Mastodawn

Emeritus Prof Christopher May

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the bookies' odds, tactical voting advice (now going online) for the Gorton & Denton by-election is focussing on voting Green (Hannah Spencer) as the best route to block a win by ReformUK Ltd.

This is exactly what Labour fears; as the Green Parties (of England & Wales, and Scottish) become the best route for tactical voters, their support will start to consolidate more widely sapping Labour's remaining support.

#GortonAndDenton #politics
https://stopreformuk.vote/parl/gorton-and-denton

Stop Reform and the Tories

Stop Reform and the Tories in the UK Parliament, Local Elections, the Senedd, and the Scottish Parliament.

StopReformUK.vote

@ChrisMayLA6 I hear Portugal and Spain have given their economies a boost by making employment less precarious and regularising immigrants. Right leaning policies only ever seem to benefit a tiny, already wealthy, minority.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

ain't that the truth....

BashStKid Feb 22

@ChrisMayLA6 Stand by to see if Labour would rather split the vote and let Reform win, than follow the tactical voting advice it’s been so keen to cram down everyone else for years.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

Indeed, given the possibility that in some future by-elections the advice may be *to* vote Labour tactically, it will be interesting to watch how they frame their likely hypocrisy on the issue

@ChrisMayLA6 @BashStKid based on my experience canvassing for the Greens over the last month, and living in the constituency, I am 100% convinced that Labour are going after the Green vote. They're happy to split the vote if it means the Greens don't win.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

@linuxlucy @BashStKid

So much for being worried about Reform UK Ltd, then....

Andy Dearden Feb 22

@BashStKid @ChrisMayLA6 Labour's constitution makes it hard for them to collabotrate - but they desparately need to change that.

BashStKid Feb 22

@AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 True, but too often that’s an excuse.

Thinking of last year’s Labour’s own stats showing them banning a member every three or four days for tweeting or discussing other parties.

Walrus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Feb 22

Maybe Labour should have tried not being the same as the Tories?

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

Pete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫Feb 22

@ChrisMayLA6
They could have cared even slightly about losing the progressive vote any time in the last 10 years, and they wouldn't have to fear it now that it's happening.

They even had a recent clear warning: at the last GE the Greens took some seats. The seal is broken; nobody can say Green is a wasted vote now.

That was the time to understand Labour's election win came not from moving right, but disgust with the Tories, and how fragile it'd be if their "Change" slogan was empty.

Pino Carafa Feb 22

@petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6 This is the one saving grace in the UK's version of their FPTP system. In the UK, "hung" parliaments are at least possible. The FPTP system makes them a lot less common, but it can happen.

So if the Greens find themselves in a "Kingmaker" position, there is one thing they must insist on: a hard commitment from their coalition partner to replace the FPTP voting system with something like PR-STV or vanilla PR. No coalition without it. Period.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

@rozeboosje @petealexharris

Agreed! 💯

@rozeboosje @petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6
Yeah, well, look how the LibDems got screwed with that one. (TBH, they didn't really understand either the power they had or the fate that inevitably awaited them as a junior partner if the system didn't change.) But it's also true that the situation has changed drastically since 2010 and if Labour or the Tories want to survive, they will need to do it.

Pino Carafa Feb 22

@Scurra @petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6

1/2

This is the problem that every "junior" coalition partner faces. The bigger party is usually voted in by people who simply vote for them for no better reason than that they always have. The smaller party gets more votes than usual because voters have high hopes. At the end of the term the bigger party is fine because nobody had high expectations of THEM, while the small party gets clobbered because their voters are disappointed in them.

Pino Carafa Feb 22

@Scurra @petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6

2/2

The Lib Dems should have realised this. Their strategy should have been: change the voting system, if nothing else, do that. Accept that they will lose votes in the next election, but with the new system in place the end result may actually be surprisingly reasonable, even for them. Now leverage the new system for better results.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

@rozeboosje @Scurra @petealexharris

They did try that but made a hash of the referendum....

Pino Carafa Feb 22

@ChrisMayLA6 @Scurra @petealexharris Which is funny because, as I understand it, a referendum wouldn't even have been required?

Donald Roy Feb 22

@petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6

Just enough of them understood in the summer of 2024 - and one of them - #vidhyaalakeson - was in a position to act - to be able to prevent #shabanaMahmood , #jessphillips and #wesstreeting from sharing the fate of #thangamdebonaire and #jonathanashworth . There are some suggestions that their authority has increased - with the departure of #morganmcsweeney and others. Somebody there may even got round to reading the latest version of #thebritishelectionstudy!

Donald Roy Feb 22

@petealexharris @ChrisMayLA6

However it may prove to be too late. The legacy of #morganmcsweeney , #petermandelson , #labourtogether and their various allies and fellow travellers may be just too debilitating for #uklabour to recover from. However that is by no means certain.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

@djr2024 @petealexharris

Yes, I think this is the key Q.: can Labour draw a line under al of that & reconfigure.... my guess is the inculcation of the party by the Right (of Labour) has been too great, but who knows

Donald Roy Feb 22

@ChrisMayLA6 @petealexharris

If it can be done it will take time - several months at best - and the risk is that the electorate may have moved by then to a stage where #Laɓour has settled down as an alternative rather than the leading contender for left of centre support.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@ChrisMayLA6 And if one day the Greens win power ...

... they will suddenly realise that FPTP isn't so bad after all, and that in fact voting reform is a long way down their priority list.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Feb 22

Sadly, that has been what has happened with previous political parties advocating for electoral change.... thinking the Greens might be different is the triumph of however experience...

@ChrisMayLA6 @TimWardCam The conflict of interest is so bare of course - why demolish the voting scheme that just got you into power?

A well-informed electorate can work round many of the rough edges of FTFP. I do not want party lists and sycophancy above all. I just got to understand and like the scheme in the Bunderstag, now changed, but would take any reasonable alternative where I am voting for an individual first. On that basis I have voted across parties for example...

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@DamonHD @ChrisMayLA6 FPTP can be described as "party list with a list length of one". In either case you can get to choose who's on the list by joining the party of your choice and taking part in the selection process, goes the theory. But I'm not sure it's a very good theory.

@TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6 FTFP is simple but too simple. I definitely would like some of my preference to count even if my first choice does not win outright.

@DamonHD @TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6 This is why I felt the Ranked Choice we were offered and said no to in that referendum was the right one.

If you don't like the individual the party you like has picked, then you can move your vote to the broadly-aligned alternative without necessarily letting their opposite in.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@beemoh @DamonHD @ChrisMayLA6 Current theory is that we should have gone for some form of AV/PR for *local* elections rather than parliamentary. As the Tories don't give a shit about local councils that'd have probably got through, and might have become the thin end of the wedge.

@TimWardCam @beemoh @ChrisMayLA6 Well except someone took the tme to remove PR from the London (mayoral) elections which I had thought worked OK...

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@DamonHD @beemoh @ChrisMayLA6 Sure. But the "mayors" aren't part of local democracy anyway - they were invented as a centralising measure precisely *because* central government couldn't be arsed with dealing with all those pesky little councils.

@TimWardCam @DamonHD @ChrisMayLA6 Which is probably why they're closing them all down.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@beemoh @DamonHD @ChrisMayLA6 They haven't announced that yet, unless I'm missing something? - I thought it was just the PCCs which were being abolished so far. Which is a Good Thing, but the same logic should, indeed, be applied to get rid of the mayors.

@TimWardCam @DamonHD @ChrisMayLA6 Councils, I meant- not mayors.

Dan Hatton Feb 22

@DamonHD @TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6

But if we're thinking in terms of parties acting out of self-interest rather than principle, we've well and truly passed the tipping point where keeping FPTP is no longer in the self-interest of the Labour or Conservative parties, so the next 3 years may be the ideal time to get PR done.

🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳Feb 23

@ChrisMayLA6 @TimWardCam
you say that, but many of the countries that don't have FPTP, did until the sitting government changed it.

Andy Dearden Feb 22

@TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6 It's worth noting how these parties actually handle their internal elections. Labour use AV for candidate selection. Greens use STV for candidate selection and multi-seat committees, and always include RON (re-open nominations) as an option. Green commitment to PR is actually baked in at a very foundational level.

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 22

@AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 What we did locally was send our election techie geek into a room with a laptop to work out the results from the STV votes. (I don't know who does this now that he is no longer with us - someone else must have learned how to do it.)