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Britons keep voting against their own best interests & expect anyone to sympathize. FFS look at who they voted for as their last four prime ministers!

mjburgess 3y ago
The UK does not vote for prime ministers; none are elected. Voting regions vote for MPs, and MPs collectively choose their leader. A large part of why the last leaders of both major parties have been populists, out of keeping with UK history, is because parties let their own private memberships play significant roles in choosing their leader -- this has handed the choice of PM from directly elected MPs to profoundly unelected party members. The only reason the current PM is sane is because the ruling party decided to ignore the members this time, having seen how basically incompetent their members have become.
bantunes 3y ago
You don't vote for a PM in the UK - you vote for a party, that is free to change their PM while in power.
- midasuni 3y ago
  No. You vote in a representative who may wear a rosette at a time but has no obligation to stay wearing that rosette.
Invictus0 3y ago
Plenty of people sympathize with the Palestinians even after they voted for Hamas
- midasuni 3y ago
  Vast majority of Gaza residents have never had the chance to vote for anyone. The last elections were 2006, vast majority are under aged 35 and thus too young to vote in 2006.
  - johnnyworker 3y ago
    To be more precise, roughly half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 15. Also: https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-94/en/ https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue... > Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country. But sure, let's leave it at "they voted for Hamas" -- when "Hamas is using them as shield, so..." doesn't cut it, that is.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Even then during those elections there was only around 1/3 turnout
- praptak 3y ago
  Not quite. Hamas rules the Gaza strip only and even this isn't 100% grass roots. They used to get strong backing from Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
- sxg 3y ago
  Not at all the same situation. Although imperfect, the UK has an actual functioning democracy while Palestine is an impoverished, semi-autonomous, largely refugee state partially controlled by Israel. This video explains how the Palestinians voted for Hamas in theory but not in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8
nicktelford 3y ago
Nitpick: the UK doesn't vote for a Prime Minister. Since the last election, there have been 3 Prime Ministers, so you could argue that 2 of them are "unelected".
midasuni 3y ago
Britons don’t vote in prime ministers. The last time Britain voted a plurality (not majority) Boris Johnson was PM. Since then Liz Truss was put in as unelected leader, then removed, then Rishi Sunak was put in. The last time the country voted for a new prime minister in an election (and by that I mean they voted for a majority of MPs) was 1997. Before that was 1979 with Thatcher. Major was appointed in 1990, Brown was appointed in 2007, Cameron came to power with coalition dealing, but at least had a plurality, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak all appointed by their party membership at most.
PaulRobinson 3y ago
Correction: a minority of Britons believe powerful lies and vote accordingly. Out of 46.5m registered voters, 17.4m voted to leave the EU. That's 37% of voters, and about 26% of the population. Unfortunately, 13.3m people just didn't vote at all in the referendum. Theresa May got a hung parliament in her election (2017), and was propped up by the DUP. She won 42% of the vote, with about 13.6m votes cast - that's about 30% of eligible votes and 21% of the population. Johnson won 365 seats in the UK Parliament (a majority of 80 seats) in 2019 with only 43% of the vote - about 14m votes. Still not the majority of Britons. About 81,000 people voted for Liz Truss. It was only Conservative party members who were eligible to vote. No member of the public outside of the Tory party has ever voted for Sunak. He ran against Truss in the previous leadership election and got about 60,000 votes. He became PM when Truss resigned and he ran unopposed. Please explain how it is that Britons "keep voting against their own best interests", when the majority have actively resisted, abstained or not been able to participate in every vote from the Brexit referendum through to the appointment of the last four Prime Ministers. We need Parliamentary reform - an act like the Great Act of 1832, perhaps - and we need better politicians, but don't dare blame this on "Britons".
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > Out of 46.5m registered voters, 17.4m voted to leave the EU. That's 37% of voters, and about 26% of the population. Unfortunately, 13.3m people just didn't vote at all in the referendum. Cameron had promised to rescind the rule that prevented 15yr+ expats from voting on Brexit before the vote would be held. He never fulfilled that promise. How many of the 3M+ expats do you think might have voted against Brexit?
  - PaulRobinson 3y ago
    Given most of them lived in the EU but outside of the UK, nearly all of them. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. But then, maybe not. I remember the week after the vote reading a letter in one of the quality papers (I think The Times, quite likely), from a lady who had voted Leave and was shocked to discover that her plan to retire to the South of France was now going to be much harder to achieve. "I think we should have been told about these sorts of consequences", she complained. It really boggles the mind.

mjburgess 3y ago

The UK does not vote for prime ministers; none are elected. Voting regions vote for MPs, and MPs collectively choose their leader. A large part of why the last leaders of both major parties have been populists, out of keeping with UK history, is because parties let their own private memberships play significant roles in choosing their leader -- this has handed the choice of PM from directly elected MPs to profoundly unelected party members. The only reason the current PM is sane is because the ruling party decided to ignore the members this time, having seen how basically incompetent their members have become.

bantunes 3y ago

You don't vote for a PM in the UK - you vote for a party, that is free to change their PM while in power.

midasuni 3y ago
No. You vote in a representative who may wear a rosette at a time but has no obligation to stay wearing that rosette.

Invictus0 3y ago

Plenty of people sympathize with the Palestinians even after they voted for Hamas

midasuni 3y ago
Vast majority of Gaza residents have never had the chance to vote for anyone. The last elections were 2006, vast majority are under aged 35 and thus too young to vote in 2006.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  To be more precise, roughly half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 15. Also: https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-94/en/ https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue... > Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country. But sure, let's leave it at "they voted for Hamas" -- when "Hamas is using them as shield, so..." doesn't cut it, that is.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Even then during those elections there was only around 1/3 turnout
praptak 3y ago
Not quite. Hamas rules the Gaza strip only and even this isn't 100% grass roots. They used to get strong backing from Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
sxg 3y ago
Not at all the same situation. Although imperfect, the UK has an actual functioning democracy while Palestine is an impoverished, semi-autonomous, largely refugee state partially controlled by Israel. This video explains how the Palestinians voted for Hamas in theory but not in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8

nicktelford 3y ago

Nitpick: the UK doesn't vote for a Prime Minister. Since the last election, there have been 3 Prime Ministers, so you could argue that 2 of them are "unelected".

midasuni 3y ago

Britons don’t vote in prime ministers. The last time Britain voted a plurality (not majority) Boris Johnson was PM. Since then Liz Truss was put in as unelected leader, then removed, then Rishi Sunak was put in. The last time the country voted for a new prime minister in an election (and by that I mean they voted for a majority of MPs) was 1997. Before that was 1979 with Thatcher. Major was appointed in 1990, Brown was appointed in 2007, Cameron came to power with coalition dealing, but at least had a plurality, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak all appointed by their party membership at most.

PaulRobinson 3y ago

Correction: a minority of Britons believe powerful lies and vote accordingly. Out of 46.5m registered voters, 17.4m voted to leave the EU. That's 37% of voters, and about 26% of the population. Unfortunately, 13.3m people just didn't vote at all in the referendum. Theresa May got a hung parliament in her election (2017), and was propped up by the DUP. She won 42% of the vote, with about 13.6m votes cast - that's about 30% of eligible votes and 21% of the population. Johnson won 365 seats in the UK Parliament (a majority of 80 seats) in 2019 with only 43% of the vote - about 14m votes. Still not the majority of Britons. About 81,000 people voted for Liz Truss. It was only Conservative party members who were eligible to vote. No member of the public outside of the Tory party has ever voted for Sunak. He ran against Truss in the previous leadership election and got about 60,000 votes. He became PM when Truss resigned and he ran unopposed. Please explain how it is that Britons "keep voting against their own best interests", when the majority have actively resisted, abstained or not been able to participate in every vote from the Brexit referendum through to the appointment of the last four Prime Ministers. We need Parliamentary reform - an act like the Great Act of 1832, perhaps - and we need better politicians, but don't dare blame this on "Britons".

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> Out of 46.5m registered voters, 17.4m voted to leave the EU. That's 37% of voters, and about 26% of the population. Unfortunately, 13.3m people just didn't vote at all in the referendum. Cameron had promised to rescind the rule that prevented 15yr+ expats from voting on Brexit before the vote would be held. He never fulfilled that promise. How many of the 3M+ expats do you think might have voted against Brexit?
- PaulRobinson 3y ago
  Given most of them lived in the EU but outside of the UK, nearly all of them. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. But then, maybe not. I remember the week after the vote reading a letter in one of the quality papers (I think The Times, quite likely), from a lady who had voted Leave and was shocked to discover that her plan to retire to the South of France was now going to be much harder to achieve. "I think we should have been told about these sorts of consequences", she complained. It really boggles the mind.