[Tiste Simeon]

Yep and loads of people are fine with it...

[Maark Abbott]

Tiste Simeon, on 02 September 2019 - 04:51 PM, said:

Yep and loads of people are fine with it...

Because it fits their bigoted, racist agenda.

Out of interest what murmurings are there in the Force just now? I can't imagine your compatriots are happy about what's happening.

[Traveller]

Ugh I was just checking MRI and the radiographers were all laughing at all the 'ridiculous scaremongering' about brexit. And how on the debate they'd chosen a spokesperson who wasn't the 'stereotypical white bald racist.'

I waited until I'd had enough (about 2 mins) and said 'I've still not heard any advantages of Brexit. No one seems to be able to give me one?' Unsurprisingly, they didnt come up with anything. Someone kind of mentioned that it would 'get rid of the people like on reception who apparently don't do their jobs properly' whoever they are. But otherwise nothing.

How are such outwardly looking reasonable people working in the NHS still backing this? Its baffling.

[Maark Abbott]

Traveller, on 03 September 2019 - 08:47 AM, said:

Ugh I was just checking MRI and the radiographers were all laughing at all the 'ridiculous scaremongering' about brexit. And how on the debate they'd chosen a spokesperson who wasn't the 'stereotypical white bald racist.'

I waited until I'd had enough (about 2 mins) and said 'I've still not heard any advantages of Brexit. No one seems to be able to give me one?' Unsurprisingly, they didnt come up with anything. Someone kind of mentioned that it would 'get rid of the people like on reception who apparently don't do their jobs properly' whoever they are. But otherwise nothing.

How are such outwardly looking reasonable people working in the NHS still backing this? Its baffling.

Because bleu passpeurtes.

[Tiste Simeon]

A lot of people seem happy that Boris is promising more officers. I keep asking why anyone would ever believe him or the Tories but no one can give me an answer...

[Mezla PigDog]

Reading live text updates from Parliament when really I need to go to sleep. I'm confused. General election?!

[Mezla PigDog]

No. Opposition will only agree to it if the Benn bill is passed. I haven't read what the Benn bill is. Is that to legislate against a no deal? Legislate against it forever or just on 31 October? I thought we already did that back in March....?

Fucking had enough, regardless.

[Khellendros]

Mezla PigDog, on 03 September 2019 - 09:18 PM, said:

Reading live text updates from Parliament when really I need to go to sleep. I'm confused. General election?!

All but. Johnson is tabling it but he needs Labour votes to get it passed (as technically there shouldn’t be another election till 2022). Labour say they will vote for it if the bill to rule out no deal passes into law tomorrow (which Johnson doesn’t care about, as his people have already said they’ll just ignore the new law).

The problem is that this is exactly what Johnson and his advisers wanted all along, the whole thing’s just been an act. Now they’ll hope to increase their majority in an election (they actually have no majority now as a Tory MP defected earlier today), and then nothing can stop them doing whatever they want regarding Brexit.

And yes, at the moment they look most likely to win a general election. Everything that many of us posting here think is awful and stupid unfortunately actually a large part of the country agree with. Johnson will frame it as him being on the side of those who won the 2016 referendum, the will of the people etc., and everyone else as EU lackeys. And it will probably work, unless Labour can somehow come up with another policy manifesto which looks awesome and steers attention away from a singular focus on Brexit and on to other areas. That latter part will be hard to do.

[worry]

British politics happens very suddenly, and confuses everybody including itself, and that's why we like it.

Is this your Karl Rove?

[Tiste Simeon]

I think this is good news today but like Mezla I'm just confused.

[Mezla PigDog]

I don't think it necessarily is good news. Unless the Remain side has the numbers for a first passed the post win and I don't think anyone knows that. Johnson has prepared a playbook and it's unfolding exactly as he has planned. Prorogation was intended to outrage the opposition enough to speed up activity on the Remain / anti no-deal side. He wants to be able to call a GE and blame the EU and other parties for it while he looks like the tough guy who can push things through and win over those who might otherwise vote for the Brexit Party. A GE is only going to work with a collaboration in Remain and marginal seats between Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK. The Remain vote will be split otherwise. I don't think Labour and the Lib Dems can work together.

The only good thing I can say in favour of what is going on is that at least something IS going on to move us on.

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 05:57 AM, said:

I don't think it necessarily is good news. Unless the Remain side has the numbers for a first passed the post win and I don't think anyone knows that. Johnson has prepared a playbook and it's unfolding exactly as he has planned. Prorogation was intended to outrage the opposition enough to speed up activity on the Remain / anti no-deal side. He wants to be able to call a GE and blame the EU and other parties for it while he looks like the tough guy who can push things through and win over those who might otherwise vote for the Brexit Party. A GE is only going to work with a collaboration in Remain and marginal seats between Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK. The Remain vote will be split otherwise. I don't think Labour and the Lib Dems can work together.

The only good thing I can say in favour of what is going on is that at least something IS going on to move us on.

Lib Dems? Yellow Tories lying their way back to relevance after the shitshow that was ConDem.

They posture on being the anti-Brexit party but then refuse to work with the one party they actually need to. And of course they vote in line with Tories for domestic policy on matters which caused the thicker segments of the public to lap up the 2016 lies and vote out.

One positive is that the majority is now a -43 majority and the Tories themselves are split massively. All we need now is for Mogg, de Pfeffel etc to fall into some guillotines and the day is saved.

[Mezla PigDog]

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

[Khellendros]

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

Yeah, even the left-leaning Guardian clearly doesn’t like Corbyn. Reading about the way it reported on Johnson expelling from the party the 21 Tory rebels who voted against him yesterday, I’m reminded of the way they cover any rumour that Corbyn’s team might deselect rebellious Labour MPs (which they have never actually done) - the former has so far been simply reported as a thing that happened, the latter is every single time covered in a number of news pieces and critical opinion pieces.

This morning they ran with a headline along the lines of, ‘Corbyn faces backlash from party over plans to support election call’. The first paragraph said Labour MPs were worried that he would support the election before the new legislation was passed to rule out no deal (it doesn’t actually technically rule it out but that’s too long to get into here). But the second paragraph then stated that as soon as Johnson put forward his election motion, Corbyn stated that Labour would not support it until the ‘no no-deal’ bill was passed into law. Soooo...what would this backlash be about exactly??

And just tonight Labour have indeed refused to vote in support of the election bill. So no election as yet.

[Grief]

Johnson looks to be trying to put a band-aid over the divide in the Tories by positioning the party as the clear 'Brexit option' in an election; pulling over doubters for reasons of party expediency (or replacing them).

That the election could very quickly become 'Hard Brexit or scary Corbyn' (see Tory Lord Finklestein's recent piece in the Times) may unfortunately also play against a remain outcome. I've thought for a while that either a second referendum or general election would be necessary before the issue is resolved. Would a remain mandate be more likely to come from an election or referendum? I tend to think the latter by some distance. Corbyn is hardly a popular remain figure to rally around. And for the shambles that the Conservatives have been recently, Labour again don't appear to have capitalised very effectively. Nor do I think that the political manoeuvring around holding the election is really a great look for the opposition.

At the same time, I think that people are slightly over-estimating Johnson. Forcing the issue may be smart in some ways, but plenty of Tory MPs do have real reservations about Brexit and especially a no-deal (whether their constituents think it's sensible or not). I'm sure he'd rather keep MPs where he can. If the deadline wasn't looming then the narrative would be very different, and if parliament pushes the issue of an extension before accepting any election then we might see that happen. It's very volatile.

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

If they hate the Tories, why would people in your area vote for Yellow Tories?

Lib Dem MPs vote in line with austerity and in favour of Tory legislation. Let's not try to pretend that Lib Dems are anything EXCEPT Tories by a different colour, because their voting record betrays that they are just that.

The fact that left-leaning publications dislike a left-leaning socialist who by the European standard is very bog standard shows how far to the right politics in this country have gone; if they laud the right-wing Lib Dems, what chance does anyone who is actually on the left have?

We have to consider that this is just part of the smear campaign run by big press, because anything on the left is harmful to their owners. And that's at the baseline what Brekshit has been about from the start, so of course anyone who asks so much as a question about it must be vilified and besmirched.

[Khellendros]

Maark Abbott, on 05 September 2019 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

If they hate the Tories, why would people in your area vote for Yellow Tories?

Lib Dem MPs vote in line with austerity and in favour of Tory legislation. Let's not try to pretend that Lib Dems are anything EXCEPT Tories by a different colour, because their voting record betrays that they are just that.

The fact that left-leaning publications dislike a left-leaning socialist who by the European standard is very bog standard shows how far to the right politics in this country have gone; if they laud the right-wing Lib Dems, what chance does anyone who is actually on the left have?

We have to consider that this is just part of the smear campaign run by big press, because anything on the left is harmful to their owners. And that's at the baseline what Brekshit has been about from the start, so of course anyone who asks so much as a question about it must be vilified and besmirched.

In my area it’s Tory or Lib Dem, there effectively is no Labour option, who get only a handful of the tens of thousands of votes. So yes, I do vote Lib Dem even though I don’t support them. Whatever you might think about their record in government (which is terrible and they were punished for it at the ballot box), at the local level in my experience it has always been better to have a Lib Dem MP than a Tory one.

I also don’t think it’s as simple as ‘harmful to the owners’ as to why the media is wary of Corbyn. For example, the Guardian doesn’t have an owner or shareholders - it’s an independent paper, run through a trust set up decades ago. And Grief is right that Corbyn is hardly the ideal figurehead for a Brexit reversal, being a known Eurosceptic himself. I’m certainly not saying that he should not be criticised or critiqued for some things, and he has disappointed me in a number of ways since he became leader (though I still absolutely love the last policy manifesto), not least with the handling of antisemitism within the party and its supporters. But I do find that there is a palpable enthusiasm to pick up on any criticism and run and run with it.

[Khellendros]

Boris Johnson’s brother Jo announced today that he will be standing down as an MP at the next election, due to, he says, conflict between family loyalty and national interest. He was basically the only pro-remain person left in government.


Edit: The jokes are already appearing about this being the first time a politician is stepping down in order to spend LESS time with his family

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 05 September 2019 - 11:13 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Khellendros, on 05 September 2019 - 08:18 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 05 September 2019 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

If they hate the Tories, why would people in your area vote for Yellow Tories?

Lib Dem MPs vote in line with austerity and in favour of Tory legislation. Let's not try to pretend that Lib Dems are anything EXCEPT Tories by a different colour, because their voting record betrays that they are just that.

The fact that left-leaning publications dislike a left-leaning socialist who by the European standard is very bog standard shows how far to the right politics in this country have gone; if they laud the right-wing Lib Dems, what chance does anyone who is actually on the left have?

We have to consider that this is just part of the smear campaign run by big press, because anything on the left is harmful to their owners. And that's at the baseline what Brekshit has been about from the start, so of course anyone who asks so much as a question about it must be vilified and besmirched.

In my area it's Tory or Lib Dem, there effectively is no Labour option, who get only a handful of the tens of thousands of votes. So yes, I do vote Lib Dem even though I don't support them. Whatever you might think about their record in government (which is terrible and they were punished for it at the ballot box), at the local level in my experience it has always been better to have a Lib Dem MP than a Tory one.

I also don't think it's as simple as 'harmful to the owners' as to why the media is wary of Corbyn. For example, the Guardian doesn't have an owner or shareholders - it's an independent paper, run through a trust set up decades ago. And Grief is right that Corbyn is hardly the ideal figurehead for a Brexit reversal, being a known Eurosceptic himself. I'm certainly not saying that he should not be criticised or critiqued for some things, and he has disappointed me in a number of ways since he became leader (though I still absolutely love the last policy manifesto), not least with the handling of antisemitism within the party and its supporters. But I do find that there is a palpable enthusiasm to pick up on any criticism and run and run with it.

Are we talking actual, palpable anti-Semitism, or criticism of a state (which is rightly deserving of said criticism given that they are perpetuating a genocide)?

I see one of the CUK squatters joined the lib-dems. I am unsurprised that they would accept, frankly - CUK were a party of politicians who only wanted the austerity status quo, as the LDs have shown they support.

Whilst it's always best not to have a non-Tory in power, a yellow Tory is only about 0.1% better. It would take a huge effort to cause me to trust that party or their representatives again.

[Khellendros]

Maark Abbott, on 05 September 2019 - 11:44 AM, said:

Khellendros, on 05 September 2019 - 08:18 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 05 September 2019 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 04 September 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

Yes you say that about the Lib Dems but in affluent yet kind of progressive yet staunchly anti-Labour constituencies like mine, the Lib Dems are the only party with a chance of beating the Tories. Last GE the combined Lib/Lab total was marginally lower than the Conservative total. To have a chance of beating them the Remain parties will have to club together, irrespective of previous taint. The sensible option here is to put all of your chips on Lib Dem because there are a lot of Remain Tories here who would never vote for Corbyn but could vote Lib Dem.

Maybe the Labour manifesto will be so awesome as to convince people but I think the media portrayal of Corbyn has done it's work here.

If they hate the Tories, why would people in your area vote for Yellow Tories?

Lib Dem MPs vote in line with austerity and in favour of Tory legislation. Let's not try to pretend that Lib Dems are anything EXCEPT Tories by a different colour, because their voting record betrays that they are just that.

The fact that left-leaning publications dislike a left-leaning socialist who by the European standard is very bog standard shows how far to the right politics in this country have gone; if they laud the right-wing Lib Dems, what chance does anyone who is actually on the left have?

We have to consider that this is just part of the smear campaign run by big press, because anything on the left is harmful to their owners. And that's at the baseline what Brekshit has been about from the start, so of course anyone who asks so much as a question about it must be vilified and besmirched.

In my area it's Tory or Lib Dem, there effectively is no Labour option, who get only a handful of the tens of thousands of votes. So yes, I do vote Lib Dem even though I don't support them. Whatever you might think about their record in government (which is terrible and they were punished for it at the ballot box), at the local level in my experience it has always been better to have a Lib Dem MP than a Tory one.

I also don't think it's as simple as 'harmful to the owners' as to why the media is wary of Corbyn. For example, the Guardian doesn't have an owner or shareholders - it's an independent paper, run through a trust set up decades ago. And Grief is right that Corbyn is hardly the ideal figurehead for a Brexit reversal, being a known Eurosceptic himself. I'm certainly not saying that he should not be criticised or critiqued for some things, and he has disappointed me in a number of ways since he became leader (though I still absolutely love the last policy manifesto), not least with the handling of antisemitism within the party and its supporters. But I do find that there is a palpable enthusiasm to pick up on any criticism and run and run with it.

Are we talking actual, palpable anti-Semitism, or criticism of a state (which is rightly deserving of said criticism given that they are perpetuating a genocide)?

I see one of the CUK squatters joined the lib-dems. I am unsurprised that they would accept, frankly - CUK were a party of politicians who only wanted the austerity status quo, as the LDs have shown they support.

Whilst it's always best not to have a non-Tory in power, a yellow Tory is only about 0.1% better. It would take a huge effort to cause me to trust that party or their representatives again.

Just because Netanyahu likes to conflate the two issues doesn't mean you should also from the opposite perspective! Yes, we are very much talking about real antisemitic behaviour and actions, as evidenced by videos of supporters making such remarks. For example, the MP you're referring to in your post who's just switched to the Lib Dems - Luciana Berger - has very much been the target of antisemitic vitriol (for those who don't know, Berger used to be a Labour MP and Corbyn critic before leaving to found a new, very unsuccessful party, Change UK, and has now defected from them to the Lib Dems). Now I personally dislike where Berger stands on a lot of issues, but you cannot deny that she has been the subject of a torrent of antisemitic abuse on social media by people who also claim to support Corbyn. While Corbyn and his team have publicly denounced this a number of times, they have been achingly slow to put words into tangible actions. When they have, they've usually followed it up with some foot-in-mouth decisions. Like when the respected rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti was put in charge of an independent investigation into antisemitism within the party: The report found that while there was a toxic atmosphere at times, racism and antisemitism was not endemic. Okay, fine, but then Corbyn went ahead and immediately after made Chakrabarti a Labour peer in the House of Lords! I mean, talk about looking like you're throwing impartiality out the window! Rightly or wrongly, that decision had the effect of utterly undermining the report's findings.

Is the issue of antisemitism being exploited to score political points against Corbyn? Yes. Does it mean that there isn't an issue to deal with? No. The two are not mutually exclusive. Unfortunately the whole debate has become toxic, with both critics and defenders now just condemning whatever the other does or says before even really digesting it.

Oh, and I'm sure these same issues apply to all the political parties really (the focus in the Tory party is currently on anti-Muslim rhetoric), but just because "it's the same for everyone else" doesn't mean it isn't an issue which should be addressed and tackled.