Theresa May on track for the worst General Election result in Tory Party history (trunc)

Daily Mail.Com ^ | Published: 14:47 EDT, 11 May 2019 | Updated: 09:42 EDT, 12 May 2019 | By Joel Adams and Henry Martin For Mailonline

[SaveFerris]

The Brexit Party will earn more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined in the European Parliament elections, and could even beat the Tories in a General election, two extraordinary polls revealed this morning.

In an Opinium poll in the Observer, focused on this month's European elections, Nigel Farage's new party is predicted to hoover up 34 per cent of the vote. The same poll gave Labour 21 per cent and put the Tories in a miserable fourth place with 11 per cent

But an even more extraordinary poll, commissioned by a Brexit Party donor and published in the Sunday Telegraph, said for the first time the Brexit Party would beat the Tories in a General Election.

The ComRes survey of voting intentions put Brexit on 21 per cent to the Conservatives' 20, which would see Farage's team win 49 seats, becoming the UK's second biggest party after Labour, with 137.

[Cronos]

The opinion polls in 2019 have little impact on a vote 3 years in the future.

[Cronos]

I project the Brexit party to collapse by 2020 - it’s a single issue “party” which has made no attempt to get party members, just putting up people for election to the EU parliament. To win MP seats it needs to prove what it can do for local, more tangible matters

[Cronos]

That statement “The Tory party is disintegrating and the Brexit party is on track to replace it.” is as laughable as if one was to say “the Democrat party is disintegrating and the pro-abortion party is on track to replace it”

the Brexit “party” is not even a party in the sense that it has no means for anyone to become a member, it has no internal elections, it has no plank of policies except one - hard, no-deal brexit.

This is a protest movement and it won’t become a party to threaten the Tories

[Cronos]

And Scots like being Scots

[pepsionice]

I would agree with you but I think that the mere fact that BREXIT hasn’t occurred, and will not occur in 2019 (probably not even in 2020)....means it’s the number one topic in the UK for the next 18 months.

Toss in the fragile condition of the BBC and it’s tax, the continuing saga of Tommy Robinson (has yet to peak), social media ‘warfare’, and negativity over both Labour and Tories....I think the opera will continue on for at least three more years. I’ll even suggest that the BREXIT party ends up evolving into some other trendy group with more public frustrations.

[Cronos]

If May was really against Brexit she could have ended it much more simply

Option 1: say that this was not a binding referendum (the UK doesn’t have referenda in their constitution) and parliament was under no obligation to consider it. It was an advisory referndum. She could have put it up for discussion in parliament and kept it discussing forever if she wanted to kill it

option 2: she could say “yes, yes, it was a non-binding, advisory, referendum, but we are going to implement the will of the 37% of the voting public who voted “leave”, but now we are going to create a committee that will ask you specifically what kind of leave you want and then put a second referendum with multiple kinds of Brexit available including ‘I changed my mind’” and then this QUANGO would take years.

No, she didn’t try to pull off a deception - she’s not that smart. She tried to do something to stay in power and failed miserably

[Cronos]

As I keep saying, it’s simple - cut off Northern Ireland and put a condition that NI remains in the customs union while rUK gets out of the customs union, out of EU rules etc. and becomes a third-party country.

Then the English can get their “we’re out” and there is no problem with the Irish border as NI and RoI are in the same EU customs union.

Win-win.

[Cronos]

Actually it's not the #1 topic -- check the dailymail or thesun and the #1 topic seems to be

1. Meghan's baby
2. Strictly come dancing stars
3. scummy mummy

The local Johnny englanders don't have Brexit at the top of the mind, rather who's going to ensure that the price of pints goes down.

More seriously, as evident in the local elections, the #1 topic is all local.

And that's going to be the same case for the General Elections

Who people vote for in the EU parliamentary elections doesn't matter much - Farage and the UKIP won 8 seats last time and just 1 in the UK General Elections

The Brexit party is single-issue and has no agenda, nothing, beyond Brexit.

it doesn't even have an opinion on whether Jordan should be on "get me out of here, I'm a celebrity" for the umpteenth time or not.

[nathanbedford]

This is a protest movement and it won’t become a party to threaten the Tories

Pity that

[Cronos]

true, but that’s the way it is in a fptp system - you need to have a broader range of issues.

Facing the UK is not just the leaving of the EU, but also the chronic failure of British governments over the past 50 years to manage
1. retraining of people
2. removing people off welfare
3. dead towns in the north (due to #1 and #2)

[nathanbedford]

I take your points about the decline of Britain and the failure of both parties to address its mounting problems. I would argue that Labor is affirmatively responsible while the Tories are, relative to Labor, less active but nonetheless guilty.

It is the nature of political cultures to absorb mounting insults from their governments until some issue, often seemingly trivial, crystallizes for them their plight and galvanizes them into action. It seems to me that Brixet is a classic example of that phenomenon (not to say that withdrawal from the EU is trivial or that loss of self-governance is trivial).

Whether newborn Brixet party can fashion itself into a real player remains to be seen, as you rightly point out. The polls suggest that it is in advance of what might be expected for a startup.

[Cronos]

Yes, the Tories are or rather WERE prior to Cameron less active in the decline. But Cameron inaugurated gay marriage as well as other activities that led to the decline.

The polls only suggest what will happen in the EU parliamentary elections. The reason I say that the BP will not be a threat to the conservatives in UK parliamentary elections is due to
1. it not having any ability for new members - it’s essentially a Nigel Farage vehicle
2. Farage running away from any and all elected positions of responsibility. Even as EU MEP he never once defended British fishing waters despite being a chairman. He is a rabble-rouser no more. I do not appreciate other posters comparing him to Trump - Trump is no rabble-rouser but a man who has shown that he will do what he said he promised and will organize for that