AXE2GRIND wrote:
Stop blaming the electoral system and start looking at yourselves UK. If the Tories are so bad, then the other 6 at the table should have ensured that they collectively stopped them, but as per usual, the flip-flop vegetarian tree-hugging middle class-lefties couldn't agree to unite, so you have a splintered opposition.
Farage Knew what was required....
Definitely a failure of leadership on the remain side.
Corbyn is not by nature a 'consensus' man, he's a man of the left. You could see this when there was talk of no confidence votes and looking to install a new government with an interim PM to pass legislation for a second referendum. That would have only been possible with a non-partisan leader without personal aspirations, eg Ken Clarke, Margaret Beckett. But Labour insisted it would have to be Corbyn, which made it a non-starter. He also was buoyed by getting 40 per cent of the vote in 2017 and thought Labour could repeat that or better in 2019 so why bother in any sort of pacts or alliances.
Swinson was like the Theresa May of this election, she gambled and ended up in a worse position. Boris didn't have the numbers for an election till she pushed for one. It seems like Swinson got fooled by some Lib Dem internal polling that they could push 50-60 seats if they went for an election, despite the fact that senior figures in the party warned her it was a bad idea. Also her strategy was to attack Labour, by ruling out ever working with Corbyn in a coalition. She was trying to pull over Conservative voters that couldn't stomach Johnson.
The point that really summed up the lack of tactical thinking was when the Lib Dem candidate in Canterbury unilaterally stood down as it was a Tory/Labour marginal and he realised he wasn't going to win, and Swinson insisted on replacing him with a new candidate. They had literally no chance in Canterbury, she was just doing it to maintain the image of 'not letting Corbyn in to power'. Given her history of willingly participating in Cameron's coalition government as a Minister, it created the impression that Lib Dems were really sort Tories, and there wasn't enough of a voting base to appeal to there.
Farage was far smarter. I think he sensed that the Brexit party would struggle outside the European elections with its low turn out and proportional system, and wanted to at least be seen to be doing his bit for Brexit rather than standing and being humiliated and also blamed for draining some Tory votes. He will be back as a critic of why Brexit has gone wrong, but I think electorally he's a busted flush now as no more European elections takes away UKIP/Brexit or his new Reform party's best chance.
The Lib Dems have a real existential problem now. They haven't been able to capitalise on space in the centre ground of politics. They actually did best when Labour were a more centrist party and they were trying to outflank them slightly on the left (the Charles Kennedy era) over the Iraq war.
