Alex von Tunzelmann: This piece in the Telegraph is pretty wacky - I’m not sure that four independent single-issue MPs plus Jeremy Corbyn constitute a party - but the victories for pro-Palestine candidates, plus some very near misses, do seem significant to me. www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

This piece in the Telegraph is pretty wacky - I’m not sure that four independent single-issue MPs plus Jeremy Corbyn constitute a party - but the victories for pro-Palestine candidates, plus some very near misses, do seem significant to me. www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Pro-Palestinian MPs become ‘sixth largest’ party in shock Labour defeatswww.telegraph.co.uk Five independent candidates elected as Muslim Vote organisation boasts ‘unprecedented’ influence on Friday’s result

I’m sure plenty of Labour people are shrugging this off because they don’t think it’ll still be an issue in 2029. Maybe not. I hope not, because I hope we’ll have peace in the Middle East with freedom and dignity for all. But that is a significant vote bloc and it can’t be taken for granted.

I agree. Also think the way that bloc was manipulated by bad actors was one of the most worrying aspects of election night.

Yes. There were definitely some election materials and posters around where I live in East London which were pretty horrendous. I’m somewhat cheered by the booting out of George Galloway, though.

there were bad actors around, but it looks like most of the Gaza Independents who actually got elected were fairly normie Labour types who had left the party? tbh the real scandal is the way this bloc has been completely abandoned by most "good" actors...

... despite the fact that the actual view of pro-ceasefire, anti-arms sales, pro-ICC seems to be mainstream or even majority

Were they ex-Labour? Corbyn obv. But the rest? Ayoub Khan was a Lib Dem until he allegedly questioned the 7 Oct events. I agree generally though that Labour has handled this poorly, internally and externally.

So many lessons to learn for Labour. They completely took people for granted on this issue.

It may be the majority, but it's not allowed to be mainstream, because you'll still get run out for antisemitism if you bring it up

One was ex LibDem I think

I think losing Ashworth and almost losing Streeting will definitely focus minds at the top of the party.

I think there's an element where Starmer instructed his core team to ignore social media and that's worked to get into power, but now in they need to understand what's happening on the left *and* how to communicate with them - managing a Labour coalition is probs as hard as running the country tbf.

any idea how many Labour "left" MPs there are?

I think the Socialist Campaign group has around 25-30 MPs? Fair few more probably also fit the bill if it was extended to a more soft left (more online, pro-Palestine, pro-trans, not fully tax the rich till they pop but further than the leadership etc).

thanks, I guess then we're maybe talking 10-15% of their MPs, enough to make a loud noise not enough to threaten their majority. Should be interesting.

Possibly enough to cause problems in 2029 if not managed effectively though.

I do wonder how much this vote's specific to Palestine and how much of it is for not at best looking the other way for, if not actually supporting, civilian massacres. With war still going on in Ukraine and an unstable world, that could be very relevant.

I think it’s very specific to Palestine. It’s obviously concentrated in Muslim communities and the relevant campaigns (aside from Corbyn’s) were pretty much exclusively focused on Gaza.

I think it’s also notable Galloway lost. Implies the bulk of the votes were due to heartfelt belief in the cause and not hard-left malcontents. (This could be ignoring local factors I know nothing about).

Agreed. Though also I’d say Galloway’s personal charms generally seem to wear off quite quickly.

Someone was talking on here recently about people who are good from a distance but terrible up close (I think about sunak). Galloway must be that for some (terrible/terrible for most though).

Which leaves me thinking how they will perform as MPs. The responsibilities to all their constituents as well as within the House of Commons are far broader than this one issue, and they may not always align as closely as they do on Gaza.

Yes. Of course they may all turn out to be conscientious and dedicated local MPs, but if you elect someone on a single issue (and, in this case, one which realistically they have no power to affect), then you spin the wheel on that.

This is true but I do dislike the implication that they'll somehow all be terrible constituency MPs because they were elected on a foreign policy platform. Loads of major party MPs are absolutely useless and I don't think the ideological position particularly correlates.

The comment was in the context of these particular MPs but def not unique. I think the same thing applies to Reform esp. Farage. Established parties do have infrastructure to support their new MPs. Just like with organisations and their recruitment, some will flourish, others won't be successful.

Yeah, big question in my mind is whether this is a) reaction to Gaza situation which will recede when / if context changes or b) more long-term shift to voting more along religious / ethnic lines (inc support for Reform).

Australian Labor Party ostensibly kicked out their Pro-Palestinian MP this week bc she would not be constrained by party rules - enbloc. She left after bullying/harassment/lack of support. In any case this is an issue that will remain in Occidental politics until there is a Palestinian state.

It’s as least as significant as the five Reform seats, which are getting a LOT of coverage.

I hate Reform but their 4 seats are actually more significant and getting coverage because it underlies broader support across the nation. See the results below we would have had under PR which align more to vote share. The far right are building a sizeable base in the UK.

But we don’t have PR. I don’t want to be blasé about it, but this support looks broad but shallow under FPTP. To build on it, they’d need more than Farage’s cult of personality (which is highly divisive anyway) - they’d need far more credible and disciplined candidates everywhere.

And the other thing is the vote share is partly a product of the voting system and the reporting. Tories effectively gave up 2 weeks ago, and Tactical voting seemed more of a thing.

Absolutely. These results appear to reflect those able to understand the electoral system we do have and work that to their advantage to achieve their aim, including tactical voting. PR would mean a totally different strategy by parties and voters alike.

But if the only way that you get some sort of consensus politics is to vote tactically, that's what you get. FPTP and PR are incompatible systems. You can apply the logic of one to the other. It's like trying to talk Mandarin to a Khosa Speaker. There is no possible interchange.

If we'd had PR then people would have voted differently, so visualising what happened like this is pretty meaningless

I found political hypotheticals less than useful

But we have the data of who people would actually vote for? Right wingers are more or less voting for who they want. Source: YouGov yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

One in five voters say they are voting tactically at the 2024 general election | YouGovyougov.co.uk Tactical voters are most likely to be Greens who are lending their vote to other parties

Yup. It’s pointless to extrapolate like this. People voting Reform knew (mostly) that they’d get a Labour gov & they did it anyway. They also knew they wouldn’t grant Reform real power. All we know is they wanted to kick Tories and were prepared to lean righter. Scary but not the same as in PR

And perhaps some kind of organisation/administration to back them up, rather than just some listing at Companies House?

For a comparison, the far-right PVV was the largest party in the Netherlands, and is the leading party in the government. On the first day of its existence, Geert Wilders was attacking his own hand-picked PM and PVV ministers were having to apologise. It is chaos.

It is chaos. Because none of the others align with Wilders' ideals. In an FPTP system Wilders would have a far harder path to power, but if he takes it it is unlikely he would need to negotiate or moderate his position for anyone. Leading to muslim persecution.

Excellent point. He is already a one-man party, and it would become a de facto, possibly even de jure dictatorship

True, I think we should as it's more representative of society more broadly. If we do move towards it we will have to come to terms with populist right surges. I think Farage himself is not credible, and is on the record with racist stunts + quotes but vast swathes voted for his party.

Those swathes presumably like what he does. Many more do not. But there’s very little name recognition for anyone else in his hastily created party.

I agree. As always Farage's party is a one man band. But it feels like we are hitting a cultural shift where one person is enough. Like all the convos I could see tv, radio, forums were about Starmer, and not Starmer's Labour - aside from bsky I admit.

There is an assumption here that people would vote in the same way if it was a PR election rather than FPTP. I don't necessarily think they would, or do so in the same manner. Also is this with AV or PV?

Not sure, I got it from the electoral reform society. Also I believe under a PR system it would look even more dire. I live in a PR country now, it allows smaller more right populist parties to surge more as people don't vote as tactically.

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