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[–] 9 points 6 months ago (13 children)

What's great about those numbers is Con+Reform is soooo far behind Lab+Lib+Greens.

The margin the Greens won by is so big that even if was more split with Labour, Reform still wouldn't have one. Which will horrify Labour as people won't fear vote splitting as much.

It's one small bi-election, but I like what it says about the Overton window.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    It's actually quite reassuring that Labour are third and not second because as you say it indicates that the vote isn't being split or at least not all that much. I suspect at least some of those Labour votes will have been concerns over splitting the vote and not wanting to do that, so going with the more traditional option. I suspect that subsequent elections (there's one coming up in my constituency soon) will look at this result and see that it is in fact safe to vote green.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    What’s great about those numbers is Con+Reform is soooo far behind Lab+Lib+Greens.

    Because of our crappy first-past-the-post system though, the most likely next government (if an election were held soon) would be a Reform government, or maybe a Reform/Conservative government.

    Reform's support in recent polls has only been around 24% - 30%. So around 70% of British voters don't support Reform. Nonetheless, because Reform polls better than any other individual party, they could run the next government. Like how Labour in 2024 only got 34% of votes, but this gave them 63% of seats.

    If the anti-Reform vote continues to be split between Labour/Greens/LibDems/SNP (and even Tories, since there will be Tory voters who don't like Reform) then Farage will be the next prime minister. Surely the best counter to Reform would be a big tent centrist or centre-left party with wide appeal.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (10 children)

    I don't disagree. I think FPTP is immoral and a liability. I'm disappointed in Labour to looking to address it despite their membership overwhelmingly supporting it. They hope to pay on "it is us, or Reform" which is party before country and could backfire and massively damage the country.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (9 children)

    They hope to pay on “it is us, or Reform” which is party before country and could backfire and massively damage the country.

    True. I don't think it's a popular message with the public. Clearly people in Gorton and Denton thought "actually we don't have to vote for Labour as the only alternative to Reform; we can vote for the Greens instead".

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (8 children)

    It didn't work of the Democrats either. It should of because how awful Trump is and Kamala seamed good, but how good she would be wasn't the focus. But their system is even worse than ours.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (7 children)

    True. I think voters want to see politicians who embody values that voters like. The pitch of "vote for us just because we're not quite as bad as the other guys", without stating appealing values of your own, doesn't really inspire anybody

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (6 children)

    Yep. Compounding it, the far right throw in trolling social media that there is no point voting. That those opposing the far right are just as bad in some way. That there is no less bad option to vote, so don't bother.

    Frankly, I blame those who didn't vote Harris or Clinton almost as those voted Trump. Hold your nose and vote less bad, AND push for a better system. The UK's FPTP is deeply broken, but it's dysfunction is nothing compared with the US's duopoly.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    Yes the voting systems of both the UK and US are broken because they're unrepresentative. Hillary Clinton in 2016 got about 3 million more votes than Trump did. In many countries that would have made her the president. But the anti-democratic electoral college system in the US meant that Trump was made president instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

    Electoral college isn't ideal, but the two party system is worse. It's just red vs blue. My team vs your team. It's false. Far better as in much of Europe, a sea of parties, coming and going, constantly compromising. That's a better reflection of real politics.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    I think the German system looks pretty good. Their voting system leads to a much more representative legislature. Another example when looking at proportional representation is the Netherlands, but their system seems to lead to lots of lengthy coalition negotiations and squabbling before they form a government.

    Germany, for much of the last 20 years, has had a coalition government between the big centre-right and big centre-left blocs. E.g. in the 2005 election, 69.4% of voters backed either the Union or SPD, who together made up the subsequent coalition government. Compare that to the UK where we have a Labour government who, whether you like them or not, were only voted for by 33.7% of voters.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    More often it is Conservatives, also on about a third of the vote, and that has deeply broken the country, but I take your point.

    I'd like score/rank voting based mixed member.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Yes the same issue has brought about Conservative governments. In 2015 the Tories got only 36.8% of the vote but this gave them 50.8% of the seats.

    I’d like score/rank voting based mixed member

    I will admit that I don't know the details of the different kinds of proportional voting. As long as a system would result in a House of Commons that more accurately and proportionately reflects voters, I think that would be a good thing

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