AIBU to whinge about the SNP?

[SaucyJack]

I didn't vote for the SNP. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't have the option as I live in England.

Yet they now have the third biggest say on policies that directly affect me.

Is this fair and democratic?

But this is the first time in modern political history that we've had a party holding significant power in the UK parliament that 90% of the electorate had no say in voting for, or whose interests are represented by.

This isn't true. The Irish Parliamentary Party held the balance of power in Westminster in 1886 and again after 1909. Far more influence than the SNP currently have. This is far from unprecedented, and guess what? The sky didn't fall in

Yes, different politicians. Msp = member of the Scottish Parliament.
Decisions for example on devolved topics like education and health.

Nobody seemed to care how Scotland voted before this election. During the Thatcher years Scotland became almost solid Labour. No one gave a toss when Thatcher brought the poll tax into Scotland before the rest of the UK.

So what's changed?

Why is it suddenly so unpalatable that Scotland has 59 seats? This is how our democracy works and I thank God for that otherwise we would all be facing a large number of UKIP MPs.

Or would that be fine because England voted for them?

It's an awakening for lots of ignorant people who had little to no understanding of the system and it's flaws before Friday morning

It isn't a new problem ffs. On Wednesday the Scots had MPs who were in opposition. On Friday they have MPs in opposition.

Nothing has changed.

FPTP works fine if you only have 2 parties as vote share will match seats won (if constituencies are of equal size), like it used to when there were only Whigs and Tories, until the Labour Party emerged at the start of the 20thc.

More than 2 parties needs PR. Only 37% of people UK wide voted Conservative (and only 15% did so in Scotland) and yet we have a majority Tory govt.

Westminster is a constitutional dogs dinner that needs sorting out. But then we've known that for decades in Scotland. The elephant in the room is English devolution but hardly anyone in the UK msm ever brings it up.

"It is NOT democratic when 50% of the vote gets one party 93% of the seats."

It's a UK election, so such maths is utterly meaningless. It wasn't 93% of the seats.

"But this is the first time in modern political history that we've had a party holding significant power in the UK parliament that 90% of the electorate had no say in voting for, or whose interests are represented by."

They don't hold significant political power. The Tories have an absolute majority - and will have a majority on committees too - which, with the party Whip system, means that the only thing that can stop them carrying out any policy is a rebellion of their own backbenchers.

This is highly unlikely, especially on major policies, where they will issue a 'three-line-whip - because disobeying the whips (especially in important policies) could lead to the whip being withdrawn - meaning expulsion from the party (usually temporary) - which is not good for someone's political career.

If the party sees that there is opposition to a policy within their party, there will be behind the scenes negotiation and minor changes will be made, in order to bring enough of their representatives back into line before there's a risk of overt rebellion.

The SNP will be able to ask questions and lobby for their cases, but they do not have any power they can use to force the Government to do anything they don't want to do.

Beveridge, that's nonsense.

If in every constituency, party 1 won with 51% of the votes, they would take every seat. Party 2 with 49% would have no seats.

Fptp is rarely 'fair' ref. Number of seats.

It is fair in that every area gets the candidate that more people voted for than any other.

KidLorne - on the UK political stage, yes, you are right - that maths is meaningless. But it has meaning in the context of the way the result in Scotland is being reported as if the number of seats represents the views of the Scottish voters.

I wonder why all the focus on the unfairness of the result hinges on SNP. What about the Tories getting over 50% of the seats, with 37% of the vote?

Under FPTP, it is what it is. You could pick any cluster of seats around the country and make the same bogus point.

OK, so things which are devolved to the Scottish Parliament (health, education etc.) - does that mean Scottish MPs can't vote on such things in Westminster?

They can vote although I think the SNP opted out of voting (am sure the Scots posters can put me right on this.)

SNP is anti austerity and anti cuts as long as your don't count the sweeping cuts in local services the SNP Scottish government has imposed.... No to privatisation of the health service apart from all the private health services the SNP are buying in... Yes to power to the Scottish people as long as they reside in the central belt...

The point is not bogus - The SNP are claiming to speak for all of Scotland, when they don't. I object to them claiming to have achieved a landslide when they only got 50% of the votes.

If we had Pr, we would have a con/ukip coalition. Many SNP candidates were paper candidates as there was considered no chance of them winning, so no serious politician stood. It will be interesting to see how they manage in parliament.

"OK, so things which are devolved to the Scottish Parliament (health, education etc.) - does that mean Scottish MPs can't vote on such things in Westminster?"

No, they can it's come up a lot, look up the West Lothian question. It's suited governments to have Scottish MPs backing up their policy.

Previously SNP MPs abstained from English only votes, but they've said that if it's something that could have a knock on effect to Scotland then they will now vote.

Thanks, tabulah, very informative.

Funnily enough, I never gave a second thought to Scottish politics until this week.

"The point is not bogus - The SNP are claiming to speak for all of Scotland, when they don't. I object to them claiming to have achieved a landslide when they only got 50% of the votes."

Labour's 1997 win is considered and widely called a landslide victory...they got 43.2% of the vote.

No party can ever actually speak for an entire country, but they have been elected to represent most of Scotland with what is a high vote percentage in the system we have.

You might not like it, but unless we get electoral reform, that's how it works.

Electoral reform seems a good idea then I saw the new Israeli coalition government with it's extreme elements and it did give me pause to think.

There is precisely zero chance of electoral reform in the next 5 years.

YABU to whinge about the SNP. Because more than 50% of the seats in the new Commons are held by Tories, the SNP will have precisely no power. In any event, people in Scotland are entitled to elect whom they please, just like everywhere else in the UK.

The SNP deserve their win. They can't do their sums. They do stoke up grievence, they can be overweening, they cry wolf and they have Alex Salmond. However, even twenty years ago the Labour Party in Scotland was sclerotic, taking their constituents' votes for granted and basically making a mess of things in local government. All this time the SNP were getting themselves elected at municipal level and actually got things sorted out. Their hard work has paid off.

Note to Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems, UKIP and the Greens: the SNP are what a political party ought to look like.

Well Scotland didn't vote Tory but yet the party with the actual majority has a say in things that will affect us.

YABVU.