UK Politics: This Country is Going to the Moggs

[A Horse Named Stranger]

@Spockydog

Well, looks like the leadership and Corbynista are trying to fudge the issue.

And that feckless Keir Starmer is also aboard on this. The key thing being, they are playing word games.

They are discussing a motion that includes a public vote [which can either be a second referendum, or preferebly a new election.]

So it looks like they are trying to avoid a vote on the issue like the plague.

Let's see what comes first in the Labour party, policy or the Dear Jeezer.

I am not taking any bets on this.

[Werthead]

Going back to the idea of the second referendum being problematic, yes it is, right across the board. Leave winning again but by the same or an even narrower margin (say 50.5%) would not resolve the issue. Remain winning by 51 or 52% would also not solve the issue. The polling suggests that Remain would now win (although it also suggested the same in 2016 and that didn't work out), but not by the 60%+ margin you'd really need to put this to bed for another generation. But on the other hand the same is true for Leave.

You also have the problem of the wording. The favourite option for Remainers is a 3-choice question: Hard Brexit, accept whatever deal has been offered or Remain. The problem is that this is really two Brexit options and one Remain, and the margins are so tight that even a reasonable Brexit split between the two options would hand Remain an apparently overwhelming victory. It would feel like a stitch-up and would be hugely divisive (and I suspect would see a huge surge of support splitting from the Tories for UKIP).

You could have a 4-choice question and split both votes: Hard Brexit, Brexit-with-a-Deal, Remain as is, or Remain with a view to changing the rules on immigration and adjusting policy at the EU level to address the concerns of Brexiteers. That might just about pass muster, but campaigning on 3 or 4 answers is inherently much more difficult than on a simple in/out, yes/no referendum.

What might be workable is a choice between Hard Brexit and Remain, which I suspect would deliver a significantly larger victory for Remain (maybe around 55%) but still not overwhelming.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

35 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I'm not saying we should count for more, I'm saying we should at least be considered, because in a lot of coverage we're completely ignored. I mean I've heard people saying that people clearly want to stay in Europe because so many voted for Labour, it's ridiculous, and this is perpetrated from all sides.  

So you feel leavers are underrepresented in the public discourse? The Brexit backing Tories and Labour leadership is not enough representation? Really? And I don't even bother to mention the for most parts rather leave friendly and fact resistent British (print) media. This an entire Brexit comedy drama is of your making, and the dear Jeezer has been trying to pander to those mythical large numbers of LExit voters since the last election. Not that it did him, or Labour any favours when you look at the polling. Terry May's Flying Brexit Circus would deservedly get crushed by any semi-copetent opposition party, whie Labour and Corbyn are not really polling where they should be, given that pitiful state of the current UK goverment. So you are right, it is ridiculous, just not in the way you seem to imply.

37 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Why Labour? Because, as I said, I'm not a single issue voter, you can't just ignore every other issue because of Brexit, there's still healthcare, education, etc.

So, why bang on about your views not being respected enough, if there are all the other issues you like? Surely, you must be able to cope with losing out on one issue, if you like overall package. So really, just make up your mind already, either you are a single issue voter, or you are not.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

18 minutes ago, Werthead said:

What might be workable is a choice between Hard Brexit and Remain, which I suspect would deliver a significantly larger victory for Remain (maybe around 55%) but still not overwhelming.

By hard do you mean no-deal crash or a CETA like arrangement? With NI basically being discarded in the process for the latter option. Both scenarios qualify as rather hard Brexits, as both leave the single market and customs union.

I mean, the 4 options can really be summarized like that.

1. Status quo/Remain: with firmer application of migration laws.

2. Norway style: Custom's Union/Single Market membership with the costs of budget contribution, but without any real influence on the decission making process. And No borders for NI. No independent trade deals.

3. CETA style (FTA): Free Trade Agreement, no access to the CU/SM, siginificantly less contribution to the EU budget, border in the Irish sea. But ability to negotiate trade deals (mainly to cover for the ones lost after transition)

4. Or No Deal: No Trade deal, no access to the SM/CU, trading under WTO terms with pretty much the entire world, loss of access to the European agencies and institutions, land border on the Irish Island. 0 contribution to future EU budgets.

 

I'd put both 3 and 4 down as rather hard brexits. Three being the ERG'S wet dream (and the DUP's nightmare), and four is where we are heading by default, because of the Irish border. 2 is where you could find a cross party majority in parliament (not with the ERG obviously). 1. is really problematic to justify without another referendum (at least IMHO).

I tink I've said it before, it's really funny how you can see the entire Brexit process unfold, if you start with the Irish border and work from there on out.

[Werthead]

11 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I tink I've said it before, it's really funny how you can see the entire Brexit process unfold, if you start with the Irish border and work from there on out.

It's interesting how the Irish border was barely even mentioned during the campaign and it's now come up as the insurmountable problem that threatens to unravel the whole process (there's also not been much attention paid to the Gibraltar border issue as well, or the sea border between Anguilla and St. Martin which numerous people sail between every day, but by comparison they're small fry).

Both the Labour and Tory conferences threaten to be extremely entertaining, which is not something people usually say.

[mankytoes]

57 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

This is what democracy, real democracy, should look like. Party membership votes on whether they think a prospective policy is a good idea. If said policy is adopted it is then put before the electorate. Sounds like a great idea to me. Or perhaps you'd rather we continued to have public policy dictated by shadowy donors and corporate lobbyists. Because that's worked out amazingly well for the people, hasn't it?

McCluskey was giving a personal opinion. He hasn't polled his members on the issue so he hasn't got a clue what they really want. And as for the last election, a lot of us voted Labour despite Corbyn's position on Brexit, desperately hoping for a change of policy. The way things are going, the next election is going to be fought on Brexit. Not 'No Deal or Chequers', but 'In or Out'. And if you still want out, you'll have to vote Tory. Hope you don't choke.

I'm growing increasingly convinced that May's mission since 2016 has been to completely scupper Brexit. If that is her plan, then she's doing a fantastic job.

Well that's reasonable, but only before a general election. If Labour change course now, the electorate are being completely cut out, which is hardly democratic. 

I'm not a fan of the donors or lobbyists at all. I'm actually a big advocate of publicly funding political parties- but no, I'm not confident that anything like most people are going to be persuaded that giving taxpayers money to political parties for campaigning is in our overall interest. 

Well then we'll all have to decide what is in the country's interest. 

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Going back to the idea of the second referendum being problematic, yes it is, right across the board. Leave winning again but by the same or an even narrower margin (say 50.5%) would not resolve the issue. Remain winning by 51 or 52% would also not solve the issue. The polling suggests that Remain would now win (although it also suggested the same in 2016 and that didn't work out), but not by the 60%+ margin you'd really need to put this to bed for another generation. But on the other hand the same is true for Leave.

You also have the problem of the wording. The favourite option for Remainers is a 3-choice question: Hard Brexit, accept whatever deal has been offered or Remain. The problem is that this is really two Brexit options and one Remain, and the margins are so tight that even a reasonable Brexit split between the two options would hand Remain an apparently overwhelming victory. It would feel like a stitch-up and would be hugely divisive (and I suspect would see a huge surge of support splitting from the Tories for UKIP).

You could have a 4-choice question and split both votes: Hard Brexit, Brexit-with-a-Deal, Remain as is, or Remain with a view to changing the rules on immigration and adjusting policy at the EU level to address the concerns of Brexiteers. That might just about pass muster, but campaigning on 3 or 4 answers is inherently much more difficult than on a simple in/out, yes/no referendum.

What might be workable is a choice between Hard Brexit and Remain, which I suspect would deliver a significantly larger victory for Remain (maybe around 55%) but still not overwhelming.

Good analysis, but I think getting into any options where you have things like "Hard Brexit" or "Brexit-with-a-deal" is going to be very difficult. I mean a lot of people felt the simple "Leave/Remain" question was too complicated for the electorate. These deals would have to be carefully explained on the ballot paper. 

I would worry about a low turnout as well. I mean last time we were very explicitly told what we voted for would happen. A second referendum with a remain option would reveal that was a lie. I would say any future referendums would have to be legally binding, or you're going to do even more damage to the trust of the public in political institutions. 

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So you feel leavers are underrepresented in the public discourse? The Brexit backing Tories and Labour leadership is not enough representation? Really? And I don't even bother to mention the for most parts rather leave friendly and fact resistent British (print) media. This an entire Brexit comedy drama is of your making, and the dear Jeezer has been trying to pander to those mythical large numbers of LExit voters since the last election. Not that it did him, or Labour any favours when you look at the polling. Terry May's Flying Brexit Circus would deservedly get crushed by any semi-copetent opposition party, whie Labour and Corbyn are not really polling where they should be, given that pitiful state of the current UK goverment. So you are right, it is ridiculous, just not in the way you seem to imply.

So, why bang on about your views not being respected enough, if there are all the other issues you like? Surely, you must be able to cope with losing out on one issue, if you like overall package. So really, just make up your mind already, either you are a single issue voter, or you are not.

Oy vey. I feel your satirical wit is wasted on me. 

[williamjm]

56 minutes ago, Werthead said:

You also have the problem of the wording. The favourite option for Remainers is a 3-choice question: Hard Brexit, accept whatever deal has been offered or Remain. The problem is that this is really two Brexit options and one Remain, and the margins are so tight that even a reasonable Brexit split between the two options would hand Remain an apparently overwhelming victory. It would feel like a stitch-up and would be hugely divisive (and I suspect would see a huge surge of support splitting from the Tories for UKIP).

I think a question with 3 (or more) answers would need to have some form of preferential voting where the less popular options get knocked out and their votes redistributed.

[Spockydog]

19 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Well that's reasonable, but only before a general election. If Labour change course now, the electorate are being completely cut out, which is hardly democratic. 

If Labour change course now, it will be because they have recognised the change of mood amongst the electorate. No one voted for this shit show.  No one.

And if we do get another referendum, Vote Leave won't be able to regurgitate the lies of the previous campaign. They will not be able to flout election law the way they did before. Nor will they be able to dismiss apocalyptic economic warnings as Project Fear or the wittering of 'experts'. We've stared into the abyss. We know what Brexit actually looks like. Fuck that shit.

 

 

[mankytoes]

17 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

If Labour change course now, it will be because they have recognised the change of mood amongst the electorate. No one voted for this shit show.  No one.

And if we do get another referendum, Vote Leave won't be able to regurgitate the lies of the previous campaign. They will not be able to flout election law the way they did before. Nor will they be able to dismiss apocalyptic economic warnings as Project Fear or the wittering of 'experts'. We've stared into the abyss. We know what Brexit actually looks like. Fuck that shit.

Really? How many Leave voters do you know who are now calling for a second referendum (a legitimate thank you for not using the godawful "people's vote" phrase)? There are plenty of people who want out of Brexit, but they all seem to be Remainers, who have always felt that way, and they're broadly using the same arguments. I said from the start that we would still find it difficult to leave. The EU is a massive establishment, you don't just walk away from these people. 

No one voted for this specific set of circumstances, sure, but that's politics, surely we're all adults, we know that you very rarely get exactly what you want. I know the game, it's a difficult situation and I'm being flexible. But it was made very clear that if we voted out, we would leave the EU. I never heard one person on either side ever suggest we would have a second referendum if we voted Leave. I really feel like people are taking democracy for granted in thinking that you can just turn back on this and not do real damage to our political culture. 

But Project Fear didn't come true. We were told that if we voted to leave we would be facing recession and punishment budgets. There's lots of dramatic language there- "apocalyptic", "abyss", but it just sounds like the same old, no new evidence. I'd think of it like a court of law. To re-open the Brexit vote, we should require "new and compelling evidence" against our previous decision. 

[Liffguard]

42 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I think a question with 3 (or more) answers would need to have some form of preferential voting where the less popular options get knocked out and their votes redistributed.

Or make it a two-question ballot maybe? Question 1: leave or stay? Question 2: in the hypothetical event of leaving, accept the deal reached or reject it?

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I really feel like people are taking democracy for granted in thinking that you can just turn back on this and not do real damage to our political culture. 

WTF are you talking about? Unless you've been living in a right wing echo chamber, you will know that all polling indicates that the electorate has changed its mind. It would be extremely undemocratic to ignore that.

 

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, mankytoes said:

But Project Fear didn't come true. We were told that if we voted to leave we would be facing recession and punishment budgets. There's lots of dramatic language there- "apocalyptic", "abyss", but it just sounds like the same old, no new evidence. I'd think of it like a court of law. To re-open the Brexit vote, we should require "new and compelling evidence" against our previous decision. 

Really? REALLY? FFS.

[mankytoes]

21 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

WTF are you talking about? Unless you've been living in a right wing echo chamber, you will know that all polling indicates that the electorate has changed its mind. It would be extremely undemocratic to ignore that.

Come on, no one honestly thinks that in a democracy you should u-turn on promises because of opinion polls. Would you be arguing the same thing if we had voted to remain, but then polling had started to lean towards leave? Just be honest, this isn't about democracy, you don't want us to leave because you think it would be bad for us to leave. 

We also know that opinion polls can not be relied upon to predict actual voting, based on recent elections. 

25 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Really? REALLY? FFS.

I know it's an inconvenient truth but "Predicted lower growth and an emergency budget didn’t happen". 

https://fullfact.org/economy/brexit-and-economic-apocalypse/?utm_source=content_page&utm_medium=related_content

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

I know it's an inconvenient truth but "Predicted lower growth and an emergency budget didn’t happen". 

https://fullfact.org/economy/brexit-and-economic-apocalypse/?utm_source=content_page&utm_medium=related_content

This is utterly pointless. You do realise that we haven't actually left yet?

Carry on ignoring the dire warnings from industry and banking chiefs. Keep on sucking up the bullshit spouted by the Brextremists. Ignore the fact that ReesMogg is telling the British people one thing, while telling his hedge fund clients in Dublin the exact opposite as he short sells the British economy. You see, he's required, by Irish law, to tell the truth to his clients. Luckily for him there is no such requirement for UK democracy. 

[mormont]

9 hours ago, williamjm said:

I think a question with 3 (or more) answers would need to have some form of preferential voting where the less popular options get knocked out and their votes redistributed.

And that's the point at which you sit back and say 'this question isn't suitable for a referendum'. It's a sad truth that referenda are only really suitable for simple questions, or at least questions that can be simply formulated with a yes or no answer. The issues surrounding that question may be complex but the question itself needs to be clear and not confusing for the vote to have validity.

[mankytoes]

11 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

This is utterly pointless. You do realise that we haven't actually left yet?

Carry on ignoring the dire warnings from industry and banking chiefs. Keep on sucking up the bullshit spouted by the Brextremists. Ignore the fact that ReesMogg is telling the British people one thing, while telling his hedge fund clients in Dublin the exact opposite as he short sells the British economy. You see, he's required, by Irish law, to tell the truth to his clients. Luckily for him there is no such requirement for UK democracy. 

Yes, did you read the link? We were told there would be dire consequences as a result of us VOTING TO LEAVE, not just us leaving. And seeing how important confidence is to the economy, it makes sense that voting to leave would have a significant impact. As David Cameron was caught saying, "It's turned out less badly than we first thought. "

What's funny is that we still get told that Brexit is a disaster even though, as you say, we haven't actually left yet. You can't have it both ways.

That's quite funny to me, because I read The Guardian. 

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

And that's the point at which you sit back and say 'this question isn't suitable for a referendum'. It's a sad truth that referenda are only really suitable for simple questions, or at least questions that can be simply formulated with a yes or no answer. The issues surrounding that question may be complex but the question itself needs to be clear and not confusing for the vote to have validity.

Definitely. Most people do not have the time or the inclination to get an in depth look at these kinds of issues. The more complicated the question, the easier it is to confuse and mislead people. The AV referendum is a clear example of that, the Tory campaigning just tried to make the whole thing look really confusing, and then they managed to make it all about voting against the Lib Dems. 

People weren't happy with the last referendum for lots of reasons, but I haven't heard much dispute about the question asked- "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" (I also liked that our boxes were "Leave" and "Remain" instead of the more loaded "yes" and "no". 

[Spockydog]

John McDonnell doing his best to entirely miss the point of the calls for a people's vote. Looks like our horsey friend had it right a few posts back. They're going to try and fudge the issue. 

[Spockydog]

12 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Yes, did you read the link? We were told there would be dire consequences as a result of us VOTING TO LEAVE, not just us leaving. And seeing how important confidence is to the economy, it makes sense that voting to leave would have a significant impact. As David Cameron was caught saying, "It's turned out less badly than we first thought. "

Yeah, i read it. I read the quote from February 2017, which is some time before David Davis lied to Parliament as he ditched the sectorial impact assessments that said Brexit will basically destroy our economy. 

Ress Mogg has gone on record as saying it will be 50 years 'before we see any benefits of leaving the EU' when what he actually meant was it will take 50 years for the country to recover. 

ETA: And fuck David Cameron. Seriously, fuck that pig-fucking, spoon-faced cunt to hell. He and Tony Blair can suck my gnarly dick. 

[mormont]

29 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Yes, did you read the link? We were told there would be dire consequences as a result of us VOTING TO LEAVE, not just us leaving. And seeing how important confidence is to the economy, it makes sense that voting to leave would have a significant impact. As David Cameron was caught saying, "It's turned out less badly than we first thought. "

Your point, presumably, being that if voting to leave (but not actually leaving) didn't turn out as badly as we first thought, that actually leaving will be just fine?

The flaws in the reasoning there are surely obvious enough that you don't need someone else to point them out. If I make that right turn at sixty without crashing, that's great, but it doesn't mean the roads are 100% safe and I can continue to drive at high speed with no consequences. What I'm doing is still going to end in disaster, and that is not 'having it both ways'. 

 

[mankytoes]

40 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, i read it. I read the quote from February 2017, which is some time before David Davis lied to Parliament as he ditched the sectorial impact assessments that said Brexit will basically destroy our economy. 

Ress Mogg has gone on record as saying it will be 50 years 'before we see any benefits of leaving the EU' when what he actually meant was it will take 50 years for the country to recover. 

ETA: And fuck David Cameron. Seriously, fuck that pig-fucking, spoon-faced cunt to hell. He and Tony Blair can suck my gnarly dick. 

But it's still true. The most recent quarter had growth exceeding expectations, and we still haven't had this punishment budget. We can all make predictions for the future, but factually, things have not gone as badly as predicted. 

You seem a lot more interested in what Rees-Mogg says and does than I am.

Wo, those guys were Prime Ministers, that's a bit edgy for me. 

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

Your point, presumably, being that if voting to leave (but not actually leaving) didn't turn out as badly as we first thought, that actually leaving will be just fine?

The flaws in the reasoning there are surely obvious enough that you don't need someone else to point them out. If I make that right turn at sixty without crashing, that's great, but it doesn't mean the roads are 100% safe and I can continue to drive at high speed with no consequences. What I'm doing is still going to end in disaster, and that is not 'having it both ways'. 

No, what I'm saying is it's odd for remainers to justify a second referendum on how terribly things are going, when things are going better than they predicted.