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Yes or No -AV referendum May 2011

ViolentPanda said:
Any sensible person wouldn't, of course, worry about unsavoury parties achieving a handful of seats under PR. Their ability to legislate on anything that resembled their own core policies would be virtually non-existent.
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Geert Wilders has got a number of his core policies into the Coalition Agreement of the new Dutch government. But, to believe some, it doesn't matter, as none of them have been enacted yet.
 
ViolentPanda said:
The fact is that people like moon are using the possibility that under PR unsavoury parties might win a handful of seats as a way of dissuading people away from PR and toward a system that is basically just FPTP with bells on: AV.
Any sensible person wouldn't, of course, worry about unsavoury parties achieving a handful of seats under PR. Their ability to legislate on anything that resembled their own core policies would be virtually non-existent. It needs to be borne in mind by people like moon that the hard right, even in a nation such as Austria, where they had a significant number of seats, were unable to present much legislation that went anywhere toward forwarding their core agenda. To imagine that a handful of BNP/NF/EDL malcontents would be able to present (or block, for that matter) legislation is juvenile.
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That's also leaving aside the possibility that through "entryism" type stuff inside the neo liberal parties and more realistically just simply through how capitalism works and the lengths capital will go to to protect itself, especially in a crisis like this, the far right have a chance to get their wet dreams enacted under FPTP and/or AV anyway
 
ViolentPanda said:
Any "socialist" party that takes the electoral route is, by it's actions, reformist, and has already made an accommodation with Capitalism. That being so, they wouldn't be compromising their principles by engaging in coalition.
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I'm really, *really* not saying you're wrong here VP (and IMO that's actually a very good point and one that pretty much every left wing party that goes an electoral route often ends up coming up against) but does going a non-electoral/"direct action" type of route have its problems as well in your opinion - ie how far do you manage to be able to change stuff that way? What do you think about groups like the IWCA standing people to be elected etc?
 
frogwoman said:
I'm really, *really* not saying you're wrong here VP (and IMO that's actually a very good point and one that pretty much every left wing party that goes an electoral route often ends up coming up against)...
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Hey, if you think I'm wrong, then I expect you to tell me! :)
but does going a non-electoral/"direct action" type of route have its problems as well in your opinion - ie how far do you manage to be able to change stuff that way?
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Well, non-electoral/DA stuff tends toward the "single issue" side of things, so I'm not sure the problems are the same as for the electoral route. Okay, you're going to have the usual fannying about whose vision best serves as a basis for bringing about change, but if you're dealing with a single issue or a limited slate of problems, then you don't get as weighed down with matters such as maintaining a party line, which saves a fuck-load of energy.
What do you think about groups like the IWCA standing people to be elected etc?
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IMHO the IWCA isn't the same proposition as a political party that's aiming to have an impact (however limited) in national politics. The IWCA are localist, and that's been one of their strengths. There's nowt wrong with standing candidates for council wards, or even for regional seats, as part of a localist strategy. I know that certain posters deride them, but they (the posters) tend to be the armpit-sucking leech tendency of urban anyway. ;)
 
Lock&Light said:
A ban on double passport holding. A general move in the direction of tighter immigration. Plus a handful of lesser policies. Much less than he would have wanted, but more than I, for one, think helpful.
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Well, the dual passport one is (unfortunately, IMO) consonant with the direction Europe as a whole has taken in the past 20 years.
As for "tighter immigration", is he referring to immigration from outside the EU, or immigration as a whole (given that political rhetoric in EU countries often mistakes the free movement of EU citizens inside the EU for reasons of work as "immigration")? I ask, because there's bugger-all he (or any other politician in the EU) can do about the latter without withdrawing from the EU.
 
Nah it's just that I haven't decided whether you're actually wrong or not, it's a very difficult issue, but if you are wrong i would tell you don't worry. :D I've been wondering about this a lot lately especially in the light of the protests and the fact that many of the people I know who were on the demo were actually pretty shocked by some of what went on, and they're hardly liberal types either. not that im saying that they were wrong and they shouldn't have gone in etc etc because i don't think they were

In terms of direct action stuff though, is there not a risk that it will end up alienating support and end up being, by necessity, elitist and often very limited to single issue stuff - (not that electoral or other stuff won't do that anyway) but in terms of actually getting your programme out there? Im thinking for example of people who work for the council who actually end up having to clean up smashed windows etc (for want of a better example - i'm not satying that stuff doesn't have a place because I think it does). I hope what I'm asking doesn't come across as stupid and I have a ton of respect for a lot of people who go out and engage in many of these actions (altho not all). It's just ... I dunno, I think these are questions we have to think about if you see what I mean?

I don't deride the IWCA - I don't agree with them on everything but actually have a ton of respect for them and a lot of what they've done and managed to achieve.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Well, the dual passport one is (unfortunately, IMO) consonant with the direction Europe as a whole has taken in the past 20 years.
As for "tighter immigration", is he referring to immigration from outside the EU, or immigration as a whole (given that political rhetoric in EU countries often mistakes the free movement of EU citizens inside the EU for reasons of work as "immigration")? I ask, because there's bugger-all he (or any other politician in the EU) can do about the latter without withdrawing from the EU.
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Wilders antagonism is single-mindedly directed at Muslim immigration. Double passports as well. He made a great fuss a year ago about a member of the former government who is dual nationality Dutch-Turkish. In this new government he has no problem with another member with dual nationality. But this one is Dutch-Swedish. Speaks for itself.
 
To be fair though, VP has a point in that that's the direction that dutch politics has been moving in for fucking ages anyway.
 
Lock&Light said:
Wilders antagonism is single-mindedly directed at Muslim immigration. Double passports as well. He made a great fuss a year ago about a member of the former government who is dual nationality Dutch-Turkish. In this new government he has no problem with another member with dual nationality. But this one is Dutch-Swedish. Speaks for itself.
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From what I recall of European law, it's an impossible piece of discrimination for Wilders to get passed. Discrimination against specific ethnicities contravenes the Human Rights charter (IIRC section 6, but it's about 5 years since I last read it).
Probably plays well with the small "c" conservatives, though.
 
I'm being a bit slow today - can someone explain this cartoon to me?

Bob-Moran-001.jpg
 
Burnham has been appointed campaign director for may and has pretty much said that there will be no party support for yes. This will just be labour covering all the bases and looking open - pure PR.
 
butchersapron said:
Burnham has been appointed campaign director for may and has pretty much said that there will be no party support for yes. This will just be labour covering all the bases and looking open - pure PR.
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Burnham over-stepped the mark, and will be pulled up about this. Ed Miliband has already said he'd vote YES and argue for a YES vote. It would look odd if they stopped members of the party doing likewise. Of course, some will argue for a NO vote. But there will be a big lobby in favour.
 
articul8 said:
Burnham over-stepped the mark, and will be pulled up about this. Ed Miliband has already said he'd vote YES and argue for a YES vote. It would look odd if they stopped members of the party doing likewise. Of course, some will argue for a NO vote. But there will be a big lobby in favour.
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No he won't. He was appointed to do precisely that. He called AV a frippery and a lib-dem con in the leadership election. he wasn't put in that position by accident. So naive.
 
butchersapron said:
No he won't. He was appointed to do precisely that. He called AV a frippery and a lib-dem con in the leadership election. he wasn't put in that position by accident. So naive.
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Not what I heard him say. But no, he doesn't much go for it. But think about it - support for AV is strongest among students and young activists. Will they really say "no don't campaign for Labour to elect Labour councillors (and support AV a bit whilst doing it), f*** off and campaign with the Lib Dems? It just doesn't make sense.
 
What do you mean you didn't hear him say it? It's on the fucking record.

Support for AV has just died amongst students due to the lib-dems tuition fee debacle. They'll not campaign for either or against. I don't even know what that last argument you offered means.
 
When I heard Burnham asked his view on AV he was much more equivocal than straight out hostile - he may have said other things for other audiences though (have you a link for your quote?)

This isn't a referendum on the LDs. Labour people for a YES vote will be very critical of the LD role in the coalition but also out campaigning for a better voting system. The two aren't mutually exclusive
 
Yes i have.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary and Labour leadership contender, told the Guardian that voting reform was "a peripheral issue" and added: "It is not my party's job to prop up the Liberal Democrats by helping them win a referendum that is important to them."

He added: "Let's not get obsessed by this issue, because it really is irrelevant. It's a kind of fringe pursuit for Guardian-reading classes."
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And yes, it is. It is now. Why are you always behind?
 
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