streetad wrote:
What has actually happened is that UK politics has become much more polarised and smaller parties are being squeezed out. It doesnt bode particularly well for parties being able to obtain decent working majorities at all in the future.
Not really.
The Greens have lost a bit but were involved in a lot of tactical voting and stood aside in some constituencies they'd previously done well in to keep the tories out, whilst in the one seat they actually have they increased their vote share 10%. Lib Dems are only down 0.7%.
The massive vote share losers have been UKIP because, well, nobody needs them any more. They were a one issue party and they got their issue. So all their voters have returned to the Big Two. And the SNP, who underestimated the strength and intersectionality of pro-brexit/pro-union feeling in Scotland and so lost more seats to the tories than would have been conceivable two years ago. (any at all). Scottish Labour were a poorer alternative there because they're split on both issues. (And they only lost 3% vote share.
Combine that with one of the worst personal performances from a prime minister in history. Not just during the shambles of a campaign either, despite looking like the safe pair of hands, which almost anyone can do in a room with Gove and Johnson, her first big ticket policy was grammar schools that nobody else wanted, she spent immense time and effort fighting against the article 50 commons vote despite being guaranteed to win it anyway, and then she called a general election she didn't need to (because she'd faced absolutely no defeats in the commons over brexit and had no demonstrated need to enhance her majority) and said she wouldn't.
All of this will make Prime Minister Boris Johnson (and don't think that won't happen now,about the only person who could get enough support from the party to stop him would be Ruth Davidson and she's not allowed to try) seem fucking competent
