Could the 3rd parties find success in the 2016 UK election?
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  Could the 3rd parties find success in the 2016 UK election?
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Author Topic: Could the 3rd parties find success in the 2016 UK election?  (Read 2428 times)
Lothal1
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« on: June 27, 2016, 10:02:41 PM »

Discuss. SNP probably will win Scotland by an even bigger landslide than 2015.
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Gary J
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« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2016, 11:32:32 PM »

If there is a 2016 general election there will probably not be time for the party constellation to change. There does seem some risk of a split between a Corbyn led Labour Party and the bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but that would only be a risk if Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader and continued to be opposed by a large majority of the PLP. However for this post I will assume Labour and Conservative remain the two major parties.

The 17 Northern Irish seats would continue to be held by local political parties. SNP would be likely to win 50 plus Scottish seats, with the three Unionist parties probably only winning one or two seats each (if any). Plaid Cymru would probably retain three seats or so in Wales.

That leaves the three largest non Labour and Conservative parties that contest more than one part of the UK.

The Liberal Democrats have eight seats now. With an election fought on the same boundaries and in somewhat more helpful political conditions than in 2015, they may retain the existing seats and hopefully pick up a few more. However it may be too soon to hope for any sort of large scale recovery.

The Green Party of England and Wales have one seat, in Brighton. They would probably retain it and have some chance of a second in Norwich. I do not see much chance of a large scale advance for the Greens.

The wildcard is UKIP. Douglas Carswell should retain his seat, but how many if any colleagues would be elected? Unless the Labour Party in northern England and the Midlands suffer the same sort of catastrophe as it did in Scotland, I do not see many UKIP MPs being elected.

Overall I suspect the non-Labour and Conservative members of a Parliament elected in 2016 would not be much different from those returned in 2015.

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joevsimp
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« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2016, 02:35:00 PM »

UKIP are within striking distance in at least 20 constituencies, I would not be at all surprised if they end up with at least ten, possibly more if it looks like the negotiations will go in the direction of (to put it diplomatically) minimal significant changes on certain issues that were at the centre of the leave campaign
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Zinneke
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« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2016, 03:13:45 PM »

No,

- SNP can't win a bigger landlide.
- LibDem heartlands actually have solid LEAVE majorities (South West, urban Yorshire and Midlands)
- Greens are sill reliant on Caroline Lucas
- UKIP lost 3 points in the polls and are being blamed for the current dysphoria in British society
-Probable low turnout (especially by the Remainers

Unless Labour or Tories split, nothing will change. Boris-led Tories will run on a right-wing populist platform all but ending UKIP. Labour will probably recover well enouugh to get a hung parliament from the Tories.

The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.
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ag
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« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2016, 03:26:15 PM »



The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.

Or Canada. Oh, wait...
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parochial boy
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« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2016, 04:11:49 PM »

No,

- SNP can't win a bigger landlide.
- LibDem heartlands actually have solid LEAVE majorities (South West, urban Yorshire and Midlands)
- Greens are sill reliant on Caroline Lucas
- UKIP lost 3 points in the polls and are being blamed for the current dysphoria in British society
-Probable low turnout (especially by the Remainers

Unless Labour or Tories split, nothing will change. Boris-led Tories will run on a right-wing populist platform all but ending UKIP. Labour will probably recover well enouugh to get a hung parliament from the Tories.

The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.

Going forward, I suspect Lib Dems will be targeting Tory remain areas as ripe for the picking.

Somewhere like Richmond Park, which has a Eurosceptic Conservative MP who just destroyed his on reputation running a nudge-nudge-wink-wink racist campaign for mayor of London must be a real low hnging fruit for the Lib Dems. As would somewhere like Eastbourne, which barely voted Tory last year and just went remain in the referendum.

UKIP could gain a stack from Labour depending on the next few days, and pick up quite a few of the Kent/Essex three way marginals.
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CrabCake
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« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2016, 06:00:25 PM »

I wouldn't count out UKIP tbh. I think a majority of Leave voters believe that (at the very least) we won't be in the common movement of people area and a significant amount believe that this is a mandate for cuts to immigration wholesale. If Boris goes back on his pledge or somehow the Tories end up nominating a wet like Hunt then there will be anger, and I wouldn't be surprised to see 20 or so kippers.
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MaxQue
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« Reply #7 on: June 28, 2016, 07:21:19 PM »

No,

- SNP can't win a bigger landlide.
- LibDem heartlands actually have solid LEAVE majorities (South West, urban Yorshire and Midlands)
- Greens are sill reliant on Caroline Lucas
- UKIP lost 3 points in the polls and are being blamed for the current dysphoria in British society
-Probable low turnout (especially by the Remainers

Unless Labour or Tories split, nothing will change. Boris-led Tories will run on a right-wing populist platform all but ending UKIP. Labour will probably recover well enouugh to get a hung parliament from the Tories.

The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.
As would somewhere like Eastbourne, which barely voted Tory last year and just went remain in the referendum.

Eastbourne is also an LD run authority. Probably the starting point for an LD resurgence would be where they still control / have a strong bench in local government.
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ag
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« Reply #8 on: June 28, 2016, 07:33:32 PM »

I think 20-30 each of UKIP and LD are quite likely. Combined with the nearly unanimous Scottish SNP bench, the few Plaid and Northern Irish members and independents, it is not attrocious to think of say 110-140 non-Con/Lab MPs (ok, 9-10 of those will be Unionists and 3-4 will not swear in, but still). This by itself will make the chances of a hung parliament go substantially up.
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Hatman 🍁
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« Reply #9 on: June 28, 2016, 08:00:54 PM »



The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.

Or Canada. Oh, wait...

FPTP + Polarized political culture. Canada is not as polarized as the US or UK (regionalism is too strong).
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ag
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« Reply #10 on: June 28, 2016, 08:45:56 PM »



The only possible end to bipartisan politics in the UK is the end of FPTP. See : USA.

Or Canada. Oh, wait...

FPTP + Polarized political culture. Canada is not as polarized as the US or UK (regionalism is too strong).

Ok. A little lecture on political science is in order, methinks Smiley

1. Duverger's law (DL). An empirical regularity that says that in places with FPTP electoral systems there will be at most two major political forces, at least "in a long run". Originally formulated based on the experience of, primarily US and UK, though back at the time it seemed to describe Canada pretty well as well. In fact, even India did not do too badly for a long time (that is where the at most part was relevant). The things changed.

2. Canada. That strange country that has had pretty much a stable 4-party system for quite some time, being a superficial embarassment of the DL. One of those parties is regional, of course, but 3 other parties compete in multiple regions.

3. India. A most strange FPTP democracy where a government coalition, on occasion include some 20 parties, with another 20 in opposition.

4. Clarification of Duverger's Law: it only applies election by election, and each parliamentary constituency is a separate election for such purposes. The idea here is that there may only be two serious candidates in a particular district, but that the party pairings might vary district by district. There is a further exception postulated: if it is not clear who are the two front-runners, one might get a 3-way split, but this is an unstable set of affairs. So, either the third guy is very close to the second, or very far behind - with anything inbetween being unlikely.

5. At this point, the general belief is that US is a two-party country because in addition to the FPTP for congress it has also the winner-take-all executive presidency (not quite FPTP, but close enough). So, DL applies nationwide and district by district, creating a particularly strong Duvergerian force. The reason I call it a "belief" is that US is pretty much the only such country, which is both presidential and FPTP, so proper testing of this belief is impossible.

6. There is a somewhat mixed, but, generally favorable, evidence for the district-by-district DL elsewhere. So, perhaps, we should take it as a decent description of reality. But the nationwide version is, obviously, not true.

7. Of course, this implies that the past outcomes in the UK, Canada, etc. were more of an artifact of a fairly accidental division of nations into two political camps, both uniformly present nationwide: Conservatives and Liberals (or, later, Labour in the UK). Notably, this division is not coming from DL - it is a completely different story. At some point for, whatever reason, Canada lost that geographic uniformity, replacing it with multiple regional bipartidisms. Note, that there is no theory here why it was one way, and why it changed.

8. Britain for a long time seemed to retain the nationwide bipartidism, though in recent years it has been increasingly restricted to England. One could dismiss a recent surge of LibDems as a "short-term"anomaly". Perhaps.

9. The problem is that we still have no explanation for that geographic uniformity. It is not implied by DL. Claiming it is "polarized culture" just gives it a name, but does not explain it. Nor does it, really, allow for predictions.

10. There is nothing in the systemic structure of British politics that forces geographically uniform bipartidism - Scotland and Wales illustrate this pretty well.  Claiming it is there forever is not really based on any solid reasoning.

11. Furthermore, every bipartidism (local or national) is not enshrined in politics for enternity. If new issues arise, an old party may die, a new one may be born. Labs replacing Libs in the UK is a great example. There can be also temporary upheaval where such a replacement attempt is abortive: if it is not clear, who is the second and who is the third, DL logic suggests possible short-term multipartidism.

12. One thing that might promote such changes is an emergence of a new set of issues, or some other major shock to the political system. But, of course, England has not had any major shocks recently. And, in any case, it is simply polarized... Sorry, I have just stopped being fully serious.
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Illiniwek
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« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2016, 12:39:27 AM »

I think LD and UKIP would gain quite a bit if there is an election this year.
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andrew_c
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« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2016, 12:53:22 AM »

Quite possibly. CON+LAB combined would likely fall below 60% if an election was held now.
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jfern
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« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2016, 01:06:53 AM »

The 2 post Brexit poll have an average of (change since 2015 result)

Conservative 34 (-3.Cool
Labour 32 (+0.Cool
UKIP 15.5 (+2.6)
Lib Dem 8 (-0.1)
SNP 4.5 (-0.4)
Green 5 (+1.2)

Mostly just UKIP gaining at Conservative's expense there.

Of course to hear the convention wisdom, you'd think Labour just crashed in the polls.
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joevsimp
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« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2016, 05:17:42 PM »

At this point, the general belief is that US is a two-party country because in addition to the FPTP for congress it has also the winner-take-all executive presidency (not quite FPTP, but close enough). So, DL applies nationwide and district by district, creating a particularly strong Duvergerian force. The reason I call it a "belief" is that US is pretty much the only such country, which is both presidential and FPTP, so proper testing of this belief is impossible.


plus encouragement of polarisation of voters at the point of registration, and horrendous ballot access restrictions.

anyway, back on topic, and my beloved party is having another of its periodic attempts to get Labour, LibDems and Plaid interested in a Progressive Alliance to keep a hypothetical Con/DUP/UKIP "Brexit Coalition" out of office, which will: a) never happen b) only really help labour and c) alienate half our supporters if we hand No10 on a plate to the War Criminals' Party

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/06/green-party-calls-labour-lib-dems-and-plaid-cymru-form-progressive
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Harry Hayfield
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« Reply #15 on: June 30, 2016, 01:54:46 PM »

The 2 post Brexit poll have an average of (change since 2015 result)

Conservative 34 (-3.Cool, Labour 32 (+0.Cool, UKIP 15.5 (+2.6), Lib Dem 8 (-0.1), SNP 4.5 (-0.4)
Green 5 (+1.2)

Mostly just UKIP gaining at Conservative's expense there. Of course to hear the convention wisdom, you'd think Labour just crashed in the polls.

That would produce a House of Commons of: Conservatives 302, Labour 252, SNP 57, Lib Dem 12, UKIP 4, Plaid 3, Green 1, Speaker 1, NI Parties 18 (Hung Parliament, Con short by 24)
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vileplume
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« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2016, 05:21:10 PM »
« Edited: July 12, 2016, 06:15:55 PM by vileplume »


8. Britain for a long time seemed to retain the nationwide bipartidism, though in recent years it has been increasingly restricted to England. One could dismiss a recent surge of LibDems as a "short-term"anomaly". Perhaps.

What the hell are you on about??!! If you were actually paying attention to British politics you would realise the Lib Dems are currently stuck in exactly the same place that they were pre-referendum which is also where they were at the last general election. Unless your definition of surge is 'more or less irrelevant' there has been no 'recent Lib Dem surge'. This could change but don't confuse what you want to happen with reality Smiley.
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Zanas
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« Reply #17 on: July 18, 2016, 05:09:35 PM »


8. Britain for a long time seemed to retain the nationwide bipartidism, though in recent years it has been increasingly restricted to England. One could dismiss a recent surge of LibDems as a "short-term"anomaly". Perhaps.

What the hell are you on about??!! If you were actually paying attention to British politics you would realise the Lib Dems are currently stuck in exactly the same place that they were pre-referendum which is also where they were at the last general election. Unless your definition of surge is 'more or less irrelevant' there has been no 'recent Lib Dem surge'. This could change but don't confuse what you want to happen with reality Smiley.
If you were actually paying attention, he was referring to the 2010 LibDem surge, and that is why he called it a "short-term anomaly".
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