UK Politics Thread

That slim majority Brexit vote still pisses me off. Actual anger

As well as all the larger reasons, I see it as stripping me of EU citizenship.

I take it personally and I can't see me ever getting over it

….but there's another thread for that, still after 5 years and a new forum it's raw enough to deserve it own thread. 

Fair point, but I really don't think electoral systems matter to the vast majority of the population. 

Stats show membership of the EU didn't matter to a lot of people, until it did, not asking for a referendum on this though GE win is enough

I disagree vehemently that FPTP is the "least worst" option nor that any good argument can be made in favour of it, even though I do live in a country that has relatively vague coalition-making rules (basically the biggest party gets the initiative but after that it gets messy). Even with all the trappings of PR, I still think a coalition of a few parties that ultimately got the majority of the vote is still more democratic then a party with a minority of the vote getting all the power. Arguably the way to make it more democratic is to have an electable head of state (like the president) and put him in charge of spearheading the coalition talks and not much else (which iirc is the german system).

It creates its own problems: The dutch political culture leans towards conservative centrism becuase it's the centre-leaning parties that are most likely to be able to work together, and because they have to work together the more ambitious plans of any of those parties get watered down a bit.

An additional problem is that if any participating political party feels like one of their other parties did something that they can politically exploit, there is a chance for them to scupper the deal entirely and a new election will have to be called.

On the other hand, that also means that nobody can do anything too crazy. I'd invite you to look back on the past few years of Theresa May or Boris Johnson rule and see if there's anything that you would say should've lead to the government resigning. In a coalition system, that actually can happen, whilst with a one-party system, the party actually has incentive to stay in power until their bad PR has been forgotten.

Good post, and fair comment on governments resigning. 5 years ago I wouldn't have agreed with that point, and I think that in the past governments would have been much quicker to sack ministers or even be voted down (including votes from their own party) if the sort of nonsense that has happened recently had occurred. Perhaps that is a downside of the electoral system - just one that the Tories have only recently begun to take advantage of. Ultimately, I'd believe they'd eventually be punished in the ballot box for this, but they're re-writing the rules on democracy itself, never mind the electoral system.

There's advantages and disadvantages to every system, and you can certainly make a case against FPTP based on that, but I don't think you can seriously suggest that FPTP has no arguments in favour of it. Although not a total safeguard, it does tie parties more rigorously to manifesto pledges. It ensures parties have a broad base of support. It prevents extreme parties from gaining footholds (I very much doubt UKIP could have gained the traction they did here without the EU elections). It almost exclusively allows the party with the most votes to form a government. It provides excellent geographical links to power, and it's easy to understand. That's not to say countries with FPTP haven't had any issues with extremism, broken promises, 'wasted votes', centralism etc - you can't safeguard against all that with just an electoral system. But they are strengths of the system in and of itself. 

I disagree that UKIP gaining seats in the EU parliament and the success of other anti-EU MEPs from the UK demonstrates flaws in the voting system. It shows the abysmal political education we have and the completely ambivalence to EU that most people had.

Our turnout for EU elections is far below the EU average. We are mostly about 35%, with 1999 being a particularly bad year with only 24%! Average EU turnout isn't great either, but still mostly at around 50%.

The only people that really took note of EU elections were people that wanted to destroy it. The majority of people wouldn't be able to name a single MEP, outside of Farage (even then, I expect most people wouldn't even know that's what he was). Likely where this myth that the EU is all unelected bureaucrats stems from.

I agree with those that say FPTP is absymal and I would have been thrilled to see Labour backing a revised system. However, actual education of how our parliamentary system works, as well as other systems, would be a bigger step in correcting the problems we have.

The education point is a good one, and of course there are a huge range of factors that influence voting and voting intention. I think there did used to be a valid case for saying that that EU parliament's role was too weak and the electorate knew that, but of course turnout didn't really increase as its powers grow at the expense of the Commission. It's impossible to know for sure how different things would be without EU elections, or if they were elected via a different means, but the huge size of constituencies and the electoral system did mean they could profit off short-term support. This built them political and media currency that never really died.

Without their performances in EU elections, you don't get UKIP MEPs being legitimised on the BBC, building a base around the country and becoming known in households. It's more nuanced than just saying under FPTP there would be no UKIP or extremism, or that the EU elections caused their rise, but yeh, I think it's a big factor. 

Our glorious PM has finally broken cover now the worst seems to be receding: “Only fill up when you need to”

You blusterwaffling arse!
What do you think people are trying to do?

I don't know why the media let him get away with these 2min pool clips where nobody can ask any questions.  They should be demanding a full press conference and refusing to show these stupid clips. 

I was speaking to somebody at my work this Morning who lives in Bolton. She said she sent her husband out to get petrol yesterday and he queued for 45 minutes as people were filling their car and a few canisters at the same time. He said it was carnage and everybody was kicking off.
I can guarantee that everyone of those tits filling canisters plus their car voted for brexit....

Utter morons are filling plastic water bottles with fuel

We need to convert cars to run on soverunty, that will fix the problems

You'd basically immediately fuck anyone that does groundwork (and a whole host of other jobs).

It's the usual shit though, some pictures of people taking the piss and the assumption is that most people are doing it.  They're not.

And the answer is yes, anti Etonian prejudice is ok. They think they’re better than everyone else because their parents bought them a private education, running the country is a game for them.