UK Politics: The Love Song of A. B. de Pfeffel Johnson

[Shryke]

6 hours ago, john said:

Wtf. I just clicked on a notification to read my own post again.  Stop wasting my time.

Please dude. If you can't see the highlighted bit and why it's ridiculious, I don't know what to tell you.

He's already managed to dismantle the party AND the public has already shown they won't hold this government (Cameron or clusterfuck or May led) to account.

Both the things you mentioned already happened. It's a big part of why people are trying to dump Corbyn.

[Shryke]

56 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

In dealing with the PLP, Corbyn had exactly two choices:

• Accommodate them. He tried that, and look how far it got him.
• Purge them via deselections. 

The PLP brought this Civil War on itself. The media was always going to hate his guts (it does that to nearly every Labour leader), but the root of this problem is the PLP's continuing refusal to accept the democratic will of the membership (to the point where it is engaging in every dirty trick it can think of to thwart democracy). If the PLP were truly acting for the good of the party, they'd have left Corbyn until 2020, when he'd resign if he lost. Instead, it was planning to off him before he even became leader - Brexit simply being the excuse.

In short, you are blaming Corbyn for failing to achieve the impossible. It's like looking at the US in 1862 and saying "goodness, there's Civil War. Must be Lincoln's fault - he clearly isn't up to the job." Moreover, allowing the PLP to get away with this is to forever destroy Labour as a democratic party - saying "it only matters that he can't lead" ignores the fact that it only matters that he (and not the PLP) enjoys the support of the membership. He has legitimacy, they do not. Frankly, your exact reasoning could be used to justify a military coup every time a democratic government faces difficulty, the principle being the same.

 

No dude, the root of the problem is Corbyn's complete ineffectiveness as leader, which exists for a variety of reasons.

The PLP, as MPs, are also in their positions via the "democratic will of the majority". They are acting for what they see as the good of the party, that they were also democratically elected to represent. So drop this horseshit like Corbyn is the only one with backing here. Letting Corbyn fuck up for another 4 years is not gonna do Labour or the UK any favours and that's why they are acting.

Corbyn has more choices and you know it. He can resign. Like previous leaders who've gotten frankly far less one-sided votes against them have in the past. What's Corbyn gonna do with your second option anyway, deselect all Labour's MPs?

The bigger problem here is reflected exactly in the fact that the cheap fee for voting in the Labour Leadership race helped open the possibility of the Leader being selected via vote without the support of his actual party MPs.

[Lyanna Stark]

So, what are the bets on who May will gladly sacrifice first? BoJo or someone else? In all honesty, May seems like out of a number of meh to horrible choices to be the absolute best candidate for the job. I guess we'll see, but she strikes me as at least moderate on several issues? Also not a big manchild, which can only be a good thing.

 

EDIT: Saw Hereward's commentary about May (thank you).

[The Marquis de Leech]

7 minutes ago, Shryke said:

No dude, the root of the problem is Corbyn's complete ineffectiveness as leader, which exists for a variety of reasons.

The PLP, as MPs, are also in their positions via the "democratic will of the majority". They are acting for what they see as the good of the party, that they were also democratically elected to represent. So drop this horseshit like Corbyn is the only one with backing here. Letting Corbyn fuck up for another 4 years is not gonna do Labour or the UK any favours and that's why they are acting.

Corbyn has more choices and you know it. He can resign. Like previous leaders who've gotten frankly far less one-sided votes against them have in the past. What's Corbyn gonna do with your second option anyway, deselect all Labour's MPs?

The bigger problem here is reflected exactly in the fact that the cheap fee for voting in the Labour Leadership race helped open the possibility of the Leader being selected via vote without the support of his actual party MPs.

1. If this is simply Corbyn being ineffective, why were the PLP plotting before he was elected? To the point where there were open calls for the last election to be called off?

2. Corbyn would have comprehensively won last time *without* the "cheap fee". Accusations of entryism are bullshit.

Fact is, this boils down to certain people in positions of power deciding to spite the peasants because they had the nerve to vote for the left-wing guy. It's the similar phenomenon of people calling for Parliament to ignore the Brexit referendum - the view that "democracy is only good so long as the people vote the way we want".  

(And in the interests of consistency - if Smith or Eagle or someone else beats Corbyn in a fair vote, good on them. Until then, Corbyn is the democratic, legitimate, leader of the Labour Party).

[The Marquis de Leech]

58 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Please dude. If you can't see the highlighted bit and why it's ridiculious, I don't know what to tell you.

He's already managed to dismantle the party AND the public has already shown they won't hold this government (Cameron or clusterfuck or May led) to account.

Both the things you mentioned already happened. It's a big part of why people are trying to dump Corbyn.

The CLPs (including Andrea Eagle's own one) are backing Corbyn, and with membership cracking 500,000, UK Labour is now the largest socialist party in Europe.

He's presided over four by-election victories with an increased majority, and essentially matched Milliband's high point in English local elections (are you going to blame him for Scotland?). If Brexit is all you care about, roughly the same percentage of Labour voters voted for Remain as the SNP - by that reasoning, the SNP ought to run a coup against Sturgeon.

That does not strike me as "dismantling the party".

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

1. If this is simply Corbyn being ineffective, why were the PLP plotting before he was elected? To the point where there were open calls for the last election to be called off?

2. Corbyn would have comprehensively won last time *without* the "cheap fee". Accusations of entryism are bullshit.

Fact is, this boils down to certain people in positions of power deciding to spite the peasants because they had the nerve to vote for the left-wing guy. It's the similar phenomenon of people calling for Parliament to ignore the Brexit referendum - the view that "democracy is only good so long as the people vote the way we want".  

(And in the interests of consistency - if Smith or Eagle or someone else beats Corbyn in a fair vote, good on them. Until then, Corbyn is the democratic, legitimate, leader of the Labour Party).

1) Because they didn't think he'd be effective. And they were right.

2) Your first statement here does not imply your second.

MPs are elected to. I know you keep wanting to ignore this to rant on about "democracy" because you treat it like some sort of sacred totem to shake in the face of the unbelievers, but it's still true. Democracy is limited by nature. The UK is a parliamentary system, which should clue you into that right away.

This isn't some oppressed underclass finally sticking it to the man. That kind of framing betrays your attempt to see this whole situation as a field of nails for your "democracy"-totem wanking hammer. It's a party who's formal structure is largely not in step at all with it's leadership. And the shit you keep leaning on to try and claim their attempts to get rid of Corbyn are illegitimate are exactly the things that are causing so much problem, as I mentioned last post. A parliamentary party that doesn't have the support of it's own members of parliament.

I mean, usually it's not a problem but usually people in Corbyn's position step down.

 

PS - Parliament should 100% ignore the Brexit vote. It's non-binding, the UK is not a direct democracy (and with good fucking reason see- Brexit vote or California) and it's a horrible idea to follow through with it.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The CLPs (including Andrea Eagle's own one) are backing Corbyn, and with membership cracking 500,000, UK Labour is now the largest socialist party in Europe.

He's presided over four by-election victories with an increased majority, and essentially matched Milliband's high point in English local elections (are you going to blame him for Scotland?). If Brexit is all you care about, roughly the same percentage of Labour voters voted for Remain as the SNP - by that reasoning, the SNP ought to run a coup against Sturgeon.

That does not strike me as "dismantling the party".

The leader of Labour just sacked essentially his entire shadow cabinet, massively lost a vote of confidence and yet is clinging to power anyway and just almost didn't even get on the ballot.

What part of this strikes you as Labour being a functional political party right now exactly?

They're in such shambles even if Corbyn felt like trying to actual be an opposition leader and, like, criticise the fuckshambles that the Tories have been up to for the past few weeks he'd have difficulty.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

1. If this is simply Corbyn being ineffective, why were the PLP plotting before he was elected? To the point where there were open calls for the last election to be called off?

This idea that 'the PLP' are a single entity composed entirely of ambitious careerist Blaitire anti-Corbyn plotters who never gave him a chance is a convenient fiction for Corbyn supporters.

The PLP are a varied grouping of a couple of hundred people from across the left spectrum. Undoubtedly, some - a smaller group than Corbyn supporters like to believe - were always looking for a chance to chuck him out. But as I pointed out earlier, had Corbyn been taking any of the golden opportunities that have been coming his way since he was elected, the party would be leading in the polls and those people could never have acquired the support they needed from the rest of the PLP, who are mostly ordinary MPs who simply want their party to be successful.

Rarely is there ever a party leader who doesn't have a group of MPs plotting against them. Dealing with that is part of the job. If you're saying Corbyn couldn't deal with that, then we agree: he's not up to the job.

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

2. Corbyn would have comprehensively won last time *without* the "cheap fee". Accusations of entryism are bullshit.

On the contrary, they're well founded: members of other parties have indeed paid the fee and voted. Whether that changed the outcome of the election doesn't change the fact that entryism was a thing that happened and would have happened again.

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

(And in the interests of consistency - if Smith or Eagle or someone else beats Corbyn in a fair vote, good on them. Until then, Corbyn is the democratic, legitimate, leader of the Labour Party).

Nobody's ever said different, have they?

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The CLPs (including Andrea Eagle's own one) are backing Corbyn, and with membership cracking 500,000, UK Labour is now the largest socialist party in Europe.

Which is great, but doesn't explain why this mass socialist movement is lagging in the polls behind a shambolic, unpopular right-wing government riven by splits where the PM has resigned and the Chancellor has been fired.

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

He's presided over four by-election victories with an increased majority, and essentially matched Milliband's high point in English local elections (are you going to blame him for Scotland?).

The by-election results were expected and owe no perceptible debt to Corbyn's leadership. The council results were very poor, and Corbyn was only saved because people actually expected them to be catastrophically poor: they still represent one of the very worst performances by an opposition party that there has been. And yes, Corbyn is the leader so he is to blame for Labour's terrible performance in Scotland. It's his job as leader to do something about that, and he hasn't done it. Again, if you're saying he can't do his job, fine; let him stand down, then.

[HexMachina]

Gove is out, and it's expected that Nicky Morgan will follow according to BBC

[SeanF]

12 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Gove is out, and it's expected that Nicky Morgan will follow according to BBC

Not unwelcome.

Overall, the appointments look a victory for the centre-right, rather than the right or left, of the Conservative Party.

Certainly, a real purge of the Notting Hill Set seems to be underway.

 

[john]

3 hours ago, Shryke said:

Please dude. If you can't see the highlighted bit and why it's ridiculious, I don't know what to tell you.

He's already managed to dismantle the party AND the public has already shown they won't hold this government (Cameron or clusterfuck or May led) to account.

Both the things you mentioned already happened. It's a big part of why people are trying to dump Corbyn.

That's better.  See you can do it.

Strangely enough, I don't agree that either of these things have happened. You really think the British public have already failed to hold the May government to account? Seems a little harsh.

By all means, the Party should dump Corbyn if they can. If they can't, supporting him (probably for as short a term as they can manage) really does not seem that bad a proposition.

[Talleyrand]

I've never been particularly stuck to one party, I'm mostly Lib Dem with a little Labour though I've gone Tory quite a few times for Scottish elections and local councils and I must say I'm pretty content with May as leader.

She's gone years as a senior member of Cabinet without being dogged by major fuck up after major fuck up like so many others - she came out quite strong in favour of gay marriage so it's not like she's old true blue Conservatism.

And hell it's not like any of the opposition are putting up viable alternatives.

[Which Tyler]

Arse

Jeremy Hunt 'to stay as health secretary'

Jeremy Hunt is now expected to stay in his post at the Department of Health. There had been reports earlier that he would be moved or leaving cabinet.

[mormont]

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/bbc-news-brexit-expectations-poll/

BBC poll on what Britons think Brexit actually means. Headlines:

Quote

Most Britons think that maintaining access to the single market should be the priority for the Government when negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (66%), while just a third say this of restricting freedom of movement (31%).

But:

Quote

Almost half (45%) say they will be dissatisfied if the government continues to allow immigration from the EU in exchange for access to the single market.

And for the footy fans:

Quote

More Britons (53%) think it is likely that the UK will no longer exist in ten years’ time than think England can win a major football tournament (13%).

 

[Cadiva]

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

In dealing with the PLP, Corbyn had exactly two choices:

• Accommodate them. He tried that, and look how far it got him.
• Purge them via deselections. 

The PLP brought this Civil War on itself. The media was always going to hate his guts (it does that to nearly every Labour leader), but the root of this problem is the PLP's continuing refusal to accept the democratic will of the membership (to the point where it is engaging in every dirty trick it can think of to thwart democracy). If the PLP were truly acting for the good of the party, they'd have left Corbyn until 2020, when he'd resign if he lost. Instead, it was planning to off him before he even became leader - Brexit simply being the excuse.

In short, you are blaming Corbyn for failing to achieve the impossible. It's like looking at the US in 1862 and saying "goodness, there's Civil War. Must be Lincoln's fault - he clearly isn't up to the job." Moreover, allowing the PLP to get away with this is to forever destroy Labour as a democratic party - saying "it only matters that he can't lead" ignores the fact that it only matters that he (and not the PLP) enjoys the support of the membership. He has legitimacy, they do not. Frankly, your exact reasoning could be used to justify a military coup every time a democratic government faces difficulty, the principle being the same.

 

In this we are in complete agreement. The NEC has now forced all CLPs to cancel all meetings unless they're for emergency business or for nominations for leader to go to the Executive. No new motions can be sent to the NEC and no meetings, including branch ones, can be held until the leadership election is over.

It's gerrymandering in the highest order as is the latest attempt to restrict who can or cannot participate in the leadership vote.

Quote

 

The NEC has agreed that all normal party meetings at CLP, branch and LCF level shall be suspended until the completion of the leadership election.

The only meetings which may be organised while this timetable is in place are:

Meetings solely for the purpose of making a supporting nomination in the leadership contest or for essential Annual Conference business with the explicit permission of the Regional Director.

Campaign planning meetings for by-elections or devolved mayoral campaigns.

Any other meetings, for which there are exceptional circumstances, with the explicit permission of the Regional Director.

 

 

[Mme Erzulie]

16 hours ago, Hereward said:

No, I mean he is out of touch with people's opinions of unions. He wants to abolish all legislation on trade unions, including the requirement for ballots on industrial action, the ban on secondary action, etc, and he has never met a strike, about anything, that he didn't wholeheartedly like. That's very unpopular in the broader electorate. He's also in favour of higher taxation as a goal in itself, opposes aspiration as an alternative to working class solidarity, which has always been much more popular amongst affluent left-wingers with brothers called Piers or hereditary peerages than amongst actual working class people, and thinks deficits and rising national debt are irrelevant nuisances which can be safely ignored, which is also regarded with horror by most voters. 

Thanks for the clarification.

Would you mind giving me a brief description of what aspiration entails? I'm not familiar with the concept (as I mentioned, I have only quite recently taken a proper interest in UK politics).

And not trying to be flippant, but do most voters really know much about deficits and national debts? Do they actually care? Or are they more preoccupied with their own lives, jobs, health care, foreigners etc? Again, not trying to be flippant, I just have a certain amount of healthy skepticism towards "most voters" after the Brexit debacle.

Also, does no one on the right side of British politics find The Sun, Daily Mail etc. to be dangerously powerful and worryingly populist? It seems like they keep appealing to people's most base instincts, and yet they are the most widely read in the country, and The Sun has famously not taken the wrong side of a big election since the 70's (unless I'm mistaken). Or are they regarded as a necessary evil since they mostly (from what I've seen) come down on the side of the Tories?

[Commodore]

is collective bargaining mandated in UK?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, mormont said:

 

The by-election results were expected and owe no perceptible debt to Corbyn's leadership. The council results were very poor, and Corbyn was only saved because people actually expected them to be catastrophically poor: they still represent one of the very worst performances by an opposition party that there has been. And yes, Corbyn is the leader so he is to blame for Labour's terrible performance in Scotland. It's his job as leader to do something about that, and he hasn't done it. Again, if you're saying he can't do his job, fine; let him stand down, then.

Out of curiosity. Do you think winning back Scotland is realistically on the cards for Labour in the foreseeable future? My outside guess is, that Scotland is out of reach for the two major parties (if the SNP does not implode).

[Maltaran]

37 minutes ago, Commodore said:

is collective bargaining mandated in UK?

If you mean a closed shop, no, that got outlawed by Thatcher.

[Maltaran]

So it looks like May is making a lot of the Leave campaigners sort out the mess they've created - Davies is leading the Brexit negotiations, Fox has to negotiate the new trade deals, and Leadsom is the person in charge of telling farmers they don't get subsidies any more.