Wednesday, October 18, 2017

For the seventy-ninth time, yes, the SNP can be counted on to bring about an early general election

Oh for the love of God.  The latest from Stormfront Lite -

"Remember that the SNP, which opposed the 2017 election cannot be counted on to support any move which could prematurely cut its already reduced Westminster base. On June 8th it saw its 56 Scottish seats reduced to 35 and in none of them was its vote share above 46%. Its precarious position is one of the key facts of current politics which is rarely discussed."

That'll be 'rarely discussed' apart from the fact that Mr Smithson has been banging on about the same point ad nauseam for months, and has ignored the contrary argument no matter how many times it has been set out.  Here it is yet again -

1) Regardless of how 'precarious' the SNP's electoral position is or is not, everyone in the party knows it would be electoral suicide in the long-term as well as the short-term to stand in the way of a general election that might bring down the Tory government.  There is no point in delaying a hypothetical short-term electoral hit if the consequence is being tarred for decades as the Tories' "little helpers".

2) Mr Smithson's claim that the SNP "opposed the 2017 election" is quite simply false.  All 54 SNP MPs abstained in the parliamentary vote on whether there should be an election, and that was only an option because it could be quite reasonably argued at the time that an early election was likely to vastly increase the Tories' majority.  That is self-evidently no longer the case.

3) It's highly debatable how 'precarious' the SNP's position is anyway.  There have been three full-scale Scottish polls of Westminster voting intentions since the general election, and all three have recorded an increase in the SNP's vote.  The Panelbase and Survation polls would see the SNP making gains from both Labour and the Conservatives, while the YouGov poll would see them making gains from the Tories only (and not suffering any losses to Labour).  I do wonder if Mr Smithson is even aware of the existence of those polls.  It's true that electoral behaviour has become very volatile in recent years and there is no guarantee that favourable opinion polls now would translate into a good result in an early general election.  But at the very least it's fair to say that the SNP would be just as likely to make gains as suffer losses.

It's also worth gently pointing out that Mr Smithson spent two years between the spring of 2015 and the spring of 2017 telling anyone who would listen that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act essentially made an early election impossible, because it required the opposition's cooperation and they would never play ball.  That theory survived all of ten minutes once Theresa May pulled the trigger.

10 comments:

  1. Brexit with no deal = GE. This could happen by December. The Tories elected in the highlands e.t.c are being slowly found out by their electors. They rode on a wave of anti Scottishness. Now it is being noted by voters that they in effect voted to harm themselves.

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  2. Wishful thinking from Mr Smithson. Does he know that the SNP have more seats in WM than all the other parties combined, yes but will not say so. Is a vote share of 46% particularly bad? What was the others vote share, what was T.May's?
    People in England might just vote for oHhh Corrbbyynn next time, but are they voting for him or the party?
    Scotland, must keep voting SNP, Labour have kept Scotland poor, and that will most certainly not change if they secure the next GE. Good for England, possibly, bad very bad for Scotland.

    Not many comments yet, trolls on their hols! So many take hols in Oct, use them or lose them!

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    1. Are you a joker or so far up yer own erse... 11years of Tartan Tory austerity has been a shambles for Scotland... Vote Labour.

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    2. The YouGov poll looked extremely credible. Which Tory seats the SNP is likely to take back is an interesting question. Gordon is likely, maybe Angus? Midlothian would be a possibility. And the SNP definitely needs to take back Moray to rid the Commons of the truly dire bigot, Douglas Ross.

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    3. The truly dire bigots are the English hating Scottish nat sis who would sell out Scotland to the EU unelected fascist beaurocracy.

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    4. Good few Tory seats are there for the taking for the SNP now , also Labour seats as their MP's are as dire as the Tory bunch , people in Scotland now see what , roll on the GE !

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    5. The real Tories are not the problem it is the pretend Tartan Tories who out do the real Tories in cuts to public services.

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    6. About the only word you ever use apart from racial slurs is "bureaucracy", and I don't think you've ever spelt it right.

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    7. Spelllin is important.... Scottish nat sis who want to hand our future over to Herman will be dealt with... Cpl Jones will give you scum the cold steel up yer erses.

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  3. GWC - Trolls never sleep. They have too many bad dreams.

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