UK Politics: Deal, or No Deal. To May and Beyond.

[BigFatCoward]

47 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46619689

The Corbyn 'Stupid Woman' story is a new low for reporting. 

It reminds me of the Gordon Brown 'bigot' debacle. He should just say 'of course I said it, now can we move on to saving the country'.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, BigFatCoward said:

He should just say 'of course I said it, now can we move on to saving the country'. 

Ahum, you mean Jay-I-cannot-be-arsed-to-table-a-no-confidence-motion-because-it-might-strengthen-Unna-and-others-in-their-pursuit-of-a-second-referendum-Corbyn?

[Heartofice]

15 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

It reminds me of the Gordon Brown 'bigot' debacle. He should just say 'of course I said it, now can we move on to saving the country'.

It would be very difficult to argue against her being a stupid woman.

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's not like I don't have sympathy for the plight of the indigenous people's of Britain (Europe in general). I sometimes lose sight of the fact that Europe is the native land of the white folks. So if there's any place where there should be respect and efforts to preserve European culture (and British in particular) it is Europe / Britain. They have no other homeland. Thinking about my own country, if New Zealand had remained almost 100% Maori up until about WW2, and then the world started to take notice of New Zealand (would be officially named Aotearoa in this alternative history) as not a bad place to live, then I don't think we'd begrudge the Maori populace being very leary of letting the non-native population get too big.

Just because some of those countries have been guilty of going to other places and destroying, marginalising or oppressing native cultures, doesn't mean it's a fate that should be repeated there. Respecting and being open to diversity also means respecting and being open to the native people and culture. And in most cases should mean giving the native people and culture prime importance. If that approach had been taken in the lands that were colonised over the last few hundred years we'd have a very different, and probably more peaceful, world.

When it comes to the cultural preservation of the native people of Europe and Britain, is there something to be learned from the mistakes, and downright crimes against humanity, of our colonialist past that can help to avoid (or reverse) conflict and contention while at the same time allowing for the acceptance of refugees and well managed migration?

I also wonder, if one of the more racist concerns about open European borders is that refugees will go to continental Europe, eventually get citizenship and then flood into Britain. What is it that makes people believe that a disproportionate number of refugees actually want to eventually live in Britain, rather that live on the continent? Is it because Britain is the most multi-cultural country in Europe, so a lot of refugees have pretty well establish cultural communities in Britain, so therefore want to go be in a place that has that cultural support network already established?

So who are the natives, the first people, of Britain?  Certainly not the Celts and Picts, not the Danes (whether they came in the 8th century or the 11th) and the Saxons, etc.  So who are these fabled First Peoples who were always there and nobody else was?

The same in Europe . . . .

The point being that immigration of human beings has been going on since the earliest incarnations of what genetics call homo sapiens -- and even Neanderthals -- heck even among other homind -- for all kinds of reasons.  So how is it to be suddenly shut down, and people kept in one place, even if being murdered and starved?

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

So who are the natives, the first people, of Britain?  Certainly not the Celts and Picts, not the Danes (whether they came in the 8th century or the 11th) and the Saxons, etc.  So who are these fabled First Peoples who were always there and nobody else was?

The same in Europe . . . .

The point being that immigration of human beings has been going on since the earliest incarnations of what genetics call homo sapiens -- and even Neanderthals -- heck even among other homind -- for all kinds of reasons.  So how is it to be suddenly shut down, and people kept in one place, even if being murdered and starved?

This btw is the other argument often pulled out: "Europeans aren't a thing" or " Immigration has happened all the time"

Both of these arguments seem to conveniently forget that almost every large immigration wave in history has been very traumatic or worse bloody and violent. 

There is something rather perverse about denying not only that the families who have lived somewhere for centuries have any right to feel any sort of ownership or a sense of place for where they live, or that there is something unusual about being aggrieved about being forced out by newcomers. 

By doing so you again simply create more resentment and a sense that liberals are just not listening to people. 
 

[mormont]

47 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

It reminds me of the Gordon Brown 'bigot' debacle. He should just say 'of course I said it, now can we move on to saving the country'.

The difficulty is that I'm pretty sure he didn't say it. And Corbyn is the sort of guy who, if he didn't say it, will never say that he did - even if it would be advantageous. 

(Note: I'm not saying he never lies. Corbyn's capable of a little dishonesty if he thinks it serves the cause. But he's prickly about his personal integrity, and about admitting fault. Which is why he was so pissed off at a bit of standard-issue PMQ mockery in the first place, of course.)

Anyway, the fact is that even if he did say it and did admit to it, the right-wing press wouldn't let it go. There's no way that trying to move on would work. 

[HexMachina]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

This btw is the other argument often pulled out: "Europeans aren't a thing" or " Immigration has happened all the time"

Both of these arguments seem to conveniently forget that almost every large immigration wave in history has been very traumatic or worse bloody and violent. 

There is something rather perverse about denying not only that the families who have lived somewhere for centuries have any right to feel any sort of ownership or a sense of place for where they live, or that there is something unusual about being aggrieved about being forced out by newcomers. 

By doing so you again simply create more resentment and a sense that liberals are just not listening to people. 
 

Who, exactly, is being forced out by newcomers?

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Who, exactly, is being forced out by newcomers?

I was talking in generalities. Interesting that was only thing anyone responded to.

[williamjm]

I thought this article about Brexit had some interesting predictions about what could happen if there was a snap general election:

YouGov asked people how they would vote if Labour, along with the Conservatives, supported going ahead with Brexit. Labour slumps to third place, with 22%, behind the Liberal Democrats, who would jump to 26%. Those who voted Labour last year and remain the year before say they are more likely to switch to the Liberal Democrats (49%) than stay with Labour (41%). The survey suggests no compensating boost among those who voted leave in the referendum. In fact, it would be the Conservatives who would benefit if both main parties backed Brexit.

That could potentially lead to a big Tory majority if the Labour vote collapsed by such a large amount. I feel polls are generally going to get less reliable the more hypothetical they become, but it does seem plausible that Corbyn committing to Brexit would go down badly with many of his party's supporters. That could mean that if Corbyn did manage to force a vote of no-confidence and a general election then he could end up strengthening May enough that she can get her deal through Parliament.

[polishgenius]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46619689

The Corbyn 'Stupid Woman' story is a new low for reporting. 

Right?

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I was talking in generalities. Interesting that was only thing anyone responded to.

It's a fair point. Is there anywhere in Britain where people have been displaced by migrants and not "forced out" due to, say, rising property prices from rampant speculators and greedy landlords instead?

The issue is perception rather than reality. People voted (marginally) more for the Tories in 2010 and 2015/17, in both cases leading to massive and unnecessary austerity, leading in turn to a stagnant economy, declining real-term wages and a strange job situation where the number of full-time, reliable work is falling precipitously but part-time and zero-hours contracts have rising exponentially (allowing the Tories to claim that they have done well with jobs when they really have not). There is also, of course, the massive cuts to defence and to the police, and the starving of funds for the NHS. For the people who voted Tory in 2010 and 2015/17, accepting that the worsening state of Britain is their fault for how they voted is of course unacceptable to their egos, so instead they blame a convenient scapegoat: the dirty immigrants coming in and taking their jobs whilst simultaneously claiming benefits, ignoring the fact that these are jobs British people are either unwilling to do or are actually incapable of doing due to the financial situation i.e. young Brits who want to become doctors and nurses but simply can't afford it since the bursaries were removed, whilst the NHS can afford to bring in pre-trained doctors from abroad, or fruit pickers who can be hired abroad cheaply whilst those wages wouldn't cover the cost of a Brit moving halfway across the country for three months to do the job in the first place.

The inarguable facts that EU migrants tend to not use the NHS much (since most of them are quite young when they come over), contribute substantial sums in taxes and will not - it appears at present anyway - be burdensome to the state pension or NHS in the future because most of them go home after a reasonable period of time (5-15 years, although granted we haven't had the long-term analysis on that which will only emerge after a few more decades), are generally ignored by those who voted for Brexit because the facts are inconvenient to their blinkered worldview.

Taking responsibility and owning up to your mistakes is something that vast numbers of people appear pathologically incapable of doing, whilst blaming the Other because they talk funny is very, very easy. The "legitimate concerns" over immigration would withstand more analysis if Britain had been flooded by titanic numbers of refugees very year (it had not) and if the alleged concern over the availability of hospitals and schools and police had expressed itself by voting for one of the parties that wasn't hell-bent on shutting them down, rather than voting for that party instead and then blaming migrants afterwards (not that this was a deliberate Tory policy, and Cameron seemed quite flabbergasted by it).

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That could potentially lead to a big Tory majority if the Labour vote collapsed by such a large amount. I feel polls are generally going to get less reliable the more hypothetical they become, but it does seem plausible that Corbyn committing to Brexit would go down badly with many of his party's supporters. That could mean that if Corbyn did manage to force a vote of no-confidence and a general election then he could end up strengthening May enough that she can get her deal through Parliament.

 

I'd be careful about this, as people were saying the exact same thing in 2017 and that blew up in their faces. The fact of the matter is that the principle concern of the British people remains the NHS and jobs, and Brexit consistently ranks 3rd in their list of concerns for the future (even though it has a significant bearing on the prior two). The opinion of masses, at least as polling indicates, is that Brexit will get sorted out somehow and it's actually austerity, public services and the economy that are their main concerns with more of a day-to-day impact on their lives. That's what Corbyn went after with a vengeance in 2017 (permitted by his tactical vagueness on Brexit) and it paid off splendidly, and it's possible if an election was held tomorrow that pattern would repeat itself again.

If the election came after a disastrous Brexit that badly impacted on the country, that would be a different matter altogether, and Corbyn and Labour might fare quite disastrously, although the idea of them dropping behind the LibDems feels a little bit fanciful.

[williamjm]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I'd be careful about this, as people were saying the exact same thing in 2017 and that blew up in their faces. The fact of the matter is that the principle concern of the British people remains the NHS and jobs, and Brexit consistently ranks 3rd in their list of concerns for the future (even though it has a significant bearing on the prior two). The opinion of masses, at least as polling indicates, is that Brexit will get sorted out somehow and it's actually austerity, public services and the economy that are their main concerns with more of a day-to-day impact on their lives. That's what Corbyn went after with a vengeance in 2017 (permitted by his tactical vagueness on Brexit) and it paid off splendidly, and it's possible if an election was held tomorrow that pattern would repeat itself again

That was one reason I was a bit surprised by that article, since it does seem to be going against the prevailing wisdom. Other election polling seems to have been remarkably stable considering how much turmoil there is in Parliament. I suppose it's possible that Yougov poll is just an outlier.

If the election came after a disastrous Brexit that badly impacted on the country, that would be a different matter altogether, and Corbyn and Labour might fare quite disastrously, although the idea of them dropping behind the LibDems feels a little bit fanciful.

I would have thought that scenario could be better for Corbyn - since there would be so much focus on May's government causing the disaster that it might overshadow Corbyn's secondary role in being ineffective in stopping it. That said, he might face another leadership challenge which could be more of a challenge for him.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, williamjm said:

That was one reason I was a bit surprised by that article, since it does seem to be going against the prevailing wisdom. Other election polling seems to have been remarkably stable considering how much turmoil there is in Parliament. I suppose it's possible that Yougov poll is just an outlier.

I would have thought that scenario could be better for Corbyn - since there would be so much focus on May's government causing the disaster that it might overshadow Corbyn's secondary role in being ineffective in stopping it. That said, he might face another leadership challenge which could be more of a challenge for him.

I think Corbyn's issue here is that he wants to focus on ending austerity and improving public services, which is great, but he seems to think this is achievable outside the EU in the short term, which is somewhat dubious if Brexit does cause a significant drop in the economy (as seems probable-to-certain): he won't be able to afford those improvements. In the long term it's difficult to see how Corbyn will pull off his long-term objectives without supporting remaining in the EU, unless he's naive enough to believe that Britain will get some sort of massive post-Brexit dividend or he's willing to increase the national debt significantly.

[Heartofice]

@Werthead I think a lot of what you said has truth to it. Clearly the current economic climate, combined with some Tory policies has led to a worsening of peoples lives, which tends to hit the lowest paid members of society. 

However I think this line of thinking seems to be one of the reasons why those arguing for Remain consistently talk past Leave voters or anyone concerned with immigration. The line of thought seems to be that: Immigration is good, your concerns about immigration are misplaced and the real answer is to convince you that you need to be less concerned about immigration, because we are not going to change the levels of immigrants'

It seems to miss the point that Britain experienced large scale immigration a decade ago,its not a matter of perception,  the levels of Eastern Europeans entering the country was unprecedented. Nobody can deny those numbers, they were massive, and that level of change was clearly very shocking for some. It also did have an impact on work and wages in a number of sectors, mostly the amongst the lowest paid. 

My argument is that we keep talking past Leave voters, telling them that they need to be ok with those numbers, that if they are not ok with it( and I disagree with you that it was in any way clear that those migrants would leave in 10 years or so, there is little historic proof that would happen) then they should be deemed racist and told to be quiet. I'm saying that no country has ever shown the ability to take in large numbers of new people at such a rapid rate without large levels of unrest.

There is nothing unusual about peoples reaction, Brexit was an almost entirely predictable event once the EU opened eastwards and Britain opened its doors. Especially if there is a genuine threat that there are millions more coming and nobody in charge has the will to stop or slow things down. It was a very visible symbol that the country was incapable of controlling its own laws. Hence Brexit.




 

[williamjm]

18 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think Corbyn's issue here is that he wants to focus on ending austerity and improving public services, which is great, but he seems to think this is achievable outside the EU in the short term, which is somewhat dubious if Brexit does cause a significant drop in the economy (as seems probable-to-certain): he won't be able to afford those improvements. In the long term it's difficult to see how Corbyn will pull off his long-term objectives without supporting remaining in the EU, unless he's naive enough to believe that Britain will get some sort of massive post-Brexit dividend or he's willing to increase the national debt significantly.

We seem to have a generation of politicians on all sides who seem to struggle with long-term strategic thinking (many of them also struggle with short-term strategic thinking).

Thinking more about the poll I mentioned, one issue with it is that it is a bit of a leading question to essentially say "if Labour adopts a particular Brexit policy are you going to support them?", since then it gets the people answering the question thinking primarily about Brexit rather than any other Labour policies they may like (or dislike).

[Heartofice]

Corbyn is mainly interested in Brexit because its the only way he's going to have any chance of nationalising every single industry in Britain. 

[Werthead]

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However I think this line of thinking seems to be one of the reasons why those arguing for Remain consistently talk past Leave voters or anyone concerned with immigration. The line of thought seems to be that: Immigration is good, your concerns about immigration are misplaced and the real answer is to convince you that you need to be less concerned about immigration, because we are not going to change the levels of immigrants'

Not quite. The real answer is that we are part of a capitalist society whose success is measured in constant, continuous growth. The only, truly reliable way of achieving this growth is through population expansion. This is also the only way we can make the United Kingdom's pension and healthcare systems work, since for every person living in retirement we need 2-3 people in full time work paying taxes so the system works. With native birth rates plummeting, immigration is the only way of reliably achieving this continuous growth at the required levels.

If the primary argument of Brexiters was that this entire system is massively flawed and we need to move to a new, post-capitalist system and were making plans for a new system to replace that, that's fine (and again, this seems to be what Corbyn is at least nodding towards in his stance). But relatively few people are making that argument.

Saying, "we're going to slam the door shut on migrants and not replace them with anything so our entire socio-economic system will come crashing down on top of our heads", which appears to be the argument of Brexit-supporting Conservatives, is short-sighted, politically and economically ignorant and deserves to be treated with disdain. Brexit is not a vacuum, it has to be supported by changes to the rest of British society and the economy, changes many Brexit-supporters are either ignorance of or are unprepared to make.

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It seems to miss the point that Britain experienced large scale immigration a decade ago,its not a matter of perception,  the levels of Eastern Europeans entering the country was unprecedented. Nobody can deny those numbers, they were massive, and that level of change was clearly very shocking for some. It also did have an impact on work and wages in a number of sectors, mostly the amongst the lowest paid. 

 

We did have a fairly significant level of immigration, just as we experienced a fairly significant level of migration of Brits leaving the country for points outside the country.

I would dispute that this level of change was particularly "shocking", though. Most Eastern Europeans can speak a reasonable level of English, work hard and pay taxes, subsidising the NHS, council tax and other areas which were in need of a financial boost post-2008.

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My argument is that we keep talking past Leave voters, telling them that they need to be ok with those numbers, that if they are not ok with it( and I disagree with you that it was in any way clear that those migrants would leave in 10 years or so, there is little historic proof that would happen) then they should be deemed racist and told to be quiet. I'm saying that no country has ever shown the ability to take in large numbers of new people at such a rapid rate without large levels of unrest.

The problem with this argument is that we need to indulge the "feelings" of the ignorant rather than deal with the facts. One of these facts is that Britain simply cannot survive without a level of migration, and with (mostly white, Christian or secular) migrants from the EU unable to come in, we will likely see (mostly non-white and of other faiths) non-EU migrants coming on from other countries, probably Commonwealth countries we have reasonable terms with, such as the Indian subcontinent. I would argue that at least some supporters of Brexit will have much, much bigger problems with this than with the migration levels from the EU.

[Zorral]

It's the fault of epic fantasy:

https://forbiddenfutures.net/exile-in-middle-earth-how-fantasy-failed-us.html

Doubtless this shall have many performing load and lock on this guy.  He's brave. 

[Heartofice]

I agree we do have a system that seems to only be able to survive by adding to the consumer population, whether we can pay for it or not. There is a big issue to be solved there, I don't think any of Corbyns ideas are close however. 

What leavers seem to be asking for is not to 'Stop Immigration',  what they were asking for was the ability to to control immigration. This seems to be a big misunderstanding of Remain voters. 
 

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I would dispute that this level of change was particularly "shocking", though. Most Eastern Europeans can speak a reasonable level of English, work hard and pay taxes, subsidising the NHS, council tax and other areas which were in need of a financial boost post-2008.

Well firstly, we are talking about  net migration 300k per year! In 1981 the UK had a negative net migration, and even by about 2000 it was hovering around +50k. That is a staggering jump, and you can imagine a scenario where that keeps happening and doesn't go down. It is very difficult for any country to keep up with those numbers, especially if they are quite clustered. How do you build infrastructure in such a short amount of time to cope. So yes, there was austerity, there were Tory cuts at the absolute worst possible time, but that doesn't mean immigration had no effect or was neutral .

I think it is not a matter of 'indulging' people, rather it is listening to concerns. Listen when people say there is too much immigration and it is happening too fast. They aren't necessarily racists. Why roll out the same tired arguments about 'needing immigration'  or 'migrants do jobs Brits won't do'.  Everyone understands that there needs to be immigration. The question is how much. I would suggest 300,000 every year is probably too much. 

There is ignorance on both sides.

 

[Seli]

11 hours ago, Heartofice said:

@Werthead
It seems to miss the point that Britain experienced large scale immigration a decade ago,its not a matter of perception,  the levels of Eastern Europeans entering the country was unprecedented. Nobody can deny those numbers, they were massive, and that level of change was clearly very shocking for some. It also did have an impact on work and wages in a number of sectors, mostly the amongst the lowest paid. 

..

And still the anger is aimed at the other, not at the rich and companies who exploit. The xenophobia at the heart of brexit is a horrible and common reaction against an effect, not a cause.