UK Election!

I’m just waiting for faridge to do what he does on the rare occasion he attend parliament, based on the European parliament. Stand with his back to the room. It’d be nice if they could find a corner and a D hat full the full effect.

Back in 2011 I was all up for PR (I’m a Libdem so…) but full one on PR based on the national percentage always left me with the question “who will my MP be”?

This can be dealt with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_the_Senedd#:~:text=Since%202011%2C%20members%20are%20elected,D%27Hondt%20method%20of%20proportional

I wanted to check out if the reform candidate here was real. She is and her fb page is full of people saying MPs should be imprisoned or face capital punishment for their failings and promising chaos and riots in the future. Truly scary. Let’s hope the tories don’t go running to them as one Tory Lord has suggested.

I’m hoping a small corner of the opposition benches gets reupholstered in brown leather and reform told to sit there

faridge

Why do people want to anglicise Farage’s foreign sounding name? To spare him the embarrassment of people realising that his ancestors were asylum seekers?

Reform now channeling an old film where everyone betrays each other and they all die in the end. Curious choice.

https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1809687787303579766

faridge
Why do people want to anglicise Farage’s foreign sounding name? To spare him the embarrassment of people realising that his ancestors were asylum seekers?

I believe it’s a piss take, that’s certainly the context I use it in, a northern pronounciation of garage. Your explanation could be equally valid though.

Reform are banking on most people not thinking about the plot, just the image of the 5 gangsters looking cool

And it will probably work

A depressing visit to my parent’s yesterday where my sister in law ranted about Starmer and regurgitated every culture war trope she’s seen on GBNews but it was very depressing to hear her 10 year old son regurgitate Reforms immigration lies

The rw press and media will ensure that the culture war guff is all that a fair chunk of the population will ever hear about the government.

@kimbers I fear we are at the early stages of division as seen in America. It’s bad when politics starts dividing families as you have experienced. Just hope Reform implodes at some point

Back in 2011 I was all up for PR (I’m a Libdem so…) but full one on PR based on the national percentage always left me with the question “who will my MP be”?

@slowoldman the Scottish STV system retains constituency MPs and balances via the regional lists. Best of both worlds IMO, it retains local representation whilst reflecting the wishes of the electorate as a whole.

Kimbers maybe your sister in law is just racist unfortunate I know but we do still have them I am afraid.

Thanks squirrelking I shall look into that.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/sir-keir-tony-blair-prime-minister-tony-downing-street-b1169197.html

FFS why can’t the self-obsessed  narcissist just ****-off and focus on giving “advice” to the murderous despots who pay him so handsomely?

In all the talk about the Labour victory, I hadn’t noticed that Sunak had made his campaign manager Liam Booth-Smith a Lord and given a knighthood to Oliver Dowden, presumably as reward for the staggeringly successful campaign they’ve just run for him. How fitting as a final act of cronyism from this shower

@kimbers I fear we are at the early stages of division as seen in America. It’s bad when politics starts dividing families as you have experienced. Just hope Reform implodes at some point

I think the main issue facing Starmer now is how to hang onto the Labour voters who held their nose and voted Labour just to get the Tories out. There was a sort of “agreement” (if you can call it that) and sites like TacticalVote telling people how to vote solely to ensure the Tories got defeated.

Now that’s happened, there’s the same risk of what took the Tories so far to the right in the first place – the desperate fear they had of UKIP. With Reform now having actual MPs free to spout their racist shite in the Commons, it’s even more of a risk that the populist bollocks will once again win out.

Ironic that the whole referendum shite, the whole “you could have chaos with Ed Milliband” stuff that lead to a Tory victory and then Brexit was designed to keep the Tories in and Nigel Farage out of Parliament.

Yeah, that worked well didn’t it, you **** idiots. Never try to appease right wingers. That whole culture war that eventually swallowed the Tories could have been avoided if they’d simply said “**** off” to the UKIP’ers and the flag shaggers but no, they had to try and out-do them.

We had people come out and spit at us. I had my name constantly interrogated about where I was ‘really from’.

Labour candidate defeated by Farage.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/07/clacton-labour-candidate-jovan-owusu-nepaul-reform-safety-fears-election-nigel-farage

Never try to appease right wingers

Before he called the monumentally stupid referendum, Dave already had them summed up as ‘people who won’t take yes for an answer’, so you’d think he’d bloody know what he was dealing with!

The right can never be appeased. They’re like the Taliban and will just get ever more extreme. I’m pretty certain that won’t stop the Tories now trying as they elect a complete headbanger as leader and then get led around by the nose by Farage, tacking ever further right

Hmm, dodgy stuff from Reform? Surely not… ?!

Reform UK’s Invisible Candidates: Who Are They Hiding?

Squirrel  and Slow….. the electoral reform society has lots of useful info on different PR systems…..Scotland broadly shares the same way of doing things w Germany – a system created by the allies postwar to stop democracy being subverted.

They also have examples of how UK GEs would have played out if using PR. Well worth a read

Types of Voting System

Never try to appease right wingers

Looks like Macron has somewhat successfully called their bluff too. Turns out there are fewer far right voters than they’d have you believe.

Looks like Macron has somewhat successfully called their bluff too. Turns

Isn’t it the radical left who has stopped the far-right from seizing power rather than the centrists?

I’m sure there is a lesson to be learnt there somewhere.

Isn’t it the radical left who has stopped the far-right from seizing power rather than the centrists?

Erm, no, it’s both the left and the centrists who have worked together to focus votes in certain areas to combat the far right candidates getting in.

Ah, is that what it is?

So the centrists couldn’t have done it without help from the radical left.

I’m sure there is a lesson to be learnt there somewhere.

Vive la France!

Aka where’s the French election thread gone?

Look at their sad racist faces!!

Everyone joined forces and did their bit in the face of a greater threat. Lessons for everyone there.

Plenty of Palestinian flags on show at the Popular Front’s victory rally.

Seems that Western governments support for a far-right genocidal regime in Israel might have affected the French legislative elections as it did the UK’s on Thursday.

Maybe another lesson to be learnt?

Yep, the anti-NR folk I’ve spoken to are centrist and left. Am staying right opposite the town hall (counting spot) in La Rochelle and we’ve had people out there with anti-fascism flags and the NR posters have been nicely adapted. We live in hope.

@crazy-legs. – I’ve just read that article and it’s exactly what we found in this constituency as I posted on this thread at the time

When we got our postal votes through, we googled the Reform candidate and we couldn’t find a single thing out about her. Nothing! No social media presence, no photos of her, she was absolutely invisible! Like she didn’t exist.

Like she didn’t exist

This.  I’m almost certain she didn’t

This is officially good news.

Much crying on X from reform voters that seemed to think their 5 wrong’uns were going to ride the crest of a shit tsunami on the back of a far right French victory.

Poor little flowers. I do worry so for them.

Dunno if this has been done but interesting picks as Justice Secretary and attorney general.  Both prepared to criticize Isreal I believe and Thornbury sidelined – she has a rather more pro Isreal stance.

Ernie – you know about this stuff.  Is my optimism justified?  could we actually see labour stopping being scared of being labeled anti semites for criticizing Isreal?

Today in Manchester:

First Sadiq, then Kier, then the French

What a year. In fact I don’t care about the crap weather anymore!

There seems to be a few loud voices on this forum demonising ‘centrists’, I guess I’m a centrist, but I prefer the term ‘moderate’, myself.

Well done France.. I’m not a huge fan of Macron, but a lurch further to the right would be far more worrying.

Here’s to a more libral EU!

Cheers!

Is my optimism justified?

It’s not for me to say! But yes, I am hugely encouraged by Starmer’s choice of Attorney General. I keep banging on about it to people in the local Palestine solidarity movement half expecting someone to tell me that it’s all not quite what it seems (they are all very cynical and suspicious feckers) but no one has yet. I think it’s taken everyone by surprise.

If this does indeed mark a shift in Starmer’s stance on Palestine I am absolutely certain that it is related to Thursday’s general election result.

Whilst it has obviously been recognised I think the Gaza effect on Thursday’s election has been understated. Independents almost never win a parliamentary seat in the UK, very occasionally every few years one might. On Thursday 5 did as a direct result of Starmer’s stance on Gaza, all 5 of them former Labour Party members.

Starmer’s Secretary of State for Health came within a whisker of losing his seat over Gaza. Throughout the country sitting Labour MPs in safe seats saw their share of the vote fall from 2019 over the issue, including here in Croydon.

Starmer himself saw his 36k 2019 vote reduced to 18k on Thursday because of his stance on Gaza. At yesterday’s rally Andrew Feinstein claimed that Starmer is the first person to become  Prime Minister in British history to come to office after seeing a drop in their own personal vote.

Starmer’s stance on Gaza and his support for the far-right Israeli government has clearly had considerable negative electoral consequences for Labour, he appears to have acknowledged that.

And despite his huge majority he knows that it is built on a very shaky foundation with half a million less votes than 2019 – he needs win back the people for whom Gaza was a red line.

Richard Hermer’s appointment seems to be a step in that direction. Hopefully it will be followed up with more encouraging developments including the UK’s stance as a Permanent member of the United Nations Security Council

What’s the shift? Two state solution as the long term aim as the plan. Calling for Israel to abide by, and be held to, international law. Saying Israel should not be going into Rafah. All this has been said for months now by Labour. For those that have tried to use Gaza for political gain against Labour to now claim they have changed how the UK government acts towards Israel… it’s nonsense. Those who have elected Labour MPs have made this happen, not those that tried to stop them being elected, like Galloway and his mob.

There seems to be a few loud voices on this forum demonising ‘centrists’, I guess I’m a centrist, but I prefer the term ‘moderate’,

Well yes you might like that term however to put “moderate” into perspective Joe Manchin is often described as a “moderate democrat”. Whereas the more accurate description is he is a right wing nutter but just not quite into maga terrority.

Which ultimately is the problem with “centrists”. Leaving aside the libdems who accept that they arent the not very silent majority sadly a lot believe that the only people who count are themselves.

Luckily in France despite some elements of the centre being unwilling to work with the left against the fascists it seems to have got past the post.

Kelvin – the shift is that Thornbury was lined up for attorney general and she is a uncritical Isreali supporter.  She wasn’t given the post despite being shadow for several years.  Instead its gone to an Isreali criti8c.

Thats a big shift.  Why we can only speculate.

Ta Ernie

Well yes you might like that term however to put “moderate” into perspective Joe Manchin is often described as a “moderate democrat”. Whereas the more accurate description is he is a right wing nutter but just not quite into maga terrority.

Which ultimately is the problem with “centrists”. Leaving aside the libdems who accept that they arent the not very silent majority sadly a lot believe that the only people who count are themselves.

Luckily in France despite some elements of the centre being unwilling to work with the left against the fascists it seems to have got past the post.

I think you have to view American politics through a certain critical lense…I mean if the US media is to be taken seriously, anyone left of Barack Obama is viewed as Pol pot.

the shift is that Thornbury was lined up for attorney general and she is a uncritical Isreali supporter

She has been critical of the current and previous Israeli governments, especially as regards settlement expansion and eviction and removal of Palestinians. Where does this “uncritical supporter” nonsense come from? The appointees look spot on to me by the way, the right experience for sure, far more than Thornberry. That she hasn’t popped up elsewhere in another government role is interesting though… what’s going on there?