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Thread: Damn those pesky kids - if they hadn't been scurrilously encouraged to

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  1. #11
    Not that I can preach from any position because our own electoral system is extremely flawed but isn't the problem in the UK that your General Elections are too like referenda. First past the post means a black and white outcome except on the rare occasions where a hung parliament results.

    Leave or Remain was always a daft question to ask the electorate because no one really understood what Leave meant. Or at least there was a lot of ambiguity in what Leave might mean. If not we would not be hearing any debate over a hard or soft Brexit, staying in or leaving the Single Market or the Customs Union etc.

    It is just as easy, especially given the polls in advance of the referendum, to argue that many of those who voted Leave were doing so as a Protest Vote at the time and given the relatively small majority it could easily be that such voters swung the final decision.

    Just as it is easy to argue now that many of those who voted Labour did so in protest at the Government's 'handling' of Brexit, and/or the calling of the Election in the first place. I accept Brexit was not a campaign issue in itself, save to the extent that May wanted to have a greater mandate to negotiate what she saw as the right version of Brexit. What better way to protest than to weaken her hand! Did anyone really expect Corbyn to get a majority?

    But just as Brexit disenfranchises the 48% who voted Remain, ftpt disenfranchises those who voted anything other than the winner and in most cases the winner gets significantly less than 50% of the vote.

    All this is great for debates on message boards but it doesn't say a lot for democracy.

    One final point. It just so happens that the DUP hold the balance of power with their 10 seats. That is an accident of the result in the Election. They were pro-Brexit but probably more aligned to a softer version because they don't want to see an Irish Border. But equally they were always opposed to a Brexit that would result in a special status for Northern Ireland. It's a hard one to reconcile but that never stopped a Northern politician. But to my mind it is their stance that will dictate whether the Brexit that is negotiated will be hard or soft. The vote for Labour diminished May's authority to this extent only.

    Which to digress, leads me to my final point* - is not May's authority diminished to such an extent that the only reason she has held on to any power, because no one now wants the poisoned chalice of being PM with a minority government having to negotiate an impossible deal that will be roundly criticised by virtually all concerned?

    *oops - two final points - sorry and apologies this was so long!
    Last edited by Lar d'Arse; 06-14-2017 at 02:14 PM.

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