[Canada]

There isn't the political will to remove the organized criminals who have been running Canada for decades, since the 1960s if not longer. Most people don't see how dire the circumstances are and even if they feel the country is on the wrong path they continue to believe that voting for the other guy can fix it. Same for Australia and New Zealand.

There is some hope in the British Isles. To anyone reading this who can see that simply electing this party or that party changes nothing: Take a good look at what Restore Britain is doing there, and consider supporting if you're in a position to do so. Nothing is easy, but they are drawing together more people who understand what it really means to say "no" to this system than I've ever seen organize anywhere else.

[cianmm]

Reading what Restore Britain stands for just makes them seem like another set of MAGA wannabes rather than the saviours of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restore_Britain

[foldr]

Even leaving aside the unsavory views of the party you mention, it’s quite misleading (to readers who don’t follow UK politics) to suggest that there’s any hope of it winning an election.

[ben_w]

> it’s quite misleading (to readers who don’t follow UK politics) to suggest that there’s any hope of it winning an election.

I wish.

Brexit was pretty unthinkable even just a few years before the referendum. And now… well, toss-up between the top 5(!) parties, because somehow the Greens and Lib Dems are polling at similar levels to Conservative and Labour, all a bit behind Reform who didn't exist a few years back.

And when bad times come, insular nationalism (both in the sense of xenophobia and autarky) poll well.

The world-wide bad-times storm is getting super-charged right now, though I can't tell how much this is malice vs. incompetence from the White House.

[foldr]

You can’t seriously be suggesting that a political party that most Brits haven’t even heard of has any chance of winning the next election.

[ben_w]

"an election" (what you wrote first time) != "the next election" (what you write now).

Next-but-one, perhaps. Although even for the next one, everyone's so weak I'd only put mild odds against them.

I don't want them to win ever*, but failing to plan is planning to fail, and there's big money getting involved here, and the UK political system still hasn't caught up with the impact of social networks and foreign influence through them at all.

And one of those social networks is run by someone who sees no problem calling for civil war in the UK, though he's currently supporting one of the other "I wish it was a joke party" parties.

* Although I can also say that about Reform, where, if I still lived in the UK, if my options were them or the actual literal Monster Raving Loony Party, I'd pick the latter. Then again, that doesn't say much as I'd pick the Monster Raving Loony Party over the Conservatives, too.

[foldr]

I think it goes without saying that things can change unexpectedly in the longer run, but this party simply isn’t a factor in national politics at present.

[dijit]

This defeatist attitude causes the situation we’re in.

Voting against someone rather than for someone is a sure-fire way to get some of the worst politicians in power as possible, they only need to be marginally less bad than the other candidate after all.

Restore Britain is a populist joke btw. Greens might be my side of the fence but they’re also populist. Hard to get air time as a small party without some form of sweeping emotional appeals and “common sense” thinking, even if it’s internally inconsistent and very broad.

[blell]

Have you realised those in power right now are against you? And it seems to work very well for them.

[dijit]

No, I live in Sweden where coalition governments are pretty common and people tend to vote for the party they agree with.

Same is true in the EU elections, since their system is more democratic than the UK one.

I’m intimately familiar with the shortcomings of the election system in the UK as I am British, but I’ve experienced other formulations and I can see that this line of thinking enables the abuse you claim to be dispelling by allowing it to continue..?

[mcintyre1994]

You only need to look at the US to see that a government dedicated to mass deportation is more authoritarian and worse for civil liberties.

[AJRF]

Look to America to see what would happen to civil liberty in the pursuit of mass deportations. Discounting many things from the conversation - on the topic of this thread; Restore sounds like they'd be the single worst party to vote for if you were against mass surveillance.

[danbolt]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “organized criminals”? I hope you’re not poisoning the well!

I ask this as someone who has no love or support for the Liberals.