AHC: Monster Raving Loony Party gain seats in the House of Commons

With a PoD anywhere between its foundation to the present day, make the Monster Raving Loony Party gain, and hold, seats in the House of Commons. It does not matter whether those seats were gained in a general or by-election.
 
Perhaps a sitting MP could defect to them either as a publicity stunt or to prove some abstract point about the state of politics. Alternatively, the UK could adopt a particularly lax form of PR, and either a lack of thresholds or vote transfers in a particularly large STV constituency like the Motoring Enthusiast Party in Australia allows them to win an MP.
 
Scenario:
The public is sick and tired of Conservative government.
But Labour under Corbyn (or some other) is viewed as not being supportable
And the LibDems cratered in popularity having been in coalition and seen as Conservative lapdogs.

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handwave PR voting system
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Suddenly MRLP and a few others make it over the national 5% barrier, and get multiple MPs.
 
A Tory government really screws up vs the EU, at a point where the Liberals or their successors have cratered in the polls for whatever reason, while Labour splits. UKIP advances but is plagued by infighting, and the Greens make some gains but they are limited due to their hippy/ cat lady image. A by-election happens in one of the English speaking parts of Wales, and there is an independent candidate with some support, at a time when people are really pissed off with politics.

While 80% of the electorate votes for the Tory, Labour, Social Democratic, Liberal, UKIP, Green, Plaid Cymru, or independent candidate, the highest any one of these gets is 11%. The Monster Raving Loony candidate happens to get 11% as well, translating into something like 1600 actual votes or so, and gets elected.
 
Shortly after the start of a new Parliament an obscure and newly elected backbench MP decides to to raise his profile by defecting to the Loonies for a week to raise money for Comic Relief.

After a couple of days he has an accident and goes into a coma. There is a lot of sympathy from the press and public.

Shortly after the story about MP's expenses breaks and our hero is shown to be one of the few that isn't involved.

He remains in a coma until the dissolution of Parliament and his original party selects another candidate. However the Loonies choose him despite (or because) he is still comatose.

A combination sympathy, anger about expenses and a Boaty McBoatface mood among the public leads to his re-election
 
The Loonies stand a candidate with exactly the same name as the sitting MP (either by birth or by deed poll).

The candidate stands under the ballot description 'Conversative', 'Literal Democrat' or 'Laboar' or something (this would be before the mid-90s, when this practice was banned, but the Loony heyday was well past by then anyway, so it works).

Hopefully they've chosen a constituency full of thick people (pretty likely if it's a [INSERT MOST HATED PARTY HERE] constituency, amirite?) so they get loads of votes from confused people, and somehow win by a couple of votes.

That's honestly the most Monster Raving Loony way of doing it: make a mockery of the system, just for a cheap - and weak - laugh.
 
Didn't we have a TL where the SDP-Liberal Alliance won the 1983 GE, instituted PR (or some such electoral system) leading to the Loonies picking up the last seat on preferences?
 
Didn't we have a TL where the SDP-Liberal Alliance won the 1983 GE, instituted PR (or some such electoral system) leading to the Loonies picking up the last seat on preferences?

That was my TL "Clustershag To Ten Downing Street" though I would take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. I had A county wide constituency (I think, its been a while) with Melody "Boney Maroney" getting in, essentially due to protest votes against William Hague/The Tory govt.
 
I could see it happening under FPTP due to a protest vote where the Loon is personally popular (after all Stewart Hughes was elected as one) and the vote is badly split. McDonnell won Belfast South with under 25% so I think it could happen.
 
That was my TL "Clustershag To Ten Downing Street" though I would take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. I had A county wide constituency (I think, its been a while) with Melody "Boney Maroney" getting in, essentially due to protest votes against William Hague/The Tory govt.

Will read that in due course. It was another TL, with Paul Simon as US President in 1988 and I think it was Howling Laud Hope who was the one who became an MP.
 
Will read that in due course. It was another TL, with Paul Simon as US President in 1988 and I think it was Howling Laud Hope who was the one who became an MP.

Oh cool :) that sounds good too. and far more serious than mine
 
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