General Election June 2017

I like the author of that piece - he's had a cracking year with some of the material at his disposal.

Thought this was interesting from a Tory perspective
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/17/tory-party-reputation-new-leader

Have never voted for them and never will, but the swing Tory-leaning voters I know seem to share her concerns...

I've always wondered about the self-contradictory mindset of the offspring of immigrants, especially those fleeing the Nazis, who then actively support the UK's most anti-immigrant national party.
(Even if Maybot's 6 years as Home Secretary show that that the Tories may whistle the DMail's tunes, but, practically do nothing to limit immigration).

I'm not sure the Tories were always anti-immigrant. They've definitely become that over the course of the last twenty years, though.

"if you want a ginger as a neighbour, vote labour..."

^1960s

Easily fixed by swapping out their security lights with sun lamps.

Interesting substitution.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/britains-most-racist-election-smethwick-50-years-on

What I don't understand is why/how do we still have this fucked up coalition between the tories and DUP? I'm fucking fed up. Democracy clearly isn't working. Is this it for the next 4 years?

I need to emigrate.

Why did I buy a house.

Why did I buy a house.

Because Thatcher told you to.

Why did I buy a house.

Because Beeny told you to.

It's the summer recess, so fuck all will happen for another few months. But this Government won't see out it's full term, because whatever deal gets negotiated by this shower of incompetents, won't get approved in parliament.

Good job there's no dead line coming up.

Oh, wait.

Then in the 80's they spent a lot of time campaigning for the death penalty for Nelson Mandela....

Which was abhorrent. Not sure it's an immigration thing though - they thought Mandela was a terrorist.

20 years is probably too short a timescale though, I guess it has been burbling along since Windrush. I don't recall it being quite so overt 20 years ago, though.

It also depends what type of Tory you're talking about, as with most things there's a range of opinions.

There are lots of open boarder free marketers who'd advocate entry to all with the motivation to work. Others just think it would be useful to keep track of people coming in/out and deport criminals and those without work. Then you roll through to point-based visa folks, all the way down to those who'll probably support any policy that sticks it to Johnny Foreigner.

My gut says that that people with a conservative mindset dislike change. Immigration represents change. The Conservative party in a large part represents traditionalism.

Although to be fair the only full on outspoken English racists I've ever met irl were all Labour voters.

and the racists on tv and representing our "interests" overseas are all tories.

johnson etc.

Well that's because they are in power.

The real point was that individual prejudice isn't necessary tied to political party

It's not, but there's quite a bit of open xenophobia in the current lot of the Tories (May, Amber Rudd...) so quite a few voters don't mind it enough to stop voting Tory.

Even though they individually may disagree with it.

[not that Labour is covering itself in glory, they allow a lot of chat on "but immigration" with no data to back that up either...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40930208

Rumblings in the labour NI party... already. Accusations of misconduct.

🙄

No MPs, no NI Assembly members, not news - NI's full of political parties run by incompetents/bigots/bullies/corrupt twats, most with considerably more influence and impact than Labour.

I agree a lot of parties here suck, so it would have been nice to see Labour getting established here... perhaps some people trust them more. Perhaps.

Perhaps it's a little useless considering the orange VS green voting and the myriad of parties.

The last election for Westminster lost the more "moderate" parties here votes, UUP wanted to get with the times and got punished for it, SDLP didn't want to get with the times and also got punished for it. Combined with the Brexit border issue which propped up the DUP and SF, things are back to "nothing works".

Perhaps one day the BBC will agree with your definition too, and agree UKIP is also definitely not news, no MPs ;)

Thought Labour wouldn't really have any NI activities due to GFA Westminster impartiality requirements...

Should have added no support - UKIP did at least have a fair chunk of the vote, though that was partly due to the Beeb's disproportionate focus on/cheerleading for them.

Not sure it's the GFA. I heard that Labour never stood as they didn't want to take votes from the SDLP, some sort of old "gentleman's agreement" but that seems to be change now. Well, maybe not ;)

The SDLP lately has been wildly socially conservative on abortion, though anti austerity. It makes them unattractive to voters that may end up with SF (not really that socially progressive, and not really anti austerity) maybe Labour is seeing a space?