Starker on 18/4/2017 at 11:23
Well, this should be interesting. She's probably betting on Labour not being able to pull themselves together.
heywood on 18/4/2017 at 14:12
I need to be educated about this. Why would the Conservative party, who occupies a comfortable majority of seats in Parliament three years out from the next election, want to hold an election now? I know the Labour Party is polling badly, but that doesn't mean anything if this election becomes another referendum on Brexit. In the last Brexit poll I saw (Feb?), public opinion was still close to 50/50. Given the timing of the election, I would expect that single issue to inflate the Labour vote by quite a bit, so it's hard for me to see how the Conservatives can improve their position. And even if they could increase their majority somehow, what would that allow them to do that they can't do now?
Thirith on 18/4/2017 at 14:38
The negative effects that many expect to come of Brexit haven't arrived yet, so they don't damage the Tories. If they waited longer, then any negative impact would fall back on them. In addition, Corbyn's resistance to Brexit has been lukewarm at best, so it's unlikely that Labour will be seen as the anti-Brexit party and the general election will be interpreted as an inofficial second referendum on Brexit. (If anything, the Lib Dems are positioning themselves much more as the anti-Brexit party.) In other words, the Tories can almost only gain from an general election, and they can almost only lose by getting that election later.
nickie on 18/4/2017 at 15:39
I've no idea why. I read somewhere that May believed the country was coming together (I'd not noticed) but Westminster was squabbling, or words to that effect. Perhaps she believes that she'll get more/clearer support from the country in order to tell the MPs to stfu or something.
I've also heard she wants a clearer mandate for when Trump takes us into WWIII. But I don't think I believe that despite some new all-singing, all-dancing US planes arriving over here recently.
Edit: (
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/apr/18/corbyn-cressida-dick-met-police-a-gun-may-not-have-saved-pc-killed-in-westminster-terror-attack-says-new-met-chief-politics-live?page=with:block-58f5e545e4b05776df18eb57#block-58f5e545e4b05776df18eb57) This is what she says, apparently.
Quote:
May says she needs an election now because other parties are opposed to the government’s Brexit plans
May says the government has a plan for Brexit that will allow the UK to regain control of its laws and borders.
This is the right approach.
But the other parties oppose it, she says.
There should be unity in Westminster, she says.
But there is not, she says.
Labour has threatened to vote against the final deal.
The Lib Dems want to grind parliamentary business to a standstill.
The SNP opposes what the government is doing.
And peers have said they will oppose the government all the way.
She says she is not prepared to allow her opponents to jeopardise the Brexit negotiations.
If there is not an election now, game-playing will continue.
And she says the Brexit talks will conclude as election speculation is intensifying.
jkcerda on 18/4/2017 at 17:35
CA just cancelled CAL-Exit.
sucks as it would be nice to split from the liberals........
Renzatic on 18/4/2017 at 17:40
If you live in California, and want to split from the liberals, better start digging a moat.
jkcerda on 18/4/2017 at 17:41
Quote Posted by Renzatic
If you live in California, and want to split from the liberals, better start digging a moat.
too much concrete here for that. I tried..................
Neb on 18/4/2017 at 17:42
Quote Posted by heywood
Why would the Conservative party, who occupies a comfortable majority of seats in Parliament three years out from the next election, want to hold an election now?
To strengthen their mandate maybe? They might want to get rid of that bit in their last manifesto which claims that they'd stay inside the single market.
Quote Posted by heywood
In the last Brexit poll I saw (Feb?), public opinion was still close to 50/50. Given the timing of the election, I would expect that single issue to inflate the Labour vote by quite a bit, so it's hard for me to see how the Conservatives can improve their position
As Thirith said. Labour are getting carved up. Scotland overwhelmingly voted remain, but won't vote Labour (it's all SNP now). There're also divisions between the north of England who voted to leave, and the metropolitan areas who voted remain. The former might see the Conservatives as getting things done, and the latter leaning to the Lib Dems who are emphatically pro-EU. I don't know the fine details of what's likely on a council level though, so it probably won't turn out as dramatic as it sounds.
All the Conservatives have had to deal with is UKIP, who are already melting away.
heywood on 18/4/2017 at 21:25
Are the Conservatives more popular now than in 2015? I'm not as clued-in about UK politics as I used to be when I was living there for months at a time, so I may be talking out my arse, but I was thinking that in the 2015 election, the Conservatives were able to maximize their take by playing both sides. The leadership was pro-EU but they promised to hold the referendum anyway. So they were able to attract some former Lib Dem voters who were into fiscal responsibility etcetera, and at the same time they could attract Euroskeptic voters who wanted the referendum away from UKIP and Labour. Now that the referendum has passed and Article 50 has been triggered and the party leaders are vowing to get on with Brexit, they can't play that game anymore. They currently hold something like 100 seats more than Labour, and the Lib Dems were all but killed off in the last election. How much higher can they go from there if the country is close to evenly divided over Brexit?
caffeinatedzombeh on 18/4/2017 at 22:08
In comparison to Corbyn's Labour party of constant back stabbing and leadership squabbling? I think pretty much everyone is.
I think the Conservatives expect to gain more seats from Labour than they might lose to the Lib Dems. I've not bother to look too closely at the numbers but most of the more Remain voting constituencies aren't currently Conservative anyway. Many areas that were more narrowly in favour of Remain have a larger Conservative majority than Remain, the thinking being that whilst they will probably be considerably closer this time they won't lose that many of them.
