priced out (Richmond was competitive even in the Tory landslides of the 80s) and replaced with a upper class patrician, hard nosed capitalist demographic (bankers, corporate lawyers and the like) who are not Lib Dem friendly at all. Note that the decline in liberal Richmond has been directly responsible for turning formerly 'blue rinse' Tory Kingston and Surbiton into a more liberal kind of areas.

While it is possible the Lib Dems could win here in a by election as people use the opportunity to send May a message about hard Brexit (though it will be harder as Goldsmith is running and not even as a Tory) but as far a general elections go the Lib Dem's time has been and gone here.

[vileplume]

The Tories want to bring a voter ID law. Currently 7.5% of the population don't have an photo ID.

So gerrymandering, individual registration and now voter ID. Anybody noticing some sort of theme?

Er they aren't gerrymandering. Labour seats particularly those in Wales tend to be grossly undersized and the current boundaries are based on old data so there needs to be some change. It's the boundary commission that has proposed some new horrendous constituencies not the Tories.

As for photo ID it is probably strongly supported by the public as a whole. It is quite easy in Britain to walk into the polling station and pretend to be anyone. If this is introduced the government will be pressurised to make access to id easier. However it is not the in person vote but instead the postal vote where the strongest most credible allegations of electoral fraud happen particularly in Labour areas with large Muslim populations such as Tower Hamlets, Nelson, Halifax, parts of Birmingham etc. for example fake voters on the rolls and 'community leaders' filling out everyone's ballots for them or heavily controlling how the members of their community vote. That's the part of the voting process which needs tightening up the most.

[vileplume]

I assume the tradesman votes more Tory?

Er... no. Other way round

Since when did tradespeople and people who own small business vote Labour?! Not since the Blair landslides of '97 and '01. Cameron would have crushed Miliband with this demographic and Corbyn will likely do even worse.

[vileplume]

The Tories want to bring a voter ID law. Currently 7.5% of the population don't have an photo ID.

So gerrymandering, individual registration and now voter ID. Anybody noticing some sort of theme?

Er they aren't gerrymandering. Labour seats particularly those in Wales tend to be grossly undersized and the current boundaries are based on old data so there needs to be some change. It's the boundary commission that has proposed some new horrendous constituencies not the Tories.

As for photo ID it is probably strongly supported by the public as a whole. It is quite easy in Britain to walk into the polling station and pretend to be anyone. If this is introduced the government will be pressurised to make access to id easier. However it is not the in person vote but instead the postal vote where the strongest most credible allegations of electoral fraud happen particularly in Labour areas with large Muslim populations such as Tower Hamlets, Nelson, Halifax, parts of Birmingham etc. for example fake voters on the rolls and 'community leaders' filling out everyone's ballots for them or heavily controlling how the members of their community vote. That's the part of the voting process which needs tightening up the most.

Per Anthony Wells, under the proposed changes, Labour need a 12.6% lead to win a majority, against 5.7% for the Tories, that is beyond evening things out. Bear in mind that Labour's advantage has disappeared since losing Scotland, and now that their support is increasingly concentrated in cities, the reforms are now just exacerbating an already Conservative advantage.

As for ID, there is precious little evidence of widespread electoral fraud, outside the fevered imaginations of Farage types about "postal ballots", there will be a far greater damage to the functioning of democracy by effectively disenfranchising millions of people (and the country does have a lot of people for whom £30 on a provision driving licence is a stretch too far).

Add that to "individual voter registration" which took a lot of more transient people (i.e. poor, young) of the roll, and you there are some questions to be asked.

Well before the last election it was received wisdom that the Tories could never win a majority as the electoral map was so tilted towards Labour. Then the Tories against nearly everyone's prediction won a majority and received wisdom was blown out of the water. So in order to reverse their current disadvantage Labour need to swing the marginal back towards them. Though I do agree that with Corbyn at the helm the marginals given their typical demographic profile are likely to move further away while Labour's support gets even more packed into the Islingtons and Hackneys etc. This isn't the Tories fault though it's the fault of the electoral system which Labour were perfectly happy with when it benefitted them. Plus Labour doesn't need a majority to form a government as the SNP will certainly side with them over the Tories (how stable said government would be is another question entirely).

There is little evidence of widespread voter fraud, true. Though it does exist in a handful of rotten boroughs (unfortunately those with high Muslim populations do tend to be the primary culprits. Tower Hamlets in particular is a hotbed of fraud indeed the former mayor was found guilty of it, one of Jeremy Corbyn's advisors (the blue haired woman) has a conviction for electoral fraud in Newham and there have been several credible, high profile allegations of fraud (fake registrations and the like) in Halifax and Nelson.

If this voter ID law is introduced and I'm doubtful that it will be the government will be forced to provide free and accessible ID. There would be too much of a backlash/negative publicity if they didn't.

[vileplume]

The Tories want to bring a voter ID law. Currently 7.5% of the population don't have an photo ID.

So gerrymandering, individual registration and now voter ID. Anybody noticing some sort of theme?

Er they aren't gerrymandering. Labour seats particularly those in Wales tend to be grossly undersized and the current boundaries are based on old data so there needs to be some change. It's the boundary commission that has proposed some new horrendous constituencies not the Tories.

As for photo ID it is probably strongly supported by the public as a whole. It is quite easy in Britain to walk into the polling station and pretend to be anyone. If this is introduced the government will be pressurised to make access to id easier. However it is not the in person vote but instead the postal vote where the strongest most credible allegations of electoral fraud happen particularly in Labour areas with large Muslim populations such as Tower Hamlets, Nelson, Halifax, parts of Birmingham etc. for example fake voters on the rolls and 'community leaders' filling out everyone's ballots for them or heavily controlling how the members of their community vote. That's the part of the voting process which needs tightening up the most.

I'm always sceptical when one party decides by themselves to change anything involving the electoral process; especially when conveniently its likely to benefit them - which is definately the case with the boundary changes.  A big part of the reason why the commission has come out with a load of awful seats is because they don't really have any choice: the 5% threshold is well too inflexible to allow for .  I'd have supported a reform that equalised Wales with the rest of the UK - I'd even support a reduction of the size of the House, but I do think that the Commission needs flexibility to add a few MPs if it leads to people being better represented - there's no real difference in cost between 600 MPs and 603, but the latter might lead to a few of the awful boundaries being replaced by good ones.  The bit that I oppose most is the whole 5% threshold thing: 10% would be so much better and allow the Commission to draw better seats.  There's also the fact that the current review was conveniently started on an older register right after individual registration was brought in rather than a newer one that was available; which would represent traditional Labour areas better.

How many cases of impersonation were there at the last General Election?  I can guarantee that the number will be incredibly low, certainly less than the number of legitimate voters that an ID law would stop voting.  I don't think that voter ID is necessary and I'd only ever support it if appropriate ID was provided to everyone in the UK free of charge: but that's not what they are proposing so it needs to be opposed.  You've correctly identified several areas where we need to enforce current laws better and make sure that everyone has a free right to vote: but ID laws aren't ever going to stop that: especially since the community that you've identified are generally pretty likely to have forms of ID.

Well the proposed seats only are awful because the commission has this silly thing about not splitting local government wards even where the wards are stupidly large like in Birmingham. Of course the government is pushing for some of these changes for partisan reasons as did Labour when they were in government e.g. their refusal to reduce Welsh representation despite the setting up of the Welsh Assembly. The ability of governments to bend the rules slightly in their favour is not a fault of any specific party but a fault of the system which needs to be fixed.

I personally am not a big fan of ID because as you say the areas where fraud is worst won't be fixed by ID. However if it were introduced the government would be pressured into making voter ID free and accessible to all, to not do this would cause a serious and unwanted backlash (they remember the Poll Tax all too well). I personally doubt it will be introduced anyway, the Tories are very good at messaging and PR and have a habit of floating popular but badly thought through ideas like this one and then scrapping them a few months later (see grammar schools) typically to distract from something else, unpopular or controversial, that they're doing at the same time e.g. Brexit, NHS reforms etc..

[vileplume]

An interesting character for sure. RIP.

Following the 2015 general election, four MPs (Kaufman, Meacher, Skinner and Clarke) were tied for the longest continuous service with all having first been elected in 1970. Two of those have since passed away (Meacher of course being the other).

I think it's Clarke that now takes over as father of the house.

[vileplume]

Since the general election, Labour have had 8 by-elections to defend (including 4 deaths), compared to the Conservative's 3.

WTF is going on? Are any Labour MPs actually going to make it through the whole parliament?

It was widely suspected that Kaufman was very ill he hadn't appeared in Parliament for months.  His last recorded appearance (according to the 'They work for you' website) was on the 27th May 2016.

I don't know for sure but I think the average Labour MP is older than the average Conservative one hence the disproportionate number of by-elections caused by deaths for Labour MPs compared to Tory ones. Perhaps it's also because older Labour MPs would have been more likely to have worked in heavy industry (Skinner was a miner for example) which is often linked to lowering life expectancy.

[vileplume]

May is insane not to call a snap election with her party ahead by 15-19 points.

It would look opportunistic and the electorate tends to punish parties than make them go to the polls unnecessarily. Plus assuming the Tories win speculation would swiftly begin about May's successor and when she will step down.

[vileplume]

Downing Street is sticking to its line regarding an early election. Apparently some Tory MPs in Cornwall and Devon are terrified of losing their seats. If she changes her mind then it'll have to be within the next two weeks anyway.

I would've thought the 2015 intake from old Lib Dem seats in South London (and places like Bath) would have far more to worry about from an election fought on the EU than those in Devon and Cornwall.

Yes the most likely Lib Dem gains from the Tories would be Bath, Twickenham and Kingston. The two Devon seats the Lib Dems lost to the Tories, Torbay and North Devon (both were very pro-Brexit), would probably see a further swing to the Tories in a general election held today. Cornwall is a more unpredictable place because it has a separate identity from the rest of England which makes it more amenable to the Lib Dems so they'd probably have a shot at regaining St Ives but that's it.

[vileplume]

what are the odds of a snap election, according to the british posters? Also, does it have to be in May?

Not at all likely. The only thing that could conceivably cause it would be the Tories being found guilty of deliberately overspending in 20+ marginal constituencies triggering a huge number of by-elections. With her majority potentially gone May probably would call a general election. However the prospect of results being voided in that many seats (I doubt a single one will be voided) is very, very small.

[vileplume]

Help an ignorant guy out: If an early election were held this year, for example, would the next scheduled election still be 2020 or would it be 2022? Common sense tells me the latter, but could someone confirm?

It would be held in 2022 as the Fixed-term Parliament Act of 2011 mandates that a parliament elected in 2017 will sit for 5 years barring a vote of no confidence in the government or a 2/3 majority calling for an early election.

[vileplume]

Good luck holding Clacton on a libertarian platform lmao.

Can't think of any seat that a libertarian platform could carry. Maybe somewhere in the Tory Home Counties?

Not in first past the post. But in a more proportional system a Libertarian Party would do best in the hyper-capitalist parts of inner London e.g. parts of Westminster, Wandsworth and Fulham (Kensington and Chelsea is probably too patrician/aristocratic) and the very wealthy more socially liberal parts of the Home Counties e.g. St Albans.

[vileplume]

UKIP has done its job now... it has gotten us out of the EU.

only hypothetically - practically they could never ever have done it without mental support in big parts of the tories and the working-class base of labour.

the logical result of decades of british anti-eu propaganda and framing.

UKIP's main achievement was scaring the Tories into holding a vote in the first place (which was a pretty big achievement).

Like or loathe UKIP (most loathe) it's undeniable they, especially Nigel Farage, have earned a major place in the history books even if their vote now disintegrates.