this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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UK Politics

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General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (18 children)

Reform 4th biggest party surpassing the SNP. Terrible news for the long term prospects of the country.

Although in the medium term, this labour majority will be a breath of fresh air.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Luckily the exit poll was wrong. Still worrying that they got 4 seats.

Hopefully if Frog Face does try his takeover the Tories will split, and the ones that aren't racist, climate change denier economically incompetent idiots will either form their own party or join the lib Dems.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I kind of hate that this distinctly centre-right version of a labour party is going to consider themselves as given a mandate to fill their centre-right boots, despite the fact that they're only as powerful as they are because of how utterly toxic the Tory party have become. Largely from chasing the same ends that this labour government will likely continue to chase.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Not only that, but people think we're about to have a left wing government (mostly because the media tells them so, and school didn't teach them any better), and when nothing changes (at best) they're going to use it as "proof" that leftism doesn't work and fall in to the hands of even further right populists, rather than face the reality - that they've just elected more of the same, and that the system was designed to never serve us, only the establishment.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

"Think of how much damage, in the wake of 14 years of mismanagement, an even more left wing party might do! Never again!"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Nobody thinks we're going to have a truly left wing government, as for whatever reason vanishingly few people want to vote for that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Nobody thinks we’re going to have a truly left wing government

Lol, nobody you've spoken to perhaps. Also if they didn't already, just wait for the media to pitch in over the next couple of years..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Personally I know more people who've moved away from Labour than to it, I just acknowledge that people outside of cities exist and that I live in something of a bubble.

Refusing to accept that is the sort of thinking that gets Reform so many votes as many people in large cities forget that the majority of the population don't live in cities, and so don't suffer from the problems there so much (higher cost of living and lower labour availability than rural areas) and so don't care so much about progressive or socialist policies.

EDIT: sorry, it's late, I misread, I'll keep this up and maybe edit again later because I'm too sleepy to respond to what you actually said right now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I think this analysis is spot on. People are complex and tend to be self-interested IRL; even moreso the older they get.

Like people might realise that there is a housing crisis but once they become a home owner, then the lure of being a NIMBY to maximise the value of their property becomes too tempting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Unfortunately, leftist movements in the UK tend to be idiotically self hating towards our country at best and commonly supports the literal dissolution of the United Kingdom which turns most moderates away.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Yeah I don't really like it either, but TBH things are so bad that just destroying the Tories is good enough for me this time around.

Hopefully they'll be radioactively unelectable for a really long time, and we can push it in a better direction over the next couple of elections.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Labour is expected to win 410 seats, with the Conservatives on 131

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn09xn9je7lt

I think the phrase "landslide" is going to be putting it mildly.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

I'd say this is the appropriate time to actually use it and it has been overused for rather marginal leads before.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

An avalanche is just a snowy landslide.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Can someone break this down for the non-british? Is this a good thing?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (11 children)

The center (slight left leaning) party won by a landslide because everyone was fed up with the right wing party who’d been in charge for 14 years.

The far-right party went from 0 to 13 seats in a single election (think the MAGA of england basically). Since the center-right party lost so bad, people are scared the far right party will have more influence on the right and ultimately lead to the center right party either merging with the far right party or being more radical to “meet them”.

One could make the parallels to when Macron won the election with a centrist coalition a couple years ago, but in the process heavily weakened the center right party, which ultimately lead to the rise of the far right.

Ignoring that though. The center-(left) government will be much better than the government we had before.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'd say it's debatable that they are centre-left. I know they are labelled that everywhere, but Starmer has made notable shifts to the right (or at least towards centre) from the slow left movement since the very much centre-right New Labour of Blair.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Excellent citation! Thanks for sharing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Reform got 4 seats, not 13, but they did get 15% of the vote

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's a big deal because the Conservatives have been in power for the last 14 years and everyone is sick of the sight of them. Current projections show that this may be their worst showing ever.

Their main rivals, Labour, are going to dominate on a centrist platform, even though they are not promising much in the way of reform or change.

The biggest downside is that the Trumpish Reform party are looking like they'll do quite well with xenophobic, right-wing, ex-Conservatives.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

In Canadian terms, the Liberal part just got a majority after a long stretch of Conservative leadership, the ones that broke from NAFTA.

Something of concern is that the People's Party actually got seats this election, even more than the Bloc. And the Green part got another seat, so there's that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Tories (UK Republican clones) are getting a clobbering. But not as bad as some had hoped.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Now I’m a Lib Dem voter but the UK Conservatives are not clones of the Republicans no matter how many times the internet says they are. When the Republicans made abortion illegal the Tories condemned it, and while the Republicans are trying to make same-sex marriage illegal it was Tory led coalition when it got legalised in the UK, and they didn’t put it to the public vote, they just did it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Yeah, the Conservative Party are actually far closer to the US Democrats, largely because American politics swings much further to the right.

It's amazing how people pontificate and say things with such certainty when they clearly don't pay any attention to the reality.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They're not as bad as the Republicans, but given how they have been acting in recent years in particular it is definitely not an entirely unfair comparison. They're ludicrously, dangerously angry at asylum seekers and trans people.

It is also worth noting that more Conservative MPs voted against same-sex marriage than for it, despite it being one of their own MPs that introduced it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

They’re ludicrously, dangerously angry at asylum seekers and trans people.

Easy scapegoats thrown to the masses cause they have no excuses that will work for the way things have gone.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I"m sure the irony is intend on an election on the same day as the US celebration of Independence. =) I watched the John Oliver episode about this election though, and congrats on what looks like Labor being the big winner over the Conservative party.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Holy FPTP, that represenation is fucked. How hoes 33% of the popular vote translate to 60% of parliamentary seats?

Y'all need electoral reform.

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