British Politics Thread

This is what made me question the idea of Labour forming a coalition after the last election, as it makes me uneasy from a democratic point of view to exclude the party that got the most votes from government, however much I hate said party.

The Scottish right wing press by the way, have today been all over reports that Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy (who is not the leader of a separate organisation, despite the way he acts, but rather just the Scottish branch of the Westminster Labour) may not win his own seat as an MP. I'd rather enjoy seeing that smug prick lose.

Is it possible that the SNP could win every Westminster seat in Scotland?

Not a chance in Hell. The Islands would vote for a dog turd if it wore a Lib Dem ribbon, and I'm very far from convinced that the SNP will break their hoodoo by winning most of Glasgow.

Status Quo Is God and Labour have a lot of entrenched support that isn't going away.

Ed just ruled out SNP ministers right? So there's nothing to stop him forming a coalition with an SNP-PC-Green alliance and simply giving the ministerial posts to Green and PC members of the alliance.

In the end Salmond is the issue, if he wins his Westminster seat he might screw up any kind of deal out of spite.

Or to give the SNP and other partners policy concessions.

Which, given how the Lib Dems were sold out, might actually be a better choice for the SNP.

Yeah, Milliband has only ruled out giving any ministerial posts to SNP; everything else is still on the table. Likewise with policy negotiation - the only thing he's made clear is off the table is negotiating independence referendums. Everything else is still on the table.

Let's say he ended up in coalition with SNP, PC and Green. I doubt he'd give ministerial posts to PC either - for the same reason. He won't want to be seen supporting ministers who may support the break up of the UK, and PC wants greater autonomy for Wales as well, especially if Scotland gets devo-max, or some variation. His best bet would therefore be to give the Greens ministerial posts, at least where the issue of the break-up of the UK is concerned, anyway.

He could then shove the Greens into climate/ecological and agricultural/fisheries posts and say that the UK is addressing the EU Court's ruling that the UK is breaking the air quality laws (as it stands, the UK will continue to break EU laws until at least 2030, a deadline breach of 20 years, and the issue centres mostly on diesel pollution) and have them focus on EU & national issues like the bee pollination strategy (which dives right into the issue of pesticide use), traffic pollution and the common fishing policy.

edited 18th Apr '15 1:15:18 PM by Wyldchyld

Thing is the Greens would be the smallest of the three parties bought in, you could easily end up with a party formed entirely of ministers in such a case. Plus as PC just want greater autonomy I think eh could get away with them getting ministerial posts.

And of course, autonomy and devolution are not the only policy concessions that are in game.

I think some in PC do want independence too, they just know it's not happening this century.

Having the third largest party in the country (SNP) in a coalition and not giving them ministers won't work.

And not just for Scotland and Wales, either — there's a mood for Devolution in England, too — something I'd welcome, if the local authority/regional body is competent enough to be trusted with the responsibility.

Miliband has also made a pitch for disaffected "One Nation" Conservatives".

edited 18th Apr '15 3:15:34 PM by Greenmantle

As for Scottish independence, you can see where the argument comes from, and it could theoretically work, but an independent Wales just isn't feasible and I think Plaid Cymru know that.

Because it is a spectacularly expensive boondoggle that will either see a) no use at all because they're fucking nuclear weapons or b) complete annihilation of British society as we know it because they're fucking nuclear weapons.

The only reason we keep them is to maintain a pissing contest as A Serious World Power, which we're not and haven't been for some time. If most of the EU doesn't need them, we don't need them either.

That only works if you assume the only use for nuclear weapons is exploding, that's like the least important use for them.

France has them, the Netherlands, Germany (maybe Belgium) and Italy all have US nukes stationed in their countries, most of the EU falls under somebodys nuclear umbrella.

edited 18th Apr '15 4:36:54 PM by Silasw

How did we miss this? Farage: I'm kinda like Gandhi.

Nah, everybody knows that Sepp Blatter is like Gandhi (as those lovely CONCACAF guys said).

edited 18th Apr '15 6:52:28 PM by Quag15

@Silasw: PC want independence. They just understand the mountain they've got to climb and are therefore doing everything step-by-step - first, same level of devolution Scotland currently enjoys. Then the same level of devolution Scotland can arrange in a post-referendum world. Eventually, push for Welsh independence.

@AlecwithaQ: I don't particularly think independence is feasible for any part of the UK, but I do think there should be a federal structure with as much autonomy as possible for regions to govern in the best way for their local needs.

Just how much power does Salmond have, even if he retakes his seat? Does he actually have enough respect within the party that he'll be able to defeat a SNP-Labour C&S?

And that hung parliament game is rather optimistic about how big of a landslide the SNP is going to get. I mean, a swing of up to 42 seats in their favor? No chance of the Lib Dems being the third party? Is a Lib Dem collapse that much of a done deal?

edited 19th Apr '15 12:53:19 AM by Ramidel

The Tories have been covering up pro-EU evidence in official government reports.

Naughty naughty.

You forgot the bit about cleansing them in atomic fire.

X4 I do wonder how much support the idea will ever have, Scotland has a lot more viability on its own that Wales does.

Takes not retakes, he's not won that Westminster seat yet, though he did hold one once. In the end his power depends on if he pushes to retake his old position as leader of the SNP at Westminster, if he retakes that position he could seriously screw any deal.

Personally I find it very unlikely that SNP will elect Salmond as their leader; He spent years pushing for a referendum to which the response was no anyway. Sturgeon has (even though it was due to Cameron) gotten SNP into the national election debates and, I'm sure we can all agree, done a really good job with them.

I can't guess whether or not he'll get a seat, but I really doubt that he'd ever end up leading the party so I don't think he's an issue at all.

precisely; cheers.

edited 19th Apr '15 3:54:05 AM by AlecwithaQ

Just to clarify what I know you meant, for the benefit of others: he's talking about Alex Salmond being the leader of the party in the House of Commons - the Parliamentary Group Leader, which is essentially the "Leader of the Opposition" roles for all the parties from the third biggest downwards. This role is currently held by Angus Robertson, MP for Moray.

The actual leader of the SNP is Nicola Sturgeon, whose parliamentary seat is at Holyrood. Salmond having been leader of the party twice, that is a position to which he will never return.

Salmond will certainly want to be PG Leader, but if Robertson gets re-elected, it will be off his own back because he's masterminding the SNP's election campaign and he'll likely want to stay where he is.

The Scottish independence feasability arguments are questionable at best, but I think everyone agrees they have a better chance at it than Wales would. Still, I think PC want to move in that direction eventually, with the big reason they haven't yet being that they're still not really established as dominant within Wales yet; they're unable to escape Labour's shadow in the way the SNP have.

There's also the legal issue - Wales was conquered by England centuries ago, whereas Scotland joined the union voluntarily. Now that may only mean anything in terms of words on very old bits of paper, and the fact that a lot of laws apply to England and Wales but not Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it would become an issue if Wales were to push for independence. Scotland's voluntary status meant we could argue that the English didn't need a say on our leaving - I really don't think the Welsh could argue for the same.

So why do we need them? Our handful of missiles are a drop in the bucket compared to America's. To toast a few more cities than the Americans could manage on their own?

I believe it is morally bankrupt to continue spending £120 billion on useless weapons when our society is suffering the effects of savage cuts everywhere else, including conventional military forces.

So that people (especially the Americans) take Britain seriously — that was one of the reasons Britain developed them in the first place.

The only reason we "need" a nuclear deterrent is so that other countries know that they wouldn't survive if they, for lack of a better phrase, rubbed us the wrong way.

It's a common misunderstanding that a nuclear deterrent can shoot down an incoming nuclear missile, when obviously it can't. If someone decides to fire a nuclear weapon at the UK we're all dead anyway, so we only have them ourselves to look big and scary; nuclear weapons are, by design, purely an offensive weapon. In any case, I don't think anyone would actually be willing to use trident (a point which I seem to remember being raised quite well in the most recent TV debate.)

That's why I think we should scrap trident but just not tell anyone. In fact, how do we know that such hasn't already happened? (Or is that too optimistic?)

and as for the "drop in the bucket" idea, you only need one to wipe out most of a country.