What happens if the Tories chicken out?

[ingemann]

I believe that a referendum should be respected.

But looking at the panic reaction in UK, I can't help but think about "What If".

Let's say that the Tories new leader panic and decide to ignore the referendum? Let's say that the leader who follow Cameron decide that he would rather keep UK united, prosperous and relevant

How will the reaction be both in Britain and in the rest of Europe?

[Crumpets]

Say hello to PM Nigel Farage come the next election.

[parochial boy]

UKIP obviously surge in support, probably ito 30+%.

I suspect that either Labour or the Tories, more likely Labour given their current state, will see their support drop significantly as pro-EU voters change party in order to keep UKIP away from a majority.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If Tories do that and Labour doesn't completely commit suicide, then I'm pretty sure the latter will easily win the next election.

[DC Al Fine]

I don't think it's totally unreasonable to use the 2014 European Parliament results as a proxy for this. That would give a rough 3-way tie and the map would look like this:



Now this map is by council, not seat, so it's hard to calculate exact results. Does anyone have the 2014 EU results translated to the parliamentary map? Anyway, it looks like the Tories would suffer the most with this result, although Labour would have sizable losses in Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield.

[DC Al Fine]

UKIP obviously surge in support, probably ito 30+%.

I suspect that either Labour or the Tories, more likely Labour given their current state, will see their support drop significantly as pro-EU voters change party in order to keep UKIP away from a majority.

If Tories do that and Labour doesn't completely commit suicide, then I'm pretty sure the latter will easily win the next election.

Tony do you think Labour would be more Eurosceptic in such an election, or do you think Tory voters would be much more likely to jump to UKIP in such a result?

I half think the UK could see an Alberta 2012 effect, where the centre right's coalition is radically changed as centre and centre left voters jump ship to protect against an upstart on the right, leaving the left in a rump state like Parochial Boy said.

[ingemann]

I don't think this will have negative effects on Labour. If the Tories chickens out, it's them who will take the blame, at least unless Labour commit public suicide out of stupidity. So it's vote of the right which will be split, in a FPTP system that will likely result in a massive Labour wave, maybe with LibDem taking a lot of mandates too.

But honestly I think the chaos around the vote will be just as bad for UK's economy as leaving. The insecurity will mean that companies will imvest elsewhere and pull jhobs out of UK.