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UK Politics Unexpected Election edition


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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hence... the "civil war" in Labour?

And, sort of related, that Labour's support is split between the left-leaning 'metropolitan elites' and traditional working class core who hold diametrically opposite views on Brexit, immigration, etc.

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1 hour ago, Mathis said:


Expectations are so low becuase he is utterly incompetent, and holds views that huge swathes of the electorate are diametrically opposed to.

What, hostility to austerity and Trident?

As if round-the-clock leaking, internal attacks, vicious Establishment hostility, and media bashing on a scale greater than that meted out to Milliband, Brown, Kinnock, or even Foot, is completely inconsequential. Yes, Corbyn's failed. In hindsight, he was never going to win against that firepower.

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It's kind of a chicken and egg thing with Corbyn, either he's incompetent and therefore won't win, or the media reported he's incompetent but he isn't and still won't win. The net result is the same. At least now, we have a month and a half of more balanced media (his speech today seems to be being reported fairly positively from what I've seen, there's a little more scrutiny of the media to be even handed during an election and Labour are still the official opposition), and then we can all move on after June 8th. It's probably best for Labour in the long run to have this election now.

So, I live in North East Hants. Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena trounced the opposition in 2015, 35,573 votes to the Lib Dem's 5,657 votes in second place. Somebody convince me to bother voting under these circumstances.

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23 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

What, hostility to austerity and Trident?

No, hostility to the monarchy, the armed forces, any limits on immigration, a liking for Venezuelan economics, the IRA, high taxes, etc, etc.

23 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As if round-the-clock leaking, internal attacks, vicious Establishment hostility, and media bashing on a scale greater than that meted out to Milliband, Brown, Kinnock, or even Foot, is completely inconsequential. Yes, Corbyn's failed. In hindsight, he was never going to win against that firepower.

It is possible to dislike hard left Labour politicians and politics without being a deluded and manipulated pleb, I believe.

PS Corbynistas show their real views on democracy when it gives answers they don't like by suspending Len McCluskey's challenger for leadership of Corbyn's biggest union paymaster. 

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5 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

So, I live in North East Hants. Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena trounced the opposition in 2015, 35,573 votes to the Lib Dem's 5,657 votes in second place. Somebody convince me to bother voting under these circumstances.

You're right. Best not to bother. :)

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1 hour ago, Horse of Kent said:

And, sort of related, that Labour's support is split between the left-leaning 'metropolitan elites' and traditional working class core who hold diametrically opposite views on Brexit, immigration, etc.

This is somewhat exaggerated. 'Traditional' working-class Labour voters aren't as far from the 'metropolitan elites' on these issues as is often said. The issue is that people seem unable to parse the idea that upper working-class voters aren't Labour voters, despite the fact that many of them have consistently voted Tory since 1979.

48 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

What, hostility to austerity and Trident?

As if round-the-clock leaking, internal attacks, vicious Establishment hostility, and media bashing on a scale greater than that meted out to Milliband, Brown, Kinnock, or even Foot, is completely inconsequential.

As someone who was around for Kinnock and Foot, Corbyn has definitely not had a more hostile press than they had.

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13 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Is there any possibility of a major surprise in this election?

If we could anticipate it now perhaps it wouldn't be a major surprise?

I agree with the other suggestions that it seems likely any surprises might be about who wins individual seats rather than who wins the election overall. That said, recent politics around the world have been anything but predictable.

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I thought Corbyn was ousted as the leader of Labour?

You might be thinking of the leadership challenge he faced last year where one of the more centrist MPs challenged him after the Brexit vote, but Corbyn won the leadership election by a big margin.

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15 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I also think that if Labour does badly, and Corbyn does resign, it is entirely possible that the membership will (not without reason) pin the blame on the relentless internal undermining of his leadership from Day One. Which means the Labour Civil War between membership and MPs continues, just involving different people.

 

2 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As if round-the-clock leaking, internal attacks, vicious Establishment hostility, and media bashing on a scale greater than that meted out to Milliband, Brown, Kinnock, or even Foot, is completely inconsequential. Yes, Corbyn's failed. In hindsight, he was never going to win against that firepower.

Oh, please. So Corbyn can't lead his own party against some sort of opposition, but he is the PM that was promised, to lead the UK against the opposition with the support of the Tories and other parties, who will unite behind Jerry's marvelous leadership skills. Sorry, but Corbyn couldn't be arsed to lead his own party, nor the remain campaign, he was officially supposed to lead. If we go by the old wisdom that past behaviour is the best behaviour for future behaviour, then it is really beyond me how anybody can still see Corbyn as being fit to lead Labour, or the UK. 

If there were a god, Labour would keep most of their seats, while Corbyn loses his Islington North seat. Well, him and Hoey in Vauxhall.

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It's ridiculous to have expected Corbyn to lead a Remain campaign, He's always been opposed, but the man of principle took a pragmatic position that he couldn't really say that. His actions since have proved just how much of a Remainer he was.

He voted to leave in 1975. He opposed the Maastrict Treaty in 1993, saying, accurately, it "that takes away from national parliaments the power to set economic policy and hands it over to an unelected set of bankers who will impose the economic policies of price stability, deflation and high unemployment". He voted against the LIsbon Treaty in 2008, noting the EU's "democratic deficit". 

In 2009 he opposed the creation of the post of European Council president in 2009, saying that "The creation of the post of president is a triumph for the tenacity of the European long-sighters. The project has always been to create a huge free-market Europe, with ever-limiting powers for national parliaments and an increasingly powerful common foreign and security policy."

During the Labour leadership contest, he said "I would advocate a No vote if we are going to get an imposition of free market policies across Europe", before going on to criticise the "growing military links" with NATO. He even criticised the government's pro-EU leaflet campaign, with his spokesman saying a more neutral assessment of the facts about the EU.

Some Remain leader.

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It was nevertheless his party's official position. And yes, if he can't get the party to move towards his position, I would expect him to show up and do his very best to represent his party. I mean you can here actually make a case for May. She was supposed to be a remainer, if I am not mistaken. Yet, she is doing what is expected from her. She has taken the lead on Leave (which again was supposedly not her private position).

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16 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Is there any possibility of a major surprise in this election?

Several. The biggest potential for a major surprise is definitely the election scandal. If that blows up and sitting Tory MPs are prosecuted, that creates a tremendous level of distrust in the Conservative Party, introduces a narrative that they bought the 2015 election etc. Given the reaction to the last expenses scandal (which Labour couldn't leverage as some of its MPs were affected as well) this could be quite calamitous.

More likely it blows over quietly and nothing comes of it, but that's not a given.

The other surprise (sort of) would be a bigger comeback for the Lib Dems than is expected. It seems to be widely accepted that they will have a bounce of some kind, but whether that's modest (say picking up 4 or 5 more seats) or impressive (20+) is the question.

Other surprises could be the outbreak of war in Korea (Britain was a party to the Korean War and under the terms of the ceasefire we would legally be required to take part, as I believe Boris has suggested, although in practice this appears unworkable), another major international crisis, the French election going south or a major terrorist incident, but it's unclear would impact that would have on the election.

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Given the Brexit why wouldn't there be more support for the SNP and Scottish independence?

As Mormont said, the SNP is so popular that they have exactly 3 seats they can gain in Scotland. They can't do any better than that without winning seats in England where they are not actually standing :)

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Hence... the "civil war" in Labour?

Yup, although the terms of the civil war are a little more complex. We have the Blairites and New Labour crew, who believe that Labour has to firmly remain in the centre and cannot return to the left. Their position is weak because the Conservatives have passed socially progressive legislation that is actually to the left of them (the Tories, laudably, legalised gay marriage which the supposedly more liberal and progressive Labour refused to do despite having thirteen years to do it in) and they are tainted by both the Iraq War (unfairly, in the case of the Labour MPs who gained their seats in 2005, 2010 and 2015) and the perception that New Labour caused the economic meltdown.

Against them you have the hard-left, old-skool, trade union-supported crew, including the Trotskyists and Communists that supposedly New Labour ran off years ago, now unified (along with a large number of students and young voters) in a group called Momentum. Corbyn is heavily allied to that group and draws a lot of his support from them. However, although they got him elected they seem incredibly reluctant to get out and campaign for Labour directly, leading to bizarre situations where Momentum can get tens of thousands of people to vote for Corbyn in a nationwide leadership contest but they can't even turn out the fee-paying, registered Labour members in London boroughs in by-elections, which is absurd.

Somewhere inbetween you have people who think that Labour should be slightly to the left of where they were under Blair but not going full USSR, but they seem to be drifting off to the Liberal Democrats.

 

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It's kind of a chicken and egg thing with Corbyn, either he's incompetent and therefore won't win, or the media reported he's incompetent but he isn't and still won't win. The net result is the same. At least now, we have a month and a half of more balanced media (his speech today seems to be being reported fairly positively from what I've seen, there's a little more scrutiny of the media to be even handed during an election and Labour are still the official opposition), and then we can all move on after June 8th. It's probably best for Labour in the long run to have this election now.

Corbyn was interviewed about his odds of winning the election or surviving it and he mentioned the 200-1 odds before the leadership election of him winning, so he sees the current polls as quite cheering! It reminds me of the Daily Mash headlines: "Unelectable man keeps winning elections".

The chances of him winning the election are miniscule, to be clear, but he's defied every single odd and challenge thrown down to him so far.

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No, hostility to the monarchy, the armed forces, any limits on immigration, a liking for Venezuelan economics, the IRA, high taxes, etc, etc.

The Tories haven't exactly covered themselves in glory by stripping the armed forces of funding, by also refusing to confirm there'll be any limits on immigration (and even saying it will remain at high levels for years), by showing sympathy (ish) for ex-IRA terrorists when they die and are also extremely opposed to high taxes. You might have a point on the Venezuelan thing, that's definitely a criticism that I hear aired a lot.

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2 hours ago, Notone said:

Oh, please. So Corbyn can't lead his own party against some sort of opposition, but he is the PM that was promised, to lead the UK against the opposition with the support of the Tories and other parties, who will unite behind Jerry's marvelous leadership skills. Sorry, but Corbyn couldn't be arsed to lead his own party, nor the remain campaign, he was officially supposed to lead. If we go by the old wisdom that past behaviour is the best behaviour for future behaviour, then it is really beyond me how anybody can still see Corbyn as being fit to lead Labour, or the UK. 

If there were a god, Labour would keep most of their seats, while Corbyn loses his Islington North seat. Well, him and Hoey in Vauxhall.

I'm never going to be mistaken for a Corbyn fan, but this is wildly unfair, just setting up and beating up straw men. Nobody's ever claimed Corbyn has 'marvelous leadership skills', or that he could swing the Tories behind him: and the idea that Corbyn is failing to lead his party because he isn't trying is absurd.

45 minutes ago, Notone said:

It was nevertheless his party's official position. And yes, if he can't get the party to move towards his position, I would expect him to show up and do his very best to represent his party. I mean you can here actually make a case for May. She was supposed to be a remainer, if I am not mistaken. Yet, she is doing what is expected from her. She has taken the lead on Leave (which again was supposedly not her private position).

I have heard differently, which is that she was genuinely conflicted personally but basically - like Johnson - mostly interested in what would be good for her political career. And she still is.

11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yup, although the terms of the civil war are a little more complex. We have the Blairites and New Labour crew, who believe that Labour has to firmly remain in the centre and cannot return to the left. Their position is weak because the Conservatives have passed socially progressive legislation that is actually to the left of them (the Tories, laudably, legalised gay marriage which the supposedly more liberal and progressive Labour refused to do despite having thirteen years to do it in)

It's questionable, though, whether the Tories would have done this had Labour not introduced civil partnerships and equally whether Labour could have skipped that step and gone straight for marriage. I like to think they could, but I'm not certain.

11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Corbyn was interviewed about his odds of winning the election or surviving it and he mentioned the 200-1 odds before the leadership election of him winning, so he sees the current polls as quite cheering! It reminds me of the Daily Mash headlines: "Unelectable man keeps winning elections".

The chances of him winning the election are miniscule, to be clear, but he's defied every single odd and challenge thrown down to him so far.

Er... no. No, he hasn't. Apart from winning leadership contests, what challenges has Corbyn defied? What has he achieved? His only notable achievement as leader is becoming and remaining leader. He's had many other challenges thrown down to him and not done very well at any of them.

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8 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm never going to be mistaken for a Corbyn fan, but this is wildly unfair, just setting up and beating up straw men. Nobody's ever claimed Corbyn has 'marvelous leadership skills', or that he could swing the Tories behind him: and the idea that Corbyn is failing to lead his party because he isn't trying is absurd.

Yes, maybe. But I find it a bit bothersome, that Corbyn seems to be not responsible for any of the short comings Labour is showing atm by RBPL. He is the elected Party Leader and his reign has not been a success story by any reasonable stretch of imagination at least. But it's either been the bad media, or the mean MPs, I think only the poor weather is missing on that list.

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27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yup, although the terms of the civil war are a little more complex. We have the Blairites and New Labour crew, who believe that Labour has to firmly remain in the centre and cannot return to the left. Their position is weak because the Conservatives have passed socially progressive legislation that is actually to the left of them (the Tories, laudably, legalised gay marriage which the supposedly more liberal and progressive Labour refused to do despite having thirteen years to do it in) and they are tainted by both the Iraq War (unfairly, in the case of the Labour MPs who gained their seats in 2005, 2010 and 2015) and the perception that New Labour caused the economic meltdown.

Against them you have the hard-left, old-skool, trade union-supported crew, including the Trotskyists and Communists that supposedly New Labour ran off years ago, now unified (along with a large number of students and young voters) in a group called Momentum. Corbyn is heavily allied to that group and draws a lot of his support from them. However, although they got him elected they seem incredibly reluctant to get out and campaign for Labour directly, leading to bizarre situations where Momentum can get tens of thousands of people to vote for Corbyn in a nationwide leadership contest but they can't even turn out the fee-paying, registered Labour members in London boroughs in by-elections, which is absurd.

That too is a simplification. Corbyn's base is, UNITE leadership notwithstanding, not the old unions. The old union vote was the right-wing of the party, not Blairites, but left-wing economically and very, very socially conservative. They hated the Bennites, whose supporters were mainly metropolitan middle class. 

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Tories haven't exactly covered themselves in glory by stripping the armed forces of funding, by also refusing to confirm there'll be any limits on immigration (and even saying it will remain at high levels for years), by showing sympathy (ish) for ex-IRA terrorists when they die and are also extremely opposed to high taxes. You might have a point on the Venezuelan thing, that's definitely a criticism that I hear aired a lot.

I was extremely angry with the defence cuts that Cameron introduced, as were many Tory MPs, but there is a significant difference between not full funding the armed forces, and being opposed to their very existence. There is also a difference between statesman-like comments in the wake of a peace agreement, and being of the opinion that you would have preferred the IRA to win.

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22 minutes ago, mormont said:

I have heard differently, which is that she was genuinely conflicted personally but basically - like Johnson - mostly interested in what would be good for her political career. And she still is.

I think that is unfair, at least in your conclusion (though not on Johnson). I believe that, like me, she had no enthusiasm for the EU, and in an ideal world would not want to be a member, but thought that in was in Britain's best interests economically to continue to be a member at the current time. It would therefore be reasonable to give muted support for Remain, but the decision having been made, to want to make the best of Brexit. I realise it is unpopular around here, but not every conservative is always motivated solely by personal interests.

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11 hours ago, Hereward said:

I think that is unfair, at least in your conclusion (though not on Johnson). I believe that, like me, she had no enthusiasm for the EU, and in an ideal world would not want to be a member, but thought that in was in Britain's best interests economically to continue to be a member at the current time. It would therefore be reasonable to give muted support for Remain, but the decision having been made, to want to make the best of Brexit. I realise it is unpopular around here, but not every conservative is always motivated solely by personal interests.

This is my opinion too, I see May as a pragmatist above all, rather than some scheming opportunist. She might not have wanted Brexit but her job is to make the best of a bad job and try and get the best deal she can out of this for the UK. With that in mind I can't see much option but to vote for the Torys. With a more stable powerbase under her she would be less likely to have to pander to the nutjobs in her party pushing for extreme Brexit at all costs. 

I'm astonished by the massive push amongst my friends to vote for Lib Dems in order to reverse Brexit. Honestly its not going to happen, we need to close the barn door because the horse has bolted. 

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11 hours ago, Hereward said:

I think that is unfair, at least in your conclusion (though not on Johnson). I believe that, like me, she had no enthusiasm for the EU, and in an ideal world would not want to be a member, but thought that in was in Britain's best interests economically to continue to be a member at the current time. It would therefore be reasonable to give muted support for Remain, but the decision having been made, to want to make the best of Brexit. I realise it is unpopular around here, but not every conservative is always motivated solely by personal interests.

Well, most politicians of all parties are at least partly motivated by personal interests. And I'm just sayin', if May were an unprincipled opportunist I have a hard time seeing what she'd have done differently. (I think she does have some political principles, by the way, just not particularly on Europe.) Certainly the Cameron camp believed her behaviour during the referendum was motivated by a desire to position herself for the aftermath.

But leaving that aside, as things shape up it looks as if Corbyn's may be going to try to ignore the Brexit issue and make this about the NHS, education, and so forth. I'm pondering now whether that might not actually be a smart move. I wonder if the average voter really cares that much about the details of Brexit, or whether they're ready now to move other issues up the priority list.

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31 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, most politicians of all parties are at least partly motivated by personal interests. And I'm just sayin', if May were an unprincipled opportunist I have a hard time seeing what she'd have done differently. (I think she does have some political principles, by the way, just not particularly on Europe.) Certainly the Cameron camp believed her behaviour during the referendum was motivated by a desire to position herself for the aftermath.

But leaving that aside, as things shape up it looks as if Corbyn's may be going to try to ignore the Brexit issue and make this about the NHS, education, and so forth. I'm pondering now whether that might not actually be a smart move. I wonder if the average voter really cares that much about the details of Brexit, or whether they're ready now to move other issues up the priority list.

I think it's the only thing that Labour can do, to mitigate the likely losses.

The Conservatives' stance on Brexit has however, won them back significant support from people who voted UKIP in 2015.

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