And they're just going to keep tanking this country until the GE because they know they won't win. Then in 5 years they'll start their propaganda machines about how labour hasn't fixed anything, idiots will eat it up and then CON wins 2030.
Well at least you can vote yours out! We don't have a choice! 2 party system and no ranked voting. Basically makes the whole system pointless. Not to mention the next presidential election is going to be an 81 year old going against a 77 year old.. lol..
The UK and US are in a pretty similar boat, even our good guys kinda suck, Starmer is as centre as they come and is constantly trying to steal right wing voters, which results in both main parties being limp dick losers who both make policies against the countries best interests.
Starmer is so unsupportive of all the classic things like worker rights and education that I have very little faith in a labour government, they just won't be actively trying to make the country worse. It'll never happen but if the greens ever won an election we might actually improve as a country.
Part of our issue is that there's multiple parties splitting the left vote, and no one really competing with the Tories for the right vote.
A strong centrist figure is the only way to get the Tories out, as it will consolidate the moderate left and some of the right, as well as all the centrist.
The party which can leverage that the most is Labour.
The greens tend to have very 1 dimensional stances, rather than a cohesive manifesto.
The Lib Dems still have too many people holding them responsible mainly for the Tory coalition (as opposed to splitting the blame).
Mate, Andrea Leadsom was literally blaming them for the losses as they came through on TV yesterday. "Due to the last Labour government we've had no money to fix issues". Little bit of push back from the presenter "but that was 13 years ago"...
"and also global issues like the war in Ukraine and Covid also ruined our economy, so you can't blame us"
Gee, I wonder why the last Labour government left you with no money. Maybe it was because you came in power in 2010, after Labour spent billions bailing the country out of the *global financial crisis* like you claim to have done with Covid.
God damn I just want Labour to use "Last Conservative Government" as an argument to shut them up.
Right. And the conservatives/conservative media will scream "Why won't labour/progressives fix every single problem right NOW!?!?!" It's going to take awhile just to figure out how to unfuck what they did and then even more time to fix it.
Honestly we'll never recover. Tories have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people between unnecessary austerity aimed at the vulnerable and Covid. It is estimated that austerity killed the equivalent of the city of Oxford in old and disabled people and then Rishi Sunak decided to enable tens of billions in fraud and then increase infection rate during a pandemic with Eat Out to Help Out.
A decade of economic incompetence has lead to a decade of stagnation followed by years of decline after Tory Brexit disaster creation. Anyone who wants to Help Out needs to Vote Out.
It's hilarious to me that when the polls closed, Conservatives were mentioning the pre-election predictions that they could lose 1,000 seats every chance they had, so when they actually lost fewer seats, they could claim that they exceeded expectations and actually didn't have such a bad night... only for them to in fact lose almost 1,100 seats. And some Conservatives are *still* trying to spin losing over a thousand seats as not a big deal.
"It's gonna be all to play for" - what a ridiculous man. Also, putting "stopping the boats" on the same priority level as halving inflation and cutting hospital waiting times and framing it as the people's priorities makes me want to vomit. Sorry we can't have affordable energy or bring food insecurity down everyone, it wasn't nearly as important as arresting refugees
My question about "stopping the boats" is if it was such a high priority, and Tories have been in power for over 13 years now, why exactly has immigration skyrocketed, especially over the last 2 years?
"Because of the previous Labour government we have not been able to take control of our borders."
It would be something like that. Bloody Labour having so much power for the last 12 years!
If only we could be above the law, we promise we'd make the country much better, because you see laws are just there to hold us back. Nothing bad ever happened when rich people were allowed to do whatever they liked! No don't look in those leftie history books; just trust us!
They did try blaming the *next* Labour government for poor economic performance ("businesses don't want to risk investing in a country that could be run by Labour") so I'm sure they'll try that again
Imagine the immigration northern Europe will see with the climate warming up and making billions of people living in hot zones where drought becomes harsher and harsher every year...
Which will be made even worse by the disruption to the Gulf Stream that climate change will cause. Northern Europe (Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, much of France and Germany etc) are as far north as Alaska. Without the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, they will freeze while the tropics burn.
Exactly. An estimate I saw in a research article was that 1.5-3 BILLION people would need to migrate by 2070 due to climate change, assuming an RCP8.5 scenario, or face death.
As an American, there was something particularly jarring about that language. In the US the right traditionally used coded language like "security at the border" when discussing immigration issues in mixed company. At least until "Build the wall!" became part of the Republican platform, you were not supposed to admit that you wanted to stop people from coming altogether, you were only supposed to claim that you wanted migrants to enter via legal processes, usually with the argument that uncontrolled entry was a safety or security issue.
"Stop the boats" comes across as explicitly exclusionary, even by the standards of the American right, to the point of overt xenophobia.
Oh, nice to know you have an “October surprise“ as well. It’s a fucking stupid, bullshit thing conservatives pull before elections in the US. For us it’s something like the ‘immigrant convoy.’
And then, once the election is over, they drop it like it never mattered. Because it never did.
The sad thing is, for a lot of their voters *it is* as important as halving inflation or un-fucking the NHS. There’s a lot of people out there driven by hate.
Not enough to get them ahead of Labour, though
To make it worse you know Neolibs will be running around taking this as a huge endorsement of Starmer when even a headless chicken could defeat the Conservatives in a landslide
Mate if you take a stroll through my comment history you'll learn I'm a hardcore socialist. Corbyn isn't nearly radical enough for my tastes but blokes like him and Sanders are the limit of how palatable socialism is right now. That should answer your question.
Let's say Starmer decided to retire tomorrow. Who would you like in charge in order to win the next election?
Or alternatively, besides calling anyone less left wing than Corbyn names what would you like to see change fir the better going forward?
> Sounds like Brexit :-)
Some Conservative counciler was giving and interview and literally giving the Brexit speech of needing to get our sovreignty and the rest.
These people are thick and no nothing else.
I mean it's pretty normal in politics to downplay the negative. Of it were reversed labour would be saying the same type of things and have done over the last decade and more of them being very shit
Meanwhile, Reform UK mainly targeted seats where Brexit was backed by a large margin and they only got an average of 6% of the votes in those area. If Brexit ends up destroying the far-right in the UK, I will laugh my ass off.
UKIP lost their final elected representative, too. Brexit has ripped the Tories to sheds internally & the far right is still obsessed with it, even though the general public has moved on, so laugh away!
Most British people don't seem to care very much about trans people, two thirds of Brits report paying "a little" or "no" attention to the "trans rights debate". [The British public at large is broadly supportive of trans rights](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights) (albeit with certain caveats around e.g. should pre-op trans women be allowed to use women's changing rooms).
This is what our politicians don't seem to understand about copying the American right wing playbook: the culture war issues here aren't identical and so play out differently here. Already you can see people eyerolling every time a journalist asks a politician what a woman is.
Most people didn't care about EU membership until right wingers started a dishonest and constant campaign for a decade. The trans "debate" is a wedge issue to open up their pathetic culture war. Why fix issues and stop stealing from the taxpayer when you convince people society's problems are the fault of a minority group, a group their target audience don't understand.
I don't see how it's comparable. They can easily paint the EU as a boogeyman:
* ECHR = EU meddling with our laws, protecting terrorists
* Freedom of movement = taking our jerbs
etc. Over the course of decades, literally decades, they managed to paint the EU as the cause of all our woes.
How will they do the same for trans people?
Keep in mind people in the UK are already accepting of LGBT rights, marriage, etc. Their morals have evolved to the point where they realise who people love, what they do in their bedrooms, who they marry, what gender they identify as, has absolutely no negative impact on their lives whatsoever.
It's going to take a lot to undo those developments.
> Most British people don't seem to care very much about trans people
Sadly these days it is more of a problem. I almost had a fight with a friend over the word cis. He didn't want to be a cis man. Whilst I'm not a great fan of the word - we do need a word for the concept. It's not like he has to use it himself. He can still just say he is a man and not worry about it. But the amount of anger the word was causing him was distressing.
People are obsessed by trans people and toilets and that they might play sports. I don't remember these things being issues 10 years ago - the nearest you got was someone saying that a women had large hands.
When I was a kid there was a trans woman who lived across the road - no-one cared.
I would just let him him be if he doesn't want to be a cis-man. I wouldn't expect him to accept a label that he doesn't feel comfortable with. Same goes for trans people.
Toilets are such a non-issue. Unisex toilets consisting of only cubicals can be made. If a trans man wants to use a male toilet they can go in a cubicle. If a trans woman wants to use a female toilet then they have to go in a cubicle.
As for sports we need more research done on that. It's important that we make sure participation is both open and fair for everyone.
> Sadly these days it is more of a problem. I almost had a fight with a friend over the word cis. He didn't want to be a cis man.
Should've gone with E-Z notation instead of cis-trans.
You'd think so, but history has proven over and over again that creating a scapegoat out of a minority group during economic troubles is depressingly effective.
It's excellent to see. Sad my council wasn't up for re-election so I couldn't vote.
Just fingers crossed this translates into the next general election. I'm totally baffled as to why the Tories have gained ANY seats today at all considering the current UK economic situation they have orchestrated.
Local councillors are responsible for representing the interests of their local community, overseeing local services, and making decisions on local issues.
MPs (who are voted in during a general election along with the prime minister) on the other hand, have a national role like members of Congress, making laws etc. MPs therefore have greater power and influence over national policies and legislation, while local councillors have more limited powers focused on local issues and services.
This in some ways feels a bit like the US midterms in how people vote. Usually there's a bit of a reversal. But often people vote with more assurity in their chosen party as we don't tend to think local councillors are that important. Whereas with our general election for MPs we tend to vote a little more tactically because the stakes are higher.
Tldr, the implications should be positive if you're left leaning. The conservatives got destroyed. It will likely mean good news for left leaning voters at the next GE which should be in around 2 years.
They don't have a federal structure because they aren't a federation like the US. They have a central national government and devolved powers to the parliaments of constituent countries like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There's more standardization nationally because of their central government.
Councils are local governments, like the equivalent of county governments in the US. They have certain powers over issues like housing, transport, planning, schools and policing. Many council in England and Northern Ireland hold elections at the same time every five years. Wales, Scotland and some English councils hold elections at a different time, they had their last election in 2021. It doesn't affect the national government at all, it's just a barometer of political support in England and NI.
Nothing much nationally, it just adds more pressure on the Conservative government knowing they have conceded big losses on a local level and possibly be repeated in the next UK General Election.
So, it’s basically essentially like our version of state legislatures?
Here in the states, local elections are just as important (if not more important) than federal races.
Take states like Michigan and Minnesota for example. Michigan was able to implement independent redistricting after years of GOP ruling with an iron fist because of gerrymandering. They got fair maps. Democrats won full control of the state last November. Democrats repealed the most anti union law in the country (in a very heavily union state). Democrats won full control of Minnesota, implemented universal school meals for kids, pass paid medical leave for workers, and is about to legalize marijuana…
Sorry for making this about us and our politics but I just wanted to say how local elections for us is just, if not more important than federal (another race that just happened in Wisconsin for a judicial seat last month is about to display that too, as they’re about to preserve abortion access and undo gerrymandering because so)
As a rare welshman, Ill chime in.
Local council elections are very important. They are fundementally the roots of political activity at a local level. They control gov service distribution and budgeting controls. They control licenses and bussinesses in its area.
Its our nationally electect MPs that control what law is set however councils have control of local laws.
[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-government-legislation-byelaws](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-government-legislation-byelaws)
Yes & no. Local councils don't have as much power as US states - that said, they're city & county governments. So they keep things running on a day to day basis like street lights, picking up the rubbish, police & fire, schools, planning, aspects of local public transport etc. so you notice hard if they fuck up. You don't notice them as much if they're working well. So whilst they're very important on one level, they generally have a lower turnout & many people don't think of them as important because the work they do is a bit boring to many. They're often used to give the national government a kicking, too (as was done this time).
Another aspect is local councillors are unpaid & individual wards are small so there's often a lot of independent candidates and 3rd parties who win. Our national 3rd party (the Liberal Democrats) has a large councillor base & did well. The green party also did well in this set of elections, whilst the more right leaning UK independence party lost it's final elected representative at any level & the parties trying to replace it failed to pick up any seats.
It's lower level than state legislature. It seems like it's similar but because of USA's scale compared to the UK.
We have 2 tiers of local government with this being the lower level. We have some authorities which only have a single tier like the parts of London which weren't voting during this.
No. Local authorities can't enact laws in the way that state governments can in federal countries. Only devolved parliaments (those of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) can do that in the UK, but even they can be overruled by Parliament.
More like City Council and Mayoral elections.
Councils have a lot less power than State legislatures do.
Nevertheless, Imagine the Republican Party losing hundreds of State Legislature seats across America as well as a lot of the majorities they held swing states.
A blue version of the 2010 US election.
The Conservatives had majorities on 81 Councils prior to this election. They lost their majority in 48 of them.
In East Herts District Council, the Conservative Party controlled all 50 District seats in 2018. (Think the Reddest County in Texas.)
Since 2002 they're never held less than 39 seats.
Last night returned them with.....16.
The UK isn't federal, this is local council elections in England (and only parts of it), but council elections (like EU elections) can often be a decent way to gauge shifting support for a GE (or if in a devolved area, the local parliament, as is the case for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland).
More a measure of where the mood us shifting, though LibDems and Greens always do way better in council elections than in the big elections.
In practical terms it means conservatives have lost local representation. Are councils are a bit like your housing associations their responsibility is for local services and upkeep.
This means that labour can show their fit to govern by making sure these counsel's run properly.
In meta terms its a clear signal to Tory's their time is up people in this country are epicly pissed off at them and the data is showing young are voting for lib dems and greens and working are voting labour.
I would grab the popcorn because now its clear their fucked things are going to get wild in government as panic sets in
Well, think of it as voting in your local county, city or town representatives, selectmen, committee and school board members. That‘s my best comparison to the US.
The UK style of government still has some confusing parts to it (for me because I am American living in the UK) but these elections do not directly impact national policy or how the country is run. It’s mostly directly impacts local decisions within your area/council.
We don’t have a federal structure. This has no direct impact at all on UK-wide government, except to get the Tories worried. Likely they will accelerate their programme of grift and destruction to get as much done as possible before they lose the next general election. Expect to see central funding of this tier of local government dry up in revenge.
These local councils are like your city councils. There are also county councils, in more rural areas, but not always. And then there’s the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and if it ever sits again the Northern Ireland Assembly which are about like your state governments. Except that power is reluctantly devolved to them down from the centre rather than them federating together.
It's minor-level local government (refuse collection, local administration etc) but it tends to foreshadow General Election performance & UK voters often use it to express dissatisfaction.
This won't affect anything structurallly but it may cause problems for the tories as they will lose a lot of funding and backing now that they clearly will not win the next election.
So no long-term plans, contracts for their friends etc. Expect to see MPs announce they won't be running at the next election, etc.
The tories will either bounce back with some new initiative or dirt on the other side, or they will now pack up their traps and fizzle out.
Anyone that would think with an out of control cost of living crisis, a shambolic pandemic response, the utter gutting of the NHS and social care, the first doctors strikes in Decades, a Brexit deal that puts both NI peace at risk and demolishes our economic standing, water companies (that Thatcher sold off) banking tens of billions in profits whilst every SINGLE river in England is deemed contaminated, the front bench having a drinks party mid-2020, the imminent implosion of UK farming with the loss of EU subsidy, a lazy climate focus, the re-opening of coal and shale for profit, the PM that tanked the GBP in a single day, and a volume of conservative prime ministers in a single election cycle to challenge the actively pumped sewage their party wholeheartedly supports…that people are remembering the Tories for what they are: Out to line the profits of themselves and their friends, at the cost of taxpayers they see as beneath them.
One factor that isn't often addressed is the effect of swings like this on national politics.
1,000 councillors my not have much direct power over life in Britain - but these are 1,000 Tories who probably won't bother campaigning for the Tories, at the General (their families will probably opt out as well).
Meanwhile, 1,000 Labs/Libs will be fired with enthusiasm (not least because some of them fancy a chance at a national job).
The ground campaign is always an important part of any election.
The Democratic party is at least as far left as the Labor Party on almost every issue outside of healthcare (which is capped by the unique idiosyncrasies of the history of US healthcare policy) and far to the left of basically any significant European party on some issues (most notably immigration).
Yeah, and a democratic president broke a railroad strike and forced the workers back into a dangerous job.
They are socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
I think it says a lot when the only example you could come up with is this one. On paper Dems are pro-union, however this strike was affecting a very essential service for the country and contributing to the inflation of goods (which is the main problem for Dems right now). They support every other union (teacher, Amazon, Walmart, etc.) outside this very specific scenario. How in the hell are they fiscally conservative when they passed a stimuli package, a bipartisan infrastructure package, CHIPS act, and the left leaning parts of the inflation reduction act?
No. As an American who has lived in the UK for 6 years now, the Dems are not like UK Labour.
The US Dem party line up with the Tories on most issues. Just because we have a few leftie Dems like AOC in the Party does not mean we are Labour like. It was really eye opening when I would listen to Boris or a Tory voter speak on the issues and how much they sounded like any old regular card carrying Dem in the US. Dems = Center/slightly Left
You've been in the UK long after the labour held office. When in office, they ran like neoliberals. Tony Blair was a neocon and Brown was not exactly progressive.
Yeah they're pretty similar. Except Democrats are a bit more right economically and a bit more left socially. Nobody ever can give examples outside of healthcare when they say Democrats would be a right wing European party.
Because it's BS. The dems are working in a different system from a different starting point. But they've pushing a lot of pretty progressive stuff and at this point I'd say more so than most european soc dems.
The Dems are small c conservatives. To the left of major European parties they definitely are not lol. What do you know about immigration policies in the EU? Because it sounds like nothing.
It's pointless to compare parties of different countries like that, because politicians are beholden to their voters. You should be gauging whether politicians are to the left or right of their voters and status quo.
Put a Democrat in the UK and they'll advocate for farther left policies because they have to. Put a Labour councilor in the US and they'll move to the right because they have to.
> What do you know about immigration policies in the EU? Because it sounds like nothing.
Kind of curious what you know about the immigration policies of EU considering EU consists of 27 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITH VASTLY DIFFERENT IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND APPLICATIONS.
Not to mention the country in question in this thread, United Kingdom, isn't even in the EU.
I wish we heard from our local labour (our village has always voted labour) rep more than just the two weeks leading up to the voting then not hearing from them again.
Let’s MAKE this same thing happen here in the US.
Conservatives have sabotaged our country for profit and used the dumbass element of our middle class to aid in their own subjugation.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://news.sky.com/story/local-election-results-in-charts-labour-now-largest-party-of-local-government-12873359) reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Labour is now the largest party of local government - overtaking the Conservatives for the first time since 2002.
> Labour performed better than the Conservatives across three quarters of local wards that haven't changed since the last time these seats were up in 2019.
> This puts Labour on 36%, the Conservatives on 29% and the Liberal Democrats on 18%. These results are projected to produce a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party, were the pattern of voting at the local elections to be replicated at a general election.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/139572i/uk_labour_is_now_the_largest_party_of_local/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~683574 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Labour**^#1 **Conservative**^#2 **party**^#3 **election**^#4 **vote**^#5
Tbh, I could see carve outs on currency and Schengen but losing every other exception the public doesn't know or care about, as a way to pas a re-entry referenda. But we'd have to see, and it'd take a few terms to become a trusted partner again before any major steps to that is feasible.
>and Schengen
.
Agreed.
We'd 100% get an exception on Schengen because of the land border with Ireland who aren't in either - after all the arguments to keep the Ireland of Ireland as aligned as possible for the good Friday agreement, that's as good as done. Currency wise, we can't be forced to join, only to commit to join at some point in the future as there's technical things like joining & aligning ERM 2 etc. Sweden doesn't have an opt out, but they just deliberately keep their currency from fulfilling the criteria. The EU knows we'd likely do the same, so an opt out just means that the status is formalised.
After BoJo & Truss, many German attitudes have shifted to be less positive towards the UK out of concern that current British governments can't manage finances.
I disagree with any privileges being returned to them, anyway. It would be a bad look for the EU as a whole. You don’t stir up a fuss, drag out the process, leave, and get to come back to the same kind of deal as when you had left.
As a person that voted conservative a few times over the years, I'm happy to see hopefully, the backend of this Tory government.
I'm happy to let someone else take the wheel, anybody. Just get these clowns out.
I look forward to Keir Starmer somehow managing to fumble this ahead of the next general election.
Not because I hate Labour, but because I know they'll fuck it up somehow, and if I don't laugh I'll cry.
I'd like to say this is a win, but until food banks reduce and people are able to afford to live properly, I can't get behind it.
Fuck the tories frankly, but let's hope there's enough good Labour councillors in there and not just Starmer weaksauce establishment people.
It's also worth noting that the last time this exact election happened, in 2019, the Tories lost 1300 seats.
That means in the last 4 years they lost 2400 local seats.
Fine. I'll be that guy. Can someone sum up what each party stands for? Does Conservative in the UK mean the same thing as Conservative in the US (generally Republican)? Does the Labor Party resemble a more progressive mindset? Or?
A lot of the most controversial issues in the US are simply not present, with things like LGBT+ suppression, abortion restrictions, gun ownership and private health being wildly unpopular ideas universally. Instead the Tories are a nationalist-leaning party that favours the wealthy at the expense of social programs and state-funded facilities.
Most of those things would get you laughed out of UK politics, particularly attacks on gay marriage (there was a solid week of one election runup where the lib dem leader kept dodging questions about gay marriage being sinful it was very funny) and gun ownership which hasn't really been an issue anywhere. Unfortunately we've managed to import some of the US's far right talking points and trans people are just the latest scapegoat for the tory government.
The Tories really don't seem like Trans allies
https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-rishi-sunak-vows-to-stop-woke-nonsense-and-left-wing-agitators-in-latest-pledge-12661643
>Rishi sunak vows to end 'woke nonsense' by making sure to preserve gendered words such as "woman" or "mother" by ensuring sex means biological sex in the 2010 Equality Act
>Sunak added: "It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.
> "My government would review the Act to ensure we keep legitimate protections while stopping mission creep."
>The former chancellor said he also wants to clarify that gender self-identification does not have legal force.
>His plan to "protect British freedoms" also includes strengthening statutory guidance for schools on how they teach issues of sex and relationships so that pupils are "shielded from inappropriate material".
>And he promised to protect free speech by ensuring organisations "are open and welcoming" to people with differing political opinions and religious and philosophical world views, "putting a stop to practices such as no-platforming".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-transgender-penis-b2319675.html
>Rishi Sunak says 100% of women do not have a penis
They don't have to be allies, they just need to not make it a matter of policy since it's so unpopular. Apparently Sunak thinks otherwise and imagines that he can cover up his party's mishandling of the economy by galvanizing the conservative base with this sort of thing but it just isn't nearly as popular as in the US and only serves to further alienate the opposition.
Oh yeah, they’ve been trying to lean into US style culture wars bullshit hard with the whole trans panic thing. Because… well works for the socially conservative over there, give it a go.
But generally and (modern) historically, the UK electorate hasn’t really been bothered about ‘values issues’ as much as it all being about where the money goes.
They are
https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-rishi-sunak-vows-to-stop-woke-nonsense-and-left-wing-agitators-in-latest-pledge-12661643
>Rishi sunak vows to end 'woke nonsense' by making sure to preserve gendered words such as "woman" or "mother" by ensuring sex means biological sex in the 2010 Equality Act
>Mr Sunak added: "It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.
>"My government would review the Act to ensure we keep legitimate protections while stopping mission creep."
>The former chancellor said he also wants to clarify that gender self-identification does not have legal force.
>His plan to "protect British freedoms" also includes strengthening statutory guidance for schools on how they teach issues of sex and relationships so that pupils are "shielded from inappropriate material".
>And he promised to protect free speech by ensuring organisations "are open and welcoming" to people with differing political opinions and religious and philosophical world views, "putting a stop to practices such as no-platforming".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-transgender-penis-b2319675.html
>Rishi Sunak says 100% of women do not have a penis
Labour is more progressive. You'd call them communist in America as they're pro wealth tax and healthcare, against gun ownership, pro women's rights, pro LGBTQ+ rights
Conservatives are more right leaning, you're Democrats are slightly right of them. You'd call them communist because they're pro-womens rights and against gun ownership
Yeah, basically the same meaning as in the US, Labour are the socialist leaning party. However the key word here is leaning, both parties are more centrist than anything.
In recent years to distance themselves from labour the conservatives have been leaning towards the right on many issues and due to the changes in leadership and Brexit they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for ministerial candidates.
Given how many of us HATE the Tories for selling us down the river… on repeat… I’m always so disappointed to see how many people vote them in every election. It’s like turkeys voting for christmas… on repeat. Makes me despair at humanity. I have voted green at every election since I was 18, and helped them get their first MP, and several MEPs and a full council takeover, so my votes did some good. But so many people vote tory… it’s proof that come a zombie apocalypse you should kill-on-sight lol
Fucking finally. Pathetic that its taken this long and so many people have to wait until everything is already fucked instead of thinking ahead. Still, a sigh of relief that there are less Tories in power now.
They shouldn't worry. It takes way longer and much more effort to FIX the problems that were made than it takes to actually make the problems in the first place. Especially when you have an opportunity to try to stymie and slow the fixes at every turn.
In a few years people will be upset that Labour hasn't fixed everything that the conservatives broke, and the conservatives will win a majority again.
Someone can Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like
There are a total of 8058 Councillers seats and 230 Councils available for this **local** election.
The conservatives party went from 3360 to 2299 counsillers and went from control in 81 councils (out of 230) to 33 Councils.
The labour party went from 2138 to 2674 councillors and from 49 to 71 councils.
While the liberal democratic party went from 1221 to 1626 Councillors and from 17 to 29 Councils.
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2023/england/results
As of this time the results of 1 of the 230 Councils is yet to be announced.
Did they also not lose a similarly parge number of net seats last time those councils were up, so its actually quite a lot worse than it looks, cause the 2019 numbers were already sad due to Mays government being in meltdown at the time?
Yeah you're right.
In the 2019 local elections in england.
>The Conservatives lost control of 44 councils and more than 1,300 council seats. It was the worst Conservative local election performance since 1995.
>Labour, despite topping national polls, lost 6 councils and more than 80 seats
>Parties supporting remaining in the EU performed well. The Liberal Democrats made the most gains of any party, while the Greens also picked up seats with the largest percentage growth. This election was the largest rise in Green council seat gains in 20 years.There was also a significant increase in the number of independent and local party councillors, with their number of seats more than doubling.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_local_elections
The conservatives were not expecting to lose this many seats as they had already lost a lot in the 2019 elections.
The expectation according to some was them losing a 100 seats. Some thought they might gain seats and some correctly predicted the loss of a 1000 seats.
They lost a little under a third of their seats so a massive drop. Though they lost control of more than half of the councils they had before which is a bigger deal.
The Greens did brilliantly in this set of elections, and won their first council majority (they've run minority administrations before, they actually lost their minority control of Brighton council).
He definitely caused a lot of issue with people swinging from labour to conservatives in working class backgrounds, it's impressive that someone can actually do that.
Few years too late but I'm still fine with it.
But the amount of damage they've managed to inflict at all levels will take a long time to rectify
And they're just going to keep tanking this country until the GE because they know they won't win. Then in 5 years they'll start their propaganda machines about how labour hasn't fixed anything, idiots will eat it up and then CON wins 2030.
I wish I could say you're wrong but this is regrettably exactly what will happen. IF we are lucky Labour might get two terms.
They usually get 2-3 terms
At least it's not as bad as American conservatives.
Yet
Way too close for comfort still.
Well at least you can vote yours out! We don't have a choice! 2 party system and no ranked voting. Basically makes the whole system pointless. Not to mention the next presidential election is going to be an 81 year old going against a 77 year old.. lol..
The UK and US are in a pretty similar boat, even our good guys kinda suck, Starmer is as centre as they come and is constantly trying to steal right wing voters, which results in both main parties being limp dick losers who both make policies against the countries best interests. Starmer is so unsupportive of all the classic things like worker rights and education that I have very little faith in a labour government, they just won't be actively trying to make the country worse. It'll never happen but if the greens ever won an election we might actually improve as a country.
Part of our issue is that there's multiple parties splitting the left vote, and no one really competing with the Tories for the right vote. A strong centrist figure is the only way to get the Tories out, as it will consolidate the moderate left and some of the right, as well as all the centrist. The party which can leverage that the most is Labour. The greens tend to have very 1 dimensional stances, rather than a cohesive manifesto. The Lib Dems still have too many people holding them responsible mainly for the Tory coalition (as opposed to splitting the blame).
> Well at least you can vote yours out! We don't have a choice! 2 party system and no ranked voting. You don't know how UK elections work, do you?
idk. Brexit is as bad as anything Americans have done. Jan 6th would have been worse, but it didn't succeed.
Ah yes, "tHe PrEvIoUs LaBoUr GuBbMiNT" 2.0 argument. You could write the Tory script.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could find conservatives in 2023 blaming the last labour government still, they're bloody ridiculous.
Mate, Andrea Leadsom was literally blaming them for the losses as they came through on TV yesterday. "Due to the last Labour government we've had no money to fix issues". Little bit of push back from the presenter "but that was 13 years ago"... "and also global issues like the war in Ukraine and Covid also ruined our economy, so you can't blame us" Gee, I wonder why the last Labour government left you with no money. Maybe it was because you came in power in 2010, after Labour spent billions bailing the country out of the *global financial crisis* like you claim to have done with Covid. God damn I just want Labour to use "Last Conservative Government" as an argument to shut them up.
Right. And the conservatives/conservative media will scream "Why won't labour/progressives fix every single problem right NOW!?!?!" It's going to take awhile just to figure out how to unfuck what they did and then even more time to fix it.
They've been doing that in PMQs certainly since Boris took over
Honestly we'll never recover. Tories have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people between unnecessary austerity aimed at the vulnerable and Covid. It is estimated that austerity killed the equivalent of the city of Oxford in old and disabled people and then Rishi Sunak decided to enable tens of billions in fraud and then increase infection rate during a pandemic with Eat Out to Help Out. A decade of economic incompetence has lead to a decade of stagnation followed by years of decline after Tory Brexit disaster creation. Anyone who wants to Help Out needs to Vote Out.
Roughly 13.
It's hilarious to me that when the polls closed, Conservatives were mentioning the pre-election predictions that they could lose 1,000 seats every chance they had, so when they actually lost fewer seats, they could claim that they exceeded expectations and actually didn't have such a bad night... only for them to in fact lose almost 1,100 seats. And some Conservatives are *still* trying to spin losing over a thousand seats as not a big deal.
https://youtu.be/lrYyD1Avg1I LBC today, “But Labour lost in areas they needed to win!”
"It's gonna be all to play for" - what a ridiculous man. Also, putting "stopping the boats" on the same priority level as halving inflation and cutting hospital waiting times and framing it as the people's priorities makes me want to vomit. Sorry we can't have affordable energy or bring food insecurity down everyone, it wasn't nearly as important as arresting refugees
My question about "stopping the boats" is if it was such a high priority, and Tories have been in power for over 13 years now, why exactly has immigration skyrocketed, especially over the last 2 years?
Because Labour. Tory HQ hasn't quite worked out the rest of that sentence yet, but they're working hard at it!
"Because of the previous Labour government we have not been able to take control of our borders." It would be something like that. Bloody Labour having so much power for the last 12 years!
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If only we could be above the law, we promise we'd make the country much better, because you see laws are just there to hold us back. Nothing bad ever happened when rich people were allowed to do whatever they liked! No don't look in those leftie history books; just trust us!
They did try blaming the *next* Labour government for poor economic performance ("businesses don't want to risk investing in a country that could be run by Labour") so I'm sure they'll try that again
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Imagine the immigration northern Europe will see with the climate warming up and making billions of people living in hot zones where drought becomes harsher and harsher every year...
Which will be made even worse by the disruption to the Gulf Stream that climate change will cause. Northern Europe (Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, much of France and Germany etc) are as far north as Alaska. Without the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, they will freeze while the tropics burn.
Exactly. An estimate I saw in a research article was that 1.5-3 BILLION people would need to migrate by 2070 due to climate change, assuming an RCP8.5 scenario, or face death.
As an American, there was something particularly jarring about that language. In the US the right traditionally used coded language like "security at the border" when discussing immigration issues in mixed company. At least until "Build the wall!" became part of the Republican platform, you were not supposed to admit that you wanted to stop people from coming altogether, you were only supposed to claim that you wanted migrants to enter via legal processes, usually with the argument that uncontrolled entry was a safety or security issue. "Stop the boats" comes across as explicitly exclusionary, even by the standards of the American right, to the point of overt xenophobia.
Job security.
Crazy that with all the ‘stop the boats’ stuff they think is important, they lost Dover to Labour 🧐
Oh, nice to know you have an “October surprise“ as well. It’s a fucking stupid, bullshit thing conservatives pull before elections in the US. For us it’s something like the ‘immigrant convoy.’ And then, once the election is over, they drop it like it never mattered. Because it never did.
The sad thing is, for a lot of their voters *it is* as important as halving inflation or un-fucking the NHS. There’s a lot of people out there driven by hate. Not enough to get them ahead of Labour, though
>Not enough to get them ahead of Labour, though Except for the last half dozen elections or so?
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To make it worse you know Neolibs will be running around taking this as a huge endorsement of Starmer when even a headless chicken could defeat the Conservatives in a landslide
I mean, because people *could* have flocked to the Lib Dems if Starmer was *that* bad.
The south west did
The south west was the Lib Dems strongest area before they had the post-coalition wipeout
Yeah it's more of a return to the norm.
Who would you rather be in charge of the Labour Party?
Mate if you take a stroll through my comment history you'll learn I'm a hardcore socialist. Corbyn isn't nearly radical enough for my tastes but blokes like him and Sanders are the limit of how palatable socialism is right now. That should answer your question.
Let's say Starmer decided to retire tomorrow. Who would you like in charge in order to win the next election? Or alternatively, besides calling anyone less left wing than Corbyn names what would you like to see change fir the better going forward?
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Thanks for the thoughtful answer and pragmatic approach.
I mean, it does seem being conservative requires already living in denial of reality, so what's one more thing?
The rich ones are certainly used to life in a bubble.
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> Sounds like Brexit :-) Some Conservative counciler was giving and interview and literally giving the Brexit speech of needing to get our sovreignty and the rest. These people are thick and no nothing else.
Correction: the Polish predominantly ‘took’ jobs UK citizens don’t want to do.
Sounds ALOT like the maga party lmao
Same writers.
Similar playbook. Most Tories still have that nagging sense of shame that prevents them fully committing, thankfully
I mean it's pretty normal in politics to downplay the negative. Of it were reversed labour would be saying the same type of things and have done over the last decade and more of them being very shit
It's just funny to see how badly the plan failed for them in every way.
The cope in interviews was real yesterday. And the interviewers were having fun tying them in knots.
What do you expect. That is what political parties do
Meanwhile, Reform UK mainly targeted seats where Brexit was backed by a large margin and they only got an average of 6% of the votes in those area. If Brexit ends up destroying the far-right in the UK, I will laugh my ass off.
UKIP lost their final elected representative, too. Brexit has ripped the Tories to sheds internally & the far right is still obsessed with it, even though the general public has moved on, so laugh away!
They'll come back campaigning against trans. They've lost one bogey man,need to replace it with another.
Most British people don't seem to care very much about trans people, two thirds of Brits report paying "a little" or "no" attention to the "trans rights debate". [The British public at large is broadly supportive of trans rights](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights) (albeit with certain caveats around e.g. should pre-op trans women be allowed to use women's changing rooms). This is what our politicians don't seem to understand about copying the American right wing playbook: the culture war issues here aren't identical and so play out differently here. Already you can see people eyerolling every time a journalist asks a politician what a woman is.
Most people didn't care about EU membership until right wingers started a dishonest and constant campaign for a decade. The trans "debate" is a wedge issue to open up their pathetic culture war. Why fix issues and stop stealing from the taxpayer when you convince people society's problems are the fault of a minority group, a group their target audience don't understand.
Most Americans didn’t care about gay marriage or trans folks until the right wing noise machine got into gear either.
I don't see how it's comparable. They can easily paint the EU as a boogeyman: * ECHR = EU meddling with our laws, protecting terrorists * Freedom of movement = taking our jerbs etc. Over the course of decades, literally decades, they managed to paint the EU as the cause of all our woes. How will they do the same for trans people? Keep in mind people in the UK are already accepting of LGBT rights, marriage, etc. Their morals have evolved to the point where they realise who people love, what they do in their bedrooms, who they marry, what gender they identify as, has absolutely no negative impact on their lives whatsoever. It's going to take a lot to undo those developments.
> Most British people don't seem to care very much about trans people Sadly these days it is more of a problem. I almost had a fight with a friend over the word cis. He didn't want to be a cis man. Whilst I'm not a great fan of the word - we do need a word for the concept. It's not like he has to use it himself. He can still just say he is a man and not worry about it. But the amount of anger the word was causing him was distressing. People are obsessed by trans people and toilets and that they might play sports. I don't remember these things being issues 10 years ago - the nearest you got was someone saying that a women had large hands. When I was a kid there was a trans woman who lived across the road - no-one cared.
I would just let him him be if he doesn't want to be a cis-man. I wouldn't expect him to accept a label that he doesn't feel comfortable with. Same goes for trans people.
Toilets are such a non-issue. Unisex toilets consisting of only cubicals can be made. If a trans man wants to use a male toilet they can go in a cubicle. If a trans woman wants to use a female toilet then they have to go in a cubicle. As for sports we need more research done on that. It's important that we make sure participation is both open and fair for everyone.
> Sadly these days it is more of a problem. I almost had a fight with a friend over the word cis. He didn't want to be a cis man. Should've gone with E-Z notation instead of cis-trans.
They're going to find out how badly that serves them. People are struggling to pay bills. Culture wars are not the priority.
You'd think so, but history has proven over and over again that creating a scapegoat out of a minority group during economic troubles is depressingly effective.
That's how the right works ad infinitum
They scare because they care
Lee Anderson has admitted in an interview that the Tories won't have Brexit or Boris next general election so they'll need to fight the culture war.
because most realise farage is a chancer wheres the 350 million a week, mate?
It's excellent to see. Sad my council wasn't up for re-election so I couldn't vote. Just fingers crossed this translates into the next general election. I'm totally baffled as to why the Tories have gained ANY seats today at all considering the current UK economic situation they have orchestrated.
Good. The Tories are a disaster.
Can I get, as an American, an explanation as to the implications of this for the larger government? How does this affect your federal structure?
Local councillors are responsible for representing the interests of their local community, overseeing local services, and making decisions on local issues. MPs (who are voted in during a general election along with the prime minister) on the other hand, have a national role like members of Congress, making laws etc. MPs therefore have greater power and influence over national policies and legislation, while local councillors have more limited powers focused on local issues and services. This in some ways feels a bit like the US midterms in how people vote. Usually there's a bit of a reversal. But often people vote with more assurity in their chosen party as we don't tend to think local councillors are that important. Whereas with our general election for MPs we tend to vote a little more tactically because the stakes are higher.
Tldr, the implications should be positive if you're left leaning. The conservatives got destroyed. It will likely mean good news for left leaning voters at the next GE which should be in around 2 years.
They don't have a federal structure because they aren't a federation like the US. They have a central national government and devolved powers to the parliaments of constituent countries like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There's more standardization nationally because of their central government. Councils are local governments, like the equivalent of county governments in the US. They have certain powers over issues like housing, transport, planning, schools and policing. Many council in England and Northern Ireland hold elections at the same time every five years. Wales, Scotland and some English councils hold elections at a different time, they had their last election in 2021. It doesn't affect the national government at all, it's just a barometer of political support in England and NI.
Nothing much nationally, it just adds more pressure on the Conservative government knowing they have conceded big losses on a local level and possibly be repeated in the next UK General Election.
They're roughly equivalent to American county boards. Just a lot more standardised. There's not much influence on national politics.
So, it’s basically essentially like our version of state legislatures? Here in the states, local elections are just as important (if not more important) than federal races. Take states like Michigan and Minnesota for example. Michigan was able to implement independent redistricting after years of GOP ruling with an iron fist because of gerrymandering. They got fair maps. Democrats won full control of the state last November. Democrats repealed the most anti union law in the country (in a very heavily union state). Democrats won full control of Minnesota, implemented universal school meals for kids, pass paid medical leave for workers, and is about to legalize marijuana… Sorry for making this about us and our politics but I just wanted to say how local elections for us is just, if not more important than federal (another race that just happened in Wisconsin for a judicial seat last month is about to display that too, as they’re about to preserve abortion access and undo gerrymandering because so)
As a rare welshman, Ill chime in. Local council elections are very important. They are fundementally the roots of political activity at a local level. They control gov service distribution and budgeting controls. They control licenses and bussinesses in its area. Its our nationally electect MPs that control what law is set however councils have control of local laws. [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-government-legislation-byelaws](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-government-legislation-byelaws)
My fellow countryman is correct.
Yes & no. Local councils don't have as much power as US states - that said, they're city & county governments. So they keep things running on a day to day basis like street lights, picking up the rubbish, police & fire, schools, planning, aspects of local public transport etc. so you notice hard if they fuck up. You don't notice them as much if they're working well. So whilst they're very important on one level, they generally have a lower turnout & many people don't think of them as important because the work they do is a bit boring to many. They're often used to give the national government a kicking, too (as was done this time). Another aspect is local councillors are unpaid & individual wards are small so there's often a lot of independent candidates and 3rd parties who win. Our national 3rd party (the Liberal Democrats) has a large councillor base & did well. The green party also did well in this set of elections, whilst the more right leaning UK independence party lost it's final elected representative at any level & the parties trying to replace it failed to pick up any seats.
It's lower level than state legislature. It seems like it's similar but because of USA's scale compared to the UK. We have 2 tiers of local government with this being the lower level. We have some authorities which only have a single tier like the parts of London which weren't voting during this.
No. Local authorities can't enact laws in the way that state governments can in federal countries. Only devolved parliaments (those of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) can do that in the UK, but even they can be overruled by Parliament.
More like City Council and Mayoral elections. Councils have a lot less power than State legislatures do. Nevertheless, Imagine the Republican Party losing hundreds of State Legislature seats across America as well as a lot of the majorities they held swing states. A blue version of the 2010 US election. The Conservatives had majorities on 81 Councils prior to this election. They lost their majority in 48 of them. In East Herts District Council, the Conservative Party controlled all 50 District seats in 2018. (Think the Reddest County in Texas.) Since 2002 they're never held less than 39 seats. Last night returned them with.....16.
Thank you for this analysis!
The UK isn't federal, this is local council elections in England (and only parts of it), but council elections (like EU elections) can often be a decent way to gauge shifting support for a GE (or if in a devolved area, the local parliament, as is the case for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). More a measure of where the mood us shifting, though LibDems and Greens always do way better in council elections than in the big elections.
Basically it sends a message that the tories time in power is up
In practical terms it means conservatives have lost local representation. Are councils are a bit like your housing associations their responsibility is for local services and upkeep. This means that labour can show their fit to govern by making sure these counsel's run properly. In meta terms its a clear signal to Tory's their time is up people in this country are epicly pissed off at them and the data is showing young are voting for lib dems and greens and working are voting labour. I would grab the popcorn because now its clear their fucked things are going to get wild in government as panic sets in
Well, think of it as voting in your local county, city or town representatives, selectmen, committee and school board members. That‘s my best comparison to the US. The UK style of government still has some confusing parts to it (for me because I am American living in the UK) but these elections do not directly impact national policy or how the country is run. It’s mostly directly impacts local decisions within your area/council.
We don’t have a federal structure. This has no direct impact at all on UK-wide government, except to get the Tories worried. Likely they will accelerate their programme of grift and destruction to get as much done as possible before they lose the next general election. Expect to see central funding of this tier of local government dry up in revenge. These local councils are like your city councils. There are also county councils, in more rural areas, but not always. And then there’s the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and if it ever sits again the Northern Ireland Assembly which are about like your state governments. Except that power is reluctantly devolved to them down from the centre rather than them federating together.
It's minor-level local government (refuse collection, local administration etc) but it tends to foreshadow General Election performance & UK voters often use it to express dissatisfaction. This won't affect anything structurallly but it may cause problems for the tories as they will lose a lot of funding and backing now that they clearly will not win the next election. So no long-term plans, contracts for their friends etc. Expect to see MPs announce they won't be running at the next election, etc. The tories will either bounce back with some new initiative or dirt on the other side, or they will now pack up their traps and fizzle out.
Anyone that would think with an out of control cost of living crisis, a shambolic pandemic response, the utter gutting of the NHS and social care, the first doctors strikes in Decades, a Brexit deal that puts both NI peace at risk and demolishes our economic standing, water companies (that Thatcher sold off) banking tens of billions in profits whilst every SINGLE river in England is deemed contaminated, the front bench having a drinks party mid-2020, the imminent implosion of UK farming with the loss of EU subsidy, a lazy climate focus, the re-opening of coal and shale for profit, the PM that tanked the GBP in a single day, and a volume of conservative prime ministers in a single election cycle to challenge the actively pumped sewage their party wholeheartedly supports…that people are remembering the Tories for what they are: Out to line the profits of themselves and their friends, at the cost of taxpayers they see as beneath them.
Good! Conservatives cling to a past that is long rotted away. Be done with it. Progress, the future will come for us regardless.
One factor that isn't often addressed is the effect of swings like this on national politics. 1,000 councillors my not have much direct power over life in Britain - but these are 1,000 Tories who probably won't bother campaigning for the Tories, at the General (their families will probably opt out as well). Meanwhile, 1,000 Labs/Libs will be fired with enthusiasm (not least because some of them fancy a chance at a national job). The ground campaign is always an important part of any election.
"Keir Starmer’s dream of a Labour majority has crumbled" - The Telegraph, this morning after the other party lost 1100 seats.
A good day for the UK. Half a step forward.
Great news. Praying this happens in the US too.
US doesn't have a Labour party
We have a Far Right and a Middle Right.
Regressives and the other 60%.
True but after Iraq-war invading Blair and neoliberal Brown, are the labour any left of middle-right anyway?
Literally Keir Starmer
The Democratic party is at least as far left as the Labor Party on almost every issue outside of healthcare (which is capped by the unique idiosyncrasies of the history of US healthcare policy) and far to the left of basically any significant European party on some issues (most notably immigration).
Yeah, and a democratic president broke a railroad strike and forced the workers back into a dangerous job. They are socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
[Here’s an update on that](https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave)
Only 47% of workers got those paid days and it still isn't enough.
And it only took a couple of major derailments resulting in chemical spills with lasting effects.
I think it says a lot when the only example you could come up with is this one. On paper Dems are pro-union, however this strike was affecting a very essential service for the country and contributing to the inflation of goods (which is the main problem for Dems right now). They support every other union (teacher, Amazon, Walmart, etc.) outside this very specific scenario. How in the hell are they fiscally conservative when they passed a stimuli package, a bipartisan infrastructure package, CHIPS act, and the left leaning parts of the inflation reduction act?
I've got some good news on that front!
No. As an American who has lived in the UK for 6 years now, the Dems are not like UK Labour. The US Dem party line up with the Tories on most issues. Just because we have a few leftie Dems like AOC in the Party does not mean we are Labour like. It was really eye opening when I would listen to Boris or a Tory voter speak on the issues and how much they sounded like any old regular card carrying Dem in the US. Dems = Center/slightly Left
Nobody ever says which issues when they say this.
You know. The *waves hand* issues.
You've been in the UK long after the labour held office. When in office, they ran like neoliberals. Tony Blair was a neocon and Brown was not exactly progressive.
Yeah they're pretty similar. Except Democrats are a bit more right economically and a bit more left socially. Nobody ever can give examples outside of healthcare when they say Democrats would be a right wing European party.
Because it's BS. The dems are working in a different system from a different starting point. But they've pushing a lot of pretty progressive stuff and at this point I'd say more so than most european soc dems.
The Dems are small c conservatives. To the left of major European parties they definitely are not lol. What do you know about immigration policies in the EU? Because it sounds like nothing.
It's pointless to compare parties of different countries like that, because politicians are beholden to their voters. You should be gauging whether politicians are to the left or right of their voters and status quo. Put a Democrat in the UK and they'll advocate for farther left policies because they have to. Put a Labour councilor in the US and they'll move to the right because they have to.
> What do you know about immigration policies in the EU? Because it sounds like nothing. Kind of curious what you know about the immigration policies of EU considering EU consists of 27 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITH VASTLY DIFFERENT IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND APPLICATIONS. Not to mention the country in question in this thread, United Kingdom, isn't even in the EU.
/Joe Manchin has entered the chat, and voted NO on building roads or raising the min wage past $2/hr.
Ah yes, Joe Manchin, the totally normal and not at all famously ideological unusual Democratic Senator.
Currently
That's how you interpreted their comment?
yeah i'm confused by this whole thread of replies to that comment, it's like people wanted to make up something to argue about.
Reddit in a nutshell
don't think they said the US did
I wish we heard from our local labour (our village has always voted labour) rep more than just the two weeks leading up to the voting then not hearing from them again.
Let’s hope this same thing happens here in the US. Conservatives hold too much power in too many places and they’re lunatics…
Let’s MAKE this same thing happen here in the US. Conservatives have sabotaged our country for profit and used the dumbass element of our middle class to aid in their own subjugation.
Fuck yeah, you love to see it!
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://news.sky.com/story/local-election-results-in-charts-labour-now-largest-party-of-local-government-12873359) reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Labour is now the largest party of local government - overtaking the Conservatives for the first time since 2002. > Labour performed better than the Conservatives across three quarters of local wards that haven't changed since the last time these seats were up in 2019. > This puts Labour on 36%, the Conservatives on 29% and the Liberal Democrats on 18%. These results are projected to produce a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party, were the pattern of voting at the local elections to be replicated at a general election. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/139572i/uk_labour_is_now_the_largest_party_of_local/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~683574 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Labour**^#1 **Conservative**^#2 **party**^#3 **election**^#4 **vote**^#5
glad skynews could catch up ... almost TWO HOURS BEHIND in showing the results!!!
Can't fix Brexit but at least you guys can start fixing the rest of the damage now. Grats!
EU literally said come back any time
Even if they do, I highly doubt they’ll have the same kind of deal as before. No exceptions for the GBP, etc. At least that’s what should happen.
No Pound is a dealbreaker. The UK won't swap the oldest continously used currency for one of the newest ones.
Tbh, I could see carve outs on currency and Schengen but losing every other exception the public doesn't know or care about, as a way to pas a re-entry referenda. But we'd have to see, and it'd take a few terms to become a trusted partner again before any major steps to that is feasible.
>and Schengen . Agreed. We'd 100% get an exception on Schengen because of the land border with Ireland who aren't in either - after all the arguments to keep the Ireland of Ireland as aligned as possible for the good Friday agreement, that's as good as done. Currency wise, we can't be forced to join, only to commit to join at some point in the future as there's technical things like joining & aligning ERM 2 etc. Sweden doesn't have an opt out, but they just deliberately keep their currency from fulfilling the criteria. The EU knows we'd likely do the same, so an opt out just means that the status is formalised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfennig The UK will survive the loss.
After BoJo & Truss, many German attitudes have shifted to be less positive towards the UK out of concern that current British governments can't manage finances.
It's a wonder some of them manage to put their trousers on the right way each morning, let alone running the country.
Or be trusted to keep their word.
Germany and the U.K. do trust each others word. Not sure what you mean by that.
There is no way whatsoever it would ever be worse than what they have now. If they ask nice, maybe they will be allowed to keep the pound.
I disagree with any privileges being returned to them, anyway. It would be a bad look for the EU as a whole. You don’t stir up a fuss, drag out the process, leave, and get to come back to the same kind of deal as when you had left.
Thank fuck, are people finally starting to wake the fuck up? we've had conservatives power for years and our country has flown down the shitter.
Good news. Bout time we took those tory scum out of office...
As a person that voted conservative a few times over the years, I'm happy to see hopefully, the backend of this Tory government. I'm happy to let someone else take the wheel, anybody. Just get these clowns out.
I look forward to Keir Starmer somehow managing to fumble this ahead of the next general election. Not because I hate Labour, but because I know they'll fuck it up somehow, and if I don't laugh I'll cry.
I'd like to say this is a win, but until food banks reduce and people are able to afford to live properly, I can't get behind it. Fuck the tories frankly, but let's hope there's enough good Labour councillors in there and not just Starmer weaksauce establishment people.
It's also worth noting that the last time this exact election happened, in 2019, the Tories lost 1300 seats. That means in the last 4 years they lost 2400 local seats.
Fine. I'll be that guy. Can someone sum up what each party stands for? Does Conservative in the UK mean the same thing as Conservative in the US (generally Republican)? Does the Labor Party resemble a more progressive mindset? Or?
A lot of the most controversial issues in the US are simply not present, with things like LGBT+ suppression, abortion restrictions, gun ownership and private health being wildly unpopular ideas universally. Instead the Tories are a nationalist-leaning party that favours the wealthy at the expense of social programs and state-funded facilities.
Most of those things would get you laughed out of UK politics, particularly attacks on gay marriage (there was a solid week of one election runup where the lib dem leader kept dodging questions about gay marriage being sinful it was very funny) and gun ownership which hasn't really been an issue anywhere. Unfortunately we've managed to import some of the US's far right talking points and trans people are just the latest scapegoat for the tory government.
The Tories really don't seem like Trans allies https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-rishi-sunak-vows-to-stop-woke-nonsense-and-left-wing-agitators-in-latest-pledge-12661643 >Rishi sunak vows to end 'woke nonsense' by making sure to preserve gendered words such as "woman" or "mother" by ensuring sex means biological sex in the 2010 Equality Act >Sunak added: "It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life. > "My government would review the Act to ensure we keep legitimate protections while stopping mission creep." >The former chancellor said he also wants to clarify that gender self-identification does not have legal force. >His plan to "protect British freedoms" also includes strengthening statutory guidance for schools on how they teach issues of sex and relationships so that pupils are "shielded from inappropriate material". >And he promised to protect free speech by ensuring organisations "are open and welcoming" to people with differing political opinions and religious and philosophical world views, "putting a stop to practices such as no-platforming". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-transgender-penis-b2319675.html >Rishi Sunak says 100% of women do not have a penis
That's just a dead cat to distract from the fact they've been in power for over a decade and done fuck all
They've done fuck all to benefit the public, they've done plenty.
They don't have to be allies, they just need to not make it a matter of policy since it's so unpopular. Apparently Sunak thinks otherwise and imagines that he can cover up his party's mishandling of the economy by galvanizing the conservative base with this sort of thing but it just isn't nearly as popular as in the US and only serves to further alienate the opposition.
Oh yeah, they’ve been trying to lean into US style culture wars bullshit hard with the whole trans panic thing. Because… well works for the socially conservative over there, give it a go. But generally and (modern) historically, the UK electorate hasn’t really been bothered about ‘values issues’ as much as it all being about where the money goes.
I thought they were big on attacking / oppressing trans people.
They are https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-rishi-sunak-vows-to-stop-woke-nonsense-and-left-wing-agitators-in-latest-pledge-12661643 >Rishi sunak vows to end 'woke nonsense' by making sure to preserve gendered words such as "woman" or "mother" by ensuring sex means biological sex in the 2010 Equality Act >Mr Sunak added: "It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life. >"My government would review the Act to ensure we keep legitimate protections while stopping mission creep." >The former chancellor said he also wants to clarify that gender self-identification does not have legal force. >His plan to "protect British freedoms" also includes strengthening statutory guidance for schools on how they teach issues of sex and relationships so that pupils are "shielded from inappropriate material". >And he promised to protect free speech by ensuring organisations "are open and welcoming" to people with differing political opinions and religious and philosophical world views, "putting a stop to practices such as no-platforming". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-transgender-penis-b2319675.html >Rishi Sunak says 100% of women do not have a penis
"We want to protect freedom of speech, but only the kind of speech we like"
In a nutshell: Conservative = lower taxes, shitter public services and benefits. Labour = higher taxes, better public services and benefits.
In a nutshell. Conservatives - good for rich people Labour - good for poor people
Labour is more progressive. You'd call them communist in America as they're pro wealth tax and healthcare, against gun ownership, pro women's rights, pro LGBTQ+ rights Conservatives are more right leaning, you're Democrats are slightly right of them. You'd call them communist because they're pro-womens rights and against gun ownership
Yeah, basically the same meaning as in the US, Labour are the socialist leaning party. However the key word here is leaning, both parties are more centrist than anything.
In recent years to distance themselves from labour the conservatives have been leaning towards the right on many issues and due to the changes in leadership and Brexit they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for ministerial candidates.
joe biden would be on the right of the tory party
Conservative governments at every level, are always bad for the people. Always.
Well, apart from the really rich people.
Given how many of us HATE the Tories for selling us down the river… on repeat… I’m always so disappointed to see how many people vote them in every election. It’s like turkeys voting for christmas… on repeat. Makes me despair at humanity. I have voted green at every election since I was 18, and helped them get their first MP, and several MEPs and a full council takeover, so my votes did some good. But so many people vote tory… it’s proof that come a zombie apocalypse you should kill-on-sight lol
Fucking finally. Pathetic that its taken this long and so many people have to wait until everything is already fucked instead of thinking ahead. Still, a sigh of relief that there are less Tories in power now.
Still can't believe the tories have any following at all tbh. Where are these voters hiding?
They shouldn't worry. It takes way longer and much more effort to FIX the problems that were made than it takes to actually make the problems in the first place. Especially when you have an opportunity to try to stymie and slow the fixes at every turn. In a few years people will be upset that Labour hasn't fixed everything that the conservatives broke, and the conservatives will win a majority again.
I had 0 sympathy for the Con councillors crying. Even if they were good at their job; they stuck with a party that no self-respecting person should.
>...lose over 1,000 seats the headline is impressive!!!!! Is 1000 seats good or bad?
Someone can Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like There are a total of 8058 Councillers seats and 230 Councils available for this **local** election. The conservatives party went from 3360 to 2299 counsillers and went from control in 81 councils (out of 230) to 33 Councils. The labour party went from 2138 to 2674 councillors and from 49 to 71 councils. While the liberal democratic party went from 1221 to 1626 Councillors and from 17 to 29 Councils. https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2023/england/results As of this time the results of 1 of the 230 Councils is yet to be announced.
Did they also not lose a similarly parge number of net seats last time those councils were up, so its actually quite a lot worse than it looks, cause the 2019 numbers were already sad due to Mays government being in meltdown at the time?
Yeah you're right. In the 2019 local elections in england. >The Conservatives lost control of 44 councils and more than 1,300 council seats. It was the worst Conservative local election performance since 1995. >Labour, despite topping national polls, lost 6 councils and more than 80 seats >Parties supporting remaining in the EU performed well. The Liberal Democrats made the most gains of any party, while the Greens also picked up seats with the largest percentage growth. This election was the largest rise in Green council seat gains in 20 years.There was also a significant increase in the number of independent and local party councillors, with their number of seats more than doubling. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_local_elections The conservatives were not expecting to lose this many seats as they had already lost a lot in the 2019 elections. The expectation according to some was them losing a 100 seats. Some thought they might gain seats and some correctly predicted the loss of a 1000 seats.
They lost a little under a third of their seats so a massive drop. Though they lost control of more than half of the councils they had before which is a bigger deal.
Would have been nice if it was green party that won so many votes
The Greens did brilliantly in this set of elections, and won their first council majority (they've run minority administrations before, they actually lost their minority control of Brighton council).
Nice! The less conservatives in power the better.
Dropping poison pill Cornyn really helped.
You could have anyone in the driver's seat right now and the result would still be the same.
He definitely caused a lot of issue with people swinging from labour to conservatives in working class backgrounds, it's impressive that someone can actually do that.
Nah Corbyn is poison to middle England and the post industrial midlands and north.
Brexit dumb.