Westminstenders: Local Elections Madness

[RedToothBrush]

This week has gone from banging your head against the wall to wanting to bang your head through it.

Labour have voted to support a 2nd ref as their EU election campaign strategy. Only for Corbyn to ignore it. And a row has broken out.

Change UK seem well on track to make everyone else look professional and to look as 'liberal elite' as humanly possible in a real life reverse paraody of themselves.

The Brexit Party is going from strength to strength with the most wtf candidates imaginable and Farage is happy cos his mate is coming to tea with the Queen.

The Liberal Democrats have decided that anti semitism is OK in an effort to keep Labour seats.

And the Conservatives. Where to start? Probably with the Tory Leadership Election infighting which looks suspiciously as if its now breached national security.

As for Brexit. No one really wants to talk about it. Local elections are next week. May is now apparently supporting the Malthouse Compromise. Be warned, it is difficult to see it as anything but a Trojan Horse for No Deal. Not that everyone has worked this out yet. But until we have the blood bath of the local elections over and done with on Thursday, don't expect much to happen.

Then expect the Tories to lose their minds...

SheriffCallie
I agree with your comments. Maybe because you have to travel over the water to get there is a greater 'mental' separation rather than just a bit more hassle for travelling. In the same way 'Europe' is often regarded as remote and 'other', despite it's proximity.
The fact the UK passports say United Kingdom and Northern Ireland almost suggests it's an 'add on'. There may well be a constitutional reason for this wording, but it does not shout 'oneness'.

{I could ask why you're not following the thread properly? Or reading your links?}
Although not necessarily directed at me but you have to remember this is principally a women's 'chat forum' on a website nominally about parenting but where a significant number of posters are 'anti men' often in quite an unpleasant manner.
The Brexit topic (here) is more relevant than most for CHILDREN because they are going to suffer the most.

Sheriff NI is the nasty little secret that mainland parties keep trying to hide under the bed ....
many voters didn't even realise was one of the 4 UK nations

Advocating Brexit without a plan for NI was even more irresponsible than not having a plan for GB

All I can find is the BBC list below, of parties and candidates
NI has STV, so they would have to be ranked in order
There will be 3 MEPs elected for NI

The DUP, UKIP and Conservatives are obviously Brexiters
Alliance, SDLP, Sinn Féin are Remain

I heard that the other Unionist parties are Remain too, but maybe someone from NI can say if that's correct
I don't know about the Independents

www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-48081449

They try and close down discussion of NI as soon as possible. Or come up with some bullshit about people should be nice to each other and it's all NI's fault that Brexit isn't plain sailing.

clavinova Your post was very misleading - not clear you meant the byelection.

Some Leavers expected Brexit to happen the day after the ref and many were angry that it would take 2 years ...
We get some drop-in Leavers like that

Hence the meltdown in the Tory vote because their party is in obvious chaos and can't manage Brexit

Are you looking forward to the destruction of the Tory party over Brexit ? - thoroughly deserved

Agree with you about Northern Ireland. Is there any local advice?

Passports say United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

I presume before Irish independence, they said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Sorry - that was supposed to be a , not a

Diane Dodds (DUP) and Martina Anderson (SF) are sitting MEPs likely to be re-elected in NI. The 3rd seat will attract a bit more interest, and all eyes will be on respected Alliance leader and vociferous remainer Naomi Long.

The independents are Jane Morrice, formerly Womens' Coalition and a Deputy speaker at Stormont, and Neil NcCann who's a sort of Green. They are both pro-remain but I can't see them getting many votes.

STV can make for strange bedfellows: in Scottish council elections (particularly by-elections), Labour sometimes gets in after many rounds of the "lowest" vote transferring, with it taking to, say, the 6th (or more, depending on how many candidates there were) round where the Conservative votes transfer to Labour to give them their majority

So from that experience, I would only rank the Remain supporting parties and not include any Brexit supporting parties in the ranking, so that the vote doesn't inadvertently get transferred to them in one of the subsequent rounds.

Gaaaah - parties or individuals.

Yes Prettybird.
Mine also says European Union.
Now the bastards want to remove my European Union bit to make things more difficult, all for no real reason.

Good tip about STV, pretty Only rank Remain

Thanks for the info, Melanie So it's really about seat #3 in NI
Let's hope the Alliance nail it
A boost for non-sectarianism too

I'll not mention that the Scottish Greens are also in favour of independence then

Hah yes, pretty, I did know that, but they're not perceived as primarily nationalist in the way the SNP are, so I'm slightly more comfortable with my vote going to them. I'm also not entirely opposed to Scottish independence, ambivalent really. I just don't want the upheaval and bad feeling of another referendum. I was a teenager in Canada during the last Quebec independence referendum and the divisions it caused lasted a long time.

Studying this again - (OpiniumResearch) the last Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 33%
CON: 26%
BREX: 17%
LDEM: 6%
CHUK: 4%
GRN: 4%
UKIP: 4%

We need more Westminster polls with BREX included, but
what is surprising is that LAB+CON total is under 60%

What is really significant is how low the Tories are - and how FPTP translates that into seats
BREX (& UKIP remnants) splitting the rightwing vote

Of course polls vary and BREX could collapse, but after disastrous local and EP elections, that v low Tory vote would be quite possible

Back in 1983, The Lib/SDP Alliance got 26% but only about 20 seats

The Tory vote distribution is much better than that for 26%, but Labour could win an absolute majority with 33%
Well, PM Corbyn couldn't be worse than this shower
... and the shrieks of horror from the Tories as he rolls back 40 years of their policies would be a consolation

is there such a thing as a 'wahlomat' (bigchocfrenzy will know what I mean) for the UK?

it's basically an internet survey that is 'fed' on certain questions by the party manifestoes. it gives you as result the 'best' fit to vote.

Mship imo, the EP elections are about attitudes to Europe, not Scottish Independence
People can vote for the strongest Remain party there, while showing up in Indy polls as No

ChocFrenzy:

what the hell is the CHUK party? sounds like something you've just made up, or are you trying to give it a more sensible name??

CHUK is the standard abbreviation in polls for Change UK

I’m starting to despair about the whole process.
If we are going to Brexit anyway, might be best under a Labour government - I’d hope they wouldn’t sell us out to the highest bidder...
I just don’t trust the Tories not to make life worse for the majority of people while they cash in.

If I were in NI and wanting to vote tactically, I'd maybe vote the two pro-Remain Independents 1 and 2 and then Alliance and SF 4th.

That way, you'd be sure that your vote would count as the votes would be transferred to Alliance and be counted in later rounds

That's if the DUP and SF are pretty sure of getting in - in which case, it might even be worth leaving SF off the ranking, so Alliance get in on "Last Man Standing". Would have to see how the rounds worked last time to see if that would work or be too risky.

At least Labour don't have ERG nutcases, that is true. I'm not totally convinced by Corbyn's motives / desires, but I know that no deal isn't part of it, unlike those loons.

What has politics become?!

big choc:

how come everywhere else calls it CUK - or is CHUK just the new name as they've realised how dumb that acronym is?

either way, it's poor - Chuk hardly sounds solid, time to get rid etc..

Corbyn is a Leaver, so can't see why you're so keen on him!