Vote for Boris, or someone else.. UK election an early Christmas present

by **MajorMitchell** » Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:31 am

Well Dipbro Jamiet99uk I feel certain that you would be most welcome in the Antipodes, in sunny Australia or beautiful New Zealand should you contemplate emigrating. I hate to admit it, but the Government of New Zealand is way ahead of the Federal Government in Australia.

by **Hellenic Riot** » Mon Dec 16, 2019 12:27 am

They obviously didn't vote for the Tories in 2017, else there wouldn't have been a 10-20 point swing in all these seats from Labour to the Conservatives... They are people who have voted Labour all their lives but have finally hit the tipping point thanks to Brexit and have now voted Conservative.

As for when the Tories last held this number of seats: Margaret Thatcher, 1987.

by **orathaic** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:55 pm

But the way Boris/the media are going on, it's like there are all these new Toty voters. The majority who voted for the Tories likely voted that way in 2017 aswell.

Maybe the Tories would have won big without the Brexit party campaigning only in Non-Tory seats. But it wouldn't have been such a landslide. When did the Tories hold this number rof seats last?

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:57 pm

(And in both Bishop Auckland and Sedgefield, it was the LAB > CON swing that did the damage, as HR says)

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:55 pm

I was at the count for Bishop Auckland, Sedgefield, and Durham City.

We knew Bishop Auckland was going to go over to the Tories. The Labour majority was very small, and it was a big Tory target seat.

Sedgefield was a bit more of a surprise. 30 minutes into the count (bear in mind, it took a little over 5 hours to declare the result in that seat) I could see Labour had lost. At that point I knew the BBC exit poll was about right.

by **Hellenic Riot** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 4:10 pm

@orathaic

If you only look at the headline figures then sure, there wasn't a LAB -> CON swing. But that completely overlooks the fact that the Conservatives lost votes in Remainy areas such as London & Scotland, and gained them in Labour heartlands in Wales and the North. Furthermore, if it was only a case of Labour & the Liberal Democrats splitting the vote, the Lib Dems wouldn't have gained a few percent of the vote only to *LOSE* seats overall. The Brexit Party helped in a few places, and also hindered in a few others, but there were still significant direct LAB -> CON swings in a number of constituencies.

It was overall about 50% LAB -> BXP and 50% straight LAB -> CON in much of the north, but there aren't many examples where the LAB + BXP vote outnumbered the CON vote.

For example:

Bishop Auckland: https://i.gyazo.com/a32c02e4471bb5cef90 ... 96e7bf.png
Bassetlaw: https://i.gyazo.com/0fc25e63a5ba8352945 ... 8b9096.png
Blackpool South: https://i.gyazo.com/df9330cf084efd440d8 ... fbb6fe.png
Bolsover: https://i.gyazo.com/5c85957770c524da93b ... c10078.png
Crewe and Nantwich: https://i.gyazo.com/efa0bb535e0d6730bd6 ... 71880b.png
Darlington: https://i.gyazo.com/6a2178b6d3f128292a8 ... 3cf97a.png
Dudley North: https://i.gyazo.com/7a19108984a1e720cf8 ... 35bb2c.png
Great Grimsby: https://i.gyazo.com/f0931c3be65740700bb ... 0e2364.png

The list goes on and on. There was a *huge* movement of Labour votes toward the Conservatives - it was just only in Wales & the North, which is covered up in the national figures by significant Tory drops in Scotland and the South.

by **orathaic** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:49 am

Also, as to the idea of moving the Capital to the north. Devolving powers to the North was rejected previously, but I think seeing a revival of Northern identity and politics could be the answer. Once/If Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK, the Tories will have total control of England and Wales, which will not do the Welsh independence movement any harm (but I suspect it is decades away). It will also leave the North of England poorer and more marginalised compared with London's wealth.

I left out in the above analysis the Yorkshire party, whose 28 candidates got 28 t go usand votes, failed to secure any seats. Likewise the Northeast party's 2 candidates and their 2 thousand vote, 0 seats. And Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall, single candidate's 1 thousand votes. No seat. Three movements in England for devolution of powers, I don't see any movement for relocating the capital.

by **orathaic** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:29 am

@Hellenic Riot, what election are you looking at? There was no mass movement of Labour voters toward the Tories.

Overall:
Tories gained 1.2% of the vote
Labour lost 7.9% of the vote

In some constituencies Labour lost 12% while the Tories gain ~1%. Those votes mostly went to the Brexit party, not to the Tories.

I haven't seen how unrepresentative this parliament is compared with 2017, but my suspicion is that more people are unrepresented than ever. Not that a huge number have switched to supporting the Tories. You wouldn't know it from following the news coverage, as the Brexit party hasn't been mentioned, they got 2% of the vote overall, but only stood in Labour held constituencies, so that 2% was more concentrated and leached off of Labour.

The Liberal Dems and Greens organised a electoral pact, and it wasn't near enough to make the gains they needed. But together they had a 5.3% increase in vote share, while losing 1 seat compared with 2017. That 4.5 million ppl, represented by 12 MPs. Which is 14% of the turned out voters with 1.8% of the seats.

Labour did better with 10 millions vote (32% of the turnout) and 31% of the seats.
Which seems fair.
The Tories were just shy of 14 million votes (43% of the turnout) and got 56% of the seats (and thus 100% of the power).
The SNP did the best with 1.2 million vote (3.9%) and 7.3% of the seats.

SNP are over represented at 1.8 times their vote share
Tories are over represented at 1.3 times their vote share
Labour almost broke even with 0.96 times their vote share
Lib dem/Green alliance are massively under represented with 0.12 times their vote share.
The Brexit party's 2% of voters go completely unrepresented, but not without having influenced the election.

But yeah, I see not massive swing from Labour to Tories, except in the BS media narrative. Because they can't tell nuanced stories about what actually happened.

Except perhaps the guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ur-leavers

by **Octavious** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:13 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:45 pm
Your party has spent 9 years harming our country, killing people, driving people into poverty and homelessness, while enriching a tiny minority of their friends. Now we'll have 5 more years of nasty, hurtful, Tory selfishness. People will suffer and die. You'll be fine, Oct. I'll be fine too. Many of our countrymen and women will not.

Not really my party, to be honest. I've not voted for them since 2015, although I still consider myself centre right and occasionally refer to the Tories as "we" out of habit.

Having said that I don't for a moment buy your line on the Tories killing people and driving them into poverty and leaving the disabled to die. It's partly Momentum endlessly talking about crap like that, alongside frankly bizarre cartoons of Winnie the Pooh taking an axe to Piglet because he dared not to vote for Corbyn, that helped convince so many people that Labour should be avoided like the plague. That and the ridiculously high promises of spending, the four day week that seemed to alternate between being promised and denied every other day, the insane plan to nationalise everything (seemingly unaware that the current shareholders of these businesses include a lot of the people who work for them, and pretty much everyone who has a pension), the Brexit cowardice and uncertainty (I don't remember Corbyn talk with any clarity about what he wanted his deal to look like, presumably in a futile attempt to avoid making the election about Brexit), and Corbyn's stupid lies (why on earth would anyone lie about watching the Queen's Speech in the morning?!? No one cares one way or another about the Queen's Speech).

What I expect to see now is a far more centrist Tory government who will pump money into the north in a desperate attempt to prove to the new Tory constituencies that voting Tory works. Whether or not we have Brexit is finally dead as a political issue, and whilst trade talks and negotiations will rumble on for years it can do so firmly in the background of public consciousness where most people can happily ignore it. Like your computer installing updates, you will notice a bit of a drop in performance, but other than that you can carry on as normal.

by **Hellenic Riot** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:59 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:43 am
So what are we left with?

An illiberal, Victorian society that believes it's a crime to be poor? A society that believes wealth is a virtue and the homeless and disabled should be purged, allowed to die, or locked away in workhouses?

I don't want to live in that society.

I am seriously considering moving out of England.

I'm pretty sure that the Northern working class people who defected en masse don't believe any of that. I do not believe they made the right decision, but I do believe that 40 years of being taken for granted by Labour as Londoncentric metroliberal policies they disagreed with were pursued has left them feeling extremely out of touch with the modern Labour party.

As for what Labour does to solve it? There isn't any one easy thing to do - though I will categorically say that the next Labour leader *MUST NOT* be another Londoner. There is no chance whatsoever of bringing the North back under that. But the Brexit argument is over, and the Remain argument has been utterly vanquished. It's time to move on, and it's time to address the reasons why people voted for it in the first place: That means accepting some form of immigration controls is what the British people want; it means ending the notion that shouting about the NHS is all the working class care about; it means focusing on solutions for working class youths who have not and have no intention of going to university via a significant increase in government support for apprenticeships and technical colleges... And above all else, it means coming up with a real solution to bring jobs back to the deindustrialised towns of the working classes. Phrases like "Green Industrial Revolution" and other wordplay sound great but don't actually have anything hard to back them up.

How this is done? I don't have the answer. The quickest and easiest way is via Big Infrastructure projects, but we've blown our chance there and it's quite clear that the Tories are now going to lead the charge on those. But one way or another we need to come up with a way to bring jobs of all kinds back to those places - either public sector or private sector. Be it from Special Economic Zones to lure businesses in, or from ways to get direct government investment in.

One of my favoured options is moving the capital to the North (Manchester or Leeds are both decent candidates there, but my personal favourite is York as it has a great historic connection along with being in a prime location to benefit from a Liverpool - Manchester - Bradford - Leeds - York - Hull high speed rail & motorway connection, whilst also not having the drawback of being the biggest city in its area and thus risking it becoming another London in terms of attention). Not only would this end the Londoncentrism of British politics, but it would open up hundreds of thousands of jobs in the North via the infrastructural improvements and the new bureaucratic openings.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:46 am

Boris Johnson is a racist, an antisemite, and an islamophobe.

These things are facts which can be verified by his statements and actions.

I would like anyone who supports Boris to explain:

1. Are you a racist?

2. If you aren't, are you aware of the many racist statements Boris has made?

3. If yes to (2) why don't you care?

4. If no to (2), does your own ignorance concern you?

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:43 am

So what are we left with?

An illiberal, Victorian society that believes it's a crime to be poor? A society that believes wealth is a virtue and the homeless and disabled should be purged, allowed to die, or locked away in workhouses?

I don't want to live in that society.

I am seriously considering moving out of England.

by **Hellenic Riot** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:22 am

I'd like to say I am surprised, but I am not. I do not look forward to the Corbynsceptics using this to scream "If we were centrist we would have won" despite the fact that centrism has been rejected by the British public at every single opportunity in the past three years, but hey.

I think 2019 will go down as the election that marked the end of the inexorable march of Social Liberalism that this country has gone down for the last 10-15 years. Instead, it marks the start of a new era of socially conservative authoritarian governance. I suspect it will embolden the Tories into renewing their aim to leave the ECHR, amongst other things, and it's notable that we literally have an elected home secretary in favour of capital punishment - to the point where it's no longer inconceivable that by the end of the 2020s, its restoration may actually be on the table. Labour's coalition of metropolitan middle class liberals with the working class is dead, and with that working class defecting en masse to the Conservative party, the Tory liberals left there who weren't already purged/defected will become a fringe within that party.

That social liberalism which in part triggered the backlash in the Brexit vote has now been categorically rejected by the working class. Labour can continue to espouse it, but it will not achieve anything outside of London and a few other metropolitan, middle class filled cities. This will be on par with 1979 and 1945 - it's the end of an era. Labour cannot go 'back to the future' either by digging up the 70s any more than it can go back by digging up 1997. New Labour, Old Labour, they're all dead ideologies. If social liberalism combined with economic centrism were the answer then the Liberal Democrats wouldn't have been humiliated for the third time in four years. Likewise the Tories have only made that long-awaited northern breakthrough by removing the metroliberal leadership of the Coalition years - Boris has done better than Cameron/Osborne could ever have dreamt of. The liberal Tories are dead. The liberal centre is dead. And Liberal Labour blaming the economic policies instead of social policies the country has rejected across the whole spectrum would be the simplistic narrowminded outcome that only ensures 2025 is just as disastrous.

by **Jamiet99uk** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:45 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 8:36 pm

gimix wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:41 pm

ND wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 13, 2019 6:21 am
Who cares at least uk is free of the big gov liberal EU. Freedom.
As a EU citizen i would say, at last EU is free of UK.
Free of vetoes, opt-outs, and the hundred whims which blocked any serious attempt at a European policy on any matters for so many years. Maybe now the words European Union will begin to make some real sense
So i'm sorry for the British people, but i'm happy for the remaining 400 or so million europeans
I think you're underestimating the veto and whim potential of the Eastern European block. If you're expecting a Union of peace and harmony then I suspect that you will be bitterly disappointed. Still, time will tell. Now that the political fight for Remain has been defeated Britain will be able to move forward and will be just fine.

Your party has spent 9 years harming our country, killing people, driving people into poverty and homelessness, while enriching a tiny minority of their friends. Now we'll have 5 more years of nasty, hurtful, Tory selfishness. People will suffer and die. You'll be fine, Oct. I'll be fine too. Many of our countrymen and women will not.

by **Octavious** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 8:36 pm

gimix wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:41 pm

ND wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 13, 2019 6:21 am
Who cares at least uk is free of the big gov liberal EU. Freedom.
As a EU citizen i would say, at last EU is free of UK.
Free of vetoes, opt-outs, and the hundred whims which blocked any serious attempt at a European policy on any matters for so many years. Maybe now the words European Union will begin to make some real sense
So i'm sorry for the British people, but i'm happy for the remaining 400 or so million europeans

I think you're underestimating the veto and whim potential of the Eastern European block. If you're expecting a Union of peace and harmony then I suspect that you will be bitterly disappointed. Still, time will tell. Now that the political fight for Remain has been defeated Britain will be able to move forward and will be just fine.

by **taylor4** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 8:09 pm

To clarify: Total votes in the recent UK election include 9,739 for the Monster Raving Loony Party.
In Islington N. the Loony candidate noted:
"I am a single issue politician, and have had a long-standing campaign for the abolition of gravity."
Policies include: "All European trains will be fuelled by gravy."

by **Octavious** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 3:06 pm

orathaic wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:37 pm
I read your post. I just seems you are contradicting yourself. That is all.

You genuinely don't understand the distinction?

by **orathaic** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:37 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:06 pm

orathaic wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 9:13 am

Octavious wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:48 am
Firmly in second place, though, with a half dozen seats. Considering it was a election fought on Brexit and Scotland wasn't a fan, that's not a bad effort.
I'll just leave your own words here, shall I?
I take it you didn't actually bother to read my last post? The Tories fought the election on Brexit, but that does not mean that the election was all about Brexit. Labour fought the election primarily on the NHS, the Green Party on the climate emergency, the Lib Dems... I've no idea what they were doing, to be honest... But hopefully the point is now clear.

I read your post. I just seems you are contradicting yourself. That is all.

by **gimix** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:41 pm

ND wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 13, 2019 6:21 am
Who cares at least uk is free of the big gov liberal EU. Freedom.

As a EU citizen i would say, at last EU is free of UK.
Free of vetoes, opt-outs, and the hundred whims which blocked any serious attempt at a European policy on any matters for so many years. Maybe now the words European Union will begin to make some real sense

So i'm sorry for the British people, but i'm happy for the remaining 400 or so million europeans

by **Octavious** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:06 pm

orathaic wrote: ↑
Sat Dec 14, 2019 9:13 am

Octavious wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:48 am
Firmly in second place, though, with a half dozen seats. Considering it was a election fought on Brexit and Scotland wasn't a fan, that's not a bad effort.
I'll just leave your own words here, shall I?

I take it you didn't actually bother to read my last post? The Tories fought the election on Brexit, but that does not mean that the election was all about Brexit. Labour fought the election primarily on the NHS, the Green Party on the climate emergency, the Lib Dems... I've no idea what they were doing, to be honest... But hopefully the point is now clear.

Vote for Boris, or someone else.. UK election an early Christmas present

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