Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

Leroy42

Tell me how wrote: »

devnull wrote: »

Honestly the state of UK Politics is embarrassing.

It really is, and while that is somewhat entertaining on some level (purely to see how the wheels actually came off), it is frightening on many more as it does open the possibility to nefarious forces gaining more power.

Already it looks like the next GE will bring about Farage pontificating in the HoC and realistically, what type of government is going to be formed or be able to pass legislation when people like him and others are going to try to soapbox on every issue.

We already know. The ERG and DUP have been doing pretty much that for the last two years

Tell me how

Leroy42 wrote: »

We already know. The ERG and DUP have been doing pretty much that for the last two years

They're in a different league to what Monsieur Farage is capable of....

Will the elected representatives get to sit in the parliament in Brussels before the next Brexit deadline?

devnull

Ester McVey has just said that it's impossible to bring the people together so if she becomes leader she will stop bothering to try, get the UK out of the European Union with no deal and then figure out what the plan is to do next, like a true populist politician who has no plan at all on what to do.

Couple that with her completely out of touch and lack of understanding of the situation on the border between our country and Northern Ireland and she would be a terrible PM. However that probably will make her more attractive to many Brexiteers who will lap up such rhetoric.

RickBlaine

If Corbyn really wants to be PM, I don't understand why he doesn't back a 2nd ref as Labour policy.

Surely he would prefer to be PM of the UK in the EU rather than opposition leader with the UK out of the EU.

Tell me how

RickBlaine wrote: »

If Corbyn really wants to be PM, I don't understand why he doesn't back a 2nd ref as Labour policy.

Surely he would prefer to be PM of the UK in the EU rather than opposition leader with the UK out of the EU.

I think it's pretty obvious he's prioritising the UK leaving. Hard to know what exactly his motivations are. Does he think the path to a socialist haven has to first see the abolition of the EU or would he rather try to create such a haven in isolation outside of it.

RickBlaine

Can Labour members force out Corbyn or are they basically stuck with him?

devnull

RickBlaine wrote: »

Can Labour members force out Corbyn or are they basically stuck with him?

The problem is that the MPs don't want him but Momentum mean he'll always win the membership vote, as well as people who are signing up as members from other parties to vote for him.

devnull

Tell me how wrote: »

I think it's pretty obvious he's prioritising the UK leaving. Hard to know what exactly his motivations are. Does he think the path to a socialist haven has to first see the abolition of the EU or would he rather try to create such a haven in isolation outside of it.

He wants to Nationalise many sectors and also the EU State Aid regulations would stop many of his policies.

ancapailldorcha

Deleted User wrote: »

What makes you say that? Up to a point FPTP stops small parties from getting in but there's a tipping point where massive seat gains can be made. A bit like Tully-mandering here.
If the BP could hit 40% across England with no single Remain party to hoover up the other 60% then what happens?

For one you need your support to be concentrated. On top of that, you need enough support to top that of whichever of the two main parties (or the SNP in Scotland and Lib Dems). FPTP means that each seat is given to whomever gets the most votes and the rest are discarded. Many Londoners, northerners and Welsh people have traditionally voted Labour. This isn't something that can be overcome overnight. Ditto for Southern Tory voters.

The classic example is the SNP winning 56 seats in 2015 with 1.5 million votes while UKIP got one with nearly three times that.

jochenstacker

Farage ist the "man of the people". He didn't get in 20 years ago because back then voters expected a manifesto and actual politics from a party.
Today's voter is far more brain-dead. You just need a snazzy logo, unshakable confidence, massive arrogance and easy solutions.
You need to convey the impression that you will steamroller the opposition (sticking it to the libtards in the US) and run roughshod over anyone who disagrees.
Remember, it's not enough to win, others must lose.
He is, like Trump, the God of trolls and morons.
He will simply say that everything the people want is within easy reach and just requires some very simple steps and those fat cats in power don't want to do it in case they can't afford their next ivory backscratcher.
In other words a party that any five year old or anyone with an IQ north of 50 can immediately see is nothing but a sham and a vehicle for the ego and personal gain of one person.
Oh yes, he could make it big. Never underestimate the greed, stupidity and gullibility of today's right leaning voter.

Enzokk

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

For one you need your support to be concentrated. On top of that, you need enough support to top that of whichever of the two main parties (or the SNP in Scotland and Lib Dems). FPTP means that each seat is given to whomever gets the most votes and the rest are discarded. Many Londoners, northerners and Welsh people have traditionally voted Labour. This isn't something that can be overcome overnight. Ditto for Southern Tory voters.

The classic example is the SNP winning 56 seats in 2015 with 1.5 million votes while UKIP got one with nearly three times that.

I always found this argument a bit spurious. Yes the SNP received a lot of MPs for the amount of votes compared to UKIP and if you were to look at it as MP per vote it reads terribly for democracy. But that ignores that the SNP had 59 candidates and UKIP had 624 running. So the real picture is that the SNP received 24 651 votes per candidate. UKIP on the other hand received 6 219 votes per candidate they put forward. That is almost 4 times as many votes per candidate they put forward.

This just highlights your point really, that you need a more concentrated support to win seats in the HoC, its the argument how the SNP received 56 MPs for 1.4m votes whereas UKIP only received 1 MP and they had almost 4m votes that I have a problem with.

Just as an example what the Brexit Party is going to face, compared to other parties and how many votes they received per candidate put forward for the 2015 election.

Conservatives - 17 464 votes per candidate
Labour - 14 813 votes per candidate
Libdems - 3 828 votes per candidate
Greens - 2 066 votes per candidate

So the Brexit party will need to at least double the support of UKIP in 2015. When you consider UKIP had 12.6% of the votes in the election then you have to think that they would need around 25% of the total vote to make an impact. This is as you mention due to the fact that the other parties has learned to focus on seats to win MPs, not just try a scatter gun approach of putting a candidate in every seat and hoping for the best.

Blueshoe

jochenstacker wrote: »

Farage ist the "man of the people". He didn't get in 20 years ago because back then voters expected a manifesto and actual politics from a party.
Today's voter is far more brain-dead. You just need a snazzy logo, unshakable confidence, massive arrogance and easy solutions.
You need to convey the impression that you will steamroller the opposition (sticking it to the libtards in the US) and run roughshod over anyone who disagrees.
Remember, it's not enough to win, others must lose.
He is, like Trump, the God of trolls and morons.
He will simply say that everything the people want is within easy reach and just requires some very simple steps and those fat cats in power don't want to do it in case they can't afford their next ivory backscratcher.
In other words a party that any five year old or anyone with an IQ north of 50 can immediately see is nothing but a sham and a vehicle for the ego and personal gain of one person.
Oh yes, he could make it big. Never underestimate the greed, stupidity and gullibility of today's right leaning voter.

Come down off your high horse. Who do you think you are to throw out such vitriol?
People want out and have shown that again

devnull

Latest spin being used by the DUP and other pro Brexit parties is that actually the vote last night proved that there is an overwhelming support for Brexit and the true total was much bigger than last night.

Apparently people had already voted to Leave so didn't bother voting last night which distorted the voting figures. This has led to people on twitter saying that in reality the Brexit Party support is close to 40%.

Of course, no mention was made of the many EU Citizens who were prevented from voting.

4068ac1elhodqr

devnull wrote: »

The kind of people who vote for Farage in the majority won't care if he has a manifesto or not. They just think he talks sense and says it like it is and tells the truth. That may not be correct but this is how these people see it unfortunately.

It is very dangerous to say that the Brexit Party will not get anywhere in a General Election because they do not have a manifesto, because that is a very blinkered view based on your own opinion and my perception from the outside.

...To suggest otherwise and to write them off is highly dangerous.

Agree odds for TBP to get most seat in any GE have shortened again 6/1 across the board (from 100/1).

Peterbourgh (by-election) has gone short this week also, at 1.28 (from 1.83).

Farage to become PM during 2019 is going short also (from 66/1) to 16/1 today

One glimmer of hope for remainers is the LibDems, but it would require the full absoloute abandonment of both Con & Lab.

Blueshoe

devnull wrote: »

Latest spin being used by the DUP and other pro Brexit parties is that actually the vote last night proved that there is an overwhelming support for Brexit and the true total was much bigger than last night.

Apparently people had already voted to Leave so didn't bother voting last night which distorted the voting figures. This has led to people on twitter saying that in reality the Brexit Party support is close to 40%.

Of course, no mention was made of the many EU Citizens who were prevented from voting.

The Brexit party will be the second biggest party in Europe

devnull

Jazmine Big Dragonfly wrote: »

One glimmer of hope for remainers is the LibDems, but it would require the full absoloute abandonment of both Con & Lab.

Change UK should immediately join them, might harm a few egos but if they are serious about their cause, going over to them will strengthen it.

Blueshoe wrote: »

The Brexit party will be the second biggest party in Europe

What do you base that on?

ancapailldorcha

Enzokk wrote: »

I always found this argument a bit spurious. Yes the SNP received a lot of MPs for the amount of votes compared to UKIP and if you were to look at it as MP per vote it reads terribly for democracy. But that ignores that the SNP had 59 candidates and UKIP had 624 running. So the real picture is that the SNP received 24 651 votes per candidate. UKIP on the other hand received 6 219 votes per candidate they put forward. That is almost 4 times as many votes per candidate they put forward.

This just highlights your point really, that you need a more concentrated support to win seats in the HoC, its the argument how the SNP received 56 MPs for 1.4m votes whereas UKIP only received 1 MP and they had almost 4m votes that I have a problem with.

Just as an example what the Brexit Party is going to face, compared to other parties and how many votes they received per candidate put forward for the 2015 election.

Conservatives - 17 464 votes per candidate
Labour - 14 813 votes per candidate
Libdems - 3 828 votes per candidate
Greens - 2 066 votes per candidate

So the Brexit party will need to at least double the support of UKIP in 2015. When you consider UKIP had 12.6% of the votes in the election then you have to think that they would need around 25% of the total vote to make an impact. This is as you mention due to the fact that the other parties has learned to focus on seats to win MPs, not just try a scatter gun approach of putting a candidate in every seat and hoping for the best.

I appreciate the numbers. I deliberately chose the most dramatic example I could think of to illustrate the problem.

As you've said, the Brexit party's only real hope in a GE is to win a few carefully chosen seats in the hope that they can agitate for electoral reform and no deal Brexit.

Blueshoe

devnull wrote: »

Change UK should immediately join them, might harm a few egos but if they are serious about their cause, going over to them will strengthen it.



What do you base that on?

Heard it on the radio. Sunglasses wearing emoji

Enzokk

Blueshoe wrote: »

The Brexit party will be the second biggest party in Europe

I believe they are actually the biggest party. But 29 seats out of 750 doesn't buy much leverage for anything and while it is nice to have the status it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. You would have to assume it means even less if their MEPs doesn't turn up or vote either.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I appreciate the numbers. I deliberately chose the most dramatic example I could think of to illustrate the problem.

As you've said, the Brexit party's only real hope in a GE is to win a few carefully chosen seats in the hope that they can agitate for electoral reform and no deal Brexit.

I was aware of that, I was just commenting on it as I have seen Farage make that argument before. But he made it to try and show how unfair life is without looking at the numbers, your point was to show how they will have to change the way they approach a general election.

Blueshoe

Enzokk wrote: »

I believe they are actually the biggest party. But 29 seats out of 750 doesn't buy much leverage for anything and while it is nice to have the status it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. You would have to assume it means even less if their MEPs doesn't turn up or vote either.

Le Pen turned over the French vote too. Also the Italians. I'd imagine there are more countries who have voted anti Eu.
It's healthy to have an opposition voice anyway.
I would still imagine the pro EU left have more seats though.
Unfortunately. But that's politics.

devnull

Blueshoe wrote: »

Le Pen turned over the French vote too. Also the Italians. I'd imagine there are more countries who have voted anti Eu.
It's healthy to have an opposition voice anyway.
I would still imagine the pro EU left have more seats though.

The European Peoples Party are not left wing, they are centre-right.

Christy42

Blueshoe wrote: »

Le Pen turned over the French vote too. Also the Italians. I'd imagine there are more countries who have voted anti Eu.
It's healthy to have an opposition voice anyway.
I would still imagine the pro EU left have more seats though.
Unfortunately. But that's politics.

Not really. Just the Italians and some of the Eastern European. France voted for pro European parties (admittedly it was split between multiple parties)

Even then most far right parties had to drop leaving the EU from their manifesto due to the chaos in the UK.

CelticRambler

Blueshoe wrote: »

Le Pen turned over the French vote too.

"Turned over" how? She got about as much support as she did in the first round of the last GE, and with only 0.9% of a lead over Macron's party, tied for the number of seats.

BUT that means nothing when you don't have any allies. She lost the last GE because (in Irish parlance) her party is just not transfer friendly, and Macron won this election because he's already made a deal with Guy Verhofstadt while Farage and LePen and Salvini are bragging about how they've changed the world.

Oh, and then there's that small matter of Farage and all his chums in the Brexit Party suddenly losing all their "power and influence" if/when the UK falls out of the EU in five months' time.

Enzokk

Blueshoe wrote: »

Le Pen turned over the French vote too. Also the Italians. I'd imagine there are more countries who have voted anti Eu.
It's healthy to have an opposition voice anyway.
I would still imagine the pro EU left have more seats though.
Unfortunately. But that's politics.

Well it is not unfortunately if your countries prosperity is linked to a strong EU. But you are right, the pro-EU parties have about 500 seats in the 750 seat parliament. Now not all of these parties see life the same way but if the anti-EU parties bring forward measures to hurt the EU they will easily be outvoted. When you look at the groups as well you have the ECR group as well who I have included in the numbers for parties that could make it difficult for the EU. But when you consider that the Conservatives in the UK is part of this group and they would not count as anti-EU in my eyes the amount of seats that the anti-EU parties has is around 150-200. That is if they all band together which may not be the case.

Also, I think there is a good mix of parties in the EU. There are more pro-EU parties but there is enough variety in this group to ensure that compromise will need to be made and one group will not just be able to dominate. That is a good thing to ensure that you don't get the type of politics we see in the UK where one party can do what they want if they have a majority.

WhiteMan32

Following the thrashing of both Conservative and Labour in the UK election, will this perhaps result in there being fewer TV interviews with members of both parties as part of future political programming e.g. Question Time, The Andrew Marr Show, Newsnight etc ?

Peregrinus

Blueshoe wrote: »

The Brexit party will be the second biggest party in Europe

They'll be the second biggest national party delegation in the European parliament. But that's one of those trivial facts that counts for nothing. National party delegations are not signficant in the European Parliament. And, if past history is anything to go buy, the Brexit Party will be even less significant than most others, since they will mostly neither attend nor vote.

Lucy8080

devnull wrote: »

Ester McVey has just said that it's impossible to bring the people together so if she becomes leader she will stop bothering to try, get the UK out of the European Union with no deal and then figure out what the plan is to do next, like a true populist politician who has no plan at all on what to do.

I think B.J, has been hinting at a similar position. These are soundbites to get power.

If the British public buy into them ,they are kidding themselves.

A no deal Brexit just extends the period of uncertainty for the U.K. It will drag on and on. Why? Because once they are out, they will then be seeking a trade deal with the E.U.

It's a proper mess ,that has Torys jockeying for positions of power,plamasing the electorate,fearful of Farage ...and being dishonest with the public.

There is no "No Deal Brexit". You either get out with a deal , or delay the time it takes to make a deal.

The more they delay,the more uncertainty within the U.K. business community.If that's good for the U.K. economy,well..I've yet to hear a convincing argument for it.

Peregrinus

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Ester McVey has just said that it's impossible to bring the people together so if she becomes leader she will stop bothering to try, get the UK out of the European Union with no deal and then figure out what the plan is to do next, like a true populist politician who has no plan at all on what to do.

I think B.J, has been hinting at a similar position. These are soundbites to get power.

If the British public buy into them ,they are kidding themselves . . .

The British public won't get a choice. McVey's pitch is not to the public, but to the branch members of the Tory party who will have the final say in choosing a new leader.

Lucy8080

Peregrinus wrote: »

The British public won't get a choice. McVey's pitch is not to the public, but to the branch members of the Tory party who will have the final say in choosing a new leader.

That's true. But the rank and file membership need to be aware of what they are being sold by those jockeying for position.

Regardless of who they elect, the truth of the matter will emerge when they go seeking power.

There is no "No Deal" scenario. It's only the amount of time it takes to make a deal that is in question.

Leroy42

Peston recently pointed out a part of the extension agreement that seemingly has been missed in the UK (though I recall it has been mentioned a number of times on here).

TM agreed that the extension could not involve any opening or renegotiation of the WA.

I say this here, not to point it out as I know mos ton here already know, but to point to the fact that none in the media ever bring it up in discussions with politicians in the UK.