Conservatives pushed into fifth place in our latest European Parliament voting intention survey (fieldwork 8-9 May)
Brexit Party – 34%
Lab – 16%
Lib Dem – 15%
Green – 11%
Con – 10%
Change UK – 5%
UKIP – 3%https://t.co/W4o6NfLQkL pic.twitter.com/aQ1swhpFRE— YouGov (@YouGov) May 13, 2019
Tory Blues
The Opinium Poll has the Tories in 4th place.
Haunting Words
Deal With the Devil
The Guardian Live forum has this interesting comment by Nigel Farage when asked if he would make a deal with Labour.
“If we could save £39bn, come out of the customs union, come out of the single market, come out of the jurisdiction of the European court of justice and be a genuinely independent, self-governing democracy that could choose its own future, I’d do a deal with the devil to get that.“
Farage Denies Border Delays
I spoke to the head of the pharmaceutical industry, the head of their lobbyists, and said: “What about all these scare stories about drugs?” He said: “Absolute, total nonsense. Everybody is prepared.”
And the president of the port of Calais has said there will be no increased transport times as a result of a WTO Brexit. All of this is doable. You know, business finds a way through every different situation. And, frankly, if you look at trade around the world now, where tariffs are due, this is all logged online, very often done by people on their mobile phones. The idea that somehow we are going to be cut off is utter nonsense.
UK Worse Off Under a Customs Union
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) found that Jeremy Corbyn’s Proposal Would Hit Britain’s National Income by £80bn a Year.
The analysis found that the UK economy would shrink by 3.1%, with an exit from the EU single market presenting higher barriers to trade in services and on the assumption that net inward migration would go down.
Garry Young, the director of macromodelling and forecasting for the NIESR, said: “Leaving the EU for a customs union will make it more costly for the UK to trade with a large market on our doorstep, particularly in services which make up 80 per cent of our economy.
Big Beneficiary
Labour was supposed to be the big beneficiary of the Brexit mess.
It wasn’t. The newly formed Brexit Party was.
Toss party alliances out the window.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The old ‘major’ parties have corrupted beyond representation for anybody.
Single issues and single populists have more sway with voters now.
The same is true in the US.
May leaves behind quite a legacy. Not many leaders can come in with a majority, and leave with their party having less than 10% support (she is 10% now, but the trend is not her friend).
Sorry, but the Brexit Party success doesn’t solve anything. There is still a minority of British voters who want a no deal Brexit. Even if the Brexit party got 45% of the vote in a parliamentary election it wouldn’t be enough to force through no deal legislation. UK voter opinion is still divided to allow any single option to get through parliament (be it a no-deal Brexit, customs union, remain, or anything else).
Pretty much the ONLY thing you can get a majority of MPs to agree on is to defeat any particular Brexit proposal.
‘No Deal’ Brexit is the Law. The evil May should ‘allow the Law to take its course’.
Whether “no deal” is the law or not is beside the point. There is a majority of MPs who will agree to change the law to avoid a no deal outcome (which is precisely what they’ve been doing). The Brexit party is in no way close to changing this reality since their popularity is far below a majority of the UK voting population.
msurkan, I suppose what really matters now is whether the established parties think that this opinion poll is just a flash in the pan, or potentially something more permanent.
If it is the latter, whilst the members of the established parties might wish to frustrate Brexit, they will look at the maths of what could happen at the next election. They can be pretty sure that if they do not deliver on Brexit, then most will lose their seats. Our first past the post system means that a Brexit party could sweep to power. They would also see that the level of trust for those parties that pledged to deliver Brexit but failed would be on the floor. What is the point of voting for a party of broken promises? None at all.
If they make that calculation, then their next step is entirely logical. There is no way to frustrate Brexit permanently, but they can at least kill the Brexit party off by getting us out of the EU. The Brexit party will disappear pronto if we have a hard Brexit. I cant see the established parties risking everything just to stay in the EU.
The real message of the Brexit party is that clear messaging about Brexit works. This works equally well for remain. The party that calls itself “remain” will likely get an extraordinary vote share in quick order too. The days of trying to play both sides of the fence with muddled messages (as Britain’s major parties have done) are over. But that still doesn’t solve the core problem that there is STILL not a sufficient majority of voters in favour of any single Brexit outcome to get legislation passed.
Even the Brexit party’s phenomenal success is far short of the percentage of votes that would be needed to overcome the opposition from all other political forces.
“The party that calls itself “remain” will likely get an extraordinary vote” – That may well be the case. However, the Tories cannot pivot to become a remain party. This is because so many of their existing supporters outside of the HoP are Brexiteers. And Leavers arent going to switch to a party that doesnt keep its promises. The Tories only play is to make Brexit happen or risk destruction.
Likewise, Labour stood on a manifesto of seeing Brexit through as well. I suspect it may have more joy in pivoting being a remain party than the Tories, but it too would be difficult to vote for it if doesnt carry through its pledge to leave the EU. There is little point in voting for a party that doesnt honour its promises even if they claim to have the policies that you support.
The LibDems have always been remain. Their problem is a legacy of broken promises, including tuition fees and their broken pledge to hold a referendum! Maybe some will have forgotten their broken pledges, they did quite well in the recent local elections. I would still think that they have a credibility problem.
What I cant see then, is who the remain vote would unite around? And is it even a good idea to stand on a platform of trying to overturn a democratic decision? If either Leave or Remain cannot unite around a single party and is faced by a side that can, then they will lose.
And if the vote did fracture on Remain/Leave rather than on Left/Right, Labour and the Tories will lose their duopoly. Would there be enough stomach in those parties to betray the electorate and risk destruction as a result in order to buy time and remain in the EU? Maybe some in those parties owe allegiance to the EU rather than their parties and the people of Britain, but I doubt that enough do.
What is interesting in all of this is being able to clearly see which politicians owe allegiance to the EU rather than the British people and their democracy.
Well it looks like the future of the UK is looking increasingly like hard Brexit…so be it, I think that Europe just got its second referendum, and the “leave” party account for nearly 40% of the electorate! That’s not a sign, that its sign with flashing neons.
So be it!
The only reason the “Brexit Party” and Nigel Farage did so well in the EU elections is that neither the Tory nor the Labour parties offered a hard Brexit. Most of the sitting members of the Labour party and almost all of the Conservative party sitting members are remainers and want a custom union of some kind. The people most affected by the past 10+ years of austerity want out of the EU.
Fantastic news on the opinion polls.
If Theresa May was loyal to the Tory party and its natural supporters, her route would be clear. Quickly find a way to leave the EU, either with a miraculous deal that isnt yet on the table, or with No Deal. The former might actually be possible when the EU sees that No Deal has become a real possibility. If a car salesman doesnt believe the customer will walk away, the deal he offers will be a bad one. The EU will now have to face up to the walk away possibility and change their stance accordingly.
I was pessimistic that we wouldnt be able to get out of the EU, but if these opinion polls are correct, then we will leave. Last thing the Labour and Tory parties want is someone to challenge their duopoly. The remainers in these parties wanted both a) to keep the duopoly and b) remain in the EU. They wont be able to achieve both goals with this level of support for the Brexit party. It is either a) or nothing.
joking aside what do you think is going to happen if the leave party wins…of course Labor and Conservative will regain their momentum. The duopoly is not broken — but politicians, who do this all day long know that massive cost of leaving Europe.
I can tell you that the Conservatives will have a very hard time of it, as will to a lesser extent Labour. I have never known such outright anger and indignation at how the entire political class has behaved. The evil May is a liar and a damn fool the contempt in which she is held is staggering. The political class might think they can do a stitch up, but they will live to regret it big time.
The European elections dont matter much on their own, other than a show of opinion. The European parliament is little more than a talking shop.
What will impact the Political parties in the UK is the threat of another party breaking the duopoly, and that becomes the threat that they have to stop. They managed to quell it when UKIP were surging by offering a referendum. By failing to deliver on Brexit, the move away from the two main parties has happened again, and there is only one way to deal with, which is to Leave.
“but politicians, who do this all day long know that massive cost of leaving Europe” – I am not sure what you are getting at here. Leaving the EU means short term disruption. But medium term that disappears and instead the UK economy gets the benefit of having one less layer of government to pay for, and perhaps an additional economic benefit from having reciprocal tariffs with a net exporter. That will give our economy a boost.
Longer term, who knows? It will depend on how we manage ourselves. But with the restoration of the single chain of political command to a directly elected body, the odds will be in our favour.
Sorry, but the Brexit party doesn’t have enough support to make a no deal Brexit possible. No deal supporters are still a minority and the one thing all the other parties can agree on is to prevent a no deal outcome.
From time to time democracy gets real. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Nigel Farage are two good examples.