Americans React: How do UK Elections Work?
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In this video, we react to how the UK election system works. From the voting process itself to the many unique aspects of UK elections that differ from what we're used to, join us as we explore the intricacies of how the UK decides its leaders and what makes their political system so distinct.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this reaction please give this video a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comments and click the subscribe button to follow our journey to discover all things British and Irish.
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đ Original Video:
âą How do UK elections wo...
"Some woman who lasted like a month or something" is an accurate description of Liz Truss
đ
Ousted by the regime for their banker boy
â@@WreckItRolfe ousted for crashing the markets
@@sunseeker9581she didnât change any policy, how did she crash the economy?
@@HaiLsKuNkY Kwasi Kwarteng and his BS 'mini budget' is what crashed it, and he never even had to face any repercussions from it.
Youâre not voting for a single candidate for Prime Minster. Rather, youâre voting for the MP in your area. So the party that returns the most MPs to parliament will form a government with their leader as PM
I honestly wish more people would remember this and concentrate on which individual MP they are voting for instead of thinking about who they want as Prime Minister. Too many totally unsuitable characters are voted in because of this and it's silly because as we have seen frequently over the past few years the PM can change easily without any votes. The PM is just the leader of the party in government. Change the leader and you get a new PM.
Strictly speaking, it is the person, who commands a majority in the Commons. Churchill was not Tory leader when he became PM in 1940 and created a National Govt. In 2017, had Corbyn not been Labour leader, someone else could have been PM with the backing of all of the non-Tory parties.
That is something that I'm really unsatisfied with in the UK system - what your vote means is something that is open to multiple interpretations (usually based on what definition works best for the person making the claim). You're right, the primary intent in the system is that the person is elected to represent the area (including those that didn't vote for them). In practical terms, especially with the parliamentary whip, the vote seems to be interpreted as an endorsement of the whole of the parties manifesto. An MP is expected to vote for everything that the party they belong to brings up as a vote. The final thing is an endorsement of the party leader and while this typically overlaps with the second interpretation, it usually gets brought up when a sitting party changes leader, the opposition will claim that the people didn't vote for that leader.
I actually wonder if we could have a system where a government was elected independent of the community representatives who would have no defined parties, but I feel we have too many hardcore ideologues for that.
@@neilbiggs1353 The Manifesto is just a list of things that the parties want to achieve if they form a government, As a resullt MP's stand on their parties Manifesto as well as personal principles which may be at odds with some elements of the Manifesto, eg Moral issues which tend to be Free votes.
It also means that the Lords cannot stop the progression of something that is in the manifesto using ping pong as the government can enforce the Parliament Act and override the Lords once its gone back and forth a couple of times.
Sadly the whip is used too much in modern politics rather than allowing MPs to make their own decision on something they may not be comfortable with.
@@neilbiggs1353 That's called a Presidential system, where you get no vote at all for the government beyond the President. A manifesto is voted for, because that is what the candiidate put to the electorate.
I find it weird that in America blue is seen as a left wing colour and red as a right wing colour, when in most countries, it's the other way around
It's simply that America cannot conform to any world norm.
That's because historically the party's switched sides in the us for example the historically left party is now the right and the historically right party is now left
@@cazadon I thought the switch happened a lot more recently... I mean you can see like live election result broadcasts from the 80s where republicans are blue on the map
How can you tell the difference between both parties they are both corrupt and useless, more interested in filling their own pockets
Yes, see my comment elsewhere, and this page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states
Fun Fact, UK Elections take place on a Thursday by convention. The reason for this is because when people were paid weekly in cash on Friday many years ago, the powers that be were worried too many people would be drunk on polling day, so they decided that elections should be on a Thursday when people are least likely to be drunk.
I thought it was to do with people being allowed the Thursday morning off work to go to the market and hence they could vote at the same time?
I'd have thought that this would mean that working class people would be less likely to vote, which would benefit those who do not represent ordinary people. Pretty much the same reason for the introduction of the voter ID requirement.
@@eddiehawkins7049 postal votes are a thing, and the poll stations are open until 10pm at night, so work isn't too much of an obstacle luckily
Itâs been Thursday for a long time, but it wasnât always so. There was a time, like a century ago or something, when it was always a Monday. Donât know why. *runs off to google*
@@pm0532 it is if you work night shifts and postal voting is new
It's actually the US that has the colours switched around for left/right. Red is pretty much universal colour language for "left" as far as I am aware. Red has always had the whole "blood of the people" thing going on. That's why it appears on all of the "communist" country flags.
And from a British viewpoint the Democrats are on the right and the Republicans are on the very far right.
Even Americans called Russians "Reds" strange they flipped the political colour scheme.
â@@digidol52Same with New Labour, Lib Dems on the right of centre, with the Tories far right and Reform..extreme far right and nearly off the edge.
N trump will be far far far right! â@@digidol52
@@Ghengiskhansmum "with the Tories far right and Reform..extreme far right and nearly off the edge." tell everybody you're delusional without telling everybody you're delusional. The Tories are fully bought into the leftist world order. Reform are barely even centre-right.
The reason that a candidate can win with less than 50% of the vote is because there are more than 2 parties in the UK.
There are more than two parties in the US. It's just that our (the UK's) minor parties have at least a little bit of success and influence, whereas the US minor parties basically never accomplish anything
@@default3252 there not viable as parties in the US and should really be seen as such only 2 lines of thinking in the US Red or Blue
that's just blatantly untrue, there could be 2 parties with 1 having 60%voting for them, one having 40% and the one with 40% winning the election
â@@VadidLawrence do you mean the party or the local candidate as the OP meant?
@@VadidLawrence It is possible, given how the votes might fall, but very unlikely. Dubya beat Gore and Trump beat Clinton, even though the second scored more votes.
Liz Truss was the name you couldnât recall, we forget her easily too - 49 Days it was.
I remember her every time I pay my mortgage now. :(
Do you know Jesus is a messenger of God
The lettuce lasted longer than Liz Truss
@@steveclarke6257 That was hilarious. I checked in on that lettuce every day. đ
@@emmareynolds7904 not really her fault that (although it did create a blip for a few months) that's almost entirely Putin's fault.
Sein Fein don't take up their seats in parliament because every MP has to swear an oath to the Monarch. Which they will never do
Sinn Fein are the schizophreniac of political parties. They are against non Irish rule of Northern Ireland, but at the same time are on their knees for the EU and illegal immigration. Lol, globalist nationalists ffs.
Yes, although a few non- or anti-monarchist politicians from other parties (e.g. Tony Banks for the Labour Party) got away with it by keeping their fingers crossed while taking the oath. Sinn Fein would have too strongly held views to play that game of course.
@@leohickey4953 No doubt
Sinn Fein are a bunch of sellouts. They are hated here in Ireland.
â @@matthewjamisonitâs a reason but not the only reason or even the main reason tho thatâs debatable, but given Martin McGuinness has had dinner with the queen and seemed to become quiet friendly with her I donât think itâs a big a deal as you might think especially as has been said you can do it whilst showing you donât mean it.
the main reason they donât is because they constantly and rightly express the view that Westminster has absolutely no right to dictate to the Irish what they can/should be doing in Ireland and they donât feel like they have any right to be Westminster dictating what the English, Scotâs or Welsh should be doing in their countryâs either.
Your system is also first past the post. You just don't realise because there is rarely more than 2 significant candidates for a position. Imagine if 3 or 4 popular people ran for a seat in congress, a senate seat, governor or even president ? You don't have runoffs so someone with less than 50% could be elected.
Imagination is not necessary, just a bit of historical knowledge. Candidates with less than 50% of the vote are elected all the time, for example Trump in 2016 received fewer votes than Clinton.
Always on a Thursday
@@nbartlett6538 That's the president though: they still required a majority of electors.
Congressional seats, however, are indeed plurality-vote only. It just doesn't happen very often.
Joe Lieberman was elected in 2006 with 49.71%. 1988 with 49.91%. Lowell Weicker got his congressional seat in 1970 by gaining 41.74%
@@NonameEthereal Right but it's not just in Presidential elections that this happens... in 1998, Jesse Ventura became Governor of Minnesota as an independent on 37% of the vote. So Americans *should* be familiar with the concept of winning on a plurality short of a majority.
@@nbartlett6538 that's not the same. Presidents can get elected in spite of getting less popular votes than opponents. Congressmen cannot. Congressmen can be elected without majority, but they still need plurality - that is; they got the most votes in their district. (Then the parties can game the statewide system through gerrymandering, leading to craziness on the aggregate.)
You guys are having your election on Guy Fawkes night, 5th November.
A bit of a strange coincidence in my opinion đ€
Hahahahaha đ„
Haha, and we are having ours on July 4th
Yes, can't help but think that there is a big joke from the elites happening thereâŠ.something about 'illusion of choice' and thinking your vote actually makes a difference lol...
That is crazy đ
And ours is independence day đđ
Points to note.
1. A major difference between UK and US elections are spending limits. Political parties in the UK have a campaign limit of ÂŁ54,010 per candidate. So a party standing in all 650 seats has a maximum nation-wide campaign budget of ÂŁ35.1M. Limits are enforced by the Electoral Commission, with minor breaches receiving a ÂŁ20,000 fine, major breaches are referred for prosecution.
2. The Brexit Referendum vote was in 2016 but Britain only officially left the EU in Jan 2020.
3.In the rest of the world Red= left wing. Blue = Right wing. Colours are swapped in US.
4. In terms of timing of elections. An election must be held within 5 years of the previous election, but the exact date is at the discretion of the Prime Minister, hence both summer an winter elections are possible.
The spending limits are one of the genuinely good things about the UK system - the amounts spent on campaigning in the US is horrific, $14.4bn in 2020. It's obscene.
Democrats and Republicans have swapped size multiple times. Democrats were the pro slavery party in the 1800's (or most so). Roosevealt and his New Deal was Republicans.
Just to add to your description, what has been described is a parties, 'national campaign' fund based on the 54,010 per each candidate they field, and is the total amount each 'national party' can spend in total for the election. Each constituency candidate can then spend a further I think around ÂŁ11,300 plus so many pennies for each elector in the constituency. The recording of both sets of expenditure has to be recorded separately and care has to be taken not to mix the two, so national spending has to be spent nationally and local, locally, never the twain shall meet. i.e a leaflet could be produced nationally and distributed locally, but it must be a national leaflet and not be specific to any particular candidate or local issues.
The spending limits are a joke that Labour and the Conservatives completely ignore
Brexit was voted for in 2016 AND STILL HASN'T BEEN DELIVERED
On 4, The PM can call an election at any time. But must have a majority in the commons agree with them.
"Two wings of the same bird".... that's a very delicate/polite way of expressing it!
In the UK we say "two cheeks of the same arse (ass)" lol
Damn! beat me to it lol
đđđthat's what I was going to explain đđđ
And reform as the puckered bit in the middle
More accurate đ
And less rude, two sides of the same coin
Our sitting Government calls the time of the General Election although no parliament lasts more than 5 years. Brexit vote was in 2016
There can be a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, or government too. Parliament is ultimately sovereign.
@@ethelmini I agree although over recent years certain people seem to have forgotten that fact
The sitting Government can decide when they would like to call an election but its the King who says yes you can have an election. Not sure if a king or queen has ever refused a sitting government a request to have an election but in theory the king could have said no.
@@Westcountrynordic not really it is more just informing the monach, they really don't get to decide they just agree. it is the monach the prorogues parliament, but they do so at the request of the PM, the monarch can't say no. much like when BJ prorougued parliament, and the courts decided that it didn't happen, because it was illegal. even though the Queen at the time agreed, but all the monarch can do is agree.
â@@WestcountrynordicMost of the King's powers in these sort of things are nowadays ceremonial rather than real with the powers actually being exercised by the Prime Minister and privy council. It's like the King's speech where the King (or until recently the Queen) reads out a list of things his government will be doing which is written by the government and can't be deviated from. The PM could just as well do it but tradition says the monarch does it - so the monarch acts like a ventriloquist dummy saying the words of the PM.
Don't forget Count Binface đ
The last time the Social Democratic Party ran in a general election they got fewer overall votes than the Loonies.
đđđđ
and don't forget the Monster Raving Loony Party either, they've been contesting elections for over 50 years now
From the "Standing in the back dressed stupidly and acting stupid" party? czcams.com/video/h6mJw50OdZ4/video.html
Next time lads, Bindependence Day will come!
In NZ we have a voting system where each voter gets two votes - one for the local candidate they want and one for the party they want. The local candidate is chosen on who gets the most votes in the electorate (rarely a majority) but nationally the party votes are counted and if any party gets at least 5% of the popular votes nationwide then they get a proportional number of MPs in Parliament even if they did not win an electorate. This means that people who voted for say the Greens or the Maori Party are represented in Parliament. It also means that the party with the most seats overall in Parliament will probably need to form a coalition with minor parties to get an overall majority thus giving smaller parties an opportunity to be part of the government and influence government policy.
There are lots of alternative voting systems that are more representative, achieve outcomes like a better balance between party and local representation and so on. As we can easily see from looking at Germany, proportional representation can easily deliver stable government too. I like a lot of the alternative systems, honestly I think the NZ one is probably my favourite.
Itâs also worth noting that while the UK is the only Western European country with a straight first pass the post system, the French have a double vote system, in the first round you get elected only if you get an absolute majority, in the second round any candidate who got more than 12.5% of the votes in the first round can go forward, the second round is FPTP. So some hide it.
But the UK is unlikely to change: assuming tomorrow goes as expected, Labour will have a majority of about 200 on about 40% of the vote. Why would they change the system that delivered that? No one else will have the power to do it. They might be more keen in a few years time, when theyâre more likely to lose, but that hasnât happened yet.
Also used for Scottish Parliament
The problem with this system is that some member are elected to parliament who haven't been approved personally by the electorate in a particular constituency.
@@eloisepasteur Labour do in fact have incentive to change the system. Their result this cycle is not typical. Conservatives handed it to Labour, that is not going to happen every cycle. People were so motivated they organized en masse to vote tactically to eject conservatives and there was vote splitting on the right which normally negatively affects the left.
Thus, a smart thing to do would be to introduce ranked choice voting / alternative vote to institutionalize the tactical voting. Under normal cycles, Labour and Lib Dems would have more seats at the expense of Conservatives.
That would be the smart thing to do. Of course they won't do it.
What is the big deal, In America a President can be elected with less than 50 percent of the vote.
So can members of both federal houses.
We prefer having more candidates.
Would be better if we had ranked voting like australia and local elections.
@@sunseeker9581 No it wouldn't - that system is terrible
@@mat5379
It represents the voting public more proportionally, it prevents people from being encouraged to vote tactically instead of for whom they want, and it makes it harder for two or three parties to dominate politics despite not representing the people's wants (partly because of the previous two points).
The only way in which it is worse is that it's slightly more confusing than FPTP. That is not an excuse for keeping something so absurdly undemocratic.
â@@alansmithee419PR does decouple your vote from the area you live in to more or less degree though, since your MP represents your constituency directly they have a much greater incentive to tackle your local issues as well as national ones. PR also allows for more extremist groups to be represented in the mainstream where this is very unlikely in FPTP. There's also an argument that a coalition of several smaller parties, while more representative, will struggle more with indecision and compromise. All systems have their disadvantages and none are perfect.
@@Imperial_Squid
Stv mostly circumvents your first point. And I should also point out MPs currently do very little to represent their local area. They don't even have to live in the constituency, and largely rely on party votes to get into power rather than their own merit, and are largely overshadowed by local governments in their constituencies, having little ability to actually change anything themselves. And at the national government level, they are simply expected to vote the way their party wants anyway, rather than the way their constituents want them to.
What counts as "extremist" is up the to the voting public. Fptp does not keep extremist parties from getting significant power, it makes non-extremist parties appear extreme via voter supression.
If the public does not overwhelmingly want a single party to have a lot of power, no party should have a lot of power. If the vote is split, then no party should be able to dominate politics as they do unders fptp, where 30% of the popular vote can result in the other 70% having to put up with a completely domineering party they didn't vote for shoving through all their unpopular policies for 5 years. Not to mention the only reason as many as 30% voted for that party in the first place is likely due to tactical voting.
If public opinion is split, so should be the parties' power. If a party wants a lot of power, they must appeal to a broad range of people.
The Electoral College system in the US is a first past the post but even more extreme. The larger states have dozens of collegiate votes in the election of a President but it doesn't matter how many people actually voted for the losing candidate, all of the state's collegiate votes go to the winner. This is referred to as 50% +1.
Every state has it's own method for the electoral college.
@@charlestaylor9424 But only two states don't use a winner-take-all system and can return votes for both candidates
Didn't Hillary Clinton get more votes than Donald Trump?
Hi Lyndsey & Steve. Tomorrow is election day. The date was picked by the current Prime Minister. Elections here are always on a Thursday. The 4th July means nothing to us. Its just a normal Thursday. I have already voted because I have a postal vote for the Pontypridd constituency in South Wales. There were 9 choices of candidates, Reform UK, Independent, one not listed belonging to a party, Labour, Green Party, Liberal democrat, a second Independent, Plaid Cymru, Conservative.
The winner, the one with most votes, who becomes my Member of Parliament, MP, will be the one with most votes.
The party with the most MPâs will be the governing party. Their leader will meet the King, he/she will be invited by the King to become Prime Minister and head the country. I may be wrong on if the King invites him to be PM, or he asks the King?
If the election shows no particular party has a majority then the will have to have a coalition with another party. Then it gets interesting!
The King invites the leader of the winning party to become the Prime Minister and form a government, they have to wait to be officially summoned by the king but that always comes down as soon as its known who has won the election
Elections here are always on a Thursday, now they are ,Tuesday, 27 October 1931. was the last time not on a thurs
The Brexit referendum was in 2016 ... but we didn't actually leave the EU until 31 January 2020.
WE DIDNT FULLY LEAVE TBF
because .... it took that long to negotiate and agree terms of separation with the EU and then, bring a bill before parliament and obtain parliamentary approval to the terms.
@@Johnmillward9092 We are still tied in all the worst way.. The government never wanted us to leave and are going to drag us back in..gggrr
We still really haven't
And that was the biggest mistake our country has ever made
I'd suggest trying to find a video comparing the two political systems (UK vs US), so that you get a better idea. To me, as a Brit, the US system seems wildly convoluted, so I think it just depends on what you grew up with!
As for why our elections vary so much in dates:
- In the US, you have a set 4 year election cycle / presidential term. There is no flexibility to this, which means your elections always fall at the same time of year.
- In the UK, unless an election is called early, they happen every 5 years. A sitting government can choose to call an election early for a number of reasons. If a government is 3 years into their term, they may decide to call an early election if they think they can win it, because that would add another (guaranteed) 5 years to their time in office, instead of only 2 years with uncertainty over whether they would win in 2 years.
The last election in the UK was in December 2019, which meant the LATEST the current government could have called an election would have been December 2024, which would have meant the election happened at the end of January 2025 (we get like 4 weeks+ for election campaigning). This election being called now means it was called 6 months early, which is not uncommon.
Voting Day / Election Day is always on a Thursday, and polls are open from 7am through to 10pm, to allow for the largest amount of people to be able to go and vote. If people are unable to make it to their polling station during those hours, they can apply for a postal vote, or nominate a proxy to go and vote on their behalf. Local areas start declaring their winners from about midnight (though some might be a little earlier), however some winners are not announced until a couple of days later, depending on how many times they had to recount the votes (if things were close / if someone asked for a recount).
The Conservatives are likened to the Republicans, and the Labour Party to the Democrats, though there are a few differences. At the end of the day though, they are basically the same. Republicans/Conservatives lean more Right. Democrats/Labour lean more (centre)Left. The Liberal Democrats lean more left than Labour. The Greens are pretty self-explanatory.
Scotland has the SNP (Scottish National Party - left wing)
Wales has Plaid Cymru (Welsh National Party - left to centre-left)
Northern Ireland has Sinn Fein (left) and the DUP (more right leaning)
These parties do not stand outside of their constituent countries, but the main parties (Conservatives/Labour/LibDem etc) usually field candidates in these constituencies too.
There are also smaller parties who field candidates in our elections too, like the Reform Party (headed by Nigel Farage who was mentioned in this video), and people can also stand as independent candidates. Does it mean that votes get split? Absolutely. But it also means people are able to vote for candidates who actually match their values, and not have to compromise on their views to vote for someone who is "the closest" to their views, even if they disagree with a lot of their points.
We do have televised debates, though sometimes leaders will send a representative in their place for these, if they have other commitments at the time. All party manifestos are available to read online too, if thats something you'd be interested in.
Labour is more right leaning than left leaning, I'd say. They swung back to the left under Jeremy Corbyn but have gone back to a generally centre-right position since then
@@Draiscor Labour, right leaning?? Nooo. đ€ŁThey rather sing Commie songs instead of the national anthem, certainly far more left than right.
â@Draiscor I agree Labour have totally changed under stamer he's has turned the party to the right. Can't vote for the continuing of tory polices. I'm voting snp. Tory/Labour are just the same been in bed with each other making backroom deals to to stay in office. Am done with Labour would never vote for them again in my life
I think you might have made an accidental error here the Lib Dems are a centralist party to the right of Labour but to the left on the Conservatives.
@@TheOrignalCarpe That may have been so at the last election but there's been a big swing since. If you look at Labour's manifesto it is now a centre-right party compared to being a left wing party in 2019. However, the Liberal Democrats, looking at their manifesto are relatively similar to the last election and are a centrist party, but are now further left than Labour.
One big difference between the US and UK is that elections, voting and electoral districts in the UK are organised by an independent Electoral Commission, politicians have no say.
Also the spending allowed is tiny in comparison to the US so candidates and those elected do not have to spend so much time raising money.
Apart from a little bit of massaging the Tory vote during boundary changes.
@@etherealbolweevil6268 Or Labour postponing reviews that would have been unfavourable to them
It isn't strictly true. There are some states that use electoral commissions of some sort. In the UK, parliament is sovereign so politicians could just scrap it or give the commission new guidelines.
Basically some US states ended so screwed up in this regard simply because politicians were supreme over this issue and decided to weaponize it. In the UK the very same could happen as there is no codified constitution that requires the govt to use a supermajority or get the approval of voters to pass before they could weaponize things.
The very reason why the UK didn't have new boundary changes for so many years was precisely due to politicians refusing to pass the new boundary lines. So they obviously did have a say. They usually get updated every cycle but the UK went around a decade without new updates.
This election is pretty unique in 2 ways,
1) That it is the first one in modern times that the right of centre vote will have more than one choice, so is likely to be split, unfortunately the other right of centre party (That is actually a company) is quite a bit further to the right. Historically it's the progressive, left of centre vote, that it is split, whilst the term left of centre is open to debate regarding the Liberal Democrats and Labour it's the agreed consensus they are, and compared to the Conservative party they are definitely progressive, the progressive vote is also split with the greens, left of centre progressive voters are also more likely to vote for national parties in Scotland (SNP) and Cymru/Wales (Plaid Cymru) than right of centre voters.
This means that despite the majority voting for progressive policies offered by the left of centre parties, It's easier for the Conservatives win Elections than Labour.
2) The incumbent Government have never been as actively disliked by so many of the electorate, which is likely to lead to unprecedented levels of tactical voting.
Clearly you never lived under a Labour government if you think the government has never been this disliked by the electorate
How is this the first time that there have been two right wing parties? Ukip got 15% of the vote in 2015, slightly more than Reform got this time.
@@Rob-ew9id IN 2015, While those behind UKIP would be considered right wing, I wouldn't necessarily call the party classically on the right, they had nothing policy wise to offer beyond a single issue, A referendum on EU membership, the conservatives offered this so were less effected than the other parties UKIP took votes from a wide spectrum, The Liberal Democrat vote collapsed thanks to the coalition they entered into in 2010, but that collapse was of no advantage to Labour as any switch to Labour handed LD seats to The Cnservatives far more than t0 any other party. I knew of plenty of people who voted Ukip who were most definitely left of centre and would never have voted Conservative, but didn't see UKIP as anywhere near equivalent on the political spectrum to the conservatives. 2019 UKIP pulled candidates from target conservative seats. I would argue Ukip were not seen as competition on the right to the conservatives.
@@tonymcfeisty2478 It's pretty obviously the same 15% of people voting Reform this time who voted UKIP in 2015 if you look at where in the country they got their votes+ the age and gender breakdown. To say one is right wing and not the other is not true.
Also UKIP were not officially a single issue party, they did cobble together a manifesto in the same way that Reform did this time. Although de facto both are just anti-europe, anti-inmigration, anti-establishment parties, with nobody really caring/knowing about the little policy detail they announce in other areas.
â@@Rob-ew9idukip wasn't taken seriously and only had one policy - leave the EU. Farage must've learnt from this since Reform are offering more policies now and therefore are unfortunately being taken more seriously.
((also the average reform voter probabaly doesn't know how to tactically voteđ))
We along with Belarus are the only ones in Europe to have a first party past the post system. It doesnât represent smaller parties. Just two and thatâs why neither will vote to change it.
The problem is that most straight PR (Proportional Representation) systems give too much power to smaller parties, as they often become the deciding voice in policy. This means very unpopular or damaging policies get implemented to appease them and secure their support, often through backroom agreements that voters have no say in. Additionally, a lot of PR systems tend to lead to very unstable governments that don't last long or can't make decisions. That's why many countries use hybrid systems that try to balance giving different political parties a say while still presenting a clear winner.
Also, any ranked choice voting system has some features that âfeelâ unfair (rank reversal, etc) and some that are actually a poor fit for how our brains work (we donât maintain a total order of preferences so lower rank choices are easily gamed by advertising, and those decisions are often significant to the outcome). Thankfully there are other PR systems to STV/AV which donât rely on ranked choice (cardinal voting is my preference, where you get multiple votes you can use to show how strongly you support each candidate or party)
@@Nerdy4Life What nonsense. Britain is always ruled by a minority of opinion, This means very unpopular or damaging policies get implemented to appease the minority and secure their support, completly undemocratic, most peoples votes don't even count! A travesty of a country.
@@Nerdy4Life FPTP can lead to an unstable majority government too like the current Tory party who have basically destroyed themselves lol.
Trouble with PR is that you then get Rule by Commitee. We see this in the EU and Ireland where there always seems to be meetings and arrangements among parties. Neither system is perfect.
Yes,Lindsay,the two main parties colours are the other way round over hear.Steve,it's Liz Truss you are thinking of-who ruled between Boris and Rishi for 49 days she was appointed just 2 days before the Queen died (their meeting was her last public appearance )đ©
And one newspaper had a lettuce that they speculated would last longer than Liz Truss as PM. It did đ
The same bankers control both countries. If the politicians were really for the people they would have jailed the bankers after the 2008 financial crash. Instead they gave them billions in tax payers money. Red vs blue. Left vs right. Narcissisit vs idiot. Its all irrelevant because the bankers really have all the power. The people could take back their power and stop doing business with the banks but they wont because they have been fooled into believing that the political system can change things. It cant and it wont.
@@nickwilliams911 Prime Minister Lettuce wasn't given a fair chance to enact its eminently sensible policies on farming, refrigeration, and diet. Tragic missed opportunity for the country.
you guys are having your election on November 5th
which is kind of a big day over here
Someone else pointed that out as well! Pretty ironic. :)
@@reactingtomyroots Yeah, it's the commemoration of the last time a man entered the houses of parliament with honest intentions" :D
According to the Democracy Index published by the Economist, the UK is a full democracy and the 18th most democratic country in the world.
The US is considered to be a flawed democracy and is the 29th most democratic country.
I'd say the US just went down the list a long way..... when your supreme court enables a wanna be dictator to use a false slate of electors things are very crook there.
Which I find hilarious because the US politicians seem to think there presidents are the leaders of the free world despite no one else voting for them to be.
I have a feeling recent events have drastically lowered the USA score
@@Barlie_ Or at least will shortly.
You know, when the people who come up with those scores catch up with all the insanity (might take a while)
Probably because the US is a Republic and not a full democracy.
Also there are about 193 countries in the world. US is above 164 of them. US is only 10 spaces below UK so in the grand scheme of things it really is isn't that bad in terms of democracy.
Your given four weeks to make up your mind who to vote for. No two year wait like the US.
Yes, the one thing I do like about the UK system is that it happens fairly quickly. First past the post favours the 2 big parties so they are never going to vote for proportional representation.
It used to be somewhat similar in the US. The 'continuous election cycle' is fairly new.
â@@Phiyedough The public voted against changing the voting system, not parliament.
@@wallythewondercorncake8657 Yeah I mean the main two parties had lots of money to make sure the vote went the 'right' way.
You're*
Tv debates were not really a thing until 2010 here (so Mrs Thatcher never took part in things like that)...House of Lords weren't on tv till 1985 and Commons until 1989đ©
If you want a laugh watch the episode of Blackadder when Baldrick becomes an MP
Yes, but to get the most out of it you need to appreciate that before the Great Reform Act of 1832, there were lots of constituencies where the voting population varied enormously, leaving millions effectively disenfranchised, and that bribery was commonplace. _Blackadder_ series three was set during the Regency (early 1800s).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832
the rotten boroughs and no secret ballot also corrupt at buying votes and only limited property qualification
There is also Monster Raving Looney Party.
If there was a representative in my area I would vote for them. They couldn't be worse than the rest.
It's worth noting that the US also uses first past the post voting. However, whereas both the UK and the US have only two major political parties, the UK's minor parties have a bit more of a presence and win a few seats here and there, as opposed to the US where the minor parties basically never have any success.
There's 2 US senators who won as independents in the US senate. Bernie Sanders runs in the Dem primary, wins but doesn't take the nomination. It's to avoid vote splitting. Angus King has won 4 statewide races in 3 way races as an independent. Those are not typical though.
Lisa Murkowski and Joe Lieberman as ran as write in or 3rd party after losing their party nomination and won.
Yeah, our general election is on your Independence Day and your presidential election is on our Guy Fawkes Day. Double fireworks all round.
The best bit about UK is that the election season only lasts from 4 to 6 weeks.
Thank god. No more clips of Sunak 'working' in a factory, Davey sky-diving naked and Starmer pretending to be wallpaper.
Yes and no. Parties are generally "on manoeuvres" for some time before that - even if they don't know exactly when the election will be, they know that there will be one within 5 years at most of the last one, so the campaign starts unofficially long before the date is announced.
And there are strict limits on how much they can spend.
The millions of dollars spent on the US elections is obscene .
@@julieprosser7278 Yes, and every party has a free 5-10 minutes on TV to sell themselves - not just the ones who can afford to buy the TV time.
That would be nice, for sure!
I think you'd be amazed to learn that in 1974 we had one general election in February and another one in October.
We just loved elections in the 70s!
That was because in 1974, Heath lost a vote of no confidence due to not having an outright majority but was the only one that was able to form a government in the February.
@@Jason_L10 Remember it well.
We (my dad, me and my sister) went to Downing Street around this time - back then you could walk in and stand opposite Number 10 - and we saw Harold Wilson getting out of his car and going in.
We went home and excitably told mum that we'd seen the back of Wilson's head.
"impossible," she said. "Everyone knows he's got two faces."
In my constituency this year we have 7 candidates - Welsh Labour, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Lib Dems, Tories, Reform, Abolish the Welsh Assembly, Green Party. I had a postal vote this year so Iâve already voted.
and the heritage party! (or at least i have them as an option in Cardiff West) - and Propel too ... sooo many its getting silly!
I had a different 7, Labour, Conservative, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, Worker's party, and Green party.
Same here. I did a postal vote last week and there were about 8 names only 2 of which I'd ever heard of. And a few parties I'd never heard of either.
Im voting Reform tomorrow, who did you vote for?
â@@samsby14hopefully not Reform
You can tell who is Clegg and who is Cameron in the clip shown. Look at the ties Clegg's was yellow (Liberal Democrat), Cameron's was blue (Conservative). Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV.
Dude, you guys have a choice between democracy or facism!
Down with trump
In our system if there is a tie on votes, the electing officer chooses how the winner will be selected. This means that the winner can be decided with a coin toss, dice roll, name out of a hat, etc. these ties are rare but do happen.
UK Political Parties Origins. Conservative/Tory Represented the Aristocracy/LandOwners. Liberals Whigs Represented the Industrialists. There was no Universal Suffrage at the time of those 2 Parties. Labour created by the Trade Unions and Workers, became larger than the Liberals after WW1. UKIP Party created to campaign for leaving the EU, now called Reform UK. Greens environmentalists.
My local constituency has been a labour seat for 50 years. We're an old coal mining town in Yorkshire
Brexit for Americans: Say you had a USA-wide direct referendum vote to "Build a Wall" - but the legislators in Congress, the Senate, AND the president didn't want this - well, the people have spoken so they must do it - but how will they do it? Chances are, slowly (or not at all). That's why Brexit was still an issue in 2020 (and is still an issue today). Oh - one last thing - the times of the year can change for UK-wide elections (the government decides), but it's always on a Thursday. Hope that helps :)
Brexit was decided by a referendum in June 2016 but the UK only left the EU at midnight on 31st December 2019. So the 2019 election was the last pre Brexit.
The electorate didn't overwhelmingly reject AV. The overwhelming majority didn't vote because they didn't really understand what the choice was.
That was Cameron's doing & he doubtlessly thought he could do the same with Brexit.
If you do not vote you do not count and those who voted rejected AV. Was the right decision as it was a really silly option.
@@LemonChick AV would reduce the plurality wins or at least make them look better as they'd be closer to a majority of votes. Alot of it is just cosmetic as 95% of the time AV gives the same result as FPTP, it just looks more legit.
Our voting system here in the UK, based on Constituencies only, is frankly ridiculous. But there again yours, based on States votes, is equally so. The two systems are very similar and both can result in either a Government or a President being elected with less votes than those of an opponent.
BTW, Lindsay seems to be having issues getting her head around a political landscape with more than two players, in your case Democrats and Republicans. From this side of the pond we find it odd that you have ONLY two political parties. đ
That same constituency voting system also means that EVERYONE gets representation in parliament, regardless of how they voted. MP's represent their constituency... ALL of it. Not just the people that voted for them. Everybody in their constituency has an equal right to petition their MP, everybody in the country has an equal right to petition the government none of it is restricted based on who each person voted for. And those constituencies are limited in size, specifically to make it practical for constituents to have actual interaction with their MP if required.
Compare that to America where most states don't even get double figure numbers of seats at the house of representatives. There just aren't enough seats to give everybody any actual representation. And they are spread far to thinly with far too many constituents to have any real hope of direct contact with the people that they are supposed to represent.
Even if you limit it only to state legislature. California for example only has 80 seats. Can you imagine the UK with only 80 MP's having any actual meaningful interaction with their constituents.
Dig out google. Do a tour of Europe comparing total population vs parliamentary seats.
UK residents get more actual representation at parliament than pretty much anywhere else.
So yeah. The constituency system is not "ridiculous" as you put it. It's one of the saving graces of our political system.
@@Kizron_Kizronson
Really? So this "saving grace" is likely to give the Labour Party a massive majority with only about 39% of the vote. Hardly proper "representation" is it? đ€
@@andypandy9013 Yes, because as I pointed out, and you seem to have completely missed. MP's don't only represent the people who voted for them. They represent EVERYONE in their constituency. Everyone can have an interaction with their MP. That's the main reason that we have so many constituencies/seats compared to pretty much everywhere else, and why they are sized by population and not geographically. To keep the population per MP to a number where it's reasonably practical to be able to interact with your MP if you feel the need.
@@Kizron_Kizronson Search for "Multi Member Constituency".
@@Kizron_Kizronson I wouldn't bother. He doesn't understand what a representative democracy is, or how voting works, or even what an MP actually does day to day. He clearly doesn't know that the constituencies change every few years to account for changes in population or that it's independent. He doesn't know what gerrymandering is, or how the US has a completely corrupt system on that. Hasn't noticed France just went fully on Vichy. Our system is great. What lets it down as it does everywhere, is the shockingly low number of people who vote.
The thing that might surprise you, is that the election is on a Thursday, and the old Prime Minister leaves on the very next day, as the new Prime Minister takes over immediately.. Not 3 months like in the US, just a few hours
Assuming there's a clear winner anyway, which seems likely. It took a few days in 2010.
Made easier because a lot more of the UK government (in the US sense) is run by civil servants who are supposed to be non-partisan permanent employees. They keep their jobs when the government (i.e. administration in the US sense) changes and then have to implement the policies of the new government. In the US afaik many more administrative staff are explicitly partisan and have to be replaced when a different party takes power.
I think in the US your political party is much more part of your identity than it is for most over here, you support your parties like sports teams over there
Yep, unfortunately.
Where I live it is normally a Tory (Conservative) safe seat. It might change this year as the Tory candidate was recently given hell by the population at a local hustings last weekend. This is a meeting of the candidates in front of the local population. Due to mobility issues I am registered for postal voting. I voted and returned the form Wednesday 19th June.
đ€đđ€ I'm chronically ill/disabled downtrodden by this gov, also vote went in post day got it in swing con/lab seat đ€ #VoteTactical to #StopTheTories đ
â@HSolar yep I voted lib dem despite them selling us down the river for a bit of power just to get rid laura trott #ABT
because there are more than two parties - some times there are as many as 5 parties plus independents so they are all sharing the votes so who gets the most votes is the winner
I have 6 candidates to choose from. Can't see any of the parties they represent solving our problems and my vote will make no difference at all to the final outcome. So much as hate saying it, what's the point of voting?
The ubxbridge by election in 2023 had 17 candidates.
One thing I appreciate about our elections is the speed. Like, they tell us what date is going to happen and before you know it it's all over.
There are debates. Actually we have a tv show called question time which regularly gives a public audience an opportunity to talk to members of government about issues. For the General Election, Question Time had special episodes for all main parties to discuss how they would help the public and then debates too.
With the not in a box bit at the end it sounds like you agree with James O Brian's "not got my football scarf tied too tight" philosophy of politics. He's good on UK politics as a react
We do have debates, however, your golf handicap isnt included
pathetic that was two old men squabbleing like kids over marbles
â@@markjones4704yeah yet Trump would run rings around you there mega brain
What the video doesnât mention is the spending limits so strap in because this is absurd.
Each candidate can spend ÂŁ11,390/$14,461 plus ÂŁ0.08/$0.10 or ÂŁ0.12/$0.15 per registered voter depending on the location of the seat.
So if a candidate is standing in a county constituency of 70,000 theoretical voters they can only spend ÂŁ19,790/$25,126.
Admittedly our campaigns are only a handful of weeks long but itâs not a lot of money to spread around.
That is quite shocking! Never knew about the spending limits.
@@reactingtomyroots
I think itâs intended to open up politics to as many people as possible whilst limiting the influence money has on the results.
The best example is the deposit.
To stand for a seat in parliament a person needs to put down a ÂŁ500/$637 deposit and if you get 5% of the votes you get the money back.
Why do you find that absurd? It's good that the incumbent candidates can't just outspend their opponents.
How much is the spending limit in the USA?
There in an online survey for the UK that lists political policies for each party without revealing their name so you can see the policies on offer from all the parties (big or small) You click the policies you agree with the most & at the end it reveals which political party/ parties represent your views the best
Our system is actually much simpler really.
Each area votes for who they want to represent them locally, that person becomes an MP and represents that area. And whichever party has the most MP's, has majority rule when it comes to implementing votes.
but I think we have much more of a relationship with a local MP. Most MP's hold regular community sessions, and campaign for improvements in their areas. Their role is to fight for the rights of their local constituents. I can't imagine there are many Senators hold monthly forums where members of the public can turn up, talk to them and raise issues. :D Yes a very select of MP's in the "cabinet" are the ones leading government, but the vast majority of MP's have no major governance and are more concerned with local issues.
I have met my local MP on multiple occasions and had discussions with them, and I'm just an average joe, I doubt most Americans have met their senator.
Personally I have always voted for the person not the party. I vote for the candidate in my area who I think will do the best for my area. Same with council elections, I vote for the people not the party.
How often do British MP's violate the party whip? It's rare when the govt isn't in disarray.
Meeting our reps in the UK is easier as each MP represents far fewer, around 100k? In the US even the US house averages around 700k per member. Senators vary due to state population but they get as high as almost 40 million. Talking to them doesn't mean they do anything for you though.
If 2 locals meet the same MP from their area and have divergent views over an issue affecting the local area, what is considered the best for the area?
Typically, US lawmakers do hold townhalls but many have opted not to due to heckling etc. The incentive for the is to hit up people for donations. They have fundraiser events where you can meet them but have to pay.
In the UK some areas can have as many as 8 or 10 candidates standing. There are many smaller parties, local parties and independent candidates that usually focus one or two key local issues.
There were 17 in the Uxbridge by election in 2023.
Generally speaking, "red" is the left and "blue" the right here. Although as someone else has mentioned, "left" or liberal politicians in the UK and Europe tend to be further left than in the US and even our right wing politicians (with some exceptions) are far more centrist than their Republican counterparts. So many in Conservative party may in some ways be more left wing than some US Democrats! The average UK voter is fairly centrist though. More centre-right than centre-left by our standards, but most left wingers tend towards the centrist too. Then you have more extreme outliers either way but they tend to be minor parties or factions. Oh, and there's a LOT less of a religious/Christian contingent than the States, it's generally kept out of politics here except for in N. Ireland, although the Muslim vote is currently becoming a stronger political force.
In Scotland we use both voting systems. For the UK General Election we use 'first past the post' and for electing an MSP to the Scottish Parliament we use PR, where the voter ranks the candidates 1-2-3 on the ballot paper.
Oh no we don't! The ranked votes are when we elect councillors to our local councils, for the Scottish Parliament we have two votes, one first past the post for a single candidate for a constituency (same mechanism as the UK election), and one for a top-up regional vote, where we vote for a party (which supplies a list of candidates).
I'm liking the fact that you're trying to understand the differences between the 2 political systems, across our 2 countries, even though there's more facts that you realise that you don't understand about UK politics. It would be interesting to hear you comment on the election results, after tomorrow's (Thursday's) election.
At least we get a choice with more than two candidates. I wouldnât like to vote only for Conservative and Labour. You can show your objection to the main parties by voting for smaller parties or independents and it shows the main parties that they have to do better if the electorate votes against them.
With the first past the post system, we at least have a chance to vote out a party if they are not performing. With the AV system (Alternative Vote) that most of Europe has, itâs very difficult to get rid of bad governments once they are in.
I think one big difference between uk and usa is that we only get to vote on who our local parliamentarian is - who becomes Prime Minister is based off which party gets most members of parliament to be able to command a majority, and the house of lords is completely undemocratic because its largely hereditary with new peerages given at the discretion of the prime minister, whereas my understanding of the usa system is you vote separately and directly for your congress, house representatives, and president. Devolved parliaments in the uk have their own voting systems though, like in Scotland we have proportional representation which is more complicated but means the outcome more fairly reflects the split of votes and smaller parties are more likely to grt a candidate elected
" the house of lords is completely undemocratic because its largely hereditary" The majority of hereditary peers no longer have the right to sit in the House of Lords and are outnumbered around 7 to 1 by political appointees ('Life Peers'). In fact the 92 hereditary peers who do sit in the House have the distinction of being the only members with any democratic mandate having been elected by their fellow hereditary peers!
@@MrPaulMorris fair enough, you've got to admit it is still in need of reform though. Remember when Liz Truss, who couldn't outlast a head of lettuce, was able to elect 3 people to the House of Lords on her way out of Number 10? Love her or loathe her, that's not good!
Have you done Australia? We have a pretty interesting election process as we use ranked choice and mandatory voting! Our house of representatives is represented by single member majoritarian electorates and the Senate is proportional. Ranked choice always produces a majority (50% or more) and a candidate is elected as essentially the least worst candidate or most liked candidate broadly (usually someone 2nd or 3rd favourite candidate). And like Australia, the prime minister decides the election, but it has be before or on a decided term length, in the UK it is 5 years, in Australia it is 3.
5:47 as for political party colours, you are the only country with the wrong way round, red means socialism, blue means conservatism, the US breaks this trend.
And by the way, the US also uses First past the post, itâs just that the UK has more than 2 parties, so naturally the vote share for the winning candidate is going to be less than 50% (the vote is split)
We have televised debates of varying sizes. Some are just the 2 main party leaders. Some include all leaders of the top 7 parties
Canada has the Parliamentary system also. Currently, four parties have elected members in the House of Commons, and there are another ten registered parties.There are no set calendar dates an election must be conducted. We have a Senate of appointed members as we banned Royal privilege and the Lords. At the moment the sitting House is a coalition of centre left and left of centre parties. To become Prime Minister a candidate must win selection in a party conference, win their own electoral district(a Riding), and win the general election.
In Canada party donations are strictly limited to keep big business/rich men from having undue influence in elections and policy making. Ballot counting is free of partisanship and gerrymandering is out of the question.
Good Luck with this one guys, we have General tomoz.. Its a snap one called by Prime Minister.. If you can understand it please let me know!! LOL.. Love your new Channel!!
I donât think itâs a snap election, as an election had to be called by the 12th of December as that was the fifth anniversary of the last election. A snap election is one that is called quicker, like maybe after two years and is unexpected. So as an election was expected this year, itâs not a snap election.
Oh and as for a long time General Elections were held in May, this one being in July is kind of pulling us a bit closer to that traditional time slot.
I have a roll of emoji turd stickers that I am using for my vote tomorrow.
đ
We have quite few televised debates now, for what they are worth. I am not convinced anyone has changed their mind after watching any of them.
Im actually shocked how well informed you were.
Simple rules to becoming a Member of Parliament in UK seem to be as follows
1, NEVER answer a question in a straightforward manner, YES or NO questions get ignored
2, Use all your powers to get as much money and privilege as you can, BEFORE anyone notices
3, Try by any and all means to avoid paying tax, especially non domicile tax
4, Promise the World during an election campaign, but when elected you simply backtrack
5, Try to avoid telling the truth - - - - unless you get cornered
Agree totally
Nice thing about the elections in the UK (same in Germany where I'm living now being dual-national) is the fact that you have the results the same (!) late evening.
Ahh you're a child of Nigel Farage then!!!!
@@grahamgresty8383 Explain.
Strange but true:
Between the old Prime Minister resigning and the new Prime Minister being invited by the King to form a government, there is a brief period of time that the most senior cabinet official in the UK Government is a cat.
Larry the Cat: official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.
Effectively, by virtue of no other ministers, head of government.
Donât believe me⊠look it up. đ
4th July was the day after private school finish for the summer. basically, Ricki Sunak wanted to be able to skedaddle with his kids right after the election knowing he wasn't going to win.
We have 3 other parliaments, in N. Ireland, Scotland & Wales. None of them use the basic first past the post system.
Northern Ireland does not have a Parliament.
@@george-ev1dq
Just a place where elected representatives , set policy & approve public spending.
@@ethelmini a place where elected representatives rarely take their seats and do pretty much nothing.
Once the election is over, there needs to be a concerted campaign with a view to adopting a different electoral system.
We had a referendum in 2011, PR was soundly rejected. Funny how when a party loses theyâre all for PR but when they win they quickly forget the notionđ€. I would advocate for compulsory voting first before changing the voting system.
@@htershane That was AV, not PR. Under the AV system however people voted if the votes were evenly spread around the country the same party would win every constituency and take 100% of the seats. Same as with the current first past the post system.
I think we might get a chance. If the Tories are nearly wiped out and Labour have three quarters of the seats on 40% of the vote then even Tories might start wanting PR. Reform definitely want PR, as do the Lib Dems and Greens. Persuading Labour might be the hardest part.
@@grahamsmith2753 the bit I donât get about PR is how it works locally? I sort of âgetâ FPP in that we have a constituency, we then vote for candidates in that constituency, the candidate with the most votes then becomes the one that represents that constituency in parliament, even though that might be someone i didnât vote for. I accept theyâre the one elected. I have never voted party politically I vote for the person I think will do the best job for my area, I dont think any mp candidate Iâve voted for actually went on to win, except the â97 election.
@@htershane I discovered some interesting information on the Electoral Reform Society website. Among other things they display a simple breakdown of nine types of voting system. In my view, the 2011 referendum was not that helpful as it only listed the Alternative Vote system as a replacement for First Past the Post. Alternative Vote seems pretty useless to me. My choice would be Single Transferable Vote. It's a version of Proportional Representation. There are some handy CZcams videos explaining in very simple terms how it works. They needed to be simple in order for me to grasp it. đ
We do have televised debates but only since 2010. There's an interesting debate over whether this makes sense in a system where you don't directly vote for who is going to be Prime Minister, but I think they're here to stay now. Usually you have debates with just the Labour and Conservative leaders, but also debates with represetatives from all the significant parties (in the most recent election that meant a 7 way debate!)
You should take a look at how New Zealand elections work. The system allows small but not tiny parties to have a chance of getting a few seats.
We have first past the post system it's OK when you side wins with less than half the vote but not so good when you loose sometimes, you seem to only have 2 parties in the USA where we have lots of little parties taking votes
The best bit of our system is that the amount spent is limited and also the government changes the next day. We do not have a big issue with corruption.
What the actual fuck are you smoking? We don't have a big issue with corruption? đ Let's not forget ministers of BOTH sides buying insane amounts of stocks in PPE companies before mandating mask wearing in public. Cash for questions, election spending scandals, grooming gang cover ups, partygate which was FAR more than just the Tories
Buckle up kid Labour will drive this country into the ground in 12 months
Yes we do have televised debate between different parties
It is a legal requirement to register to vote. We have a local tax "Council tax", that is paid by every household, so the local authority already has the data for most voters.
Wow! Never knew that.
But in the UK, nobody is required to state which party they may choose to vote for. Registration just ensures you are an adult and entitled to vote.
Right. Council tax is a somewhat weird sort of wealth taxation, at a low rate, and taxing only homes not other forms of wealth, and not in proportion to their current value but in proportion to the value they would have had in the housing market of 1991. On average we pay around ÂŁ2,000 per year per home.
@ethelmini there's not really any repercussions if you don't register, though. I wasn't on the electoral roll for ages.. many people i know still aren't. If you aren't going to vote anyway, the only minor punishment is that your credit rating will be a few points lower. If you don't borrow, that doesn't matter either.
@joescarecrow I do find it slightly annoying that some people donât vote. Having the right to vote is a privilege that folks in the past went to jail for. Lower class working people didnât have votes, women didnât have votes. They had to fight for the right to vote. Nowadays some people just canât be bothered. In some countries, like Australia for instance, you get fined if you donât turn up to vote.
The first past the post system means that many people who are able to vote often don't . I always vote even if the party I vote for don't win
Same. Far too many people in the past sacrificed their lives and liberty for my right to vote. It's the very least I can do to honour that.
3:48 correct - you have to register to be able to vote, to make sure that you can't vote in more than one location at once. This will also be the first year when we have to bring ID to the polling station to be able to vote, before this you just had to give your name and address and it was crossed off the list.
Iâm a Brit whoâs moved to Australia and Iâve come to like the Aussie system. Itâs mostly the British system with American names for the upper and lower Houses of Parliament, but with an instant run off system for the House Of Reps. So Iâll get say 8 candidates to vote for at an election and I have to vote for ALL of them, but I number them 1 to 8 in order of who I like most. Then at the count theyâll see if anyone got more than 50% of the 1s, and if they did then they win. If not it becomes like instant run off and the person with the lowest number is eliminated with all their votes being redistributed to the remaining candidates according to the preferences numbered on each paper. This continues until someone has got over 50% of the vote. So in the UK the MP is the person who gets the most votes even if they donât have an absolute majority, but in Australia each MP is the person most voters find acceptable even if they didnât get an absolute majority and possibly not even the most votes to start with.
A general election has to be called after five years by law, however it is within the sitting Prime Minister's remit to be able to call a general election at any time he or she feels fit within that five year period. The election on July 4th was called by the PM but he could have remained in office until the beginning of 2025 if he had wanted too. Cameron, Conservative, May Conservative, Johnson, Conservative, Truss, Conservative and Sunac, Conservative. Great Britain needs proportional representation. First past the post is undemocratic and is stuck in the 18th century. Brexit voted for in the referendum was not implemented until the British government opened the clause in the EU rules which means that it was not ratified until 2020.
UK voted to leave EU in 2016,but took over 3.5 years to FULLY sort out and completely (this had to be agreed and sorted with fellow member countries)đ©
It never fully happened.
England and Wales voted leave. Scotland and NI voted remain.
London voted to remain
Pre 90s where I lived it, voting preferences wasnât discussed. Asking that question just wasnât done and considered a huge invasion of privacy. I suppose social media put paid to that etiquette.
The smaller parties can get involved because there are financial limits, very low, as to how much can be spent on campaigns.
Steve comes across as one f the most balanced human being that Iâve never met đ
Ill be voting tactically to get rid od the SNP, im not voting for the Party i would like to win but if i were to vote for them the vote could split nd SNP could be returned. đź
We do have televised election debates. I think ITV News still have their's up on their CZcams channel.
Televised debates yes for the last few weeks, all leaders including the smaller parties and a couple with just the biggest 2 parties
We also have joke candidates like Count bin head , Captain beany etc....
As a die hard supporter, I must correct you: the Count's name is Binface. You may be mistaking him for Lord Buckethead, a pretender who, like the Count, is standing in Rishi Sunak's constituency in tomorrow's election. The presence of this upstart threatens the Count's very real prospects of entering Parliament.
The Count comes from a long line of Binfaces:
Averill Binface, who tangled with Julius Caesar during the conquest of Britain, giving rise to Caesar's famous quote, "Vini Vidi Binface."
Midshipman Binface, who fought alongside Nelson at Trafalgar, and was the recipient of the famous command, 'Kiss me, Binface."
Pete Binface, a childhood friend of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, fondly remembered in the song, "Lucy In the Sky With Binface".
The current bearer of the name is, however, the first one to be a real Count.
The some woman was Liz (mad a box of frogs) Truss and hopefully won't be my MP for much longer - hello from South West Norfolk.
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the Prime Minister can call an election for whenever he chooses (as long as the date isn't beyond the maximum parliamentary term). They often pick the spring time when things are not chaotic. Early May was a trend for a while
UK local elections run on fixed timescales, but general elections are called by the prime minister at a time of their choosing (but basically within about 5 years of the last one) - but always on a Thursday. This, in theory, gives the incumbent party an advantage, in that it can call the election at a time when it is doing well, and can catch the opposition unawares. I say "in theory", because this year Sunak has failed spectacularly on both of those - he has called the election 6 months earlier than he needed to at a time when his party and his personal ratings are doing _really_ badly, and his party was too busy placing dodgy bets on when the election was going to be a few days before he announced it publicly but weren't doing any actual preparation for it.
The Brexit referendum was in 2016, but it took a few years after that for it to actually be enacted.
Voter registration is not automatic. People who are UK citizens, or citizens of (most/all?) Commonwealth countries who are resident in the UK, are eligible to vote - but citizens of most other countries are only eligible to vote in local elections but not general elections, no matter how long they have lived here. (eg, my neighbours are Polish, they've lived here for nearly 20 years but because they have retained their Polish citizenship they can't vote in general elections here).
In broad terms, Conservatives (aka Tories) are equivalent to Republicans, and Labour are equivalent to Democrats, although in both cases the UK parties are to the left of the US equivalents. (This can get confusing, because here Conservatives use blue and Labour use red, the opposite to the US). The Liberal Democrats are "centre ground", at the moment they are more socially progressive than Labour but generally they are between the two main parties economically. Your Libertarians are probably closest to our Reform, although they are complete basket cases.
Most constituencies will typically have half a dozen candidates, and in some cases a lot more. The main parties that stand across most of England, Scotland and Wales are Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Reform (formerly Brexit Party, formerly UKIP, formerly British National Party). In Scotland you also get the Scottish National Party, and in Wales there's Plaid Cymru. There can also be independent candidates and other minor, fringe parties. There's also a tradition of joke candidates going up against high profile government ministers - look up Count Binface for the biggest of them at the moment. In Northern Ireland, the main parties generally don't stand and there is a plethora of local parties specific to Northern Ireland, covering a range of unionist (believing NI should be part of the UK) and nationalist (believing NI should be part of Ireland) positions. In 2019, about two-thirds of MPs got more than 50% of votes cast in their constituency, but that still leaves one-third who were elected on a minority vote. The lowest winning vote share ever was Belfast South in 2015, where the winning candidate got 24.5% (there were 9 candidates on the ballot, 2nd got 22% and 3rd got 17%).
The mismatch between vote share and number of MPs is why first-past-the-post is such a bad way to elect MPs. (CGP Grey has done an excellent series of videos explaining different voting systems, highly recommended and very entertaining). Smaller parties are badly underrepresented - they might get 10-15% of the votes consistently across a lot of seats but never get enough in any one seat to get an MP - whereas the largest party might only just have scraped a plurality in most seats but gets far more MPs than its vote share deserves. (One of the few places worse than the UK for this is the US electoral college).
In 2011, we had a referendum on whether to move to the Alternative Vote system, where voters would get to pick a 1st and 2nd preference candidate. That way, if no candidate received more than 50% of first preference votes the top two would go through to the next round and the other candidates eliminated, with all the 2nd preference votes for those candidates now being counted. This would give a much greater likelihood that the eventual winner had the support of the majority of voters, even if not necessarily as their first choice. Unfortunately, vested interests in the two main parties and much of the media scuppered the campaign and an uneducated public voted against the proposal.
It might all sound complicated, but compare it to voting for the President, the Senate and the House, all on different timescales and different methods ... most countries' systems have complications, but we don't notice the ones that we're familiar with!
A couple of big differences that the video didn't mention are polling stations and counting/declaration.
Polling stations in the UK cover a really local area. Pretty much every village has its own polling station, a small town might have 4 or 5, and a city will have dozens, so nobody has to travel far (in my constituency of about 60,000, there are 60 polling stations) and it's very rare to get long queues. They are open from 7am to 10pm on election day. You can also apply in advance for a postal vote, or a proxy vote (where someone else votes on your behalf). Postal votes must be _received_ by election day, although they can be hand-delivered to your polling station or council office on the day if you haven't posted it in time.
Votes are counted by local councils (each council might cover several constituencies) overnight. As soon as the polls close at 10pm, they start counting postal votes, and then move onto the ballot boxes as they are brought in from the various polling stations around the area. All votes are counted by hand, with candidates and their agents watching from the other side of the desk. When all the constituencies that that council is counting have been finalised, the council leader will announce the MPs that have been elected and the votes for each candidate. The first constituencies usually declare by midnight, and most of them by 8am on Friday. Once one party reaches the threshold of 325 MPs (assuming that one does) then they are declared the government, and the new prime minister takes up office that day - no waiting two months for inauguration, that's it, it's done and dusted the day after!
Another big difference is that we don't vote for the prime minister. Well, not directly. We vote for our local MP. The party with the largest number of MPs forms the government, and by convention the leader of that party becomes the prime minister. It's more like the Speaker in the US in that respect (although with more power). That's why we can change prime minister in between elections, if the leader of the party resigns or is kicked out by their own MPs.
Conservative leans right of centre, labour is left if centre, lib dem left of centre. Others are mixed
Aye in the good old days
Tories are now far right
Labour right of centre
Blue and Red Tories
@@duneideann9241 Which planet are you living on?
â@@MrMikebanfieldNo he is correct if you compare the positions with how things were in the 1970s or earlier. Thatcher moved the overton window firmly to the right in the 1980s. Corbyn if he had been elected would have likely moved things back towards where they were in the 1970s and earlier though even he wasn't as left wing as Michael Foot who led Labour into the 1983 general election.
Except that,during the previous government, most of the prominent members of the Conservative party leaned right of right; the Labour party started leaning heavily to the right in 1997 and is now more than halfway there; the Lib-dems will lean wherever they need, to gain a bit of power; Reform is leading the way ahead to the right of the right; Ulster Unionist Party lies marginally to the left of the conservatives on the right; Scottish National Party & Plaid Cymru occupy the Centre left position that New Labour abandoned in 1997; Green and Alba parties lean to the left of them; Sinn Fein and SDLP just left again.
@@paulharvey9149 Exactly đ
Labour voters still think their Party are socialists đđđ
4th July was chosen by the outgoing government
Brexit was tagged by some as the UK independence day.
Some parties on the right wing support American styles of health care etc
Steve you really should check out Johnathan Pie and Garyâs economics on tomorrowâs UK election
Jonathan Pie delivered a masterly summary of the past 14 years of conservatives in his most recent video
"Some parties on the right wing support American styles of health care etc." Conservatives don't, and even Reform only (at least publicly) support tax relief for using private healthcare. Pretty much any UK party that came out and called for an American-style system would get crucified. American pharma like to come over to lobby for it from time to time, but the idea is electoral suicide as the American system is viewed very negatively here (for good reason).
No party support American style healthcare. That is a lie that Labour have been repeating at every election for at least 50 years. A few Conservatives used to support German style healthcare, but they have gone quiet since Covid.
Someone was actually elected with around 25% of the vote once in the UK as the vote was so split in that race.
2:00 we voted to leave the eu in 2016, 8 years ago, but we didnt actually leave the EU until 2020, 4 years ago.
2:20 Basically, the way it works is we have to have elections every 5 years MAXIMUM, but the PM can call an election earlier if he wants. For example, we had an election in 2017, but in 2019 the then-PM Boris Johnson called an election because his party needed a majority in the House of Commons in order to pass his Brexit deal. So this time around, because our last election was in Dec 2019, this election had to happen before Jan 2025, but the now former PM Rishi Sunak decided to call it in summer
3:15 our 'constituencues' our basically the equivalent of your districts. And our general elections our basically the equivalent of your House of representatives elections. The only difference is that, for you, the leader of the largest party becomes the Speaker of the House, whereas over here they become the Prime Minister and lead the government. We have a 'Speaker of the House' but that is a completely different role to how it is over there. He/she basically acts as the 'moderator' in parliamentary debates.
3:40 no its not automatic you have to register but its not a complicated process, you just fill out a form online, wait a couple weeks and boom you're registered
5:30 it varies, and is largely a matter of perspective, obviously. But the UK is overall more politically left-wing than the US. So many of our Conservatives would actually align more with the Democrats, and the Labour Party aligns more with your far-left democrats such as Bernie Sanders.
5:45 so you guys are actually the ones who switched the colours. Literally everywhere else in the world, red means liberal and blue means conservatives. You guys are the exception. Funnily enough, when coloured tv became a thing, networks actually used blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, but after a few elections cycles they seemed to switch them around for some reason.
6:22 yes that is David Cameron. He was the Conservative Party Leader from 2005-2016 and Prime Minister from 2010-2016. He resigned after the Brexit referendum. And, as you say, he was succeeded by Theresa May, who resigned in 2019 for failing to achieve Brexit. She was succeeded by Boris Johnson, who got Brexit done but resigned in 2022 due to 'Partygate', which involved several senior conservatives including himself partying during lockdown and breaking their own lockdown rules. He was succeeded by Liz Truss who lasted about 6 weeks before resigning and was then succeeded by Rishi Sunak who served until this most recent election which the conservatives lost, and the Labour leader Kier Starmer became PM. When the Prime Minister resigns without having lost an election, the ruling party elects a new leader, and that new leader becomes PM.
12:05 yes. So we have debates between the 2 major parties, and we also have wider debates involving several minor parties
13:50 yeah so we voted brexit in June 2016, started the official negotiations in March 2017, and didn't actually leave until Jan 2020
16:30 so the Lib Dems are generally considered centrist, but they often move more to the OPPOSITE side of whichever party is in government. So when the Conservatives have been in government the last 14 years they have moved more to the left, but now Labour are in power i expect them to move more to the right.
it's not much different from the house of representatives