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The Labour Party - Part 2

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8 hours ago, West 77 said:

The truth is before Tony Blair gained power with the Labour party it was the Labour party who were more anti EU than the Tory party.

Mr Blair himself was a Leaver, prior to becoming Labour leader.

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1 hour ago, El Cid said:

So if he was voted in, you wouldnt respect democracy? Maybe he would do a better job at being the Brexit Minster than Lord Frost?

No. Maybe. 

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5 hours ago, Tony said:

If we had PR, Nigel Farage would probably have been the UK's Brexit Minister and Deputy PM.

Unlikely. If we'd had PR, the Tory and Labour governments wouldn't have got away with ignoring people's concerns about immigration for so long and we wouldn't have had brexit.

 

If MEPs were elected by FPTP rather than PR, how many seats do you think UKIP would have gained? The reality is they wouldn't have gained any and Tory and Labour governments would have just continued ignoring people's concerns about immigration.

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The only people who love PR are the ones who can't find enough supporters to get their ideas implemented. I'd say that's more to do with their usually self-serving and quite bonkers ideas than it is to do with the voting system.  They simply can't take the hint that their ideas are continually rejected because they are rubbish.

The only people? Conservative MPs back proportional representation, arguing First Past the Post “encourages conflict and aggression”.

 

Your attempts to dismiss people arguing for a fairer electoral system as just being sore losers is merely an attempt to avoid debating the problems with FPTP.

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2 hours ago, West 77 said:

We had an EU referendum where 52% of the electorate chose the option to leave the EU.  The  democratic choice to leave the EU was already decided before the 2019 December General Election.  It was the rogue parliament who didn't respect democracy and my point is if PR had been in place during the 2019 December General Election then Brexit wouldn't have happened because the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the SNP would all have blocked the implementation of the democratic choice the British people made.  The truth is there is only one major party in Britain that truly respects democracy and that is the Tory party and that is the main reason they won an eighty seat majority at the 2019 December General Election.

That statement must be a joke, surely...

 

The Tory deliberately blindsided the electorate, by making the last election all about Brexit, never mind the myriad problems their Austerity measures had caused, these weren't even discussed, as evidenced by Boris's no show at the Andrew Neil interview. All he could say was 'Get Brexit Done' (which he singularly hasn't managed to do judging by the unsolved problems it's caused,) as any other discussion would have exposed his lack of ability.

 

The only things the Tory party respects are wealth and power; how to get it, and how to keep it to themselves.

The sooner the population realises that, the sooner we might get closer to a decent more equitable society for all. 

 

 'I'm alright Jack, so f*** you.' should be the Conservative party motto...

 

 

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2 hours ago, West 77 said:

We had an EU referendum where 52% of the electorate chose the option to leave the EU.  The  democratic choice to leave the EU was already decided before the 2019 December General Election.

I see you're back to your "we had democracy once, we shouldn't have it again" argument.

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It was the rogue parliament who didn't respect democracy and my point is if PR had been in place during the 2019 December General Election then Brexit wouldn't have happened because the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the SNP would all have blocked the implementation of the democratic choice the British people made. 

The supreme court didn't rule Parliament had broken the law. It did rule that both the May and Johnson governments had broken the law. The only thing rogue during that time was the governments.

 

You've complained on this forum before about the opposition opposing Tory policies, even non brexit related ones, so you've demonstrated your lack of understanding/lack of respect for our democracy.

 

The EU transition period ended on Dec 31st 2020. Since then, do you think Brexit has gone well or badly?. 18% well, 53% badly, 29% neither or don't know.

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2 minutes ago, West 77 said:

Tony makes a valid point.  There can be no doubt under PR that UKIP and then the Brexit Party would have challenged both the Lib Dems and the SNP for the position of the third largest party in the Westminster Parliament meaning there would have been a good chance that Nigel Farage could have become deputy Prime Minister just like Nick Clegg did in 2010.

The point is that PR would have prevented the Tory and Labour governments, over decades, from ignoring the concerns of the people who ended up voting for UKIP and so UKIP wouldn't have been successful.

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12 minutes ago, CaptainSwing said:

Under the d'Hondt PR system, for instance, your area would choose several MPs from different parties.  At least one of them would most likely be somebody you voted for.  Whereas at the 2019 election (for instance) there were about 200 constituencies where less than half the votes were for the winning candidate so that, in those constituencies, more than half the people are now represented by somebody they didn't vote for.

 

I don't follow.  Are you arguing that it's better to have a government that was voted for by a minority of the population than it is to have to wait a few weeks for a new government to be formed?  Fair enough if that's what you believe but, again, it doesn't sound very democratic to me.

 

Yes, under a (weird variant of) a FPTP system.  But you're right that it does give a malevolent outgoing president the chance to try and sabotage the incoming one - mentioning no names.

 

No, it's the apologists for FPTP who are anti-democratic, whether they're Tory, Labour or Monster Raving Loony Party.

Game, set and match to CaptainSwing.

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1 hour ago, altus said:

Unlikely. If we'd had PR, the Tory and Labour governments wouldn't have got away with ignoring people's concerns about immigration for so long and we wouldn't have had brexit.

 

If MEPs were elected by FPTP rather than PR, how many seats do you think UKIP would have gained? The reality is they wouldn't have gained any and Tory and Labour governments would have just continued ignoring people's concerns about immigration.

The only people? Conservative MPs back proportional representation, arguing First Past the Post “encourages conflict and aggression”.

 

Your attempts to dismiss people arguing for a fairer electoral system as just being sore losers is merely an attempt to avoid debating the problems with FPTP.

I didn't say that FPTP didn't have problems. I said that PR delivered up failed promises and that proponents of PR should be careful what they wish for. 

 

There's plenty of banging on about the problems with FPTP so let's debate the problems with PR instead. Perhaps you can start a separate thread.

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33 minutes ago, Tony said:

I didn't say that FPTP didn't have problems. I said that PR delivered up failed promises and that proponents of PR should be careful what they wish for. 

 

There's plenty of banging on about the problems with FPTP so let's debate the problems with PR instead. Perhaps you can start a separate thread.

I never claimed you said FPTP didn't have problems, I just pointed out you seem reluctant to discuss them. Your suggestion we debate the problems with PR instead, rather than as well, does little to convince me that is not the case.

 

The reality is both systems have benefits and problems. The question is which is fairer.

1 hour ago, CaptainSwing said:

Under the d'Hondt PR system, for instance, your area would choose several MPs from different parties.  At least one of them would most likely be somebody you voted for.  Whereas at the 2019 election (for instance) there were about 200 constituencies where less than half the votes were for the winning candidate so that, in those constituencies, more than half the people are now represented by somebody they didn't vote for.

It's worth adding that many people won't vote for smaller parties in UK general elections purely because they've got no chance of getting in under FPTP. With PR they are more likely to vote for smaller parties so that 200 constituencies where less than half the votes were for the winning candidate would likely be greater. See EU elections and proportions of MEPs for examples.

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2 hours ago, West 77 said:

I believe Neil Kinnock was also anti EU at one time.  It goes without saying the EU has been a nice little  earner for Neil Kinnock and members of his family and their wives.  Enough said.

I was always anti-EU untill it came to deciding whether I thought it right to leave or remain.

I guess its just like people are anti-council and anti-Government, but you cannot leave those and stop receiving their services.

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11 hours ago, altus said:

I never claimed you said FPTP didn't have problems, I just pointed out you seem reluctant to discuss them. Your suggestion we debate the problems with PR instead, rather than as well, does little to convince me that is not the case.

 

The reality is both systems have benefits and problems. The question is which is fairer.

It's worth adding that many people won't vote for smaller parties in UK general elections purely because they've got no chance of getting in under FPTP. With PR they are more likely to vote for smaller parties so that 200 constituencies where less than half the votes were for the winning candidate would likely be greater. See EU elections and proportions of MEPs for examples.

I also said that this thread is full of people banging on about problems with FPTP so I really don't think I have anything useful to add here since it is a Labour Party thread and I've already pointed out that Labour, like the Conservatives, have no interest in PR and that the voters actually voted against it when asked. 

 

But please, go ahead and start a separate thread about voting with any angle you like. You've been here as long as me, you know how this place works.

 

But, bear in mind that PR / FPTP discussions are a minority interest discussed by the politically disappointed who can't understand why they don't get their way, and those politically interested geeks who can't really fathom why the politically disappointed are still banging on about it. It could be a very insular, boring and unproductive conversation, but please, go for it, we might all earn something.

Edited by Tony

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Guest sibon
3 hours ago, West 77 said:

The FPTP system has worked just fine for hundreds of years in our country by normally ensuring the party that wins the most seats form a government and are able to govern independently.  It works just fine for the voter because they know if the candidate they choose on the ballot paper wins the most votes that person becomes their own MP. We saw what happened during the time of the rogue parliament  when all the main opposition parties blocked everything  the Prime Minister wanted to do.  A PR system would make the actions of the rogue parliament the norm.

 

There is no justification to change a voting system which has proved to be the best system to deliver stable governments that serve for a full term just to appease  a sad bunch of anti Tory cry babies who have no genuine respect for democracy.

I’m not particularly in favour of PR, but you are incorrect about quite a lot of the above. 
 

FPTP does generally result in stable government, which is why I like it. What it also does in this country is to give roughly 45% of the population the power to call the shots over the remaining 55%. That’s not a good basis for government, whoever is in power

 

It also helps to sustain the pretence that we have two (or maybe 2.5) major parties. You can see from the problems  that Labour has, that they are at least two parties in one.

 

On the other side, the peculiar UKIP/Liberal Democrat coalition that is governing the country is further evidence that we really don’t have a two party system any more.

 

That said, I don’t think that PR is the answer. Maybe government needs a proper overhaul. Taking significant powers and finances away from London towards the regions, might be the way to go. That would involve encouraging some talent to take up regional government roles.
 

I’m not holding my breath.

Edited by sibon

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