UK Politics: Post-May Edition

[Isis]

11 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

On a slightly different note, I just caught the interview with police officer Wayne Marques, the hero in the London Bridge attack who fought all three attackers armed only with his baton. If you didn't have a chance to see it, it's well worth watching. Damn fine thing to have a brave young man like him patrolling the streets. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40432673

I listened to it while I was cooking dinner last night. I am going to watch it later on today.

[SeanF]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

It was very silly of the Conservatives to have blindly opposed the public pay cap amendment in the Commons today. Now Labour get to mercilessly drive home how the Conservatives still don't care about firemen (after the Grenfell tower block fire), policemen (after the terror attacks) and medical staff (after both) for the rest of the Parliament. The Tories should have rolled with this one, counter-proposed a lower cap (even 2% would be better) and looked like they were giving something back to the emergency services. Now they look (more) like idiots. And of course they can't even remotely think of saying, "There's no money" when they've just pointlessly given £1 billion to the DUP to prop them up in government when they were going to do that anyway.

Had the Labour amendment passed, it would have been viewed as a vote of No Confidence in the government (even though technically, it isn't one).

[Maltaran]

There's rumours that an amendment might get passed tonight, the one to allow Northern Irish women free abortions in the English NHS

[mormont]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Had the Labour amendment passed, it would have been viewed as a vote of No Confidence in the government (even though technically, it isn't one).

In what sense?

It wouldn't be a formal vote of no confidence, as you point out, and one of those is needed to trigger another election. Informally, nobody has confidence in this government anyway, so it wouldn't be telling us anything new.

[Werthead]

21 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

This strategy is only going to pay off because so many Labour supporters are morons. What sense does it make to say we don't care about policemen or fireman?

Because there is no evidence whatsoever that Conservatives care about them? They've cut their pay in real terms quite stringently for seven years straight, fired tens of thousands of them, told people from overseas who want to work in those services (and whom we badly need) to go fuck themselves, tried to privatise them by the back door (and lied about it) and when anyone raised a word of complaint they piously bleated that it's all in the name of the greater good and the national interest and there's no magic money tree, but the second they need to stay in power they go and stuff money down the throats of a formerly-terrorist-supporting fringe party like it's going out of fashion.

It's hard for the Conservative Party to try to claim the moral high ground when they're standing hip-deep in hypocritical bullshit, and are going to be doing so for the rest of this Parliament.

 

Quote

 

Had the Labour amendment passed, it would have been viewed as a vote of No Confidence in the government (even though technically, it isn't one).

 

Well, not formally, but informally, sure.

However, the Conservatives could have been a bit cannier about this. They've kicked balancing the books into the long grass (mainly because they've also given up on doing anything useful to grow the economy at the same time), so on that basis maintaining the public sector pay cut at 1% is pretty ridiculous. They could have tabled a further amendment after the Labour one agreeing to raise the cap to 2% and still claimed they were doing more ("we've doubled the pay cap for public sector workers!") and taken the initiative away from Labour. They could also have not laughed like braying hyenas when the amendment was defeated.

At this point the Tories are just loading guns with live ammunition and handing them to the enemy to shoot them with. They should really get a grip.

[SeanF]

Spoiler

 

Wealthy people who switched from the Conservatives to Labour in places like Kensington, Battersea, Southgate, and Canterbury, due to anger over Brexit, must be feeling a bit sick this morning.

Corbyn turned out to favour Brexit.

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

  Hide contents

Corbyn turned out to favour Brexit.

Well, yes. He always did. Just ask the Liberal Democrats about dying in a ditch for the EU.

I think the handling of the vote on the Single Market has more to do with Labour trying to get Mansfield and Derbyshire North-East back - there was a significant Tory swing in the old mining towns, and that *was* Brexit.

[polishgenius]

I don't agree with Corbyn over Brexit, but anyone who voted him/Labour because they thought he'd vote against it and is now feeling betrayed needs to look at themselves, not him. He's always been for Brexit, even if he's been a little evasive about that recently, and him going against what he believes in order to win/keep a bit of support is like the opposite of what we supposedly like Corbyn for.

Anyway, this amendment wasn't a serious attempt, it was just a snake move by Chuka Umunna to split the party again and get some Blairite momentum going. Heck, it isn't even as if Corbyn here used the whip because he's adamantly against the single market- he did it because the wording of the amendment was trying to position things to pull out of pulling out entirely and Labour's manifesto pledged to respect the vote and go through with Brexit.

[SeanF]

22 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I don't agree with Corbyn over Brexit, but anyone who voted him/Labour because they thought he'd vote against it and is now feeling betrayed needs to look at themselves, not him. He's always been for Brexit, even if he's been a little evasive about that recently, and him going against what he believes in order to win/keep a bit of support is like the opposite of what we supposedly like Corbyn for.

Anyway, this amendment wasn't a serious attempt, it was just a snake move by Chuka Umunna to split the party again and get some Blairite momentum going. Heck, it isn't even as if Corbyn here used the whip because he's adamantly against the single market- he did it because the wording of the amendment was trying to position things to pull out of pulling out entirely and Labour's manifesto pledged to respect the vote and go through with Brexit.

 

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Well, yes. He always did. Just ask the Liberal Democrats about dying in a ditch for the EU.

I think the handling of the vote on the Single Market has more to do with Labour trying to get Mansfield and Derbyshire North-East back - there was a significant Tory swing in the old mining towns, and that *was* Brexit.

If anyone voted for Corbyn in the belief that he'd frustrate Brexit, that reflects on them, not him.

[mormont]

30 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I don't agree with Corbyn over Brexit, but anyone who voted him/Labour because they thought he'd vote against it and is now feeling betrayed needs to look at themselves, not him. He's always been for Brexit, even if he's been a little evasive about that recently, and him going against what he believes in order to win/keep a bit of support is like the opposite of what we supposedly like Corbyn for.

Anyway, this amendment wasn't a serious attempt, it was just a snake move by Chuka Umunna to split the party again and get some Blairite momentum going. Heck, it isn't even as if Corbyn here used the whip because he's adamantly against the single market- he did it because the wording of the amendment was trying to position things to pull out of pulling out entirely and Labour's manifesto pledged to respect the vote and go through with Brexit.

Corbyn was officially against Brexit. He signed up to campaign against it. If you're saying that this was likely insincere, I agree. If you're saying that the blame for that insincerity should fall on those who fell for it, rather than the man who perpetrated it, that seems dubious.

It seems to me you're happy to call Chuka Umunna insincere for doing something consistent with his beliefs, but at the same time want to excuse Corbyn for the same offence after showing serious inconsistency. That makes no sense.

What is clear is that Corbyn is a guy who is happy to give speeches about building bridges not walls, then to turn around and fire people for being against freedom of movement. He needs to sort out first his own position, then how he persuades the party to sign up to it - because if you believe it's only Blairites who disagree with Corbyn on freedom of movement, I have news.

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

Corbyn was officially against Brexit. He signed up to campaign against it. If you're saying that this was likely insincere, I agree. If you're saying that the blame for that insincerity should fall on those who fell for it, rather than the man who perpetrated it, that seems dubious.

I'd actually forgotten he officially campaigned against it. Like I say, though, I'm not happy with how he's handled it. In the latest election though, the manifesto pledged to go through with it, no?

I know Blairites aren't the only ones supporting freedom of movement. I'm in support of freedom of movement- hell, I live in Germany after all. But that's not my point; what I'm saying is that this was a bad amendment, never designed to actually succeed, but just to get us talking about Umunna and Corbyn's failings as a leader again.

[mormont]

5 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'd actually forgotten he officially campaigned against it. Like I say, though, I'm not happy with how he's handled it. In the latest election though, the manifesto pledged to go through with it, no?

I know Blairites aren't the only ones supporting freedom of movement. I'm in support of freedom of movement- hell, I live in Germany after all. But that's not my point; what I'm saying is that this was a bad amendment, never designed to actually succeed, but just to get us talking about Umunna and Corbyn's failings as a leader again.

Alternatively, it was a principled amendment designed to get the Opposition to actually oppose the stupidest and most damaging policy of recent years instead of lying down as Corbyn seems intent on doing, for - let's be honest - electoral reasons, not reasons of principle.

[polishgenius]

Possibly. If it was principled, though, it was done very very badly.

[Maltaran]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

It seems to me you're happy to call Chuka Umunna insincere for doing something consistent with his beliefs, but at the same time want to excuse Corbyn for the same offence after showing serious inconsistency. That makes no sense.

 

I'm happy to call Umunna insincere for plenty of reasons, but I'm not sure this is one.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyway.

The secret negotiation papers on the EU side have been leaked published by the EU.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/brexit-negotiations/negotiating-documents-article-50-negotiations-united-kingdom_en

I don't think that one had been linked here/mentioned.

So if anybody is looking for a fun way to spend a rainy sunday afternoon... I presume there's nothing particularly new/exciting in it.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Can the Labour Right please acknowledge that they are not motivated by electability, and are simply driven by ideology?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-jeremy-corbyn-conference-rule-changes-date-clp-nec-national-executive-committee-labour-first-a7817121.html 

[mormont]

People with different ideologies differ ideologically. More on this breaking story as it comes in.

As a criticism, this is weak sauce. The Labour Left spent years, decades even, criticising the Labour Right for being obsessed with electability over ideology. Now they reckon the boot is on the other foot, they're doing an about turn and expect to be taken seriously?

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

People with different ideologies differ ideologically. More on this breaking story as it comes in.

As a criticism, this is weak sauce. The Labour Left spent years, decades even, criticising the Labour Right for being obsessed with electability over ideology. Now they reckon the boot is on the other foot, they're doing an about turn and expect to be taken seriously?

Except that the Labour Right doesn't frame it in terms of ideology. New Labour explicitly saw itself as being post ideological, while the criticism of Corbyn was rooted in 1983 analogies about unelectability.

This sort of behaviour, however, suggests that their concerns were less about electoral pragmatism, and more because they genuinely believe in neoliberalism. Which would be fine if they were ever to actually admit it, but they won't.

[mormont]

3 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Except that the Labour Right doesn't frame it in terms of ideology. New Labour explicitly saw itself as being post ideological, while the criticism of Corbyn was rooted in 1983 analogies about unelectability.

This sort of behaviour, however, suggests that their concerns were less about electoral pragmatism, and more because they genuinely believe in neoliberalism. Which would be fine if they were ever to actually admit it, but they won't.

It's a lot more nuanced than that on both sides, and you're intelligent enough to understand that, even if you don't acknowledge it.

Anyway, it seems like the Tories have woken up to the fact that they need to give voters something other than homilies about austerity and how glorious Brexit will be, so they're moving on public service pay, education and NHS funding, and possibly even tuition fees.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40471474

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

It's a lot more nuanced than that on both sides, and you're intelligent enough to understand that, even if you don't acknowledge it.

Anyway, it seems like the Tories have woken up to the fact that they need to give voters something other than homilies about austerity and how glorious Brexit will be, so they're moving on public service pay, education and NHS funding, and possibly even tuition fees.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40471474

I'll believe it when its reflected in my pay cheque. Even then its going to take years to catch up to where it should be, we used to get 3% a year, i'd need a 15% pay rise to get me the salary i should have now.  Still, every little helps.