General British politics discussion thread

Another point is that do not underestimate an electorate which voted for brexit and three years later gave Boris Johnson 365 seats. Starmer/Labour look to be heading for a comprehensive victory but that could all change suddenly as it did for Theresa May in 2017. Starmer needs a bigger swing to Labour than the 1997 swing to Blair and there's no way that Starmer is in the same league as Blair as a politician or communicator. The dull campaign will only work for so long. It would be a far closer campaign without Reform and should Starmer become PM, and he should, he'll have more to thank Farage for than the likes of 14 years of tory misgovernance and incompetence.

Question- based on who is running for the Tories and who has dropped out, will the "ERG" be gone or seriously hollowed out?

The latest opinion polls show Reform on 12%. These are former tory voters in the Labour red wall heartlands which Starmer MUST win back otherwise he doesn't win the election. If you think 12% is insignificant then you don't really know what you're talking about.

I agree the tories are ghastly and I am personally hoping they get a hiding but don't underestimate the stupidity of the UK electorate.

It's not nothing. Reform could get 12% or higher and end up with no MPs but that's irrelevant. What is relevant is how many Labour MPs get elected on the back of former tory voters voting for Reform.

There were elections in the UK recently (earlier this month) and the BBC have projected that Labour are on 34% and the tories on 25%.

I never once praised the tories.

I wouldn't worry yourself. They'll be in the wilderness for the next decade

Does the party "hitting the ground running" have candidates yet?

The vast majority of British people are in favour of broadly left wing policies, but still Labour have to move to the centre ground to win power. The Tories will have to do the same eventually. They can move further to the right (they're already far over that way as far as I'm concerned) but they'll continue to occupy an area that will make it harder to gain power and it'll see them adrift for years if they do.

I've mentioned it before though, I genuinely think that the Conservatives are merely hoping that Starmer's Labour has no clothes, so to speak, and that they'll be found out in the next few years, leaving the way open for the Conservatives to get back in.

But Labour are going to be in power after the next GE, barring an absolute miracle). However they'll need to have more arrows in their quiver than the single one they've displayed so far. Because that won't get them far in government, and the Tories and their client press will rip them to shreds.

I'm sure they'll appoint their candidates before the deadline. Generally it's the leader that matters, not the candidates. No one has ever won a general election because the candidate for Tunbridge Wells was a rising star.

The centre-left always had large sections of the party that would hold standards and ideology above electability. The right was more pragmatic and fluid until recently when it started to court various groups of cranks and loons who are irrationally immovably anti on certain issues.

They will steal those votes predominantly from the Tories which will boost labour. Reform are a godsend to Labour.

Britons may well classed as "conservative" when compared to other nations, but they still favour broadly left wing ideals such as the NHS, welfare state, public housing etc. They are quite socially liberal in the main. The government that brought in those types of reforms was the Atlee government and that's regularly considered the most successful governance that Britain has ever had.

While it's true that there have been more Conservative PM's than Labour ones in the last 50 years, they almost always leave office in absolute disgrace. And the best of them was John Major who brought the party back well into the centre ground after Thatcher was ousted by her own people.

It's a sad state of affairs when John Major is the poster boy for a good conservative Prime Minister. Every other Con PM has been a disaster. Dave had to slink off because he made such an incredible screw up with Brexit, Teresa was left holding that baby but wasn't right wing enough for Tufton Street and was gotten rid of, Bojo is one of the worst PM's on record, Liz hahahahahahaha, and now Rishi is facing the music.

So you state that it's "just wrong" to state that Britain is a right wing country whilst simultaneously stating that "Research has shown that once certain left wing policies are removed from Labour, they're quite popular on their own merit." You're sort of defeating your own argument there.

You are, of course, entirely right. New Labour under Blair became Tory lite and in government implemented a lot of right wing Thatcherite neo-liberalist style policies. In fairness they did manage to implement some stuff from the left (minimum wage). Starmer is doing exactly the same with Labour 2024. As recently as March Reeves was pitching her reforms and herself as Labour's version of Thatcher.

On Starmer you seek "expertise, sound judgment and competence" which is interesting as Starmer has never spent a day in government and has only been an MP for 9 years. Nevertheless you're entitled to assume he may have those qualities. Yet the vast majority of UK voters don't. Boris Johnson brought the best result for the tories in a generation and most people interested in politics knew he was a buffoon. Your average voter has little interest in politics and ain't a good judge of character or competence.

"Ireland was going to be ejected from the EU any day now" - Well I certainly don't remember that.

To claim that the tory media have no effect on UK elections is naive to say the least. Prior to the 1997 election Blair travelled to Australia grovelling for Murdoch's support. In 2020 when Starmer was running for the Labour leadership he stated this in reference to The Sun: "I certainly won’t be giving any interviews to The Sun during the course of this campaign". In 2023 this became "I'm very happy to work with The Sun, to write for The Sun, to do interviews for The Sun"