UK General Election

[Shagger]

We in the UK went to the ballot boxes today (July 4th) for a General Election.  I understand than many of you aren't going to b e very interested, but it is at least amusing that we in the Motherland decide our future on the same day you colonials celebrate the anniversary of giving the big flip of form the other side of the Atlantic.  Besides, sure American want to know who's neck thier President is going to tie thier doggy chain around.

 

Anyway, the polls closed at 10pm local time (5pm eastern) and the results are going to being counted through the night.  Now for those not in the know, the UK does not operate on a two party system like the US.  There a several Political parties as well as independent candidates for each seat.  A single seat represents a specific region and the citizens in those regions vote for thier perspective candidates, similar to how US voters vote for thier state representatives.  

 

A rundown of the main Political Parties:

The Conservative Party aka "Tories":  Mid/Right leaning party. Value right wing policy and traditional values, but not to the extremes that we see for Republicans in America.  Always a strong power in British politics. Currently in Power lead by current Prime Minster Rishi Sunak.

The Labour Party: Mid/Left leaning Party. Lead by opposition leader Keir Starmer.  Labour and The Conservatives are always the two largest Parties.  As long as I know, one of those two have been in power and Labour are the main opposition to the Conservatives in this Election

The Liberal Democrats: Left Leaning Party led by one of British politics more eccentric characters in Ed Davey.  Not much to say. An ever present power in UK politics and always attain plenty of seats, but never enough to be in charge.

Reform UK:  Far Right Party. A fairly new player in British politics that heavily pushed for the UK's exit of the EU led by Nigel Farage.  They have struck a cord with some voters because of thier tough proposals on immigration, but also controversial with the party accused of bigotry and racism during thier campaign.

Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP): The party currently in power in Scotland.  I suppose I have to call them Left/Far Left on the spectrum, but that's irrelevant.  All they care about is Scotland gaining independence from the UK and will appear to lean whatever direction they believe is most likely to make that happen.  They lean left now, but this same party one sympathised with the Nazi's.  Why?  Because they believed that in Nazi Germany won WWII, Scotland could become independent.  Regardless, they never do well in the UK Election as nobody outside of Scotland has any reason to vote for them.

 

The votes in each seat will be counted through the night and we should have a confirmed result tomorrow, but we have other polls and survey information including and "Exit Poll" that gives us a fairly reliable estimate on how this is going to go. Here is the exit poll, and it's looking like it's going to be a Labour landslide (Source; The Sun)

 

 

Honestly, its who I voted for and the result is what I was hoping for, but this for me wasn't about who the best choice, it was about least bad.  Amounts the candidates with a realistic chance, that being Labour, Conservative or SNP for my seat, I don't think any of them are a particularity "good" choice.  No major party has got though thier campaign without saying or doing something deeply stupid.  So congratulations Labour, it'll be refreshing to see somebody else screw it up in a new and original way at least.

Edited July 5 by Shagger

[Shagger]

I waited a day because a couple of seats took time to declare, and for for me the results couldn't have been much better.  In short Labour did indeed win in a landslide with the biggest losses suffered by the Tories and the SNP (Yes!). Source Sky News. 

 

 

 

 

My personal interest in these results mostly revolves around how the SNP have been decimated, bodes well for the Scottish Parliament elections in a couple of years time, but there are some interesting things to look at hear.

 

For example, the controversial far right Reform UK party gaining an impressive 14.3% of the vote, but to only win 5 seats.  Say what you want about Reform UK, I personally can't stand them, yet they only win 5 seats?  The Liberal Democrats with a vote share 2.1% less won a staggering 67 more seats.  The reason for this is the "First Past the Post" system that is operated in the UK election system.  First past the post is a plurality voting system wherein voters cast a vote for a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins that particular seat.  Reform votes were high many seats, finishing second or third on many occasions very close to wining, but not quite.  The Green party could share similar complaints winning just 2 sets with a bigger share of the vote than the SNP who won 9.  This has caused many people to question how fair this system is and how well it actually represents the UK voters.  Regardless of what one thinks of Reform, I think that is a fair question.  This does also question the validity of the winning party as well.  Is it really right that Labour win well over half the seats with barely over a third of the actual votes?  It's a point worth talking about I think.

 

The other thing to talk about is the turnout, which I think was pretty low at just under 60%.  I think this represents something I said in my previous post:

 

On 7/5/2024 at 2:08 AM, Shagger said:

Honestly, its who I voted for and the result is what I was hoping for, but this for me wasn't about who the best choice, it was about least bad.  Amounts the candidates with a realistic chance, that being Labour, Conservative or SNP for my seat, I don't think any of them are a particularity "good" choice.  No major party has got though thier campaign without saying or doing something deeply stupid.  So congratulations Labour, it'll be refreshing to see somebody else screw it up in a new and original way at least

 

It feels like the UK population doesn't really have much faith nor hope in our government regardless of who's in charge, which is why a lot of them didn't care enough to vote at all.  I don't want to agree with that, but I kind of do.  I have felt like that for quite some time because of the SNP clearly not being interested in actually governing` Scotland, so this result does give me hope, but only time will tell if that is the case.

[The Blackangel]

Hopefully, unlike here, you don't have one of the major candidates quoting Mein Kampf. Our own Adolf 2.0 has been quoting Hitler for several years now, and praising his ideals. So we have 2 choices. A Nazi, that will work against us in every way, or a politician who will work FOR us. While I'm a hardcore liberal Democrat, I don't have much faith in either of our 2 main parties at the moment. They keep running around playing politics in the rest of the world, and ignoring what we need to fucking fix here at home.

Also with the goddamn Electoral College in place here, our votes don't mean any more than toilet paper. We don't decide the vote. They do.

[Kyng]

21 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

Hopefully, unlike here, you don't have one of the major candidates quoting Mein Kampf. Our own Adolf 2.0 has been quoting Hitler for several years now, and praising his ideals. So we have 2 choices. A Nazi, that will work against us in every way, or a politician who will work FOR us. While I'm a hardcore liberal Democrat, I don't have much faith in either of our 2 main parties at the moment. They keep running around playing politics in the rest of the world, and ignoring what we need to fucking fix here at home.

Also with the goddamn Electoral College in place here, our votes don't mean any more than toilet paper. We don't decide the vote. They do.

Well, the furthest-right of our main parties is Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage. And the thing about him is, he's very good at walking the line of acceptability. He knows how to appeal to far-right racist types, without actually saying anything overtly racist himself, that would cause him to alienate his non-racist supporters. 

Though, I myself am not a fan of the guy 😛 . Instead, I voted for the Liberal Democrats (who are actually somewhat more moderate than Labour: the word 'liberal' in a European context is basically "Libertarian lite", i.e. the party is centre-left with some libertarian-ish leanings, but is not out-and-out libertarian). 

The Lib Dems didn't win my seat (I'm in a safe Labour area), but I am glad to see the back of the Conservatives!

Edited July 13 by Kyng

[Shagger]

13 hours ago, Kyng said:

Well, the furthest-right of our main parties is Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage. And the thing about him is, he's very good at walking the line of acceptability. He knows how to appeal to far-right racist types, without actually saying anything overtly racist himself, that would cause him to alienate his non-racist supporters. 

Though, I myself am not a fan of the guy 😛 . Instead, I voted for the Liberal Democrats (who are actually somewhat more moderate than Labour: the word 'liberal' in a European context is basically "Libertarian lite", i.e. the party is centre-left with some libertarian-ish leanings, but is not out-and-out libertarian). 

The Lib Dems didn't win my seat (I'm in a safe Labour area), but I am glad to see the back of the Conservatives!

 

Yeah, Nigel Farage is quite the character.  There is little to nothing I see eye to with him in terms of his party and his politics, but I actually think the guy is good for British politics.  A far right representative who knows how to, as you put it, "walk the line of accountability" can help let the legitimate concerns, and there are legitimate concerns, that area of politics bring forward be heard without resorting to the kind of instigation and extremism that we sadly see in America.  That I think makes him the thorn is the side this new Labour government needs to not sit too comfortable, especially in the wake of this massive victory.  Because when a government gets to comfortable, that's not good.  I don't want a government, regardless of who's in charge, to be comfortable.  I want them under pressure, and whether you like the guy or not, Nigel Farage is going to brilliant at applying that pressure.

Edited July 14 by Shagger

[The Blackangel]

Random question popped into my mind reading your takes on this.

What are your thoughts if a person wanted to emigrate to the UK? In an all around sense, and if they are LGBTQ+?

[Shagger]

38 minutes ago, The Blackangel said:

Random question popped into my mind reading your takes on this.

What are your thoughts if a person wanted to emigrate to the UK? In an all around sense, and if they are LGBTQ+?

 

First and foremost, being on LGBTQ has no bearing on it. 

 

To boil it down to a very basic level, it starts with proving you can take care of yourself.  Find a place to live, genrate an income or have the funds to study to or invest and so on.  If you have grandparents or parents who were/are UK citizens it can make things a little easier.  

 

Eventully, on can apply for what they call Indefinate Leave to Remain (yes, it's a stupid name) that grants one the right to live in the UK on a permibat basis.

 

Anyway, UK Government Website explains this in better detail.

[The Blackangel]

Everyone here knows that I've been talking to Canada about asylum. But I've also been looking further from these shores. Across the pond. That may be just an American term, I don't know. Mainly Ireland and the UK. People here also know that I'm a part of the LGBTQ+ community. And you know how toxic and dangerous it is for me to even check my mail. So I'm curious on the standing towards my brothers and sisters over there. A YouTube search can show you thousands of videos covering just a tiny bit.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, none of the above, all the above, it doesn't matter. We all have a target on our backs. And virtually all of my brothers and sisters are looking for a place safe enough where they can check their mail without a red dot on their forehead.

Edited July 16 by The Blackangel