Like many Americans I went to The Daily Mail (via The Drudge Report) to find out what happened in the British elections.
More and more Americans are using the DM as the source for news about America. Based on their ability to read the U.S. more or less correctly in many respects, why wouldn’t the same hold true for what they had to say about their own?
Poor UKIP is Trashed
I was disappointed but not tee-totally surprised by UKIP’s poor showing. I don’t pretend to understand another country’s politics, but UKIP seemed to have what would be in America a kind of third-party aura…in the U.S. if energy for a third party ever gets going, it seems to flatten out at less than twenty percent and is a boon for the Democrats. It would appear, at least here, that such rump efforts pick up the Right’s outliers who either stay home or hold their nose and vote “Republican”. But UKIP didn’t even do that well. Sad.
No doubt my feeling regarding UKIP is off the beam, but that’s what it looks like to an outsider. It would be good to have some input from people who were hoping for a better showing for UKIP.
And the surprising strength of the Scottish National Party demonstrates – to Americans – the growing desire for nationalism/regionalism in Anglo countries everywhere. One can’t have that in England, of course, since the powers that be made sure that any British nationalism is darkened and tainted for the foreseeable future.
This is much the same way that crony corruption here keeps searching frantically under the bed for any sign of racism in the Tea Parties…so far, failing miserably but it doesn’t matter since they’re well-funded to keep trying and some of the fecal matter sticks for those who don’t pay attention.
Even though the race is over, evidently Cameron is still in promise mode: He did say somewhere or other that he’s willing to have a referendum on England’s participation in the EU. Given how the British electorate were damnably lied to before regarding this right to decide, I’m skeptical about that promise.
FINAL RESULT:
- Tories 331 (up 25)
- Labour 232 (down 24)
- SNP 56 (up 50)
- Lib Dems 8 (down 48),
- Ukip 1 (down 1)
An interesting sidebar look at the numbers turning out for the election:
The most unpredictable election campaign in living memory led to a bumper election turnout with 66.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes – the highest number in 18 years.
Just 65 per cent voted in 2010, up from 61 per cent in 2005 and only 59 per cent in 2001.
It was the biggest turnout since the Labour landslide of 1997 which saw 71 per cent of the electorate voting to replace John Major with Labour’s Tony Blair.The prospect of a hung parliament – with the SNP possibly holding the balance of power – appears to have encouraged a late surge in people registering to vote. In total, some 469,047 registered to vote online on the final day for registration.
Voting was particularly high in Scotland with figures suggesting some 71.1 per cent headed to the polls – following last year’s referendum.
In Dunbartonshire East and Renfrewshire East, which were both SNP gains from Labour, turnout topped more than 80 per cent.
In contrast just 46 per cent of people voted in Manchester Central, the lowest in the country where Lucy Powell held for Labour.
As me mither would say, “who’s Lucy Powell when she’s up and dressed?” From what I can gather, Labour is a Socialist melange of left-over bits and pieces of the old Left?? Obviously I’m an outsider guessing here. Any [civil] opinion as to the future of the losers would be welcome.
Another Opinion Sought
I found this image of Cameron’s Lily-White Staff. Since the Baron’s not around to help I can’t post it, but I sure would like y’all’s opinion. There appears to one man of Indian origin but otherwise his people are roughly half-and-half men and women. There’s no way to count the gays, transgenders, or asexuals, but I presume they’re represented in sufficient numbers. Or maybe it’s just not Britian’s bag…yet. But this shows Britain is less under the foot of the gender dictators than is America. You’re fortunate.
The Future of Polling. Is There One?
What may turn out to be telling in the long run is a possible end to polling people ahead of the vote.Yahoo News carried a report on the dismal outcome of electoral predictions:
The Conservative party’s unexpected triumph in Britain’s general election delivers a hefty blow not only to the routed Labour party, but also to the pollsters who predicted a dead heat.
“The pollsters need to go off and interrogate themselves and poll each other to find who has been telling porkies to whom,” concluded Conservative London mayor Boris Johnson. [do you think he can say that in the future? The “porkies” part, I mean. Won’t that be Islamophobic language?-D]
“It’s extraordinary that 11 polls on the eve of the election should get it so wrong.”
For months, the main survey-takers had the two parties neck-and-neck, flatlining at around 35 percent each.
Only one day before the elections, YouGov, ICM and Survation called it a tie and three other polls published by TNS, Opinium and ComRes gave the Conservatives the narrowest of leads.
Panelbase gave the Tories a two-point lead while all the newspapers wrote that a hung parliament was a certainty.
Well, I must admit that on the rare occasions when pollsters find us, I always lie to them. Who’s to say they’re not government employees? And who’s to say they are honest themselves? In today’s scum culture, the best public response is a lie; it’s safer.
So now you know: Saint Dymphna lies.like.a.rug. My namesake saint did too when she ran away. As one of my confessors once said, “always prevaricate when to do otherwise might place you in danger. And never forget that the moral value of truth must always be weighed in tandem with safety”.
There will be lots of slicing and dicing and analyzing in the months to come. We’ll put up whatever comes our way. Meanwhile, I suggest everyone dust off their Anthony Trollope collection and read up as history repeats itself.
Like most I was surprised at the final result, but surely it highlights the ridiculous, unfair ‘first past the post’ nonsense, allied to the gerrymandering which the Brits seem to have down to a fine art.
To illustrate what I mean, one of the Brit. newspapers worked out that if they had proportional representation the result would have been:
Labour 213
Tories 201
UKIP 99–as opposed to the single seat they now have.
The various PR systems tends to produce weak government as small parties are able to wield a disproportionate amount of power; due to the number of parties which have to be accommodated within a coalition to provide a sufficient, working majority to form a government.
There was a referendum on changing the voting system to a form of PR, held in Britain in May 2011 shortly after the last coalition government came to power – it was rejected 68% to 32%. The voting system is never going to be changed now, by the party that wins by the FPP system.
The FPP system can be frustrating (I voted UKIP so I sympathize and share my fellow Kippers disappointment) but I wouldn’t trade it for the alternative.
The Conservatives are likely to be in power for the next 10 – 15 years; with the destruction of Labour’s support in Scotland, they lost 40 seats (retaining 1) whilst the Scottish Nationalist Party won 56 out of 59. The Labour Party do not command much support in very large areas of England. There are also going to be changes, in this Parliament, to the boundaries of some constituencies; to the benefit of the Conservatives, which will make things even harder for Labour in England.
A reason for Labour suffering such a heavy defeat and the Tories getting an overall majority; is that people in England were (correctly as it turned out) worried that left wing Labour would lose lots of seats in Scotland, not get enough in England and Wales and therefore need to be propped up by the (crypto-Communist) SNP to be able to pass a Queen’s Speech and govern.
This was rightly perceived as meaning the Scottish Nationalist tail would be wagging the English dog and demanding more and more concessions from Labour in return for their support – leading increasingly towards back door independence, despite the SNP losing last years Scottish referendum on independence 55% to 45%.
The Conservatives exploited that fear and reaped the victory, allied with much of the English and Welsh electorate feeling that Labour cannot be trusted to run the economy.
There are a lot of English people who are heartily sick of hearing about Scottish independence and wish the Scots would leave the Union; however the problem is finding someone who as Prime Minister, doesn’t mind going down in history as the one who allowed the country to fracture after it has been in existence since 1707.
UKIP are a new party still in Britain and are still growing. There will be a referendum in the U.K. on whether we remain in the E.U. probably in 2016 and they will play a big part in the Out campaign.
Dymphna,
The UK uses the extremely unrepresentative ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system, so the number of parliamentary seats won isn’t necessarily an accurate measure of the popular vote for any party.
The British might huff and puff, but they will stay in the EU, whether Scotland leaves the UK is another question entirely. Perhaps one day Britain will develop a federal system, a written constitution and an elected Upper House, it’s about time the Mother of Parliaments took an interest in the various ‘daughter parliaments’.
No, you are wrong on this. The British will get out of the EU – I don’t know when exactly, but it will happen. It is an unnatural arrangement, the British are not Europeans.
In every nation that has held a referendum on EU membership there has been a majority opposed to it. The British are among the few members with spines (just not most British politicians) and a tradition of liberty. The EU is tyranny.
I wish I could agree about Brits having spines, but the “Rotherham Effect” – which has taken place in a much larger area of Great Britain than just Rotherham – proves they don’t. As well as the fact that Brits allow themselves to be arrested for quoting Winston Churchill, or for confronting one of their children’s rapists on the street.
Brits with spines – fathers, brothers, police and rightfully _any_ male with spine – would have left a trail of [intemperate and obscene recommendations redacted], for what they have done to thousands of young British (non-muslim) girls. For YEARS.
Can you not imagine the horror of a young girl who is abused for years by hundreds of those animals, knowing not only that help will never come, but that the coppers, city councils and aid agencies refuse to even _listen_ to their cries for help? There were no spines in Rotherham, and I believe Rotherham was merely the tip of the iceberg.
How do you ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE ARRESTED? Are you serious? So he should have read his piece and then shot anyone who came after him??
I’m sorry to have to say this, but you CAN resist an illegal or immoral arrest.
You do have to be ready to give up your life for the sake of your principles, which makes surviving such an experience a bit of a ‘second best’ outcome, and the uniformed murderers who are determined to follow orders regardless of legality or morality are unlikely to make the experience itself pleasant, but that’s simply how things are.
I’m not saying that everyone has the will or courage to refuse to cooperate with an illegal and immoral detention, but please acknowledge that there are those of us who do and have.
The boys got it too, and from British gentlemen with good positions at, say, the BBC. The fish begins to rot at the head.
Rotherham and Rochdale (in both towns there was a cover up between their Labour councils and the Police of the rape and pimping of underage English girls) have just voted in Labour councils, again. Naturally the Moslem element voted Labour, but so did the English voters.
Their bennies (welfare hand-outs) are more important to them than their degradation.
rightrightright, in towns like Rotherham and Rochdale – you could put a donkey, with a red rosette on it, up for the election and it would end up a Labour M.P.
Though I must admit I was appalled, like a lot of people were here in England, that the folk in Rotherham voted Labour back in (with a big majority) after what their politicians had colluded to facilitate and hide.
Susan the Warrior,
The UK won’t leave the EU, there are no practical alternatives, the Commonwealth is moribund and irrelevant.
The Eurocrats will make the British political and business elites an offer they can’t refuse, ie the costs of an exit will be ruinous. As you indicated, ‘referendums’ are ignored by the Eurocracy until the plebs vote ‘correctly’. So what’s the promise of a phoney referendum worth?
I agree, the Brits will not get out of the E.U.—though I wish dearly that they had the sense to do so, for I believe it would only take one country to start a long overdue domino effect.
You state “the cost of an exit would be ruinous” and I agree that’s probably the deterrent, but perhaps it’s a false one; remember Y2K? Ok, ok, that was a very different problem where nothing happened and the sky didn’t fall, but despite dire predictions about what might or could possibly happen, perhaps the opposite might occur. To be free of the tyranny of the E.U. would be a huge plus, but then the other corrupt, failed organization, the U.N. would probably threaten…..
Are the Brits courageous enough? They certainly aren’t when it comes to facing up to their resident enemy–islam.
Peter35
“I agree that’s probably the deterrent, but perhaps it’s a false one;”
That’s a reasonable comment, however the UK has been increasingly integrated into the EU politically and economically over the past 40 years. My guess is that the country’s elite will sabotage any exit referendum by confusing the issue and scaring the voters, after all, there are nearly two generations of Brits who know only the EU.
Also, I don’t know whether the UK government would be constitutionally bound by a “yes” vote.
BBC: UKIP took third place in number of votes
It looks like a bunch of people shifted from LD to UKIP.
Indeed. It wasn’t a sorry night for UKIP at all. They quadrupled their vote over five years, despite the most vicious and intimidating election campaign in modern UK history. They did well in the leftie strongholds that hate them most. Last election UKIP were a fringe party. This time they are the third party. The disappointing result was due to a complicated range of factors, mostly outside their control. Whether they can maintain this momentum is the big question now.
Re the SNP: The bizarre thing about this party is that it is if anything more leftwing than Labour. It is not only the ‘right’ that does nationalism. It feeds on the Scottish sense of historical grievance against England, and is now a very effective political machine. Fear of it in alliance with Labour seems to have herded many voters to the centre-right.
From James Dellingpole writing today at Beritbart.com and the problem with British electoral processes:
“Except we have a problem. Out there in the country right now are nearly four million UKIP voters who – having garnered 12 per cent of the vote – are feeling not a little disgusted that all they landed for their troubles was a single parliamentary seat. (Douglas Carswell)
Here, according to one tweeter, is the average number of votes it took for each party to win their seats. I don’t know how accurate they are except for the UKIP one, which is definitely right and tells you all you need to know about the injustice of it all.
SNP 26,444
CON 34,342
LAB 40,232
GRN 121,216
LD 289,262
UKIP 3,767,137”
That’s *per seat*.
UKIP wuz robbed by the Tories’ unrelenting pre-election attacks.
Shameful.
URL:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/05/09/farage-was-robbed-ukip-was-cheated-time-for-cameron-to-unite-the-right/
Well, UKIP got 13% of the vote total, four times more than last vote and the third largest total overall, beating out the Scottish National Party and that perpetual 3rd party–the Lib Dems or Dem Libs or whatever they’re called these days. It’s true they only got one seat and Farage lost, due to the quirks in the voting system that penalize a smaller party with widespread and even support throughout the country. (That’s not a complaint about the system per se.) Did UKIP think their vote percentage would be higher, or that they would win mores seats with the % that they had?
I’m saddened beyond words but not surprised. Yes, you are right – Labour is a Sociast melange of the old Left – but frankly the new Left is no different than the old one, and remember the man who saved the Western world from Hitler, Winston Churchill, was thrown under the bus right after WWII – Labor hasn’t changed much in all these years, and neither has the stupidity of the British voter.
As to the losers, well Nick Clegg and his party are toast. Good bye at last. As to Labour, well Eddie boy is out, but the Labour Party will soldier on – commies are good that way. Ditto the SNP (Scotland) -I always thought the Scots were dumb as a rock. Instead of playing victim they should have proclaimed themselves victors back in the 17th century and stuck with that meme. After all the Scottish king became James I of England. DUH.
As to Ukip – I see Nigel Farage as a sort of Goldwater figure. He may have lost the election, but Ukip will rise again. Farage was just a bit early. He may be the British Ronaldus Magnus in a few years. While I am disappoint and I not too worried – it is sort of a miracle that Ukip even exist. The British (and I lived there many years) are not so quick off the mark as the Americans but they get there – after all Churchill spent the entire 1930s warning the British about Hitler.
Susan, whoa there girl! Are you American?
The Scots are ‘dumb as a rock’ and the Poms (English) are ‘slow off the mark’, er, may I ask who is your President? What do you know about him? His time at Columbia, where nobody can remember him?
And this mystery man was not only voted in but re-elected?!
If human nature was different between different peoples, colors, … etc. history and Shakespeare’s plays could not be understood by other remote peoples.
It was the people who elected Lenin, Saddam, Gaddafi, Hitler, Cameron, Hussein Obama. . . The same nature. I tell you why.
Miliband groveled at muslima’s feet and declared he would outlaw islamophobia – nausea. . Cameron urged the British to adopt the muslim culture:
: I found myself thinking that it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.”
Listen to Cameron’s and Miliband’s nauseating videos.
Now listen to Nigel Farage ‘ videos : All sprinkled with substance, wisdom, good judgement, sensible ideas, constructive, to save Britain in the long run, and save Europe from “the fatal disaster” it’s waiting for it. Soldier’s of allah are marching on Europe. Farage wanted to stop that peacefully in time, democratically with wise decisions. Voters don’t see what he sees. They will see that in 20 years…. too late for any peaceful action then. Why things are the same in every peoples.
Man is born to fight and to toil by the dark.
Of the above, only Cameron was elected legitimately (in 1933, the Nazis intimidated many opponents).
Here’s my take on why UKIP did so badly. Britain’s elections are governed by “first past the post” counting. Whichever candidate gets more votes than any other particular candidate wins the seat.
So if UKIP, Tories, and Labour are the choices, realistically, who in their right mind will vote for UKIP instead of Tory if that vote only helps Labour? This past election had a lot at stake, and Cameron did after all pledge a referendum on whether to stay in the EU.
Ah, thank you. This answers a question I’ve had for a long time: how are the “winners” ascertained in the British elections?
Apparently not by a majority, so there aren’t run-offs. Only a plurality is needed to win a seat in Parliament. What a wild thought! So, theoretically, candidates A, B, C, D, and E could run in one district, with the following results:
A = 24% of the vote
B = 22%
C = 20%
D = 18%
E = 16%
Candidate A would get the win! Even though 76% of the voters voted “against” him/her.
My God. No wonder they have such a strict time limit on their elections. Otherwise, the chaos would be unimaginable. IMHO, of course.
we have similar plurality run-offs in some of our state primaries. Louisiana may be one. Can’t remember
Preferential voting makes all plurality runoffs simultaneous. If it is truly preferential (i.e., what the voter wants, and not just according to the deals the voter’s first chosen party has stitched up), it’s a very good thing, since without it, voting for a ‘third’ or subsequent party quickly becomes a wasted vote. In a first past the post system, only votes for the major parties are encouraged (although the result in both systems is often that only the major parties win seats), so for 13 per cent of people to decide to ‘waste’ a vote on UKIP, it probably means that there are more out there who would’ve voted for UKIP but were more intent on making sure that their less preferred major party didn’t win a seat.
Salome,
“Preferential voting makes all plurality runoffs simultaneous. If it is truly preferential (i.e., what the voter wants, and not just according to the deals the voter’s first chosen party has stitched up), it’s a very good thing”
Yes, indeed, voters have the option to make their own choices and not follow the party line, although many don’t, particularly if there are numerous candidates.
The preferential, or single transferrable system has its flaws, however it’s far superior to the crude and unrepresentative FPTP.
Isn’t “first (two) past the post” essentially California’s “Open Primary” system? (A curse upon you Abel Maldonado!) Sure, there is a general election, but all it does is place Green and Peace and Freedom votes for Democrats.
Also from the Daily Mail: “Significant numbers of Ukip supporters also appear to have listened to the Prime Minister’s invitation to ‘come home’ in order to prevent a split in the conservative vote letting in Labour by the back door.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072601/Election-results-2015-LIVE-General-election-exit-poll-suggests-Conservatives-victory.html#ixzz3ZayhAfZ7
Which may help explain the loss of UKIP seats in many districts.
Camoron won because his opponents won the election for him. After 13 years of Labour no one wanted the chance of them returning–esp under an idiot every bit as stupid and incompetent as his predecessors . And keep in power by the deeply unpleasant SNP.
Camoron is still a useless middle-(or Upper in his case) class Marxist and an EU sucking parasite. There prob will be a referendum but every lying SOS on the planet will be rolled out in favour of the EU.
However the real issue is the economy. And that is in bad shape everywhere. The UK, the USA, the EU, Japan–they are all in a huge mess and the crunch could start anywhere at any time. Then we will see. Nothing much changes while people are relatively comfortable. The frog in the pot syndrome. But when things get weird and nasty, well…..
I believe the UK election has exposed one aspect to the 21st Century voter – too few of them are not economically hurting enough to force them away from their self-indulgence to face reality.
Farage had a message to sell and four million voters bought it – that is 13% of the national vote BTW, but even as the third most popular party the UKIP lost one of its two seats to a political system that is heavily weighted toward the opportunistic and unpatriotic British political elite who have been steadily chipping away within the political process to deny up and coming political parties a fair shot at gaining government.
Wherever one may cast an eye within the West, all Western political systems are now a one horse race with two riders vying for the position as jockey. The smaller parties – of which there are many – have no chance at this time of swaying a self-indulgent public away from the ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality and the apathy and fickleness that keeps them backing that one single horse.
Until the full impact of the reality that continually voting for political parties that promises the voter a cut from the Treasury becomes compellingly obvious, even to the simpleton, nothing of note will change.
Old Man is right. Cameron will never hold that referendum.
Cameron will hold the referendum. The problem is he’ll try and rig it so he wins: E.U. immigrants in Britain being able to vote in it (there are 6 million of them in the U.K. remember) and 16 and 17 year olds also having the right to vote (who will still be freshly brain washed by schools into being pro E.U. drones).
Cameron is very pro E.U. and also wants to allow Turkey to accede.
He can only duck it by being quite brazen about it. He repeated the promise to hold again yesterday. He is known as “Cast Iron Dave” because he has broken almost every promise he ever made–but this one he would have some trouble with . He does not intend to stand for a third term so who knows. I suspect the vote will go ahead but they will try to put the fix in . Not vote fiddling (I hope) but massive propaganda and end-of-the-world scaremongering in favour of the EU. It should be noted that the EU itself is increasingly not the source of obnoxious rules but is itself part of a poisonous Global system of such, involving many nations far from Europe.
The big change here is that Scotland has gone ‘left’ and Nationalist and that is a bad combination. This alone meant that Labour could not win as labour has always needed its traditional 35+/- seats from Scotland.
England, especially rural England is Conservative, so in many ways, in England, nothing changed.
The lurch of Scotland into nationalist socialism will be interesting to watch, but expensive, and the English will be expected to foot the bill, just as the Nazis needed Austrian/Czech/Polish wealth to subsidize their own nationalist socialism.
MC – Perhaps its time we should reinstate this removed verse to the National Anthem:
Lord, grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen.
I was taught from an early age never to succumb to a bully. Don’t give an inch…
I was terribly bullied at school- five years of Hell but I persevered. I am not much of a physical mauler but it taught me that “Give the bully and inch, then he’ll take a mile and more” and this is just what is happening now. It still amazes this Bishop that people would prefer to live in abject fear an daily dishonour than confront the oiks that kill in the name of their Lunar deity.
What especially appalls me is the pig ignorance of supposedly educated people. I studied Islam in depth and rapidly came to the conclusion- and confirmed by others in Adademe that Islam is not only a cuckoo in the Abrahamic nest but is not “Abrahamic” but a pagan faith in fact descended from worship of other lunar deities. Yet we have idiot priests holding “Islamic carol services” and allowing famous Churches in London still is use for these idol worshipers to use. Yes you read right, the followers of Allah kiss a large phallic penis-meteorite stuck in the wall of the Kabbah. It would be funny, except decent people are now losing their lives daily for saying things like I do, or drawing hilarious cartoons of the fake “Prophet”.
I once had allusions to write a short skit on a Moslem cleric reincarnated as a pig but decided the Pig’s IQ, was far to high to accommodate the soul of the intended former Islamic cleric. Pigs are nice creatures too. As people know I have a strong sense of humour and cannot resist poking fun at po- faced individuals and groups.
Recently UKIP decided to chuck me out as a “Racist” and “Islamophobe”. I critiqued them telling them they will never be elected if they diluted their original message to gain access to political power. I observed over many months as the Election came closer, they were getting terribly PC, instead of continuing to say it as it is. I informed them through a high up pal of mine in the National Executive that you will lose badly if you compromise your message and expel people like me with a huge global readership. UKIP expelled a few people of good standing. They are very arrogant in some ways. Dear old Geoffrey Bloom went as well.
I was assured it was only a plot to get into Parliament and that once ensconced UKIP would return to its former stance and I would be allowed back in. This I knew was nonsense. They lost on Thursday. I will never sully my office by rejoining them.
Nature is a harsh judge of those that give way to bullies. On the same day, UKIP activists in Egham, were telling my parishioners I was a “Racist bigot and Islamophobe” and apparently even stating or hinting my Church was fake. My Catholic Cardinal has decided to raise the matter with its leadership.
My moral point? Don’t give Evil an inch. Not even a centimetre. Make your message loud and clear. I will continue to do so. I will not live dishonourably.
Your Grace, the points you make concerning the UKIPs lurch to the Left to placate the ‘thought police’ is precisely what is killing off all pretenders to the throne. The ‘thinking’ voter is tired of being led up the garden path when it comes to redressing the wrongs of so many decades of wrongdoing by the Traitor Class.
In short, they are sick to death of being taken for a ride and being lied to by those who promise to tackle the issues that the ‘thinking’ voter believes is most important in salvaging what is now left of all our countries.
Was Farage’s resignation a strategic blunder, a show of cowardice in the face of the enemy, or what? Where is the man’s conviction now that UKIP was the only party that could lead Britain out of the mess it now finds itself in? Do his previous convictions now stand an empty gesture to the four million who placed their faith in him? Why would he resign simply because he failed to gain his own seat even though the UKIP garnered 13% of the general public’s vote? Why would anyone who professed to have the answers to so many of Britain’s problems just pack his bag and walk away simply because he failed to gain a place in one of the most corrupt parliaments throughout the West?
I just don’t get it! So I guess the question that now goes begging is this; Was Farage just an empty suit being filled by other political ambitions?
I am saddened to read that your Cardinal has taken some of your parishioners stance. I do hope you come out of that ‘bunfight’ OK.
Britain is split into constituencies. For each constituency the electorate within it vote for a representative. The representative that receives the most votes is the Member of Parliament for that area. The political party that has a majority (more Members of Parliament than the others combined) forms the government.
In this system a party such as UKIP can gain 4 million votes throughout the UK but end up with 1 Member of Parliament, whilst the SNP can receive around 1.5 million votes and have 50+ Members of Parliament.
The system is suited to a “choice” between two political parties.
It is a throwback to a time when the British people were give a choice between Conservatives and Whigs (“Liberals”) which was not really a choice but was provided to make the majority feel they had a choice.
David Cameron cleverly played upon the general populations fear of a Labour / SNP coalition government to gain the votes of people who would otherwise have voted UKIP (people vote tactically in the first past the post system).
This however was no election failure for UKIP.
In this electoral system they failed to gain many Members of Parliament. However their percentage increase of the vote was meteoric. This means they have real influence and are now taken seriously as a political movement and if their percentage of the vote continues to increase they will field more and more Members of Parliament.
This really is just the beginning for them.
Really? I think UKIP without Farage is nothing…. He is the Party.
Only time will tell what the future brings to UKIP. It appears you have been dealt with dishonourably but UKIP’s is the only realistic resistance to Islamification.
There seem to be some misconceptions in the comments above, so perhaps I can help to elucidate matters.
First of all UKIP did not do badly or lose any seats. At the last election in 2010 UKIP had no seats and only 3% of the overall vote. This time they have taken one seat and won 13% of the vote, which is progress by any standards. Having said that UKIP will nevertheless be disappointed by these results as they were hoping for better. At last year’s European elections UKIP topped the poll, although they have always performed better in European elections than in national ones because many people support their tough, uncompromising line on the EU. European elections are also run on proportional basis, which makes it much easier for smaller parties to gain representation.
Parliamentary and local elections in Britain are run under a system of first past the post. It’s a bit like a race where whoever comes first wins and there are no prizes for coming second. Typically there will be 4-6 candidates in every seat, and occasionally as high as 10 or 12. Polling takes place on a particular day, which is always a Thursday for some reason. Voters are given a sheet of paper with the names of each candidate listed in alphabetical order, and vote by putting an X next to their chosen candidate. The paper is then folded and placed in a sealed box until they are counted after the polling closes. As you can see there is nothing high tech about British elections. The votes are also counted by hand.
The country is divided into 650 constituencies and whoever wins the most votes in each constituency wins the seat, no matter how many votes they get. They only need one more vote than the second placed candidate to win. It is unusual for the winning candidate to obtain the majority of the votes cast, with most being elected on a minority vote. Whichever party wins the most seats then forms the government. This system favours Labour and Conservatives as their voters tend to be concentrated in certain areas, which means they win lots of seats in those areas. UKIP’s support comes from a wide range of people as their economic policy and anti-EU stance attracts Conservative voters while their tough stance on immigration appeals to Labour voters. They also pick up voters disaffected with the ruling triumvirate, and there are a lot of such people. This counts against them in first past the post elections as they perform well in all areas, but not well enough to come first. So they end up with a lot of second and third places, for which you get nothing.
David Cameron is not really a conservative at all. He was comfortable being in bed with the Liberal Democrats in the last parliament because he agrees with their policies. He has cut our armed forces while giving away billions in foreign aid, has done nothing to curb excess public spending, and has failed to limit the suicidal levels of immigration he inherited from Labour. His government seems utterly incapable of deporting foreign terrorists, but bans people like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. He’s called a Vichy Tory for good reason. He has promised a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, but nobody believes it will be a fair, straightforward yes or no vote. If we ever get the vote, and that’s a big if as Cameron has form on this, it will be rigged to give the result he wants which is to stay in. There will be a massive media campaign in support of the EU, spending vast sums of money, while the no campaign will get no media time other than when they’re being vilified and will be cash starved. UKIP have just faced a similar campaign of vilification in the media, which in Britain is totally dominated by the left and that is particularly true of the influential broadcast media.
So this result is bad news for genuine conservatives, even if a Labour victory would have been worse. Don’t expect too much of the new government. Even though they can no longer blame the Liberal Democrats for their weak policies I’m not expecting anything to change.
Well said Pam, though you missed out Cameron claiming to not be able to repeal the Human Rights Act because the Lib Dems wont let him, we’ll see how much of a Conservative he is if he does away with this disgusting piece of legislation now that they have a majority.
The European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) need to go too, they really are like something out of a totalitarian state, the complete antithesis of the rights of British citizens under the English Common Law.
UKIP are and always have been soft on Islam, Nigel Farage is no Geert Wilders or Marine Le Pen; he realizes that he has to tiptoe around that subject, politically, in the U.K.
If Farage had been more like Wilders UKIP would have had the support of most of the silent majority. We have tiptoed
around the Elephant in the room too long. It is only a matter of time and the UK will be Islamic.
Honestly are we children or adults?
I agree with you, but you saw the msm attack and marginalize UKIP in the election campaign; can you visualize what it would have been like if Farage had spoken out like Wilders?
The other thing to consider is, if a politician does as Geert Wilders then he has to be prepared to leave his life as he lived it behind: death threats to you and your family; armed guards (possibly forever); no longer able to live where you want to; to go where you want and when you want.
It would be continual, unrelenting pressure on him and his loved ones. That might be something Nigel Farage doesn’t want (and who could blame him); he had to have bodyguards to campaign in the election as it was, and all he said was he wanted Britain to leave the E.U. and to control who comes into the country to live.
Don’t you remember when those freaks drove him and his family from their Sunday lunch in that country pub? Imagine if they had been representatives from the RoP, upset over something he’d said or done.
Patrick, your response exposes the dilemma that faces all aspiring political parties and that tends to channel their ‘public messages’ into mealy mouthed platitudes that no thinking person wishing to be rid of the status quo can stomach.
My suggestion would be this; be the complete opposite as to what the ‘media’ expect from political aspirants and to tell the unbiased, unpalatable but logical truth. Yes, the media will go all out to slander the aspirant, but then one only needs to realize that the media is no longer the force it once was which is generally reflected in falling newspaper sales and radio and TV advertising. The media may still get to thwart some of the message being uttered by a bearer of truth, but the message will nevertheless be heard by those who know what truth is.
And Jesus Christ is THE graphic example of that.
UKIP never went on the attack. They had ample ammunition to hurl at their opponents over their craven appeasement of Islam and constant lies in its defence. The Labour and Tory pledge to make “Islamophobia” a criminal offence went unchallenged. Cameron’s wish to see a Muslim Prime Minister went unchallenged – as did his “nothing to do with Islam” after each and Muslim atrocity. Clegg’s appalling deceit after the Lee Rigby murder was never even mentioned. The Muslim rape epidemic was virtually ignored. Sadly, UKIP proved to be unfit for purpose. Perhaps another leader will have the guts to do the necessary. The UK needs a Geert Wilders.
The UKIP vote was substantial and held up very well even when one considers that the threat to their vote was letting in Labour with the SNP together in some extreme left love in. The first thing to note is that Labour chose as a leader a person who was so obviously extreme left who was seen to be by the majority of Brits as really bad news, he was also put in his position of leader by the Unions. So this pushed some soft left to vote Conservative or not vote and the UKIP to vote Conservative especially in key marginal seats. This meant that in seats which Labour needed to win there was a counter to that.
At the last election I looked at the key seats that did not go Conservative due to the UKIP and it was telling that they made the difference in preventing Cameron in getting an absolute majority. It seems that the fear of letting Labour in with the SNP was key factor.
The destruction of the Liberal Democrats was also part of this, they were seen as likely to join with Labour too and in any case had annoyed their supporters in aligning with the Conservatives, but that had happened because Gordon Brown had been such an arrogant idiot in dealing with them after the previous election. Their vote would have been reduced due to the fear of Labour / SNP.
I went to Scotland recently for a family funeral, I found the Scots in Perth very nice and friendly, however in talking to them many had the anti London attitude which the SNP have been pushing so hard. From my perspective it really does not matter if they have their own country, I would give it to them at this point. Anyone that really matters will head south of the border and we can leave them to rot in the cesspit that the SNP will create, sadly including some of my cousins.
Cameron, obviously wants to stay in Europe and the referendum is to scare the EU into making concessions, but there is a majority of English that want out, their view is a common market yes, but not the EU. Watch out for Patterson who came out with the way to leave the EU without compromising the trade aspects, it involves using the clause in the Lisbon treaty and doing a Norway. Read the EUReferendum blog for that, though note that the blogger running that can be a bit multi-cultural at times, he lives in Bradford after all, poor sod…
The British House of Commons is made up of representatives from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.
And had the number of seats in the Commons been distributed according to the proportion of the vote won, the Conservatives would have come out on top with 240 seats, Labour next with 197 seats, UKIP next with 82 seats, then the LibDems with 51 seats, then the Scottish Nationalists with 30 seats, then the Greens with 25 seats, followed by Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists) with 4. The four political parties from Northern Ireland, the DUP, Sinn Fein, UDP and SDLP would have 4, 4, 3, and 2 seats.
In such a system UKIP would have done very well. As it was, with 12.6% of the vote UKIP won just .15% of the seats (ie 1). Contrast this with the Conservative Party who with 36.9% of the vote won 51% of the seats (ie 331); the Labour Party who with 30.4% of the vote won 35.4% of the seats (ie 232); the Scottish Nationalists who with 4.7% of the vote won 8.6% of the seats (ie 56).
The voting system is clearly undemocratic. UKIP needs to address this problem.
The fundamental problem is representative democracy. I fact, any democracy is inherently flawed in the manner described above. Sortition, or randomly selecting citizens to fill the role required by government would circumvent these problems and ensure that a sample of the true desires of the citizens would be implemented.
Joe, may I invite you to look up, Restore Australia, website for an alternative means of electing truly representative government without any political parties being involved. It is the political parties that have hijacked our democracies.
Cameron is very unlikely to hold a referendum on EUSSR membership. He gave a “cast iron guarantee” before the 2010 election of a referendum. He has promised a referendum in 2017. The Chief Kommissar of the EUSSR has stated that there will be NO new negotiations before 2019. Cameron’s big business bosses will not let him have a referendum. If by some miracle he is in a corner and is somehow forced to have a referendum, the British public will vote to come out and the EUSSR will order Cameron to “make the buggers vote again – and this time get it right ” – just like they did with Ireland. Hundreds of years fighting the English and the Irish just rolled over. I can understand the wonder at our FPTP system. Say 50% of people vote. The winner gets 50% of the vote. The reality is that 75% of the people did not want him enough to vote for him. Democracy ? Hardly. Things here will remain pretty much the same. REmain in the EUSSR, mass immigration of unemployables, increased islamification and proliferation of mosques and sharia resulting, eventually, in bloody revolution.
So much gloom in this article and comments… Perhaps we’re getting accustomed to success these days? Consider the nightmare that Britain would face under Labour. Imagine open boarders again. Millibars promised laws against Islamophobia. We’d all be criminals if he’d gotten in.
UKIP is a victim of Britain’s nonsensical voting system. People like us will rarely be the majority in any place, especially when the media openly despises us and leftists vilify us for drawing breath. Until voting is reformed, UKIP hasn’t got a chance to win a substantial number of seats.
On the bright side, neither did UKIP split the right and give victory to Labour.
No matter what would have happened, the best case scenario would have been a Conservative government in Britain–just in coalition with UKIP. This is not a bad second prize.
Our hopes lie in countries with proportional representation, not in countries like Britain. And for all the cheering of UKIP, UKIP didn’t have a fraction of Wilders’ courage. Fancy them going all xenophobic against Romanians and Poles. When did Romanians ever do to Britons what Pakistanis did in Rotherham? Our fellow Europeans are not the problem, the Muslim invaders are.
Anyone who needs to use coded language is too much of a coward to finally end Muslim immigration and roll back our subjugation. Britain won’t be the ones to start that.
😉
I’d rather not have huge and ever increasing numbers of Romanians or Pakistanis or any other Second or Third World nationals in Britain, we are a small island and are being swamped fast.
telling porkies = kafir taqiyya
Well, now the fun starts.
The situation is much more serious and unstable than the article describes. SNP are now dominant in Scotland, this means that the breakup of the UK is inevitable. Cameron can talk of “devolution” all he wants but nothing short of total independence will satisfy Sturgeon/Salmond. Labor will only ever be able to form a govt. with SNP support, which means that they will have to pander to the SNP xenophobic far left crazies. Actually over the long term the breakup of the UK will benefit England (but will be a disaster for Scotland) simply because there will be no hard left party in England. Of course there will be a severe diminution of British influence on the world scene. It is difficult to believe that England will retain the (UK) permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and this is what most concerns the bureaucratic/political elite in Whitehall, if they were guaranteed to keep that diplomatic jewel they would get rid of Scotland in a minute. The effect of UK breakup, or EU exit would be profound for the GBP; serious devaluation and instability, perhaps even a lack of convertibility. Not Britain, Scotland or England can afford to leave the EU. Despite the delusions of such as Daniel Hannan who seems to believe in some fantastical “Anglosphere”. Most of us ex-pats left to get away from the BS and have no desire whatsoever to return to the fold of the duplicitous, dishonest and incompetent mandarins of Whitehall.
The basic economic facts of life for Britain are not good; food deficit, raw material deficit and destroyed, noncompetitive industry, British GDP is about 70% financial manipulation in the City of London. The British standard of living has been maintained for at least 30 years by borrowing and running up incredible debt levels.
For most Britons the education system has failed, England leads Europe in crime, alcoholism, bastardy, drug abuse and other social problems. Outside of the South East local economies depend very heavily on govt. expenditure, this is not sustainable.
Anyway you look at it, the future does not look good.
I will attempt to give an objective summary of UKIP:
UKIP is a splinter of the Conservative Party (Tories), whose original core issue was that there should be a referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union (they were never asked to join). The Tories and Labour (two-party system) have always been avoiding the issue by saying that there would be a referendum but never got round to it because they feared the people would vote against the EU, even though the original terms (free trade) are different and now there is a ever-growing political union with a lot of power ceded to Brussels.
That started about 20 years ago, Its origins were upper-class and/or old-fashioned English and UKIP was initially charicatured as the party of eccentric retired colonels (think Higgins in Magnum PI). The party platform is unclear other than being antiEU but is generally to the right of the Tories and free-market.
Mass immigration has been an ever-growing issue, common complaints being that social services are collapsing under financial strain, wages are falling, housing prices are rising, and crime is increasing. UKIP policy is that immigration needs to be controlled, both EU and nonEU, and that membership in the EU does not permit restriction of EU immigrants and thus a reason to pull out of the EU. Since none of the mainstream parties address this issue, support for UKIP has surged. Now UKIP is now charicatured as a party of xenophobes.
Conventional political wisdom said that UKIP would only subtract votes from the Tories and that UKIP would threaten the electoral success of the Tories, but there is evidence to suggest that a lot of “working-class” people vote for UKIP. Looking at the electoral results, it seems likely that UKIP sympathizers who tend to vote Tory voted to keep Labour out and that those who tend to vote Labour voted for UKIP.
wolf,
With all due respect that is an inaccurate portrayal of UKIP. The reality is that UKIP is the respectable BNP. They draw more support from labor than from the tories. Nobody cares about the details of the UKIP political platform because they have been able to concentrate on a single issue: Mass immigration as part of membership in the EU. They have been able to channel the frustration of middle England with valid concerns about industrial failure, mass 3rd world immigration and imagined rule by Brussels bureaucrats into a political movement dominated by Nigel Farage. They are not going anywhere, certainly not to govt. The issues you mention are certainly important but are more the failure of British people themselves than any conspiracy of the political elite, although “one race, human race”, and tacit acceptance of globalization has been the unspoken policy of both labor and conservative politicians for decades now.
The simple fact is that the world is changing, British people are both unwilling and unable to face the challenges ahead, so an unbelievable [ordure]-storm is coming for Britain (and for the US by the way, but we are far better equipped to handle the fallout).
roger, nothing in politics happens by chance. Yes the world is changing, but it is being deliberately changed for the worse by a world elite who control the political processes of all Western countries.
Roger, I disagree with your portrayal but my post was an attempt to describe facts about the UKIP whereas yours is mostly opinion and it does not contradict anything I said.
It may be true that most UKIP voters are traditional Labour but the conventional wisdom was, any maybe still is, that they are not. The reasons for which people vote UKIP may be imaginary or overblown but you agree that they are the reasons. Whether voters do not care about the platform it is I think it is fair to say it is free-market.
Regards,
wolf