Skip to main content

Post the election, whither the United Kingdom?

Leaving to one side that the pollsters were so far off the mark in their predictions for the outcome of the just concluded general election in Britain, now that the voters have spoken as this op-ed piece in The New York Times postulates, the consequences which may follow will likely not only occur in the UK but be "felt" in, for example, Europe.

"One of the most anodyne election campaigns in living memory has left Britain with a result that few expected — and one that could transform Britain both internally and externally. This was an election that recast the political geography of Britain. It may redraw the boundaries of the nation. And it raises questions about the future shape of the European Union.

It is conceivable, given the astonishing success of the Scottish National Party, that this may be one of the last elections of a United Kingdom. It is also conceivable, given the Conservative Party’s pledge to hold a referendum on European Union membership, that it may be the last general election in which Britain is a member of the union."


****

"The legitimacy of Britain’s electoral system is also now under scrutiny. The first-past-the-post system worked relatively well while British politics revolved around two main parties. There was never a perfect fit between the proportion of votes that the Labour or Conservative Party received and the number of parliamentary seats they gained, yet the relationship was close enough in a rough-and-ready way to give the system legitimacy.

Britain, however, is growing more fragmented in its political outlook. As the two-party system has mutated into a multiparty democracy, the electoral arrangements are producing highly skewed results. The Scottish National Party, for instance, won a little less than 1.5 million votes last night and 56 seats. UKIP won more than twice as many votes but has just one member of Parliament."




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?