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Theresa May Loses Overall Majority In UK Parliament (cnn.com)
Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain has lost her overall majority in Parliament on Thursday, plunging Britain into a period of renewed political chaos less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union. While May's Conservative party won the most seats, the party didn't win enough to govern without the support of minority parties. CNN reports: It was devastating result for May, who had called the election three years earlier than required by law, convinced by opinion polls that placed her far ahead of opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The result also plunges Britain into a period of renewed political chaos, with Brexit talks likely to be delayed and May's personal authority shredded. There was already talk in Conservative circles that she might have to resign, less than a year after taking over from David Cameron, who resigned following the Brexit referendum. The pound fell on currency markets in the wake of the results. After the result was declared in her constituency of Maidenhead, May gave a faltering speech. "At this time more than anything else, this country needs a period of stability," she said, suggesting she would attempt to form a government even if her party loses its majority. Corbyn said the early results showed May had lost her mandate and called for her to resign. Further reading: New York Times
Weak and wobbly.
SNP and Lib Dems have already said they're not going to form a coalition government which means the only option left is for Conservative to form a minority government which would effectively means the government loses its authority to pass laws without support from other parties which would be a disaster when managing Brexit given how divided the nation is on the topic.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Tories have played stupid games in the last two elections they called for. They've won stupid prizes as a result.
Oh crikey look at the whiny little snowflake.
The right wing nutjobs are convinced slashdot is dominated by evil commie leftist progressive SJW mangina race traitors or whatever.
The loony left think that slashdot is dominated by the gun totin' racist,sexist, transphobic denialist rightwing nutjobs.
Has it possibly occurred to you that slashdot actually has a better spread than most places which makes it less of an echo chamber and more of a yelling chamber?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well I'd say it goes under the 'stuff that matters' part of the slogan. As a European one of the reasons I like political stories on Slashdot, especially political stories from outisde the US is that it's interesting to read american commentary on these matters. I mean, I often do not agree but it doesn't matter, it gives me a perspective on the matters that I feel I do not get from simply reading something like CNN or other american news sources.
In case there are others who feel the same and for what it's worth here's my take on this topic: The British right has effectively sunk their own ship. The Brexit campaign was never meant to succeed, but rather it was meant to be used as a PR-campaign for Farage and his ilk in preparation for the next eelctions. Pretty much everyone, on the right and the left, assumed people would vote remain. This lead to 2 things that started this cascade of clusterfucks:
1. The Brexit side felt they could make pretty much any claims they wanted. After all, they weren't actually going to win, so while they're at it might as well take it over the top for maximal visibility. Hence the absurd claims that by resigning they'd be able to pour hundreds of millions more into health care, or maintain complete control of their borders while still being free to trade with the Union like before, and so on.
2. The Remain side, equally convinced that they'd win easily - after all, who'd be stupid enough to fall for the extravagant hyperbole of the Brexit camp - did not do a solid campaign at all. Granted, I'm, not a Brit but I was left with the impression that they were totally unable to craft a message of their own, other than essentially trying to signal "leaving the Union would be bad for reasons X, Y and Z". This is when I knew they were screwed. You're essentially up against a populists wet dream: an popular vote where the other side gets to wrap themselves in a flag and talk about 'freedom'. That's really hard to counter, because the nuanced arguments about the benefits of a trade union are trumped by the idealistic talk.
These two effects combined were enough to tilt the scales and now they're left in a situation that no-one really wanted. The Brexit camp has mostly ran to the hills and scattered, realizing well ahead of time that they've scored a massive pyrrhic victory and that by the time the effects of a brexit hit they don't want to be anywhere near responsibilities. This leaves the political establishment in a weird spot, where the resignation process has to be overseen by people who didn't really want to resign in the first place. May, herself a remainer, looked at all of this and probably figured that since she lost to raging populist she might as well do a full u-turn and attempt to go 'full populist' to solidify support for the conservatives. So she adopted a hardline stance on Brexit where they're trying to strongarm the Union into giving them everything they want even though from a purely realpolitik/game theory point of view the UK is at a massive disadvantage in these negotiations, so trying to play hardball is an insanely stupid move. She also called the elections in an attempt to gather support for her newly found stance of 'brexit means brexit' and 'no deal is better than a bad deal' -stance.
However by this time most of Brittain seems to have realized how much they were in fact duped by the Brexit campaign. That indeed, the majority of the claims made by the campaign about the benefits of resigning are outright lies. Many are feeling remorseful, and indeed it seems based on the polls if the vote was held today Remain would win
What can we learn from this? Well, the number one issue to be learned is that putting decisions of this scale to a binding popular vote with a simple majority is a suicidal move because people aren't really that well informed on complex matters like the role of the Union, which allows populists (from both sides) to essentially ma
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Corbyn got more votes for Labour than they have had since 1997. You can slice it any number of ways, but the fact is he took a 25 point deficit and reduced it to near zero.
Hopefully turmoil in the Tory party will prevent any kind of DUP deal, but I'm not optimistic. Like the Lib Dems, they may be unable to resist tasting a little bit of power. Like the Libs Dems, the Tories will screw them.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If the SNP would agree to form a coalition with the conservatives, on the single condition that they can leave the UK and stay in the EU, they can get their independence.
It will give the British and Welsh people what they voted for, and I think soon will regret.
And it will not be their problem anymore.
The Scots voted in 2014 only to stay in the UK, because leaving the UK would have meant leaving the EU.
And in 2016 they voted mainly to remain, as they did not want to leave the EU.
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
Typical leftist, wanting to give out prizes for participating. And who will pay for these +mods? The taxpayer, that's who.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Possibly, but once we're out (and that does seem to be the way things are headed, for whatever form of "out" we end up with - fatalism or not), we're not going to be coming back in any time soon because of the required concessions, at least some of which will probably be needed with the "cap in hand, abort Article 50" approach too for that matter. When the UK joined the EU, we got a whole bunch of concessions because our economy was fucked and we needed them, although the EU also wanted us because they thought the likely UK recovery would ultimately benefit the EU and saying "no" to anyone would scupper the "One Federal Europe" vision they were starting to aim for.
Since then membership requirements have changed - things like adoption of the Euro, Schengen, and other things we are currently exempt from have been mandatory for many of the countries of the current EU, and there's no way ALL of those countries - and membership requires it to be "all" - are going to let the UK back in without the same commitments. Not to mention anything else they might add once they UK's repeated vetoing of anything that moves them closer to a Federal State gets cut loose. 48% might have voted Remain in the referendum, but that was on the assumption of maintaining the status quo; I can't see anything like that percentage of the current population agreeing to adopting the Euro and Schengen to get back in, no matter how screwed the economy/Sterling might be and how secure the EU might become from Islamic fundamentalism, which obviously isn't happening soon. We're currently just too sentimental about Sterling (even as we march towards a cashless economy and it becomes mostly moot), and too fearful over the relatively miniscule risk of being a victim of terrorism for that to happen.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!