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

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So are we going to have to elect EU Parliamentarians...?

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Anyone taking part in this?

Anti-Brexit marchers swarm London streets, demand new vote

Yeah I did.

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Lol, I can tell a certain MP wanted the party named after himself.

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Can't they chose their favourite votes via preferential ballot or something?

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tbh if a no deal Brexiter takes the helms of the Tory Party, we probably will see a new election with the Conservatives standing on that manifesto (and I presume the Brexit Party would not stand against such a group, although I could be wrong). A leader that promises No Deal without a mandate (and no, winning the Tory hustings does not count) is on very shaky ground.

It's likelier, though, that we'll have yet more dithering with variations on the withdrawal agreement.

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Yes, all this will do is kill of any chances of current cabinet members (who must have signed off on this idea) becoming leader. RIP PMs Gove, Hunt, Mordaunt, Javid, Truss, Leadsom, Hancock etc in other words.

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Of all the Tories out there throwing their hat in the ring, Rory Stewart is obviously the most intelligent and capable (and has a far more interesting career than your standard career politician considering he's only 46), but as a Remainer he is dead in the water. I have no interest in people like Rudd, Hunt and Javid, especially Hunt who would possibly be the most undeserving PM of the modern era; and they like all other Remainers are irrelevent.

Of the Brexiters who stayed in cabinet, I'll say Mordaunt seems the most viable "compromise" option, given she was always on the Leave side but remained professional enough to not flounce off, which could help her in the early rounds as a transfer friendly candidate. She also comes from a background of relative hardship and has some unorthodox opinions on social issues. I will also say that I am weirdly fascinated by Liz Truss, but not to the point of voting for her. Gove is a complete snake who would repel almost everyone, his not terrible record in Environment aside.

Finally of the people who left before the withdrawal agreement was published, if it ends up as "anyone but Boris", you'll probably just get a final ballot with Raab on it. Raab is very arrogant but isn't a human disaster zone/despised by all his colleagues like BoJo is.

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why are so many Americans unable to think about another country's politics outside the prism of their own country?

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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

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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.

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I'll also note quickly, because this is often missed, that a lot of the public dissatisfaction with the two big parties on this issue stems from irritation that they have not 'solved' it yet. This isn't the most coherent of sentiments, but it is widespread.

yes - which is one of the reasons "No Deal" polls high; people seem to be under the impression that we will leave and that will be the whole affair over with.

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Is Cleverly liked by the white base of the Conservative Party?

I posted a similar question and it was deleted here.

Do black Britons like Cleverly, if he becomes prime minister?

Since most leftwing political parties use minority voters, this would be a big break for the Tories.

I imagine most Black Britons are unaware of the existence of Cleverley.

Right-wing parties are also very capable of winning ethnic minorities - see Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.  And in theory the conservatives should be doing better with them at the moment; a sizable number of Black Brits were broadly positive towards Brexit if it meant renewing links with Commonwelath countries and avoiding an influx of cheap white labour from the Balkans; Afro Carribeans are also a relatively "integrated" ethnic minority compared to groups the Tories are much less in favour of (i.e. Muslims) and are gradually moving out of the cities into suburbs and commuter towns, where the swing voters dwell. However, the rising surge of explicit anti-immigration language, the hostile environment and most notably the Windrush scandal heavily damaged any potential Tory inroads on the issue.

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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.

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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%?

Probably not. There's a a few quite deprived wards in Islington North that could cap lib dem growth; Islington South (the seat of Emily Thornberry) could fall though.

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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.

If the above estimate of vote/seat share is true then it seems like the 8% Green vote would have considerable incentive to engage in tactical voting

Yeah, outside a few target areas (Bristol West, Norwich south, Sheffield Central) that won't hold up, and even those could be brought back into the Lib Dem fold if things go great for them.

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Stop getting excited about Corbyn losing his seat people, its not happening.

(nor is May losing hers, come to that)

I think it's quite likely that she won't be the candidate, but I wouldn't entirely rule out the Tories losing Maidenhead if things are going very wrong for them.  It was fairly close in 2001 and somewhat optimistically targeted in 2005.

That was part of the Lib Dem's hubristic "decapitation strategy" which I assume they won't bother with again.

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Given that a Brecon + Radnorshire recall is fairly likely at this point, which I assume the Lib Dems would be heavy favourites for, the number could be whittled down a bit more.

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Why would Remainers back Boris?

they want a ministerial car?

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If the Brexit wing really wants to cover their bases, they could easily afford some defections from the BoJo camp in favour of Raab to ensure that the public vote would be between two hard brexiteers (not that the Tory membership would vote for Hunt, but still). Raab may also be bolstered from the McVey/Leadsom voters.

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How big is the old Mahroof Hussain crew at this point?

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Another Brexiter Labour standing down, and probably the most infamous at that: Kate Hoey.

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I predict a snap election, but if I'm honest I think the tories will be favoured.

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There's not much point in trying to make rational predictions. Johnson is too impulsive and too cowardly for that - it isn't as if we can ever work out how those things balance out in any individual instance.

I think the decision will be out of his hands though; the parliamentary arithmetic is, if anything worse than it was under May and - assuming CUK don't refuse to bring the government down out of a miserable act of self-preservation - the votes for a VONC are definitely there.

The big question if what happens to the BXP vote. If the Tories go in to election with a promise to go out with a No Deal (and turf any member not willing to stand on that manifesto) would Faeage call off his dogs?