UK Elections

[Harel13]

A "general election" in the UK is actually 650 simultaneous elections for local Members of Parliament. In principle, each constituency votes for a person, not for a party. With a few exceptions, any adult can stand for election, they don't have to belong to a party at all. It's up to the parties themselves whether they put forward candidates in every constituency. There is a £500 deposit required, that is returned if the candidate gets more than 5% of the vote.

So if a party doesn't have enough money, it'll stand only in certain constituencies?

 

[Laika]

@Rival

My constituency has gone from 63.9% Conservative to 72.7% Conservative. The Urge to Drink IS STRONG this morning! Here's to Democracy!

The Marxist mob,corbyn,Abbot,McDonnell and the old tories Clark major and the lizard hestletine good riddance,the labour party is finished,Jo Swinson finished now let's get brexit finished.

Marxists don't fight elections dude. They load the opposition in to cattle trains and send them to the Gulag to be "re-educated" by forced labour.

 

[ratiocinator]

So if a party doesn't have enough money, it'll stand only in certain constituencies?

Possibly, but some parties are actually regional anyway, like the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. Also the Brexit party made a political decision not to stand in seats the Tories won last time. There were also some local agreements between remain supporting parties not to stand against each other.

Oh, and another oddity is that, by tradition, the other parties don't stand against the Speaker of the House of Commons.

 

[Laika]

So if a party doesn't have enough money, it'll stand only in certain constituencies?

Yeah. The Far Left parties campaign in major cities and university towns (the far left is mainly students these days) because its the only place they have a chance of picking up enough votes to even keep their deposit. They don't have major financial backers so they are chronically short of money.

Winning is usually a long way off and if they get above 1% of the vote in a constituency they are doing well. A really good night they might hit 5%. Last Night George Galloway was standing in West Bromwich East and got 1.4% as an Independent (with 489 votes), so that's about average for a far left candidate.

 

[England my lionheart]

I can only speak for myself but ok, because of an unelectable opposition, the Tories won and won big.
Now let's get Brexit out of the way and I look forward to all the promised benefits....?
Remind me, what are they?

I agree about labour being unelectable,the first benefit is uncertainty has been removed and the pound and euro euve risen.

 

[Altfish]

I agree about labour being unelectable,the first benefit is uncertainty has been removed and the pound and euro euve risen.

Yes, as expected the markets like the result because it brings certainty.

Not a clue what next for Labour; Momentum and the unions still control it, I fear another 'Corbynite' leader, when what the country needs is a strong opposition (It has done since Corbyn was elected) - look at Scotland, they have a strong opposition, the Tories lost 6 seats there (IIRC) and SNP gained about 8

I did note that you ducked my question about the benefits of Brexit.

 

[Stevicus]

A "general election" in the UK is actually 650 simultaneous elections for local Members of Parliament. In principle, each constituency votes for a person, not for a party. With a few exceptions, any adult can stand for election, they don't have to belong to a party at all. It's up to the parties themselves whether they put forward candidates in every constituency. There is a £500 deposit required, that is returned if the candidate gets more than 5% of the vote.

Since most people actually vote for a party or PM, the whole thing is terribly undemocratic and disadvantages parties with board appeal and rewards those with localised appeal. That's why Tories like it because they can screw the poor all they want, so long as they look after the rich.

Why don't they elect the prime minister as a separate office in a national election? This sounds even worse than our electoral college.

 

[Harel13]

Why don't they elect the prime minister as a separate office in a national election? This sounds even worse than our electoral college.

Ooo, ooo! Let's have a contest and see which country has the worst (democratic) election system!

 

[ratiocinator]

Why don't they elect the prime minister as a separate office in a national election? This sounds even worse than our electoral college.

That would represent a big change because you might then have a PM from a different party from the majority in Parliament and then they wouldn't be able to get anything done unless we changed a lot of other things (ministers have to me MPs at the moment). The executive isn't as separated from the legislature as it is in, for example, the US.

A more sensible system would be some form of proportional representation, where the make up of Parliament reflects the number of votes for each party countrywide. There are complications because MPs are meant to do (and usually do) a far bit of work in their local constituencies.

We could also do with a proper, written constitution, and abolishing the unelected (basically appointed) House of Lords and the Monarchy - we could then have a directly elected head of state.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And here in the US, the two people that benefit most from Johnson's sweeping victory are, sadly, Trump and Biden.

 

[ratiocinator]

Just to emphasis how undemocratic the system is, Johnson the Lair got 44% of the vote and won 56% of the seats in Parliament, giving him carte blanche to do anything he wants. Brexit supporting parties got 47% of the vote, while those supporting remaining or a second referendum got 51%.

So much for British democracy.

 

[England my lionheart]

Yes, as expected the markets like the result because it brings certainty.

Not a clue what next for Labour; Momentum and the unions still control it, I fear another 'Corbynite' leader, when what the country needs is a strong opposition (It has done since Corbyn was elected) - look at Scotland, they have a strong opposition, the Tories lost 6 seats there (IIRC) and SNP gained about 8

I did note that you ducked my question about the benefits of Brexit.

I absolutely agree about labour, we do need strong opposition to keep the government on their toes.

Benefits of brexit are we will eventually be free of the undemocratic eu, we can take back Control of our laws, we will be saving roughly 15 billion a year, not a small amount of money.

 

[Altfish]

Benefits of brexit are we will eventually be free of the undemocratic eu, we can take back Control of our laws, we will be saving roughly 15 billion a year, not a small amount of money.

£15bn a year - where's that fidure come from - all the economic models I've seen are showing a negative cost.
Take back control- is just a mantra - tell me, which laws are you going to change?

 

[Notanumber]

I have a feeling that we end up with BRINO which although disappointing will be better than a Corbyn government.

Always look on the bright side of life.

 

[England my lionheart]

£15bn a year - where's that fidure come from - all the economic models I've seen are showing a negative cost.
Take back control- is just a mantra - tell me, which laws are you going to change?

All the ones we want, we gave competence for the eu to make laws and now we've taken it away.

We pay 15 illion a year, with a rebate net 9 billion ish I think.

 

[England my lionheart]

Just to emphasis how undemocratic the system is, Johnson the Lair got 44% of the vote and won 56% of the seats in Parliament, giving him carte blanche to do anything he wants. Brexit supporting parties got 47% of the vote, while those supporting remaining or a second referendum got 51%.

So much for British democracy.

This sounds like remain bad loserism.

 

[ratiocinator]

All the ones we want, we gave competence for the eu to make laws and now we've taken it away.

But you still haven't said what they did that was bad for you or what you hope to gain. Ordinary working people won't gain anything from Brexit and will almost certainly bear the brunt of the cost, only rich fat cats will benefit. The EU is no less democratic than the UK (FPtP, HoL).

We pay 15 illion a year, with a rebate net 9 billion ish I think.

And pretty much every forecast says we will end up worse off after Brexit, not better. We aren't paying the money for nothing.

This sounds like remain bad loserism.

So if some party standing on a remain platform had got a large majority off just 44% of the vote, based mostly on barefaced lies, and most of the people voted for parties that were for leaving, you'd be happy with that would you?

Odd how leavers only like the "will of the people" on one day in 2016...

 

[Altfish]

All the ones we want, we gave competence for the eu to make laws and now we've taken it away.

We pay 15 illion a year, with a rebate net 9 billion ish I think.

But, the 'Free Trade' agreements with EU and others through the EU pockets us a profit and there is NO COST, we make a profit from our membership.

 

[England my lionheart]

But you still haven't said what they did that was bad for you or what you hope to gain. Ordinary working people won't gain anything from Brexit and will almost certainly bear the brunt of the cost, only rich fat cats will benefit. The EU is no less democratic than the UK (FPtP, HoL).

Really, let me remind you, the eu has 5 presidents, president of the commission chooses the members of said commission.



And pretty much every forecast says we will end up worse off after Brexit, not better. We aren't paying the money for nothing.

No but we're paying much more than the majority of other members and in return we get their poor.



So if some party standing on a remain platform had got a large majority off just 44% of the vote, based mostly on barefaced lies, and most of the people voted for parties that were for leaving, you'd be happy with that would you?

This is an easy answer, I believe in democracy so I would respect the vote whatever unlike the remain camp.
The election was a very clear choice, remain or leave and yet again leave won emphatically because the British people believe in democracy.

Odd how leavers only like the "will of the people" on one day in 2016...

I think the election proves the British people like and believe in "the will of the people".

 

[England my lionheart]

But, the 'Free Trade' agreements with EU and others through the EU pockets us a profit and there is NO COST, we make a profit from our membership.

The cost is our freedom.