andrewducker | Sifting through the wreckage

So, on a vote increase of 1.2% the Conservatives gained 66 seats, and now have the largest majority they've had since 1992 (when they got 0.2% less votes and 59 more seats).

This is, of course, disastrous for the country.

Good things that happened
====
The SNP got 48 seats in Scotland.
The DUP leader lost his seat (and the DUP lost two of their ten seats, leaving the nationalists with a majority).
There are now more women MPs than ever before (over 1/3).

Who's fault is it?
====
Labour didn't understand that they did well in 2015 because a load of people lent them their votes. And then those people spent the last two years being told that they'd voted for a Brexit party, and that if they didn't support a socialist agenda they should go join the Tories.
The Lib Dems ran a terrible campaign - I've watched Lib Dem friends rant about this endlessly, and how frustrated they've been.
(And they both should have cooperated better. I'm looking forward to the analysis of how many seats could have been saved by better tactical voting.)
The voting system - If you look at the votes, Lab+LD+SNP+Green is over 50%, while Con+Brx is 45.6%. Under any reasonable voting system this would be a parliament with an anti-Brexit majority. I mostly blame Tony Blair for this, who was voted in in 1997 with a manifesto promise for reform, and then refused to do anything about it. I _still_ see Labour supporters saying that electoral reform would prevent a Labour majority, and therefore shouldn't be taken forward. As if a Labour majority every decade or two was worth Conservative majorities the rest of the time.

What next?
====
Well, parliament will meet soon (there's a recess from the 21st, but I assume that they'll meet before then), and presumably vote through the Withdrawal Agreement before the end of January. With a majority this large there's a small chance that Boris won't have to appease the ERG, but I am looking forward to seeing the reaction to all of the enabling bills.
And then we leave the EU.
And they'll work on the trade bill. Which won't be finished by the end of 2020, so that's another cliff edge. But it's now entirely the problem of the Conservative Party. Oh, everyone else who will be badly hit by whatever nonsense they come up with.
The SNP will undoubtedly push for a referendum between us leaving and the trade bill being signed. Whether they'll get it is going to be interesting. If they don't then that will only help fire things up. Nicola Sturgeon has said she won't hold a referendum illegally, but that doesn't mean she can't apply pressure in other ways. This one will be interesting. I don't know how the prospect of a trade border between England and Scotland will affect things.

Am I missing anything major?

Crossposts: https://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3848306.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dewline

I expect that other UK friends of mine will cover anything major you've missed shortly.

Something you noticed got me thinking about Canada, though:

"The voting system - If you look at the votes, Lab+LD+SNP+Green is over 50%, while Con+Brx is 45.6%. Under any reasonable voting system this would be a parliament with an anti-Brexit majority. I mostly blame Tony Blair for this, who was voted in in 1997 with a manifesto promise for reform, and then refused to do anything about it. I _still_ see Labour supporters saying that electoral reform would prevent a Labour majority, and therefore shouldn't be taken forward. As if a Labour majority every decade or two was worth Conservative majorities the rest of the time."

In Canada, we too still have "First Past the Post" rules. Justin Trudeau got his first term as PM by - among other ways and means - promising to end that practice. And after a year of asking for ideas on what to replace it with and how...he backed off that promise.

I wonder what the longer-term consequences - beyond being currently reduced to minority government - of that choice are going to be. And I worry.

From:

j_v_lynch

I've been thinking about the same thing. I suspect it's going to result the same sort of crap we are seeing everywhere else. I'm not sure how we avoided it in the federal election. I guess Sheer was not the right kind of incompetent buffoon.

From:

andrewducker

They've got 4 years to turn around on voting reform. Hopefully they will. It's now ridiculously popular, after all!
http://angusreid.org/electoral-reform-trend/

From:

drplokta

I don't understand how it would be illegal for the SNP to hold a referendum without Westminster's consent. Such a referendum would have no legal effect, whatever the outcome, but I don't see any law that would make holding the referendum illegal.

From:

andrewducker

That runs the risk of people not taking it seriously, the turnout being low, and it but actually reaching 50%.

From:

ggreig

The points that will be argued is that the constitution is reserved to Westminster, while referendums are devolved. Does that make an advisory referendum initiated by Holyrood on a constitutional topic illegal? Because it's advisory and has no legal effect, I would say it's legal, but others will certainly disagree.

So it's open to being legally challenged and generally talked down as being illegitimate, whether that's justified or not. I have no faith that the Tories will show any restraint.

From:

dewline

The Brexit Referendum was supposed to be advisory and of no legal effect, too, wasn't it? Until the "Leave" side won...however it was that they won.

From:

reverancepavane

Well until 2011 it could almost certainly have been considered an act of sedition, since the organisers of the referendum are actively advocating for the destruction of the Union, but that was when the offence of sedition was removed from the books in Scotland. The act of sedition was removed from English law two years previously (it having been considered to be redundant). Their position as members of the Scottish Parliament would not matter, as the Scottish Parliament is specifically enjoined from considering law dealing with the Union (it being a general reserved matter).

Otherwise there is just the fact that the Scottish Parliament has no legal basis to create a referendum since it is specifically a general reserved matter under the Scotland Act 1990 [?] which is the legal act that created the Scottish Parliament. It's not that it would be illegal - it is simply the fact that such a referendum would not be legal. [There is indeed a difference between something being illegal (and thus prosecutable) and something not being legal (and thus not implementable).]

[And if they attempted to use government resources for such an action it might be considered misuse of office and misappropriation.]

This is not legal (or political) advice.

Edited Date: 2019-12-13 02:27 pm (UTC)

From:

danieldwilliam

There is an ultra vires problem.

If the constitution is a reserved matter *arguably* the Scottish Parliament has no legal competence over it.

If the Scottish Parliament has no legal competence over it then *arguably* any activity that spends public money on seeking to change the constitution is ultra vires.

If spending money on a constitutional referendum is ultra vires then it is actionable and subject to judcial review by either the UK government, or Parliament (to whom the power are reservered) or by a private citizen (a Unionist Gina Miller).

A judicial review might well find that the process of organising a referendum with public money is illegal and interdict it, thus preventing the Scottish Government from organising on pain of being held in contempt of court.

From:

doug

Yes, this!

From:

rhythmaning

Full on Catalonia...

From:

helen_keeble

Clutching for good news: Anne Widdicombe lost her seat to a gay man.

From:

anef

Thanks! I hadn't realised she was actually still an MP, but yay!

From:

cmcmck

The worst misjudgement of the public mood by a political leader in living memory.

A lot of former Labour party voters, myself included couldn't stomach various elements of his campaign (the anti semitism in my case although others may have not been able to deal with a dozen or more other elements of it) and we went elsewhere. None of those thing make much difference on their own,but when you add them all up.......

His biggest error was his despisal of the blue collar working class up here in the Midlands and the north where London seems an awful long way off and guess where those votes went?

From:

andrewducker

Corbyn despised the North?
Not seeing anything about that. Got any details?

From:

cmcmck

I think that where their votes went pretty much tells the sorry tale- old working class strongholds going Tory?. The party is seen locally as having become predominantly London-centric and no longer interested in the working class and it was a dangerous thing to assume these votes were in the bank.

He should specially have known better as he comes from Newport about six miles up the road from us.

From:

danieldwilliam

I'm not a blue collar voter in the English Midlands so I wasn't looking at the election from their point of view.

What about Corbyn do you think they will have taken as contemptuous?

From:

cmcmck

See my reply to Andrew above- a lot of blue collar workers here see themselves as left out and left behind and, lord help us,they saw Boris as the least worst! :o(

From:

rhythmaning

Dan, this is one of several articles I've seen.

From:

hilarita

You've missed the bit where Northern Ireland has deep unrest and/or a massive smuggling problem, because of the Brexit process.
And I blame Blair too - he'd have probably kept his majority in 2001, even if he'd implemented STV or proportional representation or something. And then he'd have been rightly kicked in 2005, but with the possibility of forming a left-wing alliance government.

From:

coughingbear

And they both should have cooperated better. I'm looking forward to the analysis of how many seats could have been saved by better tactical voting.

At one point in the night when I woke up and looked to see how things were going, there was lots of stuff in my twitter feed about Cities of London and Westminster, including some Lib Dem anger that Labour had not stood aside there. When I woke up again properly this morning, there was lots about Kensington, with some Labour anger that the Lib Dems had not stood aside there. I don't know how many seats that would really have made a difference, but it was a striking juxtaposition.

From:

andrewducker

Yes.

It wouldn't be _that_ hard for Labour and Lib Dems to agree policies that were at least not overwhelmingly awful to each other, and then run (between them) a bunch of polls in advance of the next election, and agree how people should vote to stop the Conservatives. Not standing down, necessarily, but agreeing that they wouldn't actually fight given seats.

If either of them actually cared more about stopping the Conservatives than point-scoring off of each other, that is.

From:

rhythmaning

My take on it was that Corbyn thought he would win - he refused to do any deals early on with the LibDems, as I understand it. And the venom spewed out by Momentum and the Corbynites frankly made it hard for LibDems to deal any deals. (I accept I'm biased!)

From:

andrewducker

I agree, actually.

From:

mme_n_b

I'm sorry.

From:

andrewducker

Thank you.

From:

movingfinger

I hope all the ballots were paper.

From:

cmcmck

That's all we get here, thankfully.

From:

andrewducker

They were.

From:

calimac

What intrigues me is why the SNP was so particularly eager to off Jo Swinson. Obviously they want to campaign in any winnable seat, but they seemed to devote a disproportionate share of resources to this one. It seems to me that decapitating the LDs is not overwhelmingly in the SNP's interests. The LDs can't do the SNP much harm in Scotland, and as the LDs are the most devolutionist nation-wide party, it'd be to the SNP's advantage to have them be strong in England, which this doesn't help.

Incidentally, the last time a sitting party leader lost their seat in a GE was the Liberals in both 1935 and 1945. On the second occasion in particular, this set off a particularly desperate scramble to find somebody in the remaining parliamentary party capable of taking the place.

From:

mountainkiss

Swinson is historically extremely hostile to SNP. One of the failures of the remain parties’ campaigning has been not making a public case for a left wing alliance as opposed to a Tory government (thus forcing voters to make a straight Johnson / Corbyn choice) and that’s in considerable degree down to her. I am not at all sorry to see her go.

From:

andrewducker

Yes.

I still don't understand why the Lib Dems needed to have a strong opinion on Scottish Independence. Making it a personal matter would have been just fine, and instead they've pushed away a fair few people.

From:

mountainkiss

I don't either. Patrick?

From:

rhythmaning

[this is a commented I posted on Facebook because I was using my mobile and DreamWidth won't let me post long comments from my mobile. So I'm reposting it here because it was in reply to this thread!]

Scotland has lived with a multi party system since devolution. If is not just Swinson who is hostile to the SNP. The LibDems are hostile to the SNP. The SNP hates the LibDems. The Labour party hates the SNP (whom they hold responsible for putting Thatcher into power forty years ago - this is why Corbyn ruled out doing a deal with them. Forty years ago. Blame culture runs deep).

The SNP is the incumbent in Scotland. It has been in power for twelve years. It has failed to deliver improvements in policing, health (with multiple, systemic failure in both Glasgow and Edinburgh), education and transport.

The SNP targeted Jo's seat in a vicious campaign in 2015. That's fine: they're a political party, they're there to win seats. In East Dumbartonshire, the SNP were the enemy. Of course Jo was hostile to them. They have her every reason to be hostile. (I believe Frankie and I have had this conversation before; perhaps I didn't explain it adequately enough.)

The glee with which Nicola Sturgeon (who I think has represented Scotland very well over Brexit, other policy failures notwithstanding) greeted Jo's loss was frankly sickening. That's fine: I'd probably have felt the same had Sturgeon lost her seat. Because that's the nature of politics. (I'll share a link if I can find it.)

On the broader question of the Scottish LibDems antipathy to independence, I think it stems from two things. The first is a principled take on federalism and open borders. Federalism is a key policy for the LibDems and has long been. I don't necessarily get the ins and outs. Neither does anyone else, frankly. (Caron probably does, and there must be lots of policy wonks who do. But not many, not most members, and certainly not the media.) The LibDems really believe in devolution, pushing responsibility down as low as makes sense - neither Labour nor, particularly, the SNP believe in devolution, both trying to accumulate power rather than give it away. (The SNP in Holyrood have pushed responsibility but not power or funding down to councils.)

The second reason is a pragmatic one. If the Scottish LibDems are to attract Tory and Labour voters, they need to differentiate themselves from the SNP. If Tory and Labour _unionist_ voters are to look at the LibDems, they need to take independence off the table.

It doesn't work for me particularly. It probably worked in Edinburgh West and North East Fife; and not well enough in East Dumbartonshire.

(Given that I've had less four hours sleep, three pints of beer and a large dram, I think this is a surprisingly cogent reply. You may disagree. To be honest, it is still way too soon. There is real pain. I'm grieving. Time for another whisky.)

From:

rhythmaning

And this is the video of Nicola Sturgeon's reaction on learning of Jo Swinson's defeat. I had only seen the first part yesterday - at the end she expresses empathy and concern for Swinson, which is good.

https://youtu.be/m-sDE4KrSt8

Edited Date: 2019-12-14 04:01 pm (UTC)

From:

mountainkiss

I do get all this, but I also think that the only route to avoiding a Tory victory was signalling the option of a left wing coalition not led by Corbyn, and I think the LDs under Swindon’s leadership didn’t do so at least in part because of this hostility. Ed Davey would have had more distance and hence greater perspective, I think. But I could be wrong.

From:

rhythmaning

I'm pretty certain that, back in the summer when there was discussion of a government of national unity, the only agreement that was acceptable to the LibDems was one that had someone other than Corbyn as PM, and that wasn't acceptable to Labour.

Labour refused to support any LibDem manouevres for a referendum whih would break the stalemate in parliament - I believe there were 17 motions they could have supported but did not do so.

Labour also refused to discuss any agreements with the SNP, which might have cost them in Scotland. Maybe not. But with SNP the dominant power in Scottish politics, Labour are pretty well screwed.

From:

mountainkiss

I tend to think, possibly wrongly, that a LD campaign signalling that they would go into coalition with Labour but demand Corbyn’s scalp as the price would have gone down a lot better with the Remainers whose vote they ultimately lost.

From:

rhythmaning

I'm not sure any coalition would have got past the membership.

And I'm pretty sure that a it wouldn't have got by Labour!

From:

mountainkiss

(i) then I think the membership has a problem given the size of the party and (ii) I am not convinced that this is so if it were the only way to form a government.

From:

rhythmaning

That seems peculiarly dogmatic.

And doesn't really take into account the fact that Labour had told us to fuck off.

From:

mountainkiss

I'm not following the first half of that.

Re the second half, I am not really understanding why you see that as so categoric. It's not like politicians tend in general to stick to their word when the prospect of power is in view.

But could be wrong about all of this. It's very easy to be convinced of one's analysis of a counterfactual.

From:

andrewducker

Isn't that basically what they said?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-corbyn-jo-swinson-caretaker-prime-minister-lib-dems-latest-a9061936.html

certainly indicates that they could work in that direction.

From:

mountainkiss

I don't think that proposing herself as prime minister is quite the same thing.

From:

andrewducker

She proposed Harman and Clarke.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/15/corbyns-plan-to-lead-caretaker-government-unworkable-say-lib-dems

From:

mountainkiss

Sorry, I'm getting muddled. Yes, and that was good work, but the election campaign was when the message of alliance building was needed, and instead she went all presidential. I also think the decision to pivot to revoke was poor.

From:

andrewducker

I totally agree that the election was handled badly.

Apparently the Revoke approach was really popular with a fair section of voters. I don't know how well it would actually have gone in the remarkably unlikely situation of it actually happening.