Surge in Conservative membership prompts fears of a 'blue Momentum' takeover

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...ts-fears-blue/

Surge in Conservative membership after Chequers deal prompts fears of a 'blue Momentum' takeover

Conservative Associations are reporting a surge in members joining, thought to be former Ukip members

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img...=1535345454043

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Telegraph

Conservative party associations are reporting a surge in members who have joined in the wake of Theresa May’s Chequers deal which has proved unpopular with the grassroots.

The increase in membership will raise concerns that the party is at risk from a ‘blue Momentum-style’ takeover among supporters furious with the deal which keeps Britain closely tied to the European Union after Brexit.

John Strafford, a Tory grassroots campaigner, said the rise came from former UK Independence Party (Ukip) members who were rejoining because they do not like the deal and want to vote in a leadership contest to replace Mrs May.

Conservative Party rules mean anyone who has been a member for more than three months can vote in a leadership election.

Earlier this week the head of Leave.EU and funder of Ukip, Aaron Banks, instructed followers to join the Conservative Party.

---

Looks like I have been ahead of the curve on this one.

Apparently Blairite MPs from Labour and the Tories are potentially planning a new 'centrist' aka Blairite party in the autumn as they are so disillusioned that both major parties now actually have some difference between them in policy. I am all for it as I have long believed that the likes of Anna Soubry MP, Nicky Morgan MP, Sir Nick Clegg, Tony Blair, Lord Adonis, Chuka Umunna MP and so on all belong in the same party anyway.

Go for it!

Thoughts?

literally no figures so bit of a bollocks article really
looked at a different article and saw figures that totalled in the 3 figures from a rather small sample, so this is probably about as much of a surge as the lib dem surge that barely happened

all this does to me is prove the idea that our system is rather flawed in how the parties work

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dbgtz

all this does to me is prove the idea that our system is rather flawed in how the parties work

---

What is flawed about it and what is the alternative?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

What is flawed about it and what is the alternative?

---

well if brexit has taught me one thing is that I am allowed to moan about things without providing a real solution

what's flawed is the power a party has to effectively change it's stance based on what party members think
like it or not an ambiguous brexit was voted on which can only be described as "leaving the eu", how this was to be implemented and how quickly, if there was a transitionary period etc. etc. basically the means to the end was never actually voted on, so even if you dislike what May is doing she is still doing things towards it, it's not like she never triggered Article 50 (as much as I at least wish they waited a bit longer and did some prep before doing so) and it's not like she hasn't done anything to boost post brexit trade and such, as you did like to boast about Australia and the warships as some kind of brexit win
but because a disgruntled few seem to be so unhappy with it, they are allegedly switching parties from UKIP to conservative to oust May because they do not think she is doing enough in the hope of replacing her with someone who is quite frankly going to be less pragmatic (which is arguably, depending on how optimistic you are, a reason she is pleasing nobody, because she is trying to please everybody). In this case, this leads to a minority of a minority (Conservatives + DUP did not win a majority of the vote) effectively dictating what the country does.

This is where Presidential systems can be a bit better, since a President is frankly much harder to get rid of. Could be a solution. Would take a lot of work to get going and how to split any power.
Proportional representation would help also since there would be less of a need to even contemplate switching parties, and since FPTP isn't producing stability quite frankly I don't see the point in it.
Allowing the general public to vote in the leadership challenge of the incumbent could also be a solution. A PM may not currently technically be directly elected, but it's hard to deny that the media and the general population do vote based on the leader a lot of the time. Obviously this gets into messy waters as different parties work in different ways so not exactly ideal.
Scaling down on the previous suggestion, giving the power to Parliament to allow blocking the new leader becoming PM should there be a majority vote on it, which could trigger a new GE. I think this would be useless most of the time but at a time like this the swing could be enough.

But isn't a party supposed to represent the membership? Otherwise you get the absurd situation we've had (until recently) since Major and Blair where the parties have been controlled by north London Blairites who all believe in the same things and who all are married to one another. In regards to the Tory and Ukip situation, see I just see it as a correction - many Ukippers prior to the Maastricht rebellions in the 1990s were loyal Conservatives, it was only due to the behaviour of John Major and the party leadership at the time over Europe that masses left and joined the Referendum party and Ukip.

In terms of a Presidential system, that obviously isn't going to happen given we're a monarchy but surely a Presidential system would be worse anyway, no? If in the style of the United States for example, the administration is separate to the Congress which gives it little oversight and the system little flexibility like our parliamentary system has. If we were a Presidential system for example, it is unlikely Sir Winston Churchill would have became PM in our darkest hour.

The direct election of Prime Minister as a post would also cause a constitutional crisis, as you would have the conflicting mandates of the Prime Minister (a position which would become more powerful as a result) against that of the House of Commons. How would that also square in with the House of Lords and in extraordinary circumtances, the Crown? It'd be a mess. One thing I do like about the May Ministry I have to say is the return to Cabinet government, because of her weakness, which is a good thing. Quite frankly the PM is simply a Minister of the Crown, not a President.

Constitutionally I love the Westminster system, it works very well. Slight changes over recent years I have agreed with, namely in strengthening Parliament, so for example the precedent that the House of Commons now votes on war matters is a good change I feel. In addition, the involvement of Parliament in treaties (Article 50) is also a welcome development.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

But isn't a party supposed to represent the membership? Otherwise you get the absurd situation we've had (until recently) since Major and Blair where the parties have been controlled by north London Blairites who all believe in the same things and who all are married to one another. In regards to the Tory and Ukip situation, see I just see it as a correction - many Ukippers prior to the Maastricht rebellions in the 1990s were loyal Conservatives, it was only due to the behaviour of John Major and the party leadership at the time over Europe that masses left and joined the Referendum party and Ukip.

---

A party is supposed to represent their membership, sure. But they have a weird amount of power where they can effectively pull a PM and exchange them out for someone else who may have completely different ideals, particularly in our system (which is effectively 2 party but not quite). All I think is if a party leader is changed, then a GE should be called. Even though we don't technically elect a PM, it's hard to deny how party leaders are presented as PM candidates as if it were a presidential system. The problem is, while parliament could technically call a vote of no confidence, the majority party/ies would rarely do so given well, why would they want to? They'd probably faced getting kicked out of the party if nothing else.

It would be interesting to see if this was the case back when Brown got in, as I could never see him getting a majority at that time.

Quote:

---

In terms of a Presidential system, that obviously isn't going to happen given we're a monarchy but surely a Presidential system would be worse anyway, no? If in the style of the United States for example, the administration is separate to the Congress which gives it little oversight and the system little flexibility like our parliamentary system has. If we were a Presidential system for example, it is unlikely Sir Winston Churchill would have became PM in our darkest hour.

---

Obviously is a strong word, but there's nothing to say we couldn't also have a president.

Let's suppose that Winston never became PM or wasn't even in politics. What's to say the war wouldn't have ended sooner? You assume it would be worse.

Quote:

---

The direct election of Prime Minister as a post would also cause a constitutional crisis, as you would have the conflicting mandates of the Prime Minister (a position which would become more powerful as a result) against that of the House of Commons. How would that also square in with the House of Lords and in extraordinary circumtances, the Crown? It'd be a mess. One thing I do like about the May Ministry I have to say is the return to Cabinet government, because of her weakness, which is a good thing. Quite frankly the PM is simply a Minister of the Crown, not a President.

---

Perhaps, I'm sure there could be some workaround but I've not exactly thought of the pros and cons that hard

Quote:

---

Constitutionally I love the Westminster system, it works very well. Slight changes over recent years I have agreed with, namely in strengthening Parliament, so for example the precedent that the House of Commons now votes on war matters is a good change I feel. In addition, the involvement of Parliament in treaties (Article 50) is also a welcome development.

---

Does a poor job in actually accurately representing the distribution of party votes though, which is perhaps the fundamental issue. If we had a better voting system I wouldn't even be mentioning president or directly elected pm.