the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

You kidding, it's the UK, it'll take longer than that.

I'm just impatient.

Here's how Home Office officials interpret "hostile environment"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/03/home-office-official-tells-man-facing-deportation-my-job-is-to-piss-you-off

well, you can't fault the guy's enthusiasm for hostility i guess

I don't think they do exit polls for local elections?

good question, I was too scared to ask!

I just thought there might be this year with historically blue boroughs ready to fall etc.

in London I should add.

I've never been exit polled. There's usually a Lib Dem and a Labour person at the polling station that ask my address so they can cross me off their list, but they've never asked me how I voted.

Wait (furnur here) why do they want your address? Do you give it to them?

It will be private exit polls this year. And a drone sniper shooting anyone who looks like a classic lefty. (facial recognition software used from yesterday's Sun article,yay!)

i never give them my address, some of them go mental. it's beautiful.

I've never been asked my address after voting

why do they ask in the first place? who are these people?

they ask before if they catch you, i think they have a checklist of people who've promised to vote for them or something and they're keeping tabs. this one Lib Dem lady got very unliberal very quickly when I said "no thanks".

Glad it's illegal for party people (lol) to hang about polling stations here. Prob for the best, too, it would get ugly.

I got asked for my polling number today. I often say, "Don't worry, I'm voting Labour, as usual".

I'd never give my address to people asking strangers for their address ffs

Of course not.

I don't quite get this...is this a separate moment to being asked your address when you're given yr ballots?

yeah, this is party activists trying to manage/rally their support

Each time I've voted since moving into my current house one of the polling adjudicators (? not sure what to call them) comments that she lives on my street and has to keep redelivering post to my next door neighbour because of the confusing numbering on my street. Tbf it is pretty confusing, there are 3 number 4s on our street, so ordering pizza can be an ordeal.

I have this bizarre level of respect and admiration for the people who actually volunteer to work at polling stations. Like I've no idea where they come from or what the process is but they always seem to just be random civically minded people rather than political wonks, doing it for no pay or glamour or status or anything else.

Warning from history: when they start bringing in voter ID in these benign smiley volunteers will be at the vanguard of voter disenfranchisement and possibly morph into the UK's own future SS!

I've just realized that I've never been asked my address because every time i voted in a polling station i was in a constituency with a > 10,000 labour majority and so no-one was bothering to check

xxpost, do you mean party activists or the electoral staff as the latter definitely get paid.

I'd imagine they get a price-work deal on how many poor or ethnic voters they knock back in the voter ID "testing" boroughs today.

> when they start bringing in voter ID

They've already started turning away people without id, see above. Limited rollout but they'll expand it if it proves valuable to them.

Xp

(but, again, the only if they wanted from me was the information on the voting card that I'd just given them. Not secure...)

(the only info... Fucking autocorrect)

A 76-year-old man who has lived in Bromley for 40 years told The Independent he was “shocked” to be turned away because he did not have a bank card or passport. “This is a nonsense scheme,” Peter White added.

lol! I think they might not be happy about this type of thing happening re: Voter ID trails

Voter ID trials, even.

I loved that Tory trolling Faisal Rashid tweet where he encourages Labour voters to "vote early and vote often". Don't worry pal, we'll make every one of those 2nd + 3rd votes count.

A friend's post of Facebook, which may be useful to our foreign cousins (and us, lbh)

** Your regular polling station etiquette reminder/re-post from previous local elections, as these questions have popped up in several places today and might be helpful to others. **

- There are no restrictions on campaigning on or near polling day in the BUT campaigning is not permitted inside polling stations. If you see it happening, report it to the polling station staff. Edited to add: This includes the wearing of campaign t-shirts and rosettes etc.

- There may be someone from a political party outside your polling station asking you for the number on your polling card. These folk are called tellers - I've volunteered as one for the Labour party in the past. We used this info to make sure we are only knocking on the doors of those who haven't already voted and so not wasting our time - or yours! But you don’t need to share this info.

- Can you take photos inside the polling station? Can you just not, says the Electoral Commission. But if you insist on taking a sneaky selfie of you exercising your right to vote, make sure it's really intimate and shows just you, your face and definitely nothing else like your unique ballot paper reference number or someone else's face and their ballot paper. But really, it's best to just wait until you are outside.

- Pen or pencil? UGH NOBODY IS GOING TO TAMPER WITH YOUR VOTE. I've worked as a counter, and a scruntineer. Nobody is going to be able to alter your vote once it's been placed in the ballot box. But it if makes you feel happier to use a pen - FINE.

We used this info to make sure we are only knocking on the doors of those who haven't already voted and so not wasting our time - or yours!

lol great system you got there lads - Labour canvassers came and banged on our door after I'd already voted and given my address to the teller, and I'm the only person registered to vote in this house.

man, #usepens almost counts as a fond memory these days.

This is why you got relegated tbh https://t.co/8xfjGY4u9R

— Congolesa “Fire @Jack” Rice (@judeinlondon2) May 3, 2018

Pallion (Sunderland) result:

LDem: 60.1% (+57.0)
Lab: 29.4% (-18.4)
Con: 7.3% (-7.0)
Grn: 3.1% (-1.7)

LDem GAIN.

No UKIP (-30.1) as prev.

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018

Turnout 0.05%

innit

Liden, Eldene & Park South (Swindon) result:

Lab: 44.2% (+9.3)
Con: 41.1% (+12.3)
UKIP: 7.0% (-21.4)
LDem: 4.7% (+1.4)
Grn: 2.9% (-1.7)

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 3, 2018

magic fucking roundabout and 3 sided stadium has gone red.

sorry I didn't even check if that is the bit where the County Ground is and might be mixing the 3 side thing up with the Kassam!

aren't local elections just so riveting!

famous people from Nuneaton: Julian Alsop, footballer.Stuart Attwell, Premier League referee.

say no more, Shiteaton more like.

One of the many stupid fallacies pedalled by Labour members of all stripes is that voters (and I mean the minority who actually vote in local elections) care about whether their local candidates are centrist or 'moderate' or socialist or whatever. They'll vote according to which party they feel impelled to vote for at national level, driven at least in part by a load of factors that local councillors can't really influence in any case.

There are exceptions to this - Haringey for example, and Kensington & Chelsea is going to be a unique circumstance - but most people will just vote for whoever is wearing the appropriately coloured rosette.

things i just learned: noodle vague is named after a place next to nuneaton that just fucked itself over

Share changes of the results we have so far:

Con: +9.0
Lab: +4.1
LDem: +3.8
Grn: +2.9
UKIP: -19.3

Swing to Tories.

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) May 4, 2018

Not really Britain Elects tbh. Some places in England, basically.

There are exceptions to this - Haringey for example, and Kensington & Chelsea is going to be a unique circumstance - but most people will just vote for whoever is wearing the appropriately coloured rosette.

Hmm, or maybe K&C might just not be an exception after all...

I see Ranjit Banwait (Labour Derby council leader) has lost his seat to UKIP after occasional RT guest, K Livingstone apologist and f/t clown -Derby MP- Chris Williamsom said: "It's the easiest period to campaign for Labour in my entire life". I keep saying that guy needs to be jettisoned before a general election is called.