E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Yeah, we had that conversation a while ago, or she fluked her PhD

I guess that's the trade off.

 

....

I also thought, if someone can clear this up, that JP-EU deal in effect states that Japan can't enter into other free trade deals with countries if it is in direct competition with the EU.

Or have I got that backside about face as weel?

 

The thing is, it didn't work out so well for the Five Star party when they won the Rome local elections. Carping from the sidelines is one thing; actually delivering is another. Usually such parties don't survive long in government.

 

As you know well they are in the (rather more important) national government in a coalitio of the unhappy with the right wing League. I'm not fundamentally opposed to PR systems, but they can allow the political extremes far more influence that in a FPTP system.

 

Let's see how long they last. Far Right and Far Left parties usually don't last because they are all mouth and no substance (cf. UKIP). That is why they try to kill off the democratic process and go full totalitarian at the nearest opportunity. FPTP systems are a subversion of the democratic process in themselves, thus allowing more extreme parties to hold sway because there is no counterbalance of other parties (cf. the current Tory party).

 

s'called Duverger's Law

 

Every day is a school day.

 

I'm not so sure on that, the political extremes are so called because they're at the extreme ends of the spectrum so doesn't that mean their always going to be outnumbered, whether that be in public or political life.

Using your earlier example of UKIP with 83 seats, they wouldn't be more influential than say the Conservatives or Labour with 600+ seats between them. Isn't it actually FPTP that gives the extremist more influence what with trying to keep everyone on-side so you can beat your only other competitor?

You only have to look at how that played out with Labour, who are arguable being run by a far left extremist, and the Conservatives, who again arguably, have been dragged into the current mess we find ourselves in by trying to keep far right extremist on board.

If we had a PR system both Labour and the Conservatives could have just said to the likes of JRM and Corbyn, you know what we're fine with you buggering off to another party because we'll still have a far bigger proportion of MPs than you'll ever have.

 

Exactly. Example:
- Moderate party A garners 200.000 votes in a constituency.
- Moderate party B garners 200.000 votes.
- Moderate Party C garners 150.000 votes.
- Extreme party D garners 210.000 votes.
Result? Extreme party D wins, even though outnumbered by 550.000 moderate party votes.

So now moderate parties A, B and C have to woo the extreme voters to try and win, and adjust their policies to suit.

 

Last election the DUP who currently hold power over the Goverment got 10 seats with about 300k votes).

The Greens got 1 seat and UKIP 0 with over 500k votes each.

No wonder people don't feel listened to, those figures just make no sense in a modern Democracy. It's no doubt why all the Assemblies have PR.

Anyway a new day, I see the papers are now outraged at the EU again. £6 to go to Europe, how dare they!...

 

So even after leaving we'll still be paying into the EU coffers, wasn't part of taking back control supposed to involve not sending vast sums of money to the EU each year, how many millions of pounds is that going to be contributing?

 

Soon will be £10,--. That GBP keeps dropping...

 

It's oddly been much of a muchness on the transfer rates.

It's surprised me really, been watching all week as we had to move some money. There was a limit in place during the Tory vote but it's been about £.899/.900 for a € (currently .8984).

 

Uncertainty is priced in. More uncertainty doesn't affect it. A certainty might.

 

Yeah, it would have tanked if May was voted out (hence why they had a temporary transfer limit on) but I guess, effectively, nothing has really changed this week.

 

But the still get 28% of the seats which is a lot of influence and you can bet the other parties don't get to ignore them. I meant the AFD have far less than that and they have affected politics in Berlin.


Voting systems can't prevent extremist politics, they can be designed to do so e.g. Germany, but in the end it doesn't get rid of them.

Fwiw I'm not against some PR system in principal, though I voted against in in 2011 for tactical reasons.

 

Nope; keep in mind that this is in one constituency. Repeat the same pattern over the majority of all 650, and it would be possible for the Extreme Party D to become the majority government, even though they got only 28% of the total vote.

In fact, in 2015 the Conservatives won majority government with only 36.9% of the vote.

So moderate parties need to woo the extreme voters to get the majority vote in each constituency. Which means that they need to embrace more extremist views than they normally would, and are not necessarily embraced by their mainstream voters.

This is not about preventing extremist politics or getting rid of them; it is about giving them no more power than they have votes. In Germany and other PR countries, they remain in the minority, or are tempered by coalitions with more mainstream parties that they need to form to get any power at all. Basically the opposite occurs: extreme parties need to woo the moderates to gain influence.

Moreover having seats in government means that these extreme parties have to deliver on their extreme promises, and on that they inevitably disappoint. UKIP MEPs for instance have done absolutely **** all in European Parliament, only nobody is paying attention to what goes on there, so they got away with it. But I doubt that UKIP MPs never attending UK Parliament or committee meetings, having punch-ups in Westminster and generally achieving absolutely nothing at all would gain them many votes at the next elections. As another example, just look at how the Tories are doing with Brexit, which was driven by extreme ideology and hence extreme promises. How is that working out so far? In a PR system, Brexit would be shaped by consensus by a number of moderate coalition parties, putting forward more realistic goals and expectations with the electorate.

As an aside, I know people who voted Brexit for tactical reasons. It always amuses me that an ordinary voter thinks they can outmanoeuvre career politicians in a game that these politicians write --and constantly re-write-- the rules of in the first place.

 

They wouldn't be a majority government though, just the biggest party.
And you don't need to allow the biggest party to rule, if you have the two chambers of parliament as the highest form of government (with posts like prime minister or president being little more than a ceremonial title) then the other parties can hold the nutjobs accountable.

 

In the UK it would be a majority government.

 

DUP got 10 seats with about 300k votes.
Greens got 1 seat with >500k votes
UKIP got 0 seats with >500k votes

None of that makes sense.

Interesringly it makes me wonder why UKIP seem to get so much airtime when they have about the same support as the Greens.

And that former UKIPer career politician Farage is always on tv, what is that MEP doing meddling in our UK politics!!!!

Edit: Our politics should move more towards getting them all to work together for all the voters.