What happens next ?

 

The Cliff Edge.


Politicians continue to grapple with Brexit, Very many, including the government itself, continue to promote false choices and false data to reinterpret what was a binary choice into something else. Business and vested interests, from academics to banks to media, shriek the UK must avoid the looming cliff edge, and some other thing than what was agreed, must be done.
They have all missed a rather obvious recent historical fact. If they don't implement what they all promised, then..

The cliff edge is for them.

Right across Europe, and America, governments and institutions that have resisted demanded changes and ignored their own voters have disappeared. Some, possibly, forever.

In France Macron, though an in all but name a traditional French left centrist party, actually heads a brand new political party. One that did not exist just a few years ago. To win he faced a run off with the Le Pen, very right wing. Where were the usual ruling French socialists and conservatives?
They were gone. Not polling enough votes to contest the final two in the election run off.

The mighty Merkel, Queen of all she has surveyed with her very powerful Zeiss binoculars, for  the last fifteen years, is power sharing with the German UKIP. The Afd.  The German social democrats, the usual coalition partners of the orderly parliament for business as usual, suffered its worst defeat since WW2. Just 20% of the votes were cast for them.

In Italy, the ruling Renzi party lost 50% of their seats. They were taken by a mix of parties. None of whom could be considered 'mainstream' in any way. Five Star made the biggest gains to become power sharers in the complex Italian parliaments.

And you can look at almost any country in Europe, and see a similar shift away from the long established parties to newer ones.

In Scotland, in the 2010 election, Labour kept all of its fiefdom's seats and despite a shocker elsewhere, had 41 MPs returned. The Libs managed to keep all 11 of theirs too. The SNP had just six.
A fringe of a fringe. A mere irritant to labour ruling Scotland however they so wished. Alex Salmond had to resign for the failure to gain any traction at all.

In 2015, the fringe, looney, radical, unelectable, one drum to bang,  SNP won an incredible 56 seats. Taking sole power in a system designed to prevent that from happening. Ed Miliband's Labour managed to retain just 1 seat in their Vassal state. Which put them in good company as the Tories and Libs also only managed one apiece.

The SNP won based as much on perceived injustices, and the determination of the establishment {liblabcon} to smash any independence, as on their manifesto. The ELITE had gone too far.
Labour campaigning with the Tories? To shackle the Scots to England forever? The might of England outspending and project fearmongering the people to accept their place?
The backlash, from people who didn't even care about nationalism, was unprecedented. For their dabbling in the Scottish referendum, the ruling parties of old ended up holding just 3 seats of the 59, between them.

UK politicians of the two giant parties of UK politics, who have held office between them for a hundred years like to think this is because of the proportional vote elections in Europe.
It couldn't happen here because of that. It can ONLY be Tory or Labour, with perhaps a little help from the Liberals. Or the DUP. After UKIP had 15% of the total vote. And no directly elected MPs. So..no bother!

This is nonsense.

A population who feel they have been lied to will take revenge. And all the tales of doom and destruction if they should so dare to punish their elected and entitled leaders, by not voting for them,won't have any effect.

To imagine that this populism is only a problem for non-first past the post democracies is fantasy. FPtP won't save them if the tide is strong enough.

The Liberal Democrats, before their humongous and deliberate whopper over tuition fees,had 57 MPs. 57 MPs in mostly FPTP seats. They actually, amazingly, despite the 'I agree with Nick' election, lost 5 seats that night.
But after the student lie was exposed by 2015, they lost 49 seats.
Just let that sink in for a second. The Liberal Democrats, a decent sized third party force for 100 years, lost 87% of their seats in a single night. The entire country, collectively issued a 'shove off mush' and they were gone. Some of their majorities were in the realm of 10,000. An impossible amount to overcome. But overturned they were.

And they still haven't returned to anything more than a pitiful protest party even now.
Despite the political climate of being a Pro-EU, pro Green, centre left, anti-Austerity-Not the Korbyn antisemitic party of communists, being as favourable to LibDems as it is possible to get.

And if another example is needed, then Donald Trump can give it.
The USA is a First Past The Post system. Just with some bigger posts than others. But it is still 'winner takes all' for each state, no matter how many votes cast for the loser.

Trump won.
Trump won because Hillary lost.

She lost because she could not imagine the resentment and anger that was building up from people who felt they had not had a voice for a long time. That their concerns were irrelevant to the ruling power which she represented. That they were just stupid, ill educated, uncultured, hillbillies, and best ignored.
So they voted the most unlikely of candidates into office. And caused a shock wave to the world's political class that they have yet to come to terms with.

America. Home of democracy. Has Donald Trump as President.
And such is the ongoing shock, same as Brexit, and denial of the reality and causes of the reality, same as Brexit, that trump is about evens to win if he stands again.
And all the plotting and investigations and impeachment threats and Hillary really won arguments have not changed people's minds.

Same as Brexit.

People made a decision. and if the current crop of MPs can't accept that, then they need to get out the way before being swept away on a tide of anger and frustration and resentment and hope for something better.
UKIP may be a busted flush. A dead party that has allowed, particularly, but not exclusively, Tory politicians to imagine the threat to their right has gone. But it only takes one charismatic leader, with some cash, and the vote will be split so small among everywhere, that they could become the ruling government.

Why MPs, denying the referendum on one hand. Thwarting it on the other. Putting forward the meekest possible leaving proposal imagine they will be immune from what has happened elsewhere in very recent history, is bewildering. We aren't talking ancient history here. All this has happened in the last 5 years.

Sweden Democrats, who are nothing of the sort, being a nationalist anti-immigration party, are poised to do very well, if not win, Sweden's election in September.
In Sweden? The Sweden that is the home to the ultra-PC, ultra liberal, everyone is super, progressive dream house, may have a powerful right wing nationalist force to contend with.
And for every seat it takes, an established party must lose one.
If it can happen in Sweden, why do most of the current batch of MPs not seem to see it can happen here?

In fact, it already has.

Yet for some reason, members of parliament haven't really noticed that the labour party isn't the Labour party. It is the Jeremy Corbyn party. He may just be the Ho Chi Minh figurehead for the radical left to rally to, but the party of labour today is a million miles from the party of 2010 and 2015. And it is close to power in a coalition. It doesn't take much for that to occur.
Soubry and Morgan and Hammond and Miliband and Umunna and Cable are not paying the slightest attention to the what happens next. Not on a political level. I presume they imagine they can defy the voters and everything will go back to how it was before.

I sincerely doubt that can happen.
Even with the shield of First Past the Post.

from Capitalists@Work http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2018/08/what-happens-next.html