- Location
- Auckland via London
- Pronouns
- He/him
<- Sarah Olneys face in this TL
Heart reacs olney
<- Sarah Olneys face in this TL
You're right, and actually I think it helps Vince (if he does become leader) because it wasn't him who lead the party through the Aye lobbies.It's Tim at this point. But FWIW, yes, I can see him propping up May more quickly than Jez. Though if the two men did pull off a deal, it wouldn't be the first photo op of Jez making friends with a homophobe amirite
I suppose it depends on the numbers. If abstaining means that a government can be formed, at least to last the summer, then they'd go for that as an option. Labour would still blast them for not toppling the Tories, though. Abstention could be seen similar to when Labour abstain in the Welfare Bill during the 2015 Labour leadership election.Would the Lib Dems just abstaining in the interests of government stability on the Queen's Speech, it's purely down to the voters who that benefited, enable a Tory-DUP deal?
Would the Lib Dems have the money to contest a second election?
Would the Lib Dems just abstaining in the interests of government stability on the Queen's Speech, it's purely down to the voters who that benefited, enable a Tory-DUP deal?
When a deal with either party would be active suicide, yes.After they've just had a grinding slog of an election where @iainbhx was talking about total wipeout being a possibility, but to their relief have just barely made it out with 12 seats on polling day even those they lost some of the 8 won in 2015 and Richmond Park?
Really?
When a deal with either party would be active suicide, yes.
Given the choice of "fatal" and "exhausting and painful", the latter wins.
In practice, I'd imagine the official line to be "we will not make any deals; we will vote on a vote-by-vote basis depending on our view of the merits of each division".
I'd also expect it to be "we will abstain on any confidence or no-confidence votes, whichever party is in Government - we will hold either to account instead"
If the Tories have a bad time of things, and especially if the narrative that the election is an opportunity to sweep away the Tory mess, there's every chance that a few seats will fall to the Lib Dems without them necessarily being targeted as priorities.And then probably an extremely focused campaign when the next election comes- probably something like the 14 held seats (assuming my quick calculation of OTL's 12+Richmond and St. Ives is correct)- maybe even abandoning Westmorland if Timmy has gone off in a huff and isn't standing again- Ceredigion, NE Fife and probably another 4 for a 20 seat strategy.
Ironically the dearth of funding may well mean the party has a better night just by dint of everyone throwing everything where it can do the most help. I'd expect vote share to drop but number of seats to either hold steady or maybe see a couple of pickups.
GRAND COALITION IN UK CHECKLIST:So exactly how impossible would a grand coalition between Labour and the Tories be? They might not agree on much else, but I can see Corbyn and May reaching a consensus on Brexit and bringing enough of their parties along to have a majority. So a coalition for just long enough to handle the Brexit negotiations and then another election.
So exactly how impossible would a grand coalition between Labour and the Tories be? They might not agree on much else, but I can see Corbyn and May reaching a consensus on Brexit and bringing enough of their parties along to have a majority. So a coalition for just long enough to handle the Brexit negotiations and then another election.