rho21
7473
I see that Lord Buckethead beat Count Binface convincingly. If they hadn’t split the Silly vote between them, they would have fallen just short of overtaking UKIP.
draxen
7474
Jo Swinson resigns as leader of the Lib Dems.
He’ll get it through, no problem.
But he still has to actually get Brexit done afterwards; i.e., negotiate an actual trade agreement with the EU that he can get through parliament. As with all things Brexit, the Tories/Brexiteers vastly under-estimate the difficulties involved in that, and it will likely shape and dominate British politics for years to come. Reality is way more messy than the slogans.
He’ll also have to deal with the Scottish fallout from this election. If he can be said to have a clear mandate from the British people for Brexit, the SNP has an even clearer mandate from the Scottish people for their policies. It is not going to go down well if the Conservatives live up to their promise to reject the SNP’s demands. Scotland is not a region or country in the UK - it’s an own nation with its own parliament. The Tories are not going to be able to stop a referendum, if the SNP wants to force it through. They can stop a binding referendum, but the Scottish parliament can unilaterally decide to hold an advisory referendum, and if that comes back in favor of independence (and the odds will no doubt increase for that if the Tories try to block it), what moral authority will the UK have to block the Scottish people’s right of self determination?
And of course the Northern Irish problem doesn’t go away either. Though it looks like the Tory plan for that one is to just abandon Northern Ireland and how that one plays out is anyone’s guess. I think an Irish Union still sounds a bit far-fetched as an outcome, but who the heck knows? This is a watershed moment in British history.
Aceris
7476
The tories hold bolsover with a majority of more than 5000. Laura Pidcock loses - next years Durham miners gala will be held in a Tory constituency. When people look up the definition of landslide, this will be right there with the 1997 election. A lot of optimists think it will encourage Boris to govern from the Center - we will see.
Good for Labour and LibDems to get rid of Corbyn and Swinson,
Questionable whether they’ll be able to pick new leaders who will be able to lift either party much, though, isn’t it? Or are there any charismatic, breakout politicians who have been flying under the radar during this election that we haven’t heard of?
Aceris
7478
I saw that unionists beat nats in vote share in Scotland. If so expect the tories to brings this up whenever the SNP talk about independence.
draxen
7479
The Lib Dems may recover with a decent leader. Labour on the other hand (judging from their response to tonights defeat) are going to double down on their Momentum movement. I don’t think this is at all palatable to most voters and to properly recover they will have to also move back toward the center.
draxen
7480
Boris’s victory speech is great. Whatever you think of his character you can’t deny that he’s a consummate politician. I think he will surprise many of you now that he has the numbers and the power to govern properly.
Oh man, he’s gonna turn Presidential any moment now.
Ah well, good luck, and I hope the EU trade negotiators don’t give an inch.
Good to see that useless old fart Skinner is gone, and that fool Pidcock. Shame about Berger but the Tory Jews are about to find out what happens when they empower a far right group of ultranationalists and supremacists clamouring for a white ethnostate. If only history had something to say about people like that.
Just a matter of standing back now and letting the Johnson government destroy itself when it collapses under lies and incompetency and their voters drown in the pool of Brexit dogshit they voted to throw themselves into.
I must admit, the whole thing was entirely unsurprising, and leaving Labour this year with 4 years of me warning its going to happen and a big “yup, told you so, it turns out everyone other than the cult hates Corbyn as much as I do” certainly reduced any pain from a loss.
Quaro
7483
Really general question about UK electoral mechanics: like in the US, is there a ‘rural multiplier’ where votes in less populated places basically count for more than urban votes? Often not factor except when the parties start to split among a rural/urban divide.
Like if you had 100k votes in London, or if had 100k votes in rural UK areas, would you have the same amount of political power on average, more, or less?
I think its mattered more for the Remain vote than just for Labour. The EURef was merely a national count and the constituency set up and FPTP means that even a 52% remain vote wont cause a win, mainly as its concentrated in cities and cant win an election on a seat by seat basis.
The root causes of this are Labours loss to Lexiters and hard left in 2015 pre-Ref, that basically removed Labour as a vehicle for the Remain vote to coalesce around and its just been a muddled mess ever since.
Tim_N
7485
Does anyone know Boris’s opinions on the environment? Is he for climate change action just not as forcefully as Labour, or are there many closet deniers in cabinet?
He’ll do what ever he gets bribed to do, or whatever is needed for him to stay in power. The Tories, their influx of far right lunatics and most importantly their donors are loaded with climate change deniers.
Panzeh
7487
Defending remain in a big way would’ve required a defense of Merkel’s austerity policy and i’m pretty sure that would’ve resulted in an even worse election.
No one gives a shit about Merkels austerity policy. The electorate didnt even give a shit about the Tories austerity policy.
The main issues are:
Labour failed to win over their constituencies in the build up to the Ref, and their campaign in the Ref was shit due to the leadership being Lexiters, everything after the Ref was doomed no matter what they did. There was no way Labour was going to unite their Leavers and Remainers.
Everyone hates Corbyn.
and even everyone on this thread wrote off the LibDems a few weeks ago. Hopeless. There probably should have been a single Alliance party from 2016 loss onwards but it wasnt going to happen.
Merkel’s austerity policy in regards to the UK?
Panzeh
7490
She drove the EU toward a fiscal policy that matched her own- brutal austerity. It really helped push the crisis along.
Apparently supporting Remain would have destroyed Labour’s vote because Germany’s current leader has an austerity policy?
Remainers are looking at the big picture.
Are we in the Greece exit thread? Or any other Euro country?
