British Politics Guide

[Jonlang]

This could be a "strictly speaking, but", but the MP in my constituency announced, on the day the election was called, that parliament has been suspended, and that, within the confines of the law, he was only an "acting", MP, not an actual Member of Parliament, meaning that, for those forty some odd days, he could only really deal with emergencies

I don't know how much this might be the case in the US, but in the UK it seems to be the case that, beyond things previously established (like paying people) and emergencies, the government and its machinations just kind of don't exist? Like, our general elections, from what I can remember, have an upper bound on campaigning (I think it's like 2 or 3 months), so a short term temporary shut-down of government is just sort of the thing, whereas in the US, at least for presidential elections, you've got like a two-year build up. You can't shut down governance for that long every four years

The "quick turn around", then, I imagine, is literally because a) things already half shut down, and b) pretty much every party leader is poised to win (as Masako said as well, we have the odd situation of having the fact that people need to ask someone else to form a government that exists outside of that system). I'm fairly certain, although could be wrong, that there's also a two-week-long limit on "forming a government" that the Commons accepts? So that might speed things along a tad

The PM and the Cabinet are still the Government during this period, but the House of Commons is basically closed and no more bills can be passed. The day-to-day of Government goes on as normal. The only time that there really is no Government is the half an hour or so between the outgoing PM goes to the King and says "I'm off, the new guy's on his way" and the newly elected PM rocks up "hi Kingy, I'm the new PM" and the King "invites" him to form his new Government.

[sangi39]

This could be a "strictly speaking, but", but the MP in my constituency announced, on the day the election was called, that parliament has been suspended, and that, within the confines of the law, he was only an "acting", MP, not an actual Member of Parliament, meaning that, for those forty some odd days, he could only really deal with emergencies

I don't know how much this might be the case in the US, but in the UK it seems to be the case that, beyond things previously established (like paying people) and emergencies, the government and its machinations just kind of don't exist? Like, our general elections, from what I can remember, have an upper bound on campaigning (I think it's like 2 or 3 months), so a short term temporary shut-down of government is just sort of the thing, whereas in the US, at least for presidential elections, you've got like a two-year build up. You can't shut down governance for that long every four years

The "quick turn around", then, I imagine, is literally because a) things already half shut down, and b) pretty much every party leader is poised to win (as Masako said as well, we have the odd situation of having the fact that people need to ask someone else to form a government that exists outside of that system). I'm fairly certain, although could be wrong, that there's also a two-week-long limit on "forming a government" that the Commons accepts? So that might speed things along a tad

The PM and the Cabinet are still the Government during this period, but the House of Commons is basically closed and no more bills can be passed. The day-to-day of Government goes on as normal. The only time that there really is no Government is the half an hour or so between the outgoing PM goes to the King and says "I'm off, the new guy's on his way" and the newly elected PM rocks up "hi Kingy, I'm the new PM" and the King "invites" him to form his new Government.

Thaaaaat makes more sense Thank you muchly

[Ketsuban]

Do I get this right that 9 out of these 14 years of Tory rule happened because too many people thought Ed Miliband looked weird when he was photographed eating a ham sandwich?

I think this would be mistaking a symptom for a disease. The media coverage of the 2015 election was aggressively partisan; they would have taken anything that would work for the purpose of slandering Labour, and they got a bacon sandwich. It wasn't even about Ed Miliband - after he resigned as leader we got the Times describing Jeremy Corbyn and his "Chairman Mao-style bicycle".

[Richard W]

The PM and the Cabinet are still the Government during this period, but the House of Commons is basically closed and no more bills can be passed. The day-to-day of Government goes on as normal. The only time that there really is no Government is the half an hour or so between the outgoing PM goes to the King and says "I'm off, the new guy's on his way" and the newly elected PM rocks up "hi Kingy, I'm the new PM" and the King "invites" him to form his new Government.

I did wonder what would have happened if Sunak had suddenly dropped dead during the campaign. Convention demands that the King appoint someone who can be expected to command a majority in the House of Commons - but that would have been Starmer!

[Jonlang]

The PM and the Cabinet are still the Government during this period, but the House of Commons is basically closed and no more bills can be passed. The day-to-day of Government goes on as normal. The only time that there really is no Government is the half an hour or so between the outgoing PM goes to the King and says "I'm off, the new guy's on his way" and the newly elected PM rocks up "hi Kingy, I'm the new PM" and the King "invites" him to form his new Government.

I did wonder what would have happened if Sunak had suddenly dropped dead during the campaign. Convention demands that the King appoint someone who can be expected to command a majority in the House of Commons - but that would have been Starmer!

If the PM dies, the party just elects a new leader and they become PM. If this were to happen during purdah then the campaign for a new party leader would likely take longer than the campaign for the general election. It's never happened so how it would actually pan out is anyone's guess.

[Ketsuban]

I would expect the deputy PM (at the time Oliver Dowden) to assume the role of acting PM for the purposes of the election, forming a coalition government (in the event of a hung parliament) and the leadership contest.

[Raphael]

I'm trying to come up with something snarky to say about this, but can't. "Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people": https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... eal-people

[sangi39]

I'm trying to come up with something snarky to say about this, but can't. "Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people": https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... eal-people

They went so hard on "reform" they tried to reform reality itself

[jcb]

For all intents and purposes, Reform UK is UKIP. Farage jumped ship because once they got what they wanted - the UK is formally independent of the European Union - UKIP has no real reason to exist. It might as well be a rebrand as far as he's concerned.

So why didn't he just rename the party instead of creating a new one?

I'm trying to come up with something snarky to say about this, but can't. "Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people": https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... eal-people

Comparing the photos from this page ( https://www.gbnews.com/politics/reform- ... ing-ai-bot ), the first definitely looks like his face got smoothed in photoshop, and possibly slimmed down to look slightly less chubby.

[MacAnDàil]

Reform UK used to be called the Brexit Party, by the way.

And GB News is like a UK Newsmax. But new. And their viewers vote more for Labour than Tory or Reform despite the views of the channel.

[Lērisama]

Hey, how's that "Labour Party" of yours going? Directly implementing socialism and reversing everything the Tories did, right?

(An excuse to talk about UK politics! Aha!) Kind of, but not really. Reeves is behaving like a radical¹ who promised to be a Tory² before the election, and is scared of being seen to break her promises, so she blamed the tax rises on the irresponsibility of the Tories³, and she's made a huge show of making "difficult decisions" and not hving enough money to do things that would please her backbenchers⁴, and only a small show of changing how debt is measured, so she can borrow for infrastructure investment (and both do more of it, and free up money for other things) without breaking her self-imposed rules on debt.

This still makes it more left-wing than the last labour government, who only did the pretending to be Tories bit – there's no noises on the lines of "We don't mind if you're filthy rich, so long as you pay your taxes" any more, and even now, the right-wing rags are full of angry pieces by rich people on how much the budget will cost them, sometimes disgised as small farmers (there was a slight change to inheritance tax rules on agricultural land – it used to be exempt, and now it's only heavily preferrentially treated)

¹ In the old-fashioned British sense. I think the closest American term would be progressive, but over here that is mainly used by those who don't see much difference between our three left-wing parties and wish they'd get along better and possibly merge (and so all three would stand for exactly the policies of the progressive who wants it to happen)
² A traditional Tory, like one from before Thatcher, bot the weird nationalist/"supply side" idiots we have now⁵
³ True, but it was already common knowledge, to the point where the IFS (influential think tank) accused both Labout and the Tories of a “conspiracy of silence” (although I think the extent was slightly greater than previously thought)
⁴ MPs not in the government, or front bench (because that's where ministers sit in the House of Commons)
⁵ I am still quite angry at the last Tory government for everything it did, if you want a more objective analysis ask me again in about 10 years (at least)

[Raphael]

(Posting this here to avoid getting more OT in the US Politics Thread.)

Lērisama, I completely agree with you about how the Tories lost, but I think jcb still has a point with this:

My prediction: Fake populism will get bigger in the UK. Either the Conservative party will move farther right to stop losing votes to the Reform party (this is the more likely possibility), or they'll resist moving and the Reform party will eventually overtake them, and they'll cease being one of the two main parties.

Problem is, Labour are the incumbents now. In the runup to the election, it became more and more clear that a block of wood painted grey could beat the Tories, and Keir Starmer seems to have handled that by basically running as a block of wood painted grey. But while you can beat unpopular incumbents by running as a block of wood painted grey, you can't really win as a block of wood painted grey if you're the incumbent.

[Lērisama]

Oh yes, Labour are now holding the hot potato. Apparently, they've been doing really badly in the local council by-elections since July, but since I have no idea where the data is collected, I can't confirm that. The Tories are already sliding towards more fake populism – they had a leadership election in the aftermath of the GE, and both the final two¹ were on the fake populist side², and the winner was probably the more extreme (Kemi Badenoch). My hope is people will remember their awfulness next election, and we will repeat the vote-split, but it's definitely not a given

¹ Tory leadership elections currently (they change them regularly) work by having the MPs vote on a field of candidates, and eliminating the last place one. The final two then get voted on by the members. This is how we got Liz Truss
² There was a soft-right in the final three, and he was even leading in the final four (with #4 also being from that side of the party), but he actually lost votes between the last two ballots. Whether this is "cock-up" (his supporters voting for the perceived weaker hard right one to try and give him an edge in the members vote, and a few too many doing so) or "conspiracy" (people deliberately voting for him in the ballot before to create an illusion of saftey) is disputed. Either way about ⅔ of the MPs voted for a hard-right, fake populist candidate

Edit: it's probably best to watch the NHS waiting lists, and the NHS more generally. Improving the NHS is about the only thing everyone can agree on, really important to the public³, and something really noticeable, because almost everyone uses it. About ⅙ (I think) of the population is currently on a waiting list, so everyone knows someone who is on one. If this noticeably improves, I think people will be more willing to overlook other things not improving.

³ According to More in Common NHS waiting lists improving is important for more than double the people than the second one (lower levels of poverty). The whole page is basically saying the same thing we are – Labour need to improve things, or they're gone

[jcb]

Problem is, Labour are the incumbents now. In the runup to the election, it became more and more clear that a block of wood painted grey could beat the Tories, and Keir Starmer seems to have handled that by basically running as a block of wood painted grey. But while you can beat unpopular incumbents by running as a block of wood painted grey, you can't really win as a block of wood painted grey if you're the incumbent.

Yes, and my point is that most of the people who lost faith in the Tories (not counting those who already lacked faith in them) didn't turn left, but went further right.

My hope is people will remember their awfulness next election, and we will repeat the vote-split, but it's definitely not a given

America is the canary in the coal mine. If nothing is fixed systemically, in a generation, the UK will have their own Trump.

The whole page is basically saying the same thing we are – Labour need to improve things, or they're gone

Indeed. A dedicated Labour voter may think that being not-the-Tories is good enough, but most people don't care.

[MacAnDàil]

My hope is people will remember their awfulness next election, and we will repeat the vote-split, but it's definitely not a given

America is the canary in the coal mine. If nothing is fixed systemically, in a generation, the UK will have their own Trump.

To what extent was Johnson a British Trump?

[Lērisama]

Yes, and my point is that most of the people who lost faith in the Tories (not counting those who already lacked faith in them) didn't turn left, but went further right.

Annoyingly, I can't find the polling on the second choices of reform voters right now (I'm sure there's been some), but yes, this is a problem.

My hope is people will remember their awfulness next election, and we will repeat the vote-split, but it's definitely not a given

America is the canary in the coal mine. If nothing is fixed systemically, in a generation, the UK will have their own Trump.

Yes, this is a problem. There are reasons we can hope Britain will be more immune, but we shouldn't rely on them (my understanding is that Boris Johnson's 2019 coalition, got 44% of the vote, with the rest split between Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish & Welsh Nationalists, the Greens, and the NI parties, was similar to Trump's, and a return of that would be very worrying, especially with some Trumplike character in charge. I'm not sure if there are many Tory moderates with a backbone left (Johnson expelled 20 in his few before the election, and the membership & its papers don't want any more)

The whole page is basically saying the same thing we are – Labour need to improve things, or they're gone

Indeed. A dedicated Labour voter may think that being not-the-Tories is good enough, but most people don't care.

Again, I'll repeat that they're more left wing than New Labour – just look at how the papers complained at the budget, but that isn't a high bar. I have hope, but it's a cautious hope, and I have no idea how to both drive Labour left and to keep its coalition together, mainly because of the latency time between doing the actions that'll anger the leave part of the vote¹ and getting results. Labour is already doing the ways to improve people's lives popular with its whole coalition (there's an employment rights bill going through parliament right now, for example), and the less popular ways (rejoin the single market, at least) would be an excellent way to convince the Con>Lab switchers this election that the Tories (or worse, reform) is their real home. Again.

¹ Short hand for the anti-immigration, socially more conservative, left economically part of the vote
² Or, at the very least, being too naïve to recognise antisemitism

Edit: MacAnDàil posted before me

My hope is people will remember their awfulness next election, and we will repeat the vote-split, but it's definitely not a given

America is the canary in the coal mine. If nothing is fixed systemically, in a generation, the UK will have their own Trump.

To what extent was Johnson a British Trump?

That's a good essay question. I think he got elected on the same wave as Trump, with Trump-like policies, but I think

Edit edit:
Something weird happened. I accidentally posted about 5 indentical messages

[bradrn]

Problem is, Labour are the incumbents now. In the runup to the election, it became more and more clear that a block of wood painted grey could beat the Tories, and Keir Starmer seems to have handled that by basically running as a block of wood painted grey. But while you can beat unpopular incumbents by running as a block of wood painted grey, you can't really win as a block of wood painted grey if you're the incumbent.

Ah, the same problem we have here in Australia. It still beats Boris Johnson (or Scott Morrison).

(See also this post, which I made at the time.)

[Lērisama]

Problem is, Labour are the incumbents now. In the runup to the election, it became more and more clear that a block of wood painted grey could beat the Tories, and Keir Starmer seems to have handled that by basically running as a block of wood painted grey. But while you can beat unpopular incumbents by running as a block of wood painted grey, you can't really win as a block of wood painted grey if you're the incumbent.

Ah, the same problem we have here in Australia. It still beats Boris Johnson (or Scott Morrison).

Johnson was several scandals ago (he was finally felled by ignoring sexual assault allegations abou his deputy whip, and appointing him anyway. This being the Tories, this was just a front to disguise that they'd finally got enough people to (near) simultaneously resign). We got two whole PMs after him. Starmer does best them both by not being actively awful though, so I'll take that.

(See also this post, which I made at the time.)

Oh, that's hilarious

[bradrn]

Problem is, Labour are the incumbents now. In the runup to the election, it became more and more clear that a block of wood painted grey could beat the Tories, and Keir Starmer seems to have handled that by basically running as a block of wood painted grey. But while you can beat unpopular incumbents by running as a block of wood painted grey, you can't really win as a block of wood painted grey if you're the incumbent.

Ah, the same problem we have here in Australia. It still beats Boris Johnson (or Scott Morrison).

Johnson was several scandals ago […] We got two whole PMs after him.

Oh god, yes, I’d forgotten about ‘Lettuce Liz’ Truss and Rishi Sunak. Thanks for the reminder, I guess.

(Australia had gotten its own coup-prone-ness under control by then. Morrison was replaced by Albanese in 2022, and since then a whole two years have gone by without any new government at all.)

[Darren]

Morrison was replaced by Albanese in 2022, and since then a whole two years have gone by without any new government at all.)

This is only because Morrison and Albanese look pretty much identical so at a quick glance you'd think that ScoMo was still in power