Next UK General Election thread

[Dan the Roman]

People here are delusional thinking

1. Corbyn would be in within a year - He can never be "in" during this Parliament. His support for the IRA means the DUP can never, under any circumstances, support him. His relative "success" in rUK in fact makes him even more an object of absolute loathing given that he appears to be "normalizing" the IRA. Tories and the DUP have an effective majority of closer to 5 with SF not taking their seats. No Tory will possibly ever play a role in Corbyn coming in.

2. People are vastly overestimating what happened. People are acting as if the voters might actually prefer Corbyn to May as PM. There is zero evidence from Thursday that they did. In fact, I suspect a lot of the Tory losses in places like Kensington occurred precisely because it looked impossible that Corbyn ever could be PM. A second election might lead to Labour advances elsewhere in leave areas, though talk of a "Progressive Alliance" with the LDs and SNP is going to make that harder, but next time around things will be for keeps. It will be whether you want Corbyn as PM and I think it is far more likely Labour falls back in London and the South than that they make further gains. That is especially true if those voters think they have already sent a message to the Conservatives regarding Brexit or there is an interim deal.

Labour made advances in the richest and poorest parts of the country simultaneously because the election was entirely about the Tories. Whether Corbyn can survive greater scrutiny is an open question. Already the behavior and tone of his supporters, especially regarding May, seems to be reawakening all the doubts moderates had about them. He has yet to lead May in a single poll.

I would place more on May leading the Tories to a majority in the future than on Corbyn winning one.

3. There is no viable alternative to May. Boris Johnson is not a viable leader except in the eyes of people who are not Conservative MPs. He reminds people of Trump which might have been useful 18 months ago or even a year back, but as recent developments in Europe have shown, is a massive liability. He was a joke as Foriegn Secretary and the idea he can strike a deal with Brussels is laughable. He has little support among Mps, one reason he dropped out last year is that his natural base was 40 or so MPs, the rest were borrowed from Gove. He had a disaster of a campaign then, and his short tenure in the cabinet since and none previously means he has no patronage base.

Yet for all those faults if he could get to the membership ballot he could still win. That cannot be allowed by the big beasts and the only way the Tory rules allow that to be prevented is to have no contest. That means May has to stay unless there is total consensus on a leader, and as there is no way to have consensus in favor of Boris Johnson, that means May leaving is entirely dependent on Johnson either voluntarily stepping aside or being run over in the street.

[Dan the Roman]

This is what could happen if that first poll was to (somehow) happen:

http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/swingometer/2017?CON=39&LAB=45&LD=7

According to this, Labour needs a 0.77-point lead in order to catch up the Tories in terms of seats (with a uniform swing of 1.59). That's bad, but not too bad.

They need a 7.22-point lead to win an absolute majority. Tories only need a 3.29-point lead. Now THAT is bad.

2 things that could mitigate this problem:
1) A Lab almost-majority is probably more stable than a Con almost-majority. SNP, Plaid, LD, Green will certainly be bigger and probably more cooperative than DUP/UKIP.
2) A large swing to Labour is likely to produce more seats than uniform swing would suggest. It happened this time (Labour's vote was more efficient than often predicted), and their Liverpool/North London vote shares are pretty much at their ceiling; the swing would have to be from elsewhere.

So I would be wary of saying the SNP or Plaid would be more stable partners than the DUP. There is a real danger atm in the talk of a "Progressive Alliance" in which the SNP/LD totals are de facto thrown into a Labour pile. All of those parties are highly divisive at the moment, and if Labour is explicitly running on a coalition with the SNP next time that influences the dynamics of the election, both in Scotland and England, much as the very fact Corbyn is running for PM does.

Labour probably wins an election tomorrow or next week. But there is zero chance of that occurring. The coalition Labour won is far less coherent than that the Tories managed on Thursday, and it seems more likely to see a retreat in London Remain high income areas or low-income leave areas than advances in both simultanously.