3 ms·

A set of first-past-the-post choices between effectively only two parties, one of which was pro-Brexit and the other of which was incapable of a coherent stance

A set of first-past-the-post choices between effectively only two parties, one of which was pro-Brexit and the other of which was incapable of a coherent stance, is not exactly a great recipe for determining the actual will of the people.

jfengel 6y ago
The UK has a robust set of other parties. The Liberal Democrats ran hard against Brexit. They did not fare well.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  The Liberal Democrats got 1/4th of the Conservatives' votes but only 1/35th of the Conservatives' seats. Heck, they got 3x as many votes as the SNP but less than a quarter of their seats. EDIT: Also, the LibDems got 50% more votes in 2019 than in each of the previous two general elections, which is a hell of a fact to twist as "did not fare well". If your intention was to refute my argument that first-past-the-post doesn't accurately capture voters' opinions, you failed.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    My point was only that people had an anti-Brexit choice that they didn't pick. I'm in complete agreement that FPTP is a terrible system, and does a miserable job capturing voters opinions. It does so even when there are many extra parties available. (The LibDems were, after all, part of a governing coalition just five years ago.) The problem is coming up with a significantly better system. The UK is in this mess because of a direct vote that didn't really measure voters' opinions, either.
- ben_w 6y ago
  The last time the UK government wasn’t Con/Lab, Ireland had not yet become independent. I wouldn’t call that “robust”. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UK_popular_vote.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UK_popular_vote.svg
  - jfengel 6y ago
    My point was really that there existed genuine anti-Brexit positions, and people failed to vote for them. That shows as much about the weakness of voting systems as it does about Brexit, but in the end the pro-Brexit party won a majority of seats. If people really were that anti-Brexit they did have options. The entire thing was a clusterf### that should never have happened. All voting systems are bad even in the best of cases, and this was far from the best of cases. Good luck living with it.

jfengel 6y ago

The UK has a robust set of other parties. The Liberal Democrats ran hard against Brexit. They did not fare well.

tom_mellior 6y ago
The Liberal Democrats got 1/4th of the Conservatives' votes but only 1/35th of the Conservatives' seats. Heck, they got 3x as many votes as the SNP but less than a quarter of their seats. EDIT: Also, the LibDems got 50% more votes in 2019 than in each of the previous two general elections, which is a hell of a fact to twist as "did not fare well". If your intention was to refute my argument that first-past-the-post doesn't accurately capture voters' opinions, you failed.
- jfengel 6y ago
  My point was only that people had an anti-Brexit choice that they didn't pick. I'm in complete agreement that FPTP is a terrible system, and does a miserable job capturing voters opinions. It does so even when there are many extra parties available. (The LibDems were, after all, part of a governing coalition just five years ago.) The problem is coming up with a significantly better system. The UK is in this mess because of a direct vote that didn't really measure voters' opinions, either.
ben_w 6y ago
The last time the UK government wasn’t Con/Lab, Ireland had not yet become independent. I wouldn’t call that “robust”. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UK_popular_vote.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UK_popular_vote.svg
- jfengel 6y ago
  My point was really that there existed genuine anti-Brexit positions, and people failed to vote for them. That shows as much about the weakness of voting systems as it does about Brexit, but in the end the pro-Brexit party won a majority of seats. If people really were that anti-Brexit they did have options. The entire thing was a clusterf### that should never have happened. All voting systems are bad even in the best of cases, and this was far from the best of cases. Good luck living with it.