Potential UK General Election Late 2016 / Early 2017

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any predictions for what the next round of general election polling will look like, post-Brexit vote?  Which parties gain and which parties lose in the short term from Brexit having passed?

All kinds of things could be shown, but I don't think it matters.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If there is a General Election (and this is not even close to being certain!) it will take place towards the end of the year or perhaps towards the start of the next one. A lot will have happened between now and then. There is no way of telling what the polls will look like by that point, particularly as we don't even know who will be leading the various parties and on what sort of platforms they will be running. Therefore confident speculation about that is just silly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You should never, ever trust reports of 'internal polling' particularly when it is not clearly exactly what sort of survey it supposedly was but...

It shows that just 71% of those who voted for Ed Miliband’s Labour party in May last year say they would vote Labour now, and this drops further – to 67% – among working and lower middle-class C2DE voters.

That is not actually a statistically significant difference, particularly given the issues that exist with poll internals.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Winter elections are generally bad for turnout, aren't they?

There hasn't been one for forty years so who knows.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some tasks are beyond any one man...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So is there no fixed procedure to call for a leadership election unless the incumbent leader resigns?

There can be a challenge. Which is going to happen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Crossposted from Scruffy Atlas:

So let's say that May goes back on her word and wants an early election asap. Two dates to note: she kisses hands on the 13th and Parliament breaks up for the Summer on the 21st. Given the stupid FTPA (see provisions here) we can therefore presumably rule out any prospect of an election being called before the Summer Recess, although 2016 is 2016. Parliament then returns briefly in September (5th) before buggering off again for Conference season (15th September to 10th October).

Anyway May is a lot of things but she's not a fool and won't want to piss away what she's strived so openly for for so long. The GB figures for the 2015 GE were Con 38, Labour 31, UKIP 13, LDem 8%, SNP 5%, Greens 4%. She would want, I would guess, a substantially larger poll lead than that (because otherwise you'd be as much at risk of losing the majority as increasing it) and for it to seem stable for there to be any chance of her going for it at all. I could be reading her wrong of course.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

May's team is continuing to be very firm about there being no GE.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Isn't the Fixed Term Election act just symbolic? If the PM asks the queen to dissolve parliament doesn't she have to agree?

No. There are get-out clauses but they are messy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Certain past statements of his put that into question.

An interview from when he was a candidate in a by-election a decade ago in which he backed what was at the time Labour Party policy and a press release from when he was in the private sector that requires a degree of squinting to see in such terms. Actually in that by-election he put forward the classic Bevanite Left argument about the purpose of politics in his concession speech and of course in the 2010-15 parliament he was always regarded as being to the left of Miliband despite that not actually being such a hot career move (people like the Hon. Member for Streatham positively leapt in the other direction).

Meanwhile has MOMENTUM's very own James Schneider ever even voted Labour in a GE?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Though I hear that even dear old Ann Black is BLAIRITE SCUM these days.