UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 581

On December 24 2019 11:30 Edlina wrote:


I don't see any added political stability in a two-party FPTP system. If anything the two parties are likely to oppose each other strongly, at least publicly, to separate themselves from each other and argue for voters to look their way. Do you think, if Labour had won the same majority which the Tories won in the latest election that there would be political stability? With their reversion of privatisation agenda, government taking over a number of areas of business and their completely different stance on e.g. Brexit. I don't, I think in fact the opposite and that a FPTP system gives less stability than a mixed PR-system which fosters coalition governments around the political centre, never allowing one party or person too much power, unless the majority of the voters desire it.

In a PR system each party has to make their case to the voters for why they should get their vote at the next election. That means while deals are made, wins are very much presented to the voters and defeats are highlighted by opposing parties. Your vote absolutely mattered, but not unduly so, since you only got power in accordance with how many people agreed with you nationally. That meant coalition building yes, especially on tough questions, but this gives the political stability that you're craving. I disagree with your notion of when voter apathy sets in. In the 2015 election UKIP won 12.6% percent of the votes in 2015 but got one seat, that is ridiculous and creates voter apathy. In 2019 more than 45% of the votes "did not matter" since they were not cast for the winner of the constituency. In 'safe' seats that creates a lot of voter apathy. Same with the alliances between parties on where to run and where not to run. Or the fact that the Tories won 43.6% of the votes but more than 56% of the MPs, meaning 43.6% get to decide important questions such as Brexit over the opinion of the majority (e.g. the more than 50% of voters that voted for parties in favour of revoke or a second referendum).

I agree that this is a downside to PR that you see in more countries these days. I believe in time it will be resolved, but it is not optimal to have these constant coalition-building issues.

If your worry is the local connection I have an easy solution for that. Double the number of MPs instead of halving the number of constituencies. Same result, same local connection. This is really a philosophical question, what is the right number of voters per MP. In the UK it's much lower than in e.g. the US House let alone the elections for the Indian parliament. Let me know the maximum number of voters per representative that you think is reasonable while keeping the local connection and we can use that as the basis. This changes nothing.

I don't follow your rural/urban argument. Are you suggestion that the vote of a person in a rural area should count for more than the vote of a person in an urban setting? In an ordinary modern democracy one person should have one vote which should count the same as any other eligible voter's vote. Do you disagree with this basic cornerstone of democracy?

On December 24 2019 16:53 Danglars wrote:

Minority parties governing in coalition are inherently less stable than a two-party system with whipped MPs that all signed onto a manifesto. You're really overthinking the meaning of stability. Coalitions of many parties have different goals. It doesn't take more than a minor party withdrawing its support from the major partner to collapse that coalition.


Backroom deals and melding the agendas, surrendering the less shared bits, absolutely puts power further away from the voter. In modern parlance, it's the elites that decide what to drop and what to move forward on. In FPTP, each party also has to make their case to the voters, so I'm unsure about what point you're making there.

I see that as a major major issue, so I'd be interested to see what you think about resolutions. Israel has a proportional system, and they're back to the polls for the third time in less than a year! Less wasted votes but ... well, more wasted votes since you keep casting them again and again and again. I'm not saying my preferred choice doesn't come without it's flaws, but the big PR disasters are just so comically obscene. I don't think they can be wiped away with promises of future resolution; I think the idea should be shelved until solutions are found for contentious issues/leaders/scandals dividing parties doesn't lead to that hilarity.




Minority vote share of 43% comes with some asterisks. How much of that is London, Birmingham, and Manchester? You can run up big totals in the cities to make huge changes to overall share of the popular vote. And then you're left wondering, is the problem with the UK that massive cities don't do a good enough job deciding what's best for the rest of the country? That's why I'm deeply skeptical of people making big pushes for increased popular vote reflection. Make you own nation out of your dense urban centers, perhaps. Make some compelling case on why rural really has been wielding too much power. Those really do need to be made.

Also, business as usual involves huge swings of majorities like we just saw in a *mostly* two party system. So I'm making my point for the times when voters desire change, and FPTP will give the tories a chance to get brexit done, and PR will say hold on a minute, Corbyn wants to drag this shit out to another referendum and negotiation.

If your worry is the local connection I have an easy solution for that. Double the number of MPs instead of halving the number of constituencies. Same result, same local connection. This is really a philosophical question, what is the right number of voters per MP. In the UK it's much lower than in e.g. the US House let alone the elections for the Indian parliament. Let me know the maximum number of voters per representative that you think is reasonable while keeping the local connection and we can use that as the basis. This changes nothing.

I don't follow your rural/urban argument. Are you suggestion that the vote of a person in a rural area should count for more than the vote of a person in an urban setting? In an ordinary modern democracy one person should have one vote which should count the same as any other eligible voter's vote. Do you disagree with this basic cornerstone of democracy?

So we have to talk shares that are devoted to constituencies, and shares to "free" popular vote MPs. Doubling one number and assigning them elsewhere lowers the relative share of the vote that is fixed to an area of a country. The overall percentage of MPs in parliament that must go back and campaign in their areas is lowered. That's something I think is undesirable, to the point where I rate the "wasted vote problem" to be lower in importance to the other factors I mentioned. It's actually a question of proportions, so I think you can grasp what I'm saying here.

You're twisting the meaning of one person one vote. One person does get one vote. But the tradeoff of representative democracies is that the cities don't get to tell the rest of the country how things are going to be. The rest of the country also can't fully dictate to the cities how their money and influence should be redistributed away. That's a tradeoff, just like representatives are a tradeoff to direct democracy. So I think you're being incredibly naive with this "basic cornerstone of democracy," for the same argument can be made that Athenian direct democracy is the only true democracy. Representatives can only imperfectly represent those casting the vote, so one person one vote ought to be every matter of business brought directly to the voter for a national plebiscite on every decision.

If it was as easy as "cornerstone of democracy" arguments, then the 2011 referenum on AV (ranked choice) instead of FPTP would've come back huge for the closer democratic system, compared to the actual abysmal 68% against.

This conversation is important, but we're starting to repeat the same basic points, so maybe a new thread or blog is the place to take it. The UK is just a backdrop for the global question of how to decide elections.

On December 31 2019 14:19 Razyda wrote:
Issue with FPTP is as in any other democracy - luck of accountability - but on larger scale. with only 2 parties standing a chance you pretty much not bounded by anything because one way or another you are bound to end up with close to 50% seats. Frankly I dont think that in any other than FPTP system any party would be able to put BlowJob creature as their leader and win election.

On December 31 2019 22:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Oh look it's danglars and his whole urban voters should have less rights than rural voters schtick. Nevermind that this is the UK thread, not USA, where this sort of "culture war" isn't even a thing.

On January 01 2020 06:27 Danglars wrote:

The landslide victory for your BJ and his capacity to *ahem* get brexit done is quite a recommendation for FPTP. Three cheers. The voters spread across the country were able to express their dissatisfaction with Corbyn/Labor Agenda, and inaction on Brexit, and make their voice resound. This will directly translate into the political might to make it happen, whereas otherwise more dithering would prevail, as did prior to withdrawing the whip and elections.

Frankly, comments like this lead me to believe the gripes are mostly inspired by sadness and frustration with the results of election, and less about the structure of the electoral system itself. The fetishization of nearer-direct-democracy systems is also similar. Does 80% of your country live in cities? Why, the more distant citizens should only get 20%. Has it improved to 90%? Those members should only get 10% say, poor suckers. Fuck those people, more want to live around here. We simply aren't satisfied with majority representation we want more than that. I would prefer a more straightforward approach from those very vociferously on the extreme opposite side. Actually argue to carve up your country into separate ones if there's heavy dissatisfaction in the cities about allowing distant geographic areas more than the naive population percent representation. Be the noble ideologue and support the Confederation of Big Cities telling the rest of the country what's best for them.


I see you wish this was a discussion about "less rights" and "culture war," but maybe you should wait until the discussion actually turns to those topics and read the posts in the meantime.

On January 01 2020 06:49 Wombat_NI wrote:

We’re reasonably aligned on this particular issue, although I would consider it less cultural in my case, more purely economic in basis I guess.

On January 01 2020 08:16 Danglars wrote:

I haven’t been describing power sharing in a parliamentary system in cultural terms. It’s much too big of a question for that. Brexit split parties and the most recent election really shook up long-standing rural allegiances ... some more than 80 years. Party platforms change and the same with cultural allegiances. My disagreements with Edlina, and my big misgivings about his ideas that he really rejects, aren’t on cultural lines.

On January 01 2020 08:38 Wombat_NI wrote:

I don’t think there’s any rural/city divide in the UK for the most part though, it’s the cities that are doing well vs the cities that are suffering from decades long of industrial decline. It’s Sunderland vs London or whatever

Northern Ireland voted Remain, despite Londoners being annoyed at the DUP giving May her majority, in our particular case because rural voters did vote to Remain because of the CAP and various benefits there.

I comment simply because I think a non-proportional system tied to specific localities is the right way to go about things with the parliamentary system. An entire country can't just base its political system on the exact percentage of people with urban concerns. That sort of dominance has to be tempered by defraying power over the middle to smaller towns and country, non-proportionally to population.

On January 01 2020 12:11 Sermokala wrote:
Again all you are doing is assuming the absolute worst he is saying and assuring everyone thats the only thing he could be saying.

On January 01 2020 10:06 Danglars wrote:

You would have a better idea why Northern Ireland voted that way, or why the DUP lost two seats in the last election. I just don't know enough and haven't read enough about it (and I chuckled heartily at the suggestion that I was debating a cultural problem with rights lol). It's interesting to think how many old labour voters who would never vote Tory, remembering post-Thatcher Tory policy on unions and domestic industry, actually did change their mind when it came to this election. How much of this was due to personal dislike of Corbyn, or his movement labour's policy platform, or Labour's nebulous position on Brexit is very debatable.

Now, the city/rural divides in power sharing arrangements are a somewhat universal topic in the Western world and have been discussed for 300 years, up towards 1400 years if we're talking about ancient political philosophers. I comment simply because I think a non-proportional system tied to specific localities is the right way to go about things with the parliamentary system. An entire country can't just base its political system on the exact percentage of people with urban concerns. That sort of dominance has to be tempered by defraying power over the middle to smaller towns and country, non-proportionally to population. This can also swing too far into letting smaller localities dictate where the money goes from economic powerhouses, not that I expect this to be a major concern in the next few years.

On January 01 2020 19:17 Jockmcplop wrote:


I read danglars' comments the same way simberto does.
I didn't post anything because I thought I must be being stupid or missing something. Surely danglars doesn't want 20% of people to have more than 20% of he power just because they own more land????

That's insane.

It looks like it comes from this arbitrary 'town vs city' divide.

Its like saying 2% of people don't believe in vaccinating their children and 98% of people do so the 2% deserve more power because otherwise its unfair.

I must be missing something. Are we asking for vote strength to be calculated using 'people/metres squared'?

Now, the city/rural divides in power sharing arrangements are a somewhat universal topic in the Western world and have been discussed for 300 years, up towards 1400 years if we're talking about ancient political philosophers. I comment simply because I think a non-proportional system tied to specific localities is the right way to go about things with the parliamentary system. An entire country can't just base its political system on the exact percentage of people with urban concerns. That sort of dominance has to be tempered by defraying power over the middle to smaller towns and country, non-proportionally to population. This can also swing too far into letting smaller localities dictate where the money goes from economic powerhouses, not that I expect this to be a major concern in the next few years.

On January 02 2020 00:30 Wombat_NI wrote:

It’s a complicated world I guess. We’re the most parochial and conservative area of the UK, yet voted to Remain which somewhat goes against some narratives. The nationalist community is largely pro-European ideologically, as are folks like me in the ostensibly non-aligned middle class.

We don’t have a lot of immigration here, especially outside of our capital, so it wasn’t as much of a factor as it was on the mainland. Plus agriculture is a key component in rural communities and local economies, and the EU money comes in handy there. People know this because they see this in action, it’s a tangible thing, vs the more hypothetical ‘we can do this if we’re out of the EU’ that gained traction in the areas suffering post-industrial decline in England and Wales.

Plus, for obvious reasons the bombastic nationalistic rhetoric of restoring British glory does not resonate here in nearly the way it does elsewhere in the UK. That’s not unique to us either, the Scots aren’t a big fan of it either, it’s a particularly English form of nationalism, maybe with a bit of support from some people in Wales and NI

The DUP weren’t really hugely punished in terms of vote share, the SDLP and Sinn Fein just agreed to withdraw candidates in certain constituencies so the nationalist vote wasn’t split.