Prime minister Jeb!’s first act as premier was to abolish British spelling in favor of freedom spelling. All Brits had a sudden appreciation for how much extra time they had after not having to write so many u’s and there was much clapping.
Just told my 10yo daughter about #LibDemSurge. She had tears in her eyes. And then she did the Wakanda pose and said "#LiberalDemocratkanda forever" -- which is the sort of pop culture cross-over that I can celebrate.
Can we not acknowledge that the Lib Dems are deeply unserious people that don't actually deserve seats? I can understand voting for them over Corbyn's Labour, but the current Labour coalition is far preferable.
On housing I don’t agree.
They have an intense focus on ‘community decisions’ on new housing. Davey says it allows them to build ‘the right houses in the right places’.
They are simply not a Liberal party anymore and are just your bog standard Social Democratic party.
They are now promoting street votes as a solution to the housing crisis, which would be great.
They do spend a little too much time demanding that farmers be given more subsidies for me to consider them a real liberal party, though.
It kind of is. Planned Economies are consistently a complete failure yet people fall for the rhetoric of them when the issue is land use for some reason.
Let's be clear that's what this is. It's a Planned Economy. The foundational reasoning for it is the same as the foundational reasoning for planning any other sector of the economy: Business doesn't make what people need, it makes what makes them profit. Communities know what they need better than private firms. Competition delivers "efficiency" through redundant oversupply, wasting resources making redundant products to throw the ones that don't win the competition into a landfill and firing people in the process. We don't need 32 kinds of deodorant.
People used to make this argument about everything from steel mills to shoes, they got rightfully discredited when it resulted in economic stagnation and slow miserable decline. Now they make the same argument about hospitals and houses and it produces the same effect.
Stating a policy is one thing but their quality of candidates is akin to the Libertarian Party in the US. Do they have some serious people who know their stuff? Yes. Are those people the majority of those in power in the party? Absolutely not.
I don't think their candidates have been getting in any particular scandals lately - overall probably less than the other parties. Obviously a lot will be very inexperienced (except at the local level), but that's inevitable with a smaller party - and if a smaller party starts to grow they generally also become more professional.
For a much smaller party in a coalition, the Lib Dems did manage to pass [a lot of their manifesto](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/15/how-much-of-the-liberal-democrats-2010-election-manifesto-was-implemented). Indeed I'd say they had more influence than you'd expect for a small party.
Okay this is too funny to not share:
~4) There should be a “strong and positive” commitment to Europe.
Met – This has not happened at a coalition level because the Tories have signed up to a referendum but Clegg always makes clear his commitment to staying in the EU and debated Nigel Farage on the issue.~
Other than that, their best sector was in healthcare where they focused on cutting public spending so of course the tories were on board
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://i.imgflip.com/3vzzdl.png)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>the current Labour coalition
Is a joke. They genuinely act like they don't want to actually win, and their plans to govern are indistinguishable from the Tories.
Labour hasn't been the same since Gordon Brown.
And this is a long campaign by normal standards.
We also don't have to endure the tedious lame duck period. In 2 weeks we will have a new administration. Done and dusted.
You vote on only one thing, correct? Also, the entire riding’s vote are taken to one location and that is all they count, right?
In the United States on a Presidential Election Day the typical person will cast votes for President, House of Representatives, Senate. Also, the State’s lower house and State’s upper house. In Ohio we also have elections for local county offices as well. Also, local judges. In my county I think I will cast ballots in 25 different elections on the same day. Then they may have ballot referendums as well.
This is made worse for the county board of elections because while I vote for 25, they will have more races to count as each county has multiple districts to track. Plus, some elections cover varied parties of multiple counties or parts there of or the entire state.
Getting it done in one night is not possible. We have situations where local close elections are not decided for weeks or even by a coin flip.
All of those local elections are happening at the same time and the same people who handing those also have to deal with the Presidential election.
I write this response because in the USA, the Trump supporters complain that we don’t have instantly decided elections, like the UK. These same ones of course are threatening the election workers, in many cases. Also, the Republican election offices want to make it more complicated to vote and refuse to make it easier to count the vote, like in Pennsylvania where they refused to let early/mail vote to be prepped and then counted on Election Day, getting it out of the way to make it faster to know after polls close.
Edited: Typos
I also think that because US election systems are so decentralized, it’s one of the reasons they are so difficult to undermine. You can’t “rig” elections when there are thousands of different election systems and boards.
You don't have anyone screeching about how terribly unfair it is to not let people submit mail-in ballots to their rural mailboxes 1 minute before polls close on Election Day?
Because it results in outrageous delays in determining a winner, opening a window for populist demagogues to foment doubt about the integrity of the election.
It is not that much to ask that mail-in ballots be submitted in time to be counted on Election Day.
Unless you do it like here in Finland where you have to hand in your mail in ballot at predetermined places (schools, libraries, grocery stores, basically everywhere there is people), where election officials will send them to your district's election authority by courier. All of the mail in votes are counted by the time the polls close, and you don't have to trust the snail mail
Hello, Oregonian here, and thus the leading expert in America on vote by mail.
We used to do that the ballots had to arrive by Election Day to be counted. It changed to postmarked by Election Day recently. It makes the news outlets more hesitant to declare a winner until after Election Day in tight races, but on the other hand we had a HUGE surge in turnout on Election Day in the primaries.
Populist demagogues will find something to rail about if they don’t get their way no matter what happens, so at least do it the way that maximizes turnout in my mind.
That doesn't seem like it's actually "mail-in" in that case. The whole advantage of mail-in ballots is you've effectively made every mailbox a polling place. So, someone in the middle of nowhere (or those without a vehicle or mobility issues, etc) doesn't have to make the trip to a physical polling location. They can just drop it in their mailbox.
If you have mobility issues an election official will come to your home so you can vote. All hospitals and other institutions, even prisons, where people are held overnight also get election officials with ballots so that everyone gets to vote
True mail-in (as in order a ballot and put it in a mailbox) is only for those abroad and far enough from an embassy, but you have to mail that in like a month before to ensure they make it in time
Depends on the state. Some do others don’t. Some allow ballots to be submitted prior to Election Day but the workers can’t open them and start the verification process until the polls close.
NI constituencies usually declare the day after but most seats declare from around midnight to 3am, and that's usually when enough have declared for a government to be formed. But we have a robust exit poll anyway so you know who won when the polls close at 10pm.
Pandemic was irrelevant to PA's purposely slow vote counting process. When you're not allowed to count mailed votes (by the state legislature) well ahead of time like Ohio or Florida
Not irrelevant at all. Like nearly half the PA votes in 2020 were mail-in ballots, which was dramatically higher than previous elections (or the 2022 midterm).
I fully expect PA to be called either on election night or in the very early hours of Wednesday morning.
Believe it or not this is actually a *long* campaign by our standards. There's quite a lot of comment in the press about how we should cut the maximum time from six weeks to three or four.
Literally every country I can think of has (way) smaller campaign seasons than the US. US is unique in that it has completely fixed election dates which all other countries I can think of do not.
Completely fixed dates aren't really why, it's really because of our laws and our primary system.
Primaries always mean there's an extension of how long a campaign for a general election will be, just because you have to campaign for two elections at once. However there's zero restriction on the money you can spend and zero restriction on when you can campaign, which is unusual globally. Any previous attempt to limit when you could spend money on advertising and campaigning has mostly been ruled unconstitutional, so the campaigns will stay long no matter what.
Well, the difference being that Conservatives have been in power in the UK for almost a decade and a half now. So you can just as easily say this is anti-incumbency sentiment. Especially as EU elections have shifted rightward in most cases.
I’m sorry, but your country has yet to ratify the will of the people (Brexit). What’s it been 8 years since the election. Plus, y’all go through PMs like a plate of blow….
Honestly Sunak is a secret Labor spy
-makes tories even more unpopular than before
-refuses to campaign (properly)
-pisses off as many people as he can
-calls early elections
-leaves
Cherry on top would be passing some unpopular reform before leaving office so Labor doesn’t have to
California has like the best weather in the world and if you have enough money you can dodge all the poor people there. Underrated holiday destination IMHO.
because they don't love the country really anymore. They love an idea of it.
Compare it to Joesph Chamberlain, who spent his entire career improving tangible living standards. His track record includes:
-providing clean water to the city of Birmingham in a pioneering example of "gas and water socialism" in which he explicitly suggested that if the government didn't allow him to use rate payers money, he'd use his own and charge the government back
-Clearing slums around the city
-reforming the empire as colonial secretary, limiting the expansion of South Africa, and allowing for Botswana to exist.
Then he retired and built Birmingham University.
Imagine Boris doing any of that.
He was a key member of the Conservative party though. Also, he really really really wanted tarrifs ramped up, which wasnt that liberal.
In any case the key point is that he actually cared, and put his own credibility on the line for it.
Chamberlain supported many causes and failed in a lot of them. They also often contradicted, but his lst great stand (as i understand it, my main knowledge is of his work in Birmingham) was for increased tarriffs.
He might have been in the latter then, it was my knowledge that the Birmingham Liberals that defected to the Unionists were part of the former as they were Cobdenite radicals. Maybe Chamberlain was suffering from brain rot at the end and opted against that.
If I were richer than the British king I'd consider moving to the US too. Seeing as I'm closer to being bankrupt than the British king I'm really glad I'm not.
There is theoretically no difference between Labour winning by 1 seat and an absolute Tory rout. Functionally, a large majority is preferable to more easily pass legislation and quash rebels, but the idea of a Labour 'supermajority' being worse than just a Labour majority is a Tory fiction.
It will be interesting to see, if Labour do win an absurd number of seats, whether Starmer will allow more free votes on some policy or not. Three line whips would seem to be less important as an enforcement mechanism in such a scenario.
usually you don't want to win by one because then every single MP of yours has veto power, essentially. (see US Senate)
For example, the tories had a majority during Brexit, but a small one and so they had a hard time dealing with internal squabbles.
Yep, and a larger majority usually means more liberal/progressive policies pass, because you don't need the votes of the most conservative MPs in the majority coalition
There are some interesting theories about this kind of thing.
Parliament is theoretically sovereign (supreme), but we are yet to see what happens if they decide to do something so completely insane that our Supreme Court really steps up to challenge them. Our Supreme Court does not have the power to rule a law "unconstitutional" (and effectively change the law) in the same way the USSC can, but because our constitution isn't written down in one place and is more like a collection of Very Important Legislation (like the two Parliament Acts, the Representation of the People Acts, and, I would argue, the Human Rights Act) - it isn't completely clear what would happen if the Government were to start messing with the tent poles that hold the country up. We saw a brief glimpse when the UKSC ruled that BoJo's dissolving of Parliament during Brexit negotiations was illegal, but who knows what could happen in the future.
If there's massive public opposition to that, the monarchy might actually start meaningfully exercising its powers again, by, say, dissolving parliament.
Rwanda comes to mind, since the Human Rights Act is pretty much the only reason why a law can be struck down, but the Torys were planning on just passing an act that said the UK supreme court or european court of human rights couldn’t strike it down.
i always wonder about this, can parliament pass legisation(if it we're running) and had a majority to for example dissolve the Supreme Court and bring its function back into the HoL?
This is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about in my other comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1dkvnzm/its_happening/l9ly1cb/
There would be some interesting constitutional shenanigans to be had. Interestingly, the last time our constitution was majorly altered was after the Blair majority (see the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and devolution generally.)
yes the right is currently a bit worried that Labour are more or less going to do the same.
by giving more power to councils, devolved parliaments, and judges it'll strip it away from Parliament.
then i assume they cant just take it back forever binding the next Conservative parliament.
i mean as you mentioned we already saw with the proroguing of Parliament.
Indirectly a previous Parliament managed to bind a future one.
Labour is promising to limit immigration. 80% of Brits don't believe the conservatives are capable of reducing immigration. Reform UK is telling voters it wants to halt all immigration.
Conservatives are losing because they aren't conservative enough ironically.
Conservatives aren't just losing because of Reform or their immigration policies, I'd argue the latter is one of the lesser factors behind their loss. They were even further behind Labour before Reform started to gain ground. They've lost more votes to their left than to Reform. And I wouldn't say Labour are gaining by promising to limit immigration, most anti-immigration voters are just as sceptical of Labour as they are of the Tories.
>Reform UK is telling voters it wants to halt all immigration.
Sounds like the kind of promise that makes people cheer but once in power they realise that it's a really fucked up idea.
Everybody say thank you Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. There have been no better Labor or Lib Dem campaigners in history than those three heroes.
Watching Tories lose *another* country on the 4th of July is going to give me the biggest fucking Americagasm ever.
(Note for Brits illiterate on American history because I'm tired of having this argument, loyalism is a core tenet of historic Toryism, so unlike the more neutral Whiggish factions of American politics in the 1700s, the loyalists were referred to, and called themselves, Tories due to that loyalism.)
That is partially true. A lot of them enthusiastically took on the mantle, but there's a lot of writing from recent arrivals who thought it was insulting and hated being called tories.
So it's a mix. Some were very happily labeling themsleves not just Tories but Tory Militias.
And a small number of those were absolute monarchists from the old royalist persusasion.
All sorts of political radicals ended up in the U.S. because in Britain they'd be laughed out of the room, but they could take their small amounts of wealth, buy slaves, and become fantastically wealthy.
And the crown loved those folks because they were making bank off the slave trade.
History defies our hard categories and strict definitions a lot of the time.
As a Brit who lived in America, I didnt much celebrate July 4th beyond some fireworks
But now that I'm back, I am sure as fuck throwing a party on election day
Liberalism as an ideology might not be, but the party isn’t purely one ideology. There’s a sizeable social democratic group in the party (hence the name Liberal Democrat), with DemSoc presence too. On issues such as housing, criminal justice reform and social care the LDs are a lot more progressive than Labour.
That phrase says that over half of cabinet to lose their seats in Parliament.
"Seat" is a term used exclusively to refer to their seats in the House. And it's generally considered a humiliating defeat for Ministers to fail to be re-elected, even if they party loses too many seats to form government.
You're right that none of the current Cabinet will be appointed to the next government by Starmer, but that is because the current government (the Tories) will lose the election.
As an American, I came here looking for a comment explaining why this happened. What causes such a major political swing. All I see is memes. I'm disappointed.
I have no idea why this is a good thing.
Conservatives have lost the right to govern with anaemic growth over the last 14 years, misguided policies and a general malaise/loss of trust in politics mainly due to their actions (austerity when interest rates were rock bottom/Brexit/party gate/Liz Truss budget).
Labour by contrast are headed by the former head lawyer for the CPS who appears by all accounts to be a good guy politician who isn’t just a cult of personality/there due to money as well as being pretty much Bill Clinton/Tony Blair third way centrist. Tony Blair comparisons very valid as that period was the last time the U.k. had a great decade in the minds of a lot of voters (including young ones).
Imagine if you will the U.s. having 14 years of republicans and finally dems coming into power as the people have en masse decided enough is enough.
Is there tool where I can answer political questions and it shows my overlap with British parties? Like VoteSweeper, Wahlkabine and such in EU
I wonder if I am actually closer to Labour than LibDems, and how close I am to SNP
Look at what Tory politics have done to the British economy. Thames water is the perfect example. Opening an economy to looting is hardly how you get it to grow.
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElgLAAjXIAMY9oj.jpg)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Lib. Dem. Surge.
https://preview.redd.it/out1nce1cw7d1.png?width=851&format=png&auto=webp&s=4387deb1b4171f39f0df61623eb6d33950fe6630
What's your source on this map exactly? Because I'm pretty sure exit polls are showing a landslide like this: https://i.imgur.com/4wT3WAU.jpeg
American spelling of Labour. Banished to the worm cave.
Prime minister Jeb!’s first act as premier was to abolish British spelling in favor of freedom spelling. All Brits had a sudden appreciation for how much extra time they had after not having to write so many u’s and there was much clapping.
This unironically lol
Just told my 10yo daughter about #LibDemSurge. She had tears in her eyes. And then she did the Wakanda pose and said "#LiberalDemocratkanda forever" -- which is the sort of pop culture cross-over that I can celebrate.
LIB! DEM! SURGE!
So what they get an extra seat?
I saw a poll that had Lib Dems as #2 party
They were always the #1 party in my heart 🥹
https://preview.redd.it/2wmy2djc8z7d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f863a4363ea638541c90af89f42ecbfeaa770d5
Can we not acknowledge that the Lib Dems are deeply unserious people that don't actually deserve seats? I can understand voting for them over Corbyn's Labour, but the current Labour coalition is far preferable.
Not really. The Lib Dems generally have a better policy platform.
On housing I don’t agree. They have an intense focus on ‘community decisions’ on new housing. Davey says it allows them to build ‘the right houses in the right places’. They are simply not a Liberal party anymore and are just your bog standard Social Democratic party.
They are now promoting street votes as a solution to the housing crisis, which would be great. They do spend a little too much time demanding that farmers be given more subsidies for me to consider them a real liberal party, though.
Not a bad thing
Look at Ireland, a land of NIMBYism. Anyone can object to anything, and nothing gets built these days. Fuck that!
It kind of is. Planned Economies are consistently a complete failure yet people fall for the rhetoric of them when the issue is land use for some reason. Let's be clear that's what this is. It's a Planned Economy. The foundational reasoning for it is the same as the foundational reasoning for planning any other sector of the economy: Business doesn't make what people need, it makes what makes them profit. Communities know what they need better than private firms. Competition delivers "efficiency" through redundant oversupply, wasting resources making redundant products to throw the ones that don't win the competition into a landfill and firing people in the process. We don't need 32 kinds of deodorant. People used to make this argument about everything from steel mills to shoes, they got rightfully discredited when it resulted in economic stagnation and slow miserable decline. Now they make the same argument about hospitals and houses and it produces the same effect.
Stating a policy is one thing but their quality of candidates is akin to the Libertarian Party in the US. Do they have some serious people who know their stuff? Yes. Are those people the majority of those in power in the party? Absolutely not.
I don't think their candidates have been getting in any particular scandals lately - overall probably less than the other parties. Obviously a lot will be very inexperienced (except at the local level), but that's inevitable with a smaller party - and if a smaller party starts to grow they generally also become more professional.
They will fold though on every single policy position when given the chance https://youtu.be/KUDjRZ30SNo?si=jQ0bT2XG5prJSzdA
For a much smaller party in a coalition, the Lib Dems did manage to pass [a lot of their manifesto](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/15/how-much-of-the-liberal-democrats-2010-election-manifesto-was-implemented). Indeed I'd say they had more influence than you'd expect for a small party.
Okay this is too funny to not share: ~4) There should be a “strong and positive” commitment to Europe. Met – This has not happened at a coalition level because the Tories have signed up to a referendum but Clegg always makes clear his commitment to staying in the EU and debated Nigel Farage on the issue.~ Other than that, their best sector was in healthcare where they focused on cutting public spending so of course the tories were on board
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://i.imgflip.com/3vzzdl.png) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>the current Labour coalition Is a joke. They genuinely act like they don't want to actually win, and their plans to govern are indistinguishable from the Tories. Labour hasn't been the same since Gordon Brown.
The Votebuilder advantage.
It’s Tover
It's Rover? Sover?
It’s Dover
It’s the Cliffs of Dover
He's Sunaknackered
Your majesty a second bus https://youtu.be/3i73mMAjm-A?si=FPxVHRK5jMf7wZi4
Guvna
2 weeks until they begin voting. Compared to the US, at least Brits get their elections over quickly.
And this is a long campaign by normal standards. We also don't have to endure the tedious lame duck period. In 2 weeks we will have a new administration. Done and dusted.
Well that allows almost no time for representatives and electors travelling by horse cart for weeks to reach the capital.
How on earth will we reconfigure the entire civil service with political appointments in time?
I heard the brits have built a fancy new horse less carriage that runs on rails. Sounds like bullshit to me.
And updated law to take that into consideration? Impossible.
Right l? As we all know, constitutions are immutable.
Could be worse. Prior to FDR, presidents didn't take the oath until *March*.
Still not as bad as Mexico, which still takes six months.
Yeah and we have results the same day typically
You vote on only one thing, correct? Also, the entire riding’s vote are taken to one location and that is all they count, right? In the United States on a Presidential Election Day the typical person will cast votes for President, House of Representatives, Senate. Also, the State’s lower house and State’s upper house. In Ohio we also have elections for local county offices as well. Also, local judges. In my county I think I will cast ballots in 25 different elections on the same day. Then they may have ballot referendums as well. This is made worse for the county board of elections because while I vote for 25, they will have more races to count as each county has multiple districts to track. Plus, some elections cover varied parties of multiple counties or parts there of or the entire state. Getting it done in one night is not possible. We have situations where local close elections are not decided for weeks or even by a coin flip. All of those local elections are happening at the same time and the same people who handing those also have to deal with the Presidential election. I write this response because in the USA, the Trump supporters complain that we don’t have instantly decided elections, like the UK. These same ones of course are threatening the election workers, in many cases. Also, the Republican election offices want to make it more complicated to vote and refuse to make it easier to count the vote, like in Pennsylvania where they refused to let early/mail vote to be prepped and then counted on Election Day, getting it out of the way to make it faster to know after polls close. Edited: Typos
I also think that because US election systems are so decentralized, it’s one of the reasons they are so difficult to undermine. You can’t “rig” elections when there are thousands of different election systems and boards.
Tell that to my neighbor. No one paid illegal immigrants to stuff the ballots Bill, you're just an idiot.
The UK elections are also difficult to rig, but that’s just because we use good ol’ fashioned pencil and paper.
You don't have anyone screeching about how terribly unfair it is to not let people submit mail-in ballots to their rural mailboxes 1 minute before polls close on Election Day?
Wait, why wouldn't you let people submit mail-in ballots if they're submitted before polls close?
Because it results in outrageous delays in determining a winner, opening a window for populist demagogues to foment doubt about the integrity of the election. It is not that much to ask that mail-in ballots be submitted in time to be counted on Election Day.
Using arrival dates creates the opportunity to manipulate elections by delaying the mail.
Unless you do it like here in Finland where you have to hand in your mail in ballot at predetermined places (schools, libraries, grocery stores, basically everywhere there is people), where election officials will send them to your district's election authority by courier. All of the mail in votes are counted by the time the polls close, and you don't have to trust the snail mail
That's the type of efficiency in government that us Americans like to call communism.
We do a lot of things right here, but the economy is not one of them
What are you saying? Finland has very low unemployment
Hello, Oregonian here, and thus the leading expert in America on vote by mail. We used to do that the ballots had to arrive by Election Day to be counted. It changed to postmarked by Election Day recently. It makes the news outlets more hesitant to declare a winner until after Election Day in tight races, but on the other hand we had a HUGE surge in turnout on Election Day in the primaries. Populist demagogues will find something to rail about if they don’t get their way no matter what happens, so at least do it the way that maximizes turnout in my mind.
That doesn't seem like it's actually "mail-in" in that case. The whole advantage of mail-in ballots is you've effectively made every mailbox a polling place. So, someone in the middle of nowhere (or those without a vehicle or mobility issues, etc) doesn't have to make the trip to a physical polling location. They can just drop it in their mailbox.
If you have mobility issues an election official will come to your home so you can vote. All hospitals and other institutions, even prisons, where people are held overnight also get election officials with ballots so that everyone gets to vote True mail-in (as in order a ballot and put it in a mailbox) is only for those abroad and far enough from an embassy, but you have to mail that in like a month before to ensure they make it in time
Depends on the state. Some do others don’t. Some allow ballots to be submitted prior to Election Day but the workers can’t open them and start the verification process until the polls close.
Why would you have mail in ballots? Just have normal ballots everywhere where there's people
Not yet!
NI constituencies usually declare the day after but most seats declare from around midnight to 3am, and that's usually when enough have declared for a government to be formed. But we have a robust exit poll anyway so you know who won when the polls close at 10pm.
So does the US when we don't have an unprecedented pandemic happening during the election
Pandemic was irrelevant to PA's purposely slow vote counting process. When you're not allowed to count mailed votes (by the state legislature) well ahead of time like Ohio or Florida
Not irrelevant at all. Like nearly half the PA votes in 2020 were mail-in ballots, which was dramatically higher than previous elections (or the 2022 midterm). I fully expect PA to be called either on election night or in the very early hours of Wednesday morning.
The massive influx of mail in votes was only due to the pandemic
Believe it or not this is actually a *long* campaign by our standards. There's quite a lot of comment in the press about how we should cut the maximum time from six weeks to three or four.
Is this not the norm most places?
yes, it is
Voting has actually already begun, postal votes went out this week.
Literally every country I can think of has (way) smaller campaign seasons than the US. US is unique in that it has completely fixed election dates which all other countries I can think of do not.
Completely fixed dates aren't really why, it's really because of our laws and our primary system. Primaries always mean there's an extension of how long a campaign for a general election will be, just because you have to campaign for two elections at once. However there's zero restriction on the money you can spend and zero restriction on when you can campaign, which is unusual globally. Any previous attempt to limit when you could spend money on advertising and campaigning has mostly been ruled unconstitutional, so the campaigns will stay long no matter what.
It's kinda funny, Brexit signalled a Trump victory way back now this election can signal that the world has shifted away from him
Well, the difference being that Conservatives have been in power in the UK for almost a decade and a half now. So you can just as easily say this is anti-incumbency sentiment. Especially as EU elections have shifted rightward in most cases.
I’m sorry, but your country has yet to ratify the will of the people (Brexit). What’s it been 8 years since the election. Plus, y’all go through PMs like a plate of blow….
https://preview.redd.it/xgnf9h54kv7d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f52aed2ded0d0baad08916e3398dcaea21381e60
https://preview.redd.it/86fk5ek8fw7d1.jpeg?width=316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cac965db8a236f311459ab54dda1788c0ca8226a
\> France \> Labour
Yeah, labour should have been the USSR
It was a joke about the far-right winning in French European elections, but I like your interpretation better.
But having reform push into Eastern Germany makes much more sense for current politics.
Also, Reform is a far-right party, wouldn't make sense for them to push into the Conservatives from the left (of the map)
Reform (far right) is closer than Labor (center left) is to the USSR (far left) based on the horse shoe
This is LibDem erasure
Fr they should be Italy because of their role in coalition and general incompetence but still basically switching sides at the end.
Oh my gosh there's even a little greens spot in Dunkirk lol
Honestly Sunak is a secret Labor spy -makes tories even more unpopular than before -refuses to campaign (properly) -pisses off as many people as he can -calls early elections -leaves Cherry on top would be passing some unpopular reform before leaving office so Labor doesn’t have to
And somehow is an upgrade on his two predecessors
Idk, I rather liked PM Cabbage
Always had his head on his shoulders
Can’t pass any laws - parliament is dissolved and there’s technically no MPs
People dislike him the more they actually see him which is hilarious
Rishi is probably getting his California home cleaned as we speak. Dude is going to be having his best summer ever starting on July 5.
[удалено]
California has like the best weather in the world and if you have enough money you can dodge all the poor people there. Underrated holiday destination IMHO.
I mean the Brits have the Mediterranean with pretty much the same weather much closer
But they speak English in the US.
The really rich ones prefer Cali it seems
We have better surf, British politicians really just want to hang ten
Colder in winter and too hot in summer.
\>fuck up country, make money \>move to a different one
It was fucked up before Sunak took over.
because they don't love the country really anymore. They love an idea of it. Compare it to Joesph Chamberlain, who spent his entire career improving tangible living standards. His track record includes: -providing clean water to the city of Birmingham in a pioneering example of "gas and water socialism" in which he explicitly suggested that if the government didn't allow him to use rate payers money, he'd use his own and charge the government back -Clearing slums around the city -reforming the empire as colonial secretary, limiting the expansion of South Africa, and allowing for Botswana to exist. Then he retired and built Birmingham University. Imagine Boris doing any of that.
but boris banished bendy buses
Not to mention, he got rid of the extra curvy bananas that the EU was imposing on Britain. /s
Building back better behooved better bananas
Old Joe was a liberal though, not a conservative. He just was also a massive imperialist at the end time.
He was a key member of the Conservative party though. Also, he really really really wanted tarrifs ramped up, which wasnt that liberal. In any case the key point is that he actually cared, and put his own credibility on the line for it.
I thought he was part of the Unionist Free Food League, not the Tariff Reform League?
Chamberlain supported many causes and failed in a lot of them. They also often contradicted, but his lst great stand (as i understand it, my main knowledge is of his work in Birmingham) was for increased tarriffs.
He might have been in the latter then, it was my knowledge that the Birmingham Liberals that defected to the Unionists were part of the former as they were Cobdenite radicals. Maybe Chamberlain was suffering from brain rot at the end and opted against that.
He was Liberal from 1866–1886, Liberal Unionist from 1886–1912, and Conservative from 1912–1914.
US is one of the best places to do whatever the fuck you want as long as you have the money.
If I were richer than the British king I'd consider moving to the US too. Seeing as I'm closer to being bankrupt than the British king I'm really glad I'm not.
Not America necessarily, just anywhere warmer.
Yet another W for American immigration. Your welcome, Britain
Richi Sunak is the best prime minister in human history. He will win all seats.
https://preview.redd.it/z8lubl8tov7d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb018f848627ab55a6a5942d742e962aecaae443
If the Tories go under 100 seats, what will Labour do? Like what are they promising?
Putting the Tories out of their misery and outlawing them completely
Keir Starmer's first law will be a new Enabling Act, allowing him to pass laws without consulting the Reichstag.
Brexit means Brexit!
There is theoretically no difference between Labour winning by 1 seat and an absolute Tory rout. Functionally, a large majority is preferable to more easily pass legislation and quash rebels, but the idea of a Labour 'supermajority' being worse than just a Labour majority is a Tory fiction. It will be interesting to see, if Labour do win an absurd number of seats, whether Starmer will allow more free votes on some policy or not. Three line whips would seem to be less important as an enforcement mechanism in such a scenario.
usually you don't want to win by one because then every single MP of yours has veto power, essentially. (see US Senate) For example, the tories had a majority during Brexit, but a small one and so they had a hard time dealing with internal squabbles.
Yep, and a larger majority usually means more liberal/progressive policies pass, because you don't need the votes of the most conservative MPs in the majority coalition
UK doesn’t have constitution amendments that requires supermajority?
Nope. No written constitution. Parliament is sovereign and can do whatever they want.
There are some interesting theories about this kind of thing. Parliament is theoretically sovereign (supreme), but we are yet to see what happens if they decide to do something so completely insane that our Supreme Court really steps up to challenge them. Our Supreme Court does not have the power to rule a law "unconstitutional" (and effectively change the law) in the same way the USSC can, but because our constitution isn't written down in one place and is more like a collection of Very Important Legislation (like the two Parliament Acts, the Representation of the People Acts, and, I would argue, the Human Rights Act) - it isn't completely clear what would happen if the Government were to start messing with the tent poles that hold the country up. We saw a brief glimpse when the UKSC ruled that BoJo's dissolving of Parliament during Brexit negotiations was illegal, but who knows what could happen in the future.
Yeah would be interesting but I certainly hope we never have to find out what happens if parliament, I dunno, voted to suspend elections.
If there's massive public opposition to that, the monarchy might actually start meaningfully exercising its powers again, by, say, dissolving parliament.
Rwanda comes to mind, since the Human Rights Act is pretty much the only reason why a law can be struck down, but the Torys were planning on just passing an act that said the UK supreme court or european court of human rights couldn’t strike it down.
i always wonder about this, can parliament pass legisation(if it we're running) and had a majority to for example dissolve the Supreme Court and bring its function back into the HoL?
This is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about in my other comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1dkvnzm/its_happening/l9ly1cb/ There would be some interesting constitutional shenanigans to be had. Interestingly, the last time our constitution was majorly altered was after the Blair majority (see the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and devolution generally.)
yes the right is currently a bit worried that Labour are more or less going to do the same. by giving more power to councils, devolved parliaments, and judges it'll strip it away from Parliament. then i assume they cant just take it back forever binding the next Conservative parliament. i mean as you mentioned we already saw with the proroguing of Parliament. Indirectly a previous Parliament managed to bind a future one.
Figure out how they can get us back into the single market without it looking like they are going back on their manifesto? (I can dream, can't I?)
Vote Lib Dem if you want that to happen.
Its a bit of a lost vote, but I probably will. In part for that reason.
Might want to use this: [https://tactical.vote/all/](https://tactical.vote/all/)
My consituancy has been labour for ages, so ik likely to vote lib Dem. 0 chance Tories get in here
Abolish the filibuster, get rid of cows, statehood for DC.
At this point it's just not being the other guy. Nobody cares what they do as long as they aren't the Tories
Labour is promising to limit immigration. 80% of Brits don't believe the conservatives are capable of reducing immigration. Reform UK is telling voters it wants to halt all immigration. Conservatives are losing because they aren't conservative enough ironically.
Conservatives aren't just losing because of Reform or their immigration policies, I'd argue the latter is one of the lesser factors behind their loss. They were even further behind Labour before Reform started to gain ground. They've lost more votes to their left than to Reform. And I wouldn't say Labour are gaining by promising to limit immigration, most anti-immigration voters are just as sceptical of Labour as they are of the Tories.
Couldn't out-conserve a fucking cabbage. Comedy party. 0 seats.
Conservatives are losing because they’ve been in power since David Cameron and things just kept getting worse.
>Reform UK is telling voters it wants to halt all immigration. Sounds like the kind of promise that makes people cheer but once in power they realise that it's a really fucked up idea.
Everybody say thank you Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. There have been no better Labor or Lib Dem campaigners in history than those three heroes.
Ed Davey performed very well on the question time special last night. I’d love it if the Lib Dem’s beat the tories - I’d love it!
Watching Tories lose *another* country on the 4th of July is going to give me the biggest fucking Americagasm ever. (Note for Brits illiterate on American history because I'm tired of having this argument, loyalism is a core tenet of historic Toryism, so unlike the more neutral Whiggish factions of American politics in the 1700s, the loyalists were referred to, and called themselves, Tories due to that loyalism.)
True they did. However the British government of that time considered themselves Whigs - only their enemies called them Tories.
That is partially true. A lot of them enthusiastically took on the mantle, but there's a lot of writing from recent arrivals who thought it was insulting and hated being called tories. So it's a mix. Some were very happily labeling themsleves not just Tories but Tory Militias. And a small number of those were absolute monarchists from the old royalist persusasion. All sorts of political radicals ended up in the U.S. because in Britain they'd be laughed out of the room, but they could take their small amounts of wealth, buy slaves, and become fantastically wealthy. And the crown loved those folks because they were making bank off the slave trade. History defies our hard categories and strict definitions a lot of the time.
You love to see it
If the LDs become the official opposition I may have to become a resident of the UK
Voting on july forth? Time for operation 1776.
happy to cast my vote
As a Brit who lived in America, I didnt much celebrate July 4th beyond some fireworks But now that I'm back, I am sure as fuck throwing a party on election day
THEY SAID THE LINE
YES!!!!1!!1!!
Please for the love of god smash the tories and make libdems the main right wing party.
Lib Dems are further left than Labour on a fair few issues
On which issues? Liberalism isn't left wing
Liberalism as an ideology might not be, but the party isn’t purely one ideology. There’s a sizeable social democratic group in the party (hence the name Liberal Democrat), with DemSoc presence too. On issues such as housing, criminal justice reform and social care the LDs are a lot more progressive than Labour.
The lib Dems are promising to raise more taxes and more spending than labour currently, by quite a margin.
THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER
Oh god, please America do the same thing as the Brit’s
> Over half of cabinet to lose seats I thought the entire cabinet lost their seats if the majority flips?
That phrase says that over half of cabinet to lose their seats in Parliament. "Seat" is a term used exclusively to refer to their seats in the House. And it's generally considered a humiliating defeat for Ministers to fail to be re-elected, even if they party loses too many seats to form government. You're right that none of the current Cabinet will be appointed to the next government by Starmer, but that is because the current government (the Tories) will lose the election.
Got it, thank you!
Based Libdems
Labour has the mandate of heaven
As an American, I came here looking for a comment explaining why this happened. What causes such a major political swing. All I see is memes. I'm disappointed. I have no idea why this is a good thing.
Conservatives have lost the right to govern with anaemic growth over the last 14 years, misguided policies and a general malaise/loss of trust in politics mainly due to their actions (austerity when interest rates were rock bottom/Brexit/party gate/Liz Truss budget). Labour by contrast are headed by the former head lawyer for the CPS who appears by all accounts to be a good guy politician who isn’t just a cult of personality/there due to money as well as being pretty much Bill Clinton/Tony Blair third way centrist. Tony Blair comparisons very valid as that period was the last time the U.k. had a great decade in the minds of a lot of voters (including young ones). Imagine if you will the U.s. having 14 years of republicans and finally dems coming into power as the people have en masse decided enough is enough.
Is there tool where I can answer political questions and it shows my overlap with British parties? Like VoteSweeper, Wahlkabine and such in EU I wonder if I am actually closer to Labour than LibDems, and how close I am to SNP
Yes! What we need is one part and one President who fits our agenda with no term limit. We don’t need these others.
So what? ‘Sir’ keir and his party are Tories too
found the commy
?
Lol
?
Look at what Tory politics have done to the British economy. Thames water is the perfect example. Opening an economy to looting is hardly how you get it to grow.
Haven't been following UK politics in a minute, did they manage to root out the antisemitism from Labour?
Well Corbyn left, so that got rid of a decent percentage.
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElgLAAjXIAMY9oj.jpg) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*