Anyone else longing for a new political party?

[HelloMrBond]

I’m early 40s, have voted conservative all my adult life but the latest offering of conservative MPs makes me wonder if they could ever form an effective government. They have lost their way. On the other hand, they have been allowed to loose their way by a completely inept opposition, I believe a strong party opposite keeps the party in government on their toes. If there was to be a GE tomorrow, for the first time in my life, I’m not sure how I would vote. The Labour Party do have a handful of good quality MPs with good ideas, but the current shadow cabinet are nothing short of a rabble, the idea that their leader doesn’t know what a woman is and the thought of Angela Raynor being deputy PM sends shivers down my spine. In my view, there is a current huge gaping hole in modern British politics for a centrist party who could potentially cause huge ripples at a future GE snd would stand up for and represent the average hard working, tax paying families and individuals of the country.

I'm a socialist so currently unrepresented by any significant political party. But I don't understand why people like the OP don't just vote lib dem.

I get that people want a capitalist government, I even get that they go on wanting that despite the manifest failure of capitalism to provide a decent life for so many and the fact that it is destroying the very planet that sustains us.

But WHY does that mean we have to be saddled with the Conservative party's entitlement, incompetence and corruption? What exactly would change if all the conservatives just voted lib dem instead? The system would stay effectively the same. So what are they afraid of? Is the idea of not being governed by a clique of self interested Eton educated tossers perpetuating hundreds of years of inherited privilege really so troubling?

@LexMitior responding to your post, and ignoring everything everything in between, I would choose a Middle ground. CCall it One Nation.

Agree.

As I mentioned in my original post, I’ve always been a conservative voter. If you were to google the backgrounds of the current governments front bench, on paper at least, they are highly qualified to be there. I’d still call them a rabble too though.

My reasoning isn’t left v right, my reasoning is that there are very few high calibre politicians currently serving in the HOC, although I could pick a few from each party equally.

If PM Truss continues the way she is going, ExPM Johnson might gather up all disaffected MPs and launch a new party.

The Boris Johnson party !!
A kind of irony there I think !

@XingMing - I am being flippant of course, but it's fair to say the Conservatives are finished in the same way that Michael Foot did for Labour in 1983. The caliber of your average conservative cabinet minister is so unbelievably poor and they have lost their political nous. They need new people untainted by Brexit, and that takes time.

@wreckame

Because not everyone educated at Eton is a tosser and if I believed they were I would feel obliged to also believe that everyone educated in a comp is a thick chav and I no more believe either than I do that God is real.

I can't align myself with people on this thought train.

@LexMitior agree but what alternative

Starmer has never said that. Never. Self ID was a Tory policy, it was May’s bill, ffs.

If 2 Comp students did as much damage to the UK as Cameron and Johnson, I'd expect it to be thoroughly investigated.

@TheRubyRedshoes - I have just been watching politics a long time. This government is finished. It's the end of them. The alternative has come because they have lost their political sense. Stuck in SW1, they have lost their pragmatism.

I imagine that Labour will win, and years of trying to unpick Brexit. I don't mean rejoining the EU, but realizing that Brexit's true meaning is so divorced from the mainstream political past which people are talking about here that the people who put it forward have to go. They never had a plan but to deregulate and lower tax. Leveling up will never happen. It's a few government offices and minor bungs for local businesses in the North of England.

Without minor parties getting enough votes, PR won't produce much of a difference to what we already have. A Tory or Labour majority still gives them the ultimate power whether they get there by FPTP or PR.

But people would be more likely to vote for minor parties under PR where their vote might actually be worth something. At the moment elections are won only by marginal constituencies. If you were naturally inclined to vote, eg Lib Dem, but your seat was a Tory-Labour marginal and your views were more closely aligned to Labour than the Conservatives, you would be likely to hold your nose and vote tactically for Labour, even though that's not who you really wanted to vote for.

People in safe seats who would choose to vote, eg, Green often might not bother turning out because they know there is no chance of them winning the seat. I support a minor party in a very safe Conservative seat. I always turn out to vote for them but largely because I want my vote counted as a part of the vote share and to help the candidate keep their deposit. It's actually very disillusioning to know that your vote will have no impact on the result.

Under PR, everyone's vote counts so it is good for enfranchisement. Having said that, PR in a multi-party system would also require a lot of change to the governance system. Multi-party systems often result in coalitions which require consensus-building. This is very common in many other countries but totally alien to the UK, as was shown when the Lib Dems went into coalition with the Conservatives and (as the minor party) had to cede their policy stance on tuition fees in order to gain other concessions and were then punished by the electorate for it for years.

FPTP is supposed to produce more stable governments, but there is little evidence of that if you look at UK politics for the last few years.

I will never forgive the LD for throwing away the chance of a PR referendum and agreeing to whatever that referendum was about in 2011 instead.

THAT was their chance

I think the problem is funding. The people that fund political parties tend to be extremists either right-wing or left-wing. Centrists just aren't that enthusiastic. Parties have to try and circle the square and appeal to both the headbangers and the general populace who just wants a government that keeps the country running properly.

Disagree. Big fan of Angela Rayner as well as Lisa Nandy, Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting, Chris Bryant and many more - plus Keir Starmer himself. Excited for a Labour government.

You could make that argument about Labour under Corbyn if you bought into the idea that everybody who joined because they liked his policies was an extremist (which I certainly don't). But you certainly can't make it about Labour now, or under Blair/Brown. Membership numbers have been decimated and Starmer's only route to replace the funding they provided is via wealthy centrist individuals and business interests.

Totally agree.

There’s no one to vote for. Conservative, Labour, LibDem, Green… They’re all completely mad and incompetent.

WTF has happened.

I think Tony Blair and John Major should set up a new party. I’m not saying tbey should lead it I just think they’re both impressive non-idiots who would get it done well.

I think that David Cameron didn't want a full on PR vote , so the AV one was put as a vote instead , he threw Clegg a bit of a bone there
Low turn out.
I actually voted to keep FPTP as Av wasn't PR

Nah I’m sorry @HelloMrBond but I think I need to dig deeper into your lifelong Conservative voting based on your statement earlier:

As I mentioned in my original post, I’ve always been a conservative voter. If you were to google the backgrounds of the current governments front bench, on paper at least, they are highly qualified to be there. I’d still call them a rabble too though.

Rachel Reeves has a pretty decent CV, equal to her counterpart. Sir Keir Starmer is a knighted politician who has held a vital role in public life and was a QC.

the shadow cabinet is not a “rabble” however because they haven’t wilfully set about to destroy the economy or do things that don’t add up.

The reason why your “highly qualified” bunch is a rabble is because they have wilfully set about to do things without following any precedent or procedure on how to do it (consult Cabinet, tell a story to the markets, publish an OBR forecast to help bring people along with you)

so “highly qualified” means nothing when our politicians decide to go rogue.

I just can’t get with the argument of “on paper they’re great” - Tories will always have people who went to the right schools, worked for the right places, published a paper etc. If qualifications are your only lens for analysis, you’ll always vote Tory… oh wait. You always have.

Starmer has never said that. Never. Self ID was a Tory policy, it was May’s bill, ffs.

And they binned it, they consulted the public and realised it was not what the public wanted or believed in and now in various areas they’ve reminded people of the law and been crystal clear they will NOT introduce it and that women and girls are entitled to all their rights in the equality act. Labour are keeping sex self ID in their manifesto and think it’s absolutely fine for an adult intact male to share changing rooms with teenage girls. Clearly so do all the posters on here supporting Labour. You all give zero fucks about the rights of girls and women, including women who for religious reasons would not be able to use public facilities if they had to share with males.

You all give zero fucks about the rights of girls and women, including women who for religious reasons would not be able to use public facilities if they had to share with males

I don’t know about anyone else but my list of people to give a fuck about include the 3.6 million children living in poverty - that’s one in four - the families that are seeing their incomes diminish every day, the workers whose rights are being stolen, the people who contemplate not being able to pay their rent. All of those things - which disproportionately affect women - matter to me. That’s where my fucks are going.

Clegg had Cameron over a barrel though. He could have refused the coalition unless he got the PR vote instead of wasting the one opportunity.

Lib Dems sold their soul to the Tories in 2010. Yes, the Tories would have been worse without the coalition, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea. And the one thing that the Lib Dems could have done to help the country long term by getting a PR vote in, they didn't bother with.

Blossomtoes

how on earth can you advocate for disadvantaged women if the definition changes to include men? It will be the most vulnerable women in society who will be impacted the most by self ID, the women who use refuge or shelters for abused women but have to encounter males there, the women who can’t opt for private healthcare so have to share a ward with a male, women who use public facilities and leisure centres who either change with males or can’t access them anymore, Muslim women who want a ladies only swim but can’t because it now includes women… You don’t give any fucks about any of those women if you don’t give a fuck about their existing legal rights being taken from them when Labour get in. I know because I am one of them, not a privileged middle class women telling other more vulnerable women what they should care about when they vote or who they should vote for ( not directed at you necessarily, just what I see a lot ).

you don’t give a fuck about their existing legal rights being taken from them when Labour get in

Because it isn’t going to happen.