Fun:2017 United Kingdom general election

The election results by constituency.

  Conservative Party

  Labour Party

  Scottish National Party

  Liberal Democrats

  Democratic Unionist Party

  Sinn Féin

  Plaid Cymru

  Green Party of England and Wales

“”It’s almost as if Theresa May looked at Hilary’s campaign and said let’s do that

—Robert Shrimsley on the 2017 election.

How an Empire ends U.K. Politics

God Save the King?

Ed Miliband Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 Gordon Brown EPetitions Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) United Kingdom Independence Party Edward Heath Arlene Foster Brexit Reform UK GB News Jeanette Winterson 2024 United Kingdom general election v - t - e

The 2017 UK general election was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May after saying she wasn't calling a snap election. Seven months after David Cameron, the previous Prime Minister, tried to win back UKIP voters with a referendum and got more than he bargained for. Disgraced, Cameron resigned, and (then) Home Secretary Theresa May succeeded him. Seeing her parliamentary majority, May then attempted to push for a larger majority for Brexit negotiations. She needed the consent of two-thirds of Parliament to trigger a snap election. Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition, surprisingly agreed to her request causing collective panic. Bring on the obligatory pictures of politicians eating "commoner food"!

But then, in a shock, it turns out Corbyn had the right idea after all. Theresa May likes her parliament the same way she likes her men: Well-hung. Tory Remainers must be seething right now.

Ulterior motives

It should have been a slam dunk for the Tories. Labour under Corbyn were disunited and unelectable to many. It's easy to see why she'd push for a snap election; She'd get an extra two years, while Labour would be "in chaos". The likelihood of the Conservatives thrashing the opposition would have been very good politically. Other motives include:

• The timing also seemed to be designed to discourage students from voting. The date is slap-bang in the middle of many university and A-Level exams. That went well.
• There is an ongoing police investigation into electoral spending "errors" at the 2015 General Election, which could have lead to several seats being re-fought by a scandal-hit government — unless there's an election first.
• May had to work with David Cameron's 2015 Conservative manifesto, some of which she wanted to discard.
• Finally, as she was not Prime Minister at the election, and became PM without being voted in, she had no mandate, which she needs for her credibility.

Neither party even had time to prepare a manifesto. Why state your own policies when you can sling shit at other parties! The Libertarian Party had one ready, though:

LPUK stands for lower taxes for both individuals and companies, small government, free speech and individual responsibility. We support free trade and free enterprise whilst believing that people should make their own choices and not rely on the government. We support a withdrawal from the European Union and a return to the free trade agreements that it was founded on. — Sounds familiar.

Conservatives on the Issues

"Theresa Dismay."

• Brexit: This wouldn't be as big a problem if May could have gained a mandate, given that she was an unelected PM. If May retained or increased her majority, she would have a strong position for any kind of Brexit deal. Merkel and Macron would recognise that the majority of Britons are behind May, and couldn't haggle over any of those issues.
• Health care privatisation: If you don't all vote Conservative, it will undermine our position and we'll have less money to give the NHS. Funny that.

This is a great opportunity for Tory MPs to earn some money creating companies related to healthcare, buying stock in private healthcare companies or just getting money under the table from said companies.

• Immigration: Under Cameron, Tories took on the image of being nationalistic, for working people. Brexit claimed to fulfill that by ending freedom of movement, however as you may have noticed that has yet to happen under the watch of the Conservatives. Beyond that the party has a terrible record on controlling immigration failing to decrease Tony Blair's massive increase in net migration.
• Austerity: The Office for National Statistics lists total disability benefit spending in 2014-15 as £41,000,000,000; that's a sizable chunk but less than family benefits at £44,000,000,000 and pensions at £108,000,000,000 (surprise!). Unemployment benefits, often in the news as those lazy "scroungers" who just need bootstraps, is in its lowest ebb at £3,000,000,000. The other two sections are housing benefit at £27,000,000,000, a huge amount of which goes to private landlords and "Personal social services and other benefits" at £34,000,000,000.

The social care policy was an attempt by David Cameron to alleviate the looming social care crisis, i.e. the biggest domestic issue facing this country. Clearly it was a waste of time, and it's much easier to just buy peoples' votes.

• Trident submarines: "Love thy neighbor"? "Cast the first stone..."? Subversive hippy nonsense.
• Climate change: If sea levels rise, it will be harder for immigrants to get across the channel. Brilliant strategy. The world is coming to an end in 100 years anyway, and we are making sure of it!
• Internet encryption: We're sorry, we appear to have wandered into China by mistake. (When she was Home Secretary she tried to do the same with television, but members of her own party declared it to be too Orwellian.)
• Fox hunting^{This again?}: Tories looking after the toffs as usual. Labour also wants to end badger culling. No comment expect to say that is the most profoundly British thing we have ever seen.

Main parties

Conservative Party

May is offering a vision: One nation conservatism, British unionism, controlling immigration, clamping down on the excesses of political correctness, reintroducing grammar schools, skeptical of globalism, openly championing values and traditions the left thinks of as antiquated or conservative but are in reality mainstream sentiments in the UK.

Theresa May Age: 68 Sitting Prime Minister, Leader of the Conservative Party, MP for Maidenhead

Advantages: Loyalty to the Conservatives is pretty hard to shake apparently. Some ardent remainers are happy to stick with them even now. 46% is Blair '97 territory. At a time when trust in politicians is hitting rock-bottom, on the mother of all issues (Brexit), May has promised to deliver what "the people" really want−and on that issue alone, she stands out as a PM. The Tories have been pinkwashed because they passed the gay marriage legislation, but they only did so with outside pressure and support from more progressive parties. Half of their number voted against, and those are the MPs now in charge of the party. Say what you like about Cameron and Osborne, but they knew how to create narratives. To be fair to them, Thatcherism is still very popular. People want to be more individualistic and seek material goods, and voting Labour is like admitting defeat. That in combination with the largely-earned, largely-inevitable loss of Labour Wales/Labour Scotland is why Britain is going to have Tories for all eternity now, and not even like them.

Disadvantages: Blair was right when he called her "a lightweight." Memos leaking that there's no Brexit strategy, Slogan_Tory.exe, getting embarrassed by Farage on the international stage, no charisma... A mop could win a debate against May. That is if she bothered to turn up. She's being so fidgety on the dementia tax and triple-pension lock. Hopefully seniors will realise where their bread's buttered. May is clearly a nutjob who nobody messed with during her time as Home Secretary because of her inscrutable moral agenda. She's anti-online privacy, anti-porn, parochial towards drugs, and anti-foreigner. Her morals aren't guided by the no harm principle but rather by some indefinable notion of right and wrong felt in the gut rather than the head.

Labour Party

The progressives have put a candidate up to no avail at every election since the 1990s. It's always been the same group (Abbott, Corbyn, McDonnell et al.), and who's chosen has always been completely arbitrary.

Jeremy Corbyn Age: 75 Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Labour Party, MP for Islington North

Advantages: People are just tired of the slippery-smooth politicians of the '90s. Corbyn wants education to be free, the NHS to be strengthened. His stances on housing, railways, reproductive rights, immigration etc. are all impeccable. Canvassing. It's a cliche, but liberals gotta do something about voter turnout and apathy. Progressive policies regularly poll better, but the right has always been great at emptying the nursing homes. Corbyn has said that free movement will end. It will be interesting to see how many UKIP voters go red in this election.

Disadvantages: As a national party, they cannot win over the middle-class and Scottish socialists at the same time, so they'll keep losing ground to the Lib Dems and the SNP. He's an 80s lefty: Palestine, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, and nukes are all he cares about. The EU and surveillance state aren't even a blip on the radar for him. Sounds like a yoga teacher realigning his chakras. A good leftist makes people angry. Compare the coverage he gets (see: train fiasco) to the apocalyptic stuff being written about Mélenchon. More baggage than fucking Heathrow. Supporters like to exaggerate the issue, but even if the media just reported the facts, you'd have his PR-toxic attempts at closeness with IRA + Hamas. For every decent policy he espouses there's always another that's outdated and unworkable in the modern age. Only last month, we had a muddled and contradictory message which said anyone earning £70k is "rich". Corbyn would do wonderful in Norway but not in a right-wing paradise like the UK. It was the same with Militant in the 1980s. Corbyn's base of support is insular: 2015 Labour voters and the public aren't that fond of him.

Scottish National Party

People are reacting to the centrism of the Blair years, which we see with the rise of Corbyn, SNP and UKIP respectively.

Nicola Sturgeon Age: 54 First Minister of Scotland, Leader of the Scottish National Party

Advantages: It wasn't just nationalism that strengthened the SNP, it's the fact that the SNP does the whole "social democracy" thing better. The SNP also got a lot of credit for forcing the referendum on secession. While they lost that one, Cameron promised a further dissolution of power, which is still a victory for the SNP in its own right.

Disadvantages: Plenty of Britons would vote SNP if they dropped that whole nationalism thing, but...well, it's in the name. They're angling for another EU referendum and second indyref, which prevents them forming an anti-Tory coalition with Labour (unionists). They have little chance of making policy. Perceived by many Labour voters to have snatched critical Scottish seats away at the previous general election and allowed the Conservatives to return to power, essentially throwing English leftists under the bus in pursuit of Scottish independence, leading to a reluctance to jump party.

Small parties (<10mps)

Democratic Unionist Party

DUP made their name on being "hard men" for their communities during the Troubles. Fortunately, there appears to be a wave of next-gen candidates in all the parties—even Sinn Fein and the DUP. (They really do need Foster, Adams, Kelly, Wilson, Robinson, and Campbell to push off, though.)

Arlene Foster Age: 54 Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party

Advantages: YOU DEFRAUDED EVERYBODY AND GAVE PUBLIC MONEY TO YOUR MATES!! Where's the opposition? This is all their Christmases at once! There's no pressure on her to resign.

Disadvantages: Sectarian, plain and simple. Even UKIP knock on Catholic doors. Her "forelock-tugging obeisance" to May is guaranteed to do the people there "a lot of harm." Controversial for her culling of the Irish Language education project; refusal to support investigation into killings during the Troubles, and trying to keep a renewable heating initiative going despite being aware the government overspent by £400,000,000 due to fraud and mismanagement. As a result of these scandals, the DUP lost badly in the 2017 Northern Irish election, and is predicted to lose out in the general election as well.

Green Party of England and Wales

Due to the Green Party's dislike of singular leaders, it is represented by two.

Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley

Advantages: They might see a 100% increase (now there's two of them)! Caroline Lucas has saved them from going completely off the edge. Natalie Bennett isn't leader anymore.

Disadvantages: "The Game no one wants to play..." Well, apart from Caroline Lucas, who voted for an early election. "You get your maths wrong, and cost the public millions!" Er, remember this? "Do not release funding..." Pull another one. Socialists and Greens all getting behind Corbyn, possibly taking themselves out of Parliament entirely. If you've read the Ecologist write up on Labour's manifesto, you can see why there's no reason to vote Green this election. Seems like they're spoilt for choice in Scotland. Their Greens don't put silliness like FREE ALL CAGED ANIMALS in their manifesto; that seems to be exclusive to their friends down South.

Liberal Democrats

Lib Dem MPs could fit inside a Smart Car. They collapsed at the 2015 general election, in part thanks to their coalition with the Conservatives. (see Top 10 Anime Betrayals)

Tim Farron Age: 54 Leader of the Liberal Democrats, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale

Advantages: 48 hours after the election was called, the Lib Dems raised £500,000 and gained 1,000 new members. Dunno which will win the youth vote. Fox hunting or being able to smoke a joint in your garden without worrying. Tough one. So that's three advisers who have defected since she called the election. Farron needs to interrogate her posthaste: does she have blueprints for the Death Star weak point? For the rebellion, this is the new hope. Update: Seems the Lib Dems have their own Johnson they can pull out. The party of Remain. Also, they're the only ones who have anything re: pro-privacy and anti-government snooping in their manifesto.

Disadvantages: Little more than a protest party to change something which cannot be unchanged. Farron didn't get the big surge from the Remain voters that he was hoping, allowing Labour to consolidate their support as opposed to bleeding off. Endorsed by Blair. Maybe Tony's a secret Conservative supporter and this is his way of helping the cause. "Tim Farron's devout! Don't vote Lib Dem, despite the fact that there's no evidence that his religious views impact on his policies!" "What about May, who claims God makes her decisions?" "Nah she's great, have you seen her shoes?" More people would forgive Blair for Iraq than Clegg for tuition fees. (People obviously care more about their wallet more than the lives of millions of people they've never met.) Two years may not be enough to forget that, even with the Richmond Park by-election victory in December 2016.

Plaid Cymru

Plaid is egalitarian, distancing themselves from Tory-Labour "working-class" rhetoric. Funnily, Lib Dems are not as popular in Wales.

Leanne Wood Age: 52 Leader of Plaid Cymru

Advantages: Interesting to see that Plaid are the only party other than the Tories to gain seats in Wales. This election has been a disaster for every other party in the UK. Welsh Labour is a shithouse. Abstained 17 times on further devolution to Wales. They're all just branch offices. A party which isn't joking when it comes to environmentalism; hard to come by in the UK.

Disadvantages: If it was Leanne Wood vs. Chris Bryant, she'd pass with flying colours. But it'll always be "Plaid Cymru vs. Labour." Her silly dithering over whether to run for a parliamentary seat, her inability to reign in an assemblyman, Brexit (her "us vs. them" rhetoric isn't all that helpful) etc. are exposing her as weak and confused. The party has flatlined under Wood's leadership, and it's time for her to go. They've existed for eighty years, and only ever reached a maximum of 4 MPs (12% of the Welsh vote). Clearly, independence isn't as important to the Welsh as it is in Scotland. They can't go it alone.

Sinn Féin

Being Irish, a lot of lefties feel trepidacious about voting Sinn Féin due to their history with the IRA.

Gerry Adams Age: 76 Leader of Sinn Féin, TD for Louth

Advantages: We'll get back to you on that. Haha but he has a rubber duck ahahaha!

Disadvantages: As ever, refusal to sit in parliament means the areas they represent don't get a say there. Even Sinn Féin (who used to be the leftist party) are in a race to the centre, with Gerry being quoted as saying he "never really subscribed to that notion of a left-wing government" This has given way to minority parties like People Before Profit (a Trotskyist party) stealing a seat from SF in what is historically their stronghold of West Belfast. Update: They're really purging the old guard, aren't they?

Social Democratic and Labour Party

The left-wing party in Northern Ireland whose baggage don't tick.

Colum Eastwood Age: 41 Leader of the Social Democrat and Labour Party	Advantages: Decent electoral strategy. Bipartisan, youth-friendly and with plenty of passion surrounding it. If they manage to crowbar Arlene out of the First Minister position some day, Big Colum might get a look in for a senior post.
	Disadvantages: DUP will simply play up the sectarian card next election ("His/Her dad/mum/grandad/gran/uncle's dog was in the IRA!"), and there are still enough dipshits who fall for that. He really needs to get that beard sorted, or maybe he did? (He has a fairly forgettable mug on him, so maybe little a quirk will make him more recognisable.)

UK Independence Party

UKIP is anti-immigrant, anti-trade union, and more countryside conservative. Anti-immigration appeals to unemployed people and some unions, though.

Paul Nuttall Age: 47 Leader of the UK Independence Party, MEP for North West England

Advantages:

Disadvantages: This party is nothing without Farage. (Even he seems to have grown bored with it.) With the referendum over, they're coming home to the Conservative Party. Desperately want to fuck gorillas. But they don't, and that's what makes them superior. Unlike those disgusting LGBTs, they don't live out their disgusting fantasies.[No, not The Onion] Had two MPs and still lost a seat during their 2015 peak. Both former MPs defected from the party. And then they imploded at the 2017 local elections. Nuttall claimed he survived the 1989 Hillsborough Disaster, which damaged his candidacy at the Stoke-on-Trent by-election. Technically, we're all survivors of the disaster. He also listed his address officially as a vacant house in Stoke, which looks suspiciously like fraud. Also, a major donor's tirade against Liverpool led to further defections in Merseyside. His colleague used the tragedy for his personal benefit, and he accuses us of "milking a tragedy"? Fuck off. A call by Nuttall to "ban the burqa" led to the party's Foreign and Commonwealth spokesman to resign, citing religious liberty. Struggling to maintain their identity as a party people might vote for after the vote for Brexit. When flailing around for policies, Nuttall suggested internment, torture and the death penalty.

Ulster Unionist Party

Robin Swann Age: 53 Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party	Advantages: As with the last general election, the UUP is in a pact with the DUP not to compete in riskier unionist areas in order to guarantee a victory over Sinn Fein.
	Disadvantages: The UUP is still in competition with the DUP in other places, so its expansion in Parliamentary representation is not guaranteed. Swann is committed to an anti-abortion platform, which may lead to reluctant support owing to recent pro-choice demonstrations across Ireland.

This lady's not for turning up

UK debates are a fairly recent thing, and May was far from the first candidate to run a "doorstep" campaign. Overall it's a different, and often much more opaque, political culture. All she needed to do is not talk.

There was one between various party leaders. Corbyn turned up at the last moment, unprepared (perhaps thinking the other lefties would give him an easy ride), and May sent over her Home Secretary, Amber Rudd; which just made her look worse. (Rudd's father died just 48 hours prior.)

They we had a… well, not a debate, but a thing… It was two Jeremy Paxman interviews back-to-back, rather than a head-to-head debate. Paxman focused on personal attacks on Corbyn—none of which were new, and none of which he answered differently (and Corbyn rekt him a few times too)—and very little on policy. They also avoided NHS and social care for May, and instead played a round of Deal or No Deal. The audience laughed at May a few times. A clear win for... Andrew Neil over Paxman.

Her charm, if we can call it that, did more to whittle down the Tories' lead from 20-25% to single figures in a matter of weeks. Even hapless performances from Labour politicians like Diane Abbott had little effect. Remember, Clinton '16 was never at any point that far ahead nationwide as the Tories were when the snap election was called.

The absolute madman

Theresa May announcing after the election that she would not resign. Frankly, she would've saved herself a lot of pain.

“”The Conservative Party has two states: complacency and panic.

—William Hague

What should have been the biggest electoral washout for the Conservatives since Margaret Thatcher became one of the most pyrrhic victories for the Tories ever recorded in modern history, single-handedly setting them back seven years. Many are now questioning why May even bothered to call for a snap election. Her 24-point lead dwindled into single digits within two weeks, leading to a Brexit trainwreck and a zombie Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the "unelectable" Corbyn demolished all expectations and got a net gain of seats, in some seats that were deep blue for decades, even in one case a century. The 2017 snap election marked the first election in twenty years since Labour made a net gain in terms of seats.

Sad to see the back of Clegg (in favor of a wingnut). Lib Dems ran on being the ones who would undo, or redo, the EU referendum, and they've only gotten 6 seats for their troubles. Delightful to see the back of Alex Salmond, less sop that it was (again, to another wingnut). Everyone knew the SNP were going to lose seats, but none of the polls predicted them losing 22 seats. Labour cannibalised their votes and let the Tories in. (Thanks, FPTP.) Not good for Indy...but maybe good for the UK.

This remains a huge cock-up by the Tories: the whole point of a snap election was to "crush the saboteurs" and deliver the overwhelming mandate they supposedly need to push through Brexit. Instead the country will be every bit as divided as before.

The Tories and DUP combined will have a majority if they form a coalition together. DUP are already outlining terms for soft Brexit as price for propping up the enfeebled Tories. A ~10 seat party. Let that sink in. DUP likes Boris Johnson, so one wagers he'll be vying for leadership.

Implications

May now has to govern in a confidence-and-supply deal with the Democratic Unionist Party. Remember all that worry about Ulster breaking away from the UK because of Brexit? Now that she's in a coalition with a Northern Irish party, her "red, white and blue" Brexit looks a little less secure. And the best part? Her own Cabinet is threatening mutiny if she waters down Brexit, which is what DUP wants. If she wants to govern, she needs to have the Unionists' MPs, which means watering down Brexit. If she wants to stay in office, she needs the support of her Cabinet and Party, which means staying the course. Both of those possibilities assume, of course, that she doesn't resign in disgrace, tail between her legs.

A mandate from the people would have convinced the Europeans that Brexit is inevitable. Now the Europeans have reason to doubt May's resolve, not to mention her ability as a politician. May still wanted access to the European market while contributing nothing to the Union. After the results, the Europeans are unlikely to give this to her. If her own Party starts revolting, why should Donald Tusk listen to her?

External links

• They're taking the piss now.
• How Election Coverage Will Look for the Next Six Weeks — *Laughs in Murdoch*
• The Many Times Theresa May Ruled Out an Early Election — Winning a seat in Middlesbrough was the tipping point. These working-class voters really are thick.
• Daily Mail coverage of UK-Scotland relations
  • It gets weirder. — Can't tell if Theresa is making her horny or hungry.