General Election 2017

[blandy]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

it was in their manifesto  

that's a bit more than suggesting ... as we all know once it's in a manifesto it's cast in stone and can't be removed , cause nobody ever prior to 2017 has changed their mind or broken an election promise

That promise was on the Lisbon constitution that got thrown out by the Dutch and French in referenda, and was cancelled, so they couldn't hold a referendum on something that was binned.

That said, they probably didn't want to, as really, as they seemed quite relieved at the time, and also as a later different version wasn't put to a referendum, though strictly it wasn't the thing they promised to hold it on.

Clear as mud.

[peterms]

52 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

it's an interesting point as while twitter was in overdrive about May changing her mind on her policies , Labour keep changing their mind on Brexit without anyone noticing (funny that)

do any of the Labour people on here actually know the party position , this week , at least ?

Starmer was on R4 today.  He said that they want to remain in the single market, but there are different ways by which that might be achieved; and that he wants to focus on the outcome rather than the model by which the outcome might be achieved.  (That point about 7 mins into the podcast here).

The questions interviewers ask always focus on a specific model, and failure to say yes or no is presented as indecision.

It's like someone asking if you want to walk across a field, and you saying that what you want is to get to the other side and you don't mind if you walk, cycle, bounce across on a space hopper or get carried in a sedan chair, and then being told you don't know what you want.  As so often, it comes down to interviewers attempting to impose their particular framing of an issue and require that people accept that framing in answering.

[HanoiVillan]

Jenny Chapman was on Radio 4 the other day, and said basically the same thing . . . I don't think what Labour 'want' is particularly confusing (another variant of having their cake and eating it), but that's not to say it's realistic (I don't think it is, at all). 

[mjmooney]

It's just a gut feeling, but I suspect that a great many 'leave' voters would now be happier with a 'soft' Brexit. There has been a lot more reasoned debate and balanced information around in the media since the vote, and the downsides of leaving are more understood. I don't think there's much desire for a rerun, and the hardcore xenophobes will continue to bay for the most extreme break possible, but I don't believe that a more nuanced deal would be the trigger for mass rioting that some might fear. 

[darrenm]

19 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

It's just a gut feeling, but I suspect that a great many 'leave' voters would now be happier with a 'soft' Brexit. There has been a lot more reasoned debate and balanced information around in the media since the vote, and the downsides of leaving are more understood. I don't think there's much desire for a rerun, and the hardcore xenophobes will continue to bay for the most extreme break possible, but I don't believe that a more nuanced deal would be the trigger for mass rioting that some might fear. 

I just get the feeling nobody cares any more. It's part of what lost Tories the majority IMO. They based the election on brexit and people had moved on.

[tonyh29]

7 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I just get the feeling nobody cares any more. It's part of what lost Tories the majority IMO. They based the election on brexit and people had moved on.

Dunno ,they picked up a lot of the UKIP vote in areas which presumably was on the back of Brexit

where they didn't pickup enough votes was the young voters and to a degree middle England as a result of a poor manifesto and no real message 

[PompeyVillan]

The Conservative message needs to change desperately.

Weak and wobbly Theresa May has managed to grow herself a magic money tree in order to pay for a coalition of chaos.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

Dunno ,they picked up a lot of the UKIP vote in areas which presumably was on the back of Brexit

where they didn't pickup enough votes was the young voters and to a degree middle England as a result of a poor manifesto and no real message 

Maybe Brexit was responsible for losing quite a lot of votes as well - possibly more so than the manifesto or the message. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

They based the election on brexit and people had moved on.

I think that is true,  she just kept nagging on about it like a headmistress, on and on.  Tactical error on their part and these things can happen I suppose.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

2 hours ago, mjmooney said:

more nuanced deal

I don't believe this is possible and never was IMO,  too good a deal and loads will want the same,  too shit and UK pays no divorce bill,  somewhere in between maybe ?  Would you bet anything on it becasue I wouldn't.   

The divorce bill alone will kill it no matter what anyone does or say in the 2 camps IMO.  The EU cannot make the UK pay it and they know it.  It will end up as a low tax place (The UK),  I can see it happening.

[tonyh29]

Just now, HanoiVillan said:

Maybe Brexit was responsible for losing quite a lot of votes as well - possibly more so than the manifesto or the message. 

You'd have to say unlikely in all honesty , not only did  the Tory's receive 2.4m more votes in 2017 than they did in 2015 but according to Ashcroft just over two-thirds of people who voted Tory on 8 June had backed Leave a year earlier - unless it was only Tory's that voted leave in the first place !!

i don't doubt some voters may have voted elsewhere because of the Brexit policy but clearly they picked up more votes than were lost as a result of it , so like I said originally  I don't think you can say  Brexit lost them the election ....all imo of course

 

[markavfc40]

4 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

I think that is true,  she just kept nagging on about it like a headmistress, on and on.  Tactical error on their part and these things can happen I suppose.

They haven't learned though have they. All I have heard from their MP's regarding this deal with the DUP is that it will help them over the next two years in Brexit negotiations as they will have stable Government.

In fairness they want minds concentrated on Brexit so they can continue to destroy the NHS, massively under fund social care and under fund schools and other public services.

It is a dangerous game though under funding and privatising public services as eventually it will all come to a head and there will be disastrous consequences as Grenfell Tower showed.

[ml1dch]

3 hours ago, darrenm said:

Nope. And neither do the shadow cabinet. Thornberry said we'd stay in the single market but McDonnell said we'd leave entirely. They're a bit mixed up. Though I'm not sure it's entirely by accident as it's currently a requirement to have a duplicitous relationship with the electorate over brexit. 

I'm absolutely certain that it's by accident. 

If you sat every MP down and asked them to tell you the significant differences, and the benefits and limitations between the EEA, the EFTA, the single market, the Customs Union, a comprehensive free trade agreement and full EU membership and I reckon you'd get blank looks and Boris-style stammering from all but half a dozen or so.

Corbyn has already demonstrated that he doesn't know the differences, and the minister in charge of this nonsense had no idea that we couldn't start negotiating trade deals before we had left, and that we couldn't talk to individual EU member states about it. Going into this, he knew less about what could and couldn't be done than the average poster on here.

It's a question you occasionally see raised "is there a single good thing that might come out of this decision?". The one that always springs to my mind is that for the first time in a couple of generations, the infantile MPs we currently have might have to actually learn some of this stuff rather than blagging it and hoping whoever they're talking to, knows too little to be able to take them to task about it.

And the colour of their rosette doesn't make a difference, either for or against they don't really seem to know what they are arguing.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

You'd have to say unlikely in all honesty , not only did  the Tory's receive 2.4m more votes in 2017 than they did in 2015 but according to Ashcroft just over two-thirds of people who voted Tory on 8 June had backed Leave a year earlier - unless it was only Tory's that voted leave in the first place !!

i don't doubt some voters may have voted elsewhere because of the Brexit policy but clearly they picked up more votes than were lost as a result of it , so like I said originally  I don't think you can say  Brexit lost them the election ....all imo of course

 

That's the national picture for sure, but the national picture can't explain why she lost her majority . . . after all, the Tories increased their share of the vote and got a national vote share Thatcher would have been proud of, but still they lost seats. 

The issue is that the Tories ended up with an incredibly wasteful map in first-past-the-post terms. They increased their vote significantly in a large number of Leave-voting constituencies, but ended up losing them anyway. Running a surprisingly close second in Sunderland is totally wasted energy in a FPTP system. The constituencies they lost in London and the South are the reason they don't have a majority, and I believe all of those either voted Remain or had a Leave lead of less than 10%. 

Shorter me: I'm not saying the Tories lost more votes than they gained because of their Brexit stance, but I do think it may be possible that the same stance cost them in the seats that cost them their majority. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

I'm absolutely certain that it's by accident. 

If you sat every MP down and asked them to tell you the significant differences, and the benefits and limitations between the EEA, the EFTA, the single market, the Customs Union, a comprehensive free trade agreement and full EU membership and I reckon you'd get blank looks and Boris-style stammering from all but half a dozen or so.

Corbyn has already demonstrated that he doesn't know the differences, and the minister in charge of this nonsense had no idea that we couldn't start negotiating trade deals before we had left, and that we couldn't talk to individual EU member states about it. Going into this, he knew less about what could and couldn't be done than the average poster on here.

It's a question you occasionally see raised "is there a single good thing that might come out of this decision?". The one that always springs to my mind is that for the first time in a couple of generations, the infantile MPs we currently have might have to actually learn some of this stuff rather than blagging it and hoping whoever they're talking to, knows too little to be able to take them to task about it.

And the colour of their rosette doesn't make a difference, either for or against they don't really seem to know what they are arguing.

It's quite possible you're right. Westminster is famously parochial. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

That's the national picture for sure, but the national picture can't explain why she lost her majority . . . after all, the Tories increased their share of the vote and got a national vote share Thatcher would have been proud of, but still they lost seats. 

The issue is that the Tories ended up with an incredibly wasteful map in first-past-the-post terms. They increased their vote significantly in a large number of Leave-voting constituencies, but ended up losing them anyway. Running a surprisingly close second in Sunderland is totally wasted energy in a FPTP system. The constituencies they lost in London and the South are the reason they don't have a majority, and I believe all of those either voted Remain or had a Leave lead of less than 10%. 

Shorter me: I'm not saying the Tories lost more votes than they gained because of their Brexit stance, but I do think it may be possible that the same stance cost them in the seats that cost them their majority. 

Agree, one example off the top of my head. Bath. Remain area but fairly safe Tory territory. They lost it to the Lib Dems and that's a trend I think will continue into the next election with Vince Cable in charge of the Lib Dems. With Tim Farron in charge of the Lib Dems they weren't going to pick up many Tory Seats but Cable is far more palatable to that demographic, he'll command more air time and his views (Pro-EU and fairly business positive) will attract the disaffected Remain Tories much more than Farron ever would

[tonyh29]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Agree, one example off the top of my head. Bath. Remain area but fairly safe Tory territory. They lost it to the Lib Dems and that's a trend I think will continue into the next election with Vince Cable in charge of the Lib Dems. With Tim Farron in charge of the Lib Dems they weren't going to pick up many Tory Seats but Cable is far more palatable to that demographic, he'll command more air time and his views (Pro-EU and fairly business positive) will attract the disaffected Remain Tories much more than Farron ever would

You mean Bath that safe Tory territory that has been Lib Dem since 1992 with the exception of 2015 , when the lib dem vote dropped by 26 % 

 

[bickster]

Just now, tonyh29 said:

You mean Bath that safe Tory territory that has been Lib Dem since 1992 with the exception of 2015 , when the lib dem vote dropped by 26 % 

 

Shows how much I know. 

[tonyh29]

Just now, bickster said:

Shows how much I know. 

Tbf the Tory vote did drop 2% ... 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

Tbf the Tory vote did drop 2% ... 

I do still think the Lib Dem's will have a resurgence with Cable in charge though and that will come mainly at the expense of the Tories