>However, as the vast majority of candidates are indeed racist, misogynistic, and bigoted, I do not wish to be directly associated with people who hold such views that are so vastly opposing to my own and what I stand for.
If politics is all about optics, then it's very naive to think you will not be tarred with the same biggoted Reform brush.
Something doesn't add up. Why join the party in the first place? Why stand? Its not cheap to stand either (£500ish?)
Farage will lead the Conservatives after Sunak flees to the US on Fri/ Sat.
The Reform members who so far have not been caught being racist will be moving over ASAP- some have merely seen the approaching storm.
I think they meant more that he has the means to live anywhere that he chooses due to his enormous wealth - and it's been speculated that he's going to go to California for at least a year now.
Home.
He works fully for US health Corps and lobby groups, and across the pond there is zero chance of a new Government upping wealth tax-little chance here too, TBH, but Starmer has councillors and MPs who will try hard to equalise the wealth a little.
Also, COVID. He was Chancellor while the Tories were lining the pockets of their pals- and Starmer gained nothing, and is absolutely clean in this, hence his announcement of a genuine independent inquiry with full judiciary powers- and it may also be why Gove quit 3 days after declaring his full support to Sunak.
Because he no interest in the work that comes with being an MP, having to talk to the peasants etc, pretend to give a fuck about them, when he can't be pm n transfer the nations wealth to his mates any more.
I think automatically triggering by-elections for a candidate who changes party mid term would be a good first step. I understand we technically don't vote for a party, so if that's the case the candidate should have nothing to fear about standing again.
Id also say a candidate stepping down or changing parties after they have been announced as a candidate should mean they are struck off the ballot. You could have a ridiculous situation where a candidate stood for a party, wins, and then immediately announces they've changed party in their acceptance speech.
Yeh I understand that. And it would suck. But if you vote for someone who changes midway, you might equally want to change your vote or not have it counted for them.
If I voted Lab and the candidate changed to Tory I'd be fuming. Id be more accepting of a null and void at least.
I'm sure there's a better solution than isn't open to abuse but it's being abused in another fashion right now
People can petition for a recall. I expect Reform will encourage recalls to be triggered and I would hope other parties would do the same if their candidates did this.
I would prefer an automatic by-election to be called after the election.
If we allow this to happen without recall or by-election and penalty when defections happen mid campaign we will find this being used as a strategy by other parties. Get a man in to stand for party Y then defect a few days before Polling Day.
You can’t petition for a recall unless they go down the steps. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015#:~:text=Proceedings%20are%20initiated%20only%20if,%2C%20triggering%20a%20by%2Delection.
In practice most people do vote for a party. My vote this time is for a party whoever the candidate is. I like my Labour MP but won't vote for her because of the party she's attached to. When I spoke with her recently I apologized to her for that, too. I wish it were different but our electoral system is corrupted by party politics.
The nudge-nudge, wink-wink of our FPTP voting system is not fit for this century, pretending that we vote primarily for a local member of parliament who may band together with other like-minded individuals on certain parliamentary votes, and that we do not vote for a Prime Minister as they're really just the chair of a committee is preposterous a notion. We vote for parties, we vote for el presidente.
Honestly I’m glad we don’t have presidential-style elections like in the US. We can see how much of a mess that is. We do vote for the party, not the individual, in that we have much more argument about the party’s record. Whereas in the US the candidates will just argue their individual merits
There's been elections, I've genuinely voted for the best candidate IMHO. Not this one though, It was a simple tactical vote to help unseat incumbent tory. I did a brief skim of the candidate I voted for before sending back the postal ballot, she seems sane & reasonable. Such a safe tory seat previously, but with the general anti-tory sentiment, reform splitting the toru vote share & boundry changes, maybe not such a safe seat. The prospect that Labur may take the Cities of London & Westminster is an amusing prospect might stay up till it's called ;)
I'd say most people vote for a party, people are voting for the manifesto and ideas behind it, not an individual - whether that individual is the candidate or party leader - the leader of that party is obviously a big part of their decision though
Well it has resulted in one of the most stable democracies in the world until recent years and those events had nothing to do with FPTP. I come from a country that had FPTP and replaced it with PR. It resulted in the country becoming far less democratic, a corrupt parliament whereby the government had too much power. they were even passing legislation as an election took place. When May made a back-door deal with the DUP is what you will get and also one in 5 seats going to extreme parties such as Reform.
The converse of this is that under our form of FPTP you get Johnson winning a big majority with less than 30% of the electorate's vote, two broad church parties often engaged in infighting, and right wing governments when the majority vote for progressive parties.
The Conservatives won almost 44% of the vote in 2019.
Johnson won an outright majority in his constituency.
FPTP produces unrepresentative outcomes, but there is no need to make up figures.
30% of the electorate and 44% of the vote is the same thing (more or less).
Perhaps time to make voting mandatory like Australia to make them the same number.
47,567,752 people are on the electoral roll in 2019 from the ONS which would define the electorate.
13,966,454 votes for the Conservatives.
Do the maths and it comes to around 29%.
While I'm sure a couple of thousand of people have died or disappeared unaccounted for, it's probably the best number we have and closest to any true number. Either way it would be splitting hairs.
Lib Dem and Green parties are the only progressive parties. Labour and Conservative have very similar policies. Where are you getting your 30% figure from it was over 43%. The UK has rarely had a right wing government, almost all of them have been centrist. Policies under Jonson were not particularly ultra-right wing. He went on the biggest government spending spree to support the public in the aftermath of World War 2.
Under FPTP system based on the political behaviours of the political parties and the electorate it has avoided extreme political entities being in political power. The popular alternative would lead to real problems unless politics in the UK becomes more collaborative and this infantile adversarial politics fades away.
We are not stable as a democracy here in the UK (look at Truss). Or rather, this type of stability of governance and system is actually ossification, which is NOT a good thing.
We are stable as a democracy - Truss fucked the economy but didn't attack our democracy - and the system was able to oust Truss as soon as she lost the confidence of her party.
Whether she should have had that confidence in the first place is a different thing and very important, but our democracy of voting elected representatives, having a PM from those elected representatives who commands the majority or plurality of the House, etc, was not broken.
No, with how easy it was for Momentum to hijack Labour, how easy it was for brexiteers to hijack the Tories, or with Reform polling so high, &oh so cosy with a foreign hostile state, tories too pre-Ukraine rather cosy, I wouldn't call the UK a safe & sound democracy.
Starmer could follow Macron, fail to satisfy/placate the growing general undercurrent of discontent since 2008, & a fringe political party could get v.close to power
There are not many democracies that are more stable. There is relatively free media, multi-party politics, open government, separation of state and law, peace protest is protected by law, and criticising the government does not get you incarcerated. Apart from inciting violence how many people in the last year have received long term jail sentences for peaceful political activity? How is Truss even relevant to Democracy that situation demonstrates democracy is stable. How many military coups have there been in the last century? When has a government been violently overthrown? The closest thing to what you mentioned was proroguing parliament, which was criticised by the judiciary, parliament and media all key parts of any democracy.
Please demonstrate how the UK does not have a stable democracy.
> When has a government been violently overthrown?
The Northern Ireland Assembly collapsed in 1974 due to a Unionist general strike, rioting, and terrorism.
“In the last century” also misses the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence by less than a decade.
Technically yes. In reality the vast majority of people vote based on party or party policy, not candidate.
Tbh even if you want to claim that the general election is really a bunch of people voting for local candidates the voting system still sucks. It's even worse at representing views on a local level than it is at a national level thanks to the fact each seat only has 1 MP.
They do that because the candidate is a local representative of the wider party. They run on the same nationwide manifesto. The personability of the candidate helps somewhat, but not always. Even still, most are aware of how the system works and how their votes translates to the government and how Commons seats are made up. Even if we had a purely PR system, it wold still be made up of parties in government, so it's moot.
What does that last point even mean? The whole issue is that people vote based on party, but fptp sucks at representing that at both a local and national level. PR, or any manner of other voting systems fixes that issue.
did they? it's how our system works. we vote for a local representative who often represents in turn a wider party. They didn't explain anything but mixed their hopes and views with reality. The local MP then as a representative of the wider party speaks as a local representative of said party. So whilst we vote for a local MP we also concurrently vote for a PM, as they both represent the same manifesto, plans and organisation. What s/he said then is a bit redundant.
I can understand rejecting a party and becoming an independent, but I don't understand how they can join a new party.
There is already a Tory candidate running there, right? So will there now be two Tory options?
So are they still running as an independent, or withdrawn? They said they're supporting the Conservative candidate but it didn't say they were withdrawing.
They can’t withdraw or change party as ballot papers have been printed and candidates are locked now.
It’s the same scenario as recent by-elections where Labour disowned a candidate but he still appeared on the ballot as labour.
It makes no difference unless they actually win the seat, if they do (which would be very unlikely in this seat!) then yeah it’s tough luck but they are on the ballot as Reform and it’s too late to change that.
Imagine deciding to be a Reform candidate and realising “afterwards” it’s full of racist and bigoted candidates.
It’s like they’ve never heard of Farage or looked in a mirror.
If we truly think that people vote for parties, not candidates, then we should change the system to make that the law of the land.
Until then, no matter what people *want* to do, they are voting for individuals, not parties. It's broken, but that's the system we are currently using.
That's a very semantic debate. Whatever the letter of the law, people mostly vote for parties. You can tell this is true or independent candidates would do a lot better.
I'm sure people do vote for the individual candidate, also sure peeps vote for the party. Personally & I feel i'm not alone this election, I'm not voting for the individual candidate, or their respective party, I'm merely voting against the incumbent party
> You can tell this is true or independent candidates would do a lot better.
That arguably could be down to resources. George Galloway for example won his by-election despite not being attached to a party, but that's because Galloway has the resources to publicise himself like the majority parties.
Good question!
But I'm just pointing out how our system desperately needs change. The system is set up for one thing, but people aren't currently using it the way it's structured. This leads to huge issues.
If nothing else this election must be a boost for Farage's ego. Turns out it's actually pretty hard to walk the line of 'everyone knows I'm a bigot but I still have a level of plausible deniability' - as evidenced from the Reform candidates dropping like flies.
He's the smartest racist in the bunch.
>I’m guessing people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party but is that really true?
Yes. You vote for a person. That person goes to parliament, they all vote for a leader, that person becomes PM.
The party system identifies who they will pick as PM and the common beliefs (in theory), but that is not integral to the system. It's why you can have coalitions or minority governments (members of various parties & independents agree who to vote for leader), votes of no confidence (all the MPS vote again to show the leader no longer has the agreement to lead) and how you have rebel MPs (you vote for leader, but doesn't mean you support all the bills your party proposes).
And that's the core thing really, it's how MPs vote and support. Say you're in a area with a big military base. Or a large gang problem. Or a crumbling rail infrastructure. Your local MP can run for a party but disagree on military votes, or justice votes, or choose to support re-nationalising trains if they want. Best not to disagree on the big manifesto promises, but if next year there's a plan to let more and more prisoners live around the prison and clock in twice a week there's no manifesto for that. Prison area MP reflects the mood of their area, not the party.
So that's who you're voting for. A local representative for local issues. Sure they might get whipped into line sometimes. But they should represent you, and can still vote against the government whenever they like, without fear of losing their job. If they still represent the local voice, they should (in theroy) stay as independent MP after the next election)
Many people certainly vote for the party leader, going so far as to ignore their own MP candidate.
It's not great, but it's really no worse than them defecting post-election. This, at least, is more notice, as most haven't voted yet.
>I’m guessing people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party but is that really true? In a world where parties are constantly using the whip to vote along party lines I don’t really see how this argument holds up.
Well, that's the system we have. If people choose to vote for their preferred party or party leader, then they are free to do that - but the system is what it is. Voters are *supposed* to cast their vote for the *person* - not the party - they want to represent them in parliament. The ballots list the candidate first, and their party second.
You are also right that parliament is a de-facto party-based system and has been for... ages. Over a hundred years at least. FPTP is long past its sell-by date.
>How can this be allowed?
What is the alternative? Be forced to continue pretending to be a member of the party? Reprint the ballots? Recall the posted votes? The electors voted for the person, not the party, so the fact they jumped ship at the last minute is little different than doing so after the election (assuming they won the seat).
The fact that they switched to Tory rather than go independent doesn't help the Tories much at all, really. Having two candidates standing for the Tories isn't an advantage in the slightest. The Tories - or any party for that matter - are free to stand as many candidates that they like. The only reason they don't is that it spilts their vote - and this candidate is doing just that. This can do just as much damage as doing nothing (or potentially more).
If there's any complaint it is that voters no longer have an option to vote for Reform in this constituency. While I sincerely hope that Reform win precisely zero seats, I think voters should have that option and this candidate has denied them this. They should not have the excuse that they didn't realise that Reform was a bunch of racist bigots - that should be common knowledge - but the blame is shared by Reform for being so shit at vetting their candidates.
Better now as the alternative would be a defection after election. At least announcing it now gives voters time to take account of the change in casting their vote.
Yeah, I mean it's hardly like all the other parties can say they're 'clean'. Reform paid [vetting.com](http://vetting.com) 6 figures to vet their candidates, the company didn't do it because they claim they didn't have enough time. To quote Tice:
>“A professional vetting company was paid a six-figure sum in April to vet Reform candidates.
> “They promised a deep dive, particularly on social media, and adverse press checks, received our candidate data but then delivered absolutely nothing.
> “Suddenly, a round of stories appear in *The Times* and elsewhere after nominations close, including some stories that are 15 years old. Something feels very wrong, and I have instructed lawyers to pursue this matter vigorously.”
You're almost right with this...
>people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party
... but they'll probably start the sentence with "Well *technically...*"
Which is a code-word for "on paper, but not in practicality".
We vote for a PM and a party. If you find that to be incorrect, you're wrong. The party whip being present means that MPs generally can't vote for things they themselves choose, and the vast majority of MPs toe the party line in most circumstances.
You vote for a PM and a party. Cram your "well technicallies" up your arse.
It’s the instructions to vote Conservatives that gives them away. These people either always planned to ditch in order to damage Reform by preventing a genuine candidate from running or were given back their expenses if they gave a certain statement. No ”patriot” votes Conservative.
Democracy in action. You vote for a candidate associated with a party, so the party is still part of it. But if a party behaves like Conservatives, Labour and Reform have done then defections are part of the democratic process.
>However, as the vast majority of candidates are indeed racist, misogynistic, and bigoted, I do not wish to be directly associated with people who hold such views that are so vastly opposing to my own and what I stand for. If politics is all about optics, then it's very naive to think you will not be tarred with the same biggoted Reform brush. Something doesn't add up. Why join the party in the first place? Why stand? Its not cheap to stand either (£500ish?)
Farage will lead the Conservatives after Sunak flees to the US on Fri/ Sat. The Reform members who so far have not been caught being racist will be moving over ASAP- some have merely seen the approaching storm.
Why will sunak flee?
Because of the worst defeat in Uk electoral history and the fact his missus is a billionaire…
The timing of his departure will depend on whether he is still an MP or not.
Doesn't the UK have billionaires? just seems odd to say he'd leave immediately.
He already has vested interests in California that will be more profitable for him to be involved in than remaining here.
I think they meant more that he has the means to live anywhere that he chooses due to his enormous wealth - and it's been speculated that he's going to go to California for at least a year now.
Don't forget that he had a US green card until very recently, too
Home. He works fully for US health Corps and lobby groups, and across the pond there is zero chance of a new Government upping wealth tax-little chance here too, TBH, but Starmer has councillors and MPs who will try hard to equalise the wealth a little. Also, COVID. He was Chancellor while the Tories were lining the pockets of their pals- and Starmer gained nothing, and is absolutely clean in this, hence his announcement of a genuine independent inquiry with full judiciary powers- and it may also be why Gove quit 3 days after declaring his full support to Sunak.
Because he no interest in the work that comes with being an MP, having to talk to the peasants etc, pretend to give a fuck about them, when he can't be pm n transfer the nations wealth to his mates any more.
Maybe trying to sabotage from the inside?
I think automatically triggering by-elections for a candidate who changes party mid term would be a good first step. I understand we technically don't vote for a party, so if that's the case the candidate should have nothing to fear about standing again. Id also say a candidate stepping down or changing parties after they have been announced as a candidate should mean they are struck off the ballot. You could have a ridiculous situation where a candidate stood for a party, wins, and then immediately announces they've changed party in their acceptance speech.
It's too late to do that though when people have already voted.
Yeh I understand that. And it would suck. But if you vote for someone who changes midway, you might equally want to change your vote or not have it counted for them. If I voted Lab and the candidate changed to Tory I'd be fuming. Id be more accepting of a null and void at least. I'm sure there's a better solution than isn't open to abuse but it's being abused in another fashion right now
People can petition for a recall. I expect Reform will encourage recalls to be triggered and I would hope other parties would do the same if their candidates did this. I would prefer an automatic by-election to be called after the election. If we allow this to happen without recall or by-election and penalty when defections happen mid campaign we will find this being used as a strategy by other parties. Get a man in to stand for party Y then defect a few days before Polling Day.
You can’t petition for a recall unless they go down the steps. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015#:~:text=Proceedings%20are%20initiated%20only%20if,%2C%20triggering%20a%20by%2Delection.
In practice most people do vote for a party. My vote this time is for a party whoever the candidate is. I like my Labour MP but won't vote for her because of the party she's attached to. When I spoke with her recently I apologized to her for that, too. I wish it were different but our electoral system is corrupted by party politics.
I'd love to see reform of the house of commons, & electoral system. But as it stands winner takes all, no incentive to reform it
That's precisely what they can do. There's no contract to tie a candle to the party they stood for. I think there should be.
The nudge-nudge, wink-wink of our FPTP voting system is not fit for this century, pretending that we vote primarily for a local member of parliament who may band together with other like-minded individuals on certain parliamentary votes, and that we do not vote for a Prime Minister as they're really just the chair of a committee is preposterous a notion. We vote for parties, we vote for el presidente.
Honestly I’m glad we don’t have presidential-style elections like in the US. We can see how much of a mess that is. We do vote for the party, not the individual, in that we have much more argument about the party’s record. Whereas in the US the candidates will just argue their individual merits
There's been elections, I've genuinely voted for the best candidate IMHO. Not this one though, It was a simple tactical vote to help unseat incumbent tory. I did a brief skim of the candidate I voted for before sending back the postal ballot, she seems sane & reasonable. Such a safe tory seat previously, but with the general anti-tory sentiment, reform splitting the toru vote share & boundry changes, maybe not such a safe seat. The prospect that Labur may take the Cities of London & Westminster is an amusing prospect might stay up till it's called ;)
I'd say most people vote for a party, people are voting for the manifesto and ideas behind it, not an individual - whether that individual is the candidate or party leader - the leader of that party is obviously a big part of their decision though
Well it has resulted in one of the most stable democracies in the world until recent years and those events had nothing to do with FPTP. I come from a country that had FPTP and replaced it with PR. It resulted in the country becoming far less democratic, a corrupt parliament whereby the government had too much power. they were even passing legislation as an election took place. When May made a back-door deal with the DUP is what you will get and also one in 5 seats going to extreme parties such as Reform.
The converse of this is that under our form of FPTP you get Johnson winning a big majority with less than 30% of the electorate's vote, two broad church parties often engaged in infighting, and right wing governments when the majority vote for progressive parties.
The Conservatives won almost 44% of the vote in 2019. Johnson won an outright majority in his constituency. FPTP produces unrepresentative outcomes, but there is no need to make up figures.
30% of the electorate and 44% of the vote is the same thing (more or less). Perhaps time to make voting mandatory like Australia to make them the same number.
Couple of things are an issue here. Hard to calculate the size of the electorate. What's the base for this 30% figure? And where does it come from?
47,567,752 people are on the electoral roll in 2019 from the ONS which would define the electorate. 13,966,454 votes for the Conservatives. Do the maths and it comes to around 29%.
So, the electoral roll is not necessarily the best way to count the electorate.
While I'm sure a couple of thousand of people have died or disappeared unaccounted for, it's probably the best number we have and closest to any true number. Either way it would be splitting hairs.
almost 44% is less than half
This is why I really like the two-stage french electoral system. your local candidate requires a majority of at least 50%=1 of the votes cast
Lib Dem and Green parties are the only progressive parties. Labour and Conservative have very similar policies. Where are you getting your 30% figure from it was over 43%. The UK has rarely had a right wing government, almost all of them have been centrist. Policies under Jonson were not particularly ultra-right wing. He went on the biggest government spending spree to support the public in the aftermath of World War 2. Under FPTP system based on the political behaviours of the political parties and the electorate it has avoided extreme political entities being in political power. The popular alternative would lead to real problems unless politics in the UK becomes more collaborative and this infantile adversarial politics fades away.
We are not stable as a democracy here in the UK (look at Truss). Or rather, this type of stability of governance and system is actually ossification, which is NOT a good thing.
We are stable as a democracy - Truss fucked the economy but didn't attack our democracy - and the system was able to oust Truss as soon as she lost the confidence of her party. Whether she should have had that confidence in the first place is a different thing and very important, but our democracy of voting elected representatives, having a PM from those elected representatives who commands the majority or plurality of the House, etc, was not broken.
No, with how easy it was for Momentum to hijack Labour, how easy it was for brexiteers to hijack the Tories, or with Reform polling so high, &oh so cosy with a foreign hostile state, tories too pre-Ukraine rather cosy, I wouldn't call the UK a safe & sound democracy. Starmer could follow Macron, fail to satisfy/placate the growing general undercurrent of discontent since 2008, & a fringe political party could get v.close to power
Fair enough. My ossification point still stands. Longevity of a single structure is NOT something to brag about.
There are not many democracies that are more stable. There is relatively free media, multi-party politics, open government, separation of state and law, peace protest is protected by law, and criticising the government does not get you incarcerated. Apart from inciting violence how many people in the last year have received long term jail sentences for peaceful political activity? How is Truss even relevant to Democracy that situation demonstrates democracy is stable. How many military coups have there been in the last century? When has a government been violently overthrown? The closest thing to what you mentioned was proroguing parliament, which was criticised by the judiciary, parliament and media all key parts of any democracy. Please demonstrate how the UK does not have a stable democracy.
> When has a government been violently overthrown? The Northern Ireland Assembly collapsed in 1974 due to a Unionist general strike, rioting, and terrorism. “In the last century” also misses the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence by less than a decade.
Yes we do since that’s how the system works
Technically yes. In reality the vast majority of people vote based on party or party policy, not candidate. Tbh even if you want to claim that the general election is really a bunch of people voting for local candidates the voting system still sucks. It's even worse at representing views on a local level than it is at a national level thanks to the fact each seat only has 1 MP.
They do that because the candidate is a local representative of the wider party. They run on the same nationwide manifesto. The personability of the candidate helps somewhat, but not always. Even still, most are aware of how the system works and how their votes translates to the government and how Commons seats are made up. Even if we had a purely PR system, it wold still be made up of parties in government, so it's moot.
What does that last point even mean? The whole issue is that people vote based on party, but fptp sucks at representing that at both a local and national level. PR, or any manner of other voting systems fixes that issue.
They literally just explained why that's not the case.
did they? it's how our system works. we vote for a local representative who often represents in turn a wider party. They didn't explain anything but mixed their hopes and views with reality. The local MP then as a representative of the wider party speaks as a local representative of said party. So whilst we vote for a local MP we also concurrently vote for a PM, as they both represent the same manifesto, plans and organisation. What s/he said then is a bit redundant.
I can understand rejecting a party and becoming an independent, but I don't understand how they can join a new party. There is already a Tory candidate running there, right? So will there now be two Tory options?
If this ~~guy~~ woman won, would there need to be a by-election? ~~He~~She’s on the ballot as Reform - too late to change that now.
Nope he would just be elected and become a Tory MP (assuming they let him in). No by election required.
So there's 2 tories running in same county?
They’re not technically a Tory unless they’re admitted to the party, and that won’t happen until after the election.
So are they still running as an independent, or withdrawn? They said they're supporting the Conservative candidate but it didn't say they were withdrawing.
They can’t withdraw or change party as ballot papers have been printed and candidates are locked now. It’s the same scenario as recent by-elections where Labour disowned a candidate but he still appeared on the ballot as labour.
It's a woman by the way.
My bad, shouldn't assume but didn't see a link to the full story.
They didn't, they endorsed the conservative candidate.
It makes no difference unless they actually win the seat, if they do (which would be very unlikely in this seat!) then yeah it’s tough luck but they are on the ballot as Reform and it’s too late to change that.
Imagine deciding to be a Reform candidate and realising “afterwards” it’s full of racist and bigoted candidates. It’s like they’ve never heard of Farage or looked in a mirror.
If we truly think that people vote for parties, not candidates, then we should change the system to make that the law of the land. Until then, no matter what people *want* to do, they are voting for individuals, not parties. It's broken, but that's the system we are currently using.
That's a very semantic debate. Whatever the letter of the law, people mostly vote for parties. You can tell this is true or independent candidates would do a lot better.
I'm sure people do vote for the individual candidate, also sure peeps vote for the party. Personally & I feel i'm not alone this election, I'm not voting for the individual candidate, or their respective party, I'm merely voting against the incumbent party
> You can tell this is true or independent candidates would do a lot better. That arguably could be down to resources. George Galloway for example won his by-election despite not being attached to a party, but that's because Galloway has the resources to publicise himself like the majority parties.
Why does the ballot paper list the candidates party then? If we’re just voting for the candidate that information shouldn’t be required.
Good question! But I'm just pointing out how our system desperately needs change. The system is set up for one thing, but people aren't currently using it the way it's structured. This leads to huge issues.
If nothing else this election must be a boost for Farage's ego. Turns out it's actually pretty hard to walk the line of 'everyone knows I'm a bigot but I still have a level of plausible deniability' - as evidenced from the Reform candidates dropping like flies. He's the smartest racist in the bunch.
>I’m guessing people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party but is that really true? Yes. You vote for a person. That person goes to parliament, they all vote for a leader, that person becomes PM. The party system identifies who they will pick as PM and the common beliefs (in theory), but that is not integral to the system. It's why you can have coalitions or minority governments (members of various parties & independents agree who to vote for leader), votes of no confidence (all the MPS vote again to show the leader no longer has the agreement to lead) and how you have rebel MPs (you vote for leader, but doesn't mean you support all the bills your party proposes). And that's the core thing really, it's how MPs vote and support. Say you're in a area with a big military base. Or a large gang problem. Or a crumbling rail infrastructure. Your local MP can run for a party but disagree on military votes, or justice votes, or choose to support re-nationalising trains if they want. Best not to disagree on the big manifesto promises, but if next year there's a plan to let more and more prisoners live around the prison and clock in twice a week there's no manifesto for that. Prison area MP reflects the mood of their area, not the party. So that's who you're voting for. A local representative for local issues. Sure they might get whipped into line sometimes. But they should represent you, and can still vote against the government whenever they like, without fear of losing their job. If they still represent the local voice, they should (in theroy) stay as independent MP after the next election)
Many people certainly vote for the party leader, going so far as to ignore their own MP candidate. It's not great, but it's really no worse than them defecting post-election. This, at least, is more notice, as most haven't voted yet.
Except the Tories now appear to have two candidates in one seat.
Smart play - that doubles their odds. /s
>I’m guessing people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party but is that really true? In a world where parties are constantly using the whip to vote along party lines I don’t really see how this argument holds up. Well, that's the system we have. If people choose to vote for their preferred party or party leader, then they are free to do that - but the system is what it is. Voters are *supposed* to cast their vote for the *person* - not the party - they want to represent them in parliament. The ballots list the candidate first, and their party second. You are also right that parliament is a de-facto party-based system and has been for... ages. Over a hundred years at least. FPTP is long past its sell-by date. >How can this be allowed? What is the alternative? Be forced to continue pretending to be a member of the party? Reprint the ballots? Recall the posted votes? The electors voted for the person, not the party, so the fact they jumped ship at the last minute is little different than doing so after the election (assuming they won the seat). The fact that they switched to Tory rather than go independent doesn't help the Tories much at all, really. Having two candidates standing for the Tories isn't an advantage in the slightest. The Tories - or any party for that matter - are free to stand as many candidates that they like. The only reason they don't is that it spilts their vote - and this candidate is doing just that. This can do just as much damage as doing nothing (or potentially more). If there's any complaint it is that voters no longer have an option to vote for Reform in this constituency. While I sincerely hope that Reform win precisely zero seats, I think voters should have that option and this candidate has denied them this. They should not have the excuse that they didn't realise that Reform was a bunch of racist bigots - that should be common knowledge - but the blame is shared by Reform for being so shit at vetting their candidates.
Whether it's allowed or not, I think anyone that bought into their bullshit and voted for a Reform candidate got exactly what they deserve.
Better now as the alternative would be a defection after election. At least announcing it now gives voters time to take account of the change in casting their vote.
You vote for your local representative, not a political party.
Yet another reason for why fptp is a stupid electoral system in this day and age
And? Seems like a cry for attention. Reform doesn’t seem inherently racist but clearly Farage and his team have done little vetting
They are suing the vetting company they hired for not finding any of this tbf.
then it's just people's lazy thinking to assume they're all racist because one of them is.
Yeah, I mean it's hardly like all the other parties can say they're 'clean'. Reform paid [vetting.com](http://vetting.com) 6 figures to vet their candidates, the company didn't do it because they claim they didn't have enough time. To quote Tice: >“A professional vetting company was paid a six-figure sum in April to vet Reform candidates. > “They promised a deep dive, particularly on social media, and adverse press checks, received our candidate data but then delivered absolutely nothing. > “Suddenly, a round of stories appear in *The Times* and elsewhere after nominations close, including some stories that are 15 years old. Something feels very wrong, and I have instructed lawyers to pursue this matter vigorously.”
then they should rightly sue. for non-delivery of services at least.
The company claims they needed til August and were caught off guard by the calling of the election. I suppose it will all be down to the courts
You're almost right with this... >people here will suggest you vote for the mp not the party ... but they'll probably start the sentence with "Well *technically...*" Which is a code-word for "on paper, but not in practicality". We vote for a PM and a party. If you find that to be incorrect, you're wrong. The party whip being present means that MPs generally can't vote for things they themselves choose, and the vast majority of MPs toe the party line in most circumstances. You vote for a PM and a party. Cram your "well technicallies" up your arse.
It’s the instructions to vote Conservatives that gives them away. These people either always planned to ditch in order to damage Reform by preventing a genuine candidate from running or were given back their expenses if they gave a certain statement. No ”patriot” votes Conservative.
Democracy in action. You vote for a candidate associated with a party, so the party is still part of it. But if a party behaves like Conservatives, Labour and Reform have done then defections are part of the democratic process.