A note against despair

[pseudomonas]

The Conservative party have some nasty policies, and have made some nasty promises, and a lot of changes could happen in the next parliament that are pretty grim — and certainly there are a lot of positive changes that are much needed and will not happen.

But we should remember that they have a majority (even before a single by-election) that makes Major's in 1992 look generous¹. And this is a party that still contains David Davis, Ken Clarke, Sarah Wollaston, Nadine Dorries, Peter Bone — all flavours of awkward squad, left and right (relatively speaking, anyway), authoritarian and libertarian, europhile and europhobe. A lot of the policies are going to end up watered down, or defeated, or quietly swept into a disused filing-cabinet. Putting the right pressure² on the right MPs to convince them might well help. Campaigning in whatever opposition party you're a member of³ to help the Conservatives see they can't count on their majority next time will certainly help. Joining organised pressure groups like the Open Rights Group, Shelter, and Liberty will certainly help.

.

¹ There's a chance that on some issues the DUP / UUP / UKIP might come to their aid, yes. But all these parties are small, UKIP sees them as the enemy on a lot of things, and having to rely on the DUP may well require of them some unpalatable quid-pro-quos. There's also a chance that on some things - the Snooper's Charter, for instance, some Labour MPs will support them. This just means that there's a broader target that needs pressure (from within and without that party).

² I personally believe that the right pressure is often more "I'd be more likely to vote for you if you do X than if you do Y" rather than "OMG all Tories are evil scum" even if the latter fits the facts better. But y'know, maybe there's a good-cop-bad-cop routine in there or something.

³ As I've said in a previous post, I'm in the Lib Dems and I think you should consider joining and making the party better and stronger — but if you're better suited to another party, please help make that party better and more effective instead.


ETA: and there's always the House of Lords there as well…

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about Cameron's majority. He'll probably get along OK until the autumn, when he only has a short Parliamentary term and then the summer recess to negotiate. But from next September onwards things must surely get increasingly tricky for him.

I'm already a member of ORG, and had been thinking about Liberty, actually. I might well take this post as the final push to do something about that.

[ptc24]

1) Of course, the 1992-1997 parliament also had the UUP, and I remember there being some deals going on there too.

[pseudomonas]

They had a few more seats back then, if I recall right?

[ptc24]

It seems the main thing is the swing from UUP to DUP. 1992 UUP:DUP - 9:3 2015 UUP:DUP - 2:8. I'm not sure how the UUP and DUP differ from each other but if they're similar, then the situation is similar.

[pseudomonas]

Rumours were this time that the DUP had named a large sum of money as their price for coalition with the Tories. Plus I think the DUP is more toxic as a brand for the Tories to associate with. But I'm not any expert on NI parties.

[ptc24]

Anyway, the upshot of this seems to be that the various NI Unionists look more of a help to Major than Cameron, so this makes Major's majority look even more generous in practise.

[(Anonymous)]

Rumours were this time that the DUP had named a large sum of money as their price for coalition with the Tories

I think that was a joke. Well, half a joke: clearly no politician is going to turn down a large barrel of pork for their constituents, so if Cameron were to offer an extra billion for the DHSS (or apparently the DHSSPS as it is now, presumably because they had some spare Scrabble tiles lying around) that would certainly predispose them to listen to what he had to say.

But policy-wise, there's not much between the DUP and the UUP these days. It's probably best to think of them as the Judean People's Front and the Popular People's Front of Jeudea of Unionism; though even then relations are thawing. They formed a stand-aside pact this election which netted them a seat each.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, it was Little Ian came up with the billion pounds, in the Indy.

I wouldn't take anything he says too seriously. Certainly nobody else in the DUP does.

[(Anonymous)]

Meant to link to the interview in the Indy (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/dup-names-its-price-for-electoral-deal-with-tories-or-labour-1bn-for-northern-ireland-10128931.html).

[pseudomonas]

Thank you!
(that link made clickable)

[cjwatson]

It's worth noting that the UUP have traditionally been affiliated with the Conservatives and even took the Tory whip at various times, although there were also various instances of them splitting off in protest. The DUP don't have that history. When I was last in Northern Ireland the UUP would have been very much more likely to enter into an arrangement with the Tories, while the DUP were significantly more hardline. As the anonymous commenter above suggests, that may well have changed, particularly with the DUP having spent some years in devolved government.

[(Anonymous)]

When I was last in Northern Ireland the UUP would have been very much more likely to enter into an arrangement with the Tories, while the DUP were significantly more hardline

The UUP would have been more likely to enter into an arrangement with the Tories, yes, but the DUP would have been more likely to try to hold them to ransom, demanding big policy concessions in return for support.

In the New Politics, these amount to pretty much the same thing (well, except now public money counts as much as political concessions).

[po8crg]

UUP are more, erm, conventional. They're personality-wise more amenable to the Tories. On the other hand, the individual MPs were probably more liberal and more inclined to vote their conscience than the party whip.

DUP are a bunch of street-fighters. If they do a deal, they'll deliver all eight votes on the deal. But check your pocket when you shake hands and make sure your wallet's still in there.

On actual policies, the DUP are more socially conservative than UUP, but not necessarily more right-wing on economics (their views are simple: cut taxes, spend more, get GB to pay for it).

But the big thing is that UUP are (well were in 1992; the modern UUP are different) from the social élite and DUP very much aren't.

I suspect the net impact is that you pay more to get a deal from the DUP, but they will deliver on the deal, and the (old) UUP couldn't be relied on to get all their votes out.

[cosmolinguist]

Also that the Human Rights Act is not as easy to get rid of as the Tories/my panicky leftie friends on social media would have one believe.

Also the NHS cannot be privatized under current legislation.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen some suggestions that because it is a devolved matter and partially embeddd in the Scotland Act it may not be straight-forward to repeal it, that the Supreme Court (in the person of the retiring Lord Gill is begining to suggest that some UK legislation is a special more enduring class than other legislation) and that it open to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments to re-enact the ECHR.

(Here from a link from Andrew Ducker on LJ)

[pseudomonas]

I've also seen suggestions that it's embedded in the Good Friday Agreement, which is effectively a treaty rather than a law. Also withdrawing from the ECHR isn't being suggested, just cancelling the HRA, and that's of limited effect.

My working hypothesis is that they've not thought it through and are bullshitting rather than planning to spend years of effort and political capital making themselves international pariahs. But you never know.

[po8crg]

My working hypothesis is that they were certain they weren't getting a majority and so could put it in as red meat for the back benchers and then say "sorry, couldn't get it past the Lib Dems".

And now they're stuck with actually doing it. I wonder if Gove's been told to go away and come back with something so appalling that there will be enough Tory rebels to kill it at second reading and then they never have to worry ever again. Plenty of people will believe that Gove produced something appalling on purpose because it's Gove.