UK Politics
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!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
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I doubt it'll actually end up happening, but the mere fact that it's not entirely unreasonable to talk about the idea that the LibDems will end up being the official Opposition is absolutely delightful to me, as an outsider looking in.
The fact that it's not entirely unreasonable to talk about the idea that Reform will end up being the official opposition (either by winning seats or more likely a post election coup of the Tory party) is terrifying to me as a Brit...
While I can see Reform performing a coup of the Tory party, they would only successfully do so if the Tories had lost so many MPs that they were already the third largest party. Or so close to it that it would only take a few One Nation types going "nope, I'm defecting to the Lib Dems rather than join Reform" to make them the third largest party.
Reform are not going to win the second most seats, the most like numbers are 0-2 with it almost certainly being less than 10. That said the posibility of a hostile takeover if the tories do drop down to third place is definitely plausible. I'd like to think in that event it just dooms the tories further (we dont have the level of religious crazies over here to form a Trump-esque cult, just look at how quick the shine wore off Johnson) but it might not, and that is terrifying.
What concerns me is if they merge before the election.
The ballet papers have been printed. Yet one candidate would no longer be running. Is one regarded as wasted or both counted? Would those running the event remove the option when you sign? How the one nation Conservatives finally give up on their old party? Would their voters?
Maybe, but at least looking from the outside I think that's a lot less reasonable than LibDems taking 2nd place. Reform seems more likely to take votes away from Conservatives, but not enough to gain a large number of seats. Basically, they'll play spoiler thanks to the undemocratic FPTP voting system, but Labour and LibDems will benefit the most from that. (Which is hilarious, considering how much FPTP has unfairly helped out the Conservatives over the last few elections. Maybe after this yous can finally get a bipartisan consensus in favour of switching to a real democracy.)
Labour would never switch from FPTP. This election is showing just how much they benefit from it too
This election it's helping them. 2019, 2017, 2015, and 2010, it helped the Conservatives.