UK Politics: A Farcical Aquatic Ceremony

[Derfel Cadarn]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Has George Osborne dissolved into nothingness? I'd have thought the chancellor's input on the economic situation might be useful at this stage but clearly not.

Also reports that Gove might serve as chancellor under Boris. Terrifying.

The BBC commented on his absence yesterday.

 

my guess is he's holed up somewhere giggling maniacally and drafting a punitive budget written in the blood of pensioners.

 

either that or Lucifer's decided its job done, and recalled his servant back to Hell.

[Sophelia]

Going back to the topic of a General Election, if one will be called in, say, November, and if the election comes down to choosing the parties on their approach to the EU issue (as seems likely based on the fact that more people voted in the referendum than in the average general election), what do people think the parties' pitches will be?

I'm going to assume for a moment the (rather unlikely) scenario that each party is completely honest in what it promises, so first is to try and guess what that might be:

(1) UKIP will continue to push for 'sovereignty' and 'controls on immigration', so I presume any trade deals for getting some of benefit of EU single market will not be considered (unless the EU as a whole rapidly starts to make any compromises on free movement), so they will introduce a points system for immigration and play down impact on economy, trade and therefore on jobs and standard of living.

(2) The LibDems have already said they will have a 'not leaving EU' manifesto policy.  This might actually be the one thing which puts them in with a chance!  The Greens might do this too?

(3) The Tories - anyone want to predict what kind of strategies they might have?  Say as they want to save the economy they may be are forced to go for the "leave EU but try to negotiate some arrangement to access the EU single market" - or will they focus on rushing in TTIP and some negotiations with Canada/Australia etc, and worry about the EU later, allowing them to make some concessions to the anti-immigration people?  Anyone have any insight into what the Tory Leave bunch actually hoped to achieve (apart from removing the 'red tape' of workers' rights to make it easier to sack people etc.)?  Regarding the Tories' possible situation  there's a very interesting Guardian comment making the rounds on social media

(4) Labour - again really hard to tell.  My guess (as I said earlier) is that they are going to have to honour the Leave voters' wishes (otherwise they lose 30% of their voters), but they are going to have to deal with an impossible situation where the country (in my view) will be suffering horribly with another recession, job losses etc, and if Corbyn is still in power they don't want to go for austerity, so they will be borrowing to try and keep industries afloat, support all those who are unemployed, pensioners in hardship because pensions aren't worth as much, and they will have the immigration issues to worry about too, with need for immigration, any EU trading deals probably requiring free movement, but substantial numbers of people against it. I don't think in this situation they have a chance to achieve much of what their core voters might want.

 

 

[red snow]

32 minutes ago, Sophelia said:

OK, I understand that - he may be a good opposer, but that does not make him a good implementer.  I think that is what I don't know how to find out: I have no direct knowledge of his conversations with his cabinet, to know if he could have done better working with them.

As for compromising with where the population is, people seem to attack him whether he is perceived as compromising or as not compromising.  For example people have said his campaigning for Remain was 'obviously something he didn't believe in' and 'lacklustre' (where they think he has compromised).  But he was also attacked for saying (honestly) that staying in the EU meant immigration (from within the EU) could not be controlled, because this would not get voters on his side.  So sometimes it seems people want him to compromise and other times they don't want him to compromise - he just can't win!

I still think that boils down to the group who want someone with more socialist and traditional labour values (what Corbyn represents) and those who want to have an opportunity to gain power. The thing is if they switched to a leader who could appeal to a wider demographic the Corbynites would still vote for Labour in an election - because there currently isn't much in the way of alternative places to vote. It is a really tricky scenario for them. Like I said I think Labour can have Corbyn and look to being a coalition government but then the question is whether comprising current labour values is better/worse than comprising values by foming a coalition with say the lib dems or greens.

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Has George Osborne dissolved into nothingness? I'd have thought the chancellor's input on the economic situation might be useful at this stage but clearly not.

Also reports that Gove might serve as chancellor under Boris. Terrifying.

I hope Osborne is busy tackling more pressing matters at the moment like a new budget. But often it's the quiet tories that wind up striking hard in Tory leader issues - especially when they have the PM. I'm sure it's no co-incidence that Theresa May is staying quiet too.

40 minutes ago, Hello World said:

Not very informed on any of this but wouldn't it have been better to require a two-thirds majority for an exit or something like that? Everyone is saying "the people have decided", yeah, but by what? 52 to 48% or so? Doesn't make sense to me to change the entire fate of a country based on a decision with a 2% margin. 

There should have been clear goalposts beforehand. The fact there wasn't means it's binding. If it had been the other way I'd have been screaming it should stand so I should play fair. Even if it appears remain campaigners knew more about what they were voting about.

When I was indulging in hysteria on Friday I was of the "let the brexiters deal with all this mess". Now I'm becoming more rational and thinking the best way forward is to have a mixed group of leave/remain tories at the table going forward. That way there will be some representation of the other 48% (irrespective of whether they are Tory voters or not). Boris is clearly playing down the campaign rhetoric now andstill wants a relationship with the EU. How that washes with the teeth-grinding "keep them out" voters remains to be seen though.

[red snow]

5 minutes ago, Sophelia said:

Going back to the topic of a General Election, if one will be called in, say, November, and if the election comes down to choosing the parties on their approach to the EU issue (as seems likely based on the fact that more people voted in the referendum than in the average general election), what do people think the parties' pitches will be?

I'm going to assume for a moment the (rather unlikely) scenario that each party is completely honest in what it promises, so first is to try and guess what that might be:

(1) UKIP will continue to push for 'sovereignty' and 'controls on immigration', so I presume any trade deals for getting some of benefit of EU single market will not be considered (unless the EU as a whole rapidly starts to make any compromises on free movement), so they will introduce a points system for immigration and play down impact on economy, trade and therefore on jobs and standard of living.

(2) The LibDems have already said they will have a 'not leaving EU' manifesto policy.  This might actually be the one thing which puts them in with a chance!  The Greens might do this too?

(3) The Tories - anyone want to predict what kind of strategies they might have?  Say as they want to save the economy they may be are forced to go for the "leave EU but try to negotiate some arrangement to access the EU single market" - or will they focus on rushing in TTIP and some negotiations with Canada/Australia etc, and worry about the EU later, allowing them to make some concessions to the anti-immigration people?  Anyone have any insight into what the Tory Leave bunch actually hoped to achieve (apart from removing the 'red tape' of workers' rights to make it easier to sack people etc.)?  Regarding the Tories' possible situation  there's a very interesting Guardian comment making the rounds on social media

(4) Labour - again really hard to tell.  My guess (as I said earlier) is that they are going to have to honour the Leave voters' wishes (otherwise they lose 30% of their voters), but they are going to have to deal with an impossible situation where the country (in my view) will be suffering horribly with another recession, job losses etc, and if Corbyn is still in power they don't want to go for austerity, so they will be borrowing to try and keep industries afloat, support all those who are unemployed, pensioners in hardship because pensions aren't worth as much, and they will have the immigration issues to worry about too, with need for immigration, any EU trading deals probably requiring free movement, but substantial numbers of people against it. I don't think in this situation they have a chance to achieve much of what their core voters might want.

 

 

Point 1) is the one that will have the clearest message and be the most terrifying. Given your potential breakdown i think there'd be a coalition government but I've no idea which mix it would consist of.

I think I'd rather have the tories sort it out than have UKIP in the mix. They are too antagonistic and will encourage harsh repsonses from the EU.

It's interesting how the EU are now reconsidering how they they deal with non Euro (and to a lesser extent Euro). They didn't expect the UK to leave and it looks like they wish they'd taken it more seriously. Which is a massive shame as a better renogiation deal could have been enough to swing voters in the UK. Hindsight is a great thing though and I still think the free movement would have been non-negotiable and hence the ultimate result would probably have been the same.

[Slick Mongoose]

8 minutes ago, red snow said:

When I was indulging in hysteria on Friday I was of the "let the brexiters deal with all this mess". Now I'm becoming more rational and thinking the best way forward is to have a mixed group of leave/remain tories at the table going forward. That way there will be some representation of the other 48% (irrespective of whether they are Tory voters or not). Boris is clearly playing down the campaign rhetoric now andstill wants a relationship with the EU. How that washes with the teeth-grinding "keep them out" voters remains to be seen though.

Well that's the problem, a best-case deal will probably involve us having to accept freedom of movement, and paying money for access to the common market.

Somehow I don't think this is what the majority of leave voters actually voted for. So who do they blame?

[Hereward]

5 minutes ago, red snow said:

I still think that boils down to the group who want someone with more socialist and traditional labour values (what Corbyn represents) and those who want to have an opportunity to gain power.

You keep saying this and it isn't wholly true. Corbyn represents metropolitan middle class Labour, as (Tony) Benn did, which has always been part of the Labour tradition, but more mainstream traditional Labour values are surely more working class, more socially conservative and traditionalist. Those voters are being lost, and at an increasing rate every time Emily Thornberry appears on TV, but they still exist.It's a false dichotomy to say the split is between Corbynistas and those who only want power. 

[Maltaran]

16 minutes ago, Sophelia said:

(2) The LibDems have already said they will have a 'not leaving EU' manifesto policy.  This might actually be the one thing which puts them in with a chance!  The Greens might do this too?

The problem here is, according to a Lib Dem guy on another board I visit, after all the lost deposits last year they may not have enough money to run a proper campaign, or even a full slate of candidates. He reckons they'll probably get back to 20 or so MPs.

4 minutes ago, Hereward said:

You keep saying this and it isn't wholly true. Corbyn represents metropolitan middle class Labour, as (Tony) Benn did, which has always been part of the Labour tradition, but more mainstream traditional Labour values are surely more working class, more socially conservative and traditionalist. Those voters are being lost, and at an increasing rate every time Emily Thornberry appears on TV, but they still exist.It's a false dichotomy to say the split is between Corbynistas and those who only want power. 

How many Labour MPs are there from the traditional working class base?

[red snow]

5 minutes ago, Hereward said:

You keep saying this and it isn't wholly true. Corbyn represents metropolitan middle class Labour, as (Tony) Benn did, which has always been part of the Labour tradition, but more mainstream traditional Labour values are surely more working class, more socially conservative and traditionalist. Those voters are being lost, and at an increasing rate every time Emily Thornberry appears on TV, but they still exist.It's a false dichotomy to say the split is between Corbynistas and those who only want power. 

I stand corrected on my terminology. I was trying to convey that the people who want Corbyn in charge have a different approach to new labour and milliband's labour (it's a fair argument those two have already failed). Like you said the voting base is changing. It just seems at the moment people are more in-line with Tory politics than Labour. Moving further away from the centre doesn't appear to be a winning combination but maybe Corbyn's approach will tap into something.

13 minutes ago, England's Finest said:

Well that's the problem, a best-case deal will probably involve us having to accept freedom of movement, and paying money for access to the common market.

Somehow I don't think this is what the majority of leave voters actually voted for. So who do they blame?

A toss up between those the Tories and the EU still. I'm sure UKIP will develop a narrative of how they'd give them what they promised if they were in government and brush over the fact Farage was lying to them during the campaign.

[Maltaran]

Rumours being reported that Corbyn's office "deliberately sabotaged" the Labour Remain campaign

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36633238

[Andrés Garcia]

I suspect that if racist assholes started preaching that we ought not to drink bleach, a bunch of people I know would be dead within the hour. In any case, I laughed out loud at the story about some Londoners wanting to secede.

A city wants to secede from a nation because it was terribly at odds with it during an election and the city feels like it should have more say about its own destiny. Meanwhile, the election was about the nation state wanting to secede from a supranational state that was terribly at odds with and the nation feels like it should have more say about its own destiny.

The fact that people don't even see the absurd irony in all of this and the lessons it invites is baffling to me. 

[ElizabethB.]

Look, Europe will never be and has never been united.
Europe is difficult, it seems. 

Again and again even the simplest things like distinguishing between the concepts of EU and Europe seem impossible to too many. 
Not to mention understanding the difference between not being able to do something and acquiring a visa before getting to do it.

[Hereward]

15 minutes ago, Maltrouane Fellaini said:

The problem here is, according to a Lib Dem guy on another board I visit, after all the lost deposits last year they may not have enough money to run a proper campaign, or even a full slate of candidates. He reckons they'll probably get back to 20 or so MPs.

How many Labour MPs are there from the traditional working class base?

9% according to the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/29/working-class-leaders-politicians

But I was talking about the party's supporters, and they are still a large, though ever declining, percentage of the Labour vote. 

[Hereward]

Is Tom Watson moving against Corbyn? Del Piero is a close ally, and there's now discussion of Watson taking over without a new leadership election. The West Midlands mafia knows how to fight dirty.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

41 minutes ago, red snow said:

Point 1) is the one that will have the clearest message and be the most terrifying. Given your potential breakdown i think there'd be a coalition government but I've no idea which mix it would consist of.

I think I'd rather have the tories sort it out than have UKIP in the mix. They are too antagonistic and will encourage harsh repsonses from the EU.

It's interesting how the EU are now reconsidering how they they deal with non Euro (and to a lesser extent Euro). They didn't expect the UK to leave and it looks like they wish they'd taken it more seriously. Which is a massive shame as a better renogiation deal could have been enough to swing voters in the UK. Hindsight is a great thing though and I still think the free movement would have been non-negotiable and hence the ultimate result would probably have been the same.

Better deal needs some clarification. Better for who? For Britain?!? That was politically unviable. Britain was already perceived as getting too much of a special treatment (UK Rebate), and somewhat obstructionist and not contributing enough. So I am really not sure how much better of a deal you have in mind. Keep in mind, there are 27 other countries outside the UK. 

[Sophelia]

1 hour ago, Maltrouane Fellaini said:

Rumours being reported that Corbyn's office "deliberately sabotaged" the Labour Remain campaign

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36633238

That accords with the Huffington post link I gave earlier.

Really though this just shows this is the wrong time to challenge Corbyn, or at least not on the grounds of not pushing hard enough for Remain.  Because the result was Leave, so don't they need a leader who maybe believes Leave might not be a total disaster and can see some positive benefits from it?  I'd be very interested to hear what the Corbyn/McDonnell strategy for leaving the EU would be (in case there is any hope there at all).

P.S. This Guardian article about the mood in Hartlepool for me rings true, and I would be surprised if this did not capture the attitude of the majority of those Leave voters who votes in poor industrial areas like the North East and Wales - who I think were the people that Corbyn was addressing (except he was trying to persuade them to blame the Tories rather than immigration). 

[Slick Mongoose]

22 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Is Tom Watson moving against Corbyn? Del Piero is a close ally, and there's now discussion of Watson taking over without a new leadership election. The West Midlands mafia knows how to fight dirty.

Sooo.... getting rid of Corbyn because he's not electable, and then going for Tom Watson? Really?

[Sophelia]

7 minutes ago, England's Finest said:

Sooo.... getting rid of Corbyn because he's not electable, and then going for Tom Watson? Really?

I don't think they would field Tom Watson as a candidate - more that if they manage to make Corbyn resign, Watson would be the stopgap at that point?

Anyway, at this point I think the Labour cabinet members have just broken their own party: it's hard to see how it can recover in time for a General Election.  But what do I know?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Sophelia said:

Going back to the topic of a General Election, if one will be called in, say, November, and if the election comes down to choosing the parties on their approach to the EU issue (as seems likely based on the fact that more people voted in the referendum than in the average general election), what do people think the parties' pitches will be?

I'm going to assume for a moment the (rather unlikely) scenario that each party is completely honest in what it promises, so first is to try and guess what that might be:

(1) UKIP will continue to push for 'sovereignty' and 'controls on immigration', so I presume any trade deals for getting some of benefit of EU single market will not be considered (unless the EU as a whole rapidly starts to make any compromises on free movement), so they will introduce a points system for immigration and play down impact on economy, trade and therefore on jobs and standard of living.

(2) The LibDems have already said they will have a 'not leaving EU' manifesto policy.  This might actually be the one thing which puts them in with a chance!  The Greens might do this too?

(3) The Tories - anyone want to predict what kind of strategies they might have?  Say as they want to save the economy they may be are forced to go for the "leave EU but try to negotiate some arrangement to access the EU single market" - or will they focus on rushing in TTIP and some negotiations with Canada/Australia etc, and worry about the EU later, allowing them to make some concessions to the anti-immigration people?  Anyone have any insight into what the Tory Leave bunch actually hoped to achieve (apart from removing the 'red tape' of workers' rights to make it easier to sack people etc.)?  Regarding the Tories' possible situation  there's a very interesting Guardian comment making the rounds on social media

(4) Labour - again really hard to tell.  My guess (as I said earlier) is that they are going to have to honour the Leave voters' wishes (otherwise they lose 30% of their voters), but they are going to have to deal with an impossible situation where the country (in my view) will be suffering horribly with another recession, job losses etc, and if Corbyn is still in power they don't want to go for austerity, so they will be borrowing to try and keep industries afloat, support all those who are unemployed, pensioners in hardship because pensions aren't worth as much, and they will have the immigration issues to worry about too, with need for immigration, any EU trading deals probably requiring free movement, but substantial numbers of people against it. I don't think in this situation they have a chance to achieve much of what their core voters might want.

 

 

An EU approach would look more than a bit hypocritical to me. I mean assuming the LibDem have a not-leaving EU manifesto policy, what does it really mean? Why would it matter? The people of the UK have spoken, they wanted out. The LibDems can lament about it all they want, but that's really crying about spilled milk. And I don't really think, that they would be doing themselves and the British people a favour by denying that. I mean, the EU with all its perceived and real flaws concerning a deficit in democracy has acknowledged and accepted the outcome of the referendum. And now the LibDems want to run on a platform directly overruling the will of the people? That would be playing directly into the hands of the Farage and Wilders in this world. That's also my issue with that "Let's have another referendum petition."

Edit: Basically the same song different tune, with that stalling on the side of the Tories. The EU has a vested interest to get this thing over with rather sooner than later. That'S why there are voices, that want Cameron to deliver that Brexit notice on Tuesday, so the whole process can start.

[Sophelia]

6 minutes ago, Notone said:

An EU approach would look more than a bit hypocritical to me. I mean assuming the LibDem have a not-leaving EU manifesto policy, what does it really mean? Why would it matter? The people of the UK have spoken, they wanted out. The LibDems can lament about it all they want, but that's really crying about spilled milk. And I don't really think, that they would be doing themselves and the British people a favour by denying that. I mean, the EU with all its perceived and real flaws concerning a deficit in democracy has acknowledged and accepted the outcome of the referendum. And now the LibDems want to run on a platform directly overruling the will of the people? That would be playing directly into the hands of the Farage and Wilders in this world. That's also my issue with that "Let's have another referendum petition."

Well if the LibDems actually won the election they could say then that they had a mandate to stay in the EU, effectively like a second referendum.  I agree with you that it is slightly problematic in that they could win the election with much less than proportion of people who voted Leave.  But I guess if they didn't want to overturn the referendum result it would certainly give them an excuse to open a second referendum on their own terms.  Not that they are going to win the election in any case.

[Werthead]

Sturgeon claims that Scotland could block the UK leaving the European Union if Scotland had not had an independence vote beforehand.

Five Labour shadow cabinet members have resigned in the last couple of hours, all of them citing Corbyn's leadership as the problem.