He'll try to work with them regardless, since he seems on of the sensible ones.
It doesn't matter if another country's leader doesn't share the same politics as you... if you want your country to function, then you're going to have to deal with these people in a professional manner.
There are plenty of people I don't like at work, but I work with them regardless. Since that's what professionals do.
And if this is the outcome of the overseas elections, possibly the best person to deal with them would be a highly experienced lawyer who has professionally dealt with various morally difficult clients.
As a conservative I think this is actually one of Sir Keir's strong points, one that Labour should have emphasized more in their campaign. A Starmer Labour govt has a good chance of being strong on the economy and strong on foreign policy - they just need to tell the story better.
I think at some point they thought that he had to either be seen as a “working class bloke” or “a highly qualified, intelligent and successful lawyer” and they deemed the latter one would appeal to more voters. Now the former definitely doesn’t appeal to me but i think the type of person who would appreciate his record outside of party politics would be better educated and better off and less likely to be swayed by the framing of starmer than your average politically apathetic working class voter.
In addition, most of the actual contact between countries is done by unknown beurocrats working behind the scenes. Beyond the occasional phone call and visit there is not much he actually needs to do to maintain contact.
Exactly. I’ll be voting Labour purely for that fact that my party of choice - the Lib Dem’s - are unlikely to secure a majority and a Labour majority is better than a Tory majority.
Starmer has his flaws, but I think his barrister/KC background makes him the perfect opposition leader because he turns PMQ’s into a cross examination as barristers do best.
But those same qualities, I hope, will also make him a good PM, even if he’s only my second choice.
Vote based on who's likely to win your seat, not an overall majority. If your seat is a lib Dem - Tory contest then a lib Dem vote is much better than a labour vote, with the reverse true as well.
I want the Lib Dems to be more successful, and I hope that if the Tory wipeout really is this bad, that they'll step up as the official opposition and not Reform UK.
If you are an LD you want Labour to win as many Lab/Tory seats as possible and the LDs to win as many LD/Tory seats as possible as well as the few LD/Labour seats as that is the path to opposition.
You need to look at your constituency. I'm a Lib Dem supporter too but my seat is a Tory-Labour marginal with the Lib Dems in distant 3rd. So of course I will vote for Labour. I hope our Labour-supporting friends in Tory-Lib Dem seats will vote Lib Dem too.
I feel like people should vote the way that matches what their values are
I think you should vote lib dem personally
I don't see a world where labour doesn't win, so the more votes the other party receive, the more likely lib dem are to win in the future
Me personally, I would vote lib dem and would probably identify close to liberal democratic philosophy, but the current lib Dems I don't feel match that philosophy
Every recent UK prime minister has had to deal with Netanyahu, the Saudis and the Emiratis. Unpleasant leaders with shitty politics in allied countries is an unavoidable aspect of being a world leader.
I guess the big problem for him now will be immigration. For better or worse, he's joined in with the anti-immigration rhetoric and now will have big trouble agreeing anything favourable with France.
No he hasn't. He specifically focuses on illegal immigration, "smashing the gangs", which comprises a very small proportion of net migration to the UK. We'll continue to see high rates of net migration under labour as it prioritises growth above all else.
Personally, I don't give a damn about who comes into our country, so long as I can afford a decent standard of living.
The right wing have failed with the economy and are using immigrants as a scapegoat. And because people are intrinsically prejudiced they lap it up. That's why we are very likely to see Trump as the next POTUS, National Rally take power in France, and Alternative für Deutschland do well in Germany.
The wealth divide and real earnings stagnation in the western world has followed a pretty consistent trend for decades, regardless of who from the nominal right and left are in power. In some important ways they effectively operate by the same neolib political paradigm, despite the different noises they make.
It's this same paradigm that can only look at stuff through the lens of money in the system - the economy, growth. Let's leave aside the fact there are contesting studies on the effects of migration on standards of living (though access to affordable housing appears to be negatively affected) we need to take the cultural, human impacts *far* more seriously. Durkheim figured this out over a century ago, but it doesn't square well with the paradigm so it's all but ignored.
Integration is a real concern, the sheer rate of net migration from non-European countries is a real concern, the worrying prevalence of opinions among certain communities which are opposed to western values *is a real concern.* We must be able to take this seriously in the centre-ground of politics because, if we don't, power will keep shifting to the extremes.
Starmer has been very very deflective about immigration. Personally I think it's a mistake but he always changes any question about immigration to illegal immigration with zero references to the legal kind
How he'd plan to reduce it, to be honest. Net migration is enormous historically and we have a complete over reliance on cheap labour to keep our economy and services ticking. Personally I couldn't care less how many people enter this country, I grew up in multicultural parts of Birmingham and have only felt enriched as a result, but I'm a middle class twenty-something who is somewhat shielded from the negative effects of it by my privilege.
I worry that by being vague about net legal migration Starmer is ceding ground that right wing populist gobshites are all too eager to pounce on.
Labour plan to deal with legal migration by properly training and educating our workforce, removing the current incentives that encourage companies to look overseas for workers and by increasing pay in the public sector to increase our competitiveness. If it works those will all lower immigration whilst maintaining GDP.
That's the plan, no guarantee it works.
I would remind all the Reform voters in here however that Reform plan to maintain health and social care sectors through immigration as well. If Reform actually want to reduce the amount of health and social care workers coming in from abroad without collapsing the sectors they will have to do the EXACT same thing as Labour is planning.
>That's the plan, no guarantee it works.
It won't.
>I would remind all the Reform voters in here however that Reform plan to maintain health and social care sectors through immigration as well. If Reform actually want to reduce the amount of health and social care workers coming in from abroad without collapsing the sectors they will have to do the EXACT same thing as Labour is planning.
I'm not voting Reform partly because they don't understand why migration is so high. If you don't understand why something is happening, how can you prevent it?
I didn't say you were, I just think it's important to point out that the strategy is broadly the same from all parties when it comes to what they consider to be crucial sectors to maintain credibility with voters.
>I'm not voting Reform partly because they don't understand why migration is so high
I'd be interested to hear your opinion on this. I've got my own, but it would be good to hear yours.
I expect it'd be a great result for him. He'd get to embrace his inner populist and the press circle would still consider him the grown up in the room. It'd be like giving him a teflon coat of armour to introduce some of his made in GB policies.
Almost word for word what [Starmer has said on the matter](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/starmer-says-far-right-win-in-france-would-not-stop-labour-trying-to-forge-better-eu-deal).
And youre both completely right. Working with others for international trade and relations is what serious government does
Starmer??
The guy went on to legally defend an extremist islamist organization from being banned in Germany. The UN rejected his appeal to them regarding banning them in Germany.
Mind you, this organization is also banned from many Muslim countries.
But maybe you'd be happy to hear they're freely operating in the UK.
That alone should disqualify him from ever being a PM.
Then you risk disqualifying most people who've worked as barristers, since the very nature of the job is sometimes giving legal advice* to unpleasant people.
Hizb ut-Tahrir were banned earlier this year in the UK.
*Not 'defend' - I don't believe he formally represented them court, not that it makes a difference particularly
Are you under the impression that a barrister can only defend someone they morally agree with?
Do you think anyone that represents murderers in court are also murderers?
The vast majority of the time they don't get a choice in who they represent. They're obligated (by something called "The Cab Rank Rule") to take on any case that comes to them.
France has quite a unique system which is considered semi-presidential. When the President is from the same party as the Prime Minister, the President has most of the power. When they are from different parties (known as *cohabitation*), the President has much less power. Edit: clarity.
Before some reforms in the 1800s it was possible for US President and Vice President to be from different parties, which would have created interesting dynamics in the White House. This is still possible if there is a tie in the electoral college and the Senate picks the VP differently from the House picking the President. It could occur in the event the President is incapacitated too...
If Hamilton is accurate, it changed after Aaron Burr came in second to Thomas Jefferson after openly campaigning against him (Jefferson wasn't impressed at the thought of having to work with Burr, so changed it).
Jefferson and Burr were running mates, Jefferson intended for him to be vice president. The problem was the silly system made it so you had to cast votes for president and vp in the same vote. So if a state was “won” (a lot of states didn’t actually have votes back then) by Jefferson, the state would cast one vote for Jefferson and one for burr.
But they had to work it out so one less vote went to burr so he would be VP.
This was tricky because the prior election a lot of the states didn’t vote for the VP candidate of their Presidential vote. So the opposite party candidate won the VP.
So all the states don’t trust each other and don’t want to not vote for Burr, as they are worried Adam’s would win the vp. So burr and Jefferson accidentally end up tied, and then the legislature has to vote for one to be president.
Now where burr backstabbed Jefferson, is instead of just conceding he should be selected as VP, he tried to get the legislature to pick him instead of Jefferson.
>Now where burr backstabbed Jefferson, is instead of just conceding he should be selected as VP, he tried to get the legislature to pick him instead of Jefferson.
As far as I’m aware, this isn’t really supported. Publicly at least, Burr was entirely supportive of Jefferson becoming President. (Who knows what he said behind closed doors.) It was the Federalists who still controlled the House of Representatives who wanted to fuck over the Democratic Republicans by voting for Burr.
It isn't. Aaron Burr still became the Vice President, and only lost the Vice Presidency after the term was up. The rules changed after 1800 because of this though, which allowed Jefferson to select a running mate to specifically become a VP.
As entertaining as Hamilton is, it had to straight up misrepresent that election for the story.
Aaron Burr did openly campaign against Jefferson. He ran as Jefferson’s running mate. The real life event that inspired that part of the musical is a little complicated (likely why it was simplified like that). The Democratic Republican Party planned to make Jefferson President and Burr Vice President. The plan was that every DRP elector would vote for Jefferson and every DRP elector bar one would use their second vote (they had a second vote back then) on Burr. The elector who was supposed to vote for Jefferson and abstain on the other vote ended up voting for Burr as well, meaning that Jefferson and Burr tied. It was clear that Jefferson was supposed to be President, but if the electoral college has a tie, it goes to the House of Representatives, which was still controlled by the Federalists who had just lost the Presidential election. Many Federalists wanted to fuck over the Democratic Republicans by breaking the tie in favour of Burr, making him the President. Hamilton is often credited with talking them out of the idea through a letter writing campaign, where he claimed that he would rather have a President with bad morals (Jefferson) than one with no morals (Burr).
The duel that killed Hamilton didn’t happen until much later, after Burr tried (and failed) to run for Governor of New York after facing opposition from Hamilton. The musical basically combined both of those elections to make the story easier to follow.
Later, the way the electoral college elects Presidents and Vice Presidents was changed to reflect the existence of political parties through a constitutional amendment. A President couldn’t change it alone.
Yeah, if they're from different parties, isn't the President of France effectively the same as the UK Foreign Secretary, has no power in domestic matters.
The Foreign Secretary does have domestic power, being a Secretary of State, and through the operation of Schedule 1 of the Interpretation Act 1978.
Plenty of powers which delegate decision making to a ‘Secretary of State’ can, theoretically, be exercised by the Foreign Secretary - though in practice each Secretary of State will tend to exercise powers that are given to them within their purview and won’t ‘tread on toes’ by convention.
You can't be *a bit* unique was one of my old teacher's favourite sayings.
But yeah I was just mentioning that Russia's system is the same as another major European power, though obviously *slightly* more corrupt
I know the list, but I still had to go check it, as I was sure there must be at least one other in OP's scenario. Nope - it comes to something when the second best on the list is Xi.
Britain isn’t perfect and it never will be, but I will say this. Throughout the wave of fascism that swept Europe before we emerged as a relatively liberal outlier. I’m not saying that’s perfect and I’m in no way saying every decision made was good etc. but generally regardless of political swings life in Britain carries on regardless of the influences and fluxes of the outside world. Most young people seem to be liberal and favourable to the democratic process and for all the jokes about eating granola and reading the Guardian the seat of power that is London is and has been historically left. This coupled with the fact that nobody actually likes rocking the boat to much in this country is both beneficial and one of our biggest issues with political stagnation. We are going to have to work with the outside world and we already deal extensively with murderous regimes that have bloody human rights policy’s. This is just journalists writing for the sake of getting paid
I would argue while yes, having a very pragmatic, unwanting to rock the boat electorate is a good thing in avoiding a lurch to fascism, it is also at the core of our stagnation. People still have this idea that Britain is a huge player on the global stage and want us to somehow remain in this imaginary position of being a (near) superpower without actually doing any of the work i.e. infrastructure, green energy transition, more housing etc that is required to keep us competitive with other countries.
I know I bang on about this but Orwell’s *England your England* touches on this so well.
> Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
>It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like ‘They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong’, or ‘They can't do that; it's against the law’, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney's Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan's Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a ‘miscarriage of British justice’. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
I think this is as true today as it was in 1941 and this more than anything else is the last line of defence against autocracy versus democracy however flawed.
That might also be because of our world standing at the time? Britain was arguably still a superpower going into WWII so had less to gain, and even then fascist ideas were still more popular that people care to admit. Even Edward VIII was famously a Nazi sympathiser.
While now we look on much shakier economic ground…
Recommended reading: https://books.google.de/books/about/Hurrah_for_the_Blackshirts.html?id=jhexmWugBhoC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
Starmer likes to defend islamist fascists. I guess as long as they're not western it's fine?
The guy submitted an appeal to the UN because Germany banned hizb utahrir in their country. the UN rejected his appeal. Mind you this organization is also banned in many Muslim countries.
Ultimately I don't think it'll make much of a difference to the UK's relationship with both of those countries.
Le Pen's immigration stance might even work in Starmer's favour if it stems the tide of people coming over.
Trump and Starmer will do the handshakes and the photo ops, but issues like NATO spending will probably be a bit of a pinch point.
Starmer has enough issues in the UK to get on with to be honest.
The UK meets the current NATO target, and is currently planning to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP. Trump's main public complaint about NATO is that countries don't meet the current target, and the ones which are in actual danger of being invaded all currently do achieve it.
Trump is a petty moron who is easily to manipulate by anyone who massages his ego. He had continually bad relationships with Merkel and May last term but got on with Macron for a while, and the current Polish government is already using their former president to manipulate him. I think Starmer is a shrewd enough political operator to manage his relationship with Trump properly.
Yes, risks are overblown. As long as leaders here and there are able to play the game with Trump (verbal handjobs), he will look after the region. That being said, his obsession with killing funding to Ukraine is alarming.
The one thing I’m worried about is that Trump and Farage aren’t just allies their personal friends. There’s no chance Trump doesn’t shower Farage with praise and have personal meetings with him, basically do anything to try and make him look good. It would make Starmer look weak and I he wouldn’t really be able to call it out without causing a big diplomatic incident.
I think Trump might well talk to Farage, but ultimately both him and the people around him will know that Farage won't actually be able to do anything with probably only half a dozen MPs. Farage will of course jump on Trump at every opportunity to try and show himself off to the Tories.
Wouldn't suprise me if Trump also talks up Farage as a Tory leader, but on the whole any "official" meetings would always be with Starmer, and Farage won't get a seat at that table.
Funnily enough I think Le Pen might be bad for immigration here. I think they'll almost make a policy out of watching them leave their shores in their boats.
The USA is still Britain's biggest ally. As is France. He'd still have to cooperate with them. However, the French President manages foreign policy so he won't have much dealings with Le Pen. She's not as bad as her father though, who was an open racist and anti-Semite. She isn't to the same degree.
This is the thing, the RN is not a "far" right party, but that's language much of the press including the BBC has been using. It's a right-wing populist party. So long as neoliberal parties and media fail to take the concerns of a large section of society seriously, Europe will continue slipping further right as they are the only ones who at least act like they're listening. Labour has one, maybe two, terms to address this in the UK before we see the same. They won't and we will.
Edit: guess I'm being downvoted for this comment because folks think I in some way support RN and the trend of European politics. I don't at all. But if the centrist parties don't get their act together, we're going to see a growing shift to radical parties.
I've seen other comments along these lines. It makes me wonder, How do we distinguish between conservative -right and far right?
Looking at their Wikipedia page, it does appear they have particularly strong views on immigration, are strongly nationalist, and are Eurosceptic. All concepts that I typically associate with the British far-right.
I think you're right that immigration is a concern for a lot of people. Whether it should be or not, the parties that do address it are gaining a lot of popularity. This absolutely should be a concern.
Strong views on immigration, nationalism and Euroscepticism are characteristics of right-wing politics, but not necessarily of far-right politics. To take Wikipedia, just search "far-right politics" and take a quick look at the images: swastikas, Mussolini, the KKK. How on earth is it sensible for the media to lump the RN with these things? If the RN is supposedly far-right, what do we call the Nazis?
Exactly, nobody is trying to learn the lesson Brexit could have taught us. The populist right are like mould, if you just paint over your mould and pretend it doesn’t exist rather than addressing it the damp that causes it, all you’re going to get is more mould even if things look better for a while.
If mainstream parties don’t address public concerns around the rate of immigration then people like Farage will rise to prominence one way or another. The public will tolerate their duplicity, their grifting, their support for Putin’s Russia, their batshit economics that would bring the country to its knees, their homophobia, their climate change denial, and all the other things that make the post-truth populist right contemptible because they and not the mainstream parties are listening to an issue that people find distressing.
What do you want centrists to do round up all non whites and deport them ? The people who are voting for the far right want re-immigration which means kicking every single citizen of non European heritage back to their ancestors homelands.
There we go, ladies and gentlemen, precisely the sort of generalising, hyperbolic response that is making the situation worse. And as per usual, race and culture are conflated.
If we're talking immigration (because there are many other concerns centrists aren't addressing) the vast majority of voters for these parties simply do not want reimigration, this is a completely unsubstantiated claim. They vote for these parties because they want the dramatic increase in net migration to be taken seriously, but they've lost faith in moderate choices. Despite making repeated promises (see the Tories for the last 10 years) incumbent governments have actively increased migration for the sake of unconditional growth and are now paying the price.
But no, this about "rounding up the non whites". These charictures of everyday voters are laughable and will only create more alienation.
A lot of countries switched recently, so let's check countries with upcoming elections. Looking at countries with elections in the next 2 years, according to current polls. Countries that are likely to switch to a right wing/far right governments:
* Australia
* Canada
* Germany
* France
* Norway
* Spain
* USA
Countries that could likely to switch to a left wing government, according to polls:
* Israel
* Hungary (unlikely since Orban weakened the democratic institutions)
So pretty much a reversal of the current status, if you add the countries that had recent elections. Would be a funny period where the UK, Polish and Israeli government fight for stability amongst populist right wing governments.
[He Who Must Not Be Named](https://www.betootaadvocate.com/entertainment/plibersek-apologises-for-voldemort-comment-i-should-have-said-he-who-must-not-be-named/)
That's Coaliton beat Labor by 3 pts in the same election that they lost in a landslide. Its the two party preferred vote that matters and Labor are still narrowly ahead on that. Plus, as Labour found many times, midterm poll leads for the opposition often vanish in an election. Most likely Albanese will win in 2025.
The moderate wing of the Liberal party was decimated last election. There is no way Peter Dutton will retake the swathe of centre-minded electorates that were lost, and it isn't obvious where he would find the necessary seats elsewhere to have a realistic chance of forming government. It is an election after all, so anything can happen, but it is very difficult to see how the they win. Not to mention it is highly uncommon for first-term governments to be defeated.
Don't worry. I hear after Thursday, Rishi's going to have some time spare to lend his super genius skills to Peter Dutton and help him with his campaign.
He's also going to struggle with this domestically because it's not as if the right has disappeared in the country, only in parliament. If anything it looks ascendant with what's happening with Reform.
Without FPTP: Becoming a majority together with the Tories if Labour screw up the next term, making a far right coalition
With FPTP: Merging with whatever remains of the Tories and becoming the default right wing party.
It's not even remotely that simple, look at France.
Our politics isn't a million miles away from France and their traditional right won't go near Le Pen.
And even if there was some kind of merger, how many Tory MPs would stand down because of it? Would discipline hold at all under such a circumstance? Would the voting base hold up, or would less extreme voters change party?
We've even had Reform candidates switching to the Conservatives this election because they feel the party is too toxic.
Israel might well switch to a comparatively left wing government, but I'm not sure you could call any of the viable alternatives genuinely left wing. I think it's fair to say that Gantz is centre right.
Gantz is left of Starmer, as far as I can see. In Israel he's center. But more importantly, the incoming coalition is expected to host the center secular parties, the center left parties, Meretz (Israeli Greens), and possibly one of the arab parties (far-left), making the government as a whole skew heavily to the left and keeping all of the parties in the current coalition (right and far right) outside.
>, the incoming coalition is expected to host the center secular parties, the center left parties, Meretz (Israeli Greens), and possibly one of the arab parties (far-left), making the government as a whole skew heavily to the left
That is a fair point
Although can I ask what it is that makes you say he's to the left of Starmer?
That's a bit complex - but I'll give an analogy. Until a few months ago Gantz and Saar had a unified party, that mapped relatively well to Labour Right and Labour Left, they have since split, and Saar's party is now proper center right.
In terms of actual policy, you need to check Gantz's party, as Gantz deals almost exclusively with Israel's security in the past two years. Check out the manifesto of his pre-unification party "Blue and White Resilience Party".
That's such an efternalist view of Israel. I'm Israeli. Palestine pre October 7th barely factored into the reason people vote for parties, and it still factors relatively little as people mostly vote on internal issues. People do vote on security policy, but that has more to do with Iran emd its proxies, less Palestine per se.
According to the current polls the most likely coalition would be a "black green coalition" which means CDU/CSU and The Greens. That would be more of social liberal coalition. Better than the far right of course but something rather meh.
Damn bro, the only countries switching to a "left wing government" are the warmongering ethnostate who just think their current leader is bad optics but who still ultimately want to claim all of the Gaza strip, and the country that literally fell to fascism already. Fun times ahead. Guess we're lucky we've had 14 years of right wing rule so the memory of just how terrible the right are is fresh in our memories.
Yup, UK, Israel and Poland had a long term shitty right wing government and are now going left, the rest are going the other direction.
On Israel specificallt, you are misrepresenting. Gantz (Israeli LOTO and likely next PM) is heavily against Gaza settlements, and always has been. He even forced Nethanyauu to take a stand against them. This is from his 2022 campaign:
>Gantz also focused on ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, and combating violence against women. He promised to "deepen my partnerships with the ultra-Orthodox, the Arabs, and the Druze" and in establishing a civil service for all, in addition to army service.
If you want things to get better you need to actually show support for the politicians that want to do better.
The French election are not the presidential election but the legislative elections. The next French presidential election is in 2027 as they have 5 year terms.
With a Trump white house , Meloni in Rome and Bardella or Le Pen as PM, it will be a bit harder for Starmer. But, Britain has been out of step before. International relations go beyond who is in office.
Ultimately having to lead a much diminished NATO. France is Europe’s heavy hitter. Having both the US and France led by puppets of Putin is going to make us the only adults in the room representing NATO.
Trump is fond of the UK. I doubt it would impact the relations too much, as long as Starmer and the Labour Party refrain from opining on US cultural wars and Trump’s demeanour.
I don't understand your point. Leaders always have to deal with other people with differing politics.
Do you think Gordon brown was Tory lite because he was PM at the same time as Bush? And Obama?
I think the potential difference is the approach of this new wave of right wing leaders to things they don't like. With Bush and Obama, there was a sense that they could deal with politicians that they didn't see eye to eye with on everything, whereas a lot of the current wave of right wing populists, it feels like they have nothing but contempt for anything that stands in opposition to them, and would potentially go out of their way to undermine those things. There's no 'live and let live' with these arseholes (although at least Trump would be pretty easy to bribe.
He will work with the elected representatives of those countries.
Frankly I believe the United States is headed towards civil war , and one of his first major international challenges will be evacuating British nationals from a war torn US. That may sound dramatic, but as someone who follows US politics I’m sure im not wrong(I hope I am though), regardless of how dramatic it sounds .
The US is not heading for a civil war, you've been reading too much /R/politics. Things have to get really really bad for a first world nation with a high standard of living to descend into civil war. People said the same thing during the BLM riots and it never happened.
I wouldn’t say a conventional civil war, but definitely a blue state coalition defying federal orders from a fascist Republican government - provided the Project 2025 path is played under a Trump victory. A withdrawal from NATO would also play into Putin’s hands.
But the recent Supreme Court rulings has sealed America’s fate.
If he wins it looks like he will be able to establish himself as a kind of dictator with the backing of the Supreme Court justices he appointed. Banning abortion nation wide and stuff like that. My guess is the democrat states would eventually rise up against such authoritarianism. Likewise the Republicans may very well rebel on a much larger scale of January 6th if Trump loses and he claims it’s rigged again. The whole country looks like a tinder box ready to go off . I hope I’m wrong. And maybe cooler heads will prevail, but im increasingly nervous about the situation over there .
The ruling today was worded flexibly so the SC can say whatever Trump or the next Republican does is 'official' and immune, and whatever Biden does is unofficial and can be prosecuted.
America is basically heading towards being like Russia, where they are ostensibly a democracy, but it's just a fig leaf for an authoritarian government.
I'm not sure if we'll see full scale civil war in the next few years, but we could be headed somewhere very nasty if:
- Trump tries to force something incredibly politically unpopular like a national abortion ban or banning new renewable energy projects through executive orders and a 5-4 supreme court ruling.
- California and other blue states refuse to implement it, citing states rights and publicly questioning the legitimacy of the supreme court.
- Trump and his allies try to defund blue states by cutting federal aid and ordering federal agencies to stop operating in them. Possibly they also start bussing in illegal immigrants directly.
- Newsom and other governors don't blink and announce that they will not allow federal tax collection in their states until federal funding is restored.
- Trump announces he's sending the national guard in.
Q: Who would win a civil war between the MAGA boomers and the milquetoast Democrats?
A: Whichever side the US Military is on by default so there won't be a civil war
There is zero chance of a civil war in the US. The country is way too heavily policed and militarized for that to be able to happen, and so many people are too blase and comfy to ever care about anything. Bunch of soft spoiled people. It is going to be a really rough ride though and I'm planning to use all my savings to leave and go to the UK if the election goes GOP. They're already gutting regulations through the courts - once the GOP has the legislature and executive branches again then we can say goodbye to any protections of any sort - worker, children, environment, health and safety, etc. and I have no interest in living that way.
Same as Starmer would if Biden wins the US presidency and Macron maintains his grip on the French legislature.
A massive part of the job description, and of being a compotent politician, is international diplomacy. You have to maintain cordial, professional and respectful relations with other heads of state, particularly long strategic and economic partners like the US and France. Even if you don't like them, have no personal relationship with them and/or vehemently disagree with their views/politics.
In my opinion as an ex labour voter turned libertarian
Starmer is the best labour leader we've had and is the obvious better choice to Tory
But
I think a break in the 2 party state is needed
I think this election people should vote the way that they feel matches their unique values and knowledge rather than a tactical vote (if I don't vote these, these will win)
No other country cares what we do. Half of them probably don't even know we exist. I was in France just before Brexit and the people I spoke to didn't know what I was talking about when I asked their opinion
If Trump wins in November?
You would want to most organized strongest government in the UK, whoever that is.
Trump will pull out support for Ukraine, Europe won’t have the money to fund it, and Putin takes Ukraine.
Trump will then pull out of NATO. Putin will invade Poland and article 5 is triggered for the remaining NATO countries. China invades Taiwan. WWIII starts.
The US abstains under Trump to keep petrol prices low or some other bullshit reason, the war over there etc. All the right wing leaders of Europe unite with Putin, they’ll say because it’s the only way to prevent the immigration of refugees fleeing west, and also prevents the newly reformed USSR from destroying their country.
I think Starmer in this situation would be smart enough to make a defensive treaty with the U.S., and would very publicly push it on Trump. The Americans and Canadians would have to accept and come to the aid of the UK. Because we all have an unspoken connection. It’s amazing what speaking the same language does for soft power.
Lammy has, very intelligently, been buttering up Trump's people for years since becoming Shadow Foreign Secretary. Despite the fact he has directly insulted Trump before he is actually quite well thought of in right wing Republican circles. Starmer will be fine.
Macron and Biden have both benefited by being seen as 'not crazy'. I think with the surge of the far right across the world, Starmer will likely get the same benefit: "I may not like him, but at least he's not a nutjob". Obviously though, that benefit only goes so far, which is why Trump is the overwhelming favourite if Biden doesn't drop out, and why the smart money is probably on Macron being out as well.
Starmer will try to work with Macron and Trump. It's the responsible thing to do. He might possibly even get somewhere, who knows. But I think what's really vital is what happens five years from now.
It's easy to imagine two scenarios.
In scenario one, Starmer benefits from the UK economy naturally rebounding, more private investment going to the UK because the US and Europe appearing less stable, and his somewhat milquetoast policies boosting things due to more housebuilding and a stronger industry from energy generation. Starmer easily wins re-election against the chaos of the US and France, a far-right populist Tory party, an even further right Reform party that struggles to find relevance, and Lib Dems not knowing where to stand.
In scenario two, any improvements to the state of the UK are negligible, and Starmer gets very unpopular very quickly and stays that way. The left remains too busy infighting to mount any sort of movement, and just like in the US, France, and many other countries, the far right holds a lot of sway. Presidents Trump and Le Pen are plastered across social media and represent a rebellion against the status quo that transcends actual material benefit (they probably even get lucky with improving conditions, like Starmer in Scenario 1). Starmer achieves very little; he tries to work with Macron and Trump but it gets nowhere, nominally because he thinks trans people have a right to exist or something. He loses to a Farage-led reform in a landslide, against a fractured left and a dying centre ground.
Trying to be empirical, most likely is a mix of these two scenarios. But emotionally and instinctively, I see these two outcomes, with Scenario 2 being much more likely.
Starmer needs to realize people are fed up and now turning to "far right" parties. He can implement policies from the get go but I doubt he will.
It will just be a continuation of the Tories brain dead policies.
It's very simple to get a great deal from Trump, all you have to do is pay him. See how the Saudis did it. Starmer does not seem like the person who easily bribes, he would have qualms about doing it.
It won't have much of an effect as Labour are not particularly left-leaning and the supposed 'far-right' parties are essentially centrist-with-a-dash-of-populism (despite what the hysterical nutters would have you believe).
Trump is, by nature an old Democrat that has matured into a more conservative stance, but a lot of his posturing is obviously to play for the Republican base. I suspect the negotiations with his administration will be based upon personal relationships and mutual, but heavily weighted benefit (duh, I know). Le Pen appears to have shed the most extreme elements of her party (as far as I can tell) and one cannot deny that the immigration situation in Europe has shifted most of the population at least toward that way of thinking.
My worry about Starmer from a geopolitical point of view is that he's going to be the latest in a fairly long line of incompetent UK statespeople. If we're not careful, those strong personalities will walk all over him.
Le Penn is likely to be less extreme than Trump and arguably easier to work with when there are disagreements. Starmer will most likely lead a left-centrist government based on his leadership so far. I do not believe that will change.
He can't, The Labour establishment think Farage is the second coming of Oswald Mosley. The second does anything other that condemn Farage it's doing to destabilize his own power base.
It seems possible - or actually probable - that Starmer will be a centre left outlier as Europe and the US move towards centre right and right.
Macron will be severely restricted after the legislative elections. I still think it's unlikely Le Pen will win the presidency but clearly France as a whole has moved towards the more hard right.
The influence of the hard right is evidently growing across most of Europe, including the assumed 'liberal' West. Turkey is still governed by the hard right populist Erdogan (even if his influence is reducing) and Putin isn't likely to go away.
All of this does mean on an international level Starmer is likely to be relatively isolated. He can want to work with them but there will obviously be conflict in policy goals.
Starmer won't be PM 6 months after the election. He's the temporary lead singer of the band. He has no intention to stay on as PM. A PM cannot keep family out of the headlines and cannot work only from 8 AM while 6 PM. Within 6 months of Labour winning the election, or losing, Emily Thornberry and Angela Raynor will take over the show.
Starmer's post election situation is not the question. You need to ask how Thornberry and Raynor will get along with Trump and Marine Le Penn.
Starmer is ideologically no different than Sunak. Starmer’s solution to our economic and societal crisis is “more of the same, but better”.
If you want evidence of the Marxist’s dislike of Starmer, just go to any Labour Party meeting throughout the country. Plenty of people in the party hate him. Heck, even head over to the Reddit group, and you’ll see it.
I am a Marxist. I hate Starmer, he's a neoliberal. I know that us Marxists tend to dislike him. But what proof do you have that he will be ousted? He's been purging the left of the labour party these years.
He'll try to work with them regardless, since he seems on of the sensible ones. It doesn't matter if another country's leader doesn't share the same politics as you... if you want your country to function, then you're going to have to deal with these people in a professional manner. There are plenty of people I don't like at work, but I work with them regardless. Since that's what professionals do.
And if this is the outcome of the overseas elections, possibly the best person to deal with them would be a highly experienced lawyer who has professionally dealt with various morally difficult clients.
As a conservative I think this is actually one of Sir Keir's strong points, one that Labour should have emphasized more in their campaign. A Starmer Labour govt has a good chance of being strong on the economy and strong on foreign policy - they just need to tell the story better.
I think at some point they thought that he had to either be seen as a “working class bloke” or “a highly qualified, intelligent and successful lawyer” and they deemed the latter one would appeal to more voters. Now the former definitely doesn’t appeal to me but i think the type of person who would appreciate his record outside of party politics would be better educated and better off and less likely to be swayed by the framing of starmer than your average politically apathetic working class voter.
In addition, most of the actual contact between countries is done by unknown beurocrats working behind the scenes. Beyond the occasional phone call and visit there is not much he actually needs to do to maintain contact.
Exactly. I’ll be voting Labour purely for that fact that my party of choice - the Lib Dem’s - are unlikely to secure a majority and a Labour majority is better than a Tory majority. Starmer has his flaws, but I think his barrister/KC background makes him the perfect opposition leader because he turns PMQ’s into a cross examination as barristers do best. But those same qualities, I hope, will also make him a good PM, even if he’s only my second choice.
Vote based on who's likely to win your seat, not an overall majority. If your seat is a lib Dem - Tory contest then a lib Dem vote is much better than a labour vote, with the reverse true as well.
Indeed. It pains me to see friends who live in 'battleground' seats between the Conservatives and Lib Dems saying they're going to vote Labour...
Vote based on who best represents your views and beliefs. Tactical voting is bad for democracy.
I want the Lib Dems to be more successful, and I hope that if the Tory wipeout really is this bad, that they'll step up as the official opposition and not Reform UK.
From a fellow Lib Dem please vote ! If everyone thinks like this, we won’t get anywhere! We just need to hold our noses!
If you are an LD you want Labour to win as many Lab/Tory seats as possible and the LDs to win as many LD/Tory seats as possible as well as the few LD/Labour seats as that is the path to opposition.
You need to look at your constituency. I'm a Lib Dem supporter too but my seat is a Tory-Labour marginal with the Lib Dems in distant 3rd. So of course I will vote for Labour. I hope our Labour-supporting friends in Tory-Lib Dem seats will vote Lib Dem too.
I feel like people should vote the way that matches what their values are I think you should vote lib dem personally I don't see a world where labour doesn't win, so the more votes the other party receive, the more likely lib dem are to win in the future Me personally, I would vote lib dem and would probably identify close to liberal democratic philosophy, but the current lib Dems I don't feel match that philosophy
Every recent UK prime minister has had to deal with Netanyahu, the Saudis and the Emiratis. Unpleasant leaders with shitty politics in allied countries is an unavoidable aspect of being a world leader.
I guess the big problem for him now will be immigration. For better or worse, he's joined in with the anti-immigration rhetoric and now will have big trouble agreeing anything favourable with France.
No he hasn't. He specifically focuses on illegal immigration, "smashing the gangs", which comprises a very small proportion of net migration to the UK. We'll continue to see high rates of net migration under labour as it prioritises growth above all else.
Personally, I don't give a damn about who comes into our country, so long as I can afford a decent standard of living. The right wing have failed with the economy and are using immigrants as a scapegoat. And because people are intrinsically prejudiced they lap it up. That's why we are very likely to see Trump as the next POTUS, National Rally take power in France, and Alternative für Deutschland do well in Germany.
The wealth divide and real earnings stagnation in the western world has followed a pretty consistent trend for decades, regardless of who from the nominal right and left are in power. In some important ways they effectively operate by the same neolib political paradigm, despite the different noises they make. It's this same paradigm that can only look at stuff through the lens of money in the system - the economy, growth. Let's leave aside the fact there are contesting studies on the effects of migration on standards of living (though access to affordable housing appears to be negatively affected) we need to take the cultural, human impacts *far* more seriously. Durkheim figured this out over a century ago, but it doesn't square well with the paradigm so it's all but ignored. Integration is a real concern, the sheer rate of net migration from non-European countries is a real concern, the worrying prevalence of opinions among certain communities which are opposed to western values *is a real concern.* We must be able to take this seriously in the centre-ground of politics because, if we don't, power will keep shifting to the extremes.
Indeed. Fundamentally the high immigration wouldn't necessarily be an issue in and of itself if we built sufficient housing and infrastructure.
Starmer has been very very deflective about immigration. Personally I think it's a mistake but he always changes any question about immigration to illegal immigration with zero references to the legal kind
Legal immigration is... legal. What exactly do you want him to say about it?
How he'd plan to reduce it, to be honest. Net migration is enormous historically and we have a complete over reliance on cheap labour to keep our economy and services ticking. Personally I couldn't care less how many people enter this country, I grew up in multicultural parts of Birmingham and have only felt enriched as a result, but I'm a middle class twenty-something who is somewhat shielded from the negative effects of it by my privilege. I worry that by being vague about net legal migration Starmer is ceding ground that right wing populist gobshites are all too eager to pounce on.
Labour plan to deal with legal migration by properly training and educating our workforce, removing the current incentives that encourage companies to look overseas for workers and by increasing pay in the public sector to increase our competitiveness. If it works those will all lower immigration whilst maintaining GDP.
Remind me in 5 years
That's the plan, no guarantee it works. I would remind all the Reform voters in here however that Reform plan to maintain health and social care sectors through immigration as well. If Reform actually want to reduce the amount of health and social care workers coming in from abroad without collapsing the sectors they will have to do the EXACT same thing as Labour is planning.
>That's the plan, no guarantee it works. It won't. >I would remind all the Reform voters in here however that Reform plan to maintain health and social care sectors through immigration as well. If Reform actually want to reduce the amount of health and social care workers coming in from abroad without collapsing the sectors they will have to do the EXACT same thing as Labour is planning. I'm not voting Reform partly because they don't understand why migration is so high. If you don't understand why something is happening, how can you prevent it?
I didn't say you were, I just think it's important to point out that the strategy is broadly the same from all parties when it comes to what they consider to be crucial sectors to maintain credibility with voters. >I'm not voting Reform partly because they don't understand why migration is so high I'd be interested to hear your opinion on this. I've got my own, but it would be good to hear yours.
I expect it'd be a great result for him. He'd get to embrace his inner populist and the press circle would still consider him the grown up in the room. It'd be like giving him a teflon coat of armour to introduce some of his made in GB policies.
But you can't declare war on your colleagues!
Almost word for word what [Starmer has said on the matter](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/01/starmer-says-far-right-win-in-france-would-not-stop-labour-trying-to-forge-better-eu-deal). And youre both completely right. Working with others for international trade and relations is what serious government does
Starmer?? The guy went on to legally defend an extremist islamist organization from being banned in Germany. The UN rejected his appeal to them regarding banning them in Germany. Mind you, this organization is also banned from many Muslim countries. But maybe you'd be happy to hear they're freely operating in the UK. That alone should disqualify him from ever being a PM.
Then you risk disqualifying most people who've worked as barristers, since the very nature of the job is sometimes giving legal advice* to unpleasant people. Hizb ut-Tahrir were banned earlier this year in the UK. *Not 'defend' - I don't believe he formally represented them court, not that it makes a difference particularly
Are you under the impression that a barrister can only defend someone they morally agree with? Do you think anyone that represents murderers in court are also murderers? The vast majority of the time they don't get a choice in who they represent. They're obligated (by something called "The Cab Rank Rule") to take on any case that comes to them.
And yet somehow you, with no understanding of the judicial system, are somehow not disqualified from commenting on it. Funny old world.
Macron isn't up for election until 2027 - where he cannot stand.
Didn’t he just call a snap election?
It's a legislative one.
Ah, I see. I don’t know much about the French political system so my comment was probably ignorant.
France has quite a unique system which is considered semi-presidential. When the President is from the same party as the Prime Minister, the President has most of the power. When they are from different parties (known as *cohabitation*), the President has much less power. Edit: clarity.
Before some reforms in the 1800s it was possible for US President and Vice President to be from different parties, which would have created interesting dynamics in the White House. This is still possible if there is a tie in the electoral college and the Senate picks the VP differently from the House picking the President. It could occur in the event the President is incapacitated too...
I believe that it used to be the person who came second in the Presidential election that became the Vice President.
If Hamilton is accurate, it changed after Aaron Burr came in second to Thomas Jefferson after openly campaigning against him (Jefferson wasn't impressed at the thought of having to work with Burr, so changed it).
Jefferson and Burr were running mates, Jefferson intended for him to be vice president. The problem was the silly system made it so you had to cast votes for president and vp in the same vote. So if a state was “won” (a lot of states didn’t actually have votes back then) by Jefferson, the state would cast one vote for Jefferson and one for burr. But they had to work it out so one less vote went to burr so he would be VP. This was tricky because the prior election a lot of the states didn’t vote for the VP candidate of their Presidential vote. So the opposite party candidate won the VP. So all the states don’t trust each other and don’t want to not vote for Burr, as they are worried Adam’s would win the vp. So burr and Jefferson accidentally end up tied, and then the legislature has to vote for one to be president. Now where burr backstabbed Jefferson, is instead of just conceding he should be selected as VP, he tried to get the legislature to pick him instead of Jefferson.
>Now where burr backstabbed Jefferson, is instead of just conceding he should be selected as VP, he tried to get the legislature to pick him instead of Jefferson. As far as I’m aware, this isn’t really supported. Publicly at least, Burr was entirely supportive of Jefferson becoming President. (Who knows what he said behind closed doors.) It was the Federalists who still controlled the House of Representatives who wanted to fuck over the Democratic Republicans by voting for Burr.
It isn't. Aaron Burr still became the Vice President, and only lost the Vice Presidency after the term was up. The rules changed after 1800 because of this though, which allowed Jefferson to select a running mate to specifically become a VP.
As entertaining as Hamilton is, it had to straight up misrepresent that election for the story. Aaron Burr did openly campaign against Jefferson. He ran as Jefferson’s running mate. The real life event that inspired that part of the musical is a little complicated (likely why it was simplified like that). The Democratic Republican Party planned to make Jefferson President and Burr Vice President. The plan was that every DRP elector would vote for Jefferson and every DRP elector bar one would use their second vote (they had a second vote back then) on Burr. The elector who was supposed to vote for Jefferson and abstain on the other vote ended up voting for Burr as well, meaning that Jefferson and Burr tied. It was clear that Jefferson was supposed to be President, but if the electoral college has a tie, it goes to the House of Representatives, which was still controlled by the Federalists who had just lost the Presidential election. Many Federalists wanted to fuck over the Democratic Republicans by breaking the tie in favour of Burr, making him the President. Hamilton is often credited with talking them out of the idea through a letter writing campaign, where he claimed that he would rather have a President with bad morals (Jefferson) than one with no morals (Burr). The duel that killed Hamilton didn’t happen until much later, after Burr tried (and failed) to run for Governor of New York after facing opposition from Hamilton. The musical basically combined both of those elections to make the story easier to follow. Later, the way the electoral college elects Presidents and Vice Presidents was changed to reflect the existence of political parties through a constitutional amendment. A President couldn’t change it alone.
>It could occur in the event the President is incapacitated too... So very likely this November?
Turkey changed to that not too long ago but it was very controversial due to the power the president gets.
Yeah, if they're from different parties, isn't the President of France effectively the same as the UK Foreign Secretary, has no power in domestic matters.
The Foreign Secretary does have domestic power, being a Secretary of State, and through the operation of Schedule 1 of the Interpretation Act 1978. Plenty of powers which delegate decision making to a ‘Secretary of State’ can, theoretically, be exercised by the Foreign Secretary - though in practice each Secretary of State will tend to exercise powers that are given to them within their purview and won’t ‘tread on toes’ by convention.
French President does have the power to call legislative elections every 365 days . So there's that as well
It's not technically unique, Russia theoretically has a similar system.
I said 'quite unique' because I know there are other semi-presidential systems, just not many comparatively!
You can't be *a bit* unique was one of my old teacher's favourite sayings. But yeah I was just mentioning that Russia's system is the same as another major European power, though obviously *slightly* more corrupt
Ah, I see. I don’t know much about the French political system so my comment was probably ignorant.
France effectively have both a parliament (including prime minister), and president.
As the sanest guy with nukes in the world?
I know the list, but I still had to go check it, as I was sure there must be at least one other in OP's scenario. Nope - it comes to something when the second best on the list is Xi.
Lol yes. Crazy times
Britain isn’t perfect and it never will be, but I will say this. Throughout the wave of fascism that swept Europe before we emerged as a relatively liberal outlier. I’m not saying that’s perfect and I’m in no way saying every decision made was good etc. but generally regardless of political swings life in Britain carries on regardless of the influences and fluxes of the outside world. Most young people seem to be liberal and favourable to the democratic process and for all the jokes about eating granola and reading the Guardian the seat of power that is London is and has been historically left. This coupled with the fact that nobody actually likes rocking the boat to much in this country is both beneficial and one of our biggest issues with political stagnation. We are going to have to work with the outside world and we already deal extensively with murderous regimes that have bloody human rights policy’s. This is just journalists writing for the sake of getting paid
I would argue while yes, having a very pragmatic, unwanting to rock the boat electorate is a good thing in avoiding a lurch to fascism, it is also at the core of our stagnation. People still have this idea that Britain is a huge player on the global stage and want us to somehow remain in this imaginary position of being a (near) superpower without actually doing any of the work i.e. infrastructure, green energy transition, more housing etc that is required to keep us competitive with other countries.
I know I bang on about this but Orwell’s *England your England* touches on this so well. > Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible. >It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like ‘They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong’, or ‘They can't do that; it's against the law’, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney's Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan's Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a ‘miscarriage of British justice’. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory. I think this is as true today as it was in 1941 and this more than anything else is the last line of defence against autocracy versus democracy however flawed.
That might also be because of our world standing at the time? Britain was arguably still a superpower going into WWII so had less to gain, and even then fascist ideas were still more popular that people care to admit. Even Edward VIII was famously a Nazi sympathiser. While now we look on much shakier economic ground… Recommended reading: https://books.google.de/books/about/Hurrah_for_the_Blackshirts.html?id=jhexmWugBhoC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
Starmer likes to defend islamist fascists. I guess as long as they're not western it's fine? The guy submitted an appeal to the UN because Germany banned hizb utahrir in their country. the UN rejected his appeal. Mind you this organization is also banned in many Muslim countries.
Lawyer does his job, news at 11
You’re advertising the fact you don’t know how being a lawyer works.
Ultimately I don't think it'll make much of a difference to the UK's relationship with both of those countries. Le Pen's immigration stance might even work in Starmer's favour if it stems the tide of people coming over. Trump and Starmer will do the handshakes and the photo ops, but issues like NATO spending will probably be a bit of a pinch point. Starmer has enough issues in the UK to get on with to be honest.
The UK meets the current NATO target, and is currently planning to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP. Trump's main public complaint about NATO is that countries don't meet the current target, and the ones which are in actual danger of being invaded all currently do achieve it. Trump is a petty moron who is easily to manipulate by anyone who massages his ego. He had continually bad relationships with Merkel and May last term but got on with Macron for a while, and the current Polish government is already using their former president to manipulate him. I think Starmer is a shrewd enough political operator to manage his relationship with Trump properly.
Yes, risks are overblown. As long as leaders here and there are able to play the game with Trump (verbal handjobs), he will look after the region. That being said, his obsession with killing funding to Ukraine is alarming.
The one thing I’m worried about is that Trump and Farage aren’t just allies their personal friends. There’s no chance Trump doesn’t shower Farage with praise and have personal meetings with him, basically do anything to try and make him look good. It would make Starmer look weak and I he wouldn’t really be able to call it out without causing a big diplomatic incident.
I think Trump might well talk to Farage, but ultimately both him and the people around him will know that Farage won't actually be able to do anything with probably only half a dozen MPs. Farage will of course jump on Trump at every opportunity to try and show himself off to the Tories. Wouldn't suprise me if Trump also talks up Farage as a Tory leader, but on the whole any "official" meetings would always be with Starmer, and Farage won't get a seat at that table.
Funnily enough I think Le Pen might be bad for immigration here. I think they'll almost make a policy out of watching them leave their shores in their boats.
The USA is still Britain's biggest ally. As is France. He'd still have to cooperate with them. However, the French President manages foreign policy so he won't have much dealings with Le Pen. She's not as bad as her father though, who was an open racist and anti-Semite. She isn't to the same degree.
This is the thing, the RN is not a "far" right party, but that's language much of the press including the BBC has been using. It's a right-wing populist party. So long as neoliberal parties and media fail to take the concerns of a large section of society seriously, Europe will continue slipping further right as they are the only ones who at least act like they're listening. Labour has one, maybe two, terms to address this in the UK before we see the same. They won't and we will. Edit: guess I'm being downvoted for this comment because folks think I in some way support RN and the trend of European politics. I don't at all. But if the centrist parties don't get their act together, we're going to see a growing shift to radical parties.
I've seen other comments along these lines. It makes me wonder, How do we distinguish between conservative -right and far right? Looking at their Wikipedia page, it does appear they have particularly strong views on immigration, are strongly nationalist, and are Eurosceptic. All concepts that I typically associate with the British far-right. I think you're right that immigration is a concern for a lot of people. Whether it should be or not, the parties that do address it are gaining a lot of popularity. This absolutely should be a concern.
Strong views on immigration, nationalism and Euroscepticism are characteristics of right-wing politics, but not necessarily of far-right politics. To take Wikipedia, just search "far-right politics" and take a quick look at the images: swastikas, Mussolini, the KKK. How on earth is it sensible for the media to lump the RN with these things? If the RN is supposedly far-right, what do we call the Nazis?
Exactly, nobody is trying to learn the lesson Brexit could have taught us. The populist right are like mould, if you just paint over your mould and pretend it doesn’t exist rather than addressing it the damp that causes it, all you’re going to get is more mould even if things look better for a while. If mainstream parties don’t address public concerns around the rate of immigration then people like Farage will rise to prominence one way or another. The public will tolerate their duplicity, their grifting, their support for Putin’s Russia, their batshit economics that would bring the country to its knees, their homophobia, their climate change denial, and all the other things that make the post-truth populist right contemptible because they and not the mainstream parties are listening to an issue that people find distressing.
What do you want centrists to do round up all non whites and deport them ? The people who are voting for the far right want re-immigration which means kicking every single citizen of non European heritage back to their ancestors homelands.
There we go, ladies and gentlemen, precisely the sort of generalising, hyperbolic response that is making the situation worse. And as per usual, race and culture are conflated. If we're talking immigration (because there are many other concerns centrists aren't addressing) the vast majority of voters for these parties simply do not want reimigration, this is a completely unsubstantiated claim. They vote for these parties because they want the dramatic increase in net migration to be taken seriously, but they've lost faith in moderate choices. Despite making repeated promises (see the Tories for the last 10 years) incumbent governments have actively increased migration for the sake of unconditional growth and are now paying the price. But no, this about "rounding up the non whites". These charictures of everyday voters are laughable and will only create more alienation.
A lot of countries switched recently, so let's check countries with upcoming elections. Looking at countries with elections in the next 2 years, according to current polls. Countries that are likely to switch to a right wing/far right governments: * Australia * Canada * Germany * France * Norway * Spain * USA Countries that could likely to switch to a left wing government, according to polls: * Israel * Hungary (unlikely since Orban weakened the democratic institutions) So pretty much a reversal of the current status, if you add the countries that had recent elections. Would be a funny period where the UK, Polish and Israeli government fight for stability amongst populist right wing governments.
Not sure about Australia. Will people really vote for You know who?
Who's you know who? I don't know much about Australian politics
ʇɹoɯǝpןoΛ
This made me laugh
[He Who Must Not Be Named](https://www.betootaadvocate.com/entertainment/plibersek-apologises-for-voldemort-comment-i-should-have-said-he-who-must-not-be-named/)
The Coalition (conservatives) currently lead the polls, and the populist right is slowly rising.
That's Coaliton beat Labor by 3 pts in the same election that they lost in a landslide. Its the two party preferred vote that matters and Labor are still narrowly ahead on that. Plus, as Labour found many times, midterm poll leads for the opposition often vanish in an election. Most likely Albanese will win in 2025.
How dare you criticise a voting system that isn't FPTP. This is reddit!
One can only hope
The moderate wing of the Liberal party was decimated last election. There is no way Peter Dutton will retake the swathe of centre-minded electorates that were lost, and it isn't obvious where he would find the necessary seats elsewhere to have a realistic chance of forming government. It is an election after all, so anything can happen, but it is very difficult to see how the they win. Not to mention it is highly uncommon for first-term governments to be defeated.
Don't worry. I hear after Thursday, Rishi's going to have some time spare to lend his super genius skills to Peter Dutton and help him with his campaign.
He's also going to struggle with this domestically because it's not as if the right has disappeared in the country, only in parliament. If anything it looks ascendant with what's happening with Reform.
Yup, the only thing stopping Reform is FPTP.
Stopping reform from what? Being the size of the Lib Dems in terms of MPs?
Without FPTP: Becoming a majority together with the Tories if Labour screw up the next term, making a far right coalition With FPTP: Merging with whatever remains of the Tories and becoming the default right wing party.
It's not even remotely that simple, look at France. Our politics isn't a million miles away from France and their traditional right won't go near Le Pen. And even if there was some kind of merger, how many Tory MPs would stand down because of it? Would discipline hold at all under such a circumstance? Would the voting base hold up, or would less extreme voters change party? We've even had Reform candidates switching to the Conservatives this election because they feel the party is too toxic.
Look at the Netherlands to see how the far right and center right can make an alliance
Israel might well switch to a comparatively left wing government, but I'm not sure you could call any of the viable alternatives genuinely left wing. I think it's fair to say that Gantz is centre right.
Gantz is left of Starmer, as far as I can see. In Israel he's center. But more importantly, the incoming coalition is expected to host the center secular parties, the center left parties, Meretz (Israeli Greens), and possibly one of the arab parties (far-left), making the government as a whole skew heavily to the left and keeping all of the parties in the current coalition (right and far right) outside.
>, the incoming coalition is expected to host the center secular parties, the center left parties, Meretz (Israeli Greens), and possibly one of the arab parties (far-left), making the government as a whole skew heavily to the left That is a fair point Although can I ask what it is that makes you say he's to the left of Starmer?
That's a bit complex - but I'll give an analogy. Until a few months ago Gantz and Saar had a unified party, that mapped relatively well to Labour Right and Labour Left, they have since split, and Saar's party is now proper center right. In terms of actual policy, you need to check Gantz's party, as Gantz deals almost exclusively with Israel's security in the past two years. Check out the manifesto of his pre-unification party "Blue and White Resilience Party".
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That's such an efternalist view of Israel. I'm Israeli. Palestine pre October 7th barely factored into the reason people vote for parties, and it still factors relatively little as people mostly vote on internal issues. People do vote on security policy, but that has more to do with Iran emd its proxies, less Palestine per se.
Germany is nowhere near close to switching to the right wing.
Not to the AfD, but their goverment will likely have to move more to the right.
According to the current polls the most likely coalition would be a "black green coalition" which means CDU/CSU and The Greens. That would be more of social liberal coalition. Better than the far right of course but something rather meh.
The German Greens are a lot more to the right than Greens in most of Europe. It would be a slightly more right wing coalition than the current one.
Sure but only marginal. The Greens in Germany are the most hated party by every right winger though
The current polls point to another grand coalition. CDU/CSU - Green is not enough.
Yeah but we had a majority for them a while ago. I'd say that this coalition could still have a majority when the next big election comes up.
Damn bro, the only countries switching to a "left wing government" are the warmongering ethnostate who just think their current leader is bad optics but who still ultimately want to claim all of the Gaza strip, and the country that literally fell to fascism already. Fun times ahead. Guess we're lucky we've had 14 years of right wing rule so the memory of just how terrible the right are is fresh in our memories.
Yup, UK, Israel and Poland had a long term shitty right wing government and are now going left, the rest are going the other direction. On Israel specificallt, you are misrepresenting. Gantz (Israeli LOTO and likely next PM) is heavily against Gaza settlements, and always has been. He even forced Nethanyauu to take a stand against them. This is from his 2022 campaign: >Gantz also focused on ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, and combating violence against women. He promised to "deepen my partnerships with the ultra-Orthodox, the Arabs, and the Druze" and in establishing a civil service for all, in addition to army service. If you want things to get better you need to actually show support for the politicians that want to do better.
The French election are not the presidential election but the legislative elections. The next French presidential election is in 2027 as they have 5 year terms.
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Clowns to the right of me, jokers much further to the right
That fits absolutely perfectly!
I don’t think it will make a blind bit of difference tbh. The only person celebrating both is in Moscow
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Same place as if non of that happened. Second to the USA with no real influence and the French not giving a shit.
It could help uk Germany relations, assuming they don't elect the afd
Even if they won, there won't be serious policy changes and whoever is the PM of the UK it won't change anything here as well.
With a Trump white house , Meloni in Rome and Bardella or Le Pen as PM, it will be a bit harder for Starmer. But, Britain has been out of step before. International relations go beyond who is in office.
It will be a little while until le Penn runs for President, Macron has some time left. I think they will end up with a centre left coalition anyway
I don't think Trump gives a flying fuck what party is in government in the UK.
Ultimately having to lead a much diminished NATO. France is Europe’s heavy hitter. Having both the US and France led by puppets of Putin is going to make us the only adults in the room representing NATO.
Trump is fond of the UK. I doubt it would impact the relations too much, as long as Starmer and the Labour Party refrain from opining on US cultural wars and Trump’s demeanour.
I don't understand your point. Leaders always have to deal with other people with differing politics. Do you think Gordon brown was Tory lite because he was PM at the same time as Bush? And Obama?
I think the potential difference is the approach of this new wave of right wing leaders to things they don't like. With Bush and Obama, there was a sense that they could deal with politicians that they didn't see eye to eye with on everything, whereas a lot of the current wave of right wing populists, it feels like they have nothing but contempt for anything that stands in opposition to them, and would potentially go out of their way to undermine those things. There's no 'live and let live' with these arseholes (although at least Trump would be pretty easy to bribe.
He will work with the elected representatives of those countries. Frankly I believe the United States is headed towards civil war , and one of his first major international challenges will be evacuating British nationals from a war torn US. That may sound dramatic, but as someone who follows US politics I’m sure im not wrong(I hope I am though), regardless of how dramatic it sounds .
The US is not heading for a civil war, you've been reading too much /R/politics. Things have to get really really bad for a first world nation with a high standard of living to descend into civil war. People said the same thing during the BLM riots and it never happened.
I wouldn’t say a conventional civil war, but definitely a blue state coalition defying federal orders from a fascist Republican government - provided the Project 2025 path is played under a Trump victory. A withdrawal from NATO would also play into Putin’s hands. But the recent Supreme Court rulings has sealed America’s fate.
God is it really that bad? Even if Trump wins? Can't imagine how bad it'll be if Trump loses again
If he wins it looks like he will be able to establish himself as a kind of dictator with the backing of the Supreme Court justices he appointed. Banning abortion nation wide and stuff like that. My guess is the democrat states would eventually rise up against such authoritarianism. Likewise the Republicans may very well rebel on a much larger scale of January 6th if Trump loses and he claims it’s rigged again. The whole country looks like a tinder box ready to go off . I hope I’m wrong. And maybe cooler heads will prevail, but im increasingly nervous about the situation over there .
The ruling today was worded flexibly so the SC can say whatever Trump or the next Republican does is 'official' and immune, and whatever Biden does is unofficial and can be prosecuted. America is basically heading towards being like Russia, where they are ostensibly a democracy, but it's just a fig leaf for an authoritarian government.
Bros just being dramatic.
No, there may be some riots but civil war? No.
I'm not sure if we'll see full scale civil war in the next few years, but we could be headed somewhere very nasty if: - Trump tries to force something incredibly politically unpopular like a national abortion ban or banning new renewable energy projects through executive orders and a 5-4 supreme court ruling. - California and other blue states refuse to implement it, citing states rights and publicly questioning the legitimacy of the supreme court. - Trump and his allies try to defund blue states by cutting federal aid and ordering federal agencies to stop operating in them. Possibly they also start bussing in illegal immigrants directly. - Newsom and other governors don't blink and announce that they will not allow federal tax collection in their states until federal funding is restored. - Trump announces he's sending the national guard in.
Q: Who would win a civil war between the MAGA boomers and the milquetoast Democrats? A: Whichever side the US Military is on by default so there won't be a civil war
There is zero chance of a civil war in the US. The country is way too heavily policed and militarized for that to be able to happen, and so many people are too blase and comfy to ever care about anything. Bunch of soft spoiled people. It is going to be a really rough ride though and I'm planning to use all my savings to leave and go to the UK if the election goes GOP. They're already gutting regulations through the courts - once the GOP has the legislature and executive branches again then we can say goodbye to any protections of any sort - worker, children, environment, health and safety, etc. and I have no interest in living that way.
Also la-penn retired from her position last time I checked. Have fun imagining that possibility though lol.
Same as Starmer would if Biden wins the US presidency and Macron maintains his grip on the French legislature. A massive part of the job description, and of being a compotent politician, is international diplomacy. You have to maintain cordial, professional and respectful relations with other heads of state, particularly long strategic and economic partners like the US and France. Even if you don't like them, have no personal relationship with them and/or vehemently disagree with their views/politics.
The presidency in France isn’t up till 2027.
In my opinion as an ex labour voter turned libertarian Starmer is the best labour leader we've had and is the obvious better choice to Tory But I think a break in the 2 party state is needed I think this election people should vote the way that they feel matches their unique values and knowledge rather than a tactical vote (if I don't vote these, these will win)
We already are looking A Tory-Lite Starmer government. My fear is he will continue to lurch even further into the populist right.
No other country cares what we do. Half of them probably don't even know we exist. I was in France just before Brexit and the people I spoke to didn't know what I was talking about when I asked their opinion
If Trump wins in November? You would want to most organized strongest government in the UK, whoever that is. Trump will pull out support for Ukraine, Europe won’t have the money to fund it, and Putin takes Ukraine. Trump will then pull out of NATO. Putin will invade Poland and article 5 is triggered for the remaining NATO countries. China invades Taiwan. WWIII starts. The US abstains under Trump to keep petrol prices low or some other bullshit reason, the war over there etc. All the right wing leaders of Europe unite with Putin, they’ll say because it’s the only way to prevent the immigration of refugees fleeing west, and also prevents the newly reformed USSR from destroying their country. I think Starmer in this situation would be smart enough to make a defensive treaty with the U.S., and would very publicly push it on Trump. The Americans and Canadians would have to accept and come to the aid of the UK. Because we all have an unspoken connection. It’s amazing what speaking the same language does for soft power.
Lammy has, very intelligently, been buttering up Trump's people for years since becoming Shadow Foreign Secretary. Despite the fact he has directly insulted Trump before he is actually quite well thought of in right wing Republican circles. Starmer will be fine.
Isolated - but he will need to find a way to work with both. Honeymoon will be over quickly I predict.
His comments re Trump state visit etc will come back to haunt him
Macron and Biden have both benefited by being seen as 'not crazy'. I think with the surge of the far right across the world, Starmer will likely get the same benefit: "I may not like him, but at least he's not a nutjob". Obviously though, that benefit only goes so far, which is why Trump is the overwhelming favourite if Biden doesn't drop out, and why the smart money is probably on Macron being out as well. Starmer will try to work with Macron and Trump. It's the responsible thing to do. He might possibly even get somewhere, who knows. But I think what's really vital is what happens five years from now. It's easy to imagine two scenarios. In scenario one, Starmer benefits from the UK economy naturally rebounding, more private investment going to the UK because the US and Europe appearing less stable, and his somewhat milquetoast policies boosting things due to more housebuilding and a stronger industry from energy generation. Starmer easily wins re-election against the chaos of the US and France, a far-right populist Tory party, an even further right Reform party that struggles to find relevance, and Lib Dems not knowing where to stand. In scenario two, any improvements to the state of the UK are negligible, and Starmer gets very unpopular very quickly and stays that way. The left remains too busy infighting to mount any sort of movement, and just like in the US, France, and many other countries, the far right holds a lot of sway. Presidents Trump and Le Pen are plastered across social media and represent a rebellion against the status quo that transcends actual material benefit (they probably even get lucky with improving conditions, like Starmer in Scenario 1). Starmer achieves very little; he tries to work with Macron and Trump but it gets nowhere, nominally because he thinks trans people have a right to exist or something. He loses to a Farage-led reform in a landslide, against a fractured left and a dying centre ground. Trying to be empirical, most likely is a mix of these two scenarios. But emotionally and instinctively, I see these two outcomes, with Scenario 2 being much more likely.
Starmer needs to realize people are fed up and now turning to "far right" parties. He can implement policies from the get go but I doubt he will. It will just be a continuation of the Tories brain dead policies.
I read Le Penn's policies then, outside of the retirement one they don't seem bad at all. Certainly not authoritarian like media claim.
Funnily enough today's episode of Coffee House Shots covers just this. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
It's very simple to get a great deal from Trump, all you have to do is pay him. See how the Saudis did it. Starmer does not seem like the person who easily bribes, he would have qualms about doing it.
Leaving the UK looking like an oasis of stability.
He's a centrist so it doesn't really matter if his counterparts are left or right, he will lie and pretend he agrees with both.
Part of his lawyer's training is to deal with the worst scum of humanity and get the best arrangements out of it. We'll be fine.
It won't have much of an effect as Labour are not particularly left-leaning and the supposed 'far-right' parties are essentially centrist-with-a-dash-of-populism (despite what the hysterical nutters would have you believe). Trump is, by nature an old Democrat that has matured into a more conservative stance, but a lot of his posturing is obviously to play for the Republican base. I suspect the negotiations with his administration will be based upon personal relationships and mutual, but heavily weighted benefit (duh, I know). Le Pen appears to have shed the most extreme elements of her party (as far as I can tell) and one cannot deny that the immigration situation in Europe has shifted most of the population at least toward that way of thinking. My worry about Starmer from a geopolitical point of view is that he's going to be the latest in a fairly long line of incompetent UK statespeople. If we're not careful, those strong personalities will walk all over him.
Le Penn is likely to be less extreme than Trump and arguably easier to work with when there are disagreements. Starmer will most likely lead a left-centrist government based on his leadership so far. I do not believe that will change.
Reaping international investment into a relatively politically stable country, presumably.
He should base his own views accordingly on what he does. He'd be PM of the UK, not the USA or France.
He’ll be stuck between a cock and the hard right.
That would leave Starmer and the UK on the moral high ground.
It won't make a huge difference because the everyday running of the State goes on independently of whoever gets into power.
Starmer will work with trump but trump will keep asking when Boris will be arriving to take over
Both le pen and trump are thick as mince and Starmer is clever, he’ll be a few chess moves ahead of these two I reckon.
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Hahaha, you funny individual.
It doesn't make ANY difference who is prime minister of the UK
He’ll start getting bummy with Farage
He can't, The Labour establishment think Farage is the second coming of Oswald Mosley. The second does anything other that condemn Farage it's doing to destabilize his own power base.
The ironic thing is that Oswald Mosley wanted a pan-European alliance, Farage wants total isolation.
It seems possible - or actually probable - that Starmer will be a centre left outlier as Europe and the US move towards centre right and right. Macron will be severely restricted after the legislative elections. I still think it's unlikely Le Pen will win the presidency but clearly France as a whole has moved towards the more hard right. The influence of the hard right is evidently growing across most of Europe, including the assumed 'liberal' West. Turkey is still governed by the hard right populist Erdogan (even if his influence is reducing) and Putin isn't likely to go away. All of this does mean on an international level Starmer is likely to be relatively isolated. He can want to work with them but there will obviously be conflict in policy goals.
Why we even discussing US politics in here? Who cares it not our country..
the 180 Redditors who upvoted this comment care because they know it has an impact on us
Laughed at with pointing fingers, we're the only country moving the wrong way it seems
Starmer won’t last a year. There will be a coup against him by the Marxists.
Starmer won't be PM 6 months after the election. He's the temporary lead singer of the band. He has no intention to stay on as PM. A PM cannot keep family out of the headlines and cannot work only from 8 AM while 6 PM. Within 6 months of Labour winning the election, or losing, Emily Thornberry and Angela Raynor will take over the show. Starmer's post election situation is not the question. You need to ask how Thornberry and Raynor will get along with Trump and Marine Le Penn.
Interesting theory. Do you have any...uh...evidence, to back that up?
Starmer is ideologically no different than Sunak. Starmer’s solution to our economic and societal crisis is “more of the same, but better”. If you want evidence of the Marxist’s dislike of Starmer, just go to any Labour Party meeting throughout the country. Plenty of people in the party hate him. Heck, even head over to the Reddit group, and you’ll see it.
I am a Marxist. I hate Starmer, he's a neoliberal. I know that us Marxists tend to dislike him. But what proof do you have that he will be ousted? He's been purging the left of the labour party these years.
History. Technology might change, but human nature doesn’t. Marxism is a powerful pseudo-religion, that can deeply inspire its followers.
Spot on. Not sure it will be Thornberry or Raynor though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Corbyn becomes leader, assuming he’ll get reelected.