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andrewduckerWhat I expect to happen over the next few UK electoral cycles
Basically, the same as what happened over the first few elections under Blair's Labour:
That's the medium ground.
The worse world is the one where rather than having vaguely likeable and on the less awful end of the party (like Cameron) a proper populist persuades enough people to their cause and we end up with a mini-Trump/Farage/etc. in charge.
The better world is one where we finally get a hung parliament with the smaller parties insisting on fixing the electoral system so that a small swing doesn't take you from a massive majority for one of the big two to a massive majority of the other one, and people have to learn how to compromise.
Basically, the same as what happened over the first few elections under Blair's Labour:
- Election 1 (1997) - Labour staggeringly popular, largely due to replacing a Conservative government mired in sleaze, corruption, and incompetence.
- Next few elections - Labour less popular, as the people who had put their differences to one side to Get The Tories Out are disenchanted, Labour reverts back to authoritarian type, and things don't improve as much as you'd hope as Labour continue fiddling round the edges of the economy to try to avoid annoying anyone.
- Eventually (2010) - Someone who can talk like an actual human takes over running the Conservative Party just as the Labour Party try to ram through some unpleasant nonsense, and they get a big enough swing back to persuade people that *this* time nobody will have to be nailed to anything.
That's the medium ground.
The worse world is the one where rather than having vaguely likeable and on the less awful end of the party (like Cameron) a proper populist persuades enough people to their cause and we end up with a mini-Trump/Farage/etc. in charge.
The better world is one where we finally get a hung parliament with the smaller parties insisting on fixing the electoral system so that a small swing doesn't take you from a massive majority for one of the big two to a massive majority of the other one, and people have to learn how to compromise.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-28 03:52 pm (UTC)First, there's the emergence of new forces on the right, principally Reform/Farage, but there are other political entrepreneurs circling and waiting to try and set themselves up as the saviours of the true essence of conservatism/Thatcherism. A lot of these are pushing to replace or reshape the Tories, not just pull them to their side on certain issues. Their strategy is to emulate the way the Reform Party of Canada essentially took over the conservative side there.
Second, and perhaps less noticed so far, is that there could well be a Lib Dem surge in this election going up to 40-50 seats, maybe even more. However, these seats are likely to be won on a very tight voter base, principally affluent voters in the south of England and so the post-election Lib Dems are going to find themselves being pulled rightwards by this political geography, especially if the Tories are imploding and a swathe of Tory voters, former MPs (the sort who were forced out by Johnson in 2019) and institutions are looking for a new political home. With a lot of new MPs not wanting to scare the horses, there'll be a lot of temptation for them to become an essentially socially liberal centre-right party with whatever's left of the Tories squeezed between them and whatever forms as the new Right party/formation.