UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Barnes]

It would be nice of course to wait until the actual investigation determined what happened, but why play that game...

At the moment, about five people are reportedly being treated for injuries with no fatalities known at present. The driver of the van has reportedly been arrested by the police and was shirtless.

[DavidB.]

2 terrorist attacks in the span of a few days would seem be a huge failure on the Gov't

Shut the f**k up.

[The Other Castro]

Terrorist attacks in general are a failure of humanity.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Only Corbyn can fix!

[IceAgeComing]

2 terrorist attacks in the span of a few days would seem be a huge failure on the Gov't

this post is as bad as the one posted by that PITTSBURGH STEEL guy a few weeks back, and you should feel ashamed

[ApatheticAustrian]

if one wants to make a political point, the simple underlined truth is, imho, that even the best security concept can't prevent low-tech assholes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Children, please desist. Thank you.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh for f**k's sake, this is depressing.

Who gives a sh*t about politics, having these kinds of attacks rhythm an election campaign isn't good for anyone.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Who gives a sh*t about politics,

arguably the terrorists.

and the question, how to prevent such stuff in the future, is quite important....

[DavidB.]

Who gives a sh*t about politics,

arguably the terrorists.

Why? Attacks like this one happen outside election season too. Much more likely to coincide with the Ramadan, especially given ISIS' interpretation of it...

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Anyways, will campaigning be suspended and if so for how long?

[Suburbia]

Anyways, will campaigning be suspended and if so for how long?

It is possible the election could be be postponed until two weeks from now.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Survation

CON 40
LAB 39
LIB 8
UKIP 5

That's Tory -6%, Labour +5%.

These polls are almost becoming as unbearable as the 2016 election ones.

[IceAgeComing]

Anyways, will campaigning be suspended and if so for how long?

It is possible the election could be be postponed until two weeks from now.

no its not, lets not be spreading outright falsehoods in the thread

[ProgressiveCanadian]

If this momentum stays with Labour until June 8th they will win.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

If this momentum stays with Labour until June 8th they will win.

eh, 2-3 other polls today showed the Tory lead increasing so it's hard to say where the momentum is right now

[Pericles]

If this momentum stays with Labour until June 8th they will win.

That presumes the polls are right-given their recent record and the UK's history of polling errors, plus Labour's poor performance in the local elections, they are probably underestimating the Tories. I expect May to win a comfortable increased majority.

[_]

Tories should get 375+, anything else is an embarrassment and a failure for May.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Campaigning will be suspended for today (Sunday), looks like it will resume on Monday.

[MaxQue]

Campaigning will be suspended for today (Sunday), looks like it will resume on Monday.

No national campaign, means local ones will have to decide (for Conservatives, at least)..

[Bacon King]

Yes terrorist attacks should absolutely not be a campaign issue! It's not like a certain party leader drastically slashed police budgets when she was home secretary two years ago or that she was warned at the time by high-level police officials that it would make it more difficult for police to stop or respond to terrorist attacks. And it definitely isn't relevant that an award-winning Manchester police officer directly warned her in 2015 that her budget cuts would greatly limit the city's ability to gather intelligence to prevent potential terrorist threats - and it's certainly in no way relevant that the Manchester terrorist was reported in detail to the police on on five seperate occasions but somehow the Manchester Police were unable to use this intelligence to prevent the terrorist threat he posed!


So yes I definitely do not at all understand why anyone would make a campaign issue out of terrorist attacks because it's not like anything could have been done. Can't you people show some respect for Theresa May, and not blame her for bad events that happened after did a thing after people warned that doing the thing would make bad events more likely but she still did the thing anyway? Show some respect people geez

[Gary J]

Anyways, will campaigning be suspended and if so for how long?

It is possible the election could be be postponed until two weeks from now.

There is no legal provision for a general election, which has already started, to be postponed except in the case of the death of the monarch. The House of Commons briefing paper on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 explains the situation.

 [quote]3.5 Demise of the Crown
The Act creates a new section 20 of the Representation of the People
Act 1985. This section deals with the position following the demise of
the Crown in the days before polling day. Where a demise occurs seven
days or fewer prior to dissolution or once Parliament has been dissolved,
the election will be delayed by 14 days (or to the next working day
thereafter if the 14th day is not a working day).[/quote

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/SN06111%20(1).pdf

David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, just told the BBC (on the Andrew Marr show that I am just listemimg to live) that he did not think there was any power to postpone a general election. He also pointed out that it would need a change in the law and with Parliament dissolved for the general election there was no one who could amend the law.

[Phony Moderate]

Calls for the suspension of the election seem to be increasing. It's being pointed out though that the Guildford Pub Bombings took place five days prior to the October 1974 election.

[IceAgeComing]

there's no legal framework to delay the election though - and like you say, something similar (actually something that probably got a much shocked reaction than this, which is a sad indictment on how used we are to these things) didn't delay an election in the past so delaying this one would be setting a precedent that I honestly would rather that we didn't set - the only reason to start delaying elections in my eyes should be something along the lines of a World War; I don't see why we should let terrorists start influencing when we hold our elections...

[Former President tack50]

there's no legal framework to delay the election though - and like you say, something similar (actually something that probably got a much shocked reaction than this, which is a sad indictment on how used we are to these things) didn't delay an election in the past so delaying this one would be setting a precedent that I honestly would rather that we didn't set - the only reason to start delaying elections in my eyes should be something along the lines of a World War; I don't see why we should let terrorists start influencing when we hold our elections...

Yeah, I agree, a terrorist attack is not enough to cancel an election. Elections should only be cancelled in case of war, a coup d'etat, significant revolts that make going to the polls impossible (and that warrant an emergency state if Britain has those) and the like.

As someone said above the election was not cancelled in October 1974 after an IRA bombing. (and I guess there were more IRA bombings during the campaigns back in the day) Another example is the 2004 Madrid attacks (3 days before the election, election was not cancelled). Those were also larger than the recient ones in Britain in terms of dead and wounded people.

Not to mention, how would the election be cancelled in the first place? Iirc parliament is dissolved so there's no one to pass a bill prolonging that parliament's life. I guess the queen or the prime minister could use some of their emergency powers but I'm not sure exactly how.