• chitak166@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with British culture. How do they keep electing such garbage politicians? It’s like every decision they make looks awful to everyone but Brits only realize it after the fact.

    • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      While you are not wrong it’s worth noting he was not elected by the public and even worse before he was basically handed the job he ran (internaly) on a platform of fixing the economy he fucked as chancellor of the exchequer

        • TheMongoose@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          While true, the Tory party that won the last election looks a bit different to the gobshites that are in government now.

          Don’t get me wrong, I thought the last lot were assholes as well, but while technically legal, swapping out basically all of the government several times seems like a bit of a bait and switch.

          • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Yeah same can be said for republicans. Seems like conservative parties around the western world are going batshit crazy lately

            • 𝔇𝔦𝔬@lemy.lol
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              10 months ago

              Oh really?

              Unfamiliar with the uprising of right leaning politicians going around I see. Perhaps you should peek in at the Netherlands.

              • Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                Yea unfortunately fascists are taking hold worldwide.

                Just wait until their dimwitted voters find out that they don’t give two fucks about them, and will eat their faces to seize more power.

              • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                I’ve actually lived in both The Netherlands and the UK and the situation is not at all comparable.

                In the UK, which has a First Past The Post parliamentary seat allocation system, a party with 41% of the votes like these guys has 60% of parliamentary seats, more than enough to change any law they feel like because there is no written Constitution (hence no laws require passing the 75% threshold needed to change the Constitution, so a simple 50% + 1 majority is enough). Also and as a side effect of FPTP there are de facto only 3 parties that might ever be part of government, and one of them - the LibDems - maybe once every half a century in average. Winning the most votes in Britain almost invariably means getting near absolute power because a simple parliamentary majority requires only about 37% of votes cast (and remember, in systems rigged so that votes for smaller parties are usually wasted, votes concentrate on large parties), which without a Constitution means very few limits on which laws they can make or change.

                Meanwhile in The Netherlands they have Proportional Vote so their Parliament - the Tweede Kamer - represents quite closely the votes cast and every government is in practice a coalition because nobody gets 50% of the votes (and here you see the very opposite effect you see in FPTP systems - people vote for their favorite option, not for “electable” “lesser evil” options, so voting is naturally very fragmented), plus there is a written Constitution (the Grondwet). Winning the most votes in The Netherlands guarantees nothing in terms of power: it’s pretty much impossible to form government without other parties so if you’re basically “the assholes’ party” you’re not going to get any power at all. Even if you do manage to somehow find enough parties to form a government cohalition (usually it requires 3+ parties), you will still not have enough seats to push through the kind of deep changes to people’s rights that require a change to the Grondwet.

                Unsurprisingly, the Far Right in Britain already took over power, during the Leave Referendum when UKIP supporters became members of the Tory Party (one of the two parties of the de facto power duopoly there) to internally vote in that party’s leadership context so that it was the politicians who those far right people saw as representing them - far right populists who claimed to want to “Free Britain From the EUSSR dictatorship” - who took power in the Tory part, hence took over Government and one of the only 2 trully electable parties over there. Only a few tens of thousands of people were required to, through their vote in the internal Tory Party leadership elections, shift the UK government from Conservative to Far Right Populist.

                Meanwhile in The Netherlands the Far Right have 37 seats (of 150) in the Tweede Kamer and can’t find supporting parties with the needed 39 seats to form a coalition government - they’re about as likely to get power as a chicken to grow teeth and, due to the Grondwet even less likely to be able to pass the kind of changes to the Law that impact the most basic of rights at the Tory Government has been doing in Britain.

                • e_mc2@feddit.nl
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                  10 months ago

                  Very knowledgeable and spot-on comment, at least as far as the Dutch situation is concerned (can’t really judge for the English). This is the kind of stuff I come to Lemmy for, thank you!

          • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            No it’s the same gobshites. Boris was leader at the last election, Sunak and co are part of the same group. The anti-conservatives conservative party. All the conservatives were culled from the party. The people in the party causing trouble for Rishi are those further to the right and people who believe Boris can turn it all around again.

      • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I hate this excuse, everyone knows how parliaments work. You vote for representatives that form a government. Everyone votes for their own constituency only but not everyone ends up with dickheads so consistently.

        • Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social
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          10 months ago

          Sure, but Sunak wasnt even the second choice for the Tories during the last election. He’s in the Gerald Ford grey zone where no one feels like they voted for him, making him seem illegitimate. The British public voted for the Tories in 2019 (because they are morons) with the expectation that Boris Johnson would be in charge. Now the head of the party has resigned twice since then. In theory it’sall standard procedure for Parliament, but it’s a clearly unstable government and viewed as a farce at this point.

          • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            with the expectation that Boris Johnson would be in charge

            I’m not sure this make it any better. It’s not like Boris Johnson hid the fact that he was a Tory. At a certain point I’m just going to stop saying “I told you so” and start calling you an idiot.

            • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              It’s still possible to be unfair to idiots, though.
              If an idiot believes he can face down a speeding freight train, but only if it’s yellow then, in his eyes, it’s just not cricket if the one that turns him into jam is in fact blue.

            • Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social
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              10 months ago

              He wasn’t better, he just had more legitimatacy since he was the party leader during the last election. Hell, Sunak resigned from said government before Johnson resigned. That’s why there were calls for a new election after Truss resigned, but the Tories refused because they knew they would get clobbered at the polls.

        • gmtom@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          everyone knows how parliments work.

          I think you vastly over estimate the knowledge of your average love island watching, down the pub every night after work, get their entire worldview from Facebook, British person.

        • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It’s not an excuse. While you correct in that’s the mechanics of how it works here very few could even tell you the name of the representative they are voting for they just base their vote on the team and or team leader.

          Hell. I remember my mum discussing how she couldn’t vote for kinnock because she can’t stand him. In her Scottish constituency

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The guy that was elected by the public was Boris Johnson, who is arguably even worse.

      • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        He lost the only party member leadership vote he took part in. He lost to someone completely detached from reality, that immediately sought to destroy the value of most people pensions that only benefitted a few hedge funds looking to profit from the UKs demise.

        • Z3k3@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Your preaching to the choir. If it were up to me the whole party wouldn’t get a wiff of power from the first time I was old enough to vote.

          Instead “I got my way” once with these asshats running this shithole even further into the ground ever since

    • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Britain elects parties who then choose the leader. Thats how weve had so many different PMs. Its not like for example where the people elect an individual for four years.

      We had a PM who lasted less time than a lettuce. All chosen by the conservative party

      • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        USA doesn’t really elect our leaders either. It’s basically the same, we have a bunch of people that are expected to vote the way their local population votes but they don’t have to, they can vote anyway they want. Popular vote means nothing. Only difference is once elected they get the whole 4 years.

        • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Happy to be wrong since Im not American, but I thought for the presidency it was a ballot that literally had people on them (which are from certain parties / independents)

          • Brokkr@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I’m a different person than you replied to. You are both correct.

            When we, Americans, vote for president we vote for an individual by their name on the ballot. Technically, we’re voting for electors who have been chosen by our candidate. Those electors get to vote for the actual presidency and can technically change their vote (relative to the popular vote), but in many places they would be penalized for doing so. To my knowledge there have been few, possibly no, legal cases which have tested these laws or systems. So in practicality it doesn’t matter.

          • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            You are wrong, sadly. While the ballot does have candidates for president, technically what you’re doing is a district election for your presidential delegate, who then casts a vote for the president however they want. Usually this means they vote whatever way the popular vote goes in their district, but sometimes you get a “faithless elector” who legally overrides democracy and votes for a different candidate.

            It’s supremely fucked up.

            Edit: not false elector, it’s faithless elector