Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Hey Sheilbh, I just heard someone say that the voter ID is only supposed for first time voters, in which case it probably won't inconvenicence Tory-voting pensioners.

Yeah that's just out and out suppression - but I'd wait to see on that. I think the source for that was a Nr10 spokesman briefing journalists and they said something along the lines of needing an ID the first time you vote just like you need an ID when you sign up for a library card (which I don't think is true). It's not clear if that's actually the policy they're proposing (all the detailed briefing to newspapers is just mandatory voter ID) or if it was just an off-hand line by a press officer. I saw this from Alex Hern who is a tech reporter at the Guardian and was just commenting on it, he's since deleted his tweet about this and the Guardian haven't updated their story - which makes me think it might not be just first time voters. But we'll see.

I've also just discovered apparently voter ID is already mandatory in Northern Ireland - which I had no idea about

[OttoVonBismarck]

Not to keep equating to the US--but I actually think the Dems have a bit of a better path forward than Labour. The Dems face many of the same issues, but have large multi-ethnic coalition to push back against the nationalists, and we also have split off a majority of the white college educated vote away from the Republicans as well. The GOP will be very hard to handle with the current battle lines until a lot more time has passed though, because the complete collapse of Dem appeal in rural America and many blue collar white areas is going to give the GOP a lot of baked-in advantages due to FPTP, gerrymandering and the Senate.

Edit to add: I look at someone like BoJo and I know exactly the sort of constituency his personage commands. Looking at Keir I don't really know who he is supposed to bring to vote, the educated elite? That's fine but that isn't anywhere close to the vote share needed to win elections.

[Sheilbh]

Not to keep equating to the US--but I actually think the Dems have a bit of a better path forward than Labour. The Dems face many of the same issues, but have large multi-ethnic coalition to push back against the nationalists, and we also have split off a majority of the white college educated vote away from the Republicans as well. The GOP will be very hard to handle with the current battle lines until a lot more time has passed though, because the complete collapse of Dem appeal in rural America and many blue collar white areas is going to give the GOP a lot of baked-in advantages due to FPTP, gerrymandering and the Senate.

I totally agree. Especially when you add in that the left is fragmented in the UK while the right has consolidated. Also in comparison with US states, the UK as a whole is about as diverse as South Dakota. Obviously there's big differences between regions like, say, London and Norfolk but it's far less diverse than the US - and there are signs that the Tories are actually winning more minority votes anyway.

Obviously our system has zero minoritarian protections, so there's no route or protection for Labour down that route.

As has been noted elsewhere there used to be actively policed social stigma to voting Tory in a lot of these areas, but demographically - they look like seats that should have gone Tory a long time ago. I think the Brexit referendum broke the social stigma and people's lifetime of voting patterns and now they're voting more like you'd expect. It's the thing journalists say they hear more than anything else: "my dad'd be spinning in his grave if he knew I was voting Tory". Unfortunately, I also think Labour is a very sentimental party and I think they will spend years trying to buck the trend of centre-left parties around the world and focus on trying to win back retired home-owning production workers because they were once left-wing working class stalwarts.

[Admiral Yi]

How does the South Asian vote break?

[Tamas]

Hey Sheilbh, I just heard someone say that the voter ID is only supposed for first time voters, in which case it probably won't inconvenicence Tory-voting pensioners.

Yeah that's just out and out suppression - but I'd wait to see on that. I think the source for that was a Nr10 spokesman briefing journalists and they said something along the lines of needing an ID the first time you vote just like you need an ID when you sign up for a library card (which I don't think is true). It's not clear if that's actually the policy they're proposing (all the detailed briefing to newspapers is just mandatory voter ID) or if it was just an off-hand line by a press officer. I saw this from Alex Hern who is a tech reporter at the Guardian and was just commenting on it, he's since deleted his tweet about this and the Guardian haven't updated their story - which makes me think it might not be just first time voters. But we'll see.

I am 100% convinced this whole thing is to bait the opposition into taking a "pro-chaos" position. I don't expect it, but hope restraint will be shown and the story dies in a couple of days.

[Josquius]

Also masks their talk of turning all elections into fptp...

[Sheilbh]

How does the South Asian vote break?

No analysis of the 2019 election yet. But the 2017 election (which generally wasn't good for the Tories amonth minority ethnic communities) saw British Indians break about 60/40 Labour/Tory - I wouldn't be surprised if this group becomes majority Tory given that the most popular politician at the minute is Rishi Sunak.

British Bengalis and Pakistanis both are far, far more Labour - around 95% - the Tories used to win around 20% of both groups so that's a big decline.

There's a Brexit element to this in that minority groups broke about 66/33 to Remain/Leave. That 33% is higher than the Tories used to get (especially before Cameron who is crucial in changing this) and it looks like having voted Brexit a significant proportion of those voters are now moving to the Tories.

Also British Indians tend to be the classic case of generational change - so the community that arrived generally worked in working class jobs, but have since increased in wealth, the kids are very likely to go to university and they're likely to live in the suburbs. So the class profile has changed and they're voting with it. There are small and very early signs that something similar is happening with the Black African community (although the vast majority still vote Labour).

But all of this stuff is why I'm not sure the US analysis maps across too easily. It's a smaller proportion of the vote in the UK, but minority voters are only about 5% of the Conservative coalition compared with 20% of Labour's - but I think this is likely to shift over time. Overall from a very low base, it's almost doubled - so in 2017 (with Theresa May! ) the Tories were on about 25% of the minority vote compared with under 15% pre-Cameron - and I suspect the trends especially in the British Indian and African communities will keep moving to the Tories not least because of the prominent politicians (including potential PMs) in serious cabinet jobs: Sunak, Patel, Kwarteng, Badenoch, Cleverley, Sharma.

And obviously the Lib Dems do even worse because no-one likes them.

[Sheilbh]

Also masks their talk of turning all elections into fptp...

I think the people who'll get angry about electoral systems will find out and get angry about them no matter what distractions there are

[Josquius]

Interesting scandal emerging in Scotland.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/electoral-deceit-ballot-paper-confusion-may-have-cost-us-seats-fume-scottish-greens-3231611

'Electoral deceit': Ballot paper confusion may have cost us seats, fume Scottish Greens
The Scottish Green Party say the Electoral Commission has "serious questions" to answer, as they accuse a smaller party of "electoral deceit" which may have cost them two MSPs.

They are furious about the logo of Independent Green Voice as it appeared on ballot papers – featuring a leaf and the word "green" in a similar typeface to that of the Scottish Green Party.

Independent Green Voice was registered in 2003, though Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater's party say it is now being used as a front for the far right.

It has almost no online presence and appears to have done little campaigning, but it nevertheless received 2,220 votes in the Glasgow regional list.

The Scottish Green Party said this may have led to them missing out on a seat, as they were beaten by the Conservatives for the final place on the list by less than 1,000 votes.

Mr Harvie and Ms Slater's party say a similar situation took place on the South of Scotland regional list.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Greens said: "Independent Green Voice, now a front for fascists, was allowed to use a logo with 'green' in big letters and the other words in small print on the ballot paper.

"This attracted enough votes to potentially prevent two additional Scottish Green MSPs to be elected, one in Glasgow and one in the South of Scotland.

"There are serious questions about how the Electoral Commission allowed such blatant electoral deceit."

Ahead of the election, Green MSP Ross Greer urged supporters to avoid "fake" candidates standing under the green umbrella.

Rules around party registration mean the elections watchdog can only take action where there is "likely" to be confusion between parties, rather than the mere possibility of confusion.

There is nothing to prevent more than one party having a word such as "green" in its title.

Records show Independent Green Voice has been registered since 2003 but it adopted a new logo in March 2021, replacing a "thumbs up" symbol with one of a leaf.

A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission said: "We assess all applications for party names and emblems against the criteria set out in law, including the requirement to ensure that in our opinion voters would not likely be confused between two parties as a result of how their identity marks look on a ballot paper.

"If a party's application meets the legal criteria it must be registered. As part of our assessment process we invite comments from the public and other parties."

She continued: "No concerns were raised with us in relation to this application to add an emblem to a long-registered party.

"There were no previously registered emblems that were visually similar such as was likely to cause confusion.

"We are satisfied that there are clear and sufficient differences between the two party's registered names, descriptions and emblems to avoid confusion."

Alas I can't see what can possibly be done to fix this.

A bit more on it.

https://xhriscotton.medium.com/why-we-must-stop-the-fascist-ghost-parties-bb1f16af3731

[Sheilbh]

Interesting scandal emerging in Scotland.

On ballots the London mayoral ballot was a disgrace and nowhere clear as it should have been about how to use the two votes. I think we've had a record number of spoiled ballots because people filled it in incorrectly which is not great

Edit: So I never normally watch Queen's speeches/state openings of parliament but I'm watching this one just to see how it's done in times of covid because it feels like it's going to be weird.

[Sheilbh]

Man the rhetoric on Starmer sure changed quickly.

And the mood

Is Keir Starmer doing well or badly as Labour leader?

Well: 17% (-9)
Badly: 65% (+15)

[Net rating: -48]

Via @YouGov, 10 May
Changes w April/quote]

[Sheilbh]

Hey Sheilbh, I just heard someone say that the voter ID is only supposed for first time voters, in which case it probably won't inconvenicence Tory-voting pensioners.

So I might now have almost zero issues with this - I don't necessarily think it should be a priority though. The BBC correspondent - and the Minister - both mentioned that there may be some form of free ID.

That's my main issue with it is that voting shouldn't ever cost anyone anything - if there's a free ID available then I have far less of a problem with it.

And the government's line isn't that there's lots of fraud (unlike many Republicans) but that it's an "obvious hole in the system"/it's a design flaw and people are used to using ID for all sorts of things now. I think Thangam Debonaire from Labour (also, I think, the MP with the best name) possibly hadn't heard before there might be some form of free ID because she basically moved from saying it was potentially to reduce people voting to whether it should be a priority and if the government want to introduce ID cards, they should be up front about it.

[garbon]

Hey Sheilbh, I just heard someone say that the voter ID is only supposed for first time voters, in which case it probably won't inconvenicence Tory-voting pensioners.

So I might now have almost zero issues with this - I don't necessarily think it should be a priority though. The BBC correspondent - and the Minister - both mentioned that there may be some form of free ID.

That's my main issue with it is that voting shouldn't ever cost anyone anything - if there's a free ID available then I have far less of a problem with it.

And the government's line isn't that there's lots of fraud (unlike many Republicans) but that it's an "obvious hole in the system"/it's a design flaw and people are used to using ID for all sorts of things now. I think Thangam Debonaire from Labour (also, I think, the MP with the best name) possibly hadn't heard before there might be some form of free ID because she basically moved from saying it was potentially to reduce people voting to whether it should be a priority and if the government want to introduce ID cards, they should be up front about it.

My only thought is why waste expenditure on this if it is solving a non-existent problem.

Also, how is this free ID not steps closer to a national ID?

[Sheilbh]

My only thought is why waste expenditure on this if it is solving a non-existent problem.

Also, how is this free ID not steps closer to a national ID?

Yeah and those were Thangam Debonaire's points which I think are true.

I suppose they could be connected? In that free ID for this is steps closer to a national ID and that's what justifies the expenditure. I'm still dubious on a national ID system - but I think Tamas is probably right that there could be benefits to an ID system (as exists in the rest of Europe). So I slightly wonder if this is sort of the thin end of the wedge because it's a pretext to have a national ID system but then you can start to bolt on other systems and other processes in government that feed into that ID. The minister mentioned some form of online ID as well due to the risk of online ID fraud - and I'm wondering if the government have been looking at Estonia and the Baltics who have really developed things in that area.

But my main objection to voter ID is that you don't pay to exercise your rights as a citizen. So either you have a free ID system with voter ID (like most of Europe) or you don't have either.

[The Brain]

Where's the "Ja" box?