UK Politics: Winter of Discontent

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Tories have gotten themselves into a real mess and it would be vastly more amusing if they weren't in power and letting the country go to the dogs whilst they were rebelling and blaming one another for rebelling.

The problem is that there isn't anyone with the will and authority who could step in and take over. You'd just end up with another weak, make-do candidate who would be seen as a caretaker. Even worse, with May having set the precedent of seeking a mandate after becoming leader and the Conservatives screeching about Gordon Brown's unelected coronation as PM, it would be very difficult for a new Tory leader to resist the calls for a fresh general election, which would just blow everything up right now (they might just stretch out their caretaker role until mid-2019 and call a fresh election then, which Gove seems to be in favour of).

Surely there must be someone in the party who'd be willing to fall on their sword for it's long term health. I get that May is that person now, but she has no leverage or bargaining ability and everyone interacting with her knows it. I get that her replacement would face the same challenges, but at least they'd start with a clean slate which could give them a chance at improving whatever hypothetical treaties that still need to be worked out.

As far as calling for a new election, wouldn't that actually help the Tories, big picture wise? I get that it would be deeply embarrassing and that they'd lose power, but why would you want the latter when all it's allowing you to do is take care of this giant, self-inflicted mess. By allowing a different party to sort out Brexit, you can avoid some of the permanent stain that will stick to your party for being the caretakers of it's inception.Or better yet, maybe the new people in power will call for a new vote on Brexit. The Tories would benefit in the long run from this regardless of the outcome,

[mormont]

You underestimate the ideological attraction of fixing the terms of Brexit for many in the Tory party, plus their unfeigned horror at the idea of Corbyn being in power at any price.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

You underestimate the ideological attraction of fixing the terms of Brexit for many in the Tory party, plus their unfeigned horror at the idea of Corbyn being in power at any price.

Maybe, but from a cold, rational political strategy point of view, what I laid out is probably the best path to take if you're taking a multi-decade look at how this will affect the Tories. 

Plus, couldn't they screw over Corbyn if they just up and dropped this mess into his lap? 

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Maybe, but from a cold, rational political strategy point of view, what I laid out is probably the best path to take if you're taking a multi-decade look at how this will affect the Tories. 

Plus, couldn't they screw over Corbyn if they just up and dropped this mess into his lap? 

Not really, no. Corbyn always has deniability: 'I inherited this mess'. He can even (accurately) say he didn't choose to have the referendum in the first place. He can always, quite truthfully, say that he did his best with a situation not of his making. 

Also, one way in which the UK Tory party is like the Republicans right now is that they appear unable to take a cold, rational, where-will-we-be-in-twenty-years view, and for largely the same reasons. Their core electorate is old, white, and nostalgic for a past that never was. This reshuffle was at least in part supposed to be about trying to make the party look like the country, by bringing in more women and minorities. Instead, the middle-aged white guy who refused to move got to keep his job and got an expanded remit, while the queer woman who refused to move was forced to resign. Not a great look, but also telling of where the Conservative party is, I'm afraid.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

Not really, no. Corbyn always has deniability: 'I inherited this mess'. He can even (accurately) say he didn't choose to have the referendum in the first place. He can always, quite truthfully, say that he did his best with a situation not of his making. 

How’d that work for Obama and the economy he inherited? The moment he became president he was lambasted for destroying it, even though it was already destroyed. As you say, the conservative party in your country is much the same as our, and I suspect they’d do the same thing to Corbyn.

 

[mormont]

46 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How’d that work for Obama and the economy he inherited?

I'm not sure that's comparable. 'The economy' is not a distinguishable event. 'Brexit' is. Even the most low-information voter knows that the Conservatives held the referendum. 

[Hereward]

57 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 As you say, the conservative party in your country is much the same as our,

That is simply not true.

[mormont]

Just now, Hereward said:

That is simply not true.

I missed that bit. Agreed: I gave one way in which they're comparable, but that's not to say they're 'much the same'. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm not sure that's comparable. 'The economy' is not a distinguishable event. 'Brexit' is. Even the most low-information voter knows that the Conservatives held the referendum. 

The crash was though, and Bush was heavily blamed for it. Once Obama took over it quickly became his fault even though he had zero culpability. I suspect the same would happen with Corbyn and Brexit, especially if he got a lot of bad trade deals in the aftermath of his ascension, which is entirely possible.

11 minutes ago, Hereward said:

That is simply not true.

From what I’ve read, conservatives in the UK have increasingly continued to mirror conservatives in the US over the last few decades. They’re just not as religious and, well, crazy.

[Werthead]

Quote

 

From what I’ve read, conservatives in the UK have increasingly continued to mirror conservatives in the US over the last few decades. They’re just not as religious and, well, crazy.

 

There are some trends, and I think Brexit was a shock to not just left but also the moderate right in the UK at how many crazies there are in the party and the country at large (the more extreme people seemingly ignorant of basic facts like the value of immigration to the economy and the destructive impact of just cutting it off), just as Trump was to the United States.

I think the general underlying trend of insanity in the US is much larger, though, and spread over many more issues than the UK. Certain hot-button issues in the US are not issues at all over here (thank fuck).

The biggest danger of where the right-wing insanity here will go next is the NHS, which will almost certainly become the main target of the hard-right of the Conservative Party and their big-business paymasters once Brexit is out of the way. That's going to be more more bruising and interesting ideological battle to come.

[Derfel Cadarn]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

How’d that work for Obama and the economy he inherited? The moment he became president he was lambasted for destroying it, even though it was already destroyed. As you say, the conservative party in your country is much the same as our, and I suspect they’d do the same thing to Corbyn.

 

A lot of hype surrounded Obama, and perhaps unrealistic expectations as to what he would accomplish.  Even a lot of people voting for Labour are cautious of Corbyn.

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

From what I’ve read, conservatives in the UK have increasingly continued to mirror conservatives in the US over the last few decades. They’re just not as religious and, well, crazy.

I'm no fan of the Tories, but I'm not sure that they've necessarily gotten more conservative than they were in the 1980s, for example, whereas the Republicans seem to have completely plunged off a cliff into a pit of insanity in the same time period. There are plenty of issues where there's a big gulf between the Tories and the Republicans, I can't imagine a current Republican-lead government legalising gay marriage as Cameron did a few years ago.

May's coalition partners in the Democratic Unionist Party are probably the closest you'll get to the Republicans in Westminster, being overtly religious, against abortion, homosexuality and evolution and weirdly obsessed with flags.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think the general underlying trend of insanity in the US is much larger, though, and spread over many more issues than the UK. Certain hot-button issues in the US are not issues at all over here (thank fuck).

My best bet is the major difference is religion. I did a quick Google search and as I suspect, religion is on the decline in the UK (here too in the US, but the decline is going at a slower rate). The decline is causing the religious right here in the US to intensify, and that's where most of the craziness spawns from. I can't speak to what's happening in the UK on that front. Outside of that though there are some noticeable similarities, especially the rise of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. 

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

A lot of hype surrounded Obama, and perhaps unrealistic expectations as to what he would accomplish.  Even a lot of people voting for Labour are cautious of Corbyn.

That would help create the effect I'm talking about. If he's not particularly popular, it becomes easier for the public to blame him for bad Brexit negotiations if that were to happen, even though it was the Tories fault for creating the situation. That's why punting in the short term might be the best idea. 

52 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I'm no fan of the Tories, but I'm not sure that they've necessarily gotten more conservative than they were in the 1980s, for example, whereas the Republicans seem to have completely plunged off a cliff into a pit of insanity in the same time period. There are plenty of issues where there's a big gulf between the Tories and the Republicans, I can't imagine a current Republican-lead government legalising gay marriage as Cameron did a few years ago.

May's coalition partners in the Democratic Unionist Party are probably the closest you'll get to the Republicans in Westminster, being overtly religious, against abortion, homosexuality and evolution and weirdly obsessed with flags.

See my first point about religion, which started around the time period you pointed out. That has caused a lot of the differences between the two parties. But on other issues you can find similar trends. Another example, as Wert laid out, are the attempts by both parties to dismantle the welfare state (I don't know if you guys in the UK use the same term). 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

See my first point about religion, which started around the time period you pointed out. That has caused a lot of the differences between the two parties. But on other issues you can find similar trends. Another example, as Wert laid out, are the attempts by both parties to dismantle the welfare state (I don't know if you guys in the UK use the same term). 

We do, but as I said I think the primary focus of the hard-right Tories will be on privatisation of healthcare. It's something a lot of them want and they honestly believe Britain would be better off if it had the same kind of hellish system as the United States. The NHS is a British institution and I think most Brits realise how lucky we are to have it, but sadly the long-term Tory plan (abetted by the likes of the Daily Mail, Telegraph and the Sun) of making privatisation an attractive option by starving if of resources and then pretending it's the fault of immigrants/scroungers/lazy people is somewhat effective.

Fortunately there's a lot Tory centrists and moderates who know that it'd be a ridiculous hill to die on. Much will depend on which faction emerges on top after Brexit.

[mormont]

10 hours ago, williamjm said:

I'm no fan of the Tories, but I'm not sure that they've necessarily gotten more conservative than they were in the 1980s, for example

In some ways they have become much more conservative, in some ways they are less so.

If you look at something like NHS privatisation, for example, the modern Tory party's position is much further to the right, although one can argue part of that is simply that it's possible to hold these positions now, whereas it wasn't back then. On Europe, they're definitely further to the right than they were. On gay rights, they've moved in the other direction, although there is still a strong feeling in parts of the party opposed to that. On abortion rights, they seem to have moved further right. I'm not sure whether one can argue the race/immigration issue: to some extent immigration appears to have simply replaced race? But it's still all about blaming social disorder on people who're not like us. Inner city riots vs 'radical Islam'. 

[BigFatCoward]

Farage just likes being in the news doesn't he.  Apparently a second referendum wouldn't be the worst thing, as it would end dissent once and for all, with an even bigger majority.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42649214

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

We do, but as I said I think the primary focus of the hard-right Tories will be on privatisation of healthcare. It's something a lot of them want and they honestly believe Britain would be better off if it had the same kind of hellish system as the United States. The NHS is a British institution and I think most Brits realise how lucky we are to have it, but sadly the long-term Tory plan (abetted by the likes of the Daily Mail, Telegraph and the Sun) of making privatisation an attractive option by starving if of resources and then pretending it's the fault of immigrants/scroungers/lazy people is somewhat effective.

Fortunately there's a lot Tory centrists and moderates who know that it'd be a ridiculous hill to die on. Much will depend on which faction emerges on top after Brexit.

See, you could literally replace NHS with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and the Tories with the Republicans and you’d have identical situations, except Republicans have been trying to privatize those programs for a few decades. This is what I mean when I say the Tories are becoming more and more like the Republicans. They’re following in the Republicans footsteps, sans the bat**** crazy religious stuff.

Pray they don’t follow that too!

[Which Tyler]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Pray they don’t follow that too!

Who to?

[Hereward]

                                                                     Republicans          Conservatives

Universal Health Care                                       No                               Yes

Global Warming Acceptance                             No                               Yes

Gay Marriage                                                    No                               Yes       

Anti-Muslim                                                       Yes                              No

Abortion                                                            No                               Yes         

Increasing Foreign Aid                                      No                               Yes

Voter Suppression                                            Yes                              No

Government Aid to Industry                              No                               Yes

Acceptance of Racism                                      Yes                              No

Colludes with Russia                                         Yes                              No

But sure, they're becoming more and more alike. I'm a member of the Conservative Party, and if, Heaven Forfend, I were American, I'd be a Democrat, and so would most of the Tories I know. So would Cameron and so would May, I believe. OTOH, if Clinton was British she'd not even be on the centrist wing of the Conservative Party, but somewhere in the middle of party orthodoxy.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Who to?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, duh.