Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[mongers]

It will make a nice museum; meanwhile a new parliament building can be constructed for the 21st century, somwhere like Stoke would be a good choice.

Yes, but they should be doing this now. Or at least doing it on the cheap. The amount they're spending is just insane.

At the least the temporary parliament whilst construction is under way should be elsewhere. If not a random place in the Midlands then Cardiff or Edinburgh would also be meaningful.

Is very difficult to transport a bubble any distance. 

[celedhring]

is YouGov usually a good pollster for the UK? Seems like Brexit will have even failed in securing the self-serving objective of Tory preservation 

Is there a chance that the UK party system will be shaken up, or is it just noise after the European election?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Wikipedia collates all the major polls and has a nice graph :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

The two major parties are in big trouble, the situation is very fluid. The question for conservatives nad labour is how many of these defectors would return to the fold in an actual general election.

[dps]

Suppose those percentages from the latest polling held up.  Obviously there would have to be some kind of coalition government.  What would be the most likely?  It likely would have to be at least a 3-party coalition (though going by the Deltapoll, a Labour/Brexit coalition might be able to get a bare majority), and it would seem that the Liberal Dems, as the most strongly anti-Brexit of the major parties, couldn't be part of a coalition that included the Brexit party, so what would it be?  A Troy/Labor/LIb Dem coalition, or a Troy/Labour/Brexit coalition, or something involving the Greens, maybe?

[Richard Hakluyt]

The greens are fanatic anti-brexit too. I think we can put the tories into the fanatic brexit camp now. That would probably leave Labour (the schizophrenic party) as kingmakers; they would have to stop fence-sitting though. The SNP have a pretty reliable 35 MPs (probably more after the next election) who are also anti-brexit.

It must always be remembered that fptp will throw up some freakish results.

[Josquius]

It's normal that ukip do well in European elections.
In a general election the turnout would be higher and there would be fewer protest votes. They have a chance of finally winning seats but I wouldn't read too much into these polls

[dps]

It must always be remembered that fptp will throw up some freakish results.

Right.  The Greens have 5%-11% in those latest polls, but if they got that share of the vote for each and every seat, they wouldn't get any MPs at all, which, while extreme is certainly possible--I assume that their support is fairly evenly spread across the UK, right?--whereas a party like the SNP doesn't have much support outside of areas where they have strong support.

[celedhring]

The greens are fanatic anti-brexit too. I think we can put the tories into the fanatic brexit camp now. That would probably leave Labour (the schizophrenic party) as kingmakers; they would have to stop fence-sitting though. The SNP have a pretty reliable 35 MPs (probably more after the next election) who are also anti-brexit.

It must always be remembered that fptp will throw up some freakish results.

Yeah, my guess is that FPTP will make it so people flock to safer parties. We kinda have that phenomenon in Spain even without FPTP - nontraditional parties usually get large boosts when there's no major election around, and voters "return to the mean" when an election looms. Around here we call that "useful vote" (people deciding to vote for the party perceived most likely to be able to win the election, within their ideological camp).

[Richard Hakluyt]

Some Tories are flirting with the idea of proroguing parliament before they have a new leader. That way they can get to avoid the new PM being thrown out of office on a no-confidence vote and also get brexit by default. This profoundly dictatorial idea is being resisted by others. The Queen may have to step up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48541352

[mongers]

Some Tories are flirting with the idea of proroguing parliament before they have a new leader. That way they can get to avoid the new PM being thrown out of office on a no-confidence vote and also get brexit by default. This profoundly dictatorial idea is being resisted by others. The Queen may have to step up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48541352

Seems less like the 1930s and the rise of authoritarianism, more like the 1630s; So did Rees-Mogg have a hand in this? 

[Valmy]

Some Tories are flirting with the idea of proroguing parliament before they have a new leader. That way they can get to avoid the new PM being thrown out of office on a no-confidence vote and also get brexit by default. This profoundly dictatorial idea is being resisted by others. The Queen may have to step up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48541352

Seems less like the 1930s and the rise of authoritarianism, more like the 1630s; So did Rees-Mogg have a hand in this? 

Are you suggesting the Queen should raise the Royal Standard at Nottingham and march on Parliament?

[Barrister]

Some Tories are flirting with the idea of proroguing parliament before they have a new leader. That way they can get to avoid the new PM being thrown out of office on a no-confidence vote and also get brexit by default. This profoundly dictatorial idea is being resisted by others. The Queen may have to step up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48541352

There is nothing wrong with the idea of proroguing Parliament.  It happens almost annually.  And the concept of "Let's all just wait until we have a new leader" also sounds inoffensive.  But the thing about proroguing Parliament is that Parliament will eventually get its say.  The idea of proroguing in order to crash out of the EU is indeed offensive.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Parliament is usually prorogued every year, but not to avoid problems from opposition politicians while the country is in crisis.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Not that it matters, no 10 has ruled it out.

[Barrister]

Parliament is usually prorogued every year, but not to avoid problems from opposition politicians while the country is in crisis.

Not usually, no.

But the thing is it can only delay opposition politicians, not avoid them entirely.  If the government of the day is to say "Look, we just need a month or so to sort out some things, then we'll put what we've done up to a vote in Parliament" then there's no issue.

This, of course, was a Big Deal in Canadian politics in 2008 or so.