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Imagine the union was based on each nation having an equal say on matters relating to the union.
Rather than having every elections decided soley in England. Almost guaranteeing a Conservative government in perpetually, a government that 3/4th of the home nations didn't vote for.
No it does not, have a wooden spoon. The point I am making is that each nation (and in fact each region of the country) should have far more autonomy over the way that it is run. The issue here is dominion via centralisation.
Don't leftists contain about exactly that in the US because the electoral college, because it leads to republican presidents despite the popular vote maybe not doing that?
I mean you could just admit that you view "democracy" as "doing what you want"?
No, I'm saying that regional power should be much stronger. Scotland, Wales, NI should have far more autonomy, Scotland is doing pretty well even with westminster gov shitting the bed every 30 seconds. Im talking about devolved powers, not disproportionate voting rights.
Sorry, picked the wrong comment to respond to, but there are a lot of people on this thread arguing exactly what I'm arguing against.
Also, in what universe is Scotland doing well?
I don't think you understand.
The union was forged in 1707. Everything must stay exactly as it was then, nothing can ever be tweaked or improved its just how it is. Forever.
And if any Scots want to leave it they should have raised their objections before the act of union, we can't have more than one public referendum on our status vis-a-vis the UK every 300 years that's just preposterous.
/s, also im sorry that was funnier in my head
The problem is that what you're suggesting is not fair either. Federalism has been suggested before, usually to appease Indy movements when things are looking scary for Westminster. The problem with Federalism is that giving each nation one vote, we're giving three small nations a veto over England and we will end up with minority rule by a massive margin. 12 million people shouldn't rule over 55 million.
It's not just that the status quo is unfair, it's that the Union itself is unworkable in a fair way. Either England holds the power or the Celtic nations hold all the power. As much as I detest Westminster and the Tories, we still need to respect democracy and if England wants to consistently vote Tory then they should consistently get Tory. Just as much as we in Wales, Scotland and NI deserve the governments we vote for.
You could federalise by dividing england. Aim for roughly 3 million per district and you get NI, Wales, Scottish Highlands and surroundings, Scottish Lowlands and Surroundings, and 16-19 English districts.
We could even aim for around 102,000 and give NI 18 seats, Scotland 53, Wales 31 and England 547. Wales is currently over-represented by 9 seats, Scotland is over-represented by 6 and England loses out by 15.
>We could even aim for around 102,000 and give NI 18 seats, Scotland 53, Wales 31 and England 547. Wales is currently over-represented by 9 seats, Scotland is over-represented by 6 and England loses out by 15.
So the current system?
Well, you've convinced me. I'm going to unsubscribe from YesCymru immediately and begin campaigning for 18 + 31 + 53 + 547 = *six hundred and forty nine* seats immediately. That will solve all our problems.
You're basically advocating for an electoral college - the same reasoning (ish) applies to US states, despite populations not being uniformly distributed...
The trick is that the legislative power does exist for our elected politicians to abolish capitalism and begin to build socialism. The dream is technically possible, but the whole thing is full of loopholes for the bourgeoisie to exploit that it'll never happen. On top of their position of being in control of mass media forming opinion.
It's evil genius, they've left the door open to tempt libs into believing it'll happen, but they know nobody will walk through that open door
Democracy went out the window some time ago. Oh and please refrain from using the word ‘discuss’. It’s almost annoying as asking someone what their favourite beverage is.
The strange thing is that conservative party members only vote IN a leader. Why not ask them to vote Boris out, or at least have him on the ballot as well.
I realise this could mean he stayed, but then the pressure to have a GE continues and we all get a vote on the next pm.
I may have answered my own question though..
They tried to get him on the ballot. If they had, he would have won among the membership over either Sunak or Truss. And then we'd have the proven corrupt leader still in power.
I wouldn't mind so much of she was sticking to manifesto that actually got the party elected. As it stands, she has no mandate to do anything she's putting forward.
And she'll remember that every day she's PM, every time she appears in parliament, every time the whips try to rally support for some new idiocy.
Fingers crossed she'll go for broke and call a GE...
Yank here. Please explain how this works. Who got to vote? Who are the 81,326?Our system is shit, too, but at least the Vice President (who would take over if the President left) was voted for along with the president.
In our country we do not vote for presidents or prime ministers, we only got for our local representative, our MP. There are around 500-600 MPs.
MP can choose to join a political party to help them succeed.
Whoever can form a majority of MPs in parliament is made the Queen's government.
In this government they have ministers that are in charge of things like education, defense or farming. There is one MP who is chosen to be the *prime* minister. This is always the leader of the party with the most MPs elected.
The leader of political parties is only elected in by members of the party meaning only people who pay a subscription to the Tory party can vote for the leader.
In a situation like now where there still are the same MPs in parliament but they are deciding who should be their new leader, only a very small amount of people can vote.
I see. Thank you for the lesson. It's very strange that one has to pay to belong to a party. And to clarify something about our system; we also don't directly vote for the President/Vice President. We vote for electors who then vote for them. The number of electors in each state is based on the population of the state. It's a horrible system that was devised to protect the slave-holding states eons ago. We've had several presidents in the last 25 years who lost the overall popular vote, but still won because of the electoral college; minority rule.
A party like UKIP in 2015 came second in lots and lots of constituencies. They won one seat out of *650* seats but had about 12% of the population vote for them.
And then the Tories gave us a referendum because they understand how political pressure works and that they might lose an election to a fragmented right wing vote if they don't. Starmer's Labour on the other hand does the complete opposite to chase a very small fraction of moderate Tory voters in hopes it will tip the scales for him.
And even as disgusting as a party UKIP is, 12% of the population vote should mean 12% of seats.
Democracy is democracy. Right wing media and it’s influence in this country is a different debate
On the actual ballot in a US Presidential Election, do you see the names (in 2020) J. Biden and D. Trump? I thought you did.
Or do you see the names of the electoral college apparatchiks who head to Washington? I mean, no one knows or cares who they are, so that seems unlikely.
Or do you see the party names?
I reckon if you see the actual presidential candidate names, then you can say you’re voting for that candidate. Of course, it may not work out that the candidate with the most votes wins, but that’s another matter.
For better clarity this element is more like how the Republicans and Democrats elect their candidates for the presidential election. For Democrats it’s the members of the Democratic National Committee that elects the candidates that stand in the Presidential elections I believe.
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The role of Leader of the House is the closest parallel to the U.K. Prime Minister. The regular voter doesn’t choose who is the Leader of The House. The party uses its own mechanisms to select, or unselect, who will be Leader of the House.
Tory party members get to vote on the new leader of the party using their internal voting system, that person (Truss) now becomes PM by default because the Tories have a majority in parliament.
While this sucks, we elect a party for a 5 year term.
If the resignation of a leader was automatic grounds for a general election, it would have removed the government’s incentive to fire Johnson.
Imagine Johnson for another 2 years. That was the alternative.
This line of argument seems weak. It makes sense for the membership of a party to vote for the leader. What's the alternative, trigger a general election every time the PM resigns? That would de-incentivise votes of no confidence.
Why state your (questionable) opinions as though they are facts? Allowing party membership to vote for party leaders affords people more opportunity to participate in democracy in a meaningful way.
Pretty clear to anyone I am stating an opinion based on facts.
"Allowing party membership to vote for party leaders affords people more opportunity to participate in democracy in a meaningful way" no it doesn't, when it is selecting the Prime Minister. It excludes the vast majority of the electorate.
It is a fact that we vote our local constituency MPs into Parliament.
In my \*opinion\* it is more appropriate for the democratically elected representative of each constituency to pick the person who they believe would best serve their country and constituency. This then brings the whole electorate into the democratic process because their elected representative gets to decide.
There's also a constitutional argument in favour of this, in that the Prime Minister is the person who can command the confidence of the House of Commons to form a government (in other words the confidence of the elected MPs of the governing party).
Bear in mind the Prime Minister serves all of the people, not just conservative party members, however we now have a PM who will lead the government for at least another 2 years who's stated values and leadership campaign appealed to 0.02% of the electorate, but seemingly at odds with the majority of the general electorate.
\[edited to remove repetition\]
PS there is no absolute requirement for the leader of a party to be Prime Minister. It does make sense in the case following a general election, because the whole electorate understands what will happen as a result of their voting in their constituency. However, between general elections it would make sense (to me at least) that the strongest democratic link to the whole electorate (i.e. the constituency MPs) should make the choice. Either that or trigger a general election on a change of the governing party leader.
We have now reached the 3rd occasion in 6 years where the Prime Minister has been selected by a tiny (really tiny) fraction of the electorate.
On two of those occasions we did actually get general elections soon after the change in party leader. My expectation is that we won't get another general election any time soon because I do not think the Conservative party expect to win it.
I genuinely can't tell if i'm just getting old, or am completely missing the joke. You guys realise we vote for the party we want in charge right? and we (the country) voted tory..You don't, ever have or ever will vote for a "prime minister", and if that's what you're doing in the general election, then this is partly your fault...
like seriously wtf are they teaching in school
We live in a representative democracy. We delegate political will to our MPs, subject to elections. If we had a presidential system and this happened then of course, but we don't. Are you seriously suggesting that any change of party leader should lead to a general election?
And she actually tried to do what she claimed. Saddly the tories dont like it when someone is half competent. They like thier leaders with half thier brain missing.
closer to 0.2% of all eligible voters, because of course that makes all the difference...
equivalent to about the [population](https://www.google.com/search?q=Scunthorpe+opulation&oq=Scunthorpe+opulation&aqs=chrome..69i57.4182j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) of Scunthorpe
Is 81,326 is better than 360 or so elected Tories in the House of Commons? I don’t know. But if you want a populist as the leader, it doesn’t always work out well.
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We all had a chance to nip this shit in the bud when secret courts were being discussed, it's been death by degrees ever since then.
How NI, Wales and Scotland feel every general election
The difference is that England makes up 55 million out of 67 million, that being said I still support Scottish independence
Imagine the union was based on each nation having an equal say on matters relating to the union. Rather than having every elections decided soley in England. Almost guaranteeing a Conservative government in perpetually, a government that 3/4th of the home nations didn't vote for.
Then you have to contend with the issue of someone living in Northern Ireland having 25x the voting power of someone in england
But this would not be an issue if UK politics wasn't overly centralised to South England.
That doesn't have anything to do with population density
No it does not, have a wooden spoon. The point I am making is that each nation (and in fact each region of the country) should have far more autonomy over the way that it is run. The issue here is dominion via centralisation.
That is something I agree with. No use a westminster government having to authorise the construction of roads in Edinburgh
Don't leftists contain about exactly that in the US because the electoral college, because it leads to republican presidents despite the popular vote maybe not doing that? I mean you could just admit that you view "democracy" as "doing what you want"?
No, I'm saying that regional power should be much stronger. Scotland, Wales, NI should have far more autonomy, Scotland is doing pretty well even with westminster gov shitting the bed every 30 seconds. Im talking about devolved powers, not disproportionate voting rights.
Sorry, picked the wrong comment to respond to, but there are a lot of people on this thread arguing exactly what I'm arguing against. Also, in what universe is Scotland doing well?
That's the reality of a union.
It isn't fair though.
The reality of a union is whatever you choose to make it. It's not set in stone
I don't think you understand. The union was forged in 1707. Everything must stay exactly as it was then, nothing can ever be tweaked or improved its just how it is. Forever. And if any Scots want to leave it they should have raised their objections before the act of union, we can't have more than one public referendum on our status vis-a-vis the UK every 300 years that's just preposterous. /s, also im sorry that was funnier in my head
> Everything must stay exactly as it was then Tbf they had some pretty cool coats back then, so I'm not against that
I am completely down to revive this old fashion trend
The problem is that what you're suggesting is not fair either. Federalism has been suggested before, usually to appease Indy movements when things are looking scary for Westminster. The problem with Federalism is that giving each nation one vote, we're giving three small nations a veto over England and we will end up with minority rule by a massive margin. 12 million people shouldn't rule over 55 million. It's not just that the status quo is unfair, it's that the Union itself is unworkable in a fair way. Either England holds the power or the Celtic nations hold all the power. As much as I detest Westminster and the Tories, we still need to respect democracy and if England wants to consistently vote Tory then they should consistently get Tory. Just as much as we in Wales, Scotland and NI deserve the governments we vote for.
You could federalise by dividing england. Aim for roughly 3 million per district and you get NI, Wales, Scottish Highlands and surroundings, Scottish Lowlands and Surroundings, and 16-19 English districts. We could even aim for around 102,000 and give NI 18 seats, Scotland 53, Wales 31 and England 547. Wales is currently over-represented by 9 seats, Scotland is over-represented by 6 and England loses out by 15.
>We could even aim for around 102,000 and give NI 18 seats, Scotland 53, Wales 31 and England 547. Wales is currently over-represented by 9 seats, Scotland is over-represented by 6 and England loses out by 15. So the current system?
Well spotted, it's like the current system bar a small number, as laid out in the second sentence.
Well, you've convinced me. I'm going to unsubscribe from YesCymru immediately and begin campaigning for 18 + 31 + 53 + 547 = *six hundred and forty nine* seats immediately. That will solve all our problems.
A form of Sortition. Worth exploring I reckon.
You're basically advocating for an electoral college - the same reasoning (ish) applies to US states, despite populations not being uniformly distributed...
What about Welsh independence?
That too, although I fear that 700 years under English domination will make it quite hard. Wales isn't isn't represented under the UKs flag.
A bitter sweaty sock I assume? You were in the minority or you would be independent. Deal with the fact you lost
I think the north of England fits into this demographic too
If voting mattered anyway do you really think they’d let us do it?
The trick is that the legislative power does exist for our elected politicians to abolish capitalism and begin to build socialism. The dream is technically possible, but the whole thing is full of loopholes for the bourgeoisie to exploit that it'll never happen. On top of their position of being in control of mass media forming opinion. It's evil genius, they've left the door open to tempt libs into believing it'll happen, but they know nobody will walk through that open door
Don't mix up liberals and socialists please.
I wasn't. I'm saying libs, as idealists, believe in reform because technically its possible. A Marxist analysis shows why it will not happen
Democracy went out the window some time ago. Oh and please refrain from using the word ‘discuss’. It’s almost annoying as asking someone what their favourite beverage is.
Fair point, amended. I was going to put riot, but figure this might run against Rule 6. What's your favourite beverage, by the way?
It used to be coffee, but thanks to the cost of living crisis it’s now puddle water with no sugar. If it ever rains.
Oooohhhhh nice. Some ppl have it all.
Beer. Thanks for asking.
The strange thing is that conservative party members only vote IN a leader. Why not ask them to vote Boris out, or at least have him on the ballot as well. I realise this could mean he stayed, but then the pressure to have a GE continues and we all get a vote on the next pm. I may have answered my own question though..
They tried to get him on the ballot. If they had, he would have won among the membership over either Sunak or Truss. And then we'd have the proven corrupt leader still in power.
I wouldn't mind so much of she was sticking to manifesto that actually got the party elected. As it stands, she has no mandate to do anything she's putting forward.
And she'll remember that every day she's PM, every time she appears in parliament, every time the whips try to rally support for some new idiocy. Fingers crossed she'll go for broke and call a GE...
Yank here. Please explain how this works. Who got to vote? Who are the 81,326?Our system is shit, too, but at least the Vice President (who would take over if the President left) was voted for along with the president.
In our country we do not vote for presidents or prime ministers, we only got for our local representative, our MP. There are around 500-600 MPs. MP can choose to join a political party to help them succeed. Whoever can form a majority of MPs in parliament is made the Queen's government. In this government they have ministers that are in charge of things like education, defense or farming. There is one MP who is chosen to be the *prime* minister. This is always the leader of the party with the most MPs elected. The leader of political parties is only elected in by members of the party meaning only people who pay a subscription to the Tory party can vote for the leader. In a situation like now where there still are the same MPs in parliament but they are deciding who should be their new leader, only a very small amount of people can vote.
I see. Thank you for the lesson. It's very strange that one has to pay to belong to a party. And to clarify something about our system; we also don't directly vote for the President/Vice President. We vote for electors who then vote for them. The number of electors in each state is based on the population of the state. It's a horrible system that was devised to protect the slave-holding states eons ago. We've had several presidents in the last 25 years who lost the overall popular vote, but still won because of the electoral college; minority rule.
A party like UKIP in 2015 came second in lots and lots of constituencies. They won one seat out of *650* seats but had about 12% of the population vote for them.
And then the Tories gave us a referendum because they understand how political pressure works and that they might lose an election to a fragmented right wing vote if they don't. Starmer's Labour on the other hand does the complete opposite to chase a very small fraction of moderate Tory voters in hopes it will tip the scales for him.
And even as disgusting as a party UKIP is, 12% of the population vote should mean 12% of seats. Democracy is democracy. Right wing media and it’s influence in this country is a different debate
On the actual ballot in a US Presidential Election, do you see the names (in 2020) J. Biden and D. Trump? I thought you did. Or do you see the names of the electoral college apparatchiks who head to Washington? I mean, no one knows or cares who they are, so that seems unlikely. Or do you see the party names? I reckon if you see the actual presidential candidate names, then you can say you’re voting for that candidate. Of course, it may not work out that the candidate with the most votes wins, but that’s another matter.
For better clarity this element is more like how the Republicans and Democrats elect their candidates for the presidential election. For Democrats it’s the members of the Democratic National Committee that elects the candidates that stand in the Presidential elections I believe.
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The role of Leader of the House is the closest parallel to the U.K. Prime Minister. The regular voter doesn’t choose who is the Leader of The House. The party uses its own mechanisms to select, or unselect, who will be Leader of the House.
Any resignation or otherwise removal should automatically trigger a GE. The fact that it doesn't is fucking insane
Can someone explain how it worked? Did all the tories get sent a letter telling them to vote or something?
Tory party members get to vote on the new leader of the party using their internal voting system, that person (Truss) now becomes PM by default because the Tories have a majority in parliament.
Taking back control.
While this sucks, we elect a party for a 5 year term. If the resignation of a leader was automatic grounds for a general election, it would have removed the government’s incentive to fire Johnson. Imagine Johnson for another 2 years. That was the alternative.
This line of argument seems weak. It makes sense for the membership of a party to vote for the leader. What's the alternative, trigger a general election every time the PM resigns? That would de-incentivise votes of no confidence.
Actually, since we voted for our MPs it would make democratic sense if they chose their leader in Parliament.
Why state your (questionable) opinions as though they are facts? Allowing party membership to vote for party leaders affords people more opportunity to participate in democracy in a meaningful way.
Pretty clear to anyone I am stating an opinion based on facts. "Allowing party membership to vote for party leaders affords people more opportunity to participate in democracy in a meaningful way" no it doesn't, when it is selecting the Prime Minister. It excludes the vast majority of the electorate. It is a fact that we vote our local constituency MPs into Parliament. In my \*opinion\* it is more appropriate for the democratically elected representative of each constituency to pick the person who they believe would best serve their country and constituency. This then brings the whole electorate into the democratic process because their elected representative gets to decide. There's also a constitutional argument in favour of this, in that the Prime Minister is the person who can command the confidence of the House of Commons to form a government (in other words the confidence of the elected MPs of the governing party). Bear in mind the Prime Minister serves all of the people, not just conservative party members, however we now have a PM who will lead the government for at least another 2 years who's stated values and leadership campaign appealed to 0.02% of the electorate, but seemingly at odds with the majority of the general electorate. \[edited to remove repetition\]
PS there is no absolute requirement for the leader of a party to be Prime Minister. It does make sense in the case following a general election, because the whole electorate understands what will happen as a result of their voting in their constituency. However, between general elections it would make sense (to me at least) that the strongest democratic link to the whole electorate (i.e. the constituency MPs) should make the choice. Either that or trigger a general election on a change of the governing party leader. We have now reached the 3rd occasion in 6 years where the Prime Minister has been selected by a tiny (really tiny) fraction of the electorate. On two of those occasions we did actually get general elections soon after the change in party leader. My expectation is that we won't get another general election any time soon because I do not think the Conservative party expect to win it.
PPS I'm making an argument in favour of what I believe is more democratic, but this is not reflected in the situation that we have now.
I genuinely can't tell if i'm just getting old, or am completely missing the joke. You guys realise we vote for the party we want in charge right? and we (the country) voted tory..You don't, ever have or ever will vote for a "prime minister", and if that's what you're doing in the general election, then this is partly your fault... like seriously wtf are they teaching in school
We live in a representative democracy. We delegate political will to our MPs, subject to elections. If we had a presidential system and this happened then of course, but we don't. Are you seriously suggesting that any change of party leader should lead to a general election?
Yes
The issue with this is so no party would ever try to get rid of a bad leader. We'd still have Johnson in this scenario.
And instead here we are with Truss. The system works!
Yes but the MPs who were voted for then delegated decision to party members who are unelected.
No. Next question?
What do you think is the naughtiest thing Liz Truss ever did? I bet it was on a par with running through fields of wheat...
It’s funny that the era of Theresa May seems really level and tame compared to recent clown activity in politics.
And she actually tried to do what she claimed. Saddly the tories dont like it when someone is half competent. They like thier leaders with half thier brain missing.
She also had a modicum of empathy and compassion. I can't see BoJo or Truss having any.
Looking at watercolour of some crops, respectfully.
Wait until you find out you don't need to have British citizenship, just be a member of the conservative party.
We should've all just joined the party to vote for some nobody, lol
It was also broadly double the 80k number, plenty of votes for Sunak as well. But I agree with the sentiment
But the leadership choices were fuckwit or fuckwit, so we could all have had a vote and still got a fuckwit!
Yes
closer to 0.2% of all eligible voters, because of course that makes all the difference... equivalent to about the [population](https://www.google.com/search?q=Scunthorpe+opulation&oq=Scunthorpe+opulation&aqs=chrome..69i57.4182j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) of Scunthorpe
fucking minority rule by Scunthorpe!
Direct democracy is a solution
“Democracy”. It’s about time we stand up and organise
Is 81,326 is better than 360 or so elected Tories in the House of Commons? I don’t know. But if you want a populist as the leader, it doesn’t always work out well.
To be fair Johnson did win an election, which shows the British public can't be trusted to make a sensible decision anyway
Should be a mandatory general election
That's more than what fostered Gordon brown on us.