So do you want to know how I was able to call the UK election so early and so correctly without even following it a whole lot?
I was able to do it because “the knowledge of certain trends makes it unnecessary to know certain facts.” The moment the Tories said they were going hold a vote on the EU membership, I knew they had the voters by the balls.
The anti-EU mania of the Europeans is obviously not about the EU. They are made very uncomfortable by the erosion of the nation-state, and attribute its symptoms to the EU simply because its creation coincided chronologically with the collapse of the nation-state model.
The problem, however, is that history cannot be undone. Leaving the EU, the UK, Spain, etc will not turn back time and create a powerful nation-state in a single country. You can make that country as tiny as you wish but the result is still going to be nil. This is a historic trend that nobody can escape.
The only reaction to the collapse of the nation-state that will bring positive results is to stop trying to hide from reality in a myth of a prelapsarian paradise that can somehow be regained by leaving the EU or anything else.
The paradox of the UK’s election is that in an effort to reject the erosion of the nation-state, Britons voted precisely for the party that will hurry to dismantle it as fast as possible.
Clarissa's Blog 
While the outcome of Thursday’s general election in Britain has yet to be decided, one thing’s for sure: The Labour Party has lost the support of many Jews on the isles – and primarily because of Ed Miliband, the party’s Jewish leader.
[…]
During Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Miliband described Israel’s actions as “unjustified;” and then in October, it was his party that initiated the vote in Parliament to recognize the State of Palestine.
In a survey conducted among British Jews by the London-based weekly, The Jewish Chronicle, some 69 percent of the respondents said they were voting for the Conservative Party, with just 22 percent planning to cast a ballot for Miliband.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4654379,00.html
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Or we could blame the Jews. 🙂
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The Jewish population in the UK is about 0.5 percent. Is that enough for the “Jewish vote” (even if they voted as a block) to make a difference in the outcome in Britain’s parliamentary system?
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Yeah, I think it’s extremely unlikely Jews had any impact here.
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One likes to believe that one’s fellow citizens can actually think and reason, and might consider something other than hysterical ‘Othering’ as a solution to the many problems that face us – especially given so many examples around the world of how well that is (not) working out for other countries.
But given that many people seem to think the Global Recession was caused by specific members of the Labour party, if one was to believe the internet and the papers, that was perhaps a tad optimistic.
The ‘New Lie-Bore’ lot have alienated many of their own traditional voters by going all ‘Hampstead Socialist’ (never mind bacon sandwiches and the whole Israel thing, a lot of traditional working class people object to the smarmy suits and the whole private is better thing and have done for a long time, just for a long time they disliked the Tories more…), and by pretending that dismissing specific regional concerns about immigration which are as much about the eroding welfare state, the collapse of traditional industries and the lack of any apparent chance of improvement of anything especially for young not-indoors-y male workers as the actual concern about foreign born workers getting stuff over those born in the UK (we are quite capable sadly of having drunken brawls all over the streets on our own without needing to add any kind of outsider, and I still find it hard to condemn those who complain about entire families and communities who choose to come to the UK to live for some reason then refuse to accept the laws and habits around them or learn the language even a little bit… because quite honestly, that really bugs me. I’ve lived in other countries for periods from a few weeks to a couple of years, and it just seems extremely rude not to make something of an effort, and to accept that one made a choice to be there which includes the choice to abide by the systems around one).
Yeah my thinking is not terribly sophisticated on these matters – I’m in a STEM subject, was raised in a strong union family with great belief in the national character (as archaic a construct as that might be), and I’m instinctively the kind of “Lloyd George Liberal” who politically has absolutely no representation in the current party system, and really is a “fool who prefers any century to [their] own”.
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Thank you for the great comment! What’s the story on the bacon sandwiches, though?
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‘The paradox of the UK’s election is that in an effort to reject the erosion of the nation-state, Britons voted precisely for the party that will hurry to dismantle it as fast as possible.’
The problem is that most Britons did not vote for this. With our outdated first-past-the post voting system, it’s a winner takes it all scenario and so 33% of the registered voting population didn’t bother to vote at all, 36.9% voted for the tories and this gave them 51% of the seats in the House of Commons. So no way are the tories going to change the outdated voting system, which was instigated in the 19th century when the whigs and the tories were the only parties.
What is left of the whigs became the liberal democrats, who could have influenced some change when they were in coalition with the toriesduring the past 5 years, but they just rolled over and let the tories scratch their bellies.
I also blame those 33% who didn’t bother, it was a hard fought for right and they should get off their bloody backsides and go vote!
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FPTP isn’t the problem to my mind. The problem is we don’t elect the government, only our local MPs. This could be just as easily rectified by electing the government as a separate entity (kind of like US-style separation of powers) and solve a lot of the problems of members of government also being sitting MPs.
Part of the “problem” with FPTP isn’t simply he two-party system but the fact it was invented on the understanding that it was voting for a person who would become your local member of parliament. In this age where people seem to have become so dissociated from the local community and get all their information from TV and the internet, the parties and their leaders seem to matter more. (Look at the leaders debates, and note the farce of several party leaders who are not even standing for Westminster, modelled on US-style presidential debates where the president is who you vote for). PR seems to assume the existence of political parties and individual candidates no longer mattering as much.
Single transferrable vote (STV) is a good compromise but can lead to overly-large constituencies.
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And when polled separately, Scots are much more in favour of staying in the EU than the rest of the UK. Thus further proving the point that Westminster rule does not benefit Scotland.
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Why is the decline of nation states something distinct from the formation of the EU? The formation of the EU and other international bodies of governance, as they essentially are a limit on national sovereignty and actually is a direct erosion of the nation state as a distinct entity. It has its own flag, constitution in all but name, currency and government. Moreover I don’t automatically buy the idea that Britain needs to be in the EU in order to be a player on the world stage, as whatever influence it has is diluted by the need to consider that of over 20 other member states. We may not have an Empire anymore nor have the size and clout of the US, China or the Big Bad Bear, but are still a large economy and member of the UN Security Council amongst other things.
As for the Tories getting in on the promise of an EU referendum alone, I don’t see that on the ground. There is a deep distrust amongst much of the electorate in Britain of the major parties when it comes to making pledges of that sort, as many parties have failed to deliver on similar in the past. The 2017 promise of a referendum if the Tories got a majority seemed like a classic dodge- kick it into the long grass if a coalition or loss of government results, and give time for “renegotiations” so you can hope to make some kind of case for not needing to leave the EU because of them.
You also have to look at the predicted outcomes for possible govenments. Everyone was predicting another hung parliament, and the existing coalition not only being very unpopular, but the fact the Lib-Dems (seen by many as a centering/moderating influence) would have bore the brunt of going into coalition meant you had a choice of Labour having to make some arrangement with the SNP (no matter what Miliband promised) which might threaten the future of the union as well as taking things too far to the left in the centre ground, or perhaps a Tory government doing deals with UKIP and/or the DUP (both seen as far right extremists by many), or a minority government on either side which would have a lot of difficulty governing anyway. So perhaps many thought, better the devil you know (majority of major but controversial party) than the devil you don’t (political uncertainty and outsiders from unknown elements of hitherto fringe parties and nationalist special interests).
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Oh, I agree that the Tory promise of a referendum might come to nought. But in my talks with Europeans all I’m seeing is endless belly – aching about the EU. The nation-state is being destroyed by the technological revolution. Nothing can undo that. Disbanding the EU will not bring back the nation-state. Nothing will.
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