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    They don't mind. Remember that since 2010, the goal has been permanent austerity as an excuse to smash up the State. As long as it doesn't affect Them, Personally, they're fine. They were even going to get rewarded by redrawing all the constituencies to lock themselves into Government, until My called the election.

    The only thing that killed them is their own hubris.

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      They’re not dead yet.

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        I'm with TAB and SB on this. If Labour came out against Brexit, I'd rejoin the party after, I don't know, fifteen years away and do all the campaigning and leafleting that I could. As things stand, though, I remain unconvinced that Corbyn isn't a Lexiter who's just keeping his mouth shut and the three line whip against invoking Article 50 was an unbelievably unappealing decision. I really had to hold my nose to vote for them in June (though, in a safe Tory seat, it was broadly irrelevant anyway), but had I still lived where I used to I'd have voted for the Greens or whoever was best placed to kick the local Tories out.

        I can't feel any affinity with the Labour party until it comes out strongly against Brexit, and I don't inhabit an ivory tower. I live comfortably below the poverty line and, if I'm completely honest, the shrillness of politics and hectoring from all sides - "You're thinking it wrong" - has left me feeling exhausted, dispirited and less engaged that I ever have before. In an overall sense, we're looking at possibly emigrating to the USA, dependent on the result of the 2020 presidential election.
        Last edited by My Name Is Ian; 14-12-2017, 08:56.

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          Wow.

          Comment


            For fuck's sake. Lead of an FT article today:
            UK Prime Minister Theresa May will stall for time with her EU counterparts this week as her cabinet tries to find unity on what sort of trade deal Britain wants with Brussels.
            It's been nearly nine months since the article 50 notice. A year and a half since the Leave vote. Barely weeks since your cabinet ministers were haranguing the EU for not moving on to trade talks. And now you tell them you not ready.

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              Well, it's not that surprising, considering the fact that they hadn't done any impact reports.

              Davis cleared of contempt of parliament this morning, BTW. No surprises there, though I do wonder how high the bar is set for anyone to actually be found in contempt of it.

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                Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                To be honest, If i was a labour MP I would probably find it difficult to think of literally anything other than brexit. A soft Brexit is going to kill the NHS, and shatter the public provision of services, crater the economy and impoverish up to 10 million extra people.
                You sure it'll only be up to 10 million? Mightn't it be up to 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 million?

                And are you sure that it's only the NHS that will be killed, stone dead, by a soft Brexit?

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                  Originally posted by My Name Is Ian View Post
                  I'm with TAB and SB on this. If Labour came out against Brexit, I'd rejoin the party after, I don't know, fifteen years away and do all the campaigning and leafleting that I could. As things stand, though, I remain unconvinced that Corbyn isn't a Lexiter who's just keeping his mouth shut and the three line whip against invoking Article 50 was an unbelievably unappealing decision.
                  The 3 line whip was indeed stupid.

                  What would Corbyn have to do too convince you he isn't a Lexiter? He said he would vote to Remain, did vote to Remain, and would do so again. I delivered hundreds of leaflets with his name and face on them saying 'vote Remain'. Even Owen Smith and Angela Eagle said - at the time - that he was all over the place, campaigning for the EU, whilst recognising it's faults.

                  Unfortunately, his pitch wasn't as shrill as Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and the rest of the Remain camp, and was smothered as a result. Sensible politics lost.

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                    Labour current ambivalence, largely driven by C and McD own ambivalences about the EU is like me planning a hike in the mountains whilst paying no attention to a forecast of heavy storms. No matter how prepared, equipped, motivated i am, i would be walking into a situation that will leave me facing potentially lethal unknowns.

                    A sane man would stay in the pub down the valley....

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                      What MS said. The Tories are learning carefully from the GOP in America and will gerrymander, divide and conquer themselves to a virtual one-party state if we let them. And Brexit is the single most important political event of my lifetime. I feel European. Our rights and (for me) identity are being stripped from us, and the opposition simply doesn't look like it's opposing it.

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                        David Davis not in contempt of Parliament.

                        But Keir "Process" Starmer needs to go for policy now. Something very like freedom of movement needed, or we're fucked.

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                          Originally posted by My Name Is Ian View Post
                          What MS said. The Tories are learning carefully from the GOP in America and will gerrymander, divide and conquer themselves to a virtual one-party state if we let them. And Brexit is the single most important political event of my lifetime. I feel European. Our rights and (for me) identity are being stripped from us, and the opposition simply doesn't look like it's opposing it.
                          Last night was a pretty good opposition. Do you think Labour should just say 'Stop Brexit', and, if so, how might it then be achieved?

                          I think their position - try and get what we've got now as far as we can, whilst recognising it's a clusterfuck; saying 'the public voted this way, so we'll make the best of it' is the sort of un-shrill politics that you're after.

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                            And, well, there are things bigger than Brexit. This is a bit of Corbyn's speech at the UN thing last week.

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                              Originally posted by Berba
                              I don't get how this is supposed to be hypocritical
                              I explained in previous post. You were, variously

                              - hypocritical given your own regular stereotyping of Irish people (most recently if trivially when comparing political Unionists/ Prods- not that I'm either, like- to ISIS), just because I mentioned the Irish Language row when criticising SF for closing down local govt

                              - abusive to/ about Boulton, not that he cares about semi-anonymous web rants. He isn't a moron because he doesn't take the Irish Republic as seriously as he should

                              - hysterical. This is flaming on Twitter not as it's important but as it's like every other spat on there

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                                Unless your goal is a peasants revolt as a result of decades if extreme poverty, there is no argument for Lexit.
                                Who, here, is making the argument for Lexit? Nor am I arguing that Brexit isn't likely to be an economic disaster that will fuck over the best-laid plans etc. I'm talking about a particular strand of argument that didn't feel particularly exercised by austerity until the Brexit vote saw the waters of actual politics lapping up on the shores of their own lives. (And I'm not particularly talking about people here btw). People who'd seen their towns and lives go to shit for the previous 30 years had experienced those tremors long before.

                                And I voted and campaigned for Remain, but it was a pretty poor campaign, and the failure of so many of its loudest adherents to show even a hint of self-examination over where they might have got it wrong is helping ensure that this shitshow is unlikely to be halted any time soon.

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                                  Sure it could be more. Play this wrong, and you could all be running around with fucking bows and Arrows and eating human flesh. the Benefits of Economic growth may under the current UK system may largely accrue to the wealthy, but the absence of economic growth, and the rise in inflation fucks people at the margins with a traffic cone wrapped in barbed wire. And the UK has an awful lot of people living at the margins. Already you have a large number of lower paid public servants needing to use food banks. The UK has massive levels of personal debt balanced precariously on top of millions of precarious jobs. It wouldn't take much to push an awful lot of people right under.

                                  We lived though a precipitous collapse in govt revenues, and substantial job losses, leading to national bankruptcy. I wouldn't fucking recommend it to anyone, but there are two major major differences between Ireland and the UK. The first was that we have a proportionally fucking massive high productivity, high volume, high value export sector that dragged us out of the shit like a Saturn V, The UK exports barely twice as much stuff as Ireland, and this is the area of your economy that is going to be fucked by even a relatively soft brexit.

                                  The other thing was that every party basically has a variation of the same basic model. We had a good thing going, and we wanted to get back to that, There are six voters in this country interested in shrinking the size of the state. That's not what we think the state is for. So we basically went through a horrible period and emerged the other side missing a few teeth, minus a building sector, but miraculously ok for a country that went totally bankrupt in 2011.

                                  No-one knows what the fucking point of Brexit is. There are no end goals, there is no plan, and you have a govt that would end the welfare state for anyone who doesn't read the daily mail tomorrow. It's a nightmare that will continue long after you rejoin the EU with your tail between your legs, and have to spend a decade providing the catering, and picking up the bill like Christopher Moltisanti.

                                  The Labour shadow spokeswoman on brexit was on the one o'clock news, and I sat there in the car listening to her, and I found myself hit with a wave of Despair. If this is the best that the Labour Party can do, You're fucked, and if you're fucked then we're fucked. We can only do so much to save your country against its will. I'll put up a link to it when they cut up today's show and put it online.

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                                    And I voted and campaigned for Remain, but it was a pretty poor campaign, and the failure of so many of its loudest adherents to show even a hint of self-examination over where they might have got it wrong is helping ensure that this shitshow is unlikely to be halted any time soon.

                                    Labour should have campaigned for remain on the grounds that every single fucking complaint that people had about the EU had nothing to do with the EU, and everything to do with the Tories. Combining a robust defence of the UK's best interests, with hammering all of the blame onto the tories. The really fucking dispiriting thing about that interview with the labour politician on RTE was that all of the things that she mentioned as being problematic about Freedom of movement sounded an awful lot like things that were down to UK labour law, that a self respecting labour Govt would be keen on fixing, and fuck all to do with the EU. Even the supposedly marxist Peoples democratic labour party, operates within the insane tiny anti-Eu overton window, as defined by the Daily fucking mail.

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                                      Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                      Labour should have campaigned for remain on the grounds that every single fucking complaint that people had about the EU had nothing to do with the EU, and everything to do with the Tories. Combining a robust defence of the UK's best interests, with hammering all of the blame onto the tories.
                                      That pretty much sums up the leaflets I delivered on behalf of Corbyn and Labour.

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                                        Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                        Sure it could be more.
                                        But you said 'up to 10 million', now you're saying it could be 'up to 60 million'?

                                        I'm being a bit glib here of course, I get what you're getting at, and agree to a point. But 'up to 10 million-but could be 60 million' is the sort of shrill political claims that are all too prevalent around Brexit* (as MNII alludes to) - nobody actually knows other than it's going to be a shitstorm.

                                        * As well as other political discourse; see Labour's 'we'll build 100,000 houses a year' manifesto stuff. Really? Exactly 100,000 - not 70,000, 90,000 or 200,000? It's speculative bollocks.

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                                          TAB is licensed to speak for me again.

                                          John, I live in Worthing, thirteen miles from Brighton, and I saw precisely no Remain campaigners in the town centre here at all over the entire duration of the campaign. Not one leaflet. Not one person in the town centre giving out leaflets. (Should I have done something myself? Probably, but we had our first kid in September 2015 so at that precise moment political activism was difficult, just as it is now, with a second one, eight weeks old). Things might have been different in Brighton, but I lived there for nine years and I'd have guessed that Brighton didn't need much persuading to vote Remain. Worthing clearly did, and didn't get it. (Not a criticism of you or Brighton Remain, that, obviously - more a reflection upon a Remain campaign barely worthy of the name.)

                                          Worthing voted 53/47 in favour of Brexit. It was a dismal campaign by everybody concerned, and unfortunately I have to lump Labour in with that to an extent. I'd have been willing to cut them a little more slack had they put up any more opposition after the result on the basis that this is national self-harm and needs to be stopped, but there has been nothing on that front at all of any note. It feels to me as though Labour is trying to wait until until the public tide really turns against it all before speaking public. That's far too supine for me. This fight needs to be taken to the Daily Mail and the hard right Tories, and I just don't see that happening at the moment.

                                          Harsher and harsher stances on immigration directly affect me and might yet break up my family. Austerity has hacked at benefits and shrinking the economy through leaving the EU only seems likely to make that even worse than it already is. The well-being of the economy, I strongly suspect, will be affected in ways that people don't fully understand at the moment. I don't see that point being made strongly enough by anyone in terms that are going to connect with anyone apart from people who already agree with it all, and that's not enough.

                                          The irony is that I like Corbyn. I don't have much of an opinion on McDonnell. And, as I mentioned above, I voted for Labour earlier this years. But they need to not only shit or get off the pot over this, but to be clearly be seen to be doing so.
                                          Last edited by My Name Is Ian; 14-12-2017, 15:24. Reason: (Added a missing full stop)

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by johnr View Post
                                            That pretty much sums up the leaflets I delivered on behalf of Corbyn and Labour.
                                            Corbyn did also get distracted by Lexit stuff, like TPIP (which didn't happen anyway). He still is sometimes, the way he's talked about the EU impeding nationalization. I think he has more of a point there than others do, but the idea we take the economic hit of Hard Brexit so we don't have to put trains out to tender, makes no sense.

                                            Re the referendum, I think he had an extremely tough gig. Best tactic would be to get around lots of factories and stress the value of the EU market. Maybe he could have got some services stuff on the agenda too. But the mood was so ugly, that would have likely had Leave going "looking at those posh fuckers, it's all right for them".

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                                              Or you give a bit of hope. You say, "we've got fresh, ambitious plans to make Britain a fairer more equal country – and those will be jeopardised by a Leave vote". Because clearly that hope thing helped get the Labour vote out in June 2017, but no one from right or left was talking in those terms during the referendum campaign. (Some of whom, in saying instead "don't jeopardise our existing prosperity" to people who hadn't seen any for decades, were clearly inviting a negative response)

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                                                Corbyn went to nearly 50% more Remain events than the actual leader of the Labour Remain campaign. I agree that Labour did a poor job of communicating to the public, but I would suggest a number of reasons:

                                                1. It was basically a Tory bunfight
                                                2. The papers had no interest in "balance", preferring to treat it as one big game
                                                3. Hitching yourself to the Tory wagon too closely had wiped out the Lib Dems and Scottish Labour, and Corbyn was wary of that
                                                4. Importantly - Labour MPs were too busy planning to overthrow Corbyn to properly campaign for Remain
                                                5. Those that did do some campaigning were doing the centrist bullshit thing cf Stephen Kinnock of all people sounding equivocal on the EU and acknowledging "very real concerns about immigration".

                                                Comment


                                                  You say, "we've got fresh, ambitious plans to make Britain a fairer more equal country – and those will be jeopardised by a Leave vote".
                                                  This. Exactly, precisely this. "We need to improve things and this will set us back years" was the one message that I didn't really hear any of during the campaign.

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                                                    Part of the problem, now, is it's never been easy to galvanise and mobilise a campaign based on what is projected to happen, rather than what is actually happening. People certainly kick off when they see their privileges under threat, but to people who have none of those privileges, delivering a message of "it's all going to turn to shit" isn't always going to resonate. So we should stop pretending that the process of turning this round, and winning arguments and campaigns, is simply a matter of wheeling out a load of graphs and shouting "read this and learn!" at them. The likelihood is that only the hard-bitten experience of Brexit, once it's actually happened, will change the mood.

                                                    Which is why the administrative chaos around all this isn't moving the polls much. Most people aren't impacted by it at this point or paying enough attention

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