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UK Election, By Our Bureaus

Two England-based readers check in with their thoughts about today's vote

'Unlike you stupid lot' (Photo of election handbill by James C.)
‘Unlike you stupid lot’ (Photo of election handbill by James C.)
Niall Gooch of this blog’s London bureau reports from the election:

This is a weird election (and possibly also a WEIRD one, given how little discussion there has been of international affairs, the importance of culture and our role in the world). Lots of ongoing trends are about to crash head on and leave the political situation looking very strange.

Since May 2010 we have had a Coalition government made up of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who between them currently have 358 seats, a 66-seat majority. The main opposition party is Labour, on 256.

The polls have barely moved since Parliament was dissolved on 31st March. Labour and the Conservatives are on about 33-35% each, although occasional outliers have put one or other slightly further ahead.

The next biggest party is UKIP, which usually polls in the 10-15% range. Behind them are the Liberal Democrats and the Greens; the LDs usually poll in 7-10% range, Greens a little below that.

That said, there do seem to be quite a lot of undecided voters, and a lot may depend on turnout, as ever. There is also the “shy Tories” or “shy UKIPers” theory, a sort of reverse
Bradley Effect, which postulates that pollsters may underestimate support for conservative
parties because people are reluctant to admit that they support them.

The Tories are already at a structural disadvantage under our current system of First Past The Post voting, partly because of outdated constituency boundaries which mean that the average successful Tory candidate has to get more votes than the average successful Labour
candidate, and partly because their vote tends to be less concentrated.

In 2005, Labour under Blair won a comfortable majority, 355 out of 646 seats, with 35.2% of the national vote. In 2010, Cameron’s Tories fell well short of an outright majority (gaining only 307 out of 650 seats) with 36.1%. Another illustration of the same problem: in 2005 the Tories won a majority of all the votes in England, but had 91 fewer English seats than Labour. By some estimates the Tories need an 11% national lead to win a parliamentary majority, whereas Labour need only about 3%.

The magic number for a workable parliamentary majority is generally taken to be 323. There are 650 Commons constituencies, but the 5 MPs from the Irish Republican party Sinn Fein do not take their seats as they practice “abstentionism” and will not swear the oath of allegiance to the Crown.

Once the results are in, David Cameron, as the serving Prime Minister, gets the first turn at forming a government. The acid test in the British constitution is whether you can command a Commons majority to get your Bills enacted – in practice this means passing a Budget, and being able to survive a no-confidence vote in the House (the General Election that brought Mrs Thatcher to power was called after the Prime Minister Jim Callaghan lost a no-confidence vote).

The best case scenario for the Tories, I suspect, is that they get somewhere close to 300 seats and the Lib Dems hang on to about half of their 2010 tally of 57 (the LDs’ national support has collapsed to about a third of its 2010 level, but they are effective local
campaigners and their vote tends to be more concentrated). Between them, they could then
just about hobble together Coalition 2.0, perhaps with an agreement for support from UKIP and the Northern Ireland Unionists.

But Ed Miliband could do the same. Even if Labour don’t win the popular vote, and even if they don’t get the most seats, if David Cameron is unable to form a government, Ed Miliband may be able to do so, calling on support from the Lib Dems, the Greens (if they end up
with any seats), and the Celtic nationalists – Plaid Cymru in Wales, the SDLP in Northern Ireland, and of course the Scottish National Party.

The Scottish factor is a big wildcard in this election. The SNP are soaring in the polls, riding a wave of nationalist feeling after the relatively close independence referendum last year. It’s by no means inconceivable that the SNP will win every seat in Scotland, which would be an astonishing result, increasing their representation at Westminster from 6 to 59 seats (they already control the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh). Even if they don’t quite sweep the board, they will be undoubtedly be the third party in the new
Parliament. As they position themselves as a party of the anti-Tory progressive left, they are obvious candidates for a grand left-wing coalition with Labour.

However, this arrangement would be highly controversial in England, especially if – as it usually does – England returns a Tory majority in both seats and votes. For some time, but especially since the independence referendum, there has been a lot of grumbling in England
about England’s lack of specific political representation. The other constituent parts of the United Kingdom – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – all have their own parliaments and their own devolved competencies, as well as returning members to the UK Parliament in London. Concerning Scotland, there is a debate in British politics called the West Lothian Question – which, to quote Wikipedia, “refers to whether MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, sitting in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, should be able to vote on matters that affect only England, while MPs from England are unable to vote on matters that have been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.”

Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much, but it does seem to bother a lot of people, especially when coupled with the perception that more fiscally conservative English taxpayers are being forced to subsidise the left-leaning devolved governments of the Celtic nations (this perception isn’t entirely correct, but nor is it entirely incorrect).

In the Scottish case, the problem is exacerbated by perceived, and often real, Scottish
nationalist hostility towards England and towards Scottish Unionists, and if the SNP did keep in power a minority Labour government for which most of the English electorate had not voted, this might be very unpopular in England (which is by far the most populous part of the UK, with 53 million of the total UK population of about 63 million).

The long-term decline of the Tories is one of the relatively neglected stories of this election. This will be the fifth general election in a row when they have failed to win a majority in the House of Commons. They have not done so since 1992, and it is hard to see them doing so again as presently constituted unless Labour make a terrible, terrible economic mess. With a few exceptions, Tory seats are (a) English and (b) rural and/or economically comfortable. The Tory collapse in Scotland has been remarkable. Well within living memory they were a powerful electoral force in Scotland and as recently as 1983 won 21 seats north of the border. They currently have one, which they will almost certainly lose today.

Why are the Tories in decline? That’s a book in itself, but some of the main reasons, I
suspect, include: the near-disappearance of organised moral and social conservatism in the
UK and the Tories’ failure to stand up for social conservatism in any coherent or courageous way (hence the loss of voters to UKIP or “none of the above”); the deep, deep hostility to the Tories in the post-industrial north; and the gradual takeover of Britain by those whose socio-political worldview was formed by “the Sixties”.

One of the most noticeable injustices of this election might turn out to be the failure of UKIP (UK Independence Party) to make any real breakthrough in terms of parliamentary
representation. If the polls are about right, and if turnout is halfway decent, UKIP may get as many as three million votes or more nationwide, i.e. rather more than the Scottish National Party (who will likely take more than 50 – although of course the SNP don’t stand outside Scotland), and yet not actually add a single seat to their current total of two. Nigel Farage, UKIP’s leader, has promised to quit if he doesn’t win in South Thanet, and has a tough fight on his hands. One of UKIP’s other MPs, Mark Reckless, may not get back in. One estimate I have seen suggests that under a more proportional system UKIP would get about 85 House of Commons seats! As things stand, their strand of unpolished and occasionally unpleasant populism and intellectually underdeveloped social conservatism will be left largely without representation.

The Greens too will probably do end up without any additional seats (they currently have one, in the bohemian, hipsterish coastal town of Brighton – think Brooklyn-on-Sea), despite a respectable showing at the ballot box.

It is possible, then, that electoral reform may be back on the agenda after the election, given the anomalies thrown up by this strange election. We had a referendum in 2011 in which we strongly rejected the idea of a form of proportional voting for Westminster, but
the deadlock and uncertainty that is likely to follow this election may lead to that issue being revisited.

The UK is fragmenting, to some degree. Literally in Scotland but also figuratively elsewhere. The big parties no longer have a mass membership. Class and institutional loyalties no longer have the power they once did. I worry that retail politics and identity politics will accelerate the atomisation of the population and encourage us to view politics as a way of securing privilege or security for our community or ourselves at the expense of the whole country. Ethnic and religious sectarianism are beginning to rear their ugly heads and will only get worse if not confronted. Candidates in some areas are now coming to depend strongly on bloc votes of local religious leaders. A little while back, half a dozen Labour candidates, including some senior party figures, spoke at a Muslim political event where there was segregation of the sexes, and have of course defended it on
multicultural grounds (imagine if a Tory had spoken at a Catholic event with segregation of the sexes!). A Labour candidate took a photo of himself with a canvassing team consisting entirely of British-Pakistani men and hashtagged it “diversity”! George Galloway, a clever demagogue who was MP for Bradford West 2010-15 and before that MP for an East London seat, and who may well be elected in B West again, specialises in getting elected in heavily Muslim areas by pandering to the worst instincts of conservative clannish Islamic enclaves, and indulging their dislike of Western values, Jews and Israel. https://www.politico.eu/article/galloway-bradford-elections-uk-ge2015/”>A Jewish journalist covering Galloway’s campaign was assaulted and insulted by a gang of Muslim men.

One thing I’d also add is that it’s entirely possible that a second election will be called later in the year if whoever ends up as Prime Minister wants to try and secure a clearer and more effective mandate.

It’s also the case that the SNP’s huge advances in Scotland are going to come mostly at the expense of Labour, for whom Scotland has long been a powerhouse and a provider of senior
politicians.

Labour in a sense are running to stand still; they’ll have to win 40 seats in England just to maintain their current level if they lose their 40-odd Scottish seats. That’s not impossible though. They’ll certainly take some seats off the Lib Dems, who have disappointed some left-leaning voters by their co-operation with the Tories, and they’ll
probably take some Tory seats too, perhaps in places where the right-wing vote is split between the Tories and UKIP.

Niall sent that late this morning, US time, so the returns have probably superseded some of his remarks. I, unfortunately, have been traveling and unable to get to wifi till just now. But what a helpful analysis! I’ve got great readers.

Meanwhile, James C. checks in from the fens of East Anglia:

Tim Stanley, a Telegraph columnist, had the best tweet last night:

Big day for thousands of 18 year olds tomorrow. First time they’ll ever have been inside a church hall.

In my case, it was a Christian Science church around the corner from my flat. It seems most polling stations in this country are churches and pubs.

I showed up and was immediately approached by party representatives outside. What did they want? My name and voter number, so they could cross me off their lists of people in the ward whose door they are going to break down later in the day!

As a non-British citizen I am not allowed to vote for Parliament, but I did get a choice in my local council elections (photo attached). All in all, it took 5 minutes.

Regarding the election in general, I have been amused to hear from many people around me how horrible it is that the election campaign drags on for six whole weeks! In America, if only! My co-workers and boss, who all live in villages outside of Cambridge proper, have also been very much irritated that they live around so many rock-solid Conservative voters (Cambridge city is a little red dot surrounded by a vast sea of blue; in UK politics, “red” stands for left and “blue” for right).

Election robo-calls are simply not done here, and TV advertising is much much less important here, but I have certainly been inundated by leaflets in my mail. It is there where I found some interesting parallels to US-style politics.See the attached Labour leaflets I received two days ago (WE HAVE 48 HOURS TO SAVE OUR NHS!) and yesterday (WE HAVE 24 HOURS TO SAVE OUR NHS!). This is the British equivalent of Social-Security scaremongering.

And then we have the celebrity endorsements (see attached). It seems that now that he has won an Oscar, Professor Hawking’s opinions are suddenly important, like Barbra Streisand’s!

And then we have the “marginal” parties, around which the election now hinges. I found this Green candidate quite charmingly eccentric (attached). Too bad his party supports legal polygamy (I’m not kidding). UKIP hasn’t bothered sending me any leaflets—smart, since I live in a city whose dominant champagne socialists think they are evil fascists.

UKIP, however, could get 15% countrywide, the Greens between 5 and 10%, the Liberal Democrats 10%. There are the three main Northern Irish parties. And then we have the pro-independence nationalist parties, Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Scottish National Party. The dominant two-party system is dead and gone in Britain.

The SNP is set to wipe out all other parties in Scotland and could take nearly all Scottish seats in Parliament. The result is that neither the Conservatives nor Labour will take a majority of seats, and there will be a massive amount of horse-trading immediately after the election. Party leaders are all expected to be in Westminster Abbey tomorrow morning for a service commemorating the 70th anniversary of V-E Day (the Queen will be hiding in Windsor Castle for obvious reasons).

Among the many possible combinations, there’s a crazy but very real prospect: Labour’s Ed Miliband making a deal with the SNP to get Cameron’s Conservatives out of power. Imagine the Southern US states being controlled by an openly secessionist party and the Democrats making a deal with them to control Washington!

The UK may not be long for this world. And remember, Scotland and England have been in political union since long before the birth of the United States.

It will be interesting indeed.

I know this blog has other UK readers. What did you see today? What did you think? How did you vote? Why did you vote that way?

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