Re:Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament
by orbifold on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @07:11AM
(#18920135)
A serious body that is inhabited by Front National, AFD, Die Partei (they switch their parliamentary representative every 3 month, so that 4 people get a salary of ~30000 a year) and other reprehensible or joke parties.
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I don't think this is actually a bug; I think small fringe parties deserve representation, and it's an inescapable consequence of being serious about proportional representation.
Arguably Farage has been a "shadow" party leader in the UK for years. I wonder how differently things would have gone under a PR system where there were a few UKIP MPs off in one corner. As it was, they had no influence right up to the point where they "flipped" a large section of the Tory party into being pro-Brexit.
I also think that Farage shows that having a safe seat in the media is far more important than in Parliament for small parties; the national media have consistently given him far more coverage than comparable small or regional parties, because he's "good entertainment".