The General Politics Thread v2.0 (AKA the "Labour are Cunts" thread)

[RedTwoster]

It’s seriously alarming just how well Reform did at the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. For those who don’t know (probably most of you, why would you care about Scottish politics if you’re not living here?) there was a by-election for this Scottish Parliament constituency following the death of SNP MSP Christina McKelvie.

Labour won in a bit of a surprise result with 8,559 votes; the SNP were second with 7,957 and Reform were third with 7,088 votes. The Tories received 1,621 votes.

But if Reform are performing this well in Scotland - somewhere right wing parties typically poll worse than elsewhere in the UK - it leaves me very concerned about what might happen at the next Westminster election.

[Carbomb]

I don't understand the appeal of Reform in Scotland - they are first and foremost a Brexit party, which I would have thought would not be popular there.

[Chico Torres]

Brexit has been and gone, they are first and foremost an “acceptable” racist party and there are and always have been a lot of racists all over the UK.

[RedTwoster]

11 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I don't understand the appeal of Reform in Scotland - they are first and foremost a Brexit party, which I would have thought would not be popular there.

I honestly don’t know. The other point worth mentioning is that it’s a constituency in which right wing parties (the Tories, really) typically have no chance. In the 2021 election, the SNP won with 16,761 votes, Labour were second with 12,179 and the Tories were a distant third with 6,332 votes. The outcome here is pretty alarming - although I suspect the SNP probably helped Reform’s vote by suggesting it was a two-horse race between them and Reform, essentially encouraging their voters to turn out in force.

The Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) election next year will be pretty telling. I suspect we’ll see a decent number of Reform MSPs via the list system.

I’m also disappointed that Labour did so well. If they were given a kicking it would have been further evidence that Starmer is going down a terrible path.

[Carbomb]

6 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I honestly don’t know. The other point worth mentioning is that it’s a constituency in which right wing parties (the Tories, really) typically have no chance. In the 2021 election, the SNP won with 16,761 votes, Labour were second with 12,179 and the Tories were a distant third with 6,332 votes. The outcome here is pretty alarming - although I suspect the SNP probably helped Reform’s vote by suggesting it was a two-horse race between them and Reform, essentially encouraging their voters to turn out in force.

The Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) election next year will be pretty telling. I suspect we’ll see a decent number of Reform MSPs via the list system.

I’m also disappointed that Labour did so well. If they were given a kicking it would have been further evidence that Starmer is going down a terrible path.

It's odd; I know the SNP aren't amazing, but they have been a more left-wing option to Labour in Scotland. I'm worried that the fact they've blotted their copybooks in recent years so badly might have driven a lot of Scots towards the right wing, because the real socialist options aren't really a force.

[organizedkaos]

I mean, we do have to acknowledge that they say "we know your lives are shit, we can make them better". That plays pretty well for people who's lives are shit. They have the advantage of never having been in power, and the fact they have no compunctions about lying but that's gonna play. Conmen are good at conning people and it's been difficult times for years now.

Yes there's a bunch of anti immigrant rhetoric but the conservatives spent years blaiming immigrants for issues, then labour come along and say "yep, it's totally the immigrants". When you combine that with people's xenophobia, aging populace who don't understand the benfits to immigration/think england great and better than everyone else you get people voting for a p racist party.

I know this has been said over and over again but every time we reduce this conversation to "i am shocked and appalled that anyone would vote for this horrible party" we continue to ignore why people do that.

As far as I see there's about three options

• Government makes the world better quickly. I don't know how this happens
• Let everyone vote in Reform so they can understand it doesn't make their life better
• Government makes the world better slowly. Try and stop Reform getting in until better times at which point they do just become "the racist party" rather than "the party that tells you what you want to hear, and also is racist". This requires reasoned conversation with as many potential reform voters. Also requires the goverment not to legitimise the fucking stupid narrative that it's immigrants who are making this country worse. Possibly, also call out the people who are making this country worse, unfortunately they're mostly cronys of the government.

[westlondonmist]

44 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I don't understand the appeal of Reform in Scotland - they are first and foremost a Brexit party, which I would have thought would not be popular there.

SNP are a shit show, and they haven't really done enough to say "hey Labour are shit" because it's not that rosey in Scotland. SNP voters can also be racists and bigots, see Kate Forbes, so now they have found a racist party they can vote for that aren't the conservatives. When independence also seems a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, people may decide they're a wasted vote.

Edited June 6, 2025 by westlondonmist

[LaGoosh]

I've never been to Scotland - is the population particularly diverse? Do they have much in the way of an immigrant population? I just assumed everyone up there was white for the most part but I'm likely wrong.

[gmoney]

There's fuck loads of Italians. 

[Carbomb]

32 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

SNP are a shit show, and they haven't really done enough to say "hey Labour are shit" because it's not that rosey in Scotland. SNP voters can also be racists and bigots, see Kate Forbes, so now they have found a racist party they can vote for that aren't the conservatives. When independence also seems a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, people may decide they're a wasted vote.

Absolutely - my dad often tells me about how, in the 60s and 70s, the SNP were nicknamed "Tartan Tories" - but it just seems so odd, given that most of Scotland, whether left or right, seemed to be able to come together over the common ground of remaining in or rejoining the EU. But your point about the independence vote makes sense.

[CTXRussomark]

2 hours ago, organizedkaos said:

Let everyone vote in Reform so they can understand it doesn't make their life better

The problem there is I think Reform supporters would genuinely feel their lives are better just by having them in power.  It wouldn't matter if they failed to actually improve anything - their supporters would justify it all in their heads so long as Reform kept sticking it to the immigrants and whatever other minority is flavour of the month for them.  It changes the whole dynamic of things if failing doesn't actually lose you votes - you're then relying on one of the other parties building a strong opposition which is fucking nowhere on the horizon at the moment. 

[Carbomb]

Sadly, I think @CTXRussomark is right. Just look at the US. There's so much about how Trump has fucked the American economy, and people are clearly going to be worse off under his presidency, if they aren't already - yet there are still so many defending him. We already know about the huge swathes of people, both here and States-side, who just won't admit they were wrong in their voting choices, whether it's Brexiters outright denying the economic cost of leaving the EU or even justifying said cost ("Because sovereignty!"), or MAGAs claiming that the tariffs "are short-term pain for long-term gain". Normally, the bloom would be off the corpse rose by now, but this is where Benjamin Franklin's words come to mind, that you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

At this point, it really does seem to be a purely emotional decision, and the emotions in question are all the negative ones: desperation, fear, hatred, anger, etc.

[JNLister]

Interesting/terrifying article here (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250530.html) about how if Reform somehow won a majority and formed a government, you've have around 95% of ministers and 80% of the cabinet being people who'd never even been an MP before. The conclusion is that it might be a problem that partially solves itself because if Reform are winning a majority, almost all Conservatives would be losing their seats, so there'd be a bigger incentive for some to jump ship.

[Jazzy G]

Zahra Sultana quitting Labour and saying she'll set up her own left leaning party with blackjack, hookers, and Jeremy Corbyn is all well and good, but there's that danger that under our current electoral system it's just going to further split the vote and let Reform in? 

[CTXRussomark]

I'm honestly past caring at this point.  The chaos over the benefits bill this week sealed it for me - if they can't even agree amongst themselves then what hope do we have of them actually implementing anything worthwhile?  Unbelievable how badly they've fucked it in such little time.  I would 100% vote for a Corbyn party just as a protest vote if nothing else, as there's zero chance I'm voting for this lot again (even tactically).