Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

-----------------

This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

-----------------

So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

Sorry, True to Peregrina.
I think I would rather have a few legitimately elected UKIP MPs than four million voters seething with resentment.
And yes, AV is not the same as full PR but it's a start.
I used to do electoral representation in Maths with Y8 in election years - they were generally appalled at FPTP and almost always invented AV as an alternative, it was very interesting.

I I feel utterly depressed tonight. I feel so sad for the people of Nice and Turkey.

Long time lurker joining in here - thanks so much everyone for these excellent threads which have become a current affairs lifeline.

Until recently I had some sympathy with the view that PR should be avoided on the basis of keeping extremists out (although I am a lifelong Lib Dem supporter because I believe in electoral reform as a priority.). But now the Labour has effectively been taken over by the far left, and we came pretty close to a far right take over of the Tories by Leadsom and her shady backers, surely it is safer to accept that they play a minor role and fight them in the open, rather than allow the pressure to build up to breaking point.

Have we passed the point where we can argue that FPTP 'protects us' from extremism? Perhaps we have. FPTP seems to have given us Brexit and Labour being torn in two.

X-post Fiona.

Erdogan is a absolute jerk with some serious human rights problems, any chance the new guys are the good guys?

Hey, I can always ask...

(Their statement says they're super nice and only want to restore human rights and secularism, but then that's what they would say, isn't it)

Also, is this the first military coup ever in a NATO country? History happening before our eyes...

Cameron was forced by the Tory rightwing to include the referendum.
The anti-EU paranoid Tory wing have been a continual problem ever since MrsT - remember John Major referring to the "bastards"

Cameron's unforgiveable incompetence was in the execution not the principle:

• No minimum % for a major constitutional change
• Inadequate campaigning, including not calling out fellow Tories on the Leave side for lies and fantasies.

As PM, he always seemed to be playing at it, like another Bulllingdon jape.
Now he's buggered it all up and buggered off.

UKIP would have won 83 seats at the 2015 General Election a very scary prospect

But, would the actually get that amount votes if there was proportional representation? FPTP distorts the size of the protest vote.

"Also, is this the first military coup ever in a NATO country? History happening before our eyes..."

Turkey have had multiple coups since becoming NATO members. Greece have had one as well.

I posted on the last thread how FPTP protected us from UKIP:
Their votes are spread out evenly across England, in contrast to Labour & Tory who are geographically concentrated.

UKIP with 31% over the vote would only get 83 seats, which is about what they'd have got under PR under the last election with 12.6% of the vote.
PR gives perpetual coalition.
In Germany, that means various combinations of SPD, CDU / CSU, Green, Liberal. Sensible & cosy (I live there)
In the UK electorate, that would mostly produce Tory-UKIP-Unionist coalitions < shudder >

Must clearly brush up on my history NotDavidTennant

On this FPTP business, I have long thought Britain was complacent about its far right (especially when Leave voters were arguing Brexit would protect Britain from those scary continental far rights). FPTP hides the extent of the problem and allows people to forget it's there.

Before Erdogan came to power, he served time for stirring up religious hatred.
As president, he has been destroying the secular society in Turkey, e.g. tried to criminalise afuktery.
He uses the judiciary to harass political opponents and journalists.
He incites the PKK deliberately, whenever he needs an electoral distraction
He is a nasty bastard who's been turning into a worse one
The army have traditionally had a good rep as the secular guardians there.

OK, I'll be undemocratic and say I'm rooting for the army.
I enjoyed Boris's rude limerick about him too !

That is, indeed, a grim thought, BigChoc.

"Afuktery" is iPad's correction of "adultery" - Yes !

That's kind of what I was getting at BigChoc, I had this vague notion that army = secularist force and Erdogan = religious authoritarian

Only these things rarely turn out well do they... and as I understand there's a decent chance Erdogan would win any new election. Democracy sucks.

I like the idea of coalition as long as the extremes are marginalised. But some would see the Greens as marginal. The only elections I feel I have a voice are the Euro ones (how ironic) so I do use that as a bit of a protest vote.

UKIP would have won 83 seats at the 2015 General Election a very scary prospect
Not necessarily though - some people would have voted this way, knowing that they wouldn't get in, but would send a message. Many must have voted the same way in the Referendum, just not realising that this isn't the place for a protest vote.