Corb Blimey!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Officially if no deal is struck after the two years are up, Article 50 says that the UK crashes out of the EU on WTO terms.

But the more likely Realpolitik outcome is that the UK government collapses because there is no deal (Ken Clarke bringing down the government just before he retires), people get sick of all this Brexit bullshit and the new government quietly withdraws Article 50 until a later date. Move ahead another ten years and enough old hardline Tories have died and nobody cares about Brexit anymore.

The EU knows this, surely. And the Tories know that the EU knows this, which is why they are doing all this Rule Britannia posturing. They have literally nothing else to fall back on.

A few major companies don't seem to know it. They think we're playing for keeps- badly.

I can't believe that the EU will let the UK do that. It's too much of a green light to populist twats to run on invoking Article 50 and posturing for free.

[Duncan Gardner]

The SDLP seems to be split on abortion rights. A big bust up in the last couple of years. Maybe because it is itself a bit of a coalition that has some members who are economic socialists but social conservatives, but others who believe in individual conscience on this issue

They've always claimed to be a coalition (as per the name), but in reality they've been main-issue nationalist for most of their history, certainly since the early 80s. And broadly socially conservative. The problem for anyone wanting to change the latter stance is potentially splitting an already weak party.

Here's a league table of NI parties progressivism (or otherwise) on the abortion issue:

The DUP, SDLP, TUV oppose changing the law on abortion in Northern Ireland

Sinn Féin supports law reform in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and sexual crime

The Alliance Party and Ulster Unionist Party offer their candidates a 'vote of conscience' on abortion, and therefore their members may have varying opinions on abortion law reform

The NI Conservatives are in favour of the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland

Cross-Community Labour Alternative, the Green Party, Progressive Unionist Party, People Before Profit Alliance, and the Workers' Party are in favour of the full decriminalisation of abortion.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What about Sylvia Hermon?

[Duncan Gardner]

From the Skeptical-Voter.org site:

In May 2008 in the abortion amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (now Act), Sylvia Hermon voted for the abortion time limit to be lowered to 20 weeks against scientific and medical consensus which is currently 24 weeks[5]. After four separate parliamentary votes on varying time limits, the majority of MPs voted to keep the abortion time limit at 24 weeks, in keeping with scientific and medical consensus, hence no abortion amendments were added to the bill. Also the Abortion Act 1967 does not currently apply to Northern Ireland.

In September 2011 Sylvia Hermon voted for Nadine Dorries’s amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill, which was ultimately defeated by 368 to 118 votes[6]. This amendment would have stopped BPAS and Marie Stopes from providing counselling for women with unwanted pregnancies and allowed ‘independent’ counselling including that provided by faith-based organisations

To the right of the NI Tories on this one, then

[MsD]

There's still a whole bunch of people here that aren't getting Corbyn's nuanced stance about Brexit. He (we) put a manifesto out there, the Brexit stance was in there. It's fucking stupid to leave the Single Market, but that's where it's at. Labour should say we're leaving - and we'll have to take the economic hit - and negotiate the best we can. Some will hate it - maybe they didn't read the manifesto, and that's fair enough, and we can talk about 'who voted for what', but that's why referenda are a shit way to decide anything - but that's what it is.

Umunna's amendment was pointless. Fine for him to put his amendment of course, but the Shadow Ministers stood on the manifesto, and supported Labour's amendment to the Queen's Speech. They had to go.

Corbyn's (rightly, in my view) accepted Brexit because that's what people indicated that they wanted. If there were enough of a movement against it, he would be able to say "OH, but that's what we thought you wanted! If you didn't really want it once you read a bit more about jobs, maybe we can look at it again." It's not his circus, not his monkey, at the moment and Labour are perhaps better off picking their battles - oppose the Tories and austerity, unite as a credible and effective opposition and putative government, try to retain a sober, measured, balanced approach to Brexit so that we don't become identified too closely with it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Brexit is austerity. And a culture war. Lots and lots of Labour voters know that, and the ones that have strong feelings the other way are dying off.

The manifesto was skillful on the issue, but a shift will have to come. Best way to be balanced is to be relaxed about rebellions on Brexit for now, and to let them be outriders for the shift. The Tories, even after Osborne's gone, know how to hold votes to show up splits in the opposition. If not an Umunna vote this week on the Single Market, a David Davis vote next week on freedom of movement. Precisely nobody is sitting there now thinking "Shit! I didn't know Labour was split on Brexit!"

[Benjm]

Just back from a couple of hours at the march in central London today (going on to a wedding so couldn't linger). Another big turnout, or at least it seemed to be, but that Jeremy Corbyn chant wears thin even more quickly than Don't Take Me Home did in France last summer. Picked up a nice Unite flag but need to work out where to store it as the cat has previously shown great enthusiasm for peeing on signs brought home from demonstrations.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think acting like Labour is morally in government is going to wear very thin, very fast.

Corbyn said no deals with the SNP. Cable/Farron aren't going to prop him up. The SDLP have been wiped out. That means there are 5 (count em) MPs to join with Labour. So 267- which is 50 less than the Tories by themselves. And Labour are far too split anyway.

Yeah, we know you can talk to a crowd. Do some proper work now. Read up on the Brexit shit you're enabling at the moment.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's a bit harsh, but anyway.

[Jorge Porbillas]

I wouldn't count the 4 Plaid Cymru MPs in that 5 to be honest

[Logan Mountstuart]

Much better to let the Tories stew through the Brexit crap and preside over an economic plummet for a while. They can't really push any more austerity through now anyway.

[Tubby Isaacs]

UnitePolitics
@UnitePolitics
Jeremy Corbyn: "Fewer working class young people are applying to university. Let's end the debt burden and scrap tuition fees!" #ToriesOut

No they're not. Never been more . And that'll cost a fortune we don't have. Drop the policy now, and keep the youngsters onside with Soft Brexit. Deal?

[johnr]

No they're not. Never been more . And that'll cost a fortune we don't have. Drop the policy now, and keep the youngsters onside with Soft Brexit. Deal?

The numbers stalled last year, apparently because of the scrapping of the student maintenance grant.

We do have the money.

How much 'softer' on Brexit should Labour's amendment to the Queen's Speech have been, before it becomes 'No Brexit'?

[Tubby Isaacs]

My heavyweight Shadow Cabinet MP on Wales politics. Apparently young people all read the manifesto and are cool with the idea of leaving the Single Market.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The numbers stalled last year, apparently because of the scrapping of the student maintenance grant.

We do have the money.

How much 'softer' on Brexit should Labour's amendment to the Queen's Speech have been, before it becomes 'No Brexit'?

Single Market, Freedom of Movement soft.

We don't have the money. Everything's falling to bits. The cost of putting councils back into working order alone is huge.

[johnr]

We do have the money.

Of course, none of us really know.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't think we do. And I think this is a much better place for it to go anyway.



Does my MP reckon the enthusiastic young people read and approved that part of the manifesto?

[HindleA]

Excuse waffle, which unfortunately despite genuine efforts,seems to be my style and if it makes any case of sense to anybody,apart from me,very much a bonus.

In relation to my areas of interest,some would say obsession,I do not see the tectonic plate shifting/transformation as is sometimes portrayed under Corbyn.Free personal care,as an example would have come in under Brown and national care service idea the same.As the chart reminds us,zero mention of benefit cap nor indeed uprating in the Labour Manifesto.I like Debbie Abrahams and I believe her view is clear and her valiant attempts to answer to why not were to be admired but think for whatever reason she is being stymied.Scrapping the WCA and a more holistic approach is very much welcomed in symbolic terms,rather than previous wholesale reform but it can mean a lot of things,previous experience suggests the "we can save money" thing by combination doesn't turn out all that well,I am always wary of "services/support" to replace income as is becomes contingent and in this Government's case imaginary.Ending the freeze is I believe a centrist position,that it is contentious appals me,I am hoping that it was tactical to offset "the party of benefit" thing and on day one if so elected they announce the bloody end of it.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

No they're not. Never been more . And that'll cost a fortune we don't have. Drop the policy now, and keep the youngsters onside with Soft Brexit. Deal?

1) There seems to be an entirely unevidenced assumption among certain sections that young people are obsessed with Brexit. I don't think they are. Certainly I saw none of that at the election. People seemed more energised about properly funding public services and stuff. You'd think the lib dems would have done better if Soft Brexit was very important to them.
2) Can you see student loans paying for university in the current model? The current system of funding university is really bad and flawed and there's a massive financial black hole somewhere. Funding tuition via taxation makes vastly more sense.
3) Labour's position on immigration is a mess but they need to be detatching free movement of people (good) from free movement of capital (bad). The current system isn't sufficient and labour would be better placed challenging deportations of EU citizens at the moment than fighting a massively damaging battle trying to stay in the Single Market.

[Patrick Thistle]

The solution to funding university fees would be to nationalise them and stop them being such horrendously wasteful places. Many honours degrees could be done in one year if students had more than 5 lectures a week* and universities actually focused on teaching instead of the wanky academia games they play.

We could pay for people to actually learn. We can't fund the bloated moneysuck that is the current system.

*like the one I did

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

The solution to funding university fees would be to nationalise them and stop them being such horrendously wasteful places. Many honours degrees could be done in one year if students had more than 5 lectures a week* and universities actually focused on teaching instead of the wanky academia games they play.

We could pay for people to actually learn. We can't fund the bloated moneysuck that is the current system.

*like the one I did

But university study is not about simply "contact time" is it? Five hours a week is a decent amount of contact time, if for each of those five hours you have to do five or six hours work reading, writing essays - which is generally the expectation.

Certainly, everyone I know who is currently studying is finding it roughly equivalent, in terms of workload, to a full-time job (and are finding juggling parenthood/other personal life stuff around a university schedule incredibly difficult). Upping the amount of contact time is unlikely to improve teaching quality.

Anyway, the UK government does fund university at the moment. They just do it off the balance-books by saddling people with massive demoralising debts they are never going to pay off.

[Patrick Thistle]

I think it depends when you go. Looking back I could have worked a lot harder and I think the same was true of a lot of my friends.

I think it's different for science or engineering or something more practical.

[Tubby Isaacs]

1) There seems to be an entirely unevidenced assumption among certain sections that young people are obsessed with Brexit. I don't think they are. Certainly I saw none of that at the election. People seemed more energised about properly funding public services and stuff. You'd think the lib dems would have done better if Soft Brexit was very important to them.
2) Can you see student loans paying for university in the current model? The current system of funding university is really bad and flawed and there's a massive financial black hole somewhere. Funding tuition via taxation makes vastly more sense.
3) Labour's position on immigration is a mess but they need to be detatching free movement of people (good) from free movement of capital (bad). The current system isn't sufficient and labour would be better placed challenging deportations of EU citizens at the moment than fighting a massively damaging battle trying to stay in the Single Market.

Hang on. "Obsessed with Brexit" and strongly support freedom of movement are different things. I don't think there's much doubt about the latter, is there. And if you get booted out of the Single Market, you don't fund public services or benefits properly because you can't afford it.

I agree there's a black hole at the moment with tuition, and lots of student debt will have to be written off. Labour did make a nod in the direction of writing some of this debt off up front, and I think that's fair enough. But as I understand it, it was an afterthought, not part of the "costed" (using the term extremely loosely) manifesto promises. And the manifesto didn't come up with a progressive way of funding tuition fees from taxation. So reform the fees, thresholds etc.

I don't want free movement of capital detached from free movement of people, because the UK trying to stand outside it will be a disaster. Just as trying to stand outside freedom of movement will be a disaster. The problem won't be EU citizens being deported so much as EU citizens not wanting to be here in the first place.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Basket of deplorables here.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...g-class-voters

Everybody is going to have to be vigilant that an unholy Brexit alliance between the likes of Lexit clown Skinner and Graham "concerns about immigration" Jones doesn't rule the roost.

[Lang Spoon]

Eh? Skinner was slagging off the right, not joining them in their "genuine concerns". Real fucking pity Del Piero kept her seat.