PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

Mostly calling me stupid or a vampire

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) June 14, 2018

Old dead eyes is back again :(

*****POLLS HAVE CLOSED IN BRECON AND RADNORSHIRE*****

I can finally talk about it and by God, for me, I can tell you, it's a relief.

First up, what should we be expecting? (THREAD)

The basics:

-Largest constituency in Wales (or England)
-Result expected around 2.30am

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) August 1, 2019

Let me guess, Welsh Doormats Fall Hook Line and Sinker For Boris Bounce.

lol maybe not

They got 17 per cent of the vote in 2017, Mark. Totally calm analysis...

— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) August 2, 2019

posting as he usually does

BXP taking ten points off a boris-bounce tory party... this is good.

otoh guess nigel will be getting his knighthood after all, if there’s to be an autumn GE.

xp lol they haven’t held that seat since the 70s

Irregular reminder that he’s 34, lol

Looks like a lot of Labour voters opted to vote tactically there and the Brexit Party played a part. The Tory vote is being sliced from two directions here.

Brecon and Radnorshire voted Leave with 51% of the vote as well fwiw - another illustration that a Leave constituency won't necessarily return a Leave MP, especially with the dynamics the way they currently are. There could be a lot of anomalies.

Difficult to see what the Tories are currently doing that is insufficiently Brexity for Brexit Party voters though.

I suppose this is why Farage was claiming that Dominic Cummings (!!!) was not a "true believer" in Brexit earlier this week though.

It is *possible* that many Brexit Party voters are not the sharpest political minds on the block

Difficult to see what the Tories are currently doing that is insufficiently Brexity for Brexit Party voters though.

Failure to declare war.

Hard to weigh up your best tactical option when your vote is just a howl of befuddled xenophobic rage

Johnson needs to crack on with promising to build the wall

BBC doing their best to spin the result as per instructions from Consevative Central Office.

*paying my respects to our first past the post system*

All of what you're saying is true and on the assumption that a chunk of voters went from blue to yellow then this result is the canary in the coalmine for a Tory strategy that's currently sitting between 'blunder' and 'absolute disaster in the making'.

Difficult to see what the Tories are currently doing that is insufficiently Brexity for Brexit Party voters though.

I mean from NF’s POV the more shit he causes for Tories, the bigger the payoff for him is when he “reluctantly” stands down in exchange for a sweetener.

Difficult to see what the Tories are currently doing that is insufficiently Brexity for Brexit Party voters though.

Still not racist enough iirc

xp

Failure to declare war.

― pomenitul, Friday, 2 August 2019 07:11 (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i dunno what part of the rhetoric towards the irish sovereign state youve not been payin attn to but its happening imo

Tell that to the Brexit party voters.

boris johnson will lose his seat at the GE. bet it

xp i am keeping calm and tugging the forelock as i normally do as far as those lads are concerned tbh

The only thing they could do would be a full on pact with Farage which would be like Christmas for every other party.

It would be stupid but...

surely Farage will call off his little pressure group at the right moment

so glad to not have to wake up to some chipper bbc voice giving it some boris triumphalism, but still fuck listening to LibDem triumphalism as well. Some of the commentary on Today was what a disaster it was for Labour. i can't recall anyone saying they were a significant player in this by-election!

Or the Tories do preside over No Deal and somehow manage it through...yes, that won't happen, just kidding.

calz IT’S WALES ! pits and, uh, lava bread and uh fire in the belly... jemry crombyn should have won by 50%

https://kmflett.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/corbynsanta.jpg

it seems Labour haven't done anything there since '85. Build a wall!

"get offa me, wales!"

Builth a wall.

A Friday feeling tweet?

9 days in the job and Boris Johnson has so far: tanked the pound; lost a by-election; squandered Billions on a No-Deal Brexit No-one voted for; and toured the UK prompting widespread calls for its break-up. So, I expect Labour is now making big gains in the polls...?

— Owen Smith (@OwenSmith_MP) August 2, 2019

Labour hasn't held the place in 40 yrs, I think. Anyone in mid-Wales who wants the Tories out always votes Lib Dem, inc. my socialist shop steward F-I-L.

Commentators: people should reach out across the partisan divide and vote for whoever is most likely to benefit Remain in their constituency.
Same Commentators: this result is a disaster for Labour

Quite sure that zebra is one of my weird left twitter faves now. <3

Do people not remember the stuff after Labour winning the Peterborough by-election that they were supposed to lose?

The only take from this pair of by-elections is that the Brexit Party is doing damage to the Tories and the Tories only. Johnson has got to make Farage go away, but its not clear whether that means The Brexit Party goes away, or whether the people voting for them automatically go back to the Tories. I've just not seen any analysis on these questions (no surprise there, the people meant to be doing it just tweet shit all day).

note that Owen Smith says 'Labour' rather than 'we'

Owen “29 inch dick” Smith would know all about big gains

it's interesting to see how labour have slowly tanked in brecon from it being a safe seat from the 40s to the 70s, getting around 20k votes, to narrowly losing out to the tories in 79, then gradually ebbing away to a truly terrible 1680 votes yesterday. seems indicative of when labour stopped caring about wales

Guardian article had a quote from a local who'd voted Labour until ten years ago, felt lied to by them, went Tory then felt let diwn by them over austerity, now "voting for Nigel Farage" and hoping they won't be lied to by him, because apparently that hadn't happened yet. Too many with that mentality nationwide.

blaming the voters is both always correct and always wrong

Westminster pays less attention to Wales then pretty much anywhere else in the UK afaik.

all the ppl arguing abt whether we should prioritise hs2 or manchester-leeds or whatever have clearly never enjoyed the totally unreliable diesel (!) service in wales

altho wales has been neglected by govt, the labour party and the media, we do remember them when it comes to thinking of where to dump nuclear waste

boundary changes might be responsible for some of the dribbling away too?

They don't exactly stand up for themselves, the Welsh, do they? Not anymore anyway. They almost had to impose devolution on them.

Longshanks did a proper job on them!