Yeah ultimately the Tories are more vulnerable to the LDs on their ‘liberal’ flank than Labour are to the LDs on their ‘centrist’ flank IMO. Spells trouble for the Tories in an election.
Although it’s not straightforward. Think the idea that Johnson = No Deal is being overplayed. If the election comes down to “Johnson will sort Brexit by any means necessary” vs “The rest will either delay or revoke” then, done right, that could be VERY potent. Luckily I have little faith in Johnson being able to maintain focus in the pressures of an election.
Ok, so I’ve probably missed a lot but why does Johnson want to call a snap election right now? Surely the pendulum has swung away from him and he’d risk a severe pumping? Can someone explain?
unfortunately, because fptp/winner takes all and constituency boundaries, this will probably still mean a Tory victory or hung parliament - on current polling the LibDems 18% would give 34 seats and the Brexit Party’s 13% would give…0 seats
One option for Johnson is a strategic non-competition pact with Farage to set up a Tory-Brexit coalition. But why would he do that? Makes more sense to actually draft candidates from the Brexit Party into the Tories to fill those unwhipped positions in order to shore up a Tory majority.
It’s fucked for him (and us) either way.
Could see Labour being the largest party but a Tory-LibDem coalition minority Govt
or some other fucked up scenario along those lines
think it was a gamble that didnt pay off, i dont think he actually wants a general election. when he found out how many tories were planning to rebel yesterday, he said he would call a GE and that if they rebelled they’d lose the whip, so he was effectively giving them a choice between staying as tories or voting against no deal, appealing to their sense of self interest. obvs its all blown up in his face now but he has to carry on
Apparently the famous red boxes are built like that, to open at the bottom, so it makes it impossible to forget to close them properly before you pick them up.
Shit hasn’t hit the fan for the country yet and that’s what the wider public will see. Plus the ‘Corbyn wants to eat your children’ stuff has been far too effective. Tories are still in prime position to “win”, although it’ll still be a hung parliament. Some projections still have Labour losing seats.
Well, now they’ve purged the rebels from the party they can rebadge themselves as the real Brexit party. If they neutralise Nigel’s rabble then they can run the election as Referendum 2.0, only with the added variable that a win for remain means a Corbyn government. They’re banking on the idea that his unpopularity with large swathes of the electorate, plus all the ire he created among his base by not overtly backing a second referendum until recently, will deliver them a majority.
Last night was fun and all but the real fight has yet to begin.
On the flip side, why is Corbs now backing off from a snap election seeing as he’s been calling for one for an age now? Not time to go for the jugular?
The danger for Labour is that a strong Lib Dem showing chips away at their vote in Tory/Lab marginals. I’ll be hugely pissed off if I get a ERG MP AGAIN in one of the closest marginals in the country because Swinson’s mob picked up votes.
Nobody trusts BJ not to use his PM powers to shift the election date beyond 31 October thus leading to No Deal Brexit. Labour want the No Deal-blocking legislation in place first.
Edit: (Of course, if Tories/Brexit Party win election majority on a mandate of ‘leave on 31 October regardless’, they can always just ignore the legislation. Which would be fun. )
His father John once spoke at a public meeting in Bedford in the early Sixties and my parents were so incensed that they rammed the podium he was standing on with the pushchair I was sitting in.
he wants to guarantee that there won’t be a no deal before he agrees to an election
which, if he gets it would be a very smart tactical move. He’d been seen as saving the country from medicine shortages and outright panic rioting, putting one over on the PM and he’d be going into a GE with Johnson in the position of having betrayed the Gammoncore.
Absolutely. We’ll see but my hunch is that voters will back Labour in more marginals than not in such a scenario. There’s not a lot of things that ‘centrists’ and ‘Corbynites’ seem to ally on, but a loathing of Boris Johnson (coupled with an understanding of FPTP) is definitely one of them.
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