United Kingdom Local Election, 2013

Remove all ads!

Today is local election day in the United Kingdom! There are four parties contesting the majority of local seats in this election. The Conservative Party is set to lose some of their local, they're polling 30% of the vote. The Labour Party is likely to win the election by a plurality, they're polling 38% of the vote nationally. The UK Independence Party is set to make major gains in the election, their polling 15% of the vote nationally. The Liberal Democrats are set to take major losses in this election, they're polling 8% of the vote nationally. A few minor parties, such as the British National Party, Respect Party, British Democratic Party and Green Party will also be contesting the election, but are not expected to make any major gains.

The Conservative Party is generally considered being from centre-right or centrist. The Conservatives advocate for lower taxes and lower spending, while simultaneously supporting currently existing welfare programs and entitlements. The Conservatives also support social conservative values to a degree, but they have been trying to stray away from this in recent years. There is a small libertarian faction in the Conservative Party, with it's most prominent figure being Daniel Hannan. The Conservatives originally promised to oppose the European Union and hold a referendum, but they quickly broke this campaign promise upon assuming power; though many in the libertarian wing of the party are staunchly eurosceptic.

The Labour Party is generally considered centre-left to left-wing. Labour wants to create even more entitlement programs and spend more on welfare. Simultaneously they strongly supported the invasion of Iraq, under Tony Blaire. Officially the party abandoned the word "socialism" in 1995, but there is a growing democratic socialist wing in the party. Other wings of the party include the organized labour wing, which claims to support labour unions and the Islamist wing, which adamantly supports Hamas and the PLO. The Labour Party strongly supports the European Union, and while originally promising a referendum, they refused to hold one upon assuming power.

The UK Independence Party is generally considered right-wing and libertarian. The UK Independence Party advocates a smaller and more decentralized government. UKIP has strongly supported reforming the education system and bringing back grammar schools, to help children from less fortunate neighborhoods have a pathway to success. On social policy, UKIP strongly supports marriage equality through civil unions and keeping abortion safe and legal. UKIP believes Britain should have control over it's own borders, which are largely under the control of the European Union. UKIP is the only party that advocates holding a referendum on British membership in the European Union, though they still support close relations with mainland Europe; they also advocate for much closer relations with the United States and Commonwealth of Nations. UKIP consists of many different factions, the largest of which is by far their libertarian wing. Other factions include the left-wing group, which consists mainly of former Labour and Liberal Democrat voters and the social conservative group, which consists mostly of former Conservative Party members. These various factions within the party are united by common goals: a more decentralized state and support for British sovereignty.

The Liberal Democrats are generally considered left-wing and "progressive." The Liberal Democrats advocate for lower taxes for "the poor," but higher taxes for "the rich." The Liberal Democrats support a strong central state that regulates "inappropriate" or "unsafe" social actions, believing that it's the only way to ensure a "healthy" society. Like Labour and the Tories, they originally promised a referendum on the European Union, but broke that promise upon entering a coalition government. The Liberal Democrats consist of many different factions, with the largest by far being the "progressive" faction. Other wing of the party include eco-socialists and even a small libertarian wing.

There are a few other parties contesting the election, which I will briefly touch on in this paragraph. The British National Party is a "far-right" nationalist party that advocates a strong state and deporting "non-whites," as well as "non-British" Europeans. The Green Party argues for a eco-socialist state that "protects the environment" and fights against man-made global warming. The British Democratic Party is a party that wants to be seen as a "non-racist ethno-nationalist party." The Respect Party is a socialist party that has very strong communist and Islamist (pro-Palestine) policies.

The election will be over in a few hours, but the results will not be available for some time now. Regardless of your nationality, please feel free to vote in the poll and take part in this discussion. What do you think the results of the election will be? Who would you vote for if you were British (or who did you vote for if you are)? What changes in the political environment do you think this election will bring about?

 

What I don't understand is why you don't see through the spin, libertarian isn't voted for out of a love of freedom, it's voted for out of a 'I'm alright Jack' attitude.

Smaller government = cutting government spending, the waves of austerity sent the UK into a double dip recession, and it only avoided a triple dip by the skin of it's teeth after it ceased cutting. As well as the loads of other austerity horror stories out there, and that seminal austerity paper quoted by conservatives all over the world turning out to be based on flawed excel spreadsheets, austerity during a economic downturn goes against common sense. When nobody is spending money, capitalism cannot function, somebody has to spend money to keep the great gears turning, and if nobody else does, the government has to. This is what happened in Australia during the GFC, and it worked, extremely well.

Reforming education = cutting education spending. Grammar schools are beloved by conservatives because they bring the cut-throat mentality of win at all costs private enterprise to the classroom. My public school rugby team absolutely thrashed the local grammar school everytime we played them, why? They would literally fight each other for the ball, and every time one of their players made a mistake his teammates damn near crucified him.

Control over our own borders = cut immigration. This always sells well to the ignorant voter who thinks foreigners are going to steal all the jobs (which is always an easy sell in hard times), sadly as history has shown in government experiments cutting immigration, it is when there are big cuts to immigration that sectors like construction and housing grind to a halt (new people = new houses), and the very construction worker who voted to stop the foreigners coming in ironically finds himself out of a job.

 

Arkite, I think he's planning on coming to live over here. Never known someone take such an interest!
Shame he's going to be disappointed!

 

Nah, you can't get a free gun with your new bank account over here .

 

He's all yours.

 

This is punishment for us sending you guys the Spice Girls, right?

 

If Sil and Barms keep getty Sarky, we will have to send them Sarah Palin as a follow up. We'll even pay you to take her. Please, take her away!

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

My biological father is a BNP member. He congratulated me on the birth of my half-Chinese son. When I asked him if he'd be willing to help us make the move to Britain in the future, this was his reply:

I've noticed that racists really lean heavily on the "I belong here you don't" argument.
Without it, it would be hard to rationalize the disconnect between:
A) I want money from the government simply for looking for a job and caring for my own mother.
B) Damn foreigners always wanting money are ruining this country.

I'm a British citizen, but since I live in China I can't vote in local elections, I think.
BNP is far worse than the Dutch PVV, which had some success a while back, but I'm pleased to hear is losing momentum.

Politics is like bullying: Rich people steal the wealth and dodge taxes, the middle class picks on foreigners for any little advantage they get, and anyone in a weak position bears the brunt of it.

 

I can't be doing with racism.

 

But is this truly racism? Many people have anit-immigrant streaks, especially when times are tough and jobs are hard to find. The mindset is that every job an immigrant takes or any benefit an immigrant receives is something that could otherwise go to them. It's true that these immigrants are a different race than those of Scotland, much like the Hispanic immigrants are a different race than in the US. But, at least in the US, there has long been an anti-immigrant mindset, even when they were the same race. Take from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority of immigrants were from places like Ireland, Italy, Germany and Poland - they were just as white as the US citizens living here, and in many places they were not welcome...

 

Without knowing Coin's dad, I also had a different spin on his email. While yes, he may be upset with immigrants he also sounds like he may be sharing some valuable advice. He is basically saying don't come back to an area where your opportunities are limited. I would like to think if I lived in Detroit, I would give the same advice to my son to move to a different part of the country where there are more jobs.

I also am not that crazy that people assume a dislike of immigrants is racism. If all of the immigrants were professionals and had jobs then I doubt most of these "racists" would really mind. It is more a dislike of people who move to a country and do nothing but leech. I assume people who feel this way, feel the same way about their own citizens who do the same thing. I know I do. I work with all sorts of people from India, South Africa, Russia, etc. I would gladly have more of them in the country and would be more than willing to ship a few others back to where they came from in a trade.

 

'belong here'? At the very least, it's xenophobic.

 

I've been told I'm a racist because I don't agree with the open door immigration policy we seem to have at the moment.
It really made me laugh because the person who said it was rather surprised when my Chinese friend came back from the loo!

Anyway, the UK has reached a point where it is unable to support the people already here, never mind anyone else. And by support I don't just mean benefits, there are more people than there are jobs!

The only thing wrong with Coin's dads email was a couple of bad choices of phrase and the fact that there are far too many people in the world who are desperate to jump on the lefty liberal band wagon before they think

 

There are too few people in the Western world. We NEED the immigrants. In a few years there will be more old people than there are children and that will really DOOM our societies.

 

Close, but no cigar. While you may be correct that we need people, we need a certain type of people. We need productive members of society that are interested in adopting the values of the Western world. What we don't need are non-productive members of society who are more interested in changing the Western World in to the hell-hole they originally come from. Can anyone give me an update on Mexico's space program? Feel free to change that question and insert whichever country makes sense to your situation.

 

OK:

Mexico is trying to create more space by moving its citizens to the U.S.

 

I know plenty of non-productive members of society who are 'Western' (read, English) born and bred. I'd rather turf these out first.

There's so much wrong with that post I don't even know where to start. Although I guess 'small-minded' is a decent kick off.

 

I find that interesting as you would prefer that the person who is leeching off of you to be someone who doesn't have a shred of interest in your culture as opposed to someone who does.

I firmly believe that people need to take care of their own house before they can take care of someone else's.

What you call small-minded I call understanding reality.