UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

Actually this is just good business for the Tories, and I&#x27;ve long expected it.<p>The opposition is in disarray under Corbyn, and our prime minister has never won an election. This is as easy a victory as Theresa May will ever be able to bank on, and legitimises her leadership in the eyes of a large section of the public. She can also claim (maybe rightly so) that she has the undisputed majority support of the public for whatever terms she gets for a hard Brexit from the EU.<p>In short; we&#x27;re screwed.

PM Theresa May on her reasoning for the snap election:<p>&quot;In recent weeks Labour have threatened to vote against the final agreement we reach with the European Union.<p>&quot;The Liberal Democrats said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill.<p>&quot;The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain&#x27;s membership of the European Union.<p>&quot;And un-elected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.<p>&quot;If we do not hold a general election now, their political game playing will continue.&quot;<p>--------<p>I for one hope their &#x27;political game playing&#x27; will only intensify in the future. After all, <i>it&#x27;s their job</i> to provide opposition.<p>Dark and scary times indeed.

Don&#x27;t rule out the very real possibility that this is about heading off the unprecedented police investigation that could lead to twenty Conservative MPs (larger than their working majority) being sent to prison.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;mar&#x2F;23&#x2F;conservative-election-scandal-victory-2015-expenses" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;mar&#x2F;23&#x2F;conservative-el...</a>

&quot;Simple&quot; explanation is this:<p>- May isn&#x27;t going to lose to Corbyn<p>- May has a slim majority, meaning she has to negotiate with people within the Conservative Party who might not agree with her on the Brexit terms.<p>- She&#x27;ll likely get a larger majority, so it makes it easier to deal with the rebels.<p>- For Corbyn, it&#x27;s interesting. He might be facing another leadership challenge if polls keep looking crap.<p>- He wants to have an actual attempt at a GE, where he can make his case to the public.<p>- He won the leadership challenge last year, so he knows his fans are at least loyal for now.<p>- Why does Corbyn&#x27;s opinion matter? Well back when Cameron did a deal with Clegg, they did a fixed terms act, meaning elections had to happen every 5 years. This one is within 5 years of the previous, so you actually need a two-thirds majority in Parliament to trigger it.

Some people criticize May whatever she does. If she calls election, because she wants to destroy opposition or because the election will cause more political instability, and if she doesn&#x27;t, because she is afraid of democracy or something.<p>Honestly, this makes no sense at all.

In my fantasy of UK politics, the centre and centre-left parties would form an opposition coalition ahead of the poll, proposing some radical reforms like PR, as well as some socially progressive policies like reigning in the surveillance state, thoroughly reviewing the drug laws, reviewing basic income as an idea and instituting some sort of evidence-basis mandate for law-making.<p>I realise this is a pipe-dream, however.

May&#x27;s reasoning is basically that there is an opposition now, and that there should not be.<p>The thought of indefinite unopposed Tory rule is sickening.

Conspiracy theory: May expects the Art 50 talks to not go well and having the election after Brexit has fully played out over the next two years will damage her approval rate. Having the election now means she doesn&#x27;t have to worry about her approval throughout the negotiations and won&#x27;t have to face an election right at the time the consequences of Brexit are felt by most voters.

I used to be a Conservative supporter, but now I just look at Westminster and wonder what the hell happened. Didn&#x27;t David Cameron basically do this very same thing only a year ago? He expected everyone to be with him and vote Remain, and look how that turned out. Now Theresa May is literally following in his footsteps, thinking everyone is on her side. I&#x27;m so confused.<p>I&#x27;m actually thinking of voting for Lib Dems for the first time in my life, only because they said they&#x27;d hold another EU Referendum. And I say this because I honestly don&#x27;t trust any party actually want&#x27;s to take us through Brexit anymore, nor will any of them do a good job of it. I feel like a Lib Dem government is currently the best of a bad bunch.

LibDems&#x2F;Labour should just go into these elections saying &quot;we&#x27;ll keep the kingdom together&quot;. I think there is a fair chunk of people who voted leave who didn&#x27;t actually realize they were voting for England and Wales to leave Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than voting for the UK to leave the EU.<p>If Labour and LibDems play their cards right, couldn&#x27;t they make these elections about the mandate for Conservatives the break the United Kingdom apart, rather than a mandate to negotiate with the EU.<p>Under those circumstances: how big an upset is needed for the election results to be seen as a complete disqualification of the Brexit vote?

Smart timing from May - this will be devastating for Corbyn.<p>Current polling: CON 43, LAB 25 [1]<p>Conservatives won the 2015 Election polling at 34% [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ukpollingreport.co.uk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;9828" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ukpollingreport.co.uk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;archives&#x2F;9828</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;9&#x2F;96&#x2F;UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;9&#x2F;96&#x2F;UK_opini...</a>

So... how big is the chance that the LibDems will promise to try to reverse Brexit, or at least go for the softest possible Brexit, and everyone who wants to remain votes for them, and they would get 51%, or at least enough to force a coalition government?<p>Probably zero, especially given the weirdo FPTP system, but I&#x27;m curious anyway.

...but she&#x27;s gonna refuse scotland the chance for a quick referendum to get THEIR house in order before the brexit?

She is really counting on there not being enough time for the opposition to turn this into another vote on Brexit or a vote on Scotland or a vote on the NHS or a vote on all of the above. We live in interesting times.

As if the UK needed more political turmoil.

She&#x27;s announced her <i>intention</i> to call a general election.<p>Before it can actually happen, she needs 2&#x2F;3s of MPs to agree, according to the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Otherwise, it&#x27;s a five-year term whether the current PM likes it or not.<p>This is an odd one, because if we have the election then it&#x27;s likely to be a Tory landslide, but the Tories have only a narrow majority in the House of Commons and so need the turkeys to vote for Christmas.<p>On the other hand, Labour is currently led by Jeremy Corbyn, so it&#x27;s entirely possible that enough of the turkeys will vote for every day of the year to be Christmas.

A useful article to those who think &quot;aside from saying &#x27;Brexit means brexit&#x27; a lot, what has Theresa May done since taking power?&quot;:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;voices&#x2F;theresa-may-brexit-first-100-days-prime-minister-in-power-rated-successes-failures-nhs-refugees-a7371471.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;voices&#x2F;theresa-may-brexit-first...</a><p>NB: The article&#x27;s from October 2016 so slightly dated, but still useful

My quick (and probably off) analysis: Tories found this timing to be the best one to call an election based on the disarray of UKIP and Labour. Tories are again playing politics, they want to get a good slice of UKIP vote and keep Labour at the current level at best. I believe the only real alternative to another May government is for Lib Dems, Labour, Green, to make a coalition against this Tory initiative. Otherwise, should be an easy win for May.

If you don&#x27;t like the idea of an election because your preferred party is going to loose, democracy isn&#x27;t for you.

Worst possible timing, who do I vote for? I live in a tory safe seat currently.

I knew I should have put a bet on this, we were never going to leave Europe. Which ever parties manifesto says stay in Europe will win - end of story.