UK - December 2019 General Election

[angrysoba]

Britain has a first-past-the-post^WP electoral system that can quite often (as demonstrated in plenty of different electoral districts in this specific election) lead to candidates winning from a simple plurality of votes, because other votes were split between different candidates.

See vote splitting^WP and spoiler effect^WP. Pretty basic stuff.

Huh?

What do you think you are telling me that I don't already know?

I know what system the UK has. I asked, in the quote, what seats the Brexit Party affected?

What's your answer to that? Are you going to tell me that MPs sit in the House of Commons?

 

[Vixen]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/inside-labours-campaign-behind

Apparently promising so many free things to everyone (except the hated capitalist slave-drivers, who will foot the bill for everything before their eventual executions) isn't a recipe for success, no matter how individually popular any one of the proposals might be.

This was the Brexit election though, next time the populace will rally behind Corbyns designated heir and their eventual promise to nationalize the banks.

It was to be funded out of raised taxes. Seriously, people earning > £80K pa were not going to miss an extra £17 pcm in income tax.

It seems to me the social divide is going to get bigger and bigger and something will have to give, as after all the hoi-polloi vastly outnumber the other classes, by about 80:20, or 4:1.

It happened in Finland 1918 civil war, leaving 42K dead. My great uncle Vihtori who was then 17 and alone in his manor house, with my Aunt Maija, then 13, when a bunch of 'red' workers arrived, demanding weapons and horses. The horses were hidden in the forest and the guns locked up. Frustrated, they assaulted poor Vihtori but thankfully, fled. Some they just executed.

There will come a breaking point when the propertyless, jobless, foodless masses realise BoJo and Moggy are not going to be on their side any time soon. In fact, BoJo is quoted as calling them 'feckless and lazy'.

No point electing a BoJo facsimile as Labour Party leader because you may as well vote for the real BoJo.

 

[Darat]

If that is the case, they could have achieved the result they wanted without running at all. Are there any seats that they affected by running?







Pretty meaningless. More people turned out for the referendum for a start.







I don't see that as being very likely. As it happens, there was a party - Change UK which contested three seats of former members of the Tories and Labour Party, and they were trounced in the election. Anna Soubry, who was a Tory even saw the Tories vote rise. Dominic Grieve who stood as an independent against the Tories in his old seat also lost massively. I don't see a Remain Party doing well at all, particularly in a general election where people care about other issues.



The seats a Remain Party would have been likely to win are seats that the Lib Dems, SNP and Green did win.

Blyth, Brexit Ltd, got more votes than the Tory majority.

 

[Darat]

Yes. The hypocrites should never have stood for the Tories in the 2017 election, when they were directly opposed to the main manifesto promise they were standing on. They should have stood as independents or for other parties back then. Although technically people vote for an individual rather than a party, in practice, people do make their vote along party lines. Those MPs were cheats and liars: people voted for them thinking they were electing Tories, and what they actually got were Lib Dems in disguise.

Again you are using a double standard, Johnson and Mogg etc. stood on the same manifesto and then stopped the UK leaving the EU. Equally "cheaters".

 

[uke2se]

Yes. The hypocrites should never have stood for the Tories in the 2017 election, when they were directly opposed to the main manifesto promise they were standing on. They should have stood as independents or for other parties back then. Although technically people vote for an individual rather than a party, in practice, people do make their vote along party lines. Those MPs were cheats and liars: people voted for them thinking they were electing Tories, and what they actually got were Lib Dems in disguise.

Wasn't the main manifesto to deliver Brexit? You know, the policy that Boris Johnson voted against when it was up? I didn't realize that the manifesto included proroguing the parliament illegally and behave like absolute twits. I don't think the people we are talking about realized either, or they might have abstained from running in 2017 like you say.

 

[angrysoba]

Blyth, Brexit Ltd, got more votes than the Tory majority.

A difference of about 700 votes compared to Brexit's 3,000 or so. Yes, they could have made a difference there assuming that they were pulling more votes away from Labour which saw a massive decline.

 

[Arcade22]

Huh?

What do you think you are telling me that I don't already know?

The first part of your post suggests that you don't understand how vote splitting works.

If that is the case, they could have achieved the result they wanted without running at all.

If the Brexit party didn't contest a specific constituency, then the Labour voters there who were tempted to vote for it are more likely to vote for their second choice (quite possibly Labour) or not vote at all. Your contention that they could split the Labour vote without contesting the election is to a large degree inaccurate.

I know what system the UK has. I asked, in the quote, what seats the Brexit Party affected?

Go the BBC 2019 election result website: https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2019/results

Click on the "Change" button near the map and look for seats that were won by Con.

Click on the "Show results" on one of them.

Take a look at the amount of votes that Labour lost and compare them with the amount of votes the Con gained and the BRX gained. Some seats where BRX got more votes than the difference between LAB and CON: Durham North West, Blyth Valley, Burnley, Bury North, Bury South, Bolton North East, Heywood & Middleton, Dewsbury, High Peak,

Labour lost a lot of critical seats that they have held for a significant time because previous voters instead gave their votes to both the Brexit Party and the Conservative party, but also to a lesser degree the Liberal Democratic party and (to an even lesser degree) the greens. Had the Brexit Party not stood any candidates there, it's quite possible they would've been able to keep enough support to retain some of the seats they lost.

Edit: The amount of votes gained by the Conservative Party and The Brexit Party was both quite often around 50% of the total votes that Labour lost.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I noticed one cheeky EU citizen complaining in the GRUANIAD that 'Commonwealth citizens [=translated: 'black and ethnic minority'] seem to have more right to be here than we do'. Er, yes, sorry, but they are British and you are not.

Commonwealth citizens aren't British.

 

[Arcade22]

Since both parties engaged in such very presidential election campaigns, the election was quite often viewed by voters as a referendum on whether they approved of either Corbyn or Johnson as Prime Minister. Corbyn was more unlikable than Johnson, but Johnson himself is quite unpopular. Voters were not left with a binary choice, which is why many Labour voters who can't stand either Corbyn or Johnson decided to support Farage and the Brexit Party instead. It's important to mention that many older Labour voters couldn't stand to vote for the Conservative Party no matter what, leaving Brexit Party as a better option than grudgingly voting Labour or not voting at all.

Better support the "country lad" Farage than the crazy clown BJ and the hated Conservatives.

 

[Nessie]

So true, Corbyn's son reacts;

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...condemn-despicable-attack-on-him-after-defeat

"“He took on an entire establishment. This meant the attacks from all sides intensified and became even more poisonous while he was leader. We’ve never known a politician to be smeared and vilified so much,” they said. "Jeremy has dedicated each day of his political life for the less fortunate amongst us. Unwaveringly, he has fought and campaigned for people who suffer and people in hardship.”

The establishment, as they usually do, won.

 

[ceptimus]

Again you are using a double standard, Johnson and Mogg etc. stood on the same manifesto and then stopped the UK leaving the EU. Equally "cheaters".

Nonsense. Johnson and Mogg are amongst the fiercest supporters of Brexit, and they would never dream of standing as candidates other than as Conservatives.

It's because of people like them that Brexit will now be delivered.

 

[ceptimus]

Wasn't the main manifesto to deliver Brexit?

Yes, and you should rejoice that now the Tories have been returned with a healthy majority, and can ignore the bleating remainer MPs, they will, at last, be able to deliver it.

 

[Olmstead]

Yes, and you should rejoice that now the Tories have been returned with a healthy majority, and can ignore the bleating remainer MPs, they will, at last, be able to deliver it.

I look forward to witnessing this display of unexpected basic competence.

 

[trustbutverify]

So true, Corbyn's son reacts;

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...condemn-despicable-attack-on-him-after-defeat

"“He took on an entire establishment. This meant the attacks from all sides intensified and became even more poisonous while he was leader. We’ve never known a politician to be smeared and vilified so much,” they said. "Jeremy has dedicated each day of his political life for the less fortunate amongst us. Unwaveringly, he has fought and campaigned for people who suffer and people in hardship.”

The establishment, as they usually do, won.

Does Corbyn have any responsibility for this humiliating pounding, or is he simply a victim of the establishment?

 

[uke2se]

Yes, and you should rejoice that now the Tories have been returned with a healthy majority, and can ignore the bleating remainer MPs, they will, at last, be able to deliver it.

Oh, in a way I'm glad. The sooner we're rid of you lot, the better as far as I'm concerned. I feel bad for the millions of reasonable people living among you who are going to share in the steep price for the idiocy you have fostered on your nation though.

 

[Aber]

It was to be funded out of raised taxes. Seriously, people earning > £80K pa were not going to miss an extra £17 pcm in income tax.

£17 pcm was not going to pay for all the promised extra expenditure.

 

[Ambrosia]

I hope you are right, but I think it would take at least two or three elections for this to happen.

No, it can happen in a single election cycle.

1992 Major won an election noone thought he could and after I thought we might never see a different party in power.

1997 Blair won in a huge Labour landslide.

See if Boris cocks up Brexit, then he and his party have to own it. This is his deal, his mandate, his leadership. I think Boris is very politically savvy, and avery good politician. (I hasten to add I can't stand him and oppose just about everything he stands for) So he ought to know this. If he makes a dogs breakfast of Brexit then the voters will turn on him just as quickly as they seem to have embraced him this election.

Throw in a capable leader of the opposition and things will swing the other way fast.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

No, it can happen in a single election cycle.

1992 Major won an election noone thought he could and after I thought we might never see a different party in power.

1997 Blair won in a huge Labour landslide.

See if Boris cocks up Brexit, then he and his party have to own it. This is his deal, his mandate, his leadership. I think Boris is very politically savvy, and avery good politician. (I hasten to add I can't stand him and oppose just about everything he stands for) So he ought to know this. If he makes a dogs breakfast of Brexit then the voters will turn on him just as quickly as they seem to have embraced him this election.

Throw in a capable leader of the opposition and things will swing the other way fast.

I think you might have missed the last couple of months...

I'd catch you up but it's a bit depressing and frankly I don't plan on sobering up enough until the next election.

 

[GlennB]

No, it can happen in a single election cycle.

1992 Major won an election noone thought he could and after I thought we might never see a different party in power.

1997 Blair won in a huge Labour landslide.

See if Boris cocks up Brexit, then he and his party have to own it. This is his deal, his mandate, his leadership. I think Boris is very politically savvy, and avery good politician. (I hasten to add I can't stand him and oppose just about everything he stands for) So he ought to know this. If he makes a dogs breakfast of Brexit then the voters will turn on him just as quickly as they seem to have embraced him this election.

Throw in a capable leader of the opposition and things will swing the other way fast.

Nope.
It will all be the fault of others, mainly the EU for making things difficult.

We no longer live in a political world where logic, decency and accepting responsibility are seen as requirements. Impressions carry all the weight now.

 

[Giz]

Nope.
We no longer live in a political world where logic, decency and accepting responsibility are seen as requirements. Impressions carry all the weight now.

Sadly true, as exemplified by all the “good” people who voted for mad racist Jeremy