Posted on 07/14/2025 7:33:47 PM PDT by Redmen4ever
Reform 34%, Conservatives 17%, Labour 15%, Corbin's party 15%, Lib Dems 9%, Greens 5%
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Reform is out in front, but likely not enough to build a ruling coalition. Not sure which party will be the ‘king maker’ …
reform and cons are 51
is there a reason cons wouldnt agree to form a govt
The percentages are misleading - if their spread is that large it would probably be a fairly healthy majority of the seats for Reform - that does not reflect them getting that percentage of seats.
It would be interesting if they ended up with a Reform majority with a more a Thatcherite version of the Conservative Party returning as the second largest party and therefore the “loyal opposition” with all of the Leftist parties shut out completely.
Depends on which “conservatives” are still standing. Only about half of them are right of center.
Some of them are wanting to blame their current leader but she didn’t cause the loss of trust in the leadership - that all came before her and she has faced a rather hopeless task of restoring it. It is essentially a dead party walking right now.
The Westminster system seems almost designed to give a party with a comfortable plurality the appearance of a mandate.
Having had a good deal of experience in Canada in the last three decades, I’d expect with those numbers Farage should be pushing 400 seats with a very comfortable majority.
The last Canadian Federal election was unusual because the third party vote collapsed down to the level of the fourth party, with the fourth party having a mediocre showing. This came close to producing a two-way race, with the first two parties close to tied in percentages and led to a minority parliament.
Normally the six percent between 33 and 39% changes things from almost certain minority to almost certain majority.
Explain Reform Party in American terms. I understand Conservatives = GOPe Bush-Romney wing; Labour = Democrat Biden wing; Corbynites = AOC-Bernie Democrats . . .
Reform - populist-right
Conservative - center-right
Labour - center-left
Corbyn’s party - hard-left
Lib Dem - center
Greens - green-left
PS Your analogies are fine.
UK is “first past the post,” or plurality voting country. Not run-off (like France) nor proportional representation (like Germany). In the UK, Whoever finishes first in a district wins that district. You don’t need a majority.
In addition, UK is a parliamentary government, meaning the executive is formed by the national legislature.
Were the election to be held now, Reform would probably win a majority of the districts and, so, form government by itself.
To illustrate how the UK system works (or, doesn’t work well), the current (Labour) government has a large majority in parliament even though it only received 34 percent of the popular vote.
In our system, we usually have (only) two meaningful political parties. To govern effectively, a party needs a “complex majority” (in terms of President, Senate and House) (which, actually, is quite challenging to achieve). An unfortunate consequence of our system is that many of our state and local governments are effectively one-party states (e.g. Cal.), and lack the kind of competition that democracy needs to function well.
To some extent, that is true, although I would say it's less a matter of design than of evolution over time, and it's been largely accepted because it has provided stable government. And for most of the last century the makeup of the House of Commons has largely reflected the popular vote.
It is going to be very interesting to see if Reform maintains its current momentum. If it does, and that isn't reflected in House of Commons seats, the system will probably reform/be reformed in some way.
At the moment, what is happening would either be seen as an anomaly (which may prove true - if you look at the 1980s the 'Alliance' between the Liberals and the Social Democrats got almost as many votes as Labour but far fewer seats - but that was a flash in the pan), or Reform will take over as one of the two major groupings, or a possibility could develop of a coalition government.
Personally, I'd like to see the Conservative Party fix itself, and take back votes from Reform, but I'm not sure it has it in it to do so - the 'wets' have too much influence, and the 'dries' don't seem to have the courage of their convictions. I do think there's a very real chance that Reform may change everything.
Reform has twice the support of anyone else, and is the only party capable of building a coalition with only one other party. Plus, like the U.S., it’s first past the post, meaning for all you know, Reform could run the tables the way that Labor just did.
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