Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Yeah.

It's all very heightening the contradictions. But I think it's a very bold strategy, because the polls I've seen on proroguing, on calling an election, the Supreme Court ruling etc all show support by Leave or Tory voters to be around 55%, while opposition by the other parties or Remain voters is very high. I'm not sure his approach is necessarily exciting the right people.

30% of Tory voters in 2017 were Remain supporters (more than there are Labour Leave voters) and I do think there's a chunk of small-c conservative Tories who quite like our institutions and don't like people playing silly buggers with them. I don't know and it may work but I'm not convinced it all hangs together.

It's worth remembering that Cummings is a very good strategist at winning referendums and single issue campaigns. He's never really tried a multi-party election.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's dangerous sometimes when predicting to take "'issues polls" and conflate them with who they will vote for, it's something that happens a lot in U.S. polling discussions. Something may poll really unpopularly, but people might still vote for a party that has an unpopular position for broader reasons of support.

All the British seat predictors I follow on the 'net still suggest the Conservatives are likely to actually win a strong outright majority in any election held. Most of them seem to be working on polling from 8/28-9/7, which isn't 100% current, but BoJo announced prorogation at the end of August so the polls would definitely account for that.

In all the polling I see the drop-off in support from Labour (41% in 2017 vs Con 43%) has remained very consistent in all this polling. Down at around 25-27% with the Tories consistently at 31-33%, with the way FPTP breaks most of these sites project the Brexit party gets zero seats, Labour 215ish, Conservative 330+, with gains for the SNP and Lib Dems.

Being a bad judge of the British public and looking at it from a very American viewpoint, I can't but wonder if Corbyn is just too divisive to successfully seize the moment here, but he did do much better than expected against May.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. I think my point on the issues is if you're in a two-party system or in a referendum campaign it makes sense to heighten the contradictions, drive the passions of everyone up and mobilise your base. I'm not sure it works in a multi-party system with wildly different regional voting patterns.

Most British seat predictors aren't great between elections because they tend to be based on uniform national swing which doesn't reflect our system very well. It gets better during elections because I think the quality of polling gets better and tends to deal more with regional variation, but what's really striking is how varied they are. In the last week we've had everything from a tie to a 15% Tory lead - my understanding is it's because of how the different pollsters are weighing how people voted last time.

I've no idea how it'll go, but a few things make me doubt what Johnson is doing. The Brexit Party is consistently polling at around 10%. They didn't exist in the last election, they're now distinguishing themselves by saying they don't even want a deal and that's an issue if your whole approach is to unite the Leavers. They're unlikely to win a seat, but they could cause issues.

Also the Tories are going for the May strategy, but more extreme. So they are reconciling themsleves to losing the votes of "rich Remainers" on the theory that they'll pick up votes in traditional Labour areas in the North and the Midlands. That worked for May, but not enough and I'm not sure it'll work any better for Johnson who is writing off a lot more Remain voters (as I mentioned in the 2017 election Remainers were a bigger share of the Tory vote than Leavers the Labour vote) in Scotland and the South especially. And there's been some recent research that shows that in traditional Labour areas the unwillingness to vote Tory doesn't really shift much whether you voted Remain or Leave.

But it could work. It all depends on who piles up the votes where because it is conceivable that Labour, Lib Dems and Greens split votes in loads of seats and the Tories win. Flipside the Tories could pile up lots of useless votes but not win in the Labour Leave areas and absolutely meltdown against the Lib Dems in the South and the SNP in the Scotland.

My best guess is we end up with a very similar Parliament. Labour lose some seats, the Tories lose some seats but Plaid, the SNP and the Lib Dems make big gains and we end up with another hung Parliament. But the flipside of FPTP is that it doesn't happen often but when things move they move quickly. Whether it's Sinn Fein in 1918, or Labour in 1922, or the SNP in 2015 shifts can happen very quickly rather than in PR where parties tend to rise slowly. So I could see the Tories doing very well, or the Lib Dems doing very well or something similarly unexpected.

[Valmy]

Sometimes I have this urge to somehow get UK citizenship just so I could vote for the Liberal Democrats. The Tories and Labour are just so infuriating.

[Sheilbh]

On the issue polling/small-c conservatives -  23% of Tory voters think Johnson should resign:

[crazy canuck]

Mundane roles are not the issue and are the least compelling reason to have a written constitution.  Written constitutions are just a set of rules that can and are being gamed.

All law is just a set of rules that can be gamed /shrug. Guess we should just not have any law or even society at all by this reductivist line of thought lol.

That is a very American attitude.  Let me try to use a concrete example.  Under our rules of court there is a rule which says a defence must be filed within a prescribed period of time. If not the plaintiff can apply for default judgment.  Judges take a very dim view of anyone trying to take advantage of this rule without good reason.  It has nothing to do with the text of the rule and everything to do with the custom of being reasonable about time limits. 

[Josquius]

The establishment wants to stop brexit... They're the ones shoving it down our throats!
I despair for this country.

[Admiral Yi]

The establishment wants to stop brexit... They're the ones shoving it down our throats!
I despair for this country.

Dueling populists.

[Tamas]

How do these polls work anyhow? Are they still using landline numbers, for example?

[Sheilbh]

Political cabinet meeting this evening, which indicates election/strategy planning.

[Zanza]

Is there a non-political cabinet? 

[The Brain]

Is there a non-political cabinet? 

The British one is strictly impolitic.

[Syt]

Is there a non-political cabinet? 

[Valmy]

I am pretty sure somebody could find something political about that cabinet. It's style glorifies the values of the bourgeoisie!

[Maladict]

Is there a non-political cabinet? 

A motion could cause it to fall.