Above is my discussion with Gawain Towler, a man who was head of press or something basically similar for Nigel Farage over the course of about 20 years.
Hi, Nick, interesting, but when it comes to the next leader of the opposition it is Ed Davey that has a greater chance of that than Farage. Lib Dems will be making it their top priority to take seats from Labour and Tories. Ideally Labour will not be able to form a government without Lib Dem support. Parliamentary dynamics will change considerably as a result. Lib Dem priorities, UK back in the single market, PR, and social care.
Nick keeps saying that "every party is pro-Brexit"... While you can criticise the Lib Dems for being very quiet on the subject, their policy is actually clear (and MPs have been a bit more vocal about it recently). As things get worse and worse and the country becomes every more desperate for economic growth, everything is in place for the party to become noisier on the subject.
And I'm not aware of - certainly Nick doesn't set out - an alternative strategy for returning to the EU to apart from the one the Lib Dems propose. Would the Lib Dems prioritising a call for a referendum this year on rejoining actually make rejoining more likely? I don't think so, given the party has no mechanism of triggering one, and Nick doesn't actually say that he thinks so either.
Prioritising rejoining the customs union has many benefits both from a campaigning perspective and from an achievability perspective and, if achieved, it could help pave the way to a return by establishing momentum in that direction.
First Past the Post probably helps prevent Reform from winning large numbers of seats - although it is also the mechanism most likely to delivery Reform very substantial power on a relatively small share of the vote. It also supports Nick's point about anti-brexit people being more likely to be willing to vote Reform because it shields Reform from scrutiny and accountability.
There are and have been plenty of issues with the Lib Dems, but we shouldn't forget that it is brutally difficult to turn majority support for a political position into a winning electoral strategy if you are a small party - which Reform is. Even if Reform's support remains stable or rises, their best chance of winning power or becoming the official opposition is a fluke of the way First Past the Post works.
Demographics are changing too. Lots of Leave voters have died in the nine years since EU referendum. And lots of new voters are coming through. Every day. Lib Dems should focus on them and on disillusioned centrist Tory and Labour voters. Their key organising principle for next GE ought to be to take Tory and Labour seats with the aim of either: removing a Labour majority so that they can only form a government with Lib Dem support (coalition; confidence and supply); or, Lib Dems displace Tories as official opposition. I don’t think Reform will ever exceed 20 seats.
I am afraid Nick is mistaken. Not every party is pro-Brexit. The Lib Dems are quite clear they are not pro-Brexit, rather the UK should set a trajectory to join EU, starting by building closer relations, then joining SM CU, and when the time is right accession into the EU.
Here in Scotland neither the SNP nor the Scottish Greens (and in fact none of the splinter groups like Alba) accept Brexit. I don't think folk south of the border really understand the sense of betrayal which the Brexit ref represents - Scotland voted 55/45% "No" to independence in 2014 largely because enough people were worried about Scotland losing its membership of the EU and not being able to go straight back in as an independent state, only to find two years later that, despite having voted 62% Remain, Scotland was then dragged out of the EU by a vote in England. If the Brexit vote had come before the Indy vote i have no doubt that Indy would have walked it.
This anger will never be quenched until either Scotland does become independent or the UK rejoins, although I suspect that the rift between Scotland and England is now too deep for any real reconciliation.
Conventional analysis of the likely position of the parties after the next general election would suggest that the most likely outcome would be a greater dose of recent trends but not quite a tipping point as yet, perhaps. The Tories are likely to lose seats. They could quite easily lose 20 odd to the LibDems. Labour will lose seats but probably not enough to lose their majority and will at least lead a minority government, suddenly reaching for LibDem support with an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
ReformUK will not be sweeping to power any time soon. We've heard it all before with Farage's previous parties. They are in a good position to win up to 25 seats in total, but after that the majorities become mountainous, while that fractious hard right party run by a duplicitous con man, unable to organise on the ground, does not bode well for their longer term prospects. If you compare them to the SDP, they had big names, experienced activists, press support, opinion polls up to 50% and big by election wins, but they only managed 3 seats in the 1983 GE in alliance with the Liberal Party, who won 15, based on pavement politics.
If politics continues much as is, the LibDems could pip the Tories for 2nd place official opposition. The harder to judge possibility would be if there is the start of a once in a century revolution, last where Lloyd George's Liberal government turned around WW1, but were then gradually replaced by the Labour Representation body within the Liberals, becoming a party of government and replacing the Liberal's primary position. This time the Tories look on the way down, but their expiry is unlikely to be immediate. We are headed towards coalition territory, where FPTP voting is going to look completely out of step with how people vote across 4 primary parties, the Greens winning crumbs and with regional nationalists playing the whinge factor.
Hi, Nick, interesting, but when it comes to the next leader of the opposition it is Ed Davey that has a greater chance of that than Farage. Lib Dems will be making it their top priority to take seats from Labour and Tories. Ideally Labour will not be able to form a government without Lib Dem support. Parliamentary dynamics will change considerably as a result. Lib Dem priorities, UK back in the single market, PR, and social care.
Nick keeps saying that "every party is pro-Brexit"... While you can criticise the Lib Dems for being very quiet on the subject, their policy is actually clear (and MPs have been a bit more vocal about it recently). As things get worse and worse and the country becomes every more desperate for economic growth, everything is in place for the party to become noisier on the subject.
And I'm not aware of - certainly Nick doesn't set out - an alternative strategy for returning to the EU to apart from the one the Lib Dems propose. Would the Lib Dems prioritising a call for a referendum this year on rejoining actually make rejoining more likely? I don't think so, given the party has no mechanism of triggering one, and Nick doesn't actually say that he thinks so either.
Prioritising rejoining the customs union has many benefits both from a campaigning perspective and from an achievability perspective and, if achieved, it could help pave the way to a return by establishing momentum in that direction.
First Past the Post probably helps prevent Reform from winning large numbers of seats - although it is also the mechanism most likely to delivery Reform very substantial power on a relatively small share of the vote. It also supports Nick's point about anti-brexit people being more likely to be willing to vote Reform because it shields Reform from scrutiny and accountability.
There are and have been plenty of issues with the Lib Dems, but we shouldn't forget that it is brutally difficult to turn majority support for a political position into a winning electoral strategy if you are a small party - which Reform is. Even if Reform's support remains stable or rises, their best chance of winning power or becoming the official opposition is a fluke of the way First Past the Post works.
Demographics are changing too. Lots of Leave voters have died in the nine years since EU referendum. And lots of new voters are coming through. Every day. Lib Dems should focus on them and on disillusioned centrist Tory and Labour voters. Their key organising principle for next GE ought to be to take Tory and Labour seats with the aim of either: removing a Labour majority so that they can only form a government with Lib Dem support (coalition; confidence and supply); or, Lib Dems displace Tories as official opposition. I don’t think Reform will ever exceed 20 seats.
I am afraid Nick is mistaken. Not every party is pro-Brexit. The Lib Dems are quite clear they are not pro-Brexit, rather the UK should set a trajectory to join EU, starting by building closer relations, then joining SM CU, and when the time is right accession into the EU.
Here in Scotland neither the SNP nor the Scottish Greens (and in fact none of the splinter groups like Alba) accept Brexit. I don't think folk south of the border really understand the sense of betrayal which the Brexit ref represents - Scotland voted 55/45% "No" to independence in 2014 largely because enough people were worried about Scotland losing its membership of the EU and not being able to go straight back in as an independent state, only to find two years later that, despite having voted 62% Remain, Scotland was then dragged out of the EU by a vote in England. If the Brexit vote had come before the Indy vote i have no doubt that Indy would have walked it.
This anger will never be quenched until either Scotland does become independent or the UK rejoins, although I suspect that the rift between Scotland and England is now too deep for any real reconciliation.
Conventional analysis of the likely position of the parties after the next general election would suggest that the most likely outcome would be a greater dose of recent trends but not quite a tipping point as yet, perhaps. The Tories are likely to lose seats. They could quite easily lose 20 odd to the LibDems. Labour will lose seats but probably not enough to lose their majority and will at least lead a minority government, suddenly reaching for LibDem support with an unwarranted sense of entitlement.
ReformUK will not be sweeping to power any time soon. We've heard it all before with Farage's previous parties. They are in a good position to win up to 25 seats in total, but after that the majorities become mountainous, while that fractious hard right party run by a duplicitous con man, unable to organise on the ground, does not bode well for their longer term prospects. If you compare them to the SDP, they had big names, experienced activists, press support, opinion polls up to 50% and big by election wins, but they only managed 3 seats in the 1983 GE in alliance with the Liberal Party, who won 15, based on pavement politics.
If politics continues much as is, the LibDems could pip the Tories for 2nd place official opposition. The harder to judge possibility would be if there is the start of a once in a century revolution, last where Lloyd George's Liberal government turned around WW1, but were then gradually replaced by the Labour Representation body within the Liberals, becoming a party of government and replacing the Liberal's primary position. This time the Tories look on the way down, but their expiry is unlikely to be immediate. We are headed towards coalition territory, where FPTP voting is going to look completely out of step with how people vote across 4 primary parties, the Greens winning crumbs and with regional nationalists playing the whinge factor.