this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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In the United Kingdom, there’s a tradition of letting the political party of any lawmaker assassinated in an act of political violence run unopposed in the by-election. (lemmynsfw.com)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Batley_and_Spen_by-election

It lets people know violence cannot change the balance of power.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It lets people know violence cannot change the balance of power

No it doesn't.

Say you support party A, which politician B is a member of. Politician B doesn't agree exactly with you though. And you don't like that.

So if you merc the candidate you don't agree with for the party you support, their runner up (who you preferred anyways) runs unopposed and is guaranteed to win even if everyone hates them.

Even if it's not intentional, just handing the election off is incredibly fucked up.

Why the fuck would anyone support this after understanding what it means?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

It's a by-election, i.e. voting in their replacement. The next election they'd have to fight for their seat as usual.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

... Isn't wanting to kill someone with vastly different views more common than wanting to kill someone with only slightly different views?

Like, sure someone could kill someone in the party they like for the chance to get someone they like better in power. But realistically it won't change much (they're still bound by the same whip) and it's not worth the risk of going to jail.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

… Isn’t wanting to kill someone with vastly different views more common than wanting to kill someone with only slightly different views?

Literally two Republicans tried to kill the Republican presidential candidate in the last year...

You really can't imagine a world where someone believes the candidate from their party is either too extreme or not extreme enough on a wedge issue that they'd try to kill them to guarantee someone else from the same party wins?

Like...

I overestimate people, I can admit that

But do you legitimately just not understand why this is bad?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don’t forget the Republican mob that wanted to hang the VP on January 6.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Even just a primary...

Your pick comes in second place, if you get the one from your own party that made it to the general, your first pick is now guaranteed the office.

Like, great sentiment, but I think the reason it works in the UK, is 99.99% of the population can't get a high powered rifle in an afternoon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Firstly, the Prime Minister and an MP are very different, so it's not really a fair comparison. Replacing an MP with one of the same party might result in what? Your bins being taken out on a different day?

Anyway, I think this is a "don't let perfect be the enemy of good situation". Without any safeguards, an assassination is most likely to come from someone across the political spectrum than someone next to them. So it makes sense to focus on preventing that even if it does open a potential (risky to execute) exploit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Everywhere should do this. If you're able to kill a politician and it triggers an election for anyone, then you're just sort of implying that political terrorism works. At least to an extent. The violence was able to indeed effect change because some loner or a group of lunatics is able to kill someone and stop the line of work of the party they disagree with. Now, that may not affect votes themselves in a byelection but still. It's not a message you want to send.

Edit: Oop sorry OP. Only just saw the text you had on the post. I'm just whole ass repeating you.

Edit 2: From the wikipedia.... Conservativism as a political moviement is a blight on humanity.

On 18 June 2016, Liberty GB announced that Jack Buckby, a former BNP politician, would be its candidate in the by-election.[14] Liberty GB registered the description "No to terrorism, yes to Britain", which appeared on the ballot paper instead of the party name.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

The BNP were not what we would call Conservatives. They were thugs and nationalistic bigots. Conservatives are a bit less thuggy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't think that's true in the US. Jus sayin'