UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[Oakvale]

Funny how the Blairite robots are launching a collective avalanche of attacks on Ed Miliband for being too left-wing, despite the fact that a hefty majority supports things such as the renationalization of the major public utilities - something which was never even contemplated by the leadership during the past five years. Expel these windbags, seriously.

There's fair arguments against the modernisers' response but this isn't one of them - people will say they support all kinds ludicrous  of things in the abstract but would never vote for a party promising to do them. How many votes do you think a party promising to bring back the death penalty (which has majority support) would get?

Also lol yes Labour should expel those who say it needs to reclaim the centre ground. No compromise with the electorate!

[Oakvale]

Obviously the thread should be titled It's The Stone Wot Won It.

[Oakvale]

Apparently Ed Miliband has hit Ibiza to take a break.

[Oakvale]

That's horrible, RIP. He clearly wasn't well on Question Time a while back.

[Oakvale]

TED HEATH

[Oakvale]

That bastard Howe died and I just finding it out now? And here I am without champagne....

Is there a reason you feel this way about a British Cabinet minister from the 80s

[Oakvale]

Posted on the other place but Corbyn has literally made Seumas "Stalin was unfairly maligned by social traitors" Milne his communications director.

[Oakvale]

Could have been worse guys, apparently George Galloway's been planning to rejoin.

[Oakvale]

Remembering that outside of the headline opinion poll numbers before the last general election Ed Miliband's approval ratings were awful as well as the public's view on Labour's economic competence (two measures which gave a big clue as to what the end result would turn out to be).

Jeremy Corbyn's approval ratings continue to be pretty bad:   

New YouGov research conducted prior to Corbyn's Trident claims reveals his net approval rating has fallen a further seven points to -39 since December 18, now only two points above his all-time low of -41 on December 1. David Cameron's meanwhile is at -6; below his post-election average of +3 but above his May 2010 – May 2015 average of -9.

Among the general public there is a strong tendency to believe Jeremy Corbyn has changed the Labour party for the worst since his election. 45% say he has had a negative effect on Labour compared to 21% who say he has changed it for the better. On September 28 2011, a few days after Ed Miliband became leader, few said he had changed Labour for the worst (11%) and most people (56%) said he had made no difference.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/01/19/corbyn-rating-fall/

By and large the party opinion polls haven't moved a great deal either way since the last election so the theory that the UK public would embrace a more left wing Labour Party seems thus far to be incorrect (which would be confirmation of what happened during the 1980's for those like me that lived through that decade and remember it well).

If Corbyn gets his way and has Labour adopt a unilateral nuclear defence policy the Tory narrative of back to the future is also likely to work well.

I think this is the most telling result -

[Oakvale]

I don't know, I can't think of any particular instances in which the West Yorkshire police were lacking.

[Oakvale]

You know I'm about as pro-EU as a left-winger could possibly be these days, but all those Labour MPs voting against article 50 are pathetic.

You know I'm about as pro-EU as a left-winger could possibly be these days, but all those Labour MPs voting against article 50 are pathetic.

They happen to be the only honest Labour MPs.

TIL the role of an MP is to rule her constituents, not to put their desires into practice in the best-intentioned and most expedient way possible or any ~populist~ nonsense like that. How Burkean of you!

You know I'm about as pro-EU as a left-winger could possibly be these days, but all those Labour MPs voting against article 50 are pathetic.

They happen to be the only honest Labour MPs.

Yes. Certainly there are some Tories who are deluded enough to believe Brexit won't be a disaster but the number of Labour MPs who believe such can be counted on one hand. Any Labour MP who voted for this is a disgrace.

The notion that because the confederacy of dunces narrowly voted for "Brexit" (whatever that means?) to un-straighten bananas and kick the wogs out the official opposition should slavishly march toward devastation is bizarre to me. A political party isn't under an obligation to Respect The Will Of The People or whatever inane bollocks Jez was using to justify this trainwreck, when the People make an obviously wrong decision with obviously destructive implications. (It's also ignoring the fairly sizeable chunk of said People who voted against establishing Little Englandism as official government policy but they've apparently ceased to exist in the discourse over the last few months).

My favourite 'highlight' was the perpetually useless Margaret Beckett standing up and saying that she would vote for the bill despite fearing it would be 'disastrous' for Britain. Knowingly voting for disastrous outcomes is becoming a habit - she nominated her party's current shameful carcass of a leader against her better judgement on some similarly vague grounds of Ensuring A Debate. Hopefully she'll learn some day.

Watching this unfold has been like watching the whole world going insane. Because everyone knows it's nuts, but they're shrugging en masse and going along with it because a little over half of the voters in an ill-conceived non-binding plebiscite said they thought the EU was bad.

[Oakvale]

If this is a terrible #hottake by all means call me out on it but...

Oakvale, you know this stuff is pure political calculation, right?  Labour and the Tories are only following through on this stuff so that the UK doesn't end up with their equivalent of FN ripping them at the seams.

Was it wise of the party in opposition to tag along with this?  Maybe not.  Because if and when Brexit ends up being a total disaster, both parties will get to share in the blame (Tories more than Labour, obviously) and the only people who will be able to claim the moral high ground are the Lib Dems.  My guess is that the Lib Dems are so detached from relevancy at this point for that to matter now, though.

Of course it's political calculation - as I said, the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs and, I'd bet, the majority of Conservative MPs don't for a second buy into the Brexiteer fantasies. It's exceedingly unlikely the prime minister does, either. That's what's so appalling - nearly the entirety of the political spectrum are shrugging and - in some cases - openly admitting that they're well aware of the consequences, and then jumping off the cliff anyway.

And the sad thing is that it's not even good political calculus -- the large majority of Labour voters voted Remain and I'd bet 350 million quid a week that the overwhelming majority of Corbyn cultists did, too. Now, sure, sure, the bill would pass even if Labour voted unanimously against but someone needs to be to standing athwart history yelling stop here and it's a fairly damning indictment of the official 'opposition' that it was Ken Clarke.

[Oakvale]

When they (almost!) all know full well it's a decision made on an undefined issue after an ill-informed and misargued campaign that's going to have profoundly damaging implications for the country? I think so. Blindly following the emotional spasm of public opinion on the EU because of a legally meaningless referendum is a dereliction of duty on behalf of MPs.

Even if you believe that the plebiscite result should mean all MPs vote in favour of triggering Article 50, surely, surely there can be no justification for doing so now. There's. No. Plan. I mean, Christ, have you seen the white paper? It's Trump-level handwaving nonsense. What a nightmare.

[Oakvale]

1. There's quite literally no Brexit plan whatsoever except selling some guns to Turkey and bringing back the royal yacht. The white paper is terrifying reading. It's like a bunch of self-help business book affirmations.
2. There's been zero effort to address the Irish border issue, which is fundamentally unreconcilable and the outcome of which - a return to a hard border - will be in violation of our constitution and cause irreparable harm to Northern Ireland both economically and politically, including quite possibly the return of violence.
3. I must correct myself - there is a Brexit plan. It's to leave the single market and tank the economy because tabloid newspapers have scary headlines about immigration numbers. Hang on, you interrupt, didn't political titan Dan Hannan say that there was never any intention to quit the single ma--hah, never mind.

*extremely cuck voice* well people voted 52-48 on membership in a vague conception of what the EU is because they were angry at the Polish so...

I appreciate that I am the reason Trump Won but ironically enough the position of MPs here is basically that of Paul Ryan - political cowardice leading smoothly to utter capitulation in the face of incipient disaster caused by nationalist psychic trauma.



e: Official British government policy on the Border Question at the moment is "a solution will be found, we will not return to the borders of the past!". Reassuring stuff.