UK Coalition Politics

Some in the UK hold the opinion that the Liberal Democrats capitulated too easily to the Conservatives during the negotiation process that led to the formation of our current government. Whilst they only have a relatively small number of MPs they still hold the balance of power and could perhaps have held out for PR. Their apparent willingness to compromise this and other principles of their party in exchange for a share of power has led to a plummet in their popularity. Their leader has been s

No idea if you follow British politics, but a few years ago the Cons and LibDems went into coalition, and one of the things that was meant to help was the FTPA. Under that the government cannot just call an election, it needs the support of 2/3 of parliament or a vote of no confidence.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_201...

It's important to know that the UK government currently has a majority of around -40. Which means there's going to be an election sooner or later and no legislation can pass. This allows them to announce and pursue popular policy without any intention of fulfilling their promises - since they can't pass their legislation now, and they won't need to answer for their policies for 5 years if they win an election.

Nobody is silencing anyone.The Lib Dems campaigned for an EU referendum [1], and now want to reverse it because the result wasn't what they wanted.The SNP campaigned for Scotland to leave the EU (as it would have done if leaving the UK) in their independence referendum, and now behave as if leaving the EU is unthinkable.Both are playing politics. The ground has shifted, and so it's helpful for the government to get a new mandate.[1] <a href="http://www.newstatesma

The UK electorate does not elect a party either, it elects a bunch of local MPs, and the MPs in term elect a leader. While many voters of course vote for the MP who represents the party who is headed by their desired leader, MPs defecting could just as easily flip the government to another party without consulting the electorate, as they can replace the PM with another from the same party.

This was proposed many years ago but blocked by the Lib Dems. Now the people of the UK destroyed the Lib Dems, there's nobody to oppose this.A lesson in picking the lesser of evils. Nobody will learn it though, and the UK is screwed for the forseeable future.

This sometimes turns out very badly - in the UK it led to "faster than a lettuce goes bad" Liz Truss for example. Conservative party members are an odd bunch.Labour also picked Jeremy Corbyn an election back. Ultimately the rest of the country didn't want to vote for him.

Not sure why you are downvoted, this is on the money. Our current government has been sent away, multiple times (even after election, effectively the same parties/people formed a new cabinet). Ever since the elections, and ridiculous long formation, they are polling 30 - 35 seats under the (minimal) majority of 76 seats.I bet quite some people are very much working on diverting attention here and there.

A few months ago people were talking about a 100-seat majority for the Tories. Now they have no majority at all: they'll need to get every member of their party plus a few from the DUP to agree to any controversial thing they want to pass (e.g. the Brexit treaty) which might force the government (administration) to make concessions to extreme wings of the party (e.g. a hard-Brexit faction).

There are now a fairly large number of MPs who are no longer aligned to the policies of their party, or who have moved party. An election should shake all of that out.This, combined with the speaker's constitutional innovations have led to a situation where we have a government which can't govern. Again, an election should sort this (and may allow the removal of an activist speaker as well).And yes, it will be about voting for a party which matches your preferred strategy. Tory =