British Politics Thread

They are just continiously and blatantly proving that they are the "No Change in the UK Status Quo" party, aren't they. Maybe they forgot to add those words in?

Why is there a need for alliances anyway? We are talking about the Europe Parliament. The main point is to have as many pro-EU seats as possible. Who is working with whom can be worked out in cross-country coalitions.

I'm not certain how such an alliance would work either, given that the Euro elections don't use FPTP, where you could choose not to contest certain seats in a strategic way.

Exactly. So, what is the point? In a representative system every party presents its goals, maybe make some promises who they might go in coalition with and with whom they won't (usually with whom they won't), and once the ballots are counted the parties try to figure out who works with whom to built a majority. And in this case this isn't even about the UK alone, it is about the whole of the EU.

Vote splitting can still happen, the combined Lib Dem and Green vote in the East of England at the last election would have been enough to get the final seat, but instead it when to the Tories. Same with West Midlands where the seat went UKIP, same with Scottish Green, Lib Dems and leftover Labour and SNP votes in Scotland, almost the same with the leftover Labour-Lib-Green vote in the South East.

Mainly it’s a Lib Dem and Green thing, especially with the Lib Dem’s having begun their collapse in 2014, CUK add another possible place for votes to spread.

Yeah, the last seat or two in the d'Hondt method can maybe be influenced tactically.

But only by having one party completely refuse to stand in entire regions of the country, which is electoral idiocy.

Edited by RainehDaze on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:24:34 PM

Well, Plaid and SNP already do that

I've been listening to a number of lecturers (both British and non-British) who teach politics and who have been following the formation of ChUK with a great deal of academic interest. There seems to be agreement that, in years to come, ChUK will be taught to students as a case study in how not to form a political party. In fact, there's agreement that they already are a useful case study on the subject.

Here are some of the branding issues I've heard discussed:

• Their name.
  • What actually is their name? How should they be referred? How should their name be written? We've seen the following: The Independent Group (TiG or TIG); Change UK (CUK, ChUK or CHUK); Change The Independent Group (CUK-TIG or TIG-CUK or CHUK-TIG); Change UK The Independent Group (CUK-TIG or TIG-CUK or CHUK-TIG); Change UK — The Independent Group (CUK-TIG or TIG-CUK or CHUK-TIG). Not only have they not clarified the confusion, but they also seem to flip between terms as well. On top of that, they've introduced a fourth branding: Remain Alliance. Not only have they not explained how that term should be used in relation to the rest of their names.
  • Change.org is pursuing a legal challenge to the use of Change UK on the basis that their use has existed longer and that it could cause confusion. This challenge, and indeed the naming confusion in general, has not been helped by Anna Soubry calling the group Change.org in the House of Commons (a location that is notably free from legal consequences if she did that deliberately).
  • Remain Alliance is also an existing term used by the Remain parties as they try to figure out how to work together in the EU elections in a way that doesn't split the Remain vote. ChUK is therefore co-opting an existing term, using it in a different way, but not being clear on exactly what its meaning and scope for them will actually be.
• The logo.
  • It's four horizontal black stripes. Except when it's red, or yellow, or pink or blue... but, whatever the colour, nobody knows if that's three gaps between the stripes or horizontal white lines. What does it mean? What does it represent? What do they want people to think of when they see the logo? What do the different colours mean? Is there a default colour? Is the logo temporary or permanent?
  • Apparently ChUK screwed up the registration of their logo (which was supposed to be a black square with TIG in white lettering and #Change underneath in smaller font). It was rejected by the Electoral Commission for being misleading to voters and also because hashtags cannot be legally assessed. ChUK has a month in which to submit a new logo, but that will not be able to be assessed in time for the elections, so the ballots will have a blank space where a logo should be. As a result, the current black-and-white bars are a mystery to people, including in terms of whether it's just a place-holder or not).
• Their policies.
  • What do they mean by different politics and needing to change politics?
  • The single-issue party: They are primarily viewed as an organised attempt to fight against and prevent Brexit from happening. While they claim they're a rounded party with multiple policy issues, they continue to brand themselves and their key messages in terms of Remain, muddying this claim.
  • Another Tory Party: When they can be pinned down on other policies, they confirm that they will defend May in VONCs and that they will oppose any General Election, that they will support May's Deal (in some cases, they've even contradicted their Remain position during such discussions), and that they want to continue Tory austerity policies and agendas. This gets them labelled as a Remain-supporting Tory Party v2.

In short, they're not controlling their branding, hence all the confusion about what they mean and stand for.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:25:54 PM

Firstly, this is British Politics. No one gives a rat's arse about the various groupings within the EU Parliament - we didn't before and we're not going to start now. All anyone cares about is Nigel Farage and his "No we don't need policies, we'll tell you what they are after you've elected us" party.

(Props though to Nigel on that one - I know few people care about what is in a party's manifesto but to take it to the next level and not have a manifesto has to be a first)

I think though it is because the nature of the European elections. I didn't realise, thanks to my South East (10 seat) bias, that some of the regions only have three or so seats up for grabs - which means that even in a PR system you need a tonne of votes to get anything. So having the Remain vote split into four (Lab Lib CUK Gre) isn't a recipe for success.

I just tested it in a De Hondt calculator online - one Brexit party with 40% of the vote can easily get two seats out of three (so 66% of the representation) if the remain vote is sufficiently split. A 10 seat constituency does much better - 5 seats go to Brexit party, the rest to the others.

Edit - thread moves fast.

Edited by singularityshot on Apr 23rd 2019 at 9:29:33 AM

I think people are quite interested in that in relation to maximising non-Tory and non-far right seats. I don't think it's off topic in the slightest.

Wyld - which lecturers are these? Where these online lectures or ones you attended in person?

Edited by GoldenKaos on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:32:40 PM

Yeah, nobody started talking about the groupings within the European Parliament. That's a non sequitur in the finest sense.

Swan bought up cross-country coalitions, which happen via the EU parties as opposed to the national parties. We even have instances were members of the same EU parties run against each other, specifically when the Greens run in Wales or Scotland.

Oh and holy shit, I didn’t realise how many UKIP ME Ps Farage bought over with him to his new clubhouse, UKIP could easily get wiped out by Brexit by the look of things.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 23rd 2019 at 4:47:01 PM

Still don't follow the logic…these are random numbers, but if three pro-EU parties run and each one gets 20% of the vote there are 40% left for grasp for the other parties. If they run together they will still get around 60% and 40% are left for the other parties. Teaming up beforehand would only make sense for parties which know that they won't jump the 2% hurdle, but this one won't apply to for the current election (sadly, I think that the hurdle makes a lot of sense and should even be higher).

Yes, but I didn't bring it up to discuss them, since that is currently irrelevant, I did it to point out that coalitions for the EU parliament are not a regional thing. Never have been. Hence I am confused why so many people act as if that is the case.

Edited by Swanpride on Apr 23rd 2019 at 9:50:45 AM

I was talking in the sense of cross-country coalitions. Was a little harsh with my language but if you asked anyone in the street about ALDE they'd probably respond "well they are cheaper than Tesco but you don't get as much variety..."

Just tried that scenario in a three seat constituency. It went two for the non-remain party on 40% and one for the remain parties, despite them having 60%. If the vote is not split the. The remain party gets two seats and the leave party gets one.

Edited by singularityshot on Apr 23rd 2019 at 9:57:29 AM

It’s not the 2% hurdle, it’s the hurdle to get the last seat.

Say 800,000 people vote in a four seat region. First party gets 255,000 votes (say Brexit), next party gets 200,000 votes (Labour), next 125,000 (Tories), next 75,000 (Lib Dems), next 54,000 (CUK), next 36,000 (Green), next 33,000 (UKIP) and the last 22,000 (Plaid).

So the seats in that scenario so as follows: First seat to Brexit (255,000), second to seat to Labour (200,000), third seat to Brexit (127,500) and fourth to the Tories (125,000).

But if the Lib Dem’s and CUK had all voted together they’d have enough votes (129,000) to get the fourth seat over the Tories (actually the third seat, knocking Brexit to fourth).

Hell if you combine most of the leftover Labour vote (say 71,000), the Green vote (36,000) and the Plaid vote (22,000), it’s 128,500, enough to also knock Brexit from their second seat.

So just be adding Lib and CUK together while moving Labour votes to Green while combining with Plaid your gone from 2 Brexit, 1 Labour, 1 Tory to 1 Brexit, 1 Labour, 1 Lib-CUK, 1 Green-Plaid.

D'Hondt is confusing man.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:11:56 PM

Ah, okay, now I get it.

But I still think that the math isn't considering something: People are more likely to vote if they feel that a party represents them, and more likely to not vote if they feel that their vote will be lost or that they have to vote for something less desirable. So it is entirely possible that more options leads to more votes for Remain parties (I wouldn't trust that Ukip and Farage's party will cannibalize each other for the same reason).

Yeah the best way to deal with it would be a combined list, but we’d have to pre agree who gets the seat in which order. That’s if such a thing is even legal.

Really it’s an argument for the Greens to pull out of Wales and Scotland and maybe the Lib Dems from the East of England, with either the Lib Dem’s or Greens pulling from the north. Labour was the largest Remain party in every English region, nobody is pulling from the South East, London or South West (the Lib Dem’s might not have a seat in the south west but it’s their heartland).

But that’s not counting CUK, because we’ve no idea if they will pull meaningful numbers of votes and if they will from where they will do it. The best thing they could do for a Remain Alliance would be not to run at all, we already have at least three Remain parties in each region.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:19:56 PM

We do have a history of our political parties doing that, however. The most recent occasion where such alliances were formed where parties voluntarily stood down candidates to prevent a right-wing party winning was in 2017.

Admittedly, that's FPTP rather than the d'Hondt, but I'm not talking about voting system with this post, merely whether or not British political parties would ever stand down to benefit another party. And the answer to that is: yes, it can happen under certain circumstances.

Just to clarify because I know that isn't the case for everyone. My posts have not been including Labour as a 'Remain' party. The 'Remain' parties (for the purposes of my posts) have been: SNP, Green, Plaid, Lib Dem, CHUK. The Brexit Parties have been: Tory, Brexit, UKIP. My posts float (depending on whom I'm quoting at the time) between Labour being a Brexit party or a stand-alone 'could go in either direction' party (in the latter case, we're dealing with three groups: Remain parties, Brexit parties and Labour).

I'll make it clear in my posts from now on where I'm categorising Labour for any given scenario.

Not online, unfortunately. However, I'll keep my eyes peeled and if I see anything that covers the subject, I'll link to it.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 23rd 2019 at 6:34:53 PM

Not sure about that. The Cuk's might get the votes from the Tories who really, really don't want to go Labour Lib Dem or Greens but want to vote for a remain party. And those people might not vote at all if they don't have an option. Which in turn would favour the Brexit parties.

Sure but I’m not convinced that that group of voters exist in a meaningful way. Being to right wing too vote Labour/Green but too pro-EU to vote Tory is basically the definition of a Lib Dem, with the student vote gone that’s all that’s left for the Lib Dems.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 23rd 2019 at 5:36:58 PM

I get why you're clarifying the difference in discussion focus between the British system and the European parties. However, I do think a discussion on the ramifications for the European parties is important to have, especially given that the decision by David Cameron to switch the Tory representation from the mainstream 'conservative' group into the extremist far-right group shows the kind of impact on national politics that can result from such decisions.

That said, which parties our MEPs would go into would be a separate discussion.

Yeah, the point I was trying to make is that no one voted Liberal Democrat in 2014 because they wanted Guy Verhofstadt to be the President of the European Union.

I would argue it is that ignorance of EU groupings that allowed DC to make that switch. He didn't know / care how much influence we would lose by doing so, and it won him the Conservative party leadership, and the rest is history.

Okay, the Party lists of candidates can all be found here: BBC

Most of the parties have had their lists published for a while and in the proper nomination order (so we can see which candidate will be selected for the first seat, and so on), but Brexit Party held off publishing its full list until yesterday, which was the closing date for nominations. The Tory Party still hasn't released its full list. According to the BBC article I've linked to, there's some doubt as to whether the Tories will campaign at all, given that activists have been saying they won't campaign and party donors have indicated a lack of interest in donating for the elections.

Given that the BBC has trust issues at the moment, we'll have to see if that's the case. If it is, that's extremely good news for the Brexit Party.

Predictions for Wales: I think Labour and Plaid Cymru will hold their two seats. I think Nathan Gill (formerly UKIP, now Brexit) will hold his seat, and he's the party's first nomination for Wales. The question mark is the Tory seat, which I'm expecting to go Brexit.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 26th 2019 at 8:42:52 PM

Also the Brexit Party has said they will not release their manifesto until after the election.

Because logic.

Completely logical. They are a single issue party. If they have to actually agree on policies they run into trouble.