UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

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Minority government with outside support of the DUP.

Let's see how the budget vote goes

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Considering Ulster nationalism and especially the DUP/FPCoU/UVF is very Scottish I'm really surprised the SNP manages to sustain such an ambiguous position on the matter. Do Scottish nationalists don't care anymore for Ulster? It used to be a stable way to get Scots to vote Tory

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I have to imagine Ulster nationalism died out as a cause for Scottish nationalists around the time Rangers finally started signing Catholic players

You are mixing two things. The sectarian culture that thrives among some Rangers fans isn't Scottish nationalist, but British unionist ("loyalist").

In Glasgow Celtic fans (and other Catholics) are significantly more likely to be SNP supporters than Rangers fans.

Considering each match starts with Rule Britannia they were awfully quite during the referendum

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May definitely knows she's on a stop clock, I guess she'll finalize the Brexit deal and take the bullet on how terrible it will be so the next leader could be clear of blame.

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There's some hindsight bias when discussing new lab as no one can forget Iraq and later years. But the 97-01 government was rather good and pushed Britain few steps forward after the stale major years. What happened afterwards though...I think an orderly transition to brown pre 05 would have saved the project.

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Losing the repeal bill will surely finish May off

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-41235522

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Good news for May, Bad News for Corbyn?

Interesting to have Skinner and Field on the same side of a vote

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So soon when Labour will be +7 in polls will we finally see a new leadership contest?

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This fast becoming a ramake of the 90’s

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May may be trying to do a "noble" act. She knows that whatever Tory leader delivers Brexit will be tarnished by the initial economic shock. she'll lead through and let a fresh set of hands (preferably not those of fat c Boris) take over before the next GE.

PM Corbyn is a bigger threat than PM McDonald was (or more accurately, chancellor McDonnell is).

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May may be trying to do a "noble" act. She knows that whatever Tory leader delivers Brexit will be tarnished by the initial economic shock. she'll lead through and let a fresh set of hands (preferably not those of fat c Boris) take over before the next GE.

PM Corbyn is a bigger threat than PM McDonald was (or more accurately, chancellor McDonnell is).

Corbyn and McDonnell will form a National Government with the Tories??

I meant as a perceived threat (i.e. the first Labour government). McDonnell has been playing "wargames" about emergency laws against capital fleeing the UK...the first Labour government hardly knew where their offices were

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It's not the numbers, but more so the fact that the route to a majority without Scotland has to run through insanely Tory Seats (including 10-20 that Labour lost in 2005)

Sure, this is why Labour have mainly been in opposition, because there is usually very strong support for the Conservative Party in the UK, even vis-a-vis a very bad Conservative campaign as in 2017.

Lab + SNP through time:
2005 360
2010 264
2015 290
2017 297
So Labour's "Scottish road to 10 Downing Street" through the SNP would be marginally useful, like the Tories in 2017, but it won't deliver a government with the SNP, let alone a Labour majority, without plenty of further gains in England and Wales, including many of those difficult 10-20. (Not that the 2005 losses will all be difficult; I think you guys can take Putney.)

What’s really left to gain in Wales? At most 1 additional seat

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Aberconwy, the Vale of Glamorgan, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Arfon are all fairly marginal that would fall in a minor swing towards Labour; and even then there are more potential gains (remember in the 1997 blowouts the Tories lost every single seat in Wales)

But then the Liberals were still a force in Wales, 2017 was the first time they hadn't won a seat there since well parties formed.
But I guess there's enough to work with in North Wales and West of Swansea

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Labour's problem

Definitely Labour's problem

Yes, all parties in the UK have a problem with antisemitism, and antisemitism is probably more of a problem among the white British middle-class than among the white working-class (but of course it is much more of a problem in Muslim communities than in either of these two). British middle-class antisemitism has always struck me as particularly vile.

This former Tory MP has been stupid, presenting his friend with Nazi paraphernalia to be "edgy". That said, as far as I know, he never proposed any actual policies that would target Jews negatively and he was even a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. Surely he was not a real danger to Jews. Meanwhile, Labour have a leader whose "problematic" views on Israel and, seemingly by extension, Jews are deeply interwoven in his ideology, and who can be expected to act upon this ideology once in power, endangering Jews in Israel and possibly in Britain as well: the example of Ilmar Reepalu, the Social Democratic mayor of Malmö who said Jews should move to Israel if they do not want to be the target of antisemitic violence, comes to mind.

Second that, the most antisemitic party for me are the LibDem

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Someone from the soft left could probably pick up the extra 3 to 5 points Labour needs whereas low 40s is Corbyn's ceiling.

Is there anyone who sticks out as a contender?

I'm going to preemptively rule out who Miles will probably suggest, and say it won't be Sadiq Khan. He doesn't want it and won't particular add much.

I think it would have to be someone that Corbyn circle have no objections to - a loyalist - but is perhaps a bit of a more "normal" figure than Corbyn. (Anybody thinking a leader can walk in without Corbyn's approvals is kidding themselves). Emily Thornberry could be a good choice, as would Angela Rayner. Starmer would be a nice leader, but I don't think he wants it. I would have once said Clive Lewis, but he probably can't manage it right now. Maybe even Pidcock, despite her uber left posturing and young age.

A 31 year old nobody is not going to win a GE even with all the yoof vote and any free party ketamine user turning out to vote

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You have to not under-estimate how contingent British liberties are on the goodwill of the government. After the EU it would be pretty easy, constitutionally, to do away with most rights or even parliamentary government, given a pliant majority.

And still it's constitution by custom, and legal rights held by custom, are and were more stable and kept than in continental Europe with those fancy formal constitution.

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Rees-Mogg v. Corbyn. The queen must bricking it

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Most British people don't care that much about Brexit, especially remainers, and there is no market for any kind of remain-focused party. If there were, er, Vauxhall wouldn't have re-elected Kate Hoey?

LibDems need to die. Britain deserves a real choice between left and right, not a bunch of Nice Woke Moderates who happily help the Tories gut the welfare state.

That's fine, and like I keep saying to people for what four years now, if left-meme kiddies are happy with being a 250-seat opposition, this kind of arrogance is exactly what they should be espousing. Normal people who live in Nuneaton and drive cars will keep voting Tory. But one kind of lefty will get to beat another kind of lefty in the political equivalent of England v Belgium.

lol, I thought last year's election had dispelled the "muh Corbyn is unelectable" nonsense once and for all, but I guess some people are too Reasonable and Pragmatic to let the facts get in the way of their narratives.

Even Labour edges it they won’t have a majority. Corbyn could only be a PM with a hung parliament

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Can someone explain to me why the May conservative government is still a thing?

With all the cabinet chaos and all the seeming incompetence of the government in regards to BreXit, wouldn’t you think that a No confidence vote would be called and passed by the house (considering it is a minority government) .. or am I missing something?

Whoever delivers Brexit is ed. No one wants the job before it’s done either way, not even Corbyn who would much rather run an election on living standards post any brexit than on how Brexit should look.

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Why are the West Midlands so staunchly leave? They lost the industry before the EU and most immigrants are from colonies not the eastern bloc.

True the area is a relative dump (I’ve been to west Brom and Wolverhampton for football and it was ramshackle with the stale smell of piss), but nothing new about it and still better than Liverpool.

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https://twitter.com/JoeTwyman/status/1024220891897647104?s=19

I hope Peace in Northern Ireland remains, but I really hope that Northern Ireland is no longer part of the United Kingdom.

When Ulster goes the UK is finished.

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The partition of Ireland, was a terrible mistake,
We paid the price in England for decades and we are still paying the price, more funding per head on Ulster then most towns and cities across England,
We are stuck with people that oppose Marriage equility, womans Right, and do not believe in our liberal values.
Most English people are sympathetic toward a united Ireland, it's Ulster-Scots that want to be part of our Country...  
But with demographic changes and Catholics becoming a majority it will happen...

part of 'your' country...The UK does not belong to English people. They are everybit as British as your white van Essex Man, one might even claim they are more than him.

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About the only women in the UK who wear burkas are Pashtun women - there are only around 100,000 Pashtuns in the entire country, they're pretty geographically concentrated, only half are female and not all Pashtun women wear them (including the most well known Pashtun in Britain, Malala Yousafzai). Most British people have never seen a woman wearing a burka except in television reports from Afghanistan. The niqab is different - it is something you will occasionally see (and because it's so striking you'll remember seeing it, something that often leads to a false impression of frequency), but is still rare.

Some concerns raised about this topic are sincere - Johnson's tediously grotesque bomb-throwing was not, of course (the fact that he is clearly not aware that burkhas do not have eye-slits is rather telling) - although, unfortunately, there's a tendency to confuse signifier and signified, to object to the visible manifestation of a certain set of problems rather than to the problems themselves. This means that even well-intentioned interventions are rarely helpful.

Here's how to tell the difference:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241

I've seen niqabs quite often in Tottenham or up north. I definitely saw it more in the UK than here in Muslim settlements.

Like in antisemitism the Pakistani community is 'leading' the way in backwardness

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I currently work in Stratford, they're common there.

Are Jewish communities more "Jewish" outside Israel?

Most aren’t. There are pockets of hardcore haredi in NY/NJ/London but they’re not more hardcore than the hardcore here. Plus it’s different as Muslims emigrated to western countries and Jews lived there for quite a long time

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It's more a case of the highest Leave votes had the lowest immigrant numbers. I live in Havering, the whitest borough in London. It's had BNP councillors in the past.

Boston or Lincolnshire come to mind, though the midlands would point to the opposite direction