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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, what happens now???

No one has a clue. Though I'll quickly note - and this is just something to bear in mind, not a prediction of any sort - that parliamentary procedure is actually very flexible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, that gives us a bit more time for sanity to prevail.

You always were an optimist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The issue there is that she is extremely partisan and has never bothered to negotiate or compromise with anyone outside her party, other than the DUP. Which makes it rather difficult to start now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who is likely to replace May as PM?

A swine.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Out of curiosity, why does the House of Commons seem to do all its voting so late in the evening?

Tradition. Actually they do it much earlier than they used to; before the Blair government changed parliament to new 'family friendly' hours (to reflect the big increase in female MPs) it was common to have debates and votes after midnight: see page seven of this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Remember that this wasn't a normal vote, but the first stage of a two-step process.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What's most likely to happen now?

In general or specifically? In general, well, the same answer as before: no one knows. Specifically, well, the government will try for Meaningful Vote III, and unless that is passed before Monday then there will be another set of these votes then.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The thing is, even if we No Deal, that doesn't end the matter, as someone will have to resolve the way out of this mess with the EU...

Yes, 'No Deal' doesn't actually mean 'No Deal'. It means the opposite. It means this drags on forever. I do not understand why this point is not often made.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think they should leave on No Deal. That’s what the people voted for.

But then a General election is needed cause clearly there is no confidence in the Government.

This is the Tories putting their party ahead of the country... this is harder to do in our system,
one reason I don’t like the Parliament system that Canada and the UK have.

Your idiotic, ignorant and completely clueless comments are really not welcome. This is serious, a really serious issue that could potential cause serious damage to the lives of a lot of people, not a fycking game.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All polling relating to Brexit is useless, other than as a signal of how easy it is to change people's asnwer by framing the question.

Though this in itself tells us a lot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why did you assume that holding a referendum on the EU membership and/or pushing for leaving the EU could be survived by your party?

Cameron actually thought that it would be the checkmate move that would settle the European question within the Conservative Party for good, routing the 'bastards' and cementing his faction firmly in control for ever in the process.

That one worked out well didn't it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Another thing I’m curious about is why won’t the EU just cut the strings already?

Hasn't this already been explained? What you describe is not actually an option outside of the realms of fantasy. 'No Deal' would not mean 'no deal' but would actually mean the need for rather a lot of deals and the endless negotiations that would necessarily precede them. There is no option that allows either party to just end things and move on to matters they'd rather discuss.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's a comedy free-hit election not taken remotely seriously by anyone in which the Tories have basically (without exactly intending to) signalled to their base that it's fine to vote for another party or not to vote at all, just this once. The message from Labour hasn't been quite that, but it's been so sotto voce that a lot of the Labour base will also read it as 'don't bother this time'.

The potential for a completely absurd embarrassment for both, then, definitely exists... but it isn't clear whether that would mean much. It's possible it would only do so if it triggered further internal ructions in either party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah please. If the governing party ends up in like third or fourth place in the Euro elections it's not something they can just choose to ignore.

Well, they came third in 2014 and won a majority at the General Election the next year. Labour came an extremely embarrassing third (on just 15%) in 2009 and while they lost the General Election the next year, they polled 30% nationally. These elections will only be consequential if actors decide that they are consequential. Which they might. We don't know yet. But absent that they're meaningless.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Tory campaign was a complete car crash too, this being more important than Corbyn running a good Labour campaign as 'oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them'. The 'dementia tax' alone probably cost them their majority.

To say nothing of the bad impression left by then hastily dropping it; striking a major policy from your manifesto out of sudden panic is not a great move if you're aiming for the softcore strong(wo)man vibe...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes. He used to be popular, but is no longer popular. It's strange that people struggle with this concept.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Things can also change. It's strange that people struggle with that concept.

Generally speaking if a politician who was popular because they were seen as 'not a politician really' acquires a reputation as not only 'absolutely a politician, actually' but a backstabbing careerist scumbag to boot, they do not regain their former popularity.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He's gone and done it:

[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.

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If we break areas with large Labour votes into three rough categories - those that voted strongly Remain, those that voted Leave, those with large minority populations - and have a look at what happened in the European elections, then one thing becomes clear immediately. And that is that turnout was extremely poor in the latter two categories, but relatively 'good' (still bad, still low, but high for a mickey mouse election) in the former.

What does this tell us? While we have to always be a little careful, I would suggest it is another indicator that the European issue is only important to a large number of Labour voters in one of these categories, and that Labour is probably only vulnerable to losing large numbers of voters over this issue in that category, not the others.*

The trouble for Labour, though, is that it may already be too late to do much about that. How much credibility on this issue does Labour now have with that section of its electorate? Very, very little. So little, in fact, that it isn't clear if any policy movement would now convince anyone. Interestingly, the problem has been the tone adopted as much as the line: it has been very shrill, very arrogant and has got a lot of people's backs up.

The European issue is a tricky one for Labour, but it fairly clearly isn't the main reason for its poor polling ratings and poor recent electoral performances. Even the disastrous showing in the European Elections had more to do with a series of bizarre strategic blunders (it isn't a good sign that no one has walked for that, incidentally) that removed any pressure on the usual low turnout Labour electorate to bother to show up or to stay loyal if it did than with its positioning as such.

_{*Of course this would not be the case if it were to embrace the Culture War aspects of the new British Pro-Europeanism, but that won't happen - as stupid as senior Labour figures of whatever faction or era often are, they aren't that stupid.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll also note quickly, because this is often missed, that a lot of the public dissatisfaction with the two big parties on this issue stems from irritation that they have not 'solved' it yet. This isn't the most coherent of sentiments, but it is widespread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Jesse Norman is running. What, the great American Wagnerian soprano? But I thought her name had a 'y' in it? Indeed, for Jesse Norman is male and the Member for Hereford.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's nothing in Late Corbyn Era Thigmoo that can't be discussed via the medium of Death of Stalin quotes, I guess:

'Who's going to carry the can for this farrago of shite?!'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/popbitch/status/1135128997766057984