UK Politics: The Overton Defenestration

[Werthead]

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H: thanks. A second referendum is an idea I've seen bruited about by Lib Dem supporters and MPs but that link suggests it's actual party policy, which I didn't realise. However nice an idea it is, it's in the rainbow-coloured unicorn territory I'm afraid. 

 

It is for winning power, clearly. However, the Lib Dems have identified that there is a large number of people (mostly young ones) who want to remain in the EU and are internationally minded, liberal etc. Labour are failing to connect with them, so the Lib Dems believe - with some good cause - that they can sweep them up. The goal isn't power, it's to simply get back from the doldrums they were knocked into in 2015. It's a reasonable strategy for them, as there wasn't really any way that things were going to get worse for them.

[The BlackBear]

As much as Labour have fallen apart I don't believe the Lib Dems can leapfrog them in any meaningful way. I very much feel like I'm living in a country without an opposition, there's no one credible to hold the Conservatives hard brexit plans in check. In the voting system we have, the lefts multiple parties are a weakness and the rights single party (I see UKIP largely as an irrelevance now) is a strength.

[Liffguard]

5 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

As much as Labour have fallen apart I don't believe the Lib Dems can leapfrog them in any meaningful way.

Leapfrog them, no. But they can maybe pull themselves back to the point of at least having thirty-to-forty-odd seats.

[The BlackBear]

That's great for them, makes no difference to the left right split nationwide.

[Werthead]

On 20/01/2017 at 7:31 PM, The BlackBear said:

That's great for them, makes no difference to the left right split nationwide.

It did in 2010 though.

We very narrowly avoided a hung parliament in 2015 as well and they will remain possible in the future, so the aim of getting into that position again is a perfectly viable approach for the Lib Dems. They may also be hoping for a total collapse in Labour and hoovering up MPs jumping ship.

The Lib Dems don't need to get into a position to win a general election, in the short term they just need to escape from the Pit of Total Irrelevance they find themselves in right now.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So that they can form a coalition with the Tories again?

[Werthead]

15 hours ago, Notone said:

So that they can form a coalition with the Tories again?

I suspect this would not be their first preference. They'd rather pursue this "coalition of the left" idea with the Greens (all 1 of them), the SNP and Labour if it came to it. Labour do not seem to be cooperating, however, by instead making themselves unelectable for some considerable time to come (unless they up their game impressively and quickly).

Then again, we probably weren't expecting to be hearing about a British submarine launching a nuclear-capable missile at Florida either, so who knows what's going to happen.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, the LibDems should have and would have been dead and buried (politically) now, if it wasn't for the weakness of labour. The LibDems look like the rescue boat to voters who abandoned the RMS Cobryn after it hit the iceberg (Brexit) and is now floating adrift a bit aimless on the ocean from election to election. [Wow, that metaphor worked better than I thought]. The Tories at least go their act together after their collission, ofc their act was raising a huge rhetorical sail, line up behind it blow so much air into it, that their voyage unto the great unknown continues. With Captain May screaming, Don't worry I know the way. And so they continue to blow hard into that sail, and if they haven't persihed yet, they might still blow hard today.

[Werthead]

I think it's abundantly clear that the Tories do not have the slightest clue about why people voted Brexit, and what lessons they can learn from Trump. Those lessons should be that jobs need to be focused on, people need to feel they have a good career progression and prospects, and that failing public services need to be reinforced and made to succeed, particularly the NHS. With all these talks of becoming a tax haven, of removing regulation and protections and doing nothing to make housing more affordable, the Tories are showing they've not taken any of these lessons on board.

The Tories failing to appreciate this could lead to some horrible Brext+++ clusterfuck further down the line where we end up with UKIP in office or who knows what.

The only hope for Labour, I think, is that they do seem to have identified that issue. They're just bungling the PR and how to turn that into a winning path into office.

[mormont]

To the surprise of few, the government lose their SC appeal over Article 50.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38720320

[The BlackBear]

I'm sure the newspapers will react with moderation and restraint.

[Hereward]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think it's abundantly clear that the Tories do not have the slightest clue about why people voted Brexit, and what lessons they can learn from Trump. Those lessons should be that jobs need to be focused on, people need to feel they have a good career progression and prospects, and that failing public services need to be reinforced and made to succeed, particularly the NHS. With all these talks of becoming a tax haven, of removing regulation and protections and doing nothing to make housing more affordable, the Tories are showing they've not taken any of these lessons on board.

The Tories failing to appreciate this could lead to some horrible Brext+++ clusterfuck further down the line where we end up with UKIP in office or who knows what.

The only hope for Labour, I think, is that they do seem to have identified that issue. They're just bungling the PR and how to turn that into a winning path into office.

I'm afraid that might just be projection. I'm not saying these aren't things people are concerned about, but I doubt that was why people voted for Brexit. It follows from this that congratulating Labour on having grasped this motivation is erroneous, and claiming that Labour's only problem is therefore PR, doubly so.

[mormont]

Labour's problems are much, much more fundamental than PR. I'm sure Corbyn, Milne and McDonnell sincerely believe that the press is the only thing holding them back, but they're deeply wrong. And while they're fighting among themselves over what their own Brexit policy is, it's a bit hard to credit that they truly understand why people voted for it.

[SeanF]

The Commons will vote to trigger A.50.  The important win for the government is that none of the devolved assemblies have a veto over its exercise.

[ljkeane]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The Commons will vote to trigger A.50.  The important win for the government is that none of the devolved assemblies have a veto over its exercise.

Was there ever even a remote chance that they would? Seems a bit of a stretch to me.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, ljkeane said:

Was there ever even a remote chance that they would? Seems a bit of a stretch to me.

I'm a solicitor (although I don't do constitutional law).  One thing I've learned is that you can never take the Courts for granted.  They're quite capable of springing surprises, however strong you think your case is.  So, while I don't think the argument being put forward by the Scottish government was a strong one, it wasn't purely speculative either.

[Werthead]

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I'm afraid that might just be projection. I'm not saying these aren't things people are concerned about, but I doubt that was why people voted for Brexit. It follows from this that congratulating Labour on having grasped this motivation is erroneous, and claiming that Labour's only problem is therefore PR, doubly so.

Case in point.

People voted for Brexit out of anger and frustration at Tory policies on employment, housing, the economy and the NHS, which the government had deflected (rather inadvertently, since they weren't expecting what happened) on dem durty imgrants and the EU. The fact that the Red Bus of Deception had quite an impact on the Brexit vote shows where people's interests lay. The media's interviews also showed what people were thinking about, like frustrated middle-aged men on the Clyde declaring the would vote Brexit to bring back shipbuilding and unregulated fishing (which won't happen and hasn't got anything to do with it), other people saying they voted as a protest against government policies and then realising it was a wasted vote with unintended consequences, especially now that the government has said it will double down on the very things people despised (like permitting tax-dodging).

Maybe I'm being breathtakingly naive, but I don't believe the majority of British people are racists and bigots. The main opposition to immigration was the strain it placed on public services already chronically under-funded by the Tories for six years straight and increased competition for jobs and housing, hence the very fierce arguments over whether migrants were a net benefit or minus to such services (rather than the ideological roots of that underfunding, which was too big to fit into a headline or soundbite). So people were very much focused on those issues, and it was certainly what everyone I spoke to about the referendum and saw in the media mentioned. I find it rather bizarre to suggest they were not.

Labour certainly have identified this as a key problem for the Tories and an area where they may make gains. They won't, mainly because Corbyn is a poor leader who is too slow to react to the issues of the day and make Labour's position clear and the infighting within Labour will continue. The media certainly aren't giving Labour much time to make their points though, although given the distractions of Trump, Syria and other news stories that may also be unavoidable.

 

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Was there ever even a remote chance that they would? Seems a bit of a stretch to me.

 

Scotland has made the point that the UK leaving the EU is the biggest thing to happen to the individual countries of the UK and they should have more of a say in the process, especially if those countries voted against it. This is especially true for Northern Ireland, which both voted against Brexit and now faces having a hard border forced on it against its will, with an impact on the Northern Irish economy and the peace process when it's at quite a fragile moment. The UK government has actually been quite blase about this issue and its possible consequences, which is concerning.

That said I really don't think Sturgeon wants this situation on her plate. She's going to be backed into a corner and having to call a referendum which she is less likely to win right now, which would probably end her political career. From everything she's said since the referendum, I think she wants May to chuck her a reasonable bone - a negotiated part-membership of the common market, some sort of transitional deal or some kind of special relationship for Scotland - which she can use to declare victory and then see how Brexit goes and if a stronger opportunity for a new referendum arises a few years down the line. Going for the hard Brexit doesn't give her anything she can sell to her party.

[Werthead]

Oh this is interesting. Jeanette Winterson is closing down her shop in Spitalfields because of a business rate hike from £21,000 to £54,000 (yay for small businesses). This is quite interesting because the business rates here in Colchester were £15,000 in 2011. That was ridiculous given that Colchester has a "slightly" smaller footfall than London.

Business rates should come down in some of the rest of the country, which is good, but this notion that just because a business is in London it's automatically a massive success and should pay more money is absurd. I suspect quite a few businesses will be driven under by this.

[Hereward]

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Case in point.

People voted for Brexit out of anger and frustration at Tory policies on employment, housing, the economy and the NHS, which the government had deflected (rather inadvertently, since they weren't expecting what happened) on dem durty imgrants and the EU. The fact that the Red Bus of Deception had quite an impact on the Brexit vote shows where people's interests lay. The media's interviews also showed what people were thinking about, like frustrated middle-aged men on the Clyde declaring the would vote Brexit to bring back shipbuilding and unregulated fishing (which won't happen and hasn't got anything to do with it), other people saying they voted as a protest against government policies and then realising it was a wasted vote with unintended consequences, especially now that the government has said it will double down on the very things people despised (like permitting tax-dodging).

Maybe I'm being breathtakingly naive, but I don't believe the majority of British people are racists and bigots. The main opposition to immigration was the strain it placed on public services already chronically under-funded by the Tories for six years straight and increased competition for jobs and housing, hence the very fierce arguments over whether migrants were a net benefit or minus to such services (rather than the ideological roots of that underfunding, which was too big to fit into a headline or soundbite). So people were very much focused on those issues, and it was certainly what everyone I spoke to about the referendum and saw in the media mentioned. I find it rather bizarre to suggest they were not.

 

No, I don't believe that is true, though I would be happy to see some evidence if you have it. If it were true, the people most opposed to Tory policies, i.e. Labour, SNP, LibDem and Green supporters, would have overwhelmingly voted Leave. They didn't. Certainly some 35% f Labour supporters voted Leave, but that is probably down to two things, anger/bewilderment at the pace of cultural and economic change (as with many UKIP supporters), and, amongst the traditional hard left, opposition to the EU's economic policy, enshrined in law and "constitution". Far more Tories voted to Leave than Labour, and that seems unlikely to be down to opposition to their party's policies. 

 

[ljkeane]

28 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Scotland has made the point that the UK leaving the EU is the biggest thing to happen to the individual countries of the UK and they should have more of a say in the process, especially if those countries voted against it.

That's nice and all but the Scottish Parliament explicitly doesn't have any power over foreign policy and the Act of Parliament which created was also pretty clear they have no power to constrain Westminster, plus of course Parliamentary Sovereignty and all that so it couldn't have been given that power anyway. So overall the legal case seemed (and apparently is) pretty baseless and why exactly should Scotland have more say than that given by it's MPs in Westminster?

28 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 From everything she's said since the referendum, I think she wants May to chuck her a reasonable bone - a negotiated part-membership of the common market, some sort of transitional deal or some kind of special relationship for Scotland - which she can use to declare victory

I don't see how that's a 'reasonable bone'. That would a massive deal which was absolutely not going to happen. May was just going to follow through on Brexit for the rest of the UK and then let Scotland stay in? How the hell would that even work?