UK General Discussion: 2019 and onwards, The End of May

[Tintrlvr]

If it is true that the ouctome of said meeting was that May refused to consider any alternatives to her deal then it looks like it is either No Deal or somehow May gets forced out in the next week...

Why would May being forced out have any real meaning?  That does not change the 3/29 deadline and the EU position that the deal has to be passed by 3/29 for an extension to be granted.  The EU is saying nothing about an extension if May is kicked out, or not that I am aware.

Principally, I think because with May in charge it is either her deal or No Deal, which means No Deal. So, regardless of the likelihood, May no longer being PM is a necessary condition for the chain of events that would lead to any outcome that isn't No Deal.

Think of it this way, the EU have said "either you pass the deal or there is no extension" - that is perfect for the ERG types who now have exactly no incentive to vote for the deal

She can still revoke Article 50 entirely without the rest of the EU consenting.

[Tintrlvr]

Nope, the DUP aren't supporting it. The ERG is not a unified group.

But there are enough Labour Yes votes that it could pass if the ERG gets on board even without the DUP.

[Tintrlvr]

LOL at 5% who think UKIP is anti-Brexit.

Was “the Remain Party” taken? So stupid. Or Umunna’s ego got in the way, or both.

[Tintrlvr]

I always thought the choice was a flash in the pan 'anti-Brexit' Party, or a longer term Macron esque project- they went for the second, but that was back before anyone really expected us to have EU elections.

They're right to want a brand beyond Brexit; but there's a big danger they won't exist to see it.

Of course this all part of a wider story; the reality is that Labour are still holding onto a large chunk of remain voters, largely through their ability to make sympathetic noises, but also because people who voted remain in the most part are more likely to vote Labour. Alongside the 'anti-brexit' vote being split among the Greens/Lib Dems/SNP and Plaid.

They could have (should have) named themselves the "Remain Party" (or something similar) and then renamed themselves later once Brexit wasn't the only issue. It was obvious at the time that Brexit was both the driving force behind the creation of the party and the dominant political issue for at least the next year or so of politics. But, most significantly, the members of CUK didn't present much reason to leave their original parties other than disagreements over Brexit (well, Heidi Allen should always have been a Lib Dem, but that's neither here nor there).

I recognize that the British party naming rules make finding a good party name actually shocking difficult, but there were definitely options ("Centre Party"?).

[Tintrlvr]

Do those polls assume Brexit Party run a candidate in every constituency though?

They’d probably manage it if those poll numbers stuck. UKIP ran candidates everywhere in 2015 at their (lower) zenith (with a few random exceptions).

[Tintrlvr]

Do those polls assume Brexit Party run a candidate in every constituency though?

They’d probably manage it if those poll numbers stuck. UKIP ran candidates everywhere in 2015 at their (lower) zenith (with a few random exceptions).

I thought before though Farage specifically allowed pro-Brexit Tories a free run at their constituency. I imagine he would do the same with some ERG elders (particularly the likes of Johnson who could lose his seat if BXP run there)

That was in 2017 when UKIP was widely viewed as irrelevant and not running candidates everywhere was mostly a face-saving measure. (Even then, they did run against Boris Johnson.) In 2015 they ran against (almost) all Tories.

Edit: Also, Farage was not the leader of UKIP in 2017.

[Tintrlvr]

From what I heard, the tories are basically ignoring the EU election campaign. There is too little at stake, and too many of their loyal voters are just voting Brexit to send a message to London/Brussels. Ignoring the election allows them to save face when the eventual loss occurs, and in their minds, their voters will just return when the country eventually leaves.

That last bit is extremely complacent, if true.

The idea they will just be allowed to laugh off a comedy result is a bit far fetched also.

I am sympathetic to the argument that there isn’t much they could do to prevent a comedy result, though.

Trendlines are suggesting the Tories will end up in single digits...

[Tintrlvr]

I can't believe nobody in government is thinking about introducing a multi-question referendum. A redo of the 2016 referendum would be worse than useless; but you could get some more useful with a ballot like this:

Do you want to enter in a Norway Plus (or whatever) deal with the EU? Yes/No

If no, do you think the UK should leave the EU on WTO grounds or Remain, therefore annulling the 2016 referendum? WTO/Remain

The problem I think with this approach is that there is a risk that Remainers who would prefer Norway+ to No Deal would choose "No" to the first question, as would Leavers who would prefer Norway+ to Remain, in each case in order to get to the second question where they can state their true first preference, so Norway+ might be the Condorcet winner but still lose with a real possibility of a result that satisfies fewer people. In addition, people whose first preference is Norway+ might not vote on the second question because they already expressed their first preference, which creates a real risk of enough undervotes on the second question that the result of the second question is thrown into doubt because the margin is smaller than the number of undervotes. Plus, you'll get a lot of complaints from both the Remain and No Deal sides that this question setup creates an implicit bias in favor Norway+ and complaints from supporters of Norway+ that their option was the preferred option over any other single option even though it lost a Yes/No vote. The psychology of multi-part referendums is really tough.

A new referendum has to be a simple, one-question format to get an answer that would be accepted as democratically legitimate. Of course, what that question should be is itself a political issue. Given the hardening of political preferences, it seems like No Deal vs. Remain would have to be the question, though, given how few people now have Deal (in whatever form) as their first preference.

[Tintrlvr]

trouble is "No Deal vs Remain" does not put the issue at rest and dramatically polarises the electorate even more. Possibly even better than a two stage referendum (which obviously isn't great) would be some form of preferntial vote, preferably something like a Borda Count rather than AV given the important outcome is broad consensus.

AV and other Borda count systems wouldn't work because Deal would always come in third (even worse if you have multiple Deal options), with No Deal and Remain inevitably being the top two, so you're still running a single-question No Deal vs. Remain referendum, just adding complications to it that make it easier for the losing side to say the result isn't legitimate. Even if Deal somehow made it into the top two, you'll also get a lot of exhausted preferences from voters who are strong No Dealers or strong Remainers (whichever was eliminated), which greatly weakens the legitimacy of the result and increases the chances of an extreme outcome.

The reality is that if you want to ask the public, the public is only interested in No Deal and Remain at this point and doesn't care about and doesn't want to compromise (which is definitely an argument against asking the public -- asking the public is the worst way out at this point and shows why putting the question to a referendum in the first place was a mistake).

[Tintrlvr]

all you can say if that result did come to pass would be that three and four way marginals would become the norm, tactical voting would become impossible and there would be loads of fluke winners (and Onasyana/O'Mara style flameouts in the ensuing parliament) and high profile losses from both Labour and the Tories.

Agree that it would be far worse for the Tories than Labour though, because the former would have no real safe regions to fall back on - even blue counties like Surrey would collapse.

The places where the Tories would probably hold up best would be in affluent exurban/rural seats where the Brexit vote was around 50/50 or so. For Labour you're looking at minority and urban post-industrial working class areas. So in the event of both parties crashing, Labour do better than the Tories.

Would Corbyn lose if Labour got 19% and the Lib Dems 24%?

From Flavible Politics, inputting the data from the poll, Islington North would look like this

Labour: 32%
Brexit: 26%
Lib Dem: 22%
Green: 9%
CUK: 8%
Conservatives: 3%

As a bonus, here's Maidenhead as well (May's seat)

Conservative: 30%
Lib Dem: 29%
Brexit: 26%
Green: 6%
Labour: 6%
CUK: 1%
UKIP: 1%

Of course, take all of this with a huge amount of caution as models do break down with these huge swings. But Theresa May would be more likely to lose her seat than Corbyn. In fact, the Tories would only get 70 seats with these numbers

Well... maybe. In Corbyn's seat, BXP wouldn't do anywhere near that well, but the LDs would do much better (extremely heavily Remain seat), so the projection is probably way off. On the other hand, in May's seat, the projection is probably about right because it's the sort of seat where both the LDs and BXP would make substantial gains roughly proportionately to the national result (narrowly Remain seat).

[Tintrlvr]

Change UK isn't a very good name either.

CUK is an even worse acronym. ChUK makes it explicitly sound like Chuka Umanna’s vanity project.

Which was obviously why they chose the name, which made the bad name even worse. Although apparently the final name originated because he wanted the party to be the "Change UK Alliance" (ChUKA) and "Change UK" was the compromise. The delusion of grandeur is apparently continuing into attempts to "negotiate" with the Lib Dems on the terms under which Umunna (and I guess Allen and Wollaston) would join the party (with what leverage?).

[Tintrlvr]

So, is anyone likely to overtake Hunt to join Johnson on the postal ballot?

I think the consensus is that the others will generally transfer to each other and not to him, so yes, but it seems to me like he should get good transfers from some, like Hancock.

Johnson feels almost certain to win at this point.