yes it is
although, considering myself and another board member put no second choice, and only 572 folk did, that means that 0.3% of those who did that are board members 
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looked like she was sucking on a lemon
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also looks like the right sort of folk on twitter are complaining and crowing that it is illegitmate, so that’s good
Yeah that’s really worrying, although hopefully this being laid bare means that they can’t ignore that massive problem within their party. Don’t know how that actually gets addressed though.
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52/48 makes a return, cursed forever
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Not the worst result obviously but still pretty pretty bad. If the TERF/Alba vote hadn’t been split they could’ve won, and Yousaf has squeezed across on the 2nd pref votes of Regan supporters (who are those people??), which is not a situation I would like to be in as a new leader hoping to govern from a centre-left position.
Really shows how busted this system is really. Should mean an automatic election and a proper mandate.
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According to his Wiki, he’s a Thistle man, so that’s something
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thistle do nicely
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Knew I could trust him, get wee Mhairi in as deputy please
Sure it’s not an exact match to that number, but I’m willing to bet there’s a great deal of the population here who hold similar values unfortunately
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Yeah. The figure is waaay tooo high.
But 48% of a 70% turnout motivated to vote for out-and-out shite ‘only’ gives 33%.
So they’re outnumbered two to one. Workable.
Again, a higher proportion of wrong 'uns, yes. But workable. Especially from the point of view of being in the driving seat.
And, as you say, probably not a massive departure from the population in general or the Labour party.
Stand firm, Humza.
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good point.
Really want this to happen now:
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Means 30% couldn’t give a shit, though. Dunno what that says, really.
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Just want to register that 52 vs 48 or not, I am very glad this one came out right.
We obviously need to be cautious about ascribing opinions to those who haven’t voted. But it’s surely reasonable to note that the opinions and positions of the candidates were made very clear. And Yousaf was clearly the candidate representing a degree of continuity. And (albeit narrowly) down as the favourite to win. And the one-third of the membership that didn’t vote, as you say, didn’t give a shit about switching things up, instigating a significant change of course, or in any way putting their vote towards either of the two problematic losing candidates as an outlet for any stance in particular that they might hold.
So it seems reasonable to say that we know the absolute maximum level of shite we’re dealing with. And that’s a maximum.
Because, as per the first line of this post, it’s very hard to make any judgements beyond that. But we can surely hope that not all their voters will decisively be terfs or whatever. There will be people who voted for them who aren’t especially engaged in or motivated by certain issues, who were satisfied that the subsequent backtracking and platitudes by Forbes and Regan was sufficient to neutralise their position (despite however mealy-mouthed we might consider them to have been).
None of this is brilliant good news or cause for celebration. I’m just trying to nail things down a bit more reasonably than people like Blair McDougall would have us believe.
Do find it surprising that 30% of memebers didn’t vote. Get the various reasons turnout isn’t great for general elections, seems odd when its members who you’d expect to be more engaged and where you have some clear actual influence through your vote.
Dunno how it compares to the last few leadership elections for other parties, sure it’s probably similar in which case my surprise applies there too.
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I’m not trying to paint those people as terfs although equally I think inaction isn’t great. I hope these are people who will come down on the right side of the debate eventually.
I feel like you’re saying these people would have thought Yousaf would win easily or that the three candidates were identical in their view, which seems not great to me. Again, I hope people learn and go the correct way.
But mainly just wanted to point out that saying the terfs are outnumbered 2:1 as a comforting thought isn’t a fair extrapolation of the results. It might be true but it might also be true that these people don’t care enough to help stop the terfs in the future.
Phew and also fuck me.
Feel like I’m always the person trying to insert some realism into my friends’ assertions of Scotland being really progressive, but I find myself truly shocked by this result.
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