I don't have much to say about this election, but I figured I could at least post a thread. Add thoughtful comments and reports from the ground.

For what it's worth the UK threads on the Something Aweful forums seem to be breaking heavily for Labour activism this cycle. So either terminally online, certainly-not-yet 40 year olds are all in on Labour or it  means nothing.

#Israel voiced worry about the #UKElection on Thursday, describing the possible rise of the @UKLabour Party under Jeremy Corbyn as a threat to bilateral ties and alarming for British #Jews.[_link]

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) December 12, 2019

Related reading ...

Xenophobia, Israel, Alt-right and the Jewish Question

'Sapere aude'

I'm hiding in a fridge. I won't be drawn on whether the lights are on.

Unfortunately there's no oven in which to cook Brexit.

It's DIY time, folks!

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
L. Cohen

Media making "large turn-out" noises which favors Labour -- or so I am told.

"It's Happening," Declares Jeremy Corbyn as Early UK Election Reports Suggest "Longest Queues Ever"

And the youngs?

"Many of the voters out this morning have said the lines are 'full of young people,'" Metro noted.

They are voting?


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

I am curious about the degree to which this will be interpreted as a referendum on Brexit.

If Johnson wins with a small majority, will he feel the need to have a further referendum? Or is his campaign a clear enough signal that supporting him means supporting Brexit? Presumably it will be harder for Remain MPs in the Conservative Party to sustain their argument after the election.

If Corbyn wins, I would assume that a Brexit referendum would be required, due to his fence-sitting...

After months of totally ignoring it in the last hours Boris is out campaigning in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.  He must be sweating it.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Hearing London is looking 'very difficult' for the Tories

Told Tory activists from all over capital - including some from marginal Chingford - were pulled into Chipping Barnet & Putney this afternoon

The phrase 'a majority of one is still a majority' is doing the rounds

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) December 12, 2019

'Sapere aude'

This is #Salford and #Eccles I think.#VoteTactically .[_link]

— Stuart Budd 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 #UniteToRemain #FBPE (@StuartBudd1) December 12, 2019

'Sapere aude'

Out of the fridge and back campaigning due to rising uncertainty ...

Out campaigning in South Ruislip! Polls close at 10pm - vote Conservative to #GetBrexitDone 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/BqUooEbSuF

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 12, 2019

Leave US with one hour of hope for a surprise! 💫

'Sapere aude'

Huge Conservative majority ... era of Margaret Thatcher on repeat. 🥵

'Sapere aude'

Gives the Tories an 86 seat majority:

Conservatives: 368

Labour: 191

SNP: 55

Liberal Democrats: 13

Plaid Cymru: 3

Greens: 1

Brexit party: 0

Others: 22

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

The 2017 election I could understand ... this blow is severe. The socialists in other European nations had suffered similar blows and find it hard to recover. The era of Corbyn is over.

I promised @UKLabour would run the biggest people powered campaign our country has ever seen.

And you, our members and supporters, have done just that.

You're the heart of our party, and you have campaigned tirelessly to win so we can a build a fairer country.

I thank you all. pic.twitter.com/Pic0pw9FCU

— Jeremy Corbyn | Vote today 🌹 (@jeremycorbyn) December 12, 2019

'Sapere aude'

Exit polls have generally been fairly accurate, so it looks like Boris is going to get a more than adequate majority tomorrow. That means he will drive his Brexit deal through parliament, the UK will Brexit on Jan31st., and the EU will play hardball on a FTA knowing Boris has self-imposed a Dec. 2020 deadline for getting a deal done.

And the rest of Europe can get on with their lives.

Remarkably the one aspect of the "future relationship" which has already been agreed as part of that Withdrawal Agreement is that there will be no customs border on the Island of Ireland which means the UK will have to administer one in the Irish Sea once the transition period is over - unless the UK does a U-turn and stays within the CUSM either temporarily or permanently. Let us presume Boris and the ERG stick to their guns and rule out this option.

From an Irish perspective this is a least worse option. East West trade between Ireland and the UK will be effected, but not north south within Ireland. Any  "border down the Irish sea" will discredit the DUP when it happens as they will be seen to have brought an unwanted Brexit upon an unwilling people and caused a rift between Britain and N. Ireland to have opened up.

But that is for the next election to clarify. If a solid Boris majority is confirmed and Boris gets his deal through,  N. Ireland Unionists are going to feel betrayed by Boris - and screwed by the DUP - and will feel they have no where to turn. Their initial reaction will probably be to bury their heads in the sand and pretend nothing is happening, but my guess is that future historians will regard Brexit and this election as a watershed and a milestone on the road to a united Ireland in perhaps a decade from now.

But its going to be a difficult road...

Index of Frank's Diaries

And now we hear

As many as 65 seats are considered "too close to call" by the exit poll

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

I can't find the exit poll. I mean I find the blurb about it repeated with the seat projections, but not the results with crosstabs etc. Ipsos hasn't published it and neither has BBC, ITV or Sky, the three organisations that paid for it. And no percentages or estimated number of votes anywhere, just seats. Annoying.

I sure hope the votes are hand counted in public and that the handling of ballots and postal ballots are secure enough to prevent any fraud.

I briefly looked at the GE2015 results with the UKIP party votes. For Blythe Valley and Workington the Leave vote was a clear threat for the Labour seat. The writings on the "Red" wall, the voters were consistent throughout. Unfortunately with a hard Brexit they will find out what today's Tory vote will bring them ... more suffering. Boris to the rescue ?! 🙏🏼

'Sapere aude'

I had expected the DUP to win N. Down, where Lady Sylvia Hernon was standing down as an independent Unionist. But instead the Alliance Party has won.  Not a good portent for the DUP...

Index of Frank's Diaries

DUP have held Strangford seat but their vote in the two counts completed (in very Unionist areas) is down 15% - almost all of which has gone to the Alliance Party.

Index of Frank's Diaries

Just popping in and looking at the results thus far, before going back to grading. Oh, what a cluster.

"There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility." -- Lisbeth Salander

I think it's time to recognize that Pfeffle's campaign was not inept, except in our eyes. It took the British electorate for fools, and it worked.

Buffoonery, lies, shitposting, targeted FB ads, make up a winning formula in a media environment of billionaire newspapers, skewed TV, one-liners on smartphone "news feeds", and permission to lie on social network political ads. The reduction of complexity to bone-headed simplicity is colossal. Corbyn's reasonable explanations are of another age.

Now, next stop Brexit crash-out, and fuck the gammons who voted Tory. They'll still be shouting they were right even as what's left of their country is plundered. In fact, there'll be even more resentment under the surface, easy to exploit in a fascist drift.

US beware: this result is also a victory for Trumpian populism. It may come naturally to Bozza, but his politics is Trump-inspired.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
L. Cohen

Just compare today's map of the Conservative vote with the map of EU Referendum - June 2016

How optimism is confronted by hard reality minutes later ...

20 minutes left! Every vote counts. Don't miss out. #VoteLibDem to stay in the EU & build a better, brighter future 👉[_link] pic.twitter.com/EnNQSzSHEY

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) December 12, 2019

Related reading ...

Why Liberal Democrats didn't vote for their own party in GE2015

'Sapere aude'

LIVE NOW - press statement [_link]

— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) December 13, 2019

'Sapere aude'

Irish News: Nigel Dodds and Emma Little-Pengelly lose their seats

The moment it's confirmed DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has lost the North Belfast seat he has held since 2001. Sinn Féin's John Finucane is the new MP - the first time a non-unionist has been elected member of parliament for North Belfast. #GE19 @irish_news pic.twitter.com/v30eA7KG9l

— Brendan Hughes (@brendanhughes64) December 13, 2019

She may not have been at the election count, but Green Party leader @ClareBaileyGPNI received a special thanks for her 'enormous courage and political generosity' from new MP @ClaireHanna after standing aside to bolster the pro-Remain vote in South Belfast.#GE19 @irish_news pic.twitter.com/UXZyVOI2tP

— Brendan Hughes (@brendanhughes64) December 13, 2019

'Sapere aude'

I think I can agree with this:
BORIS: Everyone Dies - The Something Awful Forums

1) brexit became a huge deal ("OVEN READY!!!"), causing labour to bleed to three parties: the tories (to an extent, but not that much, there's still enough residual hate for them in the relevant areas to hope for the future), the brexit party (ersatz tories without the baggage) and the liberal democrats (remoaner central). because . johnson actually having a deal he could pass off as his own and meaningfully distinct from may's was a huge boon to him here, so thanks EU for that. you fuckers.

2. the character assassination of jeremy corbyn was much more advanced at this stage, with the antisemitism stuff being a part of this. continual, universal negative coverage for four years saw his popularity ratings steadily drop, and the constant internal struggles in the party re: brexit position was extremely costly for his image as a stalwart champion of righteous causes
   
3. corbyn speaks very well to a relatively small group of voters: people like us, who are politically aware and who have been homeless for decades. apart from that, he's not that effective as a personal campaigner, and once the press and the tories (but i repeat myself) figured out how to put him in positions where he couldn't deploy his strengths (e.g. he actually knows what he's saying and why), his weaknesses (he's not quick on his feet, and he's tied to positions in which he doesn't believe) became apparent.

basically, brexit turned into a culture war thing and a centre/periphery conflict. those always benefit the class with more cohesion, which in britain (and the west in general) is the ruling class

and this from Richard Seymour, from before the election and in an otherwise classical piece of Zwangsoptimismus.

I would guess that the calculation is roughly as follows. The Tory vote, as long as they keep promising to deliver Brexit, is secure. They supporters of Brexit have already shown that they don't mind being lied to, egregiously, because they assume that all politicians are liars anyway. Ironically, the only people who really suffer from Tory lies are Labour. Labour suffers in the direct sense that just enough people might believe the lies if they are smears or scaremongering. And while the Tories actively benefit from the defensive cynicism of some voters, their fear of being let down, Labour needs to cut through that. The more the infosphere is flooded with blatant and egregious misrepresentations, the more on guard some voters will be over anyone making a big political offer. Above all, confusion favours those wielding simple answers. If everyone's lying, if all politicians are untrustworthy, there is nonetheless one thing all voters firmly believe: Johnson is committed to delivering Brexit. That message, amid the swirl of deceits, has been hammered home with robotic insistence. Thus, they teach people to desire one simple thing, one paltry concession to a nebulous popular will.