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CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Tue, 9. May 17, 12:28

Ketraar wrote:At least at local level people also need to be close to political parties, go to their meetings where candidates are "shaped" and try to influence that, this has the biggest impact in the long run...
That's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't bear much relationship to how it really works in practice.

In practice your chosen local candidate has two choices: stick to a set of principles and get votes from those who agree with those principles (and not get voted in unless those principles happen to appeal to the largest number of people in your area) or say what people want to hear (and get voted in if they are the best at selling themselves). If you, as a local activist, choose to try and persuade them to do the former, you are often actually reducing their chances of getting elected!

Then of course if they do get elected, they have the option of continuing to stick to their set of principles (in which case they probably won't get far up the party hierarchy and make it into a position of responsibility, even if their party gets into power) or toeing the party line, even if the party line drifts away from those principles in order to chase votes (a better chance of getting into some position with influence, but they just become another one of those lying politicians that changes their tune as soon as they get elected).

Great, isn't it?

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Post by Ketraar » Tue, 9. May 17, 12:57

I think you are being to pessimistic. I can only speak for my experience and even if small, I and some people I know have been able to introduce change in both social and political landscape. In 2005 I participated in the creation of a "alternative" list and we managed to elect 1 person for a county equivalent house of representatives and 2 people in towns/villages in the same county. This year we are expected to elect 3 in county and 1 the county hall (which is a big deal) and several in various towns/villages.

Yes it took 12 years and its freaking hard work and but imagine if we had hundreds of people collaborating instead of the on and off 20-30. So again, sorry, I cant agree on this doomsday scenario where everything is pointless, yes its hard and yes it involves changing paradigms, but its NOT impossible. Even if our efforts produce little or no effect, doing nothing is not an option, since THAT outcome is predefined. :-)

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Post by pjknibbs » Tue, 9. May 17, 13:35

And you're probably being too optimistic, maybe due to living in a country that doesn't use first past the post? :wink:

The thing is, first past the post really only works when you have two parties. If you introduce additional candidates all that tends to happen is that the system gets even unfairer to voters without providing any actual change. As an example: I hate UKIP with a passion and hope that they die out entirely after this upcoming election, but nonetheless I find it beyond reprehensible that they picked up more than 12% of the popular vote in the 2015 election and yet gained only 0.2% of the seats. Meanwhile, the Conservatives achieved a straight majority of seats on less than 37% of the vote...

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Post by CBJ » Tue, 9. May 17, 14:17

Exactly. In this country you achieve nothing unless you manage to poll more votes than anybody else in a given constituency, and that applies at every level from the most local right up to the national. If 51% of the people in your area are going to vote one way regardless, it doesn't matter what the other 49% do. And the more people that stand, the more fragmented the vote gets and the smaller the number of voters the winner has to have to win. And of course that last point also happens to be how the FN managed to get into the second round in the French presidential elections.

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Post by Ketraar » Tue, 9. May 17, 15:05

Indeed, as I mentioned in a previous post, FPTP is not really democratic and not sure why its still in use. Maybe people should rally behind trying to abolish that as a priority then?

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Post by CBJ » Tue, 9. May 17, 15:38

The FPTP system benefits the main two parties, because it reduces their likelihood of needing to form a coalition, therefore neither of them supports changing it. The only parties that support changing it are the smaller ones that have no chance of getting into power and, because of the FPTP system, very little chance of becoming an influential member of a coalition. The only time it did happen, the "junior" party in the coalition managed to secure a referendum on the subject. A not-that-great form of PR was put forward, which the two main parties campaigned heavily against (mainly on the premise that coalition=bad) and it was resoundingly rejected by the public.

Edit: Typo.
Last edited by CBJ on Tue, 9. May 17, 15:42, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Bishop149 » Tue, 9. May 17, 15:40

Ketraar wrote:Indeed, as I mentioned in a previous post, FPTP is not really democratic and not sure why its still in use. Maybe people should rally behind trying to abolish that as a priority then?
We had a golden opportunity to replace it with something less awful in 2011. . . . aaaaaand the idiotic British electorate voted against it, and in doing so against their own representation.
Yes, we really are that stupid*.

This was due to a number of things, but primarily:
- Apathy, awful turn out even by British standards.
- The two main parties predictably uniting against it, seeing as of course they had the worlds biggest possible vested interest in maintaining the status quo of FPTP.
- The YES vote was championed by one Nick Clegg, who was at the time basically a nadir of his popularity. Many simply voted against him rather than on the actual issue.

*Aaaaand for our amazing encore we give you . . . . . . Brexit, ba dum tsssh! :roll:
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Post by Ketraar » Tue, 9. May 17, 16:10

OK I give up, you people are doomed. Sucks to be British I guess :-P

France has the same stupid concept btw. just to resemble to be anything close to on-topic, not that anyone in this far corner of the X Universe gives 2 rotten tomatoes about it. :-)

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Post by pjknibbs » Tue, 9. May 17, 17:06

Bishop149 wrote: This was due to a number of things, but primarily:
- Apathy, awful turn out even by British standards.
- The two main parties predictably uniting against it, seeing as of course they had the worlds biggest possible vested interest in maintaining the status quo of FPTP.
- The YES vote was championed by one Nick Clegg, who was at the time basically a nadir of his popularity. Many simply voted against him rather than on the actual issue.
You forgot the fourth reason: "People who supported PR who voted against the proposal because it wasn't PR *enough*.". Sounds ridiculous, but there are people who openly stated on this very forum that they were going to vote No in the referendum as a protest against not being offered proper PR. I pointed out at the time that a No vote wouldn't be taken as "Oh, the people don't like this version of PR, we'd better offer a better one", but would be taken as, "Oh, the people don't want PR at all, let's carry on as normal!"--and lo, so it has come to pass.

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Post by CBJ » Tue, 9. May 17, 18:23

pjknibbs wrote:I pointed out at the time that a No vote wouldn't be taken as "Oh, the people don't like this version of PR, we'd better offer a better one", but would be taken as, "Oh, the people don't want PR at all, let's carry on as normal!"--and lo, so it has come to pass.
Which of course was exactly why this version of PR was the only one on offer. The LibDem's were promised a referendum as part of the coalition deal, but they were shafted. Either they were so pleased with getting the offer that they neglected to specify the type of PR that would go into the vote, or they weren't in a strong enough position to negotiate it. Either way, the form of PR that was offered was a deliberately unattractive one to ensure that it would fail, and could subsequently be used as evidence that people didn't want PR.

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Post by Ketraar » Tue, 9. May 17, 18:54

I still have to chim in a small bit I forgot to mention before. While FPTP is bad and all that, it still requires a majority of people to cast a vote in whatever direction and while its really bad for those that vote differently (not getting any representation) it is possible to influence change if enough people do it. The example of people not getting to vote due to the feeling their vote is pointless is a good one (the example), even here where we dont have that odd system many people dont vote for that reason.

Often these groups are the one that hold most power to impact change (younger people especially so), but choose not to participate.

I'm not sure how its set up in the UK, but here we can force a referendum if enough signatures are collected, countries like Switzerland have do referendums all the time. Even if people there take it for granted (no surprise here)

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Post by Ripskar » Tue, 9. May 17, 20:53

Ah yes, the utter futility of living in a safe seat...
It is a total waste of time, money and effort to vote in such places even if you support the incumbent.
Even the Rotten Boroughs (votes were openly sold in such places and victory went to the candidate with the most lavish bribes.) were better than this.
Still, here's to the imminent demise of UKIP and hope the tories start returning to some form of sanity instead of going for the far-right positions.

You hear all the stuff about floating voters being bombarded with election material and targeted by "big data"...
They never qualify it with the phrase "living in marginal seats". The scene in a safe seat should contain tumbleweed...
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Post by CBJ » Wed, 10. May 17, 00:38

Ketraar wrote:I'm not sure how its set up in the UK, but here we can force a referendum if enough signatures are collected, countries like Switzerland have do referendums all the time. Even if people there take it for granted (no surprise here)
Nope. In the UK, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty means that only parliament can trigger a referendum, and in practice that means they only happen when the government in power wants them to. There have only ever been three full national referendums; two were about the EU (one to join, one to leave) and the third was the one about changing the voting system.

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Post by Usenko » Wed, 10. May 17, 17:02

As an observation, it would appear that you don't have a system for managing them, as well. If something like the Brexit referendum had happened in Australia, before the referendum could proceed both the Yes and No cases would have to submit clear plans on what would happen and when. There also needs to be a triple majority (majority of people in a majority of states, with the states affected all being unanimously in favour).

Assuming states mapped to countries, Brexit would have failed even with the numbers you had in the UK if it'd been according to our system. But if it had passed, then there would have been a clear timetable and set of acts of parliament to be passed already in position.
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Post by Bishop149 » Wed, 10. May 17, 17:41

Usenko wrote:As an observation, it would appear that you don't have a system for managing them, as well. If something like the Brexit referendum had happened in Australia, before the referendum could proceed both the Yes and No cases would have to submit clear plans on what would happen and when. There also needs to be a triple majority (majority of people in a majority of states, with the states affected all being unanimously in favour).

Assuming states mapped to countries, Brexit would have failed even with the numbers you had in the UK if it'd been according to our system. But if it had passed, then there would have been a clear timetable and set of acts of parliament to be passed already in position.
There are actually official government guidelines in place for the running of referenda much circulated at the time, although now I can't find them because all my searches just bring up endless Brexit commentary!

But for the EU referendum these were not abided by, being guidelines rather than laws. One of the provisions was that the position to change the current status quo would require an absolute majority of the ELIGIBLE vote to pass, not an just a majority of CAST vote. Had this been the rule we would not now be headed for Brexit.

The majority of countries take it further, often requiring a 2/3 vote in favour to carry the change to the status quo. This is all eminently sensible as in ensures that the change must be unarguably the democratic will of the majority, rather than a result that could be swung the other way minor tweak to the voting rules and is thus VERY arguable.
Hence the current total shambles, a country split basically 50:50 with each side getting if anything MORE angry at each other over time.

TBH I think the whole thing was a rushed botch job because the government was so bloody confident they'd win by a large margin that they basically just didn't bother to do it properly.
Last edited by Bishop149 on Wed, 10. May 17, 17:47, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Ketraar » Wed, 10. May 17, 17:45

Well the whole Brexit thing was a publicity stunt the former UK PM tried, in the attempt to please everyone. It blew up in his face since he'd clearly only suggested to do a referendum (to get elected) thinking it would not pass. Jokes on him I guess and those that like him, thought things were set and nothing could happen really (even the dushe Farage was surprised).

That the referendum had no legal value and instead a mere "asking of opinion", was laughable tbh.

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Post by CBJ » Wed, 10. May 17, 17:54

Ketraar wrote:That the referendum had no legal value and instead a mere "asking of opinion", was laughable tbh.
No UK referendum has ever been legally binding, because that would violate the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. Explanations are here and here if you can be bothered to read them. :)

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Post by birdtable » Wed, 10. May 17, 18:24

Regretfully regardless of PR or FTTP I can think of no country than can be set up as a shining example of a truly democratic system working to the benefit of all,,, in the end the economics of the marketplace dictates all political decision making...... money talks... The same people rise to the top to dominate regardless of any political idealism or theory.

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Post by pjknibbs » Wed, 10. May 17, 22:11

Ketraar wrote:Well the whole Brexit thing was a publicity stunt the former UK PM tried, in the attempt to please everyone. It blew up in his face since he'd clearly only suggested to do a referendum (to get elected) thinking it would not pass.
It wasn't really to get elected by the public that he promised the referendum. He needed to keep his own party's Euro-sceptic wing on board, because he didn't have a very big majority and needed every vote within his party to be actually able to do anything. So, he promised the Brexit vote to keep them happy, believing it would be an easy win and would shut them up for a while.

Of course, believing it would be an easy win he didn't actually bother campaigning properly at first, and when the polls showed how close things were likely to be it left him wrong-footed and he had no idea what to do.

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