UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[Tintrlvr]

Who were the voters who didn't support Labour in 2015 but did this time?

I'd categorized Labour's new voters into 4 groups:
1) New voters, especially the young, who had much higher turnout.
2) Voters that voted UKIP in 2015 but voted Labour before that, especially in Northern England and Wales.
3) Hardcore Tory remainers who didn't just vote remain but were committed to the EU and internationalism.
4) Strategic voters whose first preference is Liberal Democrat or Green but voted Labour to stop the Tories.

With a 4a addendum, voters whose first choice has always been Labour but who voted Lib Dem tactically in 2015 in certain seats where the Lib Dems had incumbents or were a close second to the Tories in 2010.

[Tintrlvr]

... Any constituency the Tories got over 50% will be tough to flip unless the Liberal Democrats or UKIP does better next time ...

Question asked, question answered.

As you point out, with the main parties so polarizing - Labour due to Corbyn, the Tories due to Brexit - they've both probably maxed out the percentage of the vote they can expect to win (Labour has a bit more room to grow, especially in Scotland). Should the Tories continue to implode through another general election, their loss will be attributable as much to their core voters staying home or opting for the Lib Dems and UKIP as to Labour picking up support (from anywhere).

One relevant piece of evidence: just after the June election YouGov (I think) did some polling of voters who considered Labour for a time but ended up opting for another party. Their findings were that Corbyn, his allegedly divisive/radical/leftwing policies, and the Labour party's ideological stance generally were not what dissuaded these voters. What did dissuade them was the perception that Labour was haphazard and would not be able to deliver once in power.

As for seats to target, this site gives you a run down. As you can see, it would take a swing of just over 3.5% to deliver the 65 seats needed for an outright majority, and a swing of just 1.5% to tie the Tories in seats (which would almost certainly lead to a Labour-led government with the Lib Dems/SNP all but guaranteeing a full term; their supporters would never forgive them for bringing the Tories back after finally throwing them out). Over half the target seats on that list are in Wales, Scotland, or London - places where Labour has traditionally done well and did particularly/surprisingly well in June.

Put in perspective, the swing to Labour in June was 4.1%. In 1997 - the last time they won back government after a long spell of Tory government ripped apart by Europe - it was 8.8%.

In terms of specific seats, do you think Boris Johnson's seat could be in danger or his is rather safe?  I know ones like Amber Rudd would almost certainly lose if Labour wins and likewise I suspect Iain Duncan Smith would face a tough fight.  Another interesting one that was somewhat competitive was Rushcliffe which in the past has been a safe Tory constituency although my understanding is Labour does well in the suburban parts in the north which have grown while the rural portions still go heavily Tory.  Nonetheless I think as long as Kenneth Clarke is MP he should hold it, but once he retires it could be vulnerable.  On the other hand I think Tim Farron's riding will likely flip back to the Tories while Norman Lamb's riding will probably flip back whenever he retires as his riding has all the demographics to be a Tory one and more votes Liberal Democrat because of him rather than any real Lib Dem support.  Constituencies like Bishop Auckland, Newcastle under Lyme, Ashfield, Penistone & Stocksbridge, and Dudley North all have groups that are moving away from Labour so even with favourable polls now those could easily flip to the Tories.

On the Lib Dems, definitely agree that they have an uphill climb to hold Lamb's seat, but the Lib Dems have become quite entrenched in local elections in the area covered by Farron's seat. I think there's a good chance it would elect a Lib Dem replacement.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Lakeland_District_Council_elections (note that the least Lib Dem area, Ulverston in the SW of the council area, is in the Barrow and Furness constituency).

The Lib Dems' presence in North Norfolk local elections is much weaker, though they did control the council until 2011 and still have a sizable presence, albeit in opposition to the Conservative majority since 2011.

[Tintrlvr]

If there was a by-election Garnier would leave a 13,000 majority in Wyre Forest, so I really doubt Labour could pick-up the seat even if they make significant gains.

The Tories should have dumped May long ago, but if she loses that by-election I can't see how they could continue the argument that she needs to stay.

Perhaps Richard Taylor would try to make a comeback if there were a by-election, though he is now quite old. That's more plausible than Labour winning the seat, IMO.

[Tintrlvr]

Why exactly are Tory apparatchiks so terrified of a Corbyn premiership? If they genuinely believe that he'd be an unmitigated disaster at Downing Street surely that would lead to an enormous Conservative majority in the (then-)following election.

That perspective is basically the same as a Democrat saying it's no big deal if Trump is elected President (and his party controls Congress) because he'll be a terrible President and the Democrats will win the next election. The Tory leadership sees Corbyn as a Trump-like figure in terms of how harmful they believe he'd be (this is regardless of whether they are right or not).

[Tintrlvr]

Corbynites sweep the newly created NEC seats. 62%, much like the 2:1 they won the earlier lot.

I assume that's the Eddie Izzard? Running seriously (if not successfully)?

[Tintrlvr]

I mean, the real answer is surely that Corbyn doesn't care even the tiniest iota about Syria, and speaking the equivalence of a shrug is just a way to deflect and from his perspective hopefully avoid the topic entirely.

[Tintrlvr]

Heck they could even vote down a Brexit deal in the Commons, and then support the Government in a confidence vote.

No government could survive a no deal Brexit, especially considering there is no majority in the Commons for one.

I completely agree, although Blair is technically correct (the best kind of correct!) that as far as procedure is concerned, there's no mechanism to trigger an election beyond those laid out in the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011. Those mechanisms (a straightforward vote of no-confidence followed by 14 days without a rescission thereof, or a 2/3 majority vote for a new election) are exceedingly difficult to manufacture in a haphazard or accidental way. I'm not saying they won't be used or that an early election isn't possible - it might just be likely at this point - just that it's a much more methodical process because of the FTPA.

I don't dare speculate about the possible sequence of events that will transpire in the next few days. May seems doomed, but that's been the case for so long now! Brexit will either be so soft it's not worth doing or there will be a coup by the kamikaze Brexiters to push a no-deal, which would never pass parliament. If they somehow stumble into an election in the next few weeks Corbyn will very likely win but probably on a manifesto and/or with a slim enough margin in the HoC to necessitate yet another Brexit-in-name-only option... which may itself not get approval in the Commons.

Thank goodness we didn't elect that unstable socialist 3 years ago, tho!

https://twitter.com/david_cameron/status/595112367358406656?lang=en

It seems hard to imagine Corbyn handling Brexit any better. Not out of fault with Corbyn necessarily but because the fundamental problem is Brexit itself, not how politicians are handling implementing it. Short of a PM with the guts and desire to cancel Brexit (and Corbyn is not that person), any government would be an equal shambles.

(The only credit I'll give to Labour here is that their Remainer contingent is larger, and so a hypothetical Corbyn government might have been forced into cancelling Brexit against Corbyn's own will.)

[Tintrlvr]

There's a belief - I don't know how true it is - that a lot of "soft" Labour voters did so because of Brexit.  

If I understand you correctly, this 'belief' is that a sizeable portion of the 2017 Labour vote was comprised of ardent remainers who would have otherwise never voted Labour.

There is some evidence to support this, but there are also a lot of countervailing factors that cast doubt on it. Firstly, the places that those votes would have likely turned up (the Home Counties) were so solidly Tory beforehand, this shift didn't really make any difference in terms of seats. Second, if this shift did exist it was more than compensated for by ex-UKIPers jumping ship to the Tories. Thirdly, the profile of the sort of voter you're talking about - i.e. someone who was not voting Labour before 2017 and did so because a Brexit-supporting Tory was anathema - is almost certain to be an economically moderate/conservative social liberal - that is to say, someone who would find Corbyn just as unacceptable as Brexit.

I don't doubt there were a few voters who fit this profile, but I just don't see them making any meaningful difference.  

To the extent such voters exist, they probably voted Lib Dem in 2010 before voting Conservative in 2015, so they're not exactly going to be hyper-loyal Labour voters going forward in any case. Victoria Borwick can attest that they exist, but they're not numerous outside of just a handful of seats.

[Tintrlvr]

Marriage equality is one part of problem, women's right?
The ridiculous language dispute, I just don't get why the DUP and unionists are so against it, in Scotland Gaelic is recognised, in Wales Welsh is recognised,
even in counties like Cornwall, the Cornish council are putting efforts to revive the language,
I always thought learning more than one language is a beautiful thing, and languages tell a lot about the history of the people.

English is a Germanic language imported from northern Germany and Friesland influenced by Latin, french and old Norse.
It's spoken differently in different parts of England,
For instance in the north east, geordie and Northumbrian accents sound a lot like Danish,
The famous Robson green "was named in the Northeast tradition of naming the first son after family surnames"
It's a tradition imported from the Danes, and most Danelaw settlers, settled in the north and eastern parts of England.

I just don't get some members of unionist community in northern Ireland, how can anyone deprive any community from their language or identity....

I mean, the reasoning is pretty clear: We want you to feel unwelcome and uncomfortable to the point where you leave, prolonging the Protestant and unionist majority in Northern Ireland. Similar, in a sense to Israel's perpetual squeezing of the Palestinians.

[Tintrlvr]

Tbh I kind of want Prime Minister Rees-Mogg to happen, though hopefully just for a few months. It would be an experience.

Or you could just watch V for Vendetta.

[Tintrlvr]

Britain's gay cake case has come to a conclusion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-45789759

It was a narrow decision since this wasn't a wedding cake but a cake expressing political support for legal SSM. Since it was a political cake rather than a personal cake, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Ashers didn't have to bake the cake.

I think this is a fair distinction. I am okay permitting people to refuse to bake cakes with explicitly political messages. But the mere fact that a cake is for a same-sex marriage (and maybe has rainbows or a same-sex couple on it) does not make it a cake with a political message.

[Tintrlvr]

That's obviously not the point; it makes for an unpleasant experience going through the thread.

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[Tintrlvr]

Actually, I imagine "reverse Greenland" would be the best option for Gibraltar since they voted like 96% in favour of the EU. Then again I do wonder if the Spanish government will accept that.

Right wing parties here are actually claiming that Spain actually gave up too much to the UK regarding Gibraltar.

Why? I don't know.

I'm pretty sure the Spanish right think anything short of Spain annexing Gibraltar outright is the EU giving up too much in respect of Gibraltar.

[Tintrlvr]

MAY-SSACRE - Theresa May could suffer a 200-vote defeat when the Commons decides on her Brexit deal — dealing a fatal blow to her Premiership
A Cabinet minister told The Sun: 'Theresa is still being told she can win this by the people around her in No10. They are going to bring her down'



https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit/7843364/theresa-may-commons-200-vote-defeat-brexit-deal/

Who are the pro-deal Lib Dem and the pro-deal Labourites? I can think of a couple of hardcore Brexiteer Labourites but not even sure they'd vote in favor of the deal, and I thought all of the parliamentary Lib Dems were now Remainers.

[Tintrlvr]

Why exactly would the Tories willingly surrender power to Labour, because thats what a true confidence vote would do.

Because the parliamentary arithmetic currently means that there is no Brexit deal which can command the majority of parliament, so it's either a general election to change that arithmetic or wave no deal through.

Or a second referendum; if Labour can't get a VONC, they'd probably back that.

Would they? Corbyn is clearly a diehard Leaver, whatever he says in public, which is why he's so opposed to a second referendum. I think he'd honestly prefer crashing out in a no deal scenario. Which makes things tricky. Definitely an overwhelming majority of the Labour MPs would support a second referendum, but, with Corbyn vocally opposed, they may not be able to coordinate one, at least not without another election first.

[Tintrlvr]

Why exactly would the Tories willingly surrender power to Labour, because thats what a true confidence vote would do.

Because the parliamentary arithmetic currently means that there is no Brexit deal which can command the majority of parliament, so it's either a general election to change that arithmetic or wave no deal through.

Or a second referendum; if Labour can't get a VONC, they'd probably back that.

Would they? Corbyn is clearly a diehard Leaver, whatever he says in public, which is why he's so opposed to a second referendum. I think he'd honestly prefer crashing out in a no deal scenario. Which makes things tricky. Definitely an overwhelming majority of the Labour MPs would support a second referendum, but, with Corbyn vocally opposed, Labour has its own problems.

To form the government at this point Labor would need SNP and LibDems. And I am pretty certain both would insist on a second referendum if they are to vote for that government.

There's definitely not going to be a Labour government without an election. They'd also need either the DUP or Tory Remainer rebels, and the DUP is not going to support another referendum or a Labour-led (or at least Corbyn-led) government at this point, and the Tory Remainers would likewise never support a Corbyn-led government (and probably not under any other Labour leader although at least there would be a chance if someone else was leading Labour). I was thinking about the possibility of a parliamentary vote forcing a referendum while the Tories stayed nominally in government, if May decides she can't get a deal.

[Tintrlvr]

So what I don't really understand is if the EU doesn't want the UK to leave why would they approve any deal?

Because the deal is terrible for the UK, and the EU knows it, and prefers to let the Leavers rip themselves apart fighting over the possibility of a deal than to suggest no deal at all is possible.

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Isn't it insulting to the people who have changed their minds, or the people who were under 18 before but are over 18 now, to not let them express their preference in a new referendum? Or for the result to be determined in part by people who have since died? We can go on.

[Tintrlvr]

So now Corbyn tables a VONC, May looses, and we have a snap general election with May in charge of the campaign.

What could possibly go wrong.

But would enough of the Conservatives who voted against May in this vote also vote against her in a vote among Parliament as a whole?

The Conservatives do not have enough votes, they have a minority government propped up by the DUP.  And the DUP have already stated they will vote against her if she continues pushing her backstop arrangement.

They said they would only vote against her if the WA passed.

But no WA she manages to get the votes for will be acceptable to the DUP anyway.

Which unfortunately just makes a no deal crash out more likely,
It been apparent for a while Theresa May is making it up as she goes along.

2 months ago I was 100% sure no deal is off the table, but now not so sure, it the default outcome,
we can assume 117 Tory MPs that voted against her today will vote against her deal plus 10 DUP MPs which means WA is dead,

The only way out of this mess is she does a U-turn and calls for 2nd referendum.

Crash out is the default, but only in the sense that it happens if Parliament doesn't revoke/extend Article 50, which we know now that they can. No question May could get enough votes to extend Article 50 to keep "negotiating"; March 29 isn't a hard deadline anymore.

[Tintrlvr]

So now Corbyn tables a VONC, May looses, and we have a snap general election with May in charge of the campaign.

What could possibly go wrong.

But would enough of the Conservatives who voted against May in this vote also vote against her in a vote among Parliament as a whole?

Not likely. Unless the overall goal is chaos, at which point the Tories might publically stab each other to force a new election and even more chaos.

Well, you hardly need all 117 rebels to vote no confidence for the government to fall. Just a handful would do. I'm sure there are a handful of Tories in it for the chaos at this stage.

[Tintrlvr]

An extension would need EU27 approval, but a revocation doesn't.

Revocation is practically speaking an extension - revoke and then invoke it again later.

[Tintrlvr]

How stupid is the DUP? Don't they realize that there is an obvious positive correlation between the hardness of Brexit and the likelihood of a united Ireland?

The DUP seems to be willing to gamble that continuing in the UK would win a border poll immediately after a no-deal Brexit notwithstanding what the polls say. Which, honestly, I think is probably right - in the context of an imminent referendum on Irish unification, Protestant Ulster identity would reassert itself, and Prots are still a majority in NI (for now). The DUP may even hope that a hard Brexit results in some Catholics moving to the Republic of Ireland, postponing the Catholic majority further.

[Tintrlvr]

How stupid is the DUP? Don't they realize that there is an obvious positive correlation between the hardness of Brexit and the likelihood of a united Ireland?

The DUP seems to be willing to gamble that continuing in the UK would win a border poll immediately after a no-deal Brexit notwithstanding what the polls say. Which, honestly, I think is probably right - in the context of an imminent referendum on Irish unification, Protestant Ulster identity would reassert itself, and Prots are still a majority in NI (for now). The DUP may even hope that a hard Brexit results in some Catholics moving to the Republic of Ireland, postponing the Catholic majority further.

Wait, postpone and not halt?

Well, a Catholic majority in Northern Ireland is more or less inevitable on demographic trends. It's just a matter of when (or secularization could accelerate, but the DUP wouldn't be happy about that, either).

[Tintrlvr]

Labour and Tory MPs in talks over setting up new centrist party

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Why not simply join the Lib Dems outright?

They’re mainly social democrats on the economy, whilst supporting more authoritarian social policies- basically the opposite of the the Lib Dem’s.

But yes agree with other postings- this will be a rump of MPs who don’t have much in common beyond having different reasons for hating Corbyn and his project. If 100+  MPs quit then I’d be more open minded about creating a credible party of the centre left but this doesn’t look like anything close to that.

It’s easier for them just to retire in 2022- Chuka is the only one of the group who actually had a cabinet level future

I had the impression Umunna in particular was very much an economic centrist - I thought he'd have fit in well with the Lib Dems. The others perhaps less so, but as noted they are not prominent. This split was rumored last summer, too, though (with most of the same names), so seems not especially likely to be imminent.

I think strategically even if they were perfectly aligned with the Lib Dems on policy, it would make sense to run separately in an alliance as the SDP and Liberals did rather than as a single party in order to cast the widest net possible.

[Tintrlvr]

YouGov poll
LAB 26
CON 38
LAB 26
TIG 14
LD 7

I recall back in the 1980s when SDP got started they polled well into the 20s and then 30s

I wonder if TIG will form alliance with LIB.

Not much different than the current 21% for TIG+LD, which is an inevitable formal or informal alliance (especially now that some really Lib Dem-y Tories have joined TIG) even if no merger happens.

Also polling was a lot sparser then so you weren't getting polls within a day or two of the initial announcement. In early February 1981, right after the announcement that they were leaving but before the SDP was officially launched, hypothetical SDP+Lib was polling in high teens to low twenties, right where TIG+LD is now.

[Tintrlvr]

They did poll in the mid 40s, and high 50s in 198(2?) when Thatcher was at the height of unpopularity, and Labour were well Labouring.

Of course the usual disclaimers apply (FPTP, lack of brand, lack of candidates, no policies etc etc) but this has finally made Westminster wake up to how bad both leaders have been performing, and its much harder to have business as usual if both parties are terrified they're going to get MPs poached.

Right, the acceleration was pretty fast. They were in the low 30s when the SDP officially launched in late March 1981 and had reached the 40s by summer 1981, peaking in the 50s in the winter of 1981-2, shortly before the Falklands War.