UK Politics & Brexit Discussion

[Stan]

These are brilliant

 

[The Artful Dodger]

5 hours ago, Harry said:

I think if I were you guys I'd be absolutely fuming that the rival party can't serve up an electable candidate to deliver the well earned punishment the current government deserves... Corbyns like he's the dummy candidate a dictator would appoint as his opposition just to give people a pretend choice at the election.

 

What does this even mean? Corbyn has played an absolute blinder over the past few days. 

[Stan]

No early election. Only a majority of 242 compared to the 434 required to get it passed. 

Labour's party line was to abstain from voting.

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

What does this even mean? Corbyn has played an absolute blinder over the past few days. 

Given the political chaos of the tories, I do think he’s been a poor opposition leader in that he’s really failed to capitalise on any of that Tory chaos. A few good days doesn’t make his tenure as Labour leader successful. I like him personality wise and more important policy wise, but he’s not a great party leader. Granted, it doesn’t help that the press has it out for him.

The path to progress in getting his policy goals can only come from taking power. And with the Brexit chaos and chaos under both May and Johnson, a better political leader would have more obvious public support behind him. Because honestly the Tories must be counting their blessings that they’ve managed to create such a massive catastrophe and not have public support completely abandon them.

The Labour leader is always going to get more scrutiny from the press for more ridiculous shit than should be imaginable (imagine if that shit about Miliband eating like a weirdo didn’t topple him, we wouldn’t be in this mess). And political leaders that are easy to attack by the press that can’t (or won’t) put out emphatic statements against those attacks usually have public opinion swayed against them. Corbyn is an easy target who isn’t that great at putting out emphatic statements against those attacks. You couple that with 2 years of really taking any sort of firm stance on the one fucking issue that the whole country can’t stop talking about, so as to not alienate existing voting groups... It all just comes across as 2 years of ineptitude when Labour could be scoring easy points.

It’s honestly so frustrating seeing the state of political leadership in this country. From ineptitude, to maliciousness, to a weird mix of both... it’s hard to feel any optimism about the future of the country 

[SirBalon]

6 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

What does this even mean? Corbyn has played an absolute blinder over the past few days. 

I have to admit Corbyn has indeed been brilliant these past few days especially today but seeing the Tories wobbling at the knees and only needing a jab to fall to the ground was too tempting to go at it any other way.

[SirBalon]

I don’t like hearing and certainly not using the ‘C’ word but someone sent me this and I did find it funny.

 

[RandoEFC+]

You can criticise Corbyn all you want but right now he has Johnson over a barrel. Johnson now can't pass a thing in the House of Commons thanks to the last few years of Tory ineptitude finally catching up on them and eliminating their majority. Johnson can't reclaim any power until he calls an election and wins a majority which isn't even guaranteed. And for an election, he needs Corbyn to agree. And Corbyn won't agree until No Deal is taken off the table. If he is successful in protecting Britain from a No Deal Brexit then that's already more than anything any of the recent merry-go-round of Conservative prime ministers have achieved for the country's benefit since David Cameron was re-elected.

Meanwhile across the bench, Johnson piles lies upon lies upon lies, even after losing his majority. Today it has come out that there would be no possibility for him to negotiate any sort of deal at the EU summit in mid-October and that all negotiations have to go through the EU's Brexit negotiator, who isn't part of the 27 EU leaders who meet at the summit. An EU spokesperson has also come out and said that they haven't received any sort of new proposal over a Brexit deal since Johnson came into office. There were leaks yesterday about the current government's negotiations being seen as a sham by Number Ten which you can see on the previous page.

People call Corbyn inept and even dangerous, but if anyone thinks he's more dangerous than this iteration of the Conservative party, frankly that's insane. This is the party who seem to think they can get away with acting as if they're executing the will of the people when actually they're trying to implement the result of an illegal referendum and refuse to go back to the people and see what they actually want now that they know they were lied to for so much of the Vote Leave campaign.

Credit must go to Corbyn and the Tory rebels this week who have defended this country from potential disaster against a government whose MO has become Brexit at all costs.

[...Dan]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

8 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

You can criticise Corbyn all you want but right now he has Johnson over a barrel. Johnson now can't pass a thing in the House of Commons thanks to the last few years of Tory ineptitude finally catching up on them and eliminating their majority. Johnson can't reclaim any power until he calls an election and wins a majority which isn't even guaranteed. And for an election, he needs Corbyn to agree. And Corbyn won't agree until No Deal is taken off the table. If he is successful in protecting Britain from a No Deal Brexit then that's already more than anything any of the recent merry-go-round of Conservative prime ministers have achieved for the country's benefit since David Cameron was re-elected.

Meanwhile across the bench, Johnson piles lies upon lies upon lies, even after losing his majority. Today it has come out that there would be no possibility for him to negotiate any sort of deal at the EU summit in mid-October and that all negotiations have to go through the EU's Brexit negotiator, who isn't part of the 27 EU leaders who meet at the summit. An EU spokesperson has also come out and said that they haven't received any sort of new proposal over a Brexit deal since Johnson came into office. There were leaks yesterday about the current government's negotiations being seen as a sham by Number Ten which you can see on the previous page.

People call Corbyn inept and even dangerous, but if anyone thinks he's more dangerous than this iteration of the Conservative party, frankly that's insane. This is the party who seem to think they can get away with acting as if they're executing the will of the people when actually they're trying to implement the result of an illegal referendum and refuse to go back to the people and see what they actually want now that they know they were lied to for so much of the Vote Leave campaign.

Credit must go to Corbyn and the Tory rebels this week who have defended this country from potential disaster against a government whose MO has become Brexit at all costs.

I agree with all of that. I don't think Corbyn's been a great leader for Labour, but yeah he deserves credit here. Although I do think Tories really cornered themselves. And I don't think Corbyn's dangerous, but there's no way he's as inept or as dangerous as anyone the were putting forward to be the next PM after the Theresa May debacle.

[Inverted]

If you look at the way the Telegraph, and several other papers can report that Johnson does not want an election, then report that he is calling for one, and then report that Corbyn is a hypocrite for rejecting it, you can see what is meant when people say Corbyn is a bad leader.

The British media is overwhelmingly middle-class and privately educated. They are winners from the UK's economic course over the last 30 years. Anyone who hints at reversing this, or offers a new vision, will be a target - for them all. Liberal papers like the Guardian will even tend to criticise them more than support them. It is nothing to do with Corbyn personally - Ed Miliband, who was not even as radical as Corbyn, was similarly smeared as dangerous, Marxist, as uncharismatic, and as harbouring foreign sympathies. If he had stuck around for longer, the coverage would eventually have moved onto racism and him being a national security risk. 

When people say "Labour need a better leader", they're saying "Labour need a centrist leader" - because that's the only way they're not going to be savaged every day across the entire media. 

And that's an admission that the scope of political choice and possibility is, and should be, dictated to 70 million people by a small cabal of a few-thousand well-to-do Londoners. 

[Stan]

Quote

 

Hold tight as political analyst Professor Sir John Curtice explains how the timing of an election could affect the opposition parties' chance of success.

He says the bill which is currently going through Parliament does not rule out a no-deal Brexit on its own - but gives the House of Commons the opportunity on 19 October to rule out no-deal if the PM has not struck a deal by then.

"Therefore the argument is whether or not you need to delay the election so that the House of Commons is still sitting on 19 October and therefore the provisions of the bill could be used to stop a no-deal Brexit," Sir John says.

"In that event, you're basically talking at an election not taking place earlier than five weeks after that so you're looking towards the tail end of November. That's the argument that's going inside the Labour Party and the SNP for delaying."

But he adds: "The argument on the other side [within the opposition parties] is if Boris Johnson does come back from the European Council with a deal and can get it through the House of Commons then you will be giving an opportunity to have an election just after having had his success in getting us outside the EU.

"It's the tension between those two things, the opposition is trying to work out.

"The safest thing for the opposition to do from their point of view is simply to say no to an election now and wait to see what happens on 19 October and then facilitate an election if it seems to be in their interest."

 

If anyone, like me, needed a bit more clarity on what the last 48 hours mean and where it could lead to...

[SirBalon]

People show us how Johnson has been bullshitting us on another important detail.

oh... And the piece de resistance is the final bit which I already knew.

 

[SirBalon]

BREAKING: Jo Johnson MP, Boris Johnson's brother has resigned due to not trusting the current tenure and their recent decisions. Boris Johnson's own brother doesn't trust him!

[Kowabunga]

I have no idea of the outcome of this game of thimbleriggers. 

But one thing. Your political system is going to come out embalmed in shit.

[SirBalon]

23 minutes ago, Kowabunga said:

I have no idea of the outcome of this game of thimbleriggers. 

But one thing. Your political system is going to come out embalmed in shit.

It already is, that’s how it’s seen not only in Europe via shock first and foremost with also the added point that they’re laughing at the UK (England).

Trust me... Most balanced people here are seeing it in the same way.

[Dr. Gonzo]

6 hours ago, Inverted said:

If you look at the way the Telegraph, and several other papers can report that Johnson does not want an election, then report that he is calling for one, and then report that Corbyn is a hypocrite for rejecting it, you can see what is meant when people say Corbyn is a bad leader.

The British media is overwhelmingly middle-class and privately educated. They are winners from the UK's economic course over the last 30 years. Anyone who hints at reversing this, or offers a new vision, will be a target - for them all. Liberal papers like the Guardian will even tend to criticise them more than support them. It is nothing to do with Corbyn personally - Ed Miliband, who was not even as radical as Corbyn, was similarly smeared as dangerous, Marxist, as uncharismatic, and as harbouring foreign sympathies. If he had stuck around for longer, the coverage would eventually have moved onto racism and him being a national security risk. 

When people say "Labour need a better leader", they're saying "Labour need a centrist leader" - because that's the only way they're not going to be savaged every day across the entire media. 

And that's an admission that the scope of political choice and possibility is, and should be, dictated to 70 million people by a small cabal of a few-thousand well-to-do Londoners. 

I don’t think that’s true at all. I don’t want a centrist, but I do want someone who’ll go on the offensive when the Tories have spent 2 years In disarray. He can’t even effectively come out against the media when they routinely falsely label him an anti-Semite. He needs some media management pointers, in America there’s a freshman congresswoman that terrifies the centrists, the right, and the media and she’s played an absolute blinder with the press - Corbyn should watch her for pointers on dealing with some of the obvious bullshit said about him.

I don’t think ineptitude at the leadership level is isolated with Labour. Tories and Lib Dems are similarly incompetent - well if the Lib Dems aren’t inept then they’re just disingenuous as fuck, but I can’t stand Lib Dems at all tbh so I’m biased there. But Labour’s always going to get the short end of the stick with the media - so they’ve got to have the most media savvy.

I also wish people weren’t so fucking stupid. Ed Miliband being tanked because he looks weird when he eats in 1 picture says so much about our society. And it says nothing good about it.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Jo Johnson looks like an alternate history Boris Johnson where Boris didn't try crack

[SirBalon]

Let's clean-up our own house from this surface scum that's contaminated England.

 

[Inverted]

5 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I don’t think that’s true at all. I don’t want a centrist, but I do want someone who’ll go on the offensive when the Tories have spent 2 years In disarray. He can’t even effectively come out against the media when they routinely falsely label him an anti-Semite. He needs some media management pointers, in America there’s a freshman congresswoman that terrifies the centrists, the right, and the media and she’s played an absolute blinder with the press - Corbyn should watch her for pointers on dealing with some of the obvious bullshit said about him.

I don’t think ineptitude at the leadership level is isolated with Labour. Tories and Lib Dems are similarly incompetent - well if the Lib Dems aren’t inept then they’re just disingenuous as fuck, but I can’t stand Lib Dems at all tbh so I’m biased there. But Labour’s always going to get the short end of the stick with the media - so they’ve got to have the most media savvy.

I also wish people weren’t so fucking stupid. Ed Miliband being tanked because he looks weird when he eats in 1 picture says so much about our society. And it says nothing good about it.

I'm by no means trying to whitewash the Labour leadership because I think they have made mistakes at several points, and Corbyn has a lot of baggage which I would prefer a Labour leader not to have. Not necessarily because I am personally offended by it, but because it is such an easy target. 

What I'm saying is that this hypothetical Labour leader who could command the respect of the media and rally the liberal opposition around them, does not exist. Centre-left Ed Miliband was painted as a Marxist freak. The Lib Dems objected in principle to working with Gordon fucking Brown. 

No human can come out of the current degree of scrutiny with a spotless record. No leader can respond to years of endless sabotage from within, and relentless, withering attack from outwith their party, without making a mistake at some point. 

The important thing is that Labour stands right now, despite everything, with a meaningful chance of stopping Brexit, and a shot at entering government. 

The media and the other parties hate the Labour Party not for who leads it, but for what it is - that being a mass movement aimed at meaningful social and economic change. To make Labour palatable to these people, would require that it be turned back into what it was 20 years ago - a technocratic, leadership-dominated, centrist movement. 

Maybe if it had given up on what it was trying to do, and had a leader who would bend to the will of the papers and the Lib Dems, we could have had some kind of a Labour government by now.

However, I think that would have been the last chance for meaningful democracy in this country within our lifetimes. 

 

[SirBalon]

Tom Watson or Kier Starmer  (especially the former) would get a hell of a lot of votes, he would mine without a doubt. David Lammy Is also slowly pushing himself up the ranks.

[Stan]

14 hours ago, SirBalon said:

Let's clean-up our own house from this surface scum that's contaminated England.

 

Femi gets all kinds of stick but not once does he ever retaliate and get in to a slanging match with the person he gets vile abuse from. For that I admire him (and all the other logic he gives to anyone and everyone about Brexit!)

[The Artful Dodger]

He's alright. Bit of a posh gimp though. One of the things he thinks is bad about brexit is it might affect his skiing. This is the worst thing about remain, it's infested by middle class people who are naturally tory. It's not going to cut it in working class communities devastated by the way this country has served the interests of the middle classes (mainly remain voters). Go to old mining towns and tell them how much worse it can be without the EU. It can't get worse. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by The Artful Dodger

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

He's alright. Bit of a posh gimp though. One of the things he thinks is bad about brexit is it might affect his skiing. This is the worst thing about remain, it's infested by middle class people who are naturally tory. It's not going to cut it in working class communities devastated by the way this country has served the interests of the middle classes (mainly remain voters). Go to old mining towns and tell them how much worse it can be without the EU. It can't get worse. 

It can absolutely get worse if the country loses a shitload of jobs and extreme austerity measures are taken.

[The Artful Dodger]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

It can absolutely get worse if the country loses a shitload of jobs and extreme austerity measures are taken.

To lots of people it can't, while the country as a whole may suffer more to these left behind people it doesn't matter, they've already lost it all and nobody cared about that then, why would they care now? When you have fuck all and the community is totally shattered then what's going to top that? Remain is packed full of wankers worried about their skiing holidays. These people are just as much the enemy as any full on Brexiteer.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by The Artful Dodger

[SirBalon]

18 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

To lots of people it can't, while the country as a whole may suffer more to these left behind people it doesn't matter, they've already lost it all and nobody cared about that then, why would they care now? When you have fuck all and the community is totally shattered then what's going to top that? Remain is packed full of wankers worried about their skiing holidays. These people are just as much the enemy as any full on Brexiteer.

 

 

What you've just aimed at "Remainers" is sick and below the belt without even knowing what it's all about it seems. For you to label "Remainers" as "not caring" is utterly callous and defamatory without a shadow of a doubt. That statement is worse than all the thick ones hardline "Brexiters" comment every day hundreds of times during the day...

If you took your fucking ultra left wing head out of the sand for a minute you'd see that the ones creating victims where they won't enact upon it are those using those poor souls for their own benefit. It's all Bout TAX for most of them! You'll find most remainers want to and are prepared to pay more tax so as to enable a status quo that's only just.