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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 5, 2022 18:15:48 GMT
I seem to recall John Redwood answering this very question on Question Time during the 1997 leadership election and he argued the party would have held more seats by seeing off the Referendum Party and Ukip for starters.
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Apr 6, 2022 15:32:30 GMT
I seem to recall John Redwood answering this very question on Question Time during the 1997 leadership election and he argued the party would have held more seats by seeing off the Referendum Party and Ukip for starters.
That is possible - IIRC there were ~40 Tory seats lost where the Lab/LD majority was less than the number of Referendum Party votes, so a fairly substantial (and wholly counterproductive) spoiler effect.
Not that cunt Goldsmith cared one jot about this - he took a certain schadenfreude in the whole thing and then shuffled off this mortal coil without having to live with any of the consequences of handing the most pro-EU government in history a massive majority...
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nodealbrexiteer
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Apr 7, 2022 12:20:20 GMT
I seem to recall John Redwood answering this very question on Question Time during the 1997 leadership election and he argued the party would have held more seats by seeing off the Referendum Party and Ukip for starters.
That is possible - IIRC there were ~40 Tory seats lost where the Lab/LD majority was less than the number of Referendum Party votes, so a fairly substantial (and wholly counterproductive) spoiler effect.
Not that cunt Goldsmith cared one jot about this - he took a certain schadenfreude in the whole thing and then shuffled off this mortal coil without having to live with any of the consequences of handing the most pro-EU government in history a massive majority...
There will be differing arguments to the effect but in Explaining Labour's Landslide they reckoned at mosyt it kight have cut 6 off Labour's 179 majority |
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 7, 2022 12:31:52 GMT
Yeah, and polling at the time showed a significant (around 30-40%) part of Referendum Party support came from previous non-Tory voters.
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Post by greatkingrat on Apr 7, 2022 12:32:58 GMT
Not that cunt Goldsmith cared one jot about this - he took a certain schadenfreude in the whole thing and then shuffled off this mortal coil without having to live with any of the consequences of handing the most pro-EU government in history a massive majority... [/div][/quote] Although you could argue that in a world where the Referendum Party didn't exist, anti-EU sentiment wouldn't have been as high and the Brexit referendum 20 years later wouldn't have happened. |
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 7, 2022 12:56:42 GMT
I seem to recall John Redwood answering this very question on Question Time during the 1997 leadership election and he argued the party would have held more seats by seeing off the Referendum Party and Ukip for starters. UKIP barely existed at that election electorally (I think they saved their deposit in one seat - Salisbury, where a certain N Farage was candidate and Referendum didn't stand) |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Apr 7, 2022 13:51:47 GMT
I'd have expected the Referendum Party demographic in 1997 to have skewed fairly old, so a lot of them wouldn't have been with us by the time the referendum actually happened.
In a sense that makes it all the more remarkable. Would a Brexit vote in 1999 have seen a larger Leave majority? Or was the Leave campaign recruiting younger supporters to the cause faster than the older supporters were dying off, over an extended period of time?
A popular school of thought amongst hardcore Remainers was along the lines of 'it's not fair; old people voted for Brexit and will die before they have to suffer the adverse consequences; you stole our future!' and so on. But is there, in fact, evidence to the contrary?
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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 7, 2022 14:28:37 GMT
The Referendum Party were not actually seeking a referendum on membership. Rather they wanted:
"Do you want the United Kingdom to be part of a federal Europe or do you want the United Kingdom to return to an association of sovereign nations that are part of a common trading market?"
The problem with that question is that it was little more than a post ratification vote on Maastricht with no clear way forward if the UK did vote for a return to sovereign nations.
ISTR Ukip heavily criticised them for not pushing for a straightforward in or out question.
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nodealbrexiteer
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Apr 7, 2022 16:34:45 GMT
I'd have expected the Referendum Party demographic in 1997 to have skewed fairly old, so a lot of them wouldn't have been with us by the time the referendum actually happened. In a sense that makes it all the more remarkable. Would a Brexit vote in 1999 have seen a larger Leave majority? Or was the Leave campaign recruiting younger supporters to the cause faster than the older supporters were dying off, over an extended period of time? A popular school of thought amongst hardcore Remainers was along the lines of 'it's not fair; old people voted for Brexit and will die before they have to suffer the adverse consequences; you stole our future!' and so on. But is there, in fact, evidence to the contrary? I feel no guilt  |
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Post by heslingtonian on Apr 8, 2022 6:52:12 GMT
I'd have expected the Referendum Party demographic in 1997 to have skewed fairly old, so a lot of them wouldn't have been with us by the time the referendum actually happened. In a sense that makes it all the more remarkable. Would a Brexit vote in 1999 have seen a larger Leave majority? Or was the Leave campaign recruiting younger supporters to the cause faster than the older supporters were dying off, over an extended period of time? A popular school of thought amongst hardcore Remainers was along the lines of 'it's not fair; old people voted for Brexit and will die before they have to suffer the adverse consequences; you stole our future!' and so on. But is there, in fact, evidence to the contrary? I feel no guilt Purely anecdotal but I suspect the generation born in the 1910s and 1920s who have largely died off now and were the people who did the fighting in WW2 were slightly more pro-European co-operation given their personal experiences than the next two generations (those who were children in WW2 and the Boomer generation). |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Apr 8, 2022 8:29:48 GMT
I feel no guilt Purely anecdotal but I suspect the generation born in the 1910s and 1920s who have largely died off now and were the people who did the fighting in WW2 were slightly more pro-European co-operation given their personal experiences than the next two generations (those who were children in WW2 and the Boomer generation). Indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if those who could accurately recall WWII and the immediate post-war consensus had a different take to those who can, at best, mis-remember it, or filter their second-hand memories through the prism of xenophobia. Though that first generation might shoulder some of the blame for how the next generation were raised - a lack of candour, over-egging the sense of victory and Union flag bunting everywhere may have shown the seeds for the generations of arch-Eurosceptics that followed? |
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 8, 2022 10:11:08 GMT
Or to put it more charitably, for various not hard to understand reasons they were reluctant to tell their kids what the war was really like.
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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 8, 2022 10:42:22 GMT
Though there is the tendency to equate European co-operation with all former combatants being involved. And I wonder how many actually approached it this way.
Nobody ever advocates for the United States or Japan or China or Ethiopia or other non-European combatants to be part of such a body. Churchill's famous speech specifically mentions both the UK and, with some admitted hope, the Soviet Union as friends of the new Europe rather than members. It was of course a general who had experienced both the First and Second World War who vetoed the UK's first two membership applications.
Equally for a long time the many bodies didn't include a lot of states in the east or south yet much talk treated the EEC as though it was "Europe".
Did everyone automatically see "European co-operation" as something that the UK had to be involved with? Or did they take the view that "European co-operation" was something for France, Germany and Italy?
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Apr 8, 2022 12:44:14 GMT
Which Tories could have done better than Major in 1997? Portillo. He would have won in 1992, he would have won again in 1997. I really, really don't think so. Nothing and nobody could have saved CON in 1997. The best result and the fewer losses would have been under Clarke. |
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Post by neilm on Apr 9, 2022 1:03:49 GMT
I'd have expected the Referendum Party demographic in 1997 to have skewed fairly old, so a lot of them wouldn't have been with us by the time the referendum actually happened. In a sense that makes it all the more remarkable. Would a Brexit vote in 1999 have seen a larger Leave majority? Or was the Leave campaign recruiting younger supporters to the cause faster than the older supporters were dying off, over an extended period of time? A popular school of thought amongst hardcore Remainers was along the lines of 'it's not fair; old people voted for Brexit and will die before they have to suffer the adverse consequences; you stole our future!' and so on. But is there, in fact, evidence to the contrary? Not to mention the theft of passports. |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Apr 9, 2022 6:20:33 GMT
I'd have expected the Referendum Party demographic in 1997 to have skewed fairly old, so a lot of them wouldn't have been with us by the time the referendum actually happened. In a sense that makes it all the more remarkable. Would a Brexit vote in 1999 have seen a larger Leave majority? Or was the Leave campaign recruiting younger supporters to the cause faster than the older supporters were dying off, over an extended period of time? A popular school of thought amongst hardcore Remainers was along the lines of 'it's not fair; old people voted for Brexit and will die before they have to suffer the adverse consequences; you stole our future!' and so on. But is there, in fact, evidence to the contrary? Not to mention the theft of passports. That was so heart-rending in it's affect on residents of Bolton who lost the virtual passports they had never requested. Who were denied the longed for opportunities for the work and travel in Europe they never intended to take. How we wept for them. And how we laughed and laughed! |
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 9, 2022 9:14:07 GMT
Which Tories could have done better than Major in 1997? Portillo. He would have won in 1992, he would have won again in 1997. One of your wrongest opinions you have ever posted on here, really  He was only 37 when Thatcher went, in the unlikely event he won the leadership then the Tories get a hung parliament at the following election at best. But by 1997, he had become one of the most despised politicians in the country. He knew this himself and it was a major reason for his "reinvention". |
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Post by Clark on Apr 9, 2022 20:28:11 GMT
And would've John Smith won as big a landslide as Blair did in 1997?
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Apr 9, 2022 22:33:12 GMT
Which Tories could have done better than Major in 1997? Portillo. He would have won in 1992, he would have won again in 1997.
This is like when an eight year old 'predicts' the scoreline of a football match.
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 10, 2022 6:50:09 GMT
And would've John Smith won as big a landslide as Blair did in 1997?
Unlikely but we would have been spared 'that song'.
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