British Hard Left Throws a Tantrum

[jordan179]

As many of you probably know by now, the British have voted in a majority Tory Government

Comments

[kharmii]

I wish the American Conservatives would start acting as if they realized it were the same here. They keep letting themselves become intimidated by popular media.

[gremy]

[jordan179]

I don't know what precisely caused this swing to the Right, and I don't know if the Tories are willing to govern in a sufficiently Conservative fashion to save Great Britain. But I do believe that this represents a chance for the British decline to start reversing itself. Just a chance, but the implications of this swing regarding the underlying changing opinions of the British electorate are positive.

[benschachar_77]

Probably muslims. The memory of those 1400 victims of rape by muslims that the police did nothing about because...racism! has soured quite a few I imagine.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089

[jordan179]

That has occurred to me. That town was Labour, and it's known that at least a thousand girls were raped, with the police not only not doing anything to prevent it but in some cases acting to prevent the families of the girls from interfering. Given the fact that those at risk were limited to girls between a certain age range and mostly of a particular social class, the percentage of girls within that category who were victimized by the gang may approach unity. And the municipal government was just fine with this, because the criminals were Muslim and their victims weren't.

The knowledge that Labour let this happen over a period of many years may have turned a lot of white (and colored non-Muslim) Britons against the Labour Party. Possibly for good.

[little_e_]

I get the impression that a lot of Brits have UKIP-style thoughts on immigration, but don't want to be seen voting UKIP, and so voted Tory instead as the next closest thing.

[wombat_socho]

There's speculation that the Labour rout may have more to do with the crushing success of the SNP north of the border, which wiped out the section of Labour that used to call Scotland home.

[little_e_]

That would transfer votes from Labour to SNP, but it doesn't explain the seats the Tories gained.

[wombat_socho]

Nor was it supposed to. Most of the sources I've read chalk that up to LibDem voters going Tory to prevent a Labour/LibDem/SNP coalition.

UKIP came in third in the popular vote, but it wasn't concentrated in enough ridings to get them more than a single seat. One has to commend them for not whining about proportional representation as a "cure" for this "problem".

[carbonelle]

Very useful analysis, so I hope you'll take this in the spirit intended: There are a couple of places where it would be helpful if you finished the sentence/thought:

"a "General Election," in which all Parliamentary seats are"

Are?

"though the current British don't even"

British electorate? Media chattering class? Population?

HTH

[lostboy_lj]

One of the takeaways for me was that the U.K. didn't so much swing to the right as they did show evidence of flying apart at the seams. They have two very strong nationalist movements (the SNP in Scotland, who stole votes from Labour's soft-Left, and UKIP in England, who stole votes from the Tory's soft-Right). Those SNP voters were mostly hard left-wing nationalists (i.e. Nazis), and without their defection from Labour, the Tories would have at least had to form a coalition government. But with who? The Liberal Democrats, who were essentially wiped out

[benschachar_77]

"Why is it that, even with a history of objectively disastrous results, people still gravitate to the economically and historically illiterate views of Socialists?"

Long story short: low information voters who care more about the intellectually shallow emotional appeals of the left than facts and figures.

[lostboy_lj]

No, it's unfortunately more complicated than that. "Low-Info" doesn't square, because there are plenty of jargon-spouting know-nothings on the Right, too. The facts and figures are clear to both sides, among those who are actually paying attention. It's the underlying assumptions -- about reality, about the human condition, about meaning and purpose --- that are different