UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Conservatopia]

Take this with a pinch of salt but I know of an MP from the north (though not "red wall" whatever that means) who is suspect number one for leaving the party and possibly joining Labour, although that latter might be a stretch.

There have been public denials of plans to defect from Dehenna Davidson and Caroline Nokes today, but neither of those MPs seen to fit the hints in your post. There’s a report in the Telegraph that three unnamed, male, Northern, Tory MPs are considering defections, so maybe it’s one of them?

I’ve got to say, if this is all a rumour, or opposition game, then Labour seem to have played it pretty effectively. Party sources fabricate a story about further defections, triggering Downing Street paranoia, and focusing unwanted attention on centrist Tories in marginal seats, who are forced to defend their role in the government amidst the ongoing scandals - possibly damaging their moderate credentials in the eyes of swing voters in the process.

Obviously- the odds of defections happening are low. But forcing marginal MPs to defend Johnson’s government still provides the opposition with pull-quotes for 2024 campaign literature, and possible TV clips for online advertising.

I wish Caroline Nokes would defect - she's seems to be on the wrong side of every issue.

With respect I think you might be overthinking this - I don't think this is really a Labour strategy, rather it's just Fleet Street being Fleet Street. After all, some of the names floated don't even make sense. Dehenna Davison? Yes she's a bit of a weird MP who rebels more often than some others but her positions are fairly coherently centre-right liberal. Not to mention that as a so-called 'rising star' and 2019-er with a tidy majority she probably doesn't really want to jeopardise her career that way. Same goes for any other higher profile MP (from either party). Wakeford was a nobody so it was easier for him to hop. Maybe I'll be proved woefully wrong in a week or two.

I guess pretty soon we will hear that Iain Duncan Smith is planning on defecting just because he's outside the economic conservative mainstream. Or maybe that insufferable self-styled friend of the workers Robert Halfon.

[Blair]

Take this with a pinch of salt but I know of an MP from the north (though not "red wall" whatever that means) who is suspect number one for leaving the party and possibly joining Labour, although that latter might be a stretch.

There have been public denials of plans to defect from Dehenna Davidson and Caroline Nokes today, but neither of those MPs seen to fit the hints in your post. There’s a report in the Telegraph that three unnamed, male, Northern, Tory MPs are considering defections, so maybe it’s one of them?

I’ve got to say, if this is all a rumour, or opposition game, then Labour seem to have played it pretty effectively. Party sources fabricate a story about further defections, triggering Downing Street paranoia, and focusing unwanted attention on centrist Tories in marginal seats, who are forced to defend their role in the government amidst the ongoing scandals - possibly damaging their moderate credentials in the eyes of swing voters in the process.

Obviously- the odds of defections happening are low. But forcing marginal MPs to defend Johnson’s government still provides the opposition with pull-quotes for 2024 campaign literature, and possible TV clips for online advertising.

I wish Caroline Nokes would defect - she's seems to be on the wrong side of every issue.

With respect I think you might be overthinking this - I don't think this is really a Labour strategy, rather it's just Fleet Street being Fleet Street. After all, some of the names floated don't even make sense. Dehenna Davison? Yes she's a bit of a weird MP who rebels more often than some others but her positions are fairly coherently centre-right liberal. Not to mention that as a so-called 'rising star' and 2019-er with a tidy majority she probably doesn't really want to jeopardise her career that way. Same goes for any other higher profile MP (from either party). Wakeford was a nobody so it was easier for him to hop. Maybe I'll be proved woefully wrong in a week or two.

I guess pretty soon we will hear that Iain Duncan Smith is planning on defecting just because he's outside the economic conservative mainstream. Or maybe that insufferable self-styled friend of the workers Robert Halfon.

It should always be mentioned with Halfon that he was The face of the stupid campaign to cut fuel duty- cost the taxpayer £5 billion yet has not seen any decrease in fuel prices.

[Blair]

What a weird group of men.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Bren4Bassetlaw/status/1541489442552270849?ref_src=tws...

[Wiswylfen]

How did the Nottinghamshire miners vote? I’ve heard of the swing to the Conservatives in the Notts coalfield before but looking at the actual results that seems pretty small, while they were already starting from a strong position (and had won a late seventies by-election in Ashfield).

[Torrain]

With respect I think you might be overthinking this - I don't think this is really a Labour strategy, rather it's just Fleet Street being Fleet Street.

In all fairness - yeah, I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill. In all likelihood, the only seats changing parties this summer will be Wakefield, and T&H.

I think the 2017-19 Parliament was so atypical, with the stream of defections (nearly 40 changes in party affiliation  by the end of the Parliament!), broken whips and rule changes, that it’s become far too easy to expect precedent-breaking moments all over the place.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How did the Nottinghamshire miners vote? I’ve heard of the swing to the Conservatives in the Notts coalfield before but looking at the actual results that seems pretty small, while they were already starting from a strong position (and had won a late seventies by-election in Ashfield).

The thing is that by the 1980s there actually weren't as many as you might assume: most of the older pits in the county had closed, which altered the geography of mining employment in the county considerably - especially as Notts miners had always been quite geographically mobile. By the 1980s there were about 26,000 in the county (about two thousand of which worked at pits technically classified as Yorkshire rather than Notts) with the vast majority living in two constituencies: Bassetlaw and Sherwood (largely in the Dukeries by that point, though there was still a colliery at Hucknall). There were still a reasonable number open in Ashfield and a moderate amount of mining employment (though nothing on what had been the case a few decades earlier), and a few isolated collieries elsewhere: two in Mansfield, one in Nottingham North, one in Gedling and one in Rushcliffe. As the strong electoral movement away from Labour in the area predated the 1987 election, we can be fairly sure that it had more to do with the movement away from the mining economy - and perhaps, though this is more speculative, that the remaining were less monolithically Labour than elsewhere because of the better pay received due to the new regional pay scales from the 1970s onwards - than the strike, as bitter and divisive as it was.

[Sol]

Churchill, who changed parties twice, sat for no less than five constituencies.

I wonder why the UK is seemingly unique in having very little stigma against their politican carpetbagging.

I don't think this is true. Look at Canada.

The United States, as far as I can tell, is unusual in this regard. I can think of no other country with single-member districts where there is such a strong stigma against politicians contesting elections in a district that is not their home.

Honestly it's a rare good feature of American political culture imo. North Carolina actually requires members of the legislature of live in their district, which makes everyone quite locally attuned.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What a weird group of men.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Bren4Bassetlaw/status/1541489442552270849?ref_src=tws...

Tory austerity has forced the MPs to use printed pictures instead of buying actualy curry and beer , another tragic result of the policy

[morgieb]

Churchill, who changed parties twice, sat for no less than five constituencies.

I wonder why the UK is seemingly unique in having very little stigma against their politican carpetbagging.

I don't think this is true. Look at Canada.

The United States, as far as I can tell, is unusual in this regard. I can think of no other country with single-member districts where there is such a strong stigma against politicians contesting elections in a district that is not their home.

[EastAnglianLefty]

To be fair up into relatively recently (and it's still the case in some seats) there was no difference or electoral penalty for having a 'working class' Scot, Yorkshireman etc represent a working class seat anywhere else in the country.

And while the UK had (and still has) less internal migration than say the US, it was probably more common during days of heavy industrialisation (I have family in County Durham for that reason). So an MP doing the same wasn't that unusual.

I would say in most of the country it's not an issue. Unless the candidate is clearly imposed against the wishes of local members, there's no real electoral penalty and even where that has happened, the penalty is usually for one election only.

The exception is Scotland, where it isn't considered feasible to select a candidate who isn't already resident in Scotland. A few Scots (mostly Tories) have later been selected for English seats, but I can't think of any case in recent memory where an English or Welsh candidate has been selected for a Scottish seat by a major party.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour had some originally English MPs in Scotland until at least the 1990s.

EDIT: in fact Tony Worthington only stood down in 2005.

[Cassius]

Labour had some originally English MPs in Scotland until at least the 1990s.

EDIT: in fact Tony Worthington only stood down in 2005.

Actually one of the Central Belt constituencies was represented by an Old Juddian (Tom Greatrex) until the deluge of 2015, so a very recent phenomenon.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Though Worthington had been a Glasgow resident for over 15 years at the time of his election and Greatrex had been living in Scotland for at least six years, with an involvement in Scottish politics going back to the mid 90s.

[Torrain]

And that’s not even counting Richard Leonard, a born and bred Yorkshireman (with an accent to match), who was leader of the Labour group at Holyrood until early year.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Churchill, who changed parties twice, sat for no less than five constituencies.

I wonder why the UK is seemingly unique in having very little stigma against their politican carpetbagging.

I don't think this is true. Look at Canada.

The United States, as far as I can tell, is unusual in this regard. I can think of no other country with single-member districts where there is such a strong stigma against politicians contesting elections in a district that is not their home.

There's still a vestigial sense in American politics that Congress is a collection of representatives of states working together as a union. So in that sense it makes sense for voters to dislike the idea of candidates from other states coming in.

Another part of it is the unique negativity associated with "carpetbaggers" and people moving for political reasons during Reconstruction (hence why we use that term in the first place)!

And a strong sense (however accurate it is, and for good or for ill) and that representatives are meant to represent local interests, not a party manifesto.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't think it's been mentioned yet but Sturgeon called for IndyRef2 on the 19th of October, 2023. Since I have seen nothing from the Conservatives, I assume this means the SNP are planning for the confrontational route.

[brucejoel99]

I don't think it's been mentioned yet but Sturgeon called for IndyRef2 on the 19th of October, 2023. Since I have seen nothing from the Conservatives, I assume this means the SNP are planning for the confrontational route.

If the Supreme Court determines that the Scottish Parliament doesn't require a Section 30 Order to pass a law for a purely consultative referendum on the question of independence, then it'll be quite interesting to see how Sturgeon tries to get the unionists to participate in such a consultative campaign anyway, because if they just boycott it, then why even bother? But, if the Court rules that Holyrood doesn't have the power to hold a referendum without Westminster's consent, then she's already said that she won't do an illegal referendum but that the SNP will stand in the 2024/25 GE on just independence.

[Blair]

I don’t think there’s much doubt on the outcome.

My understanding too is that they can’t even hold a ‘look this is non-binding’ poll as it would require public money, public officials etc etc.

The claim is that they’ll run in 2024 on a pure independence ticket; I expect with the threat that they’d bring down a Labour Government if it didn’t grant one. .

[MABA 2020]

The claim is that they’ll run in 2024 on a pure independence ticket; I expect with the threat that they’d bring down a Labour Government if it didn’t grant one. .

And in that scenario I expect Labour wouldn't bite and would dare the SNP to bring them down and risk opening the door back to the Tories?

[Oryxslayer]

The claim is that they’ll run in 2024 on a pure independence ticket; I expect with the threat that they’d bring down a Labour Government if it didn’t grant one. .

And in that scenario I expect Labour wouldn't bite and would dare the SNP to bring them down and risk opening the door back to the Tories?

I don't think the SNP leaders now really cares about that, even though their public image at the moment feigns difference.  In the end, they are both Westminster parties elected mainly by the English who will both say no to a second referendum if given a free opinion.

What does seem to be an issue is that Lab+Lib has a majority in most present models and expectations.

[CumbrianLefty]

Even now many Scot Nats still have a vivid folk memory of 1979 and its consequences - that alone is a reason why I will believe them voting down possible Labour minority rule when I see it.

[afleitch]

The issue is one of sovereignty, which in terms of Scots Law and precedent, there is a much more nuanced relationship between that issue and the powers of the (Westminster) Parliament.

It has been argued that the Act of Union places limits on Parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland. This has only been tested 'ceremoniously'.

It is also relying on precedence; the 1997 and 2014 were both consultative referenda; the trigger for negotiation being an affirmation. The 1997 referendum was held before the Scotland Act was published. The 2014 referendum, if yes had won, would not have made Scotland independent immediately and Parliament could, theoretically, have ignored it. If Parliament was deemed sovereign upon any challenge to that result. The 1979 referendum result was ignored, but this was based on a question put to voters after an Act of parliament had received royal consent which included the trigger that if the turnout clause hadn't been met, the Act would be repealed.

[Blair]

Chris Pincher, yes that’s his name, has resigned as deputy chief whip after an incident last night.

Will post more once his letter is released…

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Chris Pincher, yes that’s his name, has resigned as deputy chief whip after an incident last night.

Will post more once his letter is released…

Nominative determinism it appears.

[Blair]

Ironically I was going to say it’s been a relatively quiet week with Bojo abroad.

Pincher is a very close ally of the PM- albeit it with no talent beyond being one of these MPs who seems to live for intrigue as a whip.