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[ronnyd]

Sir Starmer has already scrapped the Rwanda plan and when the weather improves and surge in dinghy crossings is expected. This surge has already been dubbed The Starmada! 

The concentration on immigration is the major problem for the Conservatives. We now have 100% control on legal immigration - 685K net last year. We have 0% control on illegal immigration - which was somewhere around 50K-55K.

There is nothing anyone can do about illegal immigration - never is, never was - unless you want to blockade/declare war on France. So all the while the ERG zealots drive the Conservative party banging on about dingys and coming up with more and more balmy ideas, it just turns more and more people off them. They need to accept there is nothing that can be done about illegal immigration, and move on to explaining policies to the public that can actually work.

Starmers best option IMV is to try and control legal immigration. If he can reduce that by (say) 10% each year then it'll be about 50% (350K p/a) lower by the time of the next election. That'll be much easier to claim as a 'win' rather than concentrating on the 55K p/a illegals. The problem being of course that things like the NHS and Social care rely on immigrants.

Make the illegals legal and then give them the NHS and social care jobs. What could possibly go wrong. 

[Andy B]

....
- unless you want to blockade/declare war on France.  ....

sounds like a plan  ..... we've done it before! 

[LC0112G]

....
- unless you want to blockade/declare war on France.  ....

sounds like a plan  ..... we've done it before! 

Perhaps, when we had a navy. Nowadays I think we're down to something like 20 'proper' ships (frigates, destroyers, carriers), so we'd probably lose.

[Raeturbo]

That applies to all our forces I’m afraid.

[LC0112G]

.You'll probably say yeah, but Reform got 4.1 million votes vs the Conservative 6.8 million. Irrelevant. The UK system is FPTP so what really matters is who comes first and second in every seat. If a voter decides they're fed up with the Conservatives and want to oust their sitting Conservative MP, they'll hold their nose and vote for whoever came second last time. Hence why the Lib Dems have done so well with 72 seats on 'only' 3.5 million votes.

With 412 Labour MPs, we can expect a significant amount of by elections over the next 5 years where the incumbent Labour MP has gone for whatever reason, and in places where Reform came second. There are over a 100 constituencies where Reform came in a comfortable second from Labour.

This is the attitude I'm warning against. Labour have a majority of 86 or so, although in practice it's more since Sinn Fein never take their seats. The belief that if the 100 or so constituencies which had Reform second had all voted for the Conservative candidate instead is simply flawed, for several reasons.

1) In the 2019 election, UKIP came second in 120 seats. So coming second in 100 seats (and winning 5) isn't really any advance.
2) The belief that all reform voters are ex Conservatives is questionable and probabaly wrong.
3) To 'win' back all the reform voters, the conservatives would have to move so far to the right that they would lose even more voters to the centre (LibDem or Green) or even Labour.
4) The 100 or so seats where Con+Ref would have won were not all won by Labour - so winning a seat back from (say) the LibDems does nothing to reduce the Lab majority.

The Conservatives need to win back votes from the LibDems and Labour, not UKIP/Reform. If they do not realise that, then they're going to lose the next election too.

And I doubt there will be very many by-elections either. Most of the new crop of MP's are wet behind the ears PPE graduates straight out of university, so will live for years, and I would expect their parties to have checked their Twitbook and Faceache histories for anything mildly contentious.

[Raeturbo]

Holy shit,, nice one mate🤣👍. Well put.👍

[Doctor Gollum]

Are Sinn Fein allowed to take their seats? I thought they were prevented from doing so by anti terrorism legislation 

[STEMO]

None of this really matters right now, the deed is done. Now be good boys and open wide.
(Both your backsides and your wallets) 

[Sir Tigger KC]

Labour have a majority of 86 or so.....

Were have you been these last few days?    Labour have a majority of 174.     

1) In the 2019 election, UKIP came second in 120 seats.

UKIP barely existed in 2019. 

And I doubt there will be very many by-elections either. Most of the new crop of MP's are wet behind the ears PPE graduates straight out of university, so will live for years, and I would expect their parties to have checked their Twitbook and Faceache histories for anything mildly contentious.

Yes you might be right about that, but the thing with wet behind the ears PPE grads straight out of Uni though is the scope for them to naively do and say stupid things. 

Especially if Rachel Reeves is true to her word about being fiscally responsible. There will be alot of frustrated Labour MPs if she doesn't open the spending taps.

[LC0112G]

Labour have a majority of 86 or so.....

Were have you been these last few days?    Labour have a majority of 174.     

Misspoke - what I meant was the Conservatives need a swing of 86 seats from Labour. Yes they have a 174 vote parliamentary majority.

1) In the 2019 election, UKIP came second in 120 seats.

UKIP barely existed in 2019. 

According to this (yes it's the Grauniad, so coud be fantasy)....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/05/eleven-charts-that-show-how-labour-won-by-a-landslide
[quote = "The Guardian"]
 The Brexit party came in second place in only three constituencies in 2019, although it did not contest Conservative-held seats. While Farage’s Ukip won only one seat in 2015, it came second in 120 constituencies.
[/quote]

So UKIP came second in 120 seats but didn't even fight in any Conservative ones? And this time Reform came second in 100 seats whilst it did contest Conservative seats. Doesn't sound like any kind of advance to me. I fully expect Respect to go the same way as UKIP, SDP etc and just end up a footnote in UK political history.

And I doubt there will be very many by-elections either. Most of the new crop of MP's are wet behind the ears PPE graduates straight out of university, so will live for years, and I would expect their parties to have checked their Twitbook and Faceache histories for anything mildly contentious.

Yes you might be right about that, but the thing with wet behind the ears PPE grads straight out of Uni though is the scope for them to naively do and say stupid things. 

Especially if Rachel Reeves is true to her word about being fiscally responsible. There will be alot of frustrated Labour MPs if she doesn't open the spending taps.

It takes time for political dessent to grow, and for political corruption to fester. I just can't see anything significant happening in the first term, when everyone will tow the line to avoid scaring the horses. Starmer/Reeves will have to be tough on the unions though -  probably by promising them jam tomorrow.

[LC0112G]

Are Sinn Fein allowed to take their seats? I thought they were prevented from doing so by anti terrorism legislation 

Yes, they're allowed to take their seats providing the swear allegiance to the King. Which they won't, so they can't.

[Nick W]

....
- unless you want to blockade/declare war on France.  ....

sounds like a plan  ..... we've done it before! 

Perhaps, when we had a navy. Nowadays I think we're down to something like 20 'proper' ships (frigates, destroyers, carriers), so we'd probably lose.

That's about the same as the French navy....

[Nick W]

With 412 Labour MPs, we can expect a significant amount of by elections over the next 5 years where the incumbent Labour MP has gone for whatever reason, and in places where Reform came second. There are over a 100 constituencies where Reform came in a comfortable second from Labour.

As to the Tories, they really need to decide what kind of party they are. Either a Blairite centrist tribute act, or a small 'c' conservative right of centre party that believes in the low tax, small state, controlled immigration model. They can't be both.

Sir Starmer has already scrapped the Rwanda plan and when the weather improves and surge in dinghy crossings is expected. This surge has already been dubbed The Starmada! 

What would you consider a significant number? There have been 59 parliamentary by elections in the last 14 years.


Anyone who thinks you can extrapolate by-election results to a full one has either never looked at such results, or is deluding themselves. Actually, they're more likely to be doing both. By-elections are frequently used to give whoever is in power a good kicking. And that's basically what happened with Reform in this election; much of that support will bleed back to the Conservatives, just like the switch between Labour and Conservative in the last one.


The tories turning onto a Blairite centrist tribute act would be like placing two empty mirrors opposite each other

[Sir Tigger KC]

With 412 Labour MPs, we can expect a significant amount of by elections over the next 5 years where the incumbent Labour MP has gone for whatever reason, and in places where Reform came second. There are over a 100 constituencies where Reform came in a comfortable second from Labour.

As to the Tories, they really need to decide what kind of party they are. Either a Blairite centrist tribute act, or a small 'c' conservative right of centre party that believes in the low tax, small state, controlled immigration model. They can't be both.

Sir Starmer has already scrapped the Rwanda plan and when the weather improves and surge in dinghy crossings is expected. This surge has already been dubbed The Starmada! 

What would you consider a significant number? There have been 59 parliamentary by elections in the last 14 years.


Anyone who thinks you can extrapolate by-election results to a full one has either never looked at such results, or is deluding themselves. Actually, they're more likely to be doing both. By-elections are frequently used to give whoever is in power a good kicking. And that's basically what happened with Reform in this election; much of that support will bleed back to the Conservatives, just like the switch between Labour and Conservative in the last one.


The tories turning onto a Blairite centrist tribute act would be like placing two empty mirrors opposite each other

What I meant by that, is with the large numbers of Labour MP's, a significant number of By Elections will be where the incumbent Labour MP has had to stand down for one reason or another.  Maybe I could have worded it better, but I wasn't saying that there will be more by elections during this parliament than any other.

Malcolm said that in By Elections it's often the candidate who came second in the General Election that win the By Election, and I just pointed out that Reform came second in over 100 seats, so by that theory they could have more MPs by the next General Election.

As to Reforms prospects, comparing them to UKIP in 2015 is daft.  David Cameron had just won a surprising majority ousting the Lib Dems from government which in theory should have allowed him to follow a small 'c' conservative agenda and he announced the EU referendum quickly which completely and utterly neutered UKIP.  Todays Tories are a defeated rabble in search of a cause, and the battle for the soul of the party is just beginning. It will be a long time before they get their act together. Get your popcorn out folks! 

Meanwhile, the small boats will continue coming across the Channel and these undocumented young men from the Middle East and Africa will be dispersed around the country. They will become a common sight hanging around in groups in parks and town centres. Tales of young girls being approached, followed, propositioned, sexually abused and even raped by these men will spread like wildfire on social media, as much as the media try to pretend it isn't happening.

Farage and Reform, will be the only people talking about this. They will hold Trump style rallies around the country which will attract large numbers of pissed off people and even more people will watch the livestreams.  The media will of course dismiss them as racist bigots and will try to ignore these rallies as they did with the Reform rally at the NEC last weekend where 5000 turned up. It was the biggest election event held by any of the political parties. They now have funding and will keep their profile high, so they could well do well at By Elections.

The flip side to this coin is if Labour manage to stop the boats and drastically cut legal immigration, then Reforms reason for being will be as neutered as UKIP's was in 2015. That seems unlikely though... 

[Doctor Gollum]

With 412 Labour MPs, we can expect a significant amount of by elections over the next 5 years where the incumbent Labour MP has gone for whatever reason, and in places where Reform came second. There are over a 100 constituencies where Reform came in a comfortable second from Labour.

As to the Tories, they really need to decide what kind of party they are. Either a Blairite centrist tribute act, or a small 'c' conservative right of centre party that believes in the low tax, small state, controlled immigration model. They can't be both.

Sir Starmer has already scrapped the Rwanda plan and when the weather improves and surge in dinghy crossings is expected. This surge has already been dubbed The Starmada! 

What would you consider a significant number? There have been 59 parliamentary by elections in the last 14 years.


Anyone who thinks you can extrapolate by-election results to a full one has either never looked at such results, or is deluding themselves. Actually, they're more likely to be doing both. By-elections are frequently used to give whoever is in power a good kicking. And that's basically what happened with Reform in this election; much of that support will bleed back to the Conservatives, just like the switch between Labour and Conservative in the last one.


The tories turning onto a Blairite centrist tribute act would be like placing two empty mirrors opposite each other

What I meant by that, is with the large numbers of Labour MP's, a significant number of By Elections will be where the incumbent Labour MP has had to stand down for one reason or another.  Maybe I could have worded it better, but I wasn't saying that there will be more by elections during this parliament than any other.

Malcolm said that in By Elections it's often the candidate who came second in the General Election that win the By Election, and I just pointed out that Reform came second in over 100 seats, so by that theory they could have more MPs by the next General Election.

As to Reforms prospects, comparing them to UKIP in 2015 is daft.  David Cameron had just won a surprising majority ousting the Lib Dems from government which in theory should have allowed him to follow a small 'c' conservative agenda and he announced the EU referendum quickly which completely and utterly neutered UKIP.  Todays Tories are a defeated rabble in search of a cause, and the battle for the soul of the party is just beginning. It will be a long time before they get their act together. Get your popcorn out folks! 

Meanwhile, the small boats will continue coming across the Channel and these undocumented young men from the Middle East and Africa will be dispersed around the country. They will become a common sight hanging around in groups in parks and town centres. Tales of young girls being approached, followed, propositioned, sexually abused and even raped by these men will spread like wildfire on social media, as much as the media try to pretend it isn't happening.

Farage and Reform, will be the only people talking about this. They will hold Trump style rallies around the country which will attract large numbers of pissed off people and even more people will watch the livestreams.  The media will of course dismiss them as racist bigots and will try to ignore these rallies as they did with the Reform rally at the NEC last weekend where 5000 turned up. It was the biggest election event held by any of the political parties. They now have funding and will keep their profile high, so they could well do well at By Elections.

The flip side to this coin is if Labour manage to stop the boats and drastically cut legal immigration, then Reforms reason for being will be as neutered as UKIP's was in 2015. That seems unlikely though... 

Rest assured, (for want of a much better phrase), this is happening all across northern Europe. Eventually the locals will do something about it and it won't be pretty.

It might actually be better to move all the decent people to Rwanda and set up a decent society founded on something more meaningful than rainbows and money trees.