UK Politics: The Beast From The East

[Hereward]

12 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Hey, I'm from the South East and from a middle class area too!

There's a difference between being furious/worried, and actually wanting politicians to try and go against the popular vote. My sister is as pro Remain as you can get (she cried when the result came out) but she has said she grudgingly knows the result has to be respected- as you say, she wants the softest possible Brexit. That's the logical stance. If we voted to remain, I'd have supported a "soft remain", trying to distance ourselves from the Eurozone, while staying a member.

I was talking about his position of respecting the result of the referendum.

Well, as I say, I was a reluctant Remainer, but for me, this is the worst of all worlds. It's choosing to be a fully paid up non-voting member, but with our largest industry and main foreign currency earner cut out. It achieves none of the things Brexiteers wanted, and also dissatisfies Eurosceptics and Europhiles. There is no chance (whatever chance there was) to strengthen trade links with rising economic powers, preserves freedom of movement, maintains adherence to EU regulation and law, keeps in place the supremacy of the European courts, doesn't save money to spend on other national priorities, doesn't allow for an independent, state-run economic policy, should that be something you want, and in fact gives up the rebate, so will cost even more in future. 

[Isis]

12 hours ago, Hereward said:

I too live in the south, and am reasonably middle class, and I know not a single person, friends or family, who voted to Remain. 

Just saying!

Wow.

I live in the Remainiest borough of London and I work in central London. Brexit is shit for academica/public health/education (my profession) it is also totally rubbish for the brewing industry (my other line of work). I do know some people who voted leave but as I said, none of them are friends of mine. (I'm saying nothing about class as I don't call myself middle class). I don't accept it and I'm not going to 'get over it'.

[mankytoes]

 

2 hours ago, Hereward said:

Well, as I say, I was a reluctant Remainer, but for me, this is the worst of all worlds. It's choosing to be a fully paid up non-voting member, but with our largest industry and main foreign currency earner cut out. It achieves none of the things Brexiteers wanted, and also dissatisfies Eurosceptics and Europhiles. There is no chance (whatever chance there was) to strengthen trade links with rising economic powers, preserves freedom of movement, maintains adherence to EU regulation and law, keeps in place the supremacy of the European courts, doesn't save money to spend on other national priorities, doesn't allow for an independent, state-run economic policy, should that be something you want, and in fact gives up the rebate, so will cost even more in future. 

I agree with you, I meant from the perspective of absolute Europhiles. They would rather Brussels had more power over us, even if we are a non-voting member. As a reluctant remainer, I assume you have (what I would consider) a better grasp on the flaws of the EU. It's interesting how the rhetoric changed a lot since the referendum was announced, before that we got a lot of "we should stay in, but only on the understanding there will be fundamental changes". I guess this wouldn't tactically be a great way to campaign, you've got to be a bit more positive, but it has had the effect of causing, or at least revealing, more overt pro-EU sentiment.

[SeanF]

In terms of reaction to the result, there's probably a big difference between Conservative Remainers, most of whom aren't too bothered about the result and are none too keen on the EU, and Labour and Lib Dem Remainers, who are much more committed to the organisation.

[Shryke]

So anyone else following the latest in Corbyn's "No, I'm not anti-semitic, I didn't really look to closely at these anti-semites I keep ending up standing next to" saga?

Latest incident was a 2012 comment by Corbyn in support of a blatantly anti-semitic and conspiracy-theory-packed mural. As usual he says he regrets he didn't look more closely at the mural before defending it and so on.

Quote

Let’s run through the greatest hits: there was the time Corbyn took tea with the hate preacher Raed Salah, and called him “a very honoured citizen”, even though he’d been charged in Israel with inciting anti-Jewish racism and violence; the time he hosted representatives from Hamas and Hezbollah, even though Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of the Jews; the times he accepted a total of £20,000 for appearing on Iran’s Press TV, a channel that regularly hosts Holocaust deniers; the time he defended the Rev Stephen Sizer, who was later banned by church authorities from social media for sharing antisemitic material blaming Israel for 9/11; that he was an active member of three Facebook groups on which deeply antisemitic posts regularly appeared; and that now he has commented on Facebook in support of an absurdly antisemitic mural. Corbyn is frequently praised by his supporters for sticking to his guns, never wavering in his opinions, and yet when you bring up any of the above instances they wave them away as being “ages ago” and say he’s apologised since. Corbyn has always cried innocent, insisting that of course he abhors antisemitism (and-all-other-forms-of-racism). How could anyone accuse him of being soft on it? Don’t they know his mother was at the Battle of Cable Street? Yeah, well, my mother worked with Jim Henson – it doesn’t make me Big Bird.

Truly, I have never known a man to find himself alongside antisemites so often and not realise until it is publicly pointed out to him.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/jews-furious-corbyn-evasions-labour-antisemitism

This later leads to a protest against antisemitism. And of course, now Labour MPs who attended are getting attacked over that:

Quote

Labour MPs who attended a solidarity demonstration against antisemitism in the party are being targeted for deselection by members and attacked on social media.

David Lammy, the Tottenham MP who was at Monday night’s protest to support Jewish constituents but did not speak, may face a challenge from his constituency party. Tottenham Labour Party Members Only Facebook page is carrying posts demanding that he is deselected.

Some of his party members claim Lammy has “stabbed them in the back” by attending the demonstration, which they regard as an anti-Corbyn rally. One wrote that the protest was focused on Corbyn’s leadership, not antisemitism, while another said they wanted a candidate in the next election “who wants Labour to win”.

Quote

 

Other MPs who were among the dozen or so who attended the protest are being abused on their social media feeds. One organisation, The Sqwawkbox, emailed some MPs challenging them to prove they opposed all racism in a way that implied their opposition to antisemitism was only about the party leadership.

As Jennie Formby, the new general secretary of the party, prepares to start work after Easter, Labour has acknowledged there are at least 70 allegations of antisemitism waiting to be resolved. But other sources doubt that the party’s organisation knows for sure how many there are.

After an emotional meeting of the shadow cabinet on Tuesday, Jeremy Corbyn made enacting the recommendations of the Chakrabarti report – published in June 2016 – Formby’s priority.

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/28/labour-mps-attending-antisemitism-protest-targeted-for-deselection-corbyn-lammy

This whole thing is just getting weirder and weirder every time it comes up.

[SeanF]

32 minutes ago, Shryke said:

So anyone else following the latest in Corbyn's "No, I'm not anti-semitic, I didn't really look to closely at these anti-semites I keep ending up standing next to" saga?

Latest incident was a 2012 comment by Corbyn in support of a blatantly anti-semitic and conspiracy-theory-packed mural. As usual he says he regrets he didn't look more closely at the mural before defending it and so on.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/jews-furious-corbyn-evasions-labour-antisemitism

This later leads to a protest against antisemitism. And of course, now Labour MPs who attended are getting attacked over that:

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/28/labour-mps-attending-antisemitism-protest-targeted-for-deselection-corbyn-lammy

This whole thing is just getting weirder and weirder every time it comes up.

I doubt if Jeremy Corbyn is himself anti-Semitic.  He probably takes the view that if you're on the side of the oppressed, you don't criticise them even when they do and say repellent things.

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I doubt if Jeremy Corbyn is himself anti-Semitic.  He probably takes the view that if you're on the side of the oppressed, you don't criticise them even when they do and say repellent things.

The main view I've seen is that he isn't anti-Semitic personally, but he's either (a) pretty ignorant about it or (b) willing to overlook it in people who otherwise agree with him.

[A wilding]

8 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Hey, I'm from the South East and from a middle class area too!

There's a difference between being furious/worried, and actually wanting politicians to try and go against the popular vote.

Yes, and most people I know would tend towards the latter.

The general opinion is that a tiny majority of people have been manipulated into voting for us all to be dragged off a cliff. The idea that a narrow majority obtained on a specific occasion is sacrosanct is being balanced against the irrevocable impact of the change.

(Of course, those people who are retired or near retirement enough not to worry about their jobs, and have sufficient investments not to worry about an impoverished old age, will probably be ok. But I think that even we should be worried about developing an expensive medical condition, given that the NHS is now unlikely to survive in anything like its current form, especially when the ISDS clauses of the trade deals we will be desperate to sign up to force its partial privatisation.)

 

[A wilding]

5 hours ago, mankytoes said:

It's interesting how the rhetoric changed a lot since the referendum was announced, before that we got a lot of "we should stay in, but only on the understanding there will be fundamental changes".

One of Cameron's most stupid moves.

We had already negotiated the best deal we were ever going to get (and for once in my life, a shout out to Maggie Thatcher, who managed it). There was no way we were ever going to get anything other than cosmetic improvements. By talking in such terms, instead of pointing out all our existing special arrangements (starting with being outside Schengen), Cameron was shooting his own campaign in the foot.

 

[mankytoes]

58 minutes ago, A wilding said:

Yes, and most people I know would tend towards the latter.

The general opinion is that a tiny majority of people have been manipulated into voting for us all to be dragged off a cliff. The idea that a narrow majority obtained on a specific occasion is sacrosanct is being balanced against the irrevocable impact of the change.

(Of course, those people who are retired or near retirement enough not to worry about their jobs, and have sufficient investments not to worry about an impoverished old age, will probably be ok. But I think that even we should be worried about developing an expensive medical condition, given that the NHS is now unlikely to survive in anything like its current form, especially when the ISDS clauses of the trade deals we will be desperate to sign up to force its partial privatisation.)

 

I guess that's a useful line for you to use, but the polling shows Remain voters were actually more likely to have made up their minds later- thus more likely to have been effected by the campaigns. Personally, I was "manipulated" by studying the EU.

Do you think Americans should respect their latest election result? That wasn't even a majority at all, there was definitely a lot of manipulation, and it's a much worse outcome than Brexit.

That's probably the weakest of the popular Remain arguments. I don't know if you know many old people, but they don't tend to develop a "don't give a shit" attitude towards the future, on the contrary they often get very worried about their descendants and the future of the country. My grandad, for example, towards the end of his life (recently) started refusing to pay tradesmen in cash because he was so concerned about the state of the economy.

So Brexit is being blamed for the NHS problems as well now, were we in any form of European agreement when we started the NHS? Maybe stop voting in Tory governments who are obviously idiologically opposed to socialised medical care?

50 minutes ago, A wilding said:

One of Cameron's most stupid moves.

We had already negotiated the best deal we were ever going to get (and for once in my life, a shout out to Maggie Thatcher, who managed it). There was no way we were ever going to get anything other than cosmetic improvements. By talking in such terms, instead of pointing out all our existing special arrangements (starting with being outside Schengen), Cameron was shooting his own campaign in the foot.

I'm not just talking about Cameron, that was being said all across Labour as well.

If you want to look at PM cock ups, you can also see Blair making us one of only three EU countries (without looking it up, I think it was us, Sweden and Ireland) to accept unrestricted immigration from new EU countries, when restrictions were put in. But this is a man who would have got us in the Euro if he could have, thank God Brown managed to stop that one.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

The main view I've seen is that he isn't anti-Semitic personally, but he's either (a) pretty ignorant about it or (b) willing to overlook it in people who otherwise agree with him.

I'd say it's a combination of deliberately trying to stay ignorant to it because of people who do otherwise side with him being involved, and that although he's not anti-semite he is anti-Israel (at least in the Palestine thing, obviously) and as much as many people try to conflate the two in the 'anyone who attacks Israel is anti-semite' manner, Corbyn goes the other way and tries to pretend that people are just against Israel's policies when they're fairly obviously anti-Semite.

Either way, it's a terrible look.

[A wilding]

43 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I guess that's a useful line for you to use, but the polling shows Remain voters were actually more likely to have made up their minds later- thus more likely to have been effected by the campaigns. Personally, I was "manipulated" by studying the EU.

Do you think Americans should respect their latest election result? That wasn't even a majority at all, there was definitely a lot of manipulation, and it's a much worse outcome than Brexit.

That's probably the weakest of the popular Remain arguments. I don't know if you know many old people, but they don't tend to develop a "don't give a shit" attitude towards the future, on the contrary they often get very worried about their descendants and the future of the country. My grandad, for example, towards the end of his life (recently) started refusing to pay tradesmen in cash because he was so concerned about the state of the economy.

So Brexit is being blamed for the NHS problems as well now, were we in any form of European agreement when we started the NHS? Maybe stop voting in Tory governments who are obviously idiologically opposed to socialised medical care?

In order:

They would say that the manipulation did not start with the referendum campaign but has been going on for years.

It is up to the US whether they respect their result (FWIW my opinion is that their democracy is not in a healthy state). But of course the fundamental difference with the election of Trump is that it is not irrevocable (assuming he does not mount a coup or start a nuclear war or something like that.)

I was mostly arguing that my circle will probably be less affected by Brexit and so voted disinterestedly. Though you are right that many of them are very worried for their children.

No I didn't say the current state of the NHS is the fault of Brexit. If anything Brexit was sold as a cure for it, with that ridiculous £350 million a week lie (and I know anecdotally of people taken in by that lie). As I said, that was just my opinion - that Brexit will in the medium term be the final nail in the coffin for the NHS in its current form - and that I am, as far as possible, budgeting for that.

 

[Spockydog]

12 hours ago, Isis said:

I don't accept it and I'm not going to 'get over it'.

Yeah. Fuck this bullshit. This is not democracy.

11 Brexit Promises the Government Quietly Dropped. A pretty good summary of the clusterfuck so far.

In May 2016, six weeks from the vote, Nigel Farage told The Mirror,

"In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way."

Well, Nige, what about a 52-48 referendum where the winner was later found to have campaigned on a pack of lies, whilst committing serious breaches of large swathes of British electoral law?

Along with the all the Cambridge Analytica stuff, how can anyone possibly argue that democracy has been served?

[Spockydog]

Oh, and if Brexit actually does go ahead, the NHS is 100% absolutely. Fucking. Screwed.

 

[Yukle]

On 3/28/2018 at 7:06 AM, Isis said:

Yep. Everyone I know and like is fucking livid about it and is a long way from respecting or accepting the result.

In some ways it feels as though the very slow process (which is necessary) is providing many chances for denial that it's really going to happen. Maybe it's just part of the stages of grief, but I don't think some voters will ever be convinced until it actually finally happens.

And, it's kind of not outside of the realms of possibility that the government drags its feet, two years expire, and they haven't quite done yet. So get an extension. And then... nothing ever ends up happening.

Was there really a time frame in the referendum? Not really. So as long as they leave before the end of time, it's fulfilled.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

28 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Well, Nige, what about a 52-48 referendum where the winner was later found to have campaigned on a pack of lies, whilst committing serious breaches of large swathes of British electoral law?

I've always wondered why you guys can't just have a do over. Requiring a simple majority vote to leave the EU was idiotic, and it was clear that on top of all the lies the Leave campaign was spreading, UK citizens simply didn't understand the ramifications of their actions. One thing that really stood out to me was the high volume of internet searches within in the UK that were various forms of "what is the EU?" and "what will leaving mean?" in the wake of the election.

 

[Yukle]

I suppose that being misinformed is a risk that any democratic process has.

All political systems have their strengths and flaws. Democracy's flaw is the tyranny of majority. In the instance of Brexit, it was further exemplified by the fact that the UK, like most nations with voting, has voluntary voting. This corrupts the result as only the most engaged people in society will take part.

And the people who aren't voting are still forming the community. The reasons for their disinterest are hard to know, since they're disengaged. At the very least, such an important vote needs to be compulsory so that it's truly a reflection of the community's will.

Even then, there's always the very real risk after any vote that the vote wasn't carried out honestly, or that the outcome doesn't reflect what people thought they were voting for.

[Spockydog]

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've always wondered why you guys can't just have a do over.

Because the interests that control the Right Wing Media in this country will not allow it.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've always wondered why you guys can't just have a do over.

 

Because it would look like the establishment elite demanding another vote because they didn’t like the results of the first one. In fact I think Leave would win by a larger amount in a second referendum.

[Spockydog]

26 minutes ago, Yukle said:

I suppose that being misinformed is a risk that any democratic process has.

All political systems have their strengths and flaws. Democracy's flaw is the tyranny of majority. In the instance of Brexit, it was further exemplified by the fact that the UK, like most nations with voting, has voluntary voting. This corrupts the result as only the most engaged people in society will take part.

And the people who aren't voting are still forming the community. The reasons for their disinterest are hard to know, since they're disengaged. At the very least, such an important vote needs to be compulsory so that it's truly a reflection of the community's will.

Even then, there's always the very real risk after any vote that the vote wasn't carried out honestly, or that the outcome doesn't reflect what people thought they were voting for.

Yeah there's always the risk that your Government will pay to have you manipulated by a company that distributes videos of people being dismembered and burnt alive in order to sway elections in Nigeria.

That's the price you pay for democracy, I suppose.