UK Watch

[stylofone]

A good article by Nick Bryant suggests Trumpish Brexity far right tactics will fail for Dutton. The paragraphs about Farage were interesting, what a racist slimebag he is.

In the UK election, the mighty Conservative Party, one of the world’s most well-oiled election-winning machines, looks like being decimated. Even before Rishi Sunak’s catastrophic decision to leave the beaches of Normandy ahead of a D-Day commemoration involving other international leaders, the Tories faced a shellacking. At the 2019 election, the party won 365 seats. Now it might struggle to retain 100. A “near-extinction event” is predicted, its worst election result in 100 years.

With the hapless Sunak lurching from one unforced crisis to the next, Nigel Farage has become the dominant figure on the British right. In some polls, his Reform UK party is neck and neck with the Conservatives. Sunak’s D-Day absenteeism was manna from heaven for Farage. His accusation that Britain’s first prime minister of colour “doesn’t understand our culture” was not so much a dog whistle as a clanging town cry delivered with the most ear-splitting of handbells. Yet that did not stop Tory grandees openly talking of welcoming him into the Conservative fold, in the hope he could help shepherd the party back from its post-election wilderness.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... 5jljz.html

He also says Scummo exhausted the appetite for Trump-loving in Australia. I hope he's right.

Maybe the main takeaway for both the major parties is the same. Keep Australian politics Australian. For Peter Dutton, what is happening in America, France and Germany in 2024 is less instructive than what happened in Wentworth, Kooyong and Goldstein in 2022.

[pipbarber]

It'll be interesting to see if Reform's apparent popularity translates into seats in parliament. One of those interesting moments when first past the post voting really disadvantages the far right. Nevertheless, i'm absolutely an advocate of preferential voting, even if it means you get neo-fascist types represented. Now would be a good time to start the discussion about preferential voting in England, it would presumably have widespread support from everywhere except the duopoly...and probably Rupert. But still, now's the moment, you'd think.

From our experience, One Notion, whilst quite damaging in some respects, have largely proven to be complete dills and an embarrassment. The type of people attracted to this politics dont generally make good public figures. Scandal, corruption and idiocy seem to be their most distinctive characteristics. Against that is the probability of a green/left party emerging and gaining representation, as has happened here.

Come on UK, first past the post is a stupid way of determining representation, get it together.

[pipbarber]

After the Biden disaster and what's looking like a giant lurch to the racist right in France, i'm hoping that Thursday in the UK will bring a measure of a good vibes. Not so much UK Labour winning, more the Tories being wiped out is what i'm realistically hoping for. The Assange story was excellent, i'm pleased he's free, but lately the political top end has been so fucking grim it's getting to the point of depressing. We really need some relief, I do anyway, and a couple of hundred nasty greedy fucking Tory cunts losing their jobs would be just the tonic.

On the other hand, imagine if they won again! I reckon if the Tories win this election, electoral politics is dead. I don't think even the Troies themselves want to win. It'd be almost a weird comical punishment to give them another 5 tears in power. They're hopelessly out of ideas, they've completely fucked the place and everything is getting worse (except if you're a billionaire or a corporate, obvs). I wonder who chuck will vote for?

Anyway, looking forward to it.

[nutmeg]

I was in the UK in earlier this year when the Tories did so badly in the local elections. Immediately afterwards 2 MPs defected to Labour, and many others declared that they would not stand as candidates in the next election. The Tories will almost certainly lose many seats to Labour, and maybe some others to Reform (Nigel Farage). It will be interesting to see what happens in my "local" constituency (as a British citizen living overseas I am entitled to vote, and have done so by proxy). Previously it has been very strongly Conservative, but things might even change there.

I wonder who chuck will vote for?

He almost certainly won't vote, as the Royal Family are supposed to be politically neutral.

[stylofone]

The front pages are interesting. The Tory papers are praying to the patron saint of lost causes, perhaps. The Daily Mail's headline "Vote Farage, Get Them", confused me at first. I thought it meant they were endorsing a vote for Reform in order to attack, i.e. "get" Labour. It actually means that a vote for Farage will benefit Labour, so in fact that slimy rag is still loyal to the fetid Conservatives like the rest of them. At the other pole, the Daily Star follows its Liz Truss vs the lettuce triumph, with a pleasing picture of clown shoes worn by the soon to be booted tories.

https://www.frontpages.com/uk-newspapers/

[pipbarber]

Fantastic. Greens have 4 seats, as many as fucking Farage.
Looks like the tories will have less than 120 seats, which means they are almost outnumbered by the cross bench. Lol

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... -to-labour

She had a 26000 majority to lose, quite the achievement.

[stylofone]

Fantastic. Greens have 4 seats, as many as fucking Farage.
Looks like the tories will have less than 120 seats, which means they are almost outnumbered by the cross bench. Lol

Farage is deranged. I think he imagines he could one day be Prime Minister. We don't hear even 1% as much about the leader of the UK Greens, and yet they had a similar result. This is because Farage is a clown, he does showbiz. It's all fiction, or perhaps fantasy. At the moment the Americans are mad enough to delude themselves that fantasy can come true. Maybe it's the tradition of Lord Buckethead and the Monster Raving Loony Party. Farage is like another one of the joke candidates. If the Americans had a stronger satirical tradition then more of them would realise that Trump is also a sick joke.

[pipbarber]

It didn't transpire into seats but Reform is the third biggest party in Britain by votes cast. That is truly appalling. 1 in 7 voted reform. 14% of Britain declared itself fascist. What will happen, based on precedent, is of course that the four new Reform MPs will sink themselves in mud and corruption and they'll swallow newspaper headlines for years. Although one can be comforted by the fact that they'll never come to power through the ballot, the downside is, they'll shove the UKs Overton window onto the full fascist vista. But, in guess we just enjoy the end of the Torries for now.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rmer-sunak

[stylofone]

It didn't transpire into seats but Reform is the third biggest party in Britain by votes cast. That is truly appalling. 1 in 7 voted reform. 14% of Britain declared itself fascist. What will happen, based on precedent, is of course that the four new Reform MPs will sink themselves in mud and corruption and they'll swallow newspaper headlines for years. Although one can be comforted by the fact that they'll never come to power through the ballot, the downside is, they'll shove the UKs Overton window onto the full fascist vista. But, in guess we just enjoy the end of the Torries for now.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rmer-sunak

Those commentators focusing, rightly, on how terrible the tories were and how they deserve this crushing defeat. One of them muses that the toxicity of incumbency is coming for Labour, and coming fast. Elsewhere in teh Graun, Polly Toynbee got caught up in the euphoria, and mistook the always cynical business of political strategising for something praiseworthy. I preferred the part of her column highlighting the hunger that people have to help each other, but I see warning signs even here, that Starmer's Labour is not on the same level as the altruistic zeitgeist she celebrates. But like the song says, things can only get better, so I agree with Polly, it IS a time for celebration. We can switch from D*REam to Kool and the Gang.

Twice as many want spending on public services increased “even if it means tax rises for households like theirs”, finds abrdn’s Financial Fairness Trust. The people may be ahead of Labour’s cautious manifesto.

EDIT: forgot to add the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ics-labour

[stylofone]

Racist riots being stirred up in the UK. Coming just after the election, it doesn't have the same peril as the US is facing, with an organised and highly funded operation to establish a white christian junta, reveling in its success having already taken over the Republican Party.

The UK situation is also interesting because the far right had such a big win with Brexit, which was a racist/xenophobic idea at its core. It made everything worse, it led to an electoral wipeout for the tories, but the far right response has been to intensify the scapegoating of minorities. I hope there is a big antifa style counter protest movement. The reporting already refers to the racist protesters being outnumbered by counter-protesters in some cases.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jqjqxl3dyo