"New party gets £50m backing to ‘break mould’ of UK politics."

[bindeweede]

Hot from the Guardian/Observer.

A new political party with access to up to £50m in funding has been secretly under development for more than a year by a network of entrepreneurs, philanthropists and donors keen to “break the Westminster mould”, the Observer can reveal.

The movement, spearheaded by a former Labour benefactor, is understood to have been drawn up by a group frustrated by the tribal nature of politics, the polarisation caused by Brexit and the standard of political leadership on all sides. It appears to have a centrist policy platform that borrows ideas from both left and right.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -uk-brexit

[Tony.Williams]

I await developments with interest but profound scepticism.

Any national party will almost certainly have its support spread over the constituencies rather than concentrated anywhere in particular, and in our electoral system it's the concentration of votes that's needed to get elected.

[bindeweede]

There has been an interesting response this morning from Andrew Rawnsley.

The moment of truth will come when we are closer to the EU departure date. It will be then that we will find out whether the many conversations about a new party amount to anything more than idle chatter.

It will be then that we will discover whether wistful talk turns into the bold action that would be required to make it happen. History scoffs at the idea. Precedent suggests that a new party will fail. Then again, the past few years have repeatedly shown us, from the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to Brexit, that precedent has become a lousy predictor.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -open-door