UK General Discussion: 2019 and onwards, The End of May

[James Monroe]

This tweet is downright sickening. How this person gets to run a presidential campaign is a question that deserves to be accounted for.


https://twitter.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1132790657221824512

PM of England. So is Wales, Scotland and NI getting independence?

That crowd doesn't know those countries are all UNITED together! The lack of history insight is very telling that someone didn't bother to hire competent professionals who know a thing or two about foreign affairs.

[parochial boy]

This tweet is downright sickening. How this person gets to run a presidential campaign is a question that deserves to be accounted for.


https://twitter.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1132790657221824512

What is so sickening about this?

I find it abhorrent that a campaign staffer of a Jewish politician would cheerleading for a international leader whose wants nothing more than to eliminate the Semitics from his country.

Have you got some evidence of Corbyn calling for the elimination of Jews in Britain?

Honestly, the antisemitism clearly needs to be addressed, but creating hysterical fictions like this just makes it so much easier for people to dismiss the issue as partisan smears

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

There are problems with that tweet, but being happy about the idea of Corbyn possibly being the UK Prime Minister after the next one isn't one of them.

[CumbrianLefty]

For all the polling, Labour hasn't actually done great in elections.

You have a point, but part of this is that non-GE elections tend to disproportionately have older people voting (more so than is the case at GEs I mean) and in recent years they have become very anti-Labour.

(and this actually predates Corbyn, pensioners basically got the Tories their majority in 2015 - there is little doubt that Osborne stuffing their proverbial mouths with gold was crude but highly effective)

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This tweet is downright sickening. How this person gets to run a presidential campaign is a question that deserves to be accounted for.


https://twitter.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1132790657221824512

What is so sickening about this?

A top member of an A-tier Presidential candidate's team endorsed an anti-semite for PM of a nuclear ally, either in ignorance or celebration of what that would mean for Jews both in the UK and globally.

When are going to get a Corbyn Derangement Syndrome megathread?

Translation: "I like to gaslight Jews and hope I can convince them not to believe their own eyes and ears".

[James Monroe]

https://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/1132777151936323585

[Intell]

Remain-mourners have decimated/will continue to decimate the UK left.  What is their thinking? Get a 2nd referendum to fuel even further cultural divisions, have leave win again, or have half of the country accept what they perceive to be an illegitimate vote, decimating the labour leave vote and having the two major parties be base on cultural-lines, full on French style (Liberal Democrats vs Brexit).

[CumbrianLefty]

Their "thinking" seems to be that at long last there is something that adversely impacts US (not such trivia as people literally dying from austerity, or disabled people being driven to suicide - who cares about such losers at dinner parties?) and we aren't going to stand for THAT!!

(the "I demand to speak to your manager!" mentality is strong amongst remainiacs, undoubtedly)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I can't believe nobody in government is thinking about introducing a multi-question referendum. A redo of the 2016 referendum would be worse than useless; but you could get some more useful with a ballot like this:

Do you want to enter in a Norway Plus (or whatever) deal with the EU? Yes/No

If no, do you think the UK should leave the EU on WTO grounds or Remain, therefore annulling the 2016 referendum? WTO/Remain

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The EHRC has launched a formal, statuary investigation into the Labour Party (we'll have to see what happens, but the potential seriousness of this is weirdly underplayed ftr), and there's been a spate of resignations towards the top of Scottish Labour and rumours of wider instability. All of which is just... sad, frankly. Just very sad.

There's also the business of Alastair Campbell's membership status, but that's less significant.

[CumbrianLefty]

But isn't an investigation just that........an investigation?

I mean they *might* come to the conclusion that so many in the media especially have already decided is the case - ie " the Labour party is the most institutionally AS organisation to exist since the NSDAP, and this has entirely arisen since September 2015" but equally, they might........not.

And what then??

[Tintrlvr]

I can't believe nobody in government is thinking about introducing a multi-question referendum. A redo of the 2016 referendum would be worse than useless; but you could get some more useful with a ballot like this:

Do you want to enter in a Norway Plus (or whatever) deal with the EU? Yes/No

If no, do you think the UK should leave the EU on WTO grounds or Remain, therefore annulling the 2016 referendum? WTO/Remain

The problem I think with this approach is that there is a risk that Remainers who would prefer Norway+ to No Deal would choose "No" to the first question, as would Leavers who would prefer Norway+ to Remain, in each case in order to get to the second question where they can state their true first preference, so Norway+ might be the Condorcet winner but still lose with a real possibility of a result that satisfies fewer people. In addition, people whose first preference is Norway+ might not vote on the second question because they already expressed their first preference, which creates a real risk of enough undervotes on the second question that the result of the second question is thrown into doubt because the margin is smaller than the number of undervotes. Plus, you'll get a lot of complaints from both the Remain and No Deal sides that this question setup creates an implicit bias in favor Norway+ and complaints from supporters of Norway+ that their option was the preferred option over any other single option even though it lost a Yes/No vote. The psychology of multi-part referendums is really tough.

A new referendum has to be a simple, one-question format to get an answer that would be accepted as democratically legitimate. Of course, what that question should be is itself a political issue. Given the hardening of political preferences, it seems like No Deal vs. Remain would have to be the question, though, given how few people now have Deal (in whatever form) as their first preference.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

trouble is "No Deal vs Remain" does not put the issue at rest and dramatically polarises the electorate even more. Possibly even better than a two stage referendum (which obviously isn't great) would be some form of preferntial vote, preferably something like a Borda Count rather than AV given the important outcome is broad consensus.

[Former President tack50]

trouble is "No Deal vs Remain" does not put the issue at rest and dramatically polarises the electorate even more. Possibly even better than a two stage referendum (which obviously isn't great) would be some form of preferntial vote, preferably something like a Borda Count rather than AV given the important outcome is broad consensus.

Didn't the Tories push against AV back in the 2011 referendum?

Imagine them doing a referendum under AV anyways lol

[Tintrlvr]

trouble is "No Deal vs Remain" does not put the issue at rest and dramatically polarises the electorate even more. Possibly even better than a two stage referendum (which obviously isn't great) would be some form of preferntial vote, preferably something like a Borda Count rather than AV given the important outcome is broad consensus.

AV and other Borda count systems wouldn't work because Deal would always come in third (even worse if you have multiple Deal options), with No Deal and Remain inevitably being the top two, so you're still running a single-question No Deal vs. Remain referendum, just adding complications to it that make it easier for the losing side to say the result isn't legitimate. Even if Deal somehow made it into the top two, you'll also get a lot of exhausted preferences from voters who are strong No Dealers or strong Remainers (whichever was eliminated), which greatly weakens the legitimacy of the result and increases the chances of an extreme outcome.

The reality is that if you want to ask the public, the public is only interested in No Deal and Remain at this point and doesn't care about and doesn't want to compromise (which is definitely an argument against asking the public -- asking the public is the worst way out at this point and shows why putting the question to a referendum in the first place was a mistake).

[jaichind]

Alastair Campbell got expelled from LAB for backing LibDems in Euro elections

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But isn't an investigation just that........an investigation?

Yes and no; they suspect that harm has been done and will now try to find out the nature of it and its extent. That they've decided to launch a statuary investigation with powers of compulsion is significant: amongst other things it means they don't trust the organisation to co-operate sufficiently. But beyond that, who knows? Things have been so murky of late that it's been hard to be sure of much in institutional terms, other than that something is not right. I suspect that the report will make for depressing reading, but I wouldn't care to speculate beyond that point.

The silver lining here is that the point of the EHRC is to get to the bottom of things and try to improve them. If we think of things in terms of Labour's longterm health, then for the Party as an institution this is actually good news.

[CumbrianLefty]

I certainly don't disagree with your concluding point - one of the worst things about this business (aside from the intrinsic awfulness of AS, it goes without saying) is the way it has been cynically and relentlessly exploited by blatant bad faith actors.

An objective assessment, which might be trusted by both "sides", might be no bad thing at all.

[beesley]

Ben Bradley has got it right imo, have a look at the full thread. The new political division that exists will last at the least until Brexit stops. Just as voters in Mole Valley and Mansfield or Bath and Boston voted for one party but have a different view of things, so too does it affect Labour, losing out to the Greens/Lib Dems./Plaid Cymru in Haringey and Cardiff and the Brexit Party in Hartlepool and Coventry.

https://twitter.com/bbradleymp/status/1132628410675736578 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Remain-mourners have decimated/will continue to decimate the UK left.  What is their thinking? Get a 2nd referendum to fuel even further cultural divisions, have leave win again, or have half of the country accept what they perceive to be an illegitimate vote, decimating the labour leave vote and having the two major parties be base on cultural-lines, full on French style (Liberal Democrats vs Brexit).

Yeah, I've been resisting this conclusion for a long time but now it really seems like Labour is bent on pissing away any remaining (no pun intended) support it has among the post-industrial working class. This is heartbreaking.

[CumbrianLefty]

But if a place like Hartlepool is *really* determined on voting like West Virginia, there is ultimately little a left wing party can realistically do but seek support elsewhere.

Losing vast numbers of anti-Brexit voters to the LibDems and Greens isn't a route to a Labour win either, just in case you haven't noticed that yet.

(statement of interest - my own seat voted 60% leave so I find the Remainiac fringe as tiresome as you do)

[Antonio the Sixth]

But if a place like Hartlepool is *really* determined on voting like West Virginia, there is ultimately little a left wing party can realistically do but seek support elsewhere.

Losing vast numbers of anti-Brexit voters to the LibDems and Greens isn't a route to a Labour win either, just in case you haven't noticed that yet.

(statement of interest - my own seat voted 60% leave so I find the Remainiac fringe as tiresome as you do)

Well, yeah, I'm not saying Labour has any great option here. The thing is simply that, if the choice is between a rump Labour centered on old-left working-class strongholds vs a rump Labour centered on hip and dynamic middle-class seats, I think the former is much more valuable in its identity and a culture. If you have to be a permanent-minority party, at least be a permanent-minority party that stands with the downtrodden.

[YL]

But if a place like Hartlepool is *really* determined on voting like West Virginia, there is ultimately little a left wing party can realistically do but seek support elsewhere.

Losing vast numbers of anti-Brexit voters to the LibDems and Greens isn't a route to a Labour win either, just in case you haven't noticed that yet.

(statement of interest - my own seat voted 60% leave so I find the Remainiac fringe as tiresome as you do)

Well, yeah, I'm not saying Labour has any great option here. The thing is simply that, if the choice is between a rump Labour centered on old-left working-class strongholds vs a rump Labour centered on hip and dynamic middle-class seats, I think the former is much more valuable in its identity and a culture. If you have to be a permanent-minority party, at least be a permanent-minority party that stands with the downtrodden.

Going along with a hard-right project like Brexit (just look at the sort of people who are pushing it) has nothing to do with standing with the downtrodden.  I'm entirely confident that if it were France where this was happening you'd be against it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean French politicians are not so mind-numbingly stupid as to call a referendum on leaving the EU (and that's saying something, because French politicians are pretty damn stupid). It's not my fault you elected a craven pigf**ker who took a risky bet to unify his party without a care for the potential consequences.

If we somehow had a referendum and people voted to leave (which would still be unlikely because another thing France doesn't have is a massive Murdoch-based propaganda empire spreading lies and nonsense), then I'd want the people's will to be respected, yes. Even more so if traditional leftist strongholds like the Northern mining basin or the Southwest were among the strongest Leave regions.

[Blair]

Ah class/race and and labours problem with the working class vote

This is not a new problem. People in the 60s said the same about labour- and how they need to ban buggery, bring back the gallows and expel the Keynian Asians to keep on side with the working class (who are of course white)

That’s the key word- white. There’s a huge working class community in Hounslow, Bradford, Lewisham etc who labour also need to repesent.

Besides; we shouldn’t forgot that places like Liverpool voted strongly to remain whilst very well of and comfortable areas voted leave. It’s a complex issue which isn’t fixed by crude claims about the ‘post industrial working class’ which is about as vague a term as saying ‘middle class voters’.

And finally; what is the Brexit deal that sorts this? We can’t have FOM because we’re told our white working class voter base hates it (as we’re told by Ian Austin, and the other lexiteers) so that rules out the single market (which our small industrial base relies on) so we’re left with the Customs Union- is that really the Brexit that people thought they were getting?