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UK Politics: Another vote, just not for anyone who might change their minds


Which Tyler

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9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Farage has no power to do that at the moment, unless you mean try to convince the ERG to collapse the Tory government and force a general election? If Boris keeps saying No Deal on 31 October, there is no reason to do that.

I believe that's essentially what he was hinting at, and to be fair, Boris does want to get a deal. He just doesn't care that much if there isn't one. 

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The problem with that move is that you run a high risk of a Tory defeat, a Labour or coalition government, Ref3 and potentially no Brexit at all. All or nothing. Boris will have been bullish about polling a few weeks back suggesting he was more likely to defeat Corbyn than any of his rivals, but polling this week puts Labour ahead (only just) by themselves, let alone in coalition with possible partners, so that becomes a much greater risk.

I don't think it's a strategic move either, but when have these clowns been honest, thoughtful actors? From abroad it feels like at the onset they knew what they were selling was BS. But now? I think they've repeated so many lies so many times to the point where now they believe them to be true. And if that's the case, rational decision making can go out the window. 

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17 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I thought LibDems might have become the bigger concerns for the Tories by now. As Labour atm seems to be at the brink of imploding themselves. From the ongoing anti-semitism accusations, which do not look like they are going away anytime soon, to the incoherent shambles of their own Brexit policy (I use the term policy generously) and the infighting surrounding the Corbynistas vs. Watson and the hidden Blairites, to the MP who received a resignation from his Twitter account, and has subsequently released a statement accusing Corbyn of bullying him. So I think the resurgent LibDems should scare Tories and Labour alike.

Labour appears to be shoring up its base since Corbyn committed to a referendum on the final deal. The second that clarity got locked in place, it allowed the MPs and Momentum (whose pro-Corbyn fervour which had been so effective in the 2017 election had been dampened by his Brexit vagueness) to go on the offensive again. You can see that with the journalists who are still asking, "What is Labour's Brexit policy?" are now getting solid replies (to put any deal with the EU to the British public in a final say referendum that will include Remain, and Labour would campaign for Remain).

That message isn't necessarily getting through in the media (the BBC seem to think it's still six months ago, for some reason), but it is in the grassroots and that seems to have contributed to a moderate poll bump for Labour.

The anti-semitism angle is still a Labour weak spot, but it's one the Tories are a bit awkward over exploiting too much because it exposes their own rampant Islamaphobia (and with Baroness Warsi still going on about it, it's not something the Tories can sweep under the carpet) issue, and of course Johnson's own Islamaphobic statements in the past. It's a problematic area for the Tories to exploit.

The resurgent LibDems look like a potential issue, but the test will come in those constituencies where there was a huge swing from LibDem to Labour (such as mine), where people will now be calculating the odds. They may come to the conclusion that voting Labour is better, since Labour are more likely to form an outright government or coalition than the LibDems, and with the LibDems being reluctant to talk about a coalition (perhaps understandably after last time), they may judge that Labour is a better bet than the LibDems. There's also the issue that Labour hasn't really gone after the LibDems recently, but in a general election they can launch a full-scale attack on the LibDem record in government. Jo Swinson is actually a solid choice as leader, but her record does have that support for the coalition's austerity measures in it, which is going to be an issue in a GE.

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I don't think it's a strategic move either, but when have these clowns been honest, thoughtful actors? From abroad it feels like at the onset they knew what they were selling was BS. But now? I think they've repeated so many lies so many times to the point where now they believe them to be true. And if that's the case, rational decision making can go out the window. 

 

My feeling is that the Tories did badly in 2017 because their manifesto was a shambles and their campaign was fucking terrible, especially online. With Cummings on board, his own brand and the clarity of a No Deal promise, Boris may be much more bullish about their chances this time around.

There may also be the case that if the government collapses because of a vote of no confidence after the by-election next week (which will reduce Boris's majority to 1, so he needs exactly 1 defection or abstention to lose the vote and he's just pissed off dozens of members of the Conservative Party), Boris may be able to hang on as Leader of the Opposition and bank on a more successful run as PM later on, rather than the poisoned chalice now. Boris as Leader of the Opposition, where he can say whatever shit comes into his mind, won't have to back it up and will still get plenty of time on the TV, may actually be far more appealing to him.

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Just now, Werthead said:

Labour appears to be shoring up its base since Corbyn committed to a referendum on the final deal.

Is that really now Labour's official position. Or is it still the "We will push for are another referendum, when we are the opposition party, but we will go for Brexit, when we are in goverment" nonsense from a few weeks ago? Corbyn's record there is not particularly inspiring.

So is Corbyn now firmly comitted to a second Referendum, or just trying to play the public for a fool again? With all the legit criticism of the BBC, but there's a good reason to be somewhat cautious about what Corbyn's has actually said, and what the (wishful) translation of Labour's remain base are.

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1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Fighting an election on the back of no-deal? I very much doubt that he has the stomach for that. But then again, it would make things pretty interesting. And we might at least reach some conclusion to this mummer's farce. This cycle of unicorn promises, climbdown, strong man speeches, climbdowns repeat ad nauseaum is becoming kinda boring.

I don't know what he has the stomach for.

But the no deal election might work. With the opposition divided between two remain parties: the liberals and the greens, and with one confused, useless and seemingly racist party (labour) just getting in the way Boris could clean up on 35% of the vote if he took a big enough chunk of the BP vote, which, if he was promising no deal, he might get. 

As for what would come after … He could revert to the NI only backstop (the DUP have been ousted from their role as kingmakers in this scenario) and insist it be watered down in some way before Parliament accepts it, or he carries through no deal which he would then have mandate and majority for. 

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18 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Is that really now Labour's official position. Or is it still the "We will push for are another referendum, when we are the opposition party, but we will go for Brexit, when we are in goverment" nonsense from a few weeks ago? Corbyn's record there is not particularly inspiring.

So is Corbyn now firmly comitted to a second Referendum, or just trying to play the public for a fool again? With all the legit criticism of the BBC, but there's a good reason to be somewhat cautious about what Corbyn's has actually said, and what the (wishful) translation of Labour's remain base are.

I think it's pretty fixed now, because Labour can't force a Ref3 in opposition, so the only way they can do it is if they are in government after a GE.

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But the no deal election might work. With the opposition divided between two remain parties: the liberals and the greens, and with one confused, useless and seemingly racist party (labour) just getting in the way Boris could clean up on 35% of the vote if he took a big enough chunk of the BP vote, which, if he was promising no deal, he might get. 

Boris's thinking in all of this is neutralising the threat from the Brexit Party, yes, and he can do that if he goes for No Deal, although there's enough burned hardcore Brexiters who are suspicious of Boris (and remember him hedging his bets in 2016 by writing both pro-Remain and Leave articles before deciding on the one more likely to make him PM) that it might still fragment their vote. At least one of the LibDem by-election council victories seems to have come from the Brexit vote being split between the Tories and BP, and that was after Boris got into No. 10. 

The problem for the Tories is that they can't exploit the "racism" angle against Labour because all Labour or the media has to do is play back a Greatest Hits compilation of Johnson's speeches over the year and ask him about letterboxes and watermelon smiles, a bit like how the Tories attacks on Corbyn being "being friends with terrorists" almost completely evaporated they second they signed a cheque to bribe the DUP (including former terrorists) to support the government. You can't take a position of moral superiority when you've just jumped down the sewer.

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5 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

But the no deal election might work. With the opposition divided between two remain parties: the liberals and the greens, and with one confused, useless and seemingly racist party (labour) just getting in the way Boris could clean up on 35% of the vote if he took a big enough chunk of the BP vote, which, if he was promising no deal, he might get. 

I think this could backfire.

LibDems have been eating into the support of both Tories and Labour alike. Well, more into Labour as the party with the more remain base. I can see them [Tories] losing sufficient voters (presumably like you) say, ok, no-deal is one bridge too far.

Just now, Werthead said:

I think it's pretty fixed now, because Labour can't force a Ref3 in opposition, so the only way they can do it is if they are in government after a GE. 

You think it is. However that was still the official Labour position on Brexit until recently. So you excuse my reservations of Labour now having a solid and logically coherent position. Give it two weeks, before Corbyn tries to walk back on it.

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2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Boris's thinking in all of this is neutralising the threat from the Brexit Party, yes, and he can do that if he goes for No Deal, although there's enough burned hardcore Brexiters who are suspicious of Boris (and remember him hedging his bets in 2016 by writing both pro-Remain and Leave articles before deciding on the one more likely to make him PM) that it might still fragment their vote. At least one of the LibDem by-election council victories seems to have come from the Brexit vote being split between the Tories and BP, and that was after Boris got into No. 10. 

It would be high risk and could fail horribly. However, you can see a not that unlikely route to victory there. Boris has a good chance of uniting enough of his side of the Brexit argument to get over 30%, where as Corbyn is too weak to manage to same for … well it's not clear he has a side. A Tory party squeezing out the BP and Labour, Liberals and greens all fighting over mostly the same votes could hand Boris the victory he wants.  

 

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The problem for the Tories is that they can't exploit the "racism" angle against Labour because all Labour or the media has to do is play back a Greatest Hits compilation of Johnson's speeches over the year and ask him about letterboxes and watermelon smiles, a bit like how the Tories attacks on Corbyn being "being friends with terrorists" almost completely evaporated they second they signed a cheque to bribe the DUP (including former terrorists) to support the government. You can't take a position of moral superiority when you've just jumped down the sewer.

Well, I can't speak for what all the voters will think. I can see a strong difference between a deal with the DUP twenty years after the GFA and Corbyn's support for the IRA during the troubles and other terrorist organisations around the world opposed to this country and its allies up to and including the present day, though.

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3 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I think this could backfire.

LibDems have been eating into the support of both Tories and Labour alike. Well, more into Labour as the party with the more remain base. I can see them [Tories] losing sufficient voters (presumably like you) say, ok, no-deal is one bridge too far.

You think it is. However that was still the official Labour position on Brexit until recently. So you excuse my reservations of Labour now having a solid and logically coherent position. Give it two weeks, before Corbyn tries to walk back on it.

Indeed it could. I was just saying it could work. It is a risk that he could take and it may have a reasonable chance of success. He will lose some Tory votes to the liberals but probably gain more votes from BP. The key is that I think Boris could do a much better job of winning over BP voters than Swinson will of winning labour voters, or Corbyn of winning liberal voters. And if that means Boris is on over 30% and the others are on 20% FPTP could punish his opponents quite heavily. 

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7 hours ago, Werthead said:

At least one of the LibDem by-election council victories seems to have come from the Brexit vote being split between the Tories and BP, and that was after Boris got into No. 10.

Heh, I went through a phase of following council by-elections. The results were mad and rarely made any sense. I guess because the turnout is like 2% or something.

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8 hours ago, Werthead said:

 the LibDems being reluctant to talk about a coalition (perhaps understandably after last time),

Swinson has said she won't do a coalition with Labour if Corbyn is leader, because he's an untrustworthy Brexiter

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/23/jo-swinson-rules-out-lib-dem-pact-with-labour-under-jeremy-corbyn

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8 hours ago, Werthead said:

The problem for the Tories is that they can't exploit the "racism" angle against Labour because all Labour or the media has to do is play back a Greatest Hits compilation of Johnson's speeches over the year and ask him about letterboxes and watermelon smiles, a bit like how the Tories attacks on Corbyn being "being friends with terrorists" almost completely evaporated they second they signed a cheque to bribe the DUP (including former terrorists) to support the government. You can't take a position of moral superiority when you've just jumped down the sewer.

You're assuming that people are consistent. There are many voters who will be appalled at antisemitism but lukewarm about Islamophobia, horrified at Corbyn's inaction but forgiving of Johnson's racist bombast.

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Johnson's best chance at a general election is to have it ASAP.

The longer he's in power for, the more his "energetic optimism" is exposed for delusion, and the more his popularity will take a hit.

As far as I'm aware, Corbyn has been making some good noises about a second ref - but still in terms of not having one if labour win a GE; and it's only noises, not official party policy (that doesn't get changed until conference season IIRC).

 

Whatever happens, things are going to be interesting, scary, and hard to predict. Boris currently has the equivalent of a dead-cat bounce; but I doubt that that will last until parliament re-opens.

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2 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Johnson's best chance at a general election is to have it ASAP.

The longer he's in power for, the more his "energetic optimism" is exposed for delusion, and the more his popularity will take a hit.

As far as I'm aware, Corbyn has been making some good noises about a second ref - but still in terms of not having one if labour win a GE; and it's only noises, not official party policy (that doesn't get changed until conference season IIRC).

 

Whatever happens, things are going to be interesting, scary, and hard to predict. Boris currently has the equivalent of a dead-cat bounce; but I doubt that that will last until parliament re-opens.

I think that the next round of polling will show a significant lead for the Conservatives over Labour (Boris is way ahed of Corbyn as preferred PM) and that's why he'll be daring the Commons to pass a VONC.  The independents don't want Corbyn as PM, and know they'll all be swept away if there's a general election.

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It would be high risk and could fail horribly. However, you can see a not that unlikely route to victory there. Boris has a good chance of uniting enough of his side of the Brexit argument to get over 30%, where as Corbyn is too weak to manage to same for … well it's not clear he has a side. A Tory party squeezing out the BP and Labour, Liberals and greens all fighting over mostly the same votes could hand Boris the victory he wants. 

 

Corbyn won 40% of the vote last time around when Labour's Brexit strategy was still extremely muddled, although that was when Brexit was less of an imminent issue and the Brexit Party did not exist. How things fall out this time will be difficult to predict (given how unreliable polling has become), especially given the unpredictable nature of any coalitions or alliances that might form, although there does seem to be a recurring bounce in the Labour vote that comes from the fact they do spend a lot of time talking about things other than Brexit, which is not the case for the other parties, and an awful lot of the population (even now) are bored shitless of Brexit and do want to talk about the NHS, schools and police, which are areas where the Conservatives remain extremely vulnerable due to how all three areas have gone to shit on their watch.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Brexit finally takes place, in whatever form. Corbyn would almost certainly prefer a GE to take place after Brexit when he can fight it on those issues and the reason for UKIP and the BP existing has evaporated, whilst Boris may figure that he's more likely to win now on the Brexit issue.

16 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Well, I can't speak for what all the voters will think. I can see a strong difference between a deal with the DUP twenty years after the GFA and Corbyn's support for the IRA during the troubles and other terrorist organisations around the world opposed to this country and its allies up to and including the present day, though.

Again, it's a path of attack you don't want really want to go down, because then questions can be raised about the Conservative government providing very strong logistical support to the war in Yemen which it really shouldn't, Patel's illegal meetings with Israeli officials, Johnson fucking up the Iranian prisoner situation, the destabilising of Libya by the Cameron government and rather a lot more going on that's killed or endangered the lives of a lot of people in just this decade.

The fact that people have to dig back thirty years and suggest it was unreasonable of Corbyn to suggest making peace with the IRA in 1984 (even after the Brighton bombing) but somehow it was completely fine of the Conservative Party to suggest making peace with the IRA in 1992 (even though the IRA terror campaign was still in full swing and a hell of a lot more people had died by that point) shows that this is a weak and hypocritical argument to make.

 

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Swinson has said she won't do a coalition with Labour if Corbyn is leader, because he's an untrustworthy Brexiter

 

Despite being historically a LibDem voter, this was a ridiculous statement for her to make. Labour could turn around and say they won't do a deal with the LibDems whislt Swinson is leader, because she was an untrustworthy champion of austerity. And in the meantime the Tories can continue doing their best to burn the country down to the bedrock whilst everyone even vaguely to the left of them are playing fiddles.

Say what you like about the right in UK politics, but they have done a much better job of maintaining solidarity and focus than the left-leaning parties, which seems to want to split every time they have a disagreement on which brand of teabags to use.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Corbyn won 40% of the vote last time around when Labour's Brexit strategy was still extremely muddled, although that was when Brexit was less of an imminent issue and the Brexit Party did not exist. How things fall out this time will be difficult to predict (given how unreliable polling has become), especially given the unpredictable nature of any coalitions or alliances that might form, although there does seem to be a recurring bounce in the Labour vote that comes from the fact they do spend a lot of time talking about things other than Brexit, which is not the case for the other parties, and an awful lot of the population (even now) are bored shitless of Brexit and do want to talk about the NHS, schools and police, which are areas where the Conservatives remain extremely vulnerable due to how all three areas have gone to shit on their watch.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Brexit finally takes place, in whatever form. Corbyn would almost certainly prefer a GE to take place after Brexit when he can fight it on those issues and the reason for UKIP and the BP existing has evaporated, whilst Boris may figure that he's more likely to win now on the Brexit issue.

My (admittedly vague and impressionistic) sense though is that Corbyn did that because of three key factors:

1. An awful stupid campaign by the Maybot 

2. Remainers voting for Corbyn to protest Brexit/May's form of Brexit

3. Talking about things other than Brexit, the NHS, schools, benefits etc. 

I think in the hypothetical GE coming up 1. will probably no longer apply (Boris is a better campaigner although gaffe-prone), 2. will not apply (Corbyn's fecklessness has poisoned that well and the liberals are resurgent) leaving Corbyn with just 3. which is likely not enough (Boris is also making moves to address police numbers/schools etc)

Still, anything could happen, a GE is highly unpredictable. 

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Again, it's a path of attack you don't want really want to go down, because then questions can be raised about the Conservative government providing very strong logistical support to the war in Yemen which it really shouldn't, Patel's illegal meetings with Israeli officials, Johnson fucking up the Iranian prisoner situation, the destabilising of Libya by the Cameron government and rather a lot more going on that's killed or endangered the lives of a lot of people in just this decade.

The fact that people have to dig back thirty years and suggest it was unreasonable of Corbyn to suggest making peace with the IRA in 1984 (even after the Brighton bombing) but somehow it was completely fine of the Conservative Party to suggest making peace with the IRA in 1992 (even though the IRA terror campaign was still in full swing and a hell of a lot more people had died by that point) shows that this is a weak and hypocritical argument to make.

I don't know dude, I think I'm going to go there. Your counterpoints make little sense and suggest you don't really understand why people find Corbyn objectionable. In Libya for example Cameron thought he was doing humanitarian intervention and fighting a dictator - the fact he may have got this wrong is not equivalent, in anyway, to backing and sympathising with enemies of his country. The Patel example is similarly daft, Israel is an ally, so although what she did wasn't right it is not equivalent to Corbyn's deeds.

The criticism of Corbyn wrt the IRA is not that he wanted a peaceful settlement in NI but that he wanted one on IRA terms. He was an IRA sympathiser, as he is a supporter of the Soviet Union, Hezbollah, Hamas, Maduro, Iran and many others. It is absurd to make the same criticism of John Major, for instance, so there was nothing hypocritical in what I said. 

 

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1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The criticism of Corbyn wrt the IRA is not that he wanted a peaceful settlement in NI but that he wanted one on IRA terms. He was an IRA sympathiser, as he is a supporter of the Soviet Union, Hezbollah, Hamas, Maduro, Iran and many others. It is absurd to make the same criticism of John Major, for instance, so there was nothing hypocritical in what I said. 

Even that is historically not a totally nonsensical/unethical position. Remember England was (not to say is) an occupational force on the Irish for what eight hundred years? So to say, maybe we should just pick and leave and end this dark chapter of English history is really not without some moral merit. From the IRA's perspective they were fighting a Guerilla war against a colonial power. So you can argue that siding with the opressed is more of an overarching theme with Corbyn (same with Paletina).

WIth the SU bit, I'd be quite careful, esp. with the all those neat little connections between Putin and Brexit. A generous reading would be Boris is the useful idiot for Russian interests.

I am not going to bother with defending Corbyn on Maduro, as I find that pretty indefensible.

1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The Patel example is similarly daft, Israel is an ally, so although what she did wasn't right it is not equivalent to Corbyn's deeds. 

As for Patel. In the US wasn't it Pollard, who tried to use that line of defense in court? What I mean is, it's an allied power, so it doesn't matter, is a pretty weak argument (mildly put).

 

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27 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

 Remember England was (not to say is) an occupational force on the Irish for what eight hundred years?

Firstly that's a fairly simplistic and not particularly accurate description of initially the English Crown and later the UK's relationship with Ireland. Secondly I suspect 'just think about it from the IRA's point of view' is not an argument that's likely to go down particularly well with the electorate.

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4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Labour could turn around and say they won't do a deal with the LibDems whislt Swinson is leader, because she was an untrustworthy champion of austerity. 

Owen Jones is already way ahead of you there

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1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

3. Talking about things other than Brexit, the NHS, schools, benefits etc. 

I think in the hypothetical GE coming up 1. will probably no longer apply (Boris is a better campaigner although gaffe-prone), 2. will not apply (Corbyn's fecklessness has poisoned that well and the liberals are resurgent) leaving Corbyn with just 3. which is likely not enough (Boris is also making moves to address police numbers/schools etc)

Still, anything could happen, a GE is highly unpredictable. 

I think it would be extremely unwise to eliminate point 3 as an argument, as it was certainly a key part of the Labour resurgence in 2017.

The Conservative track record on the NHS is historically abominable, on education is toxic and on policing is risible, the latter extremely so from the self-declared (with little evidence to back it up) "party of law and order." It's very difficult for the Tories to spend nine years straight selling the country down the river and then trying to reverse course abruptly by going to the magic money tree they've repeatedly said doesn't exist except it does now because reasons.

Boris promising to hire 20,000 police officers to address knife crime when it was the Conservatives cutting 20,000 police officers which exacerbated the problem in the first place is the equivalent of holding a gun to someone's head for a minute and then taking it away, and expecting praise and thanks for taking it away and hope everyone forgets you put it there in the first place (or, even better, trick them into thinking migrants put it there instead).

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I don't know dude, I think I'm going to go there. Your counterpoints make little sense and suggest you don't really understand why people find Corbyn objectionable. The Patel example is similarly daft, Israel is an ally, so although what she did wasn't right it is not equivalent to Corbyn's deeds.

The main reason why people find Corbyn objectionable is clear: he wants to enact a significant left-wing shift in British politics that would require more rich people paying tax, more consequences for corporate malfeasance, more publicly-owned housing (since the current system is so corrupt and unworkable that is hilarious that people keep expecting it to work), the reversal of the privatisation of a thousand cuts of the NHS and nationalisation of industries which have repeatedly failed to provide value for consumers in private hands.

His policies are, mostly, fairly sensible and not particularly outrageous policies based on social responsibility and care, and are both extremely popular (amusingly even when presented to Tory voters without being told where they've come from) and would not raise eyebrows in, say, any Scandinavian country. It's only because this country was dragged into a selfish neoliberal mindset of "Fuck you, I've got mine," in the Thatcher years which subsequent Prime Ministers did little to adjust (Blair did reprioritise the NHS and social security, but did little to address fundamental structural issues) that they get frequently misreported as the next stage of Stalin's Five-Year Plan.

The result of that is you not only have every major tax-avoiding company in the country, a huge chunk of the media and the entire Conservative Party screaming that Corbyn is the next coming of Pol Pot, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro and Lenin rolled into one, you also have champagne socialists, Diet Coke Labour supporters and Blairites (driven, in some part, by guilt that their thirteen years in power was not better-spent actually fixing deep-seated problems in this country) doing the same thing, and all of them seizing on every single breadcrumb thrown their way as something they can criticise Corbyn for once they were defeated in every single legitimate democratic process to oust him.

I actually think this is also dangerous: the absolute non-stop constant criticisms of Corbyn by the opposition, the media and his own party seems to have completely desensitised people to them. I've even had Conservative-supporting family members say they think the antisemitism claims against Corbyn are boring and too much (in one case, "It's all political BS, like what they say about Boris," ignoring the fact that Corbyn has not repeatedly gone on the record with actual racist comments he's doubled down on in live interviews, unlike Boris), and want to stop hearing about them so they can criticise his actual policies instead. Given that Labour does have an antisemitism problem and Corbyn has been extremely lax in dealing with it (although the scale of the issue is difficult to assess given the howls of the media as they seized on the issue like a drowning man thrown a rope at the last possible second) and it is something that needs to be fairly assessed, this is hugely problematic. If the media hadn't done that for four years straight (apart from a brief period after the 2017 election when Corbyn's policies actually were discussed in the media, which didn't last long), then the antisemitism scandal I think would have landed much more strongly and been more of a serious issue for Corbyn.

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In Libya for example Cameron thought he was doing humanitarian intervention and fighting a dictator - the fact he may have got this wrong is not equivalent, in anyway, to backing and sympathising with enemies of his country. 

 

Cameron thinking "he was doing a humanitarian intervention" in Libya is ridiculous after the precedent of Iraq and Syria. He and the French and the correctly dubious (for once) Americans went in, fucked shit up without any plan and then walked out leaving the country to descend into chaos behind them, no doubt drooling at the thought of the oil deals they could put in place afterwards. Maybe in another circumstance you could get away with saying that it's not their fault it's taken Libya seven years to get its shit together afterwards, but after the precedent of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria it was extremely predictable that the exact same thing was going to happen.

Your statement that Corbyn "backed" enemies of this country - providing material aid to them - appears to be erroneous. Has Corbyn - a noted pacifist which he gets railed on for a lot - sold weapons to other countries who have used them to slaughter innocent people? The Conservative government certainly has, with regards to Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen, not just selling Saudi Arabia aircraft, munitions and fuel but having to provide logistics staff, mechanics, engineers and even military advisors directly in the campaign headquarters. So far an absolute minimum of 12,000 civilians have died in this conflict (and it's certainly far more than that), which Britain is partially responsible for. We should also note the war in Iraq and the subsequent rise of ISIS (triggered by that conflict) which killed at least a combined 600,000 people (and again probably a lot more than that), which Britain is even more culpable for and which Corbyn bitterly opposed whilst the Conservative Party backed it to the hilt, in and out of office.

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The criticism of Corbyn wrt the IRA is not that he wanted a peaceful settlement in NI but that he wanted one on IRA terms. He was an IRA sympathiser, as he is a supporter of the Soviet Union, Hezbollah, Hamas, Maduro, Iran and many others. It is absurd to make the same criticism of John Major, for instance, so there was nothing hypocritical in what I said. 

 

Corbyn's position regarding Ireland is that he feels Ireland is an indivisible country and partition was wrong, and that Britain should have pulled out of the entire island. I don't agree with this position as it was demographically and democratically dubious (the majority of the population of Northern Ireland wished to remain part of the UK, to the end of taking up arms to enforce it), but he has at least been consistent on this point. This view - that Ireland and the UK may have been better off in the long run if we hadn't held onto Northern Ireland (especially given that demographic changes in NI means that regardless of Brexit or anything else, Northern Ireland will certainly not be part of the UK in 30-50 years, and maybe a lot sooner) - is also not uncommon among Tory and Brexit supporters, who have recently said in overwhelming numbers they would much rather dump Northern Ireland from the UK altogether than have it continuing to cause a stumbling block over leaving the EU.

However, as Corbyn is also a pacifist (or all but) he did condemn violence over the issue, he just didn't seem to give much of a shit about the optics of the people he was talking with at the time he did. His claim to be a democrat was damaged by his decision to ignore the democratic decision of Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, although he argued that it was the democratic will of the majority of Ireland as a whole not to be divided in the first place, which is not an uncommon position in and out of Ireland.

His position on Hamas has been fairly logical: Hamas is a major political force in the occupied territories and simply isn't going to disappear, and represents the views of a huge chunk of the Palestinian people. Any final peace settlement will involve Hamas in some fashion. Israel finds Hamas useful because their insistence that Hamas recognise Israel's existence means they can take a refusal to do so as an excuse not to talk to them, and thus prolong the conflict indefinitely to their advantage. Corbyn is one of quite a few people to call out this situation and call it BS. Hamas has actually recognised the borders of the Palestinian state as those of 1967, which means they de facto recognise the existence of Israel anyway, they just won't say it to appease hardliners and avoid another split ahead of a final settlement.

His settlement for Hezbollah, which still believes in blasting Israel off the face of the Earth altogether, is altogether more dubious.

Corbyn's support for Maduro (albeit much more lukewarm than for Chavez) given the situation in Venezuela over the last couple of decades is fucking insane, I'll grant you that, and his opposition to the Falklands War was and remains idiotic.

Although Corbyn would be a far superior choice for PM than Boris Fucking Johnson, I'm not convinced he would be a great PM, actually, but the relentless criticism of him, often erroneously and for much less cause than many of his contemporaries (such as BFJ), does get a little boring.

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14 hours ago, mormont said:

You're assuming that people are consistent. There are many voters who will be appalled at antisemitism but lukewarm about Islamophobia, horrified at Corbyn's inaction but forgiving of Johnson's racist bombast.

Surely there will be many voters who are appalled by anti-Semitism and are totally Islamophobic. That kind of describes a lot of people who are supporters of Israel come what may. They are far from mutually exclusive views people can have.

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