this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
524 points (98.9% liked)

UK Politics

4113 readers
128 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Source is here: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2025/02/20/c33bd/1

That source allows you to see the results according to political affiliation. Pluralities of supporters of the Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems think that supporting Ukraine is more important.

The exception is Reform UK, whose supporters think that good relations with the USA are more important than supporting Ukraine.

all 37 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OscarCunningham@lemmy.world 31 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If it were an option, then it might be better to selfishly keep good relations with the US. But Trump will always try to extract as much as possible, regardless of 'good relations'. So the choice is really between helping Ukraine or not, knowing the US will be the same either way.

[–] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

it might be better to selfishly keep good relations with the US

Or the UK could prioritise good relations with Europe instead, which the public seems to support (source for below image):

Chart showing the results of a YouGov poll, asking Brits which trading partner should be the UK's biggest priority. The top result in the poll was the EU - 46% of Brits thought the EU should be the UK's biggest trade priority. The next result was the US - 21% of Brits thought the US should be the UK's biggest trade priority. More details about the poll can be seen at the source link to The Guardian provided in this post.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

getting your thumb slammed in a door is more important than good relations with the usa

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 4 points 5 months ago

The slime mold growing up the side of a seasonal creek down the road is more important than good relations with the USA...

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What would be the point of sucking up to the current iteration of the US? They'll stab you in the back regardless.

It's a clear time to increase unity with Europe. I don't mean re-open any EU discussions, simply work with them on united response to Russian aggression.

[–] withabeard@feddit.uk 9 points 5 months ago

It's almost like the disunity with europe is part of some targeted effort

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago

American here. Good.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Damn right.

If Ukraine falls it won't matter if you have good relations with US, because Russia won't stop there.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Indeed. I really hope EU already knows this.

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm American, and I think that too.

[–] aramova 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Came to say the same.

Half of us think the country shits gold and the world will bend over.

If you had a family member who behaved like we did, it would be time for an intervention.

Christ, I'd rather see Boris Johnson as our president than what we have, at least he's Mr Bean level of political stupid. Ours is just vile hate and greed.

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 months ago

Johnson would be better but his Mr Bean act is totally on purpose. He acts like that so you wouldn't think him capable of far right cruelty. I've read that he even intentionally messes up his hair before he goes in front of cameras.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Trump is [hopefully] a temporary problem.

Putin isn't going anywhere.

[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Trump is a temporary symptom. The problem is that a third of the US sees his evil bullshit and fucking loves it; another third sees his evil bullshit and remains completely apathetic to it and can't be bothered to so much as waddle over to their mailbox to submit a ballot in opposition to it; and the remaining third is only given a lesser-evil option that comes with some seriously demotivating baggage like fucking genocide.

And even if it's less genocide than the other guy, shit like that is always going to make a major dent in that third's turnout, paving the way for the situation we're in now.

Even if Trump is actively being assassinated as I post this (yo, god: pretty pretty please?) some other evil bigot will fill the vacuum. Now, if he gets assassinated too, we might be on to something: sending the message that being an evil oppressive sack of shit comes with a major mortal liability is the short term fix we absolutely need, but we've all seriously underestimated the degree of enthusiastic evil in the average voter.

[–] uienia@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Trump may be temporary, but the oligarch fascists flocking around him have realised how blatant they can act without facing any repercussions, and they will not relinquish this overt control of political power again, regardless of which president wins.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Fuck the current U.S. gov't. They're not interested in good relations with any of their allies. Russia is the true bed buddy.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why is there a "Neither" option? I mean in practice "Neither" could mean to strike a perfect 50/50 balance. Or it could mean to antagonize both of them. Or it could mean "i don't really care". So what makes "Neither" a separate and relevant category to "Don't know", which could also mean "i don't know how to prioritize the two" or "i don't really care" or "what is an US and is it a newer model or older than the Ukraine?"

[–] apis@beehaw.org 2 points 5 months ago

"Neither" implies they have an opinion on the relative prioritisation of the US and Ukraine by the UK, and believe that both should be prioritised to a similar degree:

"Don't know" implies they do not feel they know enough about the relationships the UK has with either country to form an opinion.

But yes, there is some fuzziness, as anyone who does not care is more likely to choose "neither" as there is no "either" option, yet many of this type of respondent will have picked "don't know".

[–] constantreadarr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I recently read an opinion piece by a GB News writer (masochism I guess) in which he said Keir Starmer was out of touch with UK sentiment for prioritising Ukraine over the US. Now, Sir Keir is a woeful prick of a red tory, but its quite nice to have confirmation that GBeebies are badly misinformed on this topic too.

[–] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 3 points 5 months ago

Many people will claim that the public is on their side, without providing actual evidence. I guess that's why polling is important.

Then you have some people who claim the polls are rigged, but I think it's more likely that the polls are pretty accurate.

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

American here - they're right

[–] Pippipartner@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I love "don't know" people. Those are the real MVPs.

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 2 points 5 months ago

Honesty is a lost art

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

It absolutely is.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 2 points 5 months ago

Good to see UK!

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why? Do they have credibility or other issues?

[–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, they only attract a certain kind of users (i.e. easily tricked by "bonus points" systems). It's an opt in rather than a random selection. Even if they claim to use common strategies to spread out the responses statistically, there is no way it is accurate.

YouGov bad: https://undark.org/2024/06/26/trolls-polls-survey-science/

YouGov good: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/poll-of-polls-mrp/

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Many thanks for the links, the first article was very interesting, I don't agree with your conclusion though :)

My takeaway is that traditional polling is mostly dead, because it has become prohibitively expensive to get a representative result. So if we still want to see regular opinion polls, then opt in polling is what we're going to get. And when it comes to opt in polling, yougov appears to be one of the better firms, from the article: "But opt-in polling firms run the gamut. Some, like YouGov, publish their methodology and strive to ensure the integrity of their data. Others, experts say, do not.".

[–] SleafordMod@feddit.uk 2 points 5 months ago

Are they inaccurate? What polling company would be better for this sort of political question?

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 months ago

After brexit indont give a shit anymore that the UK public thinks. They showed they're more than happy to vote for something insanely stupid and against their own best interests, only to start investing the subject right after voting for it.

This may be positive for us, but they may just as well vote for Putin taking over the UK government because some nitwit made an ad about it on a bus