General Election 2015 - chat, predictions, results and post election discussion

[tbtommyb]

What makes you think that? Surely the most recent example of a referendum demonstrates the precise opposite...

the result of the eu referendum will probably be fairly close and won't resolve anything.

 

[J Ed]

the result of the eu referendum will probably be fairly close and won't resolve anything.

I just don't see it. All the main parties are firmly against leaving, so is most of the media and all of big business... we'll see the sort of media hysteria which has worked so well against Labour in this election deployed against Eurosceptics... then again there could be fantastic leverage to be made by Eurosceptics in England of an anti-EU vote being a revolt against a political class which will have heaped indignity after indignity on the majority of people.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

. we'll see the sort of media hysteria which has worked so well against Labour in this election deployed against Eurosceptics...

Alas, no. Murdoch is staunchly Europhobic. Not sure how the Barclays or Lebedev would jump.

 

[tbtommyb]

I just don't see it. All the main parties are firmly against leaving, so is most of the media and all of big business... we'll see the sort of media hysteria which has worked so well against Labour in this election deployed against Eurosceptics... then again there could be fantastic leverage to be made by Eurosceptics in England of an anti-EU vote being a revolt against a political class which will have heaped indignity after indignity on the majority of people.

hmm possibly, but a big and influential chunk of the media is against the EU and I can see lots of small businesses opposing it. I assume a sizeable number of Tories will campaign for a 'no'. I agree that it will end up 'the little people' against big business etc. throw in scotland and it'll be a clusterfuck.

 

[butchersapron]

hmm possibly, but a big and influential chunk of the media is against the EU and I can see lots of small businesses opposing it. I assume a sizeable number of Tories will campaign for a 'no'. I agree that it will end up 'the little people' against big business etc. throw in scotland and it'll be a clusterfuck.

Possibly? Where is the doubt? Capital is pro eu.

 

[J Ed]

hmm possibly, but a big and influential chunk of the media is against the EU and I can see lots of small businesses opposing it. I assume a sizeable number of Tories will campaign for a 'no'. I agree that it will end up 'the little people' against big business etc. throw in scotland and it'll be a clusterfuck.

Not inconcievable to see the Sun come out with a 'We know the EU is dodgy but vote to stay in for the good of Britain to stop a financial crisis' stuff

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Not inconcievable to see the Sun come out with a 'We know the EU is dodgy but vote to stay in for the good of Britain to stop a financial crisis' stuff

No chance. Inconceivable is exactly what it is.

 

[Threshers_Flail]

Not inconcievable to see the Sun come out with a 'We know the EU is dodgy but vote to stay in for the good of Britain to stop a financial crisis' stuff

Not at all. The anti-EU media may like to have a moan but at the end of the day they know where their bread is buttered. Any referendum will be very one-sided.

It will be interesting to see whether the other parties join the Tory leadership on the 'lets stay in' platform after what happened in the Scots referendum. They'd probably be best advised to leave well alone.

 

[Up the junction]

I can see the leadership agreeing to 'stay in but with conditions' - like repealing the Human Right Act, etc.

 

[butchersapron]

I can see the leadership agreeing to 'stay in but with conditions' - like repealing the Human Right Act, etc.

Wtf do you think re-negotiation means?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not at all. The anti-EU media may like to have a moan but at the end of the day they know where their bread is buttered. Any referendum will be very one-sided.

It will be interesting to see whether the other parties join the Tory leadership on the 'lets stay in' platform after what happened in the Scots referendum. They'd probably be best advised to leave well alone.

If it is a straight in/out ref as promised, all the other parties will be fully engaged.

 

[butchersapron]

Oh no, now i've got no human RIGHTS!!!!

 

[happie chappie]

He's got 331: 326 is a majority. Major's lead was reckoned to be uncomfortably thin back in the early 90s, and that was 21...

I don't think the comparison with John Major in 1993 is a good one for a number of reasons.

For starters, three of the Euro sceptics that caused him so much trouble (the “bastards”) were actually in the Cabinet at the time. There was talk that all three would resign on the eve of a key vote, which would have plunged the Government into turmoil. Cameron won’t be so stupid as to appoint any hard-line sceptics in his Cabinet.

Second, their rebellion was about giving more powers to the EU via the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty. The referendum will be about the repatriation of powers.

Third, Cameron has a huge amount of goodwill within the party and a lot of patronage, especially now that he no longer has to give any Cabinet seats to the Lib Dems.

Finally, Cameron and Osborne will have learnt form the mistakes in the past and will do all they can to avoid them.

I guess they will already be looking at the current make-up of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and working out who stands where.

Which MPs are Europhobes who will want the UK the leave irrespective of the shape of any deal? Who are the Euro sceptics who are generally anti EU but could be brought round by reason of argument/patronage/threats? Who are the MPs whose broad view is that the UK is better off in the EU than out? How do the numbers stack up.

One of the arch sceptics, Mark Pritchard, told the BBC today:

“There would be no pressure for the prime minister to rush into discussions about an in-out referendum on the UK's future in Europe, which he has pledged to hold in 2017.

"The party will be 100% behind the PM as he goes off to Brussels to fight for Britain, and indeed fight for an improved European Union," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32670311

May be a load of bollocks, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[Up the junction]

Wtf do you think re-negotiation means?

Keeping out the smelly people.

I hesitate to ask this: what do you think it means?

 

[butchersapron]

Keeping out the smelly people.

I hesitate to ask this: what do you think it means?

Tell me what's on the referendum question choppers.

 

[Up the junction]

Exactly.

'Jesus'

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ref will follow scottish ref form.

Something like: The UK should leave the EU. Yes/No

 

[butchersapron]

Exactly.

'Jesus'

You think they're going to tag something else on

 

[butchersapron]

You think they're going to tag something else on

They've said it will be out or support the tory led re-negotiations. That's what the in vote will be.

 

[teqniq]

How Big Money and Big Brother won the British Elections

Piece by Nafeez Ahmed, opinions?

 

[treelover]

Strong stuff, but some very tenuous connections, he is on safer ground with the leaked email claiming that Sturgeon preferred a Tory Govt, dirty tricks there by the secret state, imo..

 

[Libertad]

If true, I find no reason to doubt it, then this is chilling though not unexpected.

 

[DotCommunist]

If true, I find no reason to doubt it, then this is chilling though not unexpected.

the financial stuff is not news really but the spook stuff is interesting if true. This leapt out at me as an aside

 had indeed been former MI6 officers, who had worked together at one time in Latin America.

murderous coupists in other words

 

[butchersapron]

Don't do this. Please.

 

[frogwoman]

Was talking to my mates boyfriend last night, a labourer on a building site. Of those of his workmates who voted (he didnt) many voted tory because they reckon there's been more easier to find work since the tories have been in. He said nobody he worked with voted labour.

 

[Casually Red]

That's interesting.

England as a whole does seem to me to be pretty right wing on a low level basis. The fundamental narrative is one of putting "the economy" (whatever the hell that is) first and foremost. So often, there seems to be a terror of the idea of the nation's finances being anything other than as robust as possible. There is an army of small business owners (Napoleon's "nation of shopkeepers") that kick against regulation or tax, even when its result would actually be to their personal benefit in the long run.

Yes yes, 33% don't vote. But I don't see any evidence that any great proportion of that 33% actually think any differently, on the whole. Some of them are disgusted by the system, but there's no reason to think that this proportion is any bigger than the proportion that vote for the proper left wing.

And yes, nearly half of those who do vote don't vote for Tory, UKIP or Lib Dem. But half do. And of the half that don't, a lot still buy into the same neoliberal perspective even though they vote Labour. That's why we can have a Labour to Tory swing. If you weren't right wing in nature, you'd never consider doing that.

That generic right wing narrative has been particularly allowed to foster from the 80s onwards by a well organised neoliberal assault on the collective conscience. Alternatives have been fragmented and incoherently presented by a media with vested interests in maintaining the neoliberal perspective.

There are islands of opinion that are not focused first and foremost on the economy but that sea of blue that makes up England must have some kind of root cause.

Only 35% of voters have got the government they wanted. But I'd say that a lot more than half have got the fundamental political philosophy that they wanted. And I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to address this, except very, very slowly.

V good post, particularly towards the end .

 

[Casually Red]

Yep, they facilitated this shit. Thatcher facilitated Blair, then Blair facilitated Cameron. It's depressing as hell.

There's a big part of me that thinks Labour needs to go, to be destroyed, the unions disengaging and starting over.

I think that process has already been carried out to a large extent in Scotland , or at least begun . Their grass roots support base has dismantled them as a political force pretty much and told them to depart the scene. It seems it dawned on people they were part of the problem and not a solution .

 

[treelover]

One thing the SNP in parliament will do is very robustly oppose the ever more draconian welfare cuts, this will mean labour will have to abstain, vote for them, or oppose, it will partly define them.

 

[ViolentPanda]

One possible solution I can see would be Cameron allowing dissent over the EU. He makes a deal with France and Germany and presents it as the best thing to do, names a date for a simple in/out vote, but allows all his MPs to campaign yes/no as they see fit. It could backfire, but if he wins the referendum, he's silenced all his eurosceptic MPs for good.

Didn't work like that the last time we had a referendum on EU membership!

 

[belboid]

Various mates getting almost excited about the acceptance speech from the new Leeds East MP - and it isn't bad, to be fair.

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....der-sweeps-to-victory-in-leeds-east-1-7250931