What’s great about those numbers is Con+Reform is soooo far behind Lab+Lib+Greens.
The margin the Greens won by is so big that even if was more split with Labour, Reform still wouldn’t have one. Which will horrify Labour as people won’t fear vote splitting as much.
It’s one small bi-election, but I like what it says about the Overton window.
What’s great about those numbers is Con+Reform is soooo far behind Lab+Lib+Greens.
Because of our crappy first-past-the-post system though, the most likely next government (if an election were held soon) would be a Reform government, or maybe a Reform/Conservative government.
Reform’s support in recent polls has only been around 24% - 30%. So around 70% of British voters don’t support Reform. Nonetheless, because Reform polls better than any other individual party, they could run the next government. Like how Labour in 2024 only got 34% of votes, but this gave them 63% of seats.
If the anti-Reform vote continues to be split between Labour/Greens/LibDems/SNP (and even Tories, since there will be Tory voters who don’t like Reform) then Farage will be the next prime minister. Surely the best counter to Reform would be a big tent centrist or centre-left party with wide appeal.
I don’t disagree. I think FPTP is immoral and a liability. I’m disappointed in Labour to looking to address it despite their membership overwhelmingly supporting it. They hope to pay on “it is us, or Reform” which is party before country and could backfire and massively damage the country.
They hope to pay on “it is us, or Reform” which is party before country and could backfire and massively damage the country.
True. I don’t think it’s a popular message with the public. Clearly people in Gorton and Denton thought “actually we don’t have to vote for Labour as the only alternative to Reform; we can vote for the Greens instead”.
It didn’t work of the Democrats either. It should of because how awful Trump is and Kamala seamed good, but how good she would be wasn’t the focus. But their system is even worse than ours.
True. I think voters want to see politicians who embody values that voters like. The pitch of “vote for us just because we’re not quite as bad as the other guys”, without stating appealing values of your own, doesn’t really inspire anybody
Yep. Compounding it, the far right throw in trolling social media that there is no point voting. That those opposing the far right are just as bad in some way. That there is no less bad option to vote, so don’t bother.
Frankly, I blame those who didn’t vote Harris or Clinton almost as those voted Trump. Hold your nose and vote less bad, AND push for a better system. The UK’s FPTP is deeply broken, but it’s dysfunction is nothing compared with the US’s duopoly.
Yes the voting systems of both the UK and US are broken because they’re unrepresentative. Hillary Clinton in 2016 got about 3 million more votes than Trump did. In many countries that would have made her the president. But the anti-democratic electoral college system in the US meant that Trump was made president instead.
It’s actually quite reassuring that Labour are third and not second because as you say it indicates that the vote isn’t being split or at least not all that much. I suspect at least some of those Labour votes will have been concerns over splitting the vote and not wanting to do that, so going with the more traditional option. I suspect that subsequent elections (there’s one coming up in my constituency soon) will look at this result and see that it is in fact safe to vote green.
I hate how unfree the media is these days. They’re owned by huge conglomerates or in the case of the BBC probably some elite class lobbyists or pressure to favour the elite class, that is, reform l, over the greens.
I expected it to be close but they were demolished
The conservatives are pulling in monster raving loony party numbers that’s going to be embarrassing.
If the shoe fits…
It’s not shown, but the MRLP contested this, they got 159 votes.
So the conservatives only received ~4 times the votes of the actual MRLP. I think I’d quit.
Yeah, Im sure the MRLP can do better than that…
What’s great about those numbers is Con+Reform is soooo far behind Lab+Lib+Greens.
The margin the Greens won by is so big that even if was more split with Labour, Reform still wouldn’t have one. Which will horrify Labour as people won’t fear vote splitting as much.
It’s one small bi-election, but I like what it says about the Overton window.
Because of our crappy first-past-the-post system though, the most likely next government (if an election were held soon) would be a Reform government, or maybe a Reform/Conservative government.
Reform’s support in recent polls has only been around 24% - 30%. So around 70% of British voters don’t support Reform. Nonetheless, because Reform polls better than any other individual party, they could run the next government. Like how Labour in 2024 only got 34% of votes, but this gave them 63% of seats.
If the anti-Reform vote continues to be split between Labour/Greens/LibDems/SNP (and even Tories, since there will be Tory voters who don’t like Reform) then Farage will be the next prime minister. Surely the best counter to Reform would be a big tent centrist or centre-left party with wide appeal.
I don’t disagree. I think FPTP is immoral and a liability. I’m disappointed in Labour to looking to address it despite their membership overwhelmingly supporting it. They hope to pay on “it is us, or Reform” which is party before country and could backfire and massively damage the country.
True. I don’t think it’s a popular message with the public. Clearly people in Gorton and Denton thought “actually we don’t have to vote for Labour as the only alternative to Reform; we can vote for the Greens instead”.
It didn’t work of the Democrats either. It should of because how awful Trump is and Kamala seamed good, but how good she would be wasn’t the focus. But their system is even worse than ours.
True. I think voters want to see politicians who embody values that voters like. The pitch of “vote for us just because we’re not quite as bad as the other guys”, without stating appealing values of your own, doesn’t really inspire anybody
Yep. Compounding it, the far right throw in trolling social media that there is no point voting. That those opposing the far right are just as bad in some way. That there is no less bad option to vote, so don’t bother.
Frankly, I blame those who didn’t vote Harris or Clinton almost as those voted Trump. Hold your nose and vote less bad, AND push for a better system. The UK’s FPTP is deeply broken, but it’s dysfunction is nothing compared with the US’s duopoly.
Yes the voting systems of both the UK and US are broken because they’re unrepresentative. Hillary Clinton in 2016 got about 3 million more votes than Trump did. In many countries that would have made her the president. But the anti-democratic electoral college system in the US meant that Trump was made president instead.
It’s actually quite reassuring that Labour are third and not second because as you say it indicates that the vote isn’t being split or at least not all that much. I suspect at least some of those Labour votes will have been concerns over splitting the vote and not wanting to do that, so going with the more traditional option. I suspect that subsequent elections (there’s one coming up in my constituency soon) will look at this result and see that it is in fact safe to vote green.
I’d like to once again say “fuck BBC news” for painting Spencer like an idiot and for sucking off Goodwin
What did they say about her?
They made disapproving remarks because she was late to some meeting point due to the bad weather, but that’s what they focused on.
The reform guy, they were more than happy to meet him personally at his HQ
I hate how unfree the media is these days. They’re owned by huge conglomerates or in the case of the BBC probably some elite class lobbyists or pressure to favour the elite class, that is, reform l, over the greens.
Quite a different result from what the polls were predicting.