British Politics Guide

[evmdbm]

Alternatively nobody knows anything about anything and we're just making shit up as we go along?

[Salmoneus]

Probably not important in the long run, but a nice encapsulation of the cultural problems.

The government is attempting to pass what it considers a neutral motion. It declares that the house "reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29 January 2019". That is, the commons still thinks what it thought a couple of weeks ago.

This has been met with fury. It's been called "gratuitously divisive", "fundamentally wrong and anti-democratic", "contemptuous of this House", and "ridiculous", and the government has been accused of playing the house "for fools". A large rebellion is possible when it comes to a vote.

The crux of the problem is that "the approach expressed" appears to refer to two different motions passed on the same day - one ruling out no-deal, and one requiring "alternative arrangements" to replace the backstop. A majority of the commons supported each idea, but only a minority supported both - because if you add 'this deal isn't good enough' to 'we can't leave without a deal', the result is 'we can't leave (unless a new deal is reached)', which only a minority agree with. To assuage the rebellious ERG, the brexit secretary (who recently was unable to remember or pronounce the name of Jean-Claude Juncker) has reassured them that brexit will go ahead.

This, of course, has provoked fury from Remainers, because it appears to directly contradict the will of the house as expressed in the 'no no deal' motion - the house passed two motions, and the government says (orally) that it's only regarding one as valid (even though the motion it's proposing doesn't specify that in writing).

The government, for its part, points out that as well as passing motions to prohibit no-deal, and to reject the currently proposed deal, it ALSO passed actual legislation requiring brexit to happen on a specific date whether or not a deal had been arranged. And that this legislation overrules the motion to prohibit no deal, since obviously the triangle of "we can't leave without a deal", "we have no deal" and "we will leave" is logically unfulfillable. Of course, remainers can argue that this could equally be interpreted as the legislation overruling the 'no deal unless the backstop is removed' motion, so...


Anyway, welcome to the paradoxes of voting, expressed in their most refined form.

[A group of individuals with monotonic preferences may collectively have preferences that fail to be monotonic. Groups are inherently irrational. As a result, decision-making through voting can depend on which questions are asked in which order, and which are not asked - when all questions are asked, the expressed collective preferences may be contradictory, and hence impossible to implement.]

[Salmoneus]

Update: the ERG abstained, so the government lost.

The vote has no legal force, but also farcical and humiliating. The whole idea was meant to be to demonstrate to the EU that May commanded a stable majority. If she can't even get people to agree to the proposition "we support the motion that we just passed", then it doesn't bode well...

[chris_notts]

Update: the ERG abstained, so the government lost.

The vote has no legal force, but also farcical and humiliating. The whole idea was meant to be to demonstrate to the EU that May commanded a stable majority. If she can't even get people to agree to the proposition "we support the motion that we just passed", then it doesn't bode well...

Another day, another humiliation for May? It doesn't even feel like news anymore.

I keep saying this, but I don't see how she lasts long after this is over and there's no pressing deadline. 2021? Who wants this May-led clusterf**k for three more years? And who wants her shaping the final deal?

On the voting system issue, one of my maths lecturers at university published a number of papers proving properties of voting systems. I almost did something on that topic for my dissertation, but changed my mind.

[alice]

How will FPTP cope with post-Brexit politics anyway? I doubt it could take the strain.

[mèþru]

The same FPTP coped with all political upheval: a lack of a strong movement to change it. The UK and the US have been through many deep splits and realigning things before; I don't see how Brexit cuts the UK deeper than slavery did in the US, or then the intra-party dichotomy on labour relations and pregressivism in both the UK and the US from the time of President Cleveland to Prime Minister MacDonald. And what about that time when Liberals split? I mean three times (1886, 1922, 1931)?

[chris_notts]

So the rumour us that by the end of the day SDP2 is going to be declared:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... bour-party

Despite the way they've bee pushing the anti-semitism angle, I think it's pretty clear this is their way of lobbing a grenade at the leadership on their way out. If they agreed with Labour economic and Brexit policy they wouldn't be leaving. The goal since they privately decided to leave has been to do as much as possible to drive a wedge through the middle of the party as insiders in the hope of taking others with them, or at least weakening the competition,

[alice]

Seven MPs altogether, according to the Beeb. Will they agitate for FPTP? Is this the start of the political fallout from Brexit? Or will it just be a storm in a teacup, or a teacup in a storm? Watch this space...

[Salmoneus]

The same FPTP coped with all political upheval: a lack of a strong movement to change it. The UK and the US have been through many deep splits and realigning things before; I don't see how Brexit cuts the UK deeper than slavery did in the US, or then the intra-party dichotomy on labour relations and pregressivism in both the UK and the US from the time of President Cleveland to Prime Minister MacDonald. And what about that time when Liberals split? I mean three times (1886, 1922, 1931)?

In those cases, the FPTP system coped extremely badly. Before 1886, 11 of the previous 14 elections resulted in a government that represented a majority of the population; since 1886, only 4 elections have resulted in governments that represented the majority (1900 (50.3%), 1931, 1935 and 2010 - all but the first of which were coalitions).

After 1922 in particular, stable government wouldn't be restored until 1945: betwee 1921 and 1924, there were three elections and four different Prime Ministers; Baldwin managed to win a majority (of seats, not votes) and hold on for five years, but then MacDonald somehow won the plurality of seats despite losing the popular vote, and was stuck in a minority goverment, and had to hold yet another election only two years later in a cross-party coalition, which provoked chaos - at first, all three major parties schismed, and Labour expelled their own Prime Minister from their party. The result was a government by one party (the Tories) led by a Prime Minister from another (Labour). This lead to ten years of a government that effectively could not be removed from power (because there could be no viable rivals to the grand coalition), and this was formalise with, in effect, the suspension of democracy: elections were eliminated, all parties formed a grand coalition, and a new Prime Minister emerged from smoky rooms with absolutely no imput from the public at all. Along the way, the country saw massive decline, a major depression, a general strike and a world war; politically, the chaos allowed the temporary rise of fascist parties to prominence (which perhaps would not have been temporary if not for the examples of fascism provided by other countries in that period).

It wasn't a banner period for the democratic system, and at least in part that was the result of the rigidity of the simple plurality system.

[Salmoneus]

So anyway, yes, it finally happened, sort of.

Seven MPs have broken away. Some bullet points on this:
- they haven't arranged a shared explanation of this. Some have accused the Labour Party of being institutionally racist and antisemitic; others have just said that it's about Brexit. Everyone in the media has nodded and smiled and silently thought that they were lying, because what the seven actually have in common is that they're all right-wing and continually at odds with the left-wing policies put forward by the party. The seven do give a token nod in this direction by accusing the party of having been taken over by the radical extreme communist hard left, but they don't go into this in detail.

- one of the seven is a big name, Chuka Umunna, former future prime minister. Another is a medium-sized name, Chris Leslie, who's been around semi-prominently for a while. A third is a cause celebre, Luciana Berger. She's been in the news recently fighting for her inalienable right to be a Labour MP - her local party attempted to hold a VONC in her due to her refusal to support any Labour policies and suspicion that they was planning to leave the party, but the VONC had to be withdrawn and the local party was then suspended, because Berger is Jewish. The other four MPs are not widely known, although the fact that Angela Smith is leaving will at least remove the confusion of Labour having two different Angela Smiths (the other is in the Lords). Leslie and Shuker have both been VONCed, and would probably have been removed as Labour candidated before the next election. Shuker is a little interesting for having been an advocate for prayer healing, campaigning to remove the ban on prayer companies advertising prayer healing as medically effective.

- the new party is called The Independent Group, and is not a party. They do not have any collective policies or positions, and they will not contest by-elections. However, they will form an organised body with its own hierarchies and positions, which have yet to be negotiated.

- the IG will not be joining the Lib Dems. However, they've invited MPs from all parties to join them.

- most or all of them will lose their seats at the next election anyway.


Meanwhile, apparently some in the ERG have been talking about forming their own party too, but I doubt it'll happen.

[chris_notts]

I have to say, being rid of Chuka Umunna is a bit of a relief...

[mèþru]

I kind of admire him, despite heavily disagreeing with a lot of his policies. I think Labour is better off with him as a supporter. I've never heard of any of the others and nothing that happened just now makes me want to look them up.

[mèþru]

Shortly after the group had been launched, its website crashed.

I feel this sums up the not-party pretty nicely.

[chris_notts]

Shortly after the group had been launched, its website crashed.

I feel this sums up the not-party pretty nicely.

It could actually be a good sign for them if traffic were much higher than anticipated, I suppose. But web hosting is so cheap and scalable nowadays you'd think they could've erred on the side of caution.

[Salmoneus]

Shortly after the group had been launched, its website crashed.

I feel this sums up the not-party pretty nicely.

It could actually be a good sign for them if traffic were much higher than anticipated, I suppose. But web hosting is so cheap and scalable nowadays you'd think they could've erred on the side of caution.

Yeah, but when you're Not A Party, Just A Group, and you haven't worked out who's going to be in charge of what yet, it's an achievement even to be able to bodge something together on an old free AOL account.

[chris_notts]

I feel this sums up the not-party pretty nicely.

It could actually be a good sign for them if traffic were much higher than anticipated, I suppose. But web hosting is so cheap and scalable nowadays you'd think they could've erred on the side of caution.

Yeah, but when you're Not A Party, Just A Group, and you haven't worked out who's going to be in charge of what yet, it's an achievement even to be able to bodge something together on an old free AOL account.

You might think that agreeing your organisational responsibilities and strategy in advance of the big launch might have been a smart thing to do...

[mèþru]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaBQfSAVt0s

[Frislander]

It kinda makes me sad cause I'm like mèthru here, I kinda admire Chuka as a politician, and he is a capable speaker, in fact I'd even go so far as to say that he's the kind of politician that ought to be running the Labour party, were it not for his politics.

[Salmoneus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaBQfSAVt0s

not available in Britain.



Regarding Chuka: I agree. He's right-wing, but he does at least seem to have principles and ideas, and to stick to them. He seems to have intelligence, and at least a little integrity. He's a natural politician - he has charisma, speaks articulately, isn't gaffe-prone. He's the sort of person we need in our politics right now, and it's a shame that he and the political establishments haven't been able to find a way to utilise his talents. To be clear, I don't want Labour to follow his policies. But I think Labour is better off if they're able to keep people like him within its ranks (and the Tories would be better off if they could persuade him to join them). Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be possible.

[For those who don't remember: it's widely thought Umunna must have some sort of Issue, personally or in his family. He ran for the 2015 labour leadership, and was considered a frontrunner, but withdrew after only three days declaring himself "uncomfortable" with the "scrutiny" from the press that his campaign had entailed. It's never been clear what exactly he didn't want scrutinised...]

[alice]

what the seven actually have in common is that they're all right-wing and continually at odds with the left-wing policies put forward by the party.

(mild snark, in case it isn't obvious): Sooner or later someone was going to accuse them of being unreconstructed Tories in pink disguise. I was actually expecting to read this in Socialist Worker, but not before it declared Shamima Begum to be completely innocent of anything.

Interestingly, the only Scottish Labour MP who doesn't owe his seat to JEZZA!!! has said he'll stay in the party and fight, but that others will jump before long. Meanwhile, we look forward to the Conservatives lambasting Labour for being hopelessly divided...