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WI: Labour comes out against Brexit

Meadow

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The constant chuntering of ‘Labour would be twenty points ahead if they just came out for Remain [two years after Remain stopped being a relevant word in British politics]’ has got me thinking this week that it’s probably worth discussing this from an AH perspective.

Through various scenarios, be they Burnham winning and Leave happening anyway and Burnham deciding to steal Farron’s clothes, or Owen Smith winning and then going further than his OTL second referendum stance, what would the last two years be like for Labour and politics as a whole if, immediately or otherwise, Labour had gone “...no” in response to the Leave win?

My instinct is Bad Times In The Seats Nick Timothy Thought He Could Win. But I’m not sure about the national picture - a lot of legislation passed IOTL wouldn’t have happened. But that itself would give May her casus belli for her snap election.
 
The obvious conclusion would be that Labour loses a load of Leave-voting seats the next election, but the trouble is the lack of any credible alternative for people to vote for in them; UKIP never were that, regardless of what the meedja thought, and while it would be a black swan for the Tories to break through in the face of deepseated attitudes, 2017 OTL demonstrated that they completely failed to take advantage of this by actually recruiting credible candidates.

A national 'Labour Leave' type party might spring up, but where from? Or there might be dozens of Blaenau Gwent Peoples' Voices type groups popping up everywhere with variable levels of organisation and success.
 
The obvious conclusion would be that Labour loses a load of Leave-voting seats the next election, but the trouble is the lack of any credible alternative for people to vote for in them; UKIP never were that, regardless of what the meedja thought, and while it would be a black swan for the Tories to break through in the face of deepseated attitudes, 2017 OTL demonstrated that they completely failed to take advantage of this by actually recruiting credible candidates.

A national 'Labour Leave' type party might spring up, but where from? Or there might be dozens of Blaenau Gwent Peoples' Voices type groups popping up everywhere with variable levels of organisation and success.

There were a lot of close-ish shaves as it was (considering Barrow, Bishop's Auckland, Ashfield and so forth). I can see it being enough for May to actually win an increased majority, but perhaps not for the sub-200 seat predictions that were being bandied about.
 
There were a lot of close-ish shaves as it was (considering Barrow, Bishop's Auckland, Ashfield and so forth). I can see it being enough for May to actually win an increased majority, but perhaps not for the sub-200 seat predictions that were being bandied about.
Indeed, but--as I said--this would lead to an awful lot of sub-par MPs being elected, and not everyone can be Ruth Ellen Brosseau.
 
I freely confess ignorance in the nuance of British politics. But my immediate question is, what would Labour gain from this? The attack ads from certain media outlets write themselves.
 
Perhaps. But with the deed done and HMG committed other than those votes who may or not stay in the future...
The theory goes that if Labour, a credible next government of the UK, just came out and said “we will reverse Brexit”, the political equation would change and thus “well it’s happening whatever we do or say” wouldn’t actually be true anymore. Then people who want to stay/no longer want to leave would flock to Labour, even though that doesn’t really match the reality of how people vote for parties in the UK.

I don’t agree with it, but that’s the logic.
 
I admit I’d enjoy a Vignette where this happens and the Insane Consequences are dialled up to 11, so the Tories win all of North Yorkshire and Teesside but lose every single seat they currently hold in London, etc.
 
I've been meaning to do one of these for a while, and this thread has inspired me to complete it. This is based on the Hanratty seat estimates, except NI which actually used its Westminster seats as counting areas.

Any mistakes are my own - it's hard to hold two axes of information in your head at once when doing it.

1526242285042.png

One might tentatively suspect that the "twenty points ahead" talking point that @Meadow mentions has come about because all the people saying it live in the middle of the big greyish-red blob where, er, Remain was twenty points ahead.
 
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I've been meaning to do one of these for a while, and this thread has inspired me to complete it. This is based on the Hanratty seat estimates, except NI which actually used its Westminster seats as counting areas.

Any mistakes are my own - it's hard to hold two axes of information in your head at once when doing it.

View attachment 1169

One might tentatively suspect that the "twenty points ahead" talking point that @Meadow mentions has come about because all the people saying it live in the middle of the big greyish-red blob where, er, Remain was twenty points ahead.
This is quite literally the content I need.
 
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