Because The United Kingdom?

[Rick]

9 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

As said, its a mistake to use American parlance when discussing British poliical parties. Yes, broadly they started from the same position, but have developed in different directions. Our LIberals were Whigs, which begat your Whig party, which begat your Republicans. Our Labour party started from the left of that (probably the extreme wing of your Democrats that exists today), but developed roughly towards the middle ground, despite recent efforts to drag it to the fring. Both Labour and the Liberals fight the middle ground. The Conservatives, whom started to the right of your Whigs/Republicans, also tried to fight to the centre ground, but got dragged to the right by a fear of encroachment of right wing parties, originally UKIP and now reform.

Well you wanted an answer, if you want an easy answer there is always wikipedia I guess.

Thank you.  And I wholly agree with you on the difference between British, and other European countries political terminology vs U.S.

[Ssnake]

16 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

If the Tories had any sense, they would be pointing out that Starmer's newfound empathy for Israel is somewhat in conflict with his prior affections for Palestine.

I would posit that nothing that the Tories would/could/should have said would have changed anything. It's not as if Labour won votes in a meaningful way. They basically still won the same number of votes last Sunday like they did in 2019 when they were thoroughly demolished by Bojo.

Labour hasn't "won" in the sense that they could mobilize untapped voter reserves. The conservatives simply lost, and dramatically so - to Farage's ReformUK, to the LibDems, and to non-voters. The other big loser this time was the SNP. Given that they campaigned on making these elections as a plebiscite for Scottish independence, I guess that topic is now dead for a good while, too.

 

I'll be happy to be positively surprised, but I think there is precious little that Labour can do to turn the ship around. Brexit has laid bare a lot of stuctural deficits that the UK has, and undoing Brexit is simply not on the agenda.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Right.

There were several factors at work. Firstly, I suspect there was a reduction in turn out for the conservatives, particularly among their core base. That there was only a 60 percent turn out, suggests to me a large number that didnt turn out was probably conservatives.

Secondly, Nigel Farage actually helped Labour and the Liberals by splitting the conservative vote. He only won 5 seats, but he was running pretty much across the country. In some areas, that helped labour. Where I live, where everyone seemed to be tactical voting, he didnt pick up many votes at all, and neither did Labour. But the liberals did. In other places, where the Conservatives are loathed, people dont like Brexit, and they are alienated by Labours support for Hamas, there was a remarkable number of votes for independents. Which supports what was my hope, everyone was tactical voting, just to ge the conservatives out.

In fact, for everyone focusing on Labour and the Conservatives, the real surprise for me is how well the Liberals did, taking 72 seats (I hear it might be 73 by the time they count Inverness). That is the most number of seats they have taken since 1923. I wouldnt say its necessarily a return to the centre of British politics, but it is most certainly a return from irrelevance. And for me, the real threat to the Conservatives is not Farage and Reform at all, which only just arrived and like many political period based groups like the SDP, probably time sensitive. If I was Conservative, I would recognise its time to fix the ship, or its going to be elbowed out the way by the Liberals. The same is true, perhaps to a lesser extent at the moment, for Labour of course.

 

Edited July 6, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Ssnake]

ReformUK collected more of the popular vote than LibDem. That they only got four seats out of it is a peculiarity of your voting system, but it's no reason to believe that they're going to disappear anytime soon. Likewise, just because Labour about doubled their seat count in parliament doesn't mean that they doubled their share in the popular vote, it remained nearly constant. Insofar the bloom of seats for Labour and LibDem are not indicative of a sea change in public opinion, just the fact that a lot of people wanted the Tories out. Among the conservatives, I suppose the vote split was pretty much evenly between non-voters, LibDem, and ReformUK. That doesn't suggest that the average Tory sympathizer really knows what he wants, except that they don't want Labour despite everything.

[JWB]

 

The Channel is now open.

[EchoFiveMike]

Well, there's always the model of Dunkirk, just sorta the opposite way round.  It's not like the RN has the ships or manpower to stop everyone, although I'm sure they'll be far more willing and eager to fire on actual Englishmen than on the invaders.  S/F....Ken M

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 hours ago, Ssnake said:

ReformUK collected more of the popular vote than LibDem. That they only got four seats out of it is a peculiarity of your voting system, but it's no reason to believe that they're going to disappear anytime soon. Likewise, just because Labour about doubled their seat count in parliament doesn't mean that they doubled their share in the popular vote, it remained nearly constant. Insofar the bloom of seats for Labour and LibDem are not indicative of a sea change in public opinion, just the fact that a lot of people wanted the Tories out. Among the conservatives, I suppose the vote split was pretty much evenly between non-voters, LibDem, and ReformUK. That doesn't suggest that the average Tory sympathizer really knows what he wants, except that they don't want Labour despite everything.

They did, in some areas. Where I live they  helped split the vote of the conservatives, is true, but it certainly wasnt a popular vote. The Conservatives only lost here, purely because Reform took 5100 votes. But looking at it, If you add the reform vote to the Conservatives (and many of those likely wouldnt have voted if they didnt have reform to go to) they had a lead of 84 votes. Which in an area that has been traditionally Conservative since William the Conqueror (I exaggerate but slightly) this is a remarkable collapse of support for the Conservatives, even before Reform started filleting their support. When you see how huge the lib dem voate was (and historically here it seems to drift around 8 to 10 thousand) then clearly tactical voting played a role.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/south-cotswolds-general-election-2024-results-in-full-who-is-the-new-mp/ar-BB1prGsE?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Secondly, its worth remembering the lessons of historical British politics. In the early 1980's there was a new party setup by disaffected members of the centre left, and members of the Liberal party called the SDP.  From defections, hey started with a far larger tranche of seats than Reform have managed to get, and in 1983 managed to get a similarly unimpressive number of seats, six, and succeeded only in driving down the Labour vote, which at least kept KGB stooge Michael Foot out of power, so I guess it wasnt all bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK)

I guess the point im illustrating, although their voteshare is impressive, if it cant be translated into a lot of seats, its going to give pause for thought for the guys funding it whether it really is worth the investment, or whether its worth going back to the Conservatives, who presumably are going to have a good effort to bolt the ship back together.

Of course, perhaps its a mistake to judge the far right based on a centre left party (a trend that was repeated just a few years ago to similar failure). But right now, if the effort is to push the Conservatives right, all its actually done is drive them out of power, and not really replaced them with a similar powerbase that can rival them. And, in my view at least, most likely it will continue to do so. Just like left wing politics disturbances once did, it will most likely keep them out of power and destabilised.

British politics depends a lot on inertia. Reform had theirs, and got but 5 seats. Unless the Conservatives further collapse, its going to be tough, very tough, to capitalize on that further. Particularly as Farage successfully alienates people every time he opens his gob.

Edited July 7, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, EchoFiveMike said:

Well, there's always the model of Dunkirk, just sorta the opposite way round.  It's not like the RN has the ships or manpower to stop everyone, although I'm sure they'll be far more willing and eager to fire on actual Englishmen than on the invaders.  S/F....Ken M

Perhaps we could copy your successful model of Corregador instead.

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 hours ago, JWB said:

 

The Channel is now open.

It always was. This has been a growing problem since the 1970's.

As far as Rwanda, it was calculated that, if there was no more boats, the Rwanda plan would clear the current backlog of asylum seekers in something like 322 years. So I guess nobody can say the Conservatives werent planning ahead...

[Ssnake]

Whether the plan would have worked is kinda irrelevant. The conservative press can now clobber Labour for the same immigration situation that the Tories couldn't get fixed in 14 years, and they cannot be disproved that it would never have made a difference. The Daily Heil will never forgive Labour the incompetence of the Tories.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

In the end, the Conservatives failed. They came into office saying they would deal with immigration, and when they failed, they blamed everyone else, for nearly a decade and a half. Ive no confidence Labour will do any better, but at least they clearly are trying to build bridges to Europe,which is the most likely way we can collectively deal with the problem. The conservative method failed for 14 years. They are in no position to wag their finger anymore.

As for the Conservative press, its worth reflecting they had the most dire headlines of warning abou Labour. They did all they could, and shot their bolt. They failed too, because Social media is seemingly now the new driver, not the newspapers. Hilariously even Murdochs 'The Sun' came over to Labour at the last moment, when it was clear the Conservatives were done. Nobody pretends that made a difference either, other than perhaps Rupert Murdoch.

Now who grabs social media in the UK, that is going to be the question. I would not even be surprised to see tightening up of regulation, and about time too.

[urbanoid]

While first past the post makes some sense in 2-party systems, in a multiparty environment it's a shitshow.

[Stuart Galbraith]

On the contrary, its wonderful. Mad, off the wall, and Wonderful.

It has the advantages of a multi party system, since it stops the bipolar American system, where you have to have parties that have a catchment area from the far right militias to the guy who wants to run a corner shop. (Or Conversely, the corner shop owner, all the way to Communism). The multi party system avoids that, because there is always someone else to vote for.

The Conservatives failed because they tried to do all that, and in the UK contest, where there is always someone else to vote for, it cannot work. It favours stable, largely collectively aligned political parties. Splitters are always sniffed out, and they get hammered at the ballet box (Look at what happened to Labour in 2019).

Secondly, because it only enfranchises parties that already have lots of seats, it stops chancers and populists, whether its Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell, or, latterly, Nigel Farage.  Its kept the BNP out of power, and thank God for that. Its also kept Communists and terrorist groups out of power, and thank God for that too.

Yes, Id like a system where parties work together more, just so we could be a bit more European. The EU might have worked for us them.  But looking at France and Germany where the far right are on what seems a fairly successful march to power, Its a price im willing to pay to keep extremism out of British politics.

For us, Stability is everything. Which is probably the simplest explanation of why the Conservatives were thrown out on their arse, because they were about as stable as Dennis Hopper.

Edited July 7, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[urbanoid]

Funny you have mentioned Enoch Powell, you should have listened to the guy.

I consider the situation where a party getting 1/3 of the vote ends up with 2/3 of seats to be fundamentally unjust, same for the situation where parties with 1,8 and 4,5 million votes end up with 4 seats, while a party with 3,5 million votes ends up with 72 seats.

[urbanoid]

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

9 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Funny you have mentioned Enoch Powell, you should have listened to the guy.

I consider the situation where a party getting 1/3 of the vote ends up with 2/3 of seats to be fundamentally unjust, same for the situation where parties with 1,8 and 4,5 million votes end up with 4 seats, while a party with 3,5 million votes ends up with 72 seats.

Enoch Powell was just the same kind of populist idiot as Mosley or Farrage. Oh, he could stand on the sidelines playing cassandra promising doom, what he didnt do was prescribe a way to deal with mass immigration. Short of mass murder, you either work harder to keep the world stable, or you work together collectively to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. There are no other ways, no matter what wankers like that might say about turning boats back.

Like I said, stability is all. If it means keeping populists like Bonapartists out of power (which is to a very large extent what the system was created for), then you know what, im all for it. Fair? No. If you want fair, go to France where they have a riot every week.

Edited July 7, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[urbanoid]

Immigration is one of the easiest things to deal with and in general you don't need mass murder to do so. What you need is appropriate laws - no gibs for non-citizens, automatic deportations for those who got here illegally, you can even set 'appropriate' countries of origin for immigration, the way it was in the US before Hart-Cellar act. Make the country's laws unwelcoming to those you do not wish to welcome.

You can also deport a shitload of people - see Operation Wetback under Eisenhower, with no mass murder involved. 

Edited July 7, 2024 by urbanoid

[Stuart Galbraith]

26 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Immigration is one of the easiest things to deal with and in general you don't need mass murder to do so. What you need is appropriate laws - no gibs for non-citizens, automatic deportations for those who got here illegally, you can even set 'appropriate' countries of origin for immigration, the way it was in the US before Hart-Cellar act. Make the country's laws unwelcoming to those you do not wish to welcome.

You can also deport a shitload of people - see Operation Wetback under Eisenhower, with no mass murder involved. 

How does Poland deport the immigrants it gets from Iran and Afghanistan?

One thing to deport a single group of people (some of whom I understand were actually American citizens) to a neighbouring country. Entirely another thing to deport peoples whom you cant even figure out where they come from back to countries that, even if you could, have no desire to accept them back.

There are no easy solutions. This is the popular mantra of the political right. Well ok then, we had one of the most right wing parties in UK history, with 2 of the most authoritarian Home secretaries in Briish history, whom flailed with this problem for 14 years, in a country surrounded by a water filled ditch, and they still failed. What does that tell you? That no, it isnt an easy problem to fix.

[urbanoid]

Just now, Stuart Galbraith said:

How does Poland deport the immigrants it gets from Iran and Afghanistan?

One thing to deport a single group of people (some of whom I understand were actually American citizens) to a neighbouring country. Entirely another thing to deport peoples whom you cant even figure out where they come from back to countries that, even if you could, have no desire to accept them back.

There are no easy solutions. This is the popular mantra of the political right. Well ok then, we had one of the most right wing parties in UK history, with 2 of the most authoritarian Home secretaries in Briish history, whom flailed with this problem for 14 years, in a country surrounded by a water filled ditch, and they still failed. What does that tell you? That no, it isnt an easy problem to fix.

Poland barely gets any illegals, those that get through want to go on to Western Europe, though it must be said that previous dumbfucks in charge were giving far too many worker's visas to people from... uh... questionable directions, current dumbfucks in charge reportedly issue less of those, so at least there's a silver lining here. 

OTOH let's look at the country that the illegals do want to stay in, just over our Western border. Recently I've read that they refused to deport Afghans, even criminals, back to Afghanistan, because 'Taliban bad'. And the bad Taliban was saying: by all means, send them back. And to the North, just over the sea, Sweden refused to deport 5 Ethiopians involved in a gang rape of a Swedish woman, because those poor souls were draft dodgers back in Ethiopia and bad things could happen to them there. 

So how do you do it? It's simple Stuart, you just DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM when they get sent back. They are not your people and not your concern. Your people, OTOH, who do suffer from those immigrants, are very much your concern. And your people are by definition more important than other people. 

You ask what does that tell me? It tells me that you're pathetic pussies, just like most of the Western world. And not just Western-Western, that cunt Erdogan is the same and calls anti-immigration Turks 'fascists' and 'racists', Roman had quite a bit to tell about problems with illegal immigration in Russia too. We're at the point where empathy towards strangers means cruelty to your own. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just now, urbanoid said:

Poland barely gets any illegals, those that get through want to go on to Western Europe, though it must be said that previous dumbfucks in charge were giving far too many worker's visas to people from... uh... questionable directions, current dumbfucks in charge reportedly issue less of those, so at least there's a silver lining here. 

OTOH let's look at the country that the illegals do want to stay in, just over our Western border. Recently I've read that they refused to deport Afghans, even criminals, back to Afghanistan, because 'Taliban bad'. And the bad Taliban was saying: by all means, send them back. And to the North, just over the sea, Sweden refused to deport 5 Ethiopians involved in a gang rape of a Swedish woman, because those poor souls were draft dodgers back in Ethiopia and bad things could happen to them there. 

So how do you do it? It's simple Stuart, you just DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM when they get sent back. They are not your people and not your concern. Your people, OTOH, who do suffer from those immigrants, are very much your concern. And your people are by definition more important than other people. 

You ask what does that tell me? It tells me that you're pathetic pussies, just like most of the Western world. And not just Western-Western, that cunt Erdogan is the same and calls anti-immigration Turks 'fascists' and 'racists', Roman had quite a bit to tell about problems with illegal immigration in Russia too. We're at the point where empathy towards strangers means cruelty to your own. 

Well there we have it. You arent on one of the typical migrant paths of Europe, so its, or Romania or Hungary, are hardly typical examples of what Western Europe are doing with. Unless Afghans regularly go to Europe via the Silk road, and I frankly doubt it.

Here is another prediction. Le Penn will take office at some point, and will also fail, because its the kind of problem that a nation state cannot deal with, but large blocks the size of Europe might.

Tell you what, read up on Suella Braverman and Priti Patel, and tell me they arent just the kidn of right wing politicians that are extolled in Eastern Europe. They failed, not because they were complete idiots, not because they didnt put the hours in, but that they were unwilling to work with their European partners collectively to deal witht he problem. And until Europe as whole starts dealing witht his as a joined up problem, we will undoubtedly still fail.

[urbanoid]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well there we have it. You arent on one of the typical migrant paths of Europe, so its, or Romania or Hungary, are hardly typical examples of what Western Europe are doing with. Unless Afghans regularly go to Europe via the Silk road, and I frankly doubt it.

Here is another prediction. Le Penn will take office at some point, and will also fail, because its the kind of problem that a nation state cannot deal with, but large blocks the size of Europe might.

Tell you what, read up on Suella Braverman and Priti Patel, and tell me they arent just the kidn of right wing politicians that are extolled in Eastern Europe. They failed, not because they were complete idiots, not because they didnt put the hours in, but that they were unwilling to work with their European partners collectively to deal witht he problem. And until Europe as whole starts dealing witht his as a joined up problem, we will undoubtedly still fail.

It absolutely could, but I agree with your prediction. 

And no, they aren't, ours are also weak, shortsighted cunts, though not as weak as yours. 'As long as they came here legally' is an objectively shit take, because I don't give a fuck whether my country becomes worse off due to something legal or illegal. Legal might actually be worse, as it involves certain, well, legal protections that the illegals don't (or at least shouldn't) have. 

It's simple, you can send Afghans back to the Taliban, you can send Syrians back to Assad, you can send Ethiopians back to Ethiopia, the only thing you cannot do is give a shit about them, then it becomes simple. 

[urbanoid]

Oh, a similar thing from the UK:

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Oh, well you are citing the might of the Daily Heil now, how can I complete with such a far sighted paper that assured us that Bojo and Liz Truss would be Prime ministers to solve all the country's problems?

 

 

[futon]

As minimum wage goes up, the demand for illegal immigration goes up. Illegal immigrants de facto agree to unstated terms but realities crafted via documents to work and live below the standards of legal civilians. If they don't know English, even better, as it places them firmly in the undesireable labor field. The cost of delinquent or criminal behavior doesn't offset the economic benefit of the super cheap labor. At least, that's how the money people think. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

I dont disagree, but the problem with Britain, generations of politicians have successfully conflated Illegal and unwarranted immigration, with legal and necessary immigration and refuges. Its so muddied the waters, its incredibly difficult to have an intelligent conversation about.