Brexit.

Couldbe Yue

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I've kept away from this thread as Brexit is a collective madness that I want no part of but I'm just going to put a few observations out there for you all to think about.
I'm up north now and have spoken to a lot of Brexiteers - mainly solid labour voters (a lot of whom voted for the Brexit party in the last euro elections - they saw it as a pseudo referendum)
Not one of the Brexiteers understand how the EU operates and they are of a fixed opinion that they're taking back control (never a mention of immigrants) and some even say we'll get a better deal from the EU if we're out of it (arrant nonsense but they refuse to acknowledge the opt outs and special deals we already have). When presented with the facts, they refuse - yes refuse! - to acknowledge them. One went so far as to tell me they have their beliefs and they're sticking to them. You cannot change their minds (see the Sunderland result) as they won't acknowledge the reality.

Are they fascists? no but this wilful blindness and political ignorance leads them to support the fascist Brexit party.

Here's a clip if you don't believe me - these are the more sensible ones - they're mainly middle class (ie white collar jobs) and the dude with the long hair was until recently the head of Aslef - the train driver's union. There's so many things to pick holes in with this but this is the reality on the ground once you're past watford



If you think that labour would win on a pro-remain platform, you're sadly mistaken. Outside of the south east, the will for Brexit is still strong and it's probably enough to sway the tribal loyalties at a GE. That's what makes the Brexit party a worry - it's quite possible Farage could finally get elected to Westminster (after being beaten by a dude in a dolphin suit previously you'd think he'd give up but no - he's determined to trash our country and he has no self awareness... see the letter he delivered to the govt yesterday).

There are very few people who care that the original ref result would've been disallowed if it hadn't been advisory. The indifference to the manipulation of the vote is up there with the indifference to the electoral fraud perpetrated by the Tory party in the 2017 election. This is a concern and I don't understand it.

The sheer anti-Corbyn propaganda in the mainstream media is staggering - the guardian is the guiltiest, as it goes for clickbait and sadly a lot of people take it seriously. Once an election is called and the media has to report fairly then you'll see a change. It happened last election and it will this next time.

the media rarely reports on the infighting, racism and bigotry in the Tory party and the party MPs are disciplined enough not to go whining to the media. Unlike the Blairite wing of the the labour party who would rather destroy their electoral chances than have Corbyn as PM.

TBH, I don't see the parties disintegrating soon, nor do I see the vote being split enough so we end up like Europe with coalitions of lots of minor parties. Brexit is pretty much a mirror of the two party system and once it's calmed down we'll go back to our new normal - except split down the middle with the lib dems trying to straddle that supposed middle ground.

That's it really.

Oh and I'll add this, which hopefully explains a bit better about how the EU works. Basically the specialist areas report to the government reps who decide if they want to make a law, the law then goes to the EU parliament. So if you don't like a law, blame your government for being a part of the creation of it - not the EU itself.

/fin
 

Innula Zenovka

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We don't forget that. There are far too many people happy to remind us with "If you dont vote for [MY party] you're just helping [OTHER party] win! Voting for the party you believe in is a wasted vote." Every time I hear a variation on that theme my blood fucking boils. It's the deliberate perpetuation of the 2 party system.
Perhaps so, but I think the results of Thursday's election in Peterborough certainly seem to demonstrate there's some truth in the suggestion that voting Lib Dem usually helps elect someone other than the Lib Dem candidate.

For example, if 1,000 pro-remain Labour voters in Peterborough had voted Lib Dem last Thursday, the outcome would have been much the same for the Lib Candidate, Beki Sellick, would still have come 4th, only with 5,159 votes rather than 4,149.

It would have been a very different outcome for Nigel Farage, however, would be celebrating the election to Westminster (as opposed to the defection of a sitting Conservative MP and many of his supporters in the local Conservative Party machine) and his re-election for UKIP) of the first MP from either of his two parties. That's a simple fact.

Certainly last Thursday's by-election was unusual in so many ways, and the outcome in Peterborough in the next election (presumably the GE) will probably be very different. Certainly it gives weight to the Conservative argument that a vote for The Brexit Party is a vote for Corbyn as PM, and thus persuade a lot of Tories who voted the BxP or stayed at home to return to the fold. Similarly, the narrow escape will presumably concentrate the minds of people who would normally vote Labour but who, for whatever reason, didn't so do last Thursday.

However, it seems to me completely irresponsible to vote for a minor party, in England at least, without considering the likely practical results -- and "I didn't want Farage's candidate to win, and I really didn't expect to see Boris Johnson form a minority government with BxP support, and anyway it's Labour's fault for having the wrong leader" isn't going to be much of a comfort. If that's what happens, God may forgive anyone who comes out with that excuse but I'm going to find it pretty difficult.

Tell me, seriously, assuming the next GE takes place with the UK still in the EU, which party do you think needs to win, either with an outright majority or with the assistance of some of the smaller parties, for there to be any chance of stopping Brexit? My money is on the one that already has 247 MPs, of whom about 200 are strongly pro-remain, as are the overwhelming majority of their 552,000 members.

If you want to tell me that the one with 11 MPs and about 100,500 members, all of whom are strongly pro-remain, is the better bet, I'm willing to listen, at least.

Alternatively, how would you feel about an agreement with the Lib Dems whereby, in exchange for Labour adopting an unequivocal pro-Remain stance, the Lib Dems and Labour didn't run against each other, at least in the 11 seats held by the Lib-Dems or the 37 where the Lib-Dems came second, or in the 247 Labour-held seats or the 150 Labour target seats held by someone other than the Lib Dems (almost all of them held by the Conservatives)?

That would almost certainly ensure we stay in the EU. What do you think?

The annoying thing about this is that you and I probably agree on most actual political issues. It's just we have very different views about how to achieve our very similar political goals.
 
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Tigger

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Right so, it's voting lib dem that's at fault. There was me thinking that it was the people voting for Tories or the Brexit party who would be responsible for voting their candidate into power but I was wrong, it was people voting against them at fault all along. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Personally I am sick to death of listening to the Headshot party (it'll kill you but it's quick and painless) and the Gutshot party (some people actually survive being shot in the gut) both telling me Im mad for supporting the NoShot party (lets not shoot ourselves at all!) and instead insisting that I must vote to be shot in some form or I'll just end up shot in the manner I like least.

Libdems have only 11 MPs and 100k members so have no chance, but of course we must all vote Labour to hold off the Brexit Party (ne UKIP) who have 0mps and 0 members and had 0 mps when they were UKIP but they are an existential threat.

I think we have no chance of defeating brexit if Tories, Brexit or Labour win an actual majority. In that event we would be out of the EU in short order. We could defeat brexit only in the event of a lib dem majority or no overall majority but LibDems and SNP have to be recruited to form a majority.

However while we will probably get a GE soon, it will almost certainly (95% likely) be after a no deal brexit. Probably shortly after as the Tories will want to try and get another term, they will be assuming that post brexit the Brexit party vote will return to them, and if it's soon enough after brexit they can handwave away any issues arising from brexit at that point.
 

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Well, if we're all staking out our perspectives.. ^_^;

- Labour is not currently a Remain-led party. Corbyn's made it very clear on many occasions (including his votes on entry to the EU, Maastricht, and Lisbon) that his goal is to deliver Brexit, just his version, not the Conservatives'. Were Labour to gain power with Corbyn as PM, his goal would still be for Brexit, but with some tweaks. Whether this would be any more successful in finding a Parliamentary majority, I don't know - as dearly as most of the Tories want Brexit, they're also allergic to the notion of workers' rights and a permanent Customs union.

- my sense of the outcome of a GE in the coming months is that it's as volatile as it's ever been, ever. The Tory vote's collapsed and migrated to Brexit, and the Labour vote's only slightly better, with their loss going to the Greens and LibDems, and some (about a third as many) to Brexit. I wouldn't place any bets on how Parliament will look after the next GE, as things currently stand.

- no-deal Brexit, with the current Parliamentary composition, doesn't seem that likely. For all Raab's bluster about suspending Parliament, that seems extraordinarily unlikely to happen, and Bercow's made it very clear he's not about to let any form of HMG remove Parliament from the proceedings. It certainly could happen, but we've seen Parliament insist on an extension once before, and my suspicion is that would happen again, and that that would be agreed to by the EU, on the basis of little cost in doing so, versus significant damage as a result of crashing out.

- will there be a GE soon? Again, I'm very cloudy on this. I don't see the new PM wishing for one, but Corbyn might well try, despite not being in much better a position to weather the changed voting mood of the country - he's not given much indication of having taken on board recent results, preferring to interpret them as confirmation of Full Steam Ahead.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Right so, it's voting lib dem that's at fault. There was me thinking that it was the people voting for Tories or the Brexit party who would be responsible for voting their candidate into power but I was wrong, it was people voting against them at fault all along. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Personally I am sick to death of listening to the Headshot party (it'll kill you but it's quick and painless) and the Gutshot party (some people actually survive being shot in the gut) both telling me Im mad for supporting the NoShot party (lets not shoot ourselves at all!) and instead insisting that I must vote to be shot in some form or I'll just end up shot in the manner I like least.

Libdems have only 11 MPs and 100k members so have no chance, but of course we must all vote Labour to hold off the Brexit Party (ne UKIP) who have 0mps and 0 members and had 0 mps when they were UKIP but they are an existential threat.

I think we have no chance of defeating brexit if Tories, Brexit or Labour win an actual majority. In that event we would be out of the EU in short order. We could defeat brexit only in the event of a lib dem majority or no overall majority but LibDems and SNP have to be recruited to form a majority.

However while we will probably get a GE soon, it will almost certainly (95% likely) be after a no deal brexit. Probably shortly after as the Tories will want to try and get another term, they will be assuming that post brexit the Brexit party vote will return to them, and if it's soon enough after brexit they can handwave away any issues arising from brexit at that point.
You must vote as seems best to you, of course. If you live in a Tory stronghold, then I agree, however you vote won't do any harm so it won't much matter.

However, if you lived in a place like my constituency, where the Labour MP is strongly pro-Remain and has several times voted against the Labour whip and alongside the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens on EU, then it could make quite a bit of difference whether you voted Lib Dem (knowing that, in every recent election, the Lib Dems have come a poor third, while the Tories have either won or lost narrowly) or Labour, and if you vote Labour you'll stand a much better chance of ending up with a pro-Remain MP than if you vote Lib Dem.

Lib Dems and Greens in places my constituency will have to decide for themselves what to do for the best, and live with the consequences.

Similarly, if you live in one of the approximately two-thirds of the Labour-held constituencies that voted Leave, despite the fact that most Labour voters and members in the constituency voted Remain, then you'll have to decide who you want to see as your next MP -- a pro-Remain Labour MP or a Conservative or BxP one.

Your choice. I know what mine would be.
Well, if we're all staking out our perspectives.. ^_^;

- Labour is not currently a Remain-led party. Corbyn's made it very clear on many occasions (including his votes on entry to the EU, Maastricht, and Lisbon) that his goal is to deliver Brexit, just his version, not the Conservatives'. Were Labour to gain power with Corbyn as PM, his goal would still be for Brexit, but with some tweaks. Whether this would be any more successful in finding a Parliamentary majority, I don't know - as dearly as most of the Tories want Brexit, they're also allergic to the notion of workers' rights and a permanent Customs union.

- my sense of the outcome of a GE in the coming months is that it's as volatile as it's ever been, ever. The Tory vote's collapsed and migrated to Brexit, and the Labour vote's only slightly better, with their loss going to the Greens and LibDems, and some (about a third as many) to Brexit. I wouldn't place any bets on how Parliament will look after the next GE, as things currently stand.

- no-deal Brexit, with the current Parliamentary composition, doesn't seem that likely. For all Raab's bluster about suspending Parliament, that seems extraordinarily unlikely to happen, and Bercow's made it very clear he's not about to let any form of HMG remove Parliament from the proceedings. It certainly could happen, but we've seen Parliament insist on an extension once before, and my suspicion is that would happen again, and that that would be agreed to by the EU, on the basis of little cost in doing so, versus significant damage as a result of crashing out.

- will there be a GE soon? Again, I'm very cloudy on this. I don't see the new PM wishing for one, but Corbyn might well try, despite not being in much better a position to weather the changed voting mood of the country - he's not given much indication of having taken on board recent results, preferring to interpret them as confirmation of Full Steam Ahead.
The views of the party leader, as Theresa May has spent the last two years demonstrating pretty conclusively, don't necessarily prevail over those of the party's MPs and members. In the case of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn enjoys little more confidence among most of his MPs than did Theresa May -- we saw that with the abortive "chicken coup" in 2016. The difference between now and then, however, is that this time most of his supporters in the party in the country are against him on Brexit.

Too early to say what's going to happen, of course -- we need to see who the new PM is and what happens over the summer -- but I know what's going on inside the Labour Party in preparation for the party conference in Brighton this September, and I'm pretty certain we'll end up with a broadly pro-Remain platform going into the forthcoming general election but probably with enough wriggle-room for candidates to offer something to pro-Leave Labour sympathisers. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about, and Corbyn will be even more anxious to avoid that particular outcome than anyone else, since the last thing he wants is to go down in Labour history as the man responsible for the subsequent blow-up and almost inevitable Tory victory.

The fact of the matter, much as we may wish it were otherwise, is that if we're still in the EU come the next general election, the only way we're going to remain members for much longer is if the largest single party in the HoC after the election is Labour. It won't much matter if Labour have an overall majority or depend on the SNP, Lib Dems, Greens, PC and so on for support, and it might well make life easier for everyone -- including Corbyn -- if Labour does, in fact, depend on the smaller parties' support because that way Labour MPs can explain to their pro-Leave supporters that the decision to revoke A50 was forced on them.

However, one way or another, it seems to me that all plausible and half-way plausible circumstances in which the A50 notification is revoked, a general election out of which Labour emerges as the party with the most seats in the Commons is a necessary logical precondition --- I just don't see how we get to revocation (with or without a confirmatory referendum) any other way.

Seriously, if anyone can explain to me any credible set of circumstances, other than a Labour victory (though not necessarily an outright one) in the next election, that results in the UK remaining in the EU, then I would be love to hear it, because i can't see how to do otherwise.

You might say we can't rely on Corbyn to keep us in the EU, but I can promise you there's a hell of a lot more chance of that happening with Corbyn as PM (probably with Nicola Sturgeon, Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer holding shotguns to his back) than with Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab in that post.

As to the likelihood of a GE, I think one is inevitable in the next few months. Parliament (and John Bercow) won't allow us to crash out with no-deal, an outcome of which plenty of Tories are as terrified as the rest of us, and I can't see the EU actually voting to eject us right in the middle of a bitter parliamentary fight about whether we want to leave at all (or, even worse, in the run-up to a general election). Boris Johnson and many Conservative MPs probably wish they would, thus solving things for them, but I don't think the EU will do that sort of favour for him.

People might be interested in this assessment in The Times by Matthew Parris of what kind of Prime Minister Johnson might make and what awaits him (spoiler -- not good PM, nothing good waiting for him)

 
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Seriously, if anyone can explain to me any credible set of circumstances, other than a Labour victory (though not necessarily an outright one) in the next election, that results in the UK remaining in the EU, then I would be love to hear it, because i can't see how to do otherwise.
The parliament blocks the no deal option, May's WA is taken off the table for one of many possible reasons and there is no new extension. That's definitely a plausible scene. EU as an organisation will probably be willing to grant another extension but all the members will have to agree and it's not even certain the new British government will ask for one.
This scenario is in many ways worse than even a no deal. There's a huge difference between deciding to stay and being forced to.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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I've kept away from this thread as Brexit is a collective madness that I want no part of but I'm just going to put a few observations out there for you all to think about.
I'm up north now and have spoken to a lot of Brexiteers - mainly solid labour voters (a lot of whom voted for the Brexit party in the last euro elections - they saw it as a pseudo referendum)
Not one of the Brexiteers understand how the EU operates and they are of a fixed opinion that they're taking back control (never a mention of immigrants) and some even say we'll get a better deal from the EU if we're out of it (arrant nonsense but they refuse to acknowledge the opt outs and special deals we already have). When presented with the facts, they refuse - yes refuse! - to acknowledge them. One went so far as to tell me they have their beliefs and they're sticking to them. You cannot change their minds (see the Sunderland result) as they won't acknowledge the reality.

Are they fascists? no but this wilful blindness and political ignorance leads them to support the fascist Brexit party.

Here's a clip if you don't believe me - these are the more sensible ones - they're mainly middle class (ie white collar jobs) and the dude with the long hair was until recently the head of Aslef - the train driver's union. There's so many things to pick holes in with this but this is the reality on the ground once you're past watford



If you think that labour would win on a pro-remain platform, you're sadly mistaken. Outside of the south east, the will for Brexit is still strong and it's probably enough to sway the tribal loyalties at a GE. That's what makes the Brexit party a worry - it's quite possible Farage could finally get elected to Westminster (after being beaten by a dude in a dolphin suit previously you'd think he'd give up but no - he's determined to trash our country and he has no self awareness... see the letter he delivered to the govt yesterday).

There are very few people who care that the original ref result would've been disallowed if it hadn't been advisory. The indifference to the manipulation of the vote is up there with the indifference to the electoral fraud perpetrated by the Tory party in the 2017 election. This is a concern and I don't understand it.

The sheer anti-Corbyn propaganda in the mainstream media is staggering - the guardian is the guiltiest, as it goes for clickbait and sadly a lot of people take it seriously. Once an election is called and the media has to report fairly then you'll see a change. It happened last election and it will this next time.

the media rarely reports on the infighting, racism and bigotry in the Tory party and the party MPs are disciplined enough not to go whining to the media. Unlike the Blairite wing of the the labour party who would rather destroy their electoral chances than have Corbyn as PM.

TBH, I don't see the parties disintegrating soon, nor do I see the vote being split enough so we end up like Europe with coalitions of lots of minor parties. Brexit is pretty much a mirror of the two party system and once it's calmed down we'll go back to our new normal - except split down the middle with the lib dems trying to straddle that supposed middle ground.

That's it really.

Oh and I'll add this, which hopefully explains a bit better about how the EU works. Basically the specialist areas report to the government reps who decide if they want to make a law, the law then goes to the EU parliament. So if you don't like a law, blame your government for being a part of the creation of it - not the EU itself.

/fin
Good to see you again, Couldbe!

You've clearly got a better feel for things up north than have I, though I'm from north Nottinghamshire, and most of my extended family are (or were) from north Derbyshire, and South and West Yorkshire, and my late partner was from Hull, so I do know, or used to, that part of the the old Labour heartlands pretty well.

My understanding is that, as far as we can tell, most Labour voters in most Leave-voting seats supported, and still support, Remain. However, a sizeable minority supported, and still support, Leave, and we can't hope to win the next election -- assuming we're still members of the EU at the time -- unless we can carry a good number of them with us, while at the same time attracting the support of Remain supporters from all parties.

How we do that is another question. We'll have to see how things work out after the Tories have found a new leader, but assuming it's Boris Johnson then I think the Tories will be in far worse shape to fight an election than Labour will be Labour, and I guess I shouldn't worry too much about the Tories losing Remain supporters to the local Lib Dems and Greens as an inevitable consequence of Johnson (Gove, Raab, whoever) trying to prevent defections to the BxP (and losing Leave supporters to Farage's crowd as Johnson tries to win back the defectors on the Remain side).

I dunno. As I've said in other posts, I cannot see a way we stay in the EU that doesn't first require a general election in which Labour emerge as the largest single party. There may be another route, but I can't find it.

However, while Jeremy Corbyn can't -- at least not in my view -- hope to become the next PM unless Labour fight the next GE on a broadly pro-Remain platform, he can't hope to become the next PM without the support of plenty of Leave-voting Labour supporters. That's not as impossible a task as it might sound -- this article in the New Statesman has a lot of interesting material about who supports what options and how strongly


and it has certainly made me question many of the assumptions I had about how people were voting and why. There's lots there, but one important takeaway is that Remain is far more more important to most Remain supporters than is Brexit at all costs to most Leave supporters, and a fair number of Leave-voters would prefer Remain to a no-deal Brexit.

Anyway, we'll see soon enough. Everything is pretty unclear but I confidently predict that October will be horrible.

As to the future of the British political parties, I'm not so sure. It's hard to see how the Tories can survive as a single party after all this -- Jonathan Freedland had a very good piece in The Guardian yesterday about how the Conservatives have now abandoned all pretence of being at all Conservative in any meaningful sense -- they seem to have turned into right-wing radical populists pretty conclusively:


Everyone mentions Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine (and the thought of Hezza as a hero of the left boggles the mind) but there's also people like Dominic Grieve and Philip Hammond, and a whole lot of younger people like Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen and Sara Wollaston, plus Rory Stewart and plenty of others. I can't see them, or people sharing their views, finding the Tory Party a very congenial place if it tries to appeal to Faragistas. Either they leave the Tories in disgust (or are forced out) or the ERG and the rest of the Brexit Taliban all defect to the BxP.

As to Labour, I don't know. So much depends on how, when and why Corbyn leaves, which depends on so many other things, starting with the election of the new Tory leader. We're certainly in better shape than the Tories, but so's a lot of things. To my mind, there's certainly a non-negligible chance of a split, though it's by no means inevitable.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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The parliament blocks the no deal option, May's WA is taken off the table for one of many possible reasons and there is no new extension. That's definitely a plausible scene. EU as an organisation will probably be willing to grant another extension but all the members will have to agree and it's not even certain the new British government will ask for one.
This scenario is in many ways worse than even a no deal. There's a huge difference between deciding to stay and being forced to.
But at the moment, the default option is Leave. Parliament can force the PM to ask for an extension, as it did last time, and almost certainly will do if necessary. But the only reason to have an extension, and the only thing the new PM could do if one is granted, is then call an immediate general election. Given the way the parliamentary system works here, that would inevitably follow.

In practice though, if that seemed to be the way things were moving, then the new PM would almost certainly call a general election of his own volition rather than have one forced upon him. While he wouldn't have to, there's no earthly reason he would want to delay it.
 
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Sid

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The longer I follow British politics intensive, like in the last few years, the more I get the feeling that I'm watching a cricket game.
What on earth are they doing at times and why...... I somewhat get the general idea behind it most of the time, but they are two really complicated games for outsiders.
 
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Sid

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So, this Brexit stuff. Has it been all cleared up yet?
Nope: The Brits got an extension from Brussels, and the Brits seem to love to work very close towards deadlines, so now we have to wait until time runs out again, so they can ask for another one.
 

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Couldbe Yue

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Good to see you again, Couldbe!
Hello lovey :) I'm glad to see you're still fighting the good fight :) I'm back but probably not for long as I'm hitting the road again next week.

You've clearly got a better feel for things up north than have I, though I'm from north Nottinghamshire, and most of my extended family are (or were) from north Derbyshire, and South and West Yorkshire, and my late partner was from Hull, so I do know, or used to, that part of the the old Labour heartlands pretty well.
tbh, I don't know. I'm in Doncaster and it's one of the strangest towns I've ever been in. the far reaches of it apparently have two headed natives that drag knuckles *shudders* but the town itself is thankfully more twilight zone than London zoo.
I've been hanging out with the activist communities here (under the Tories there's been a lot to get active about) and it's all the same.. whining because of the lack of ability to go down a mine and die of lung diseases or a lack of shit blue collar jobs. Most of the activists here are middle aged and most are white collar but I met an awful lot of tradesmen when I was having the house refurbed and apart from one they were all Brexiteers of the taking back control variety. I reckon out of all the people I've met and talked to about this the number of remainers is 10% max and most wont even admit it in company.
Rotherham, Sheffield and Leeds aren't quite so bad (I've been doing the saving the world thing there too) but it's still pretty hefty - and remember these are the people who will go out campaigning if there's a new vote. Some people don't even know why they voted brexit - except everyone else was so they thought they must be right.

I was up in Sunderland in mid 2017 and again everyone I spoke to, both middle class and working class thought that taking back control was good and that the car industry wouldn't leave them.. It will yet they still voted overwhelmingly brexit in the eu election.

My understanding is that, as far as we can tell, most Labour voters in most Leave-voting seats supported, and still support, Remain. However, a sizeable minority supported, and still support, Leave, and we can't hope to win the next election -- assuming we're still members of the EU at the time -- unless we can carry a good number of them with us, while at the same time attracting the support of Remain supporters from all parties.

How we do that is another question. We'll have to see how things work out after the Tories have found a new leader, but assuming it's Boris Johnson then I think the Tories will be in far worse shape to fight an election than Labour will be Labour, and I guess I shouldn't worry too much about the Tories losing Remain supporters to the local Lib Dems and Greens as an inevitable consequence of Johnson (Gove, Raab, whoever) trying to prevent defections to the BxP (and losing Leave supporters to Farage's crowd as Johnson tries to win back the defectors on the Remain side).

I dunno. As I've said in other posts, I cannot see a way we stay in the EU that doesn't first require a general election in which Labour emerge as the largest single party. There may be another route, but I can't find it.

However, while Jeremy Corbyn can't -- at least not in my view -- hope to become the next PM unless Labour fight the next GE on a broadly pro-Remain platform, he can't hope to become the next PM without the support of plenty of Leave-voting Labour supporters. That's not as impossible a task as it might sound -- this article in the New Statesman has a lot of interesting material about who supports what options and how strongly


and it has certainly made me question many of the assumptions I had about how people were voting and why. There's lots there, but one important takeaway is that Remain is far more more important to most Remain supporters than is Brexit at all costs to most Leave supporters, and a fair number of Leave-voters would prefer Remain to a no-deal Brexit.
first off, the new statesman had a change of ownership around 5ish years ago and it's pretty well in the thrall of the Blairite faction. It's not something you can rely on for anything other than a Blairite remainer echo chamber.

secondly, the most staggering thing about how truly stupid people can be is that a sizeable number think a no-deal brexit means remain. If these people are allowed to vote again then Brexit is quite possible.

Anyway, we'll see soon enough. Everything is pretty unclear but I confidently predict that October will be horrible.
you aint seen nothin yet!

As to the future of the British political parties, I'm not so sure. It's hard to see how the Tories can survive as a single party after all this -- Jonathan Freedland had a very good piece in The Guardian yesterday about how the Conservatives have now abandoned all pretence of being at all Conservative in any meaningful sense -- they seem to have turned into right-wing radical populists pretty conclusively:


Everyone mentions Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine (and the thought of Hezza as a hero of the left boggles the mind) but there's also people like Dominic Grieve and Philip Hammond, and a whole lot of younger people like Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen and Sara Wollaston, plus Rory Stewart and plenty of others. I can't see them, or people sharing their views, finding the Tory Party a very congenial place if it tries to appeal to Faragistas. Either they leave the Tories in disgust (or are forced out) or the ERG and the rest of the Brexit Taliban all defect to the BxP.
according to some reports I've read, conservative membership is down to less than 50k and the average age is around 70yo. These are the people who influence the MPs. At the moment, the parliamentary party is being held hostage by the 1922 committee and I doubt any of the contenders are going to fight them.. sad but true.
The sadder thing is that it doesn't matter if the Tories started drinking babies blood, there will still be a sizeable number who will vote for them anyway as they've believe the constant anti-labour rhetoric in all media platforms and not actually caring enough to go looking for facts, believe the Tories are better economic managers and that labour is the devil incarnate. whadda we do?

As to Labour, I don't know. So much depends on how, when and why Corbyn leaves, which depends on so many other things, starting with the election of the new Tory leader. We're certainly in better shape than the Tories, but so's a lot of things. To my mind, there's certainly a non-negligible chance of a split, though it's by no means inevitable.
you'd better hope that Corbyn stays leader as without him the Watson Blairite faction will get in and we've seen how much they don't resonate with the electorate - Miliband got one of the worst election results ever whilst two years later Corbyn got the second highest ever (after 1945 and sadly most of the vote increase was in the heartlands but there are a lot more marginal Tory seats than there were).
The Blairites won't roll back any of the stuff we're seeing now - there'll be a few token changes but the NHS won't be properly funded, nor schools, libraries won't come back, they won't stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, they won't reduce the retirement age back to what it was and outsourcing will continue...

So far austerity is directly linked to 130k deaths - the number may reduce under a Blairite labour government but not by much. It wasn't Blair who did most of the good things, it was Gordon Brown (ignore the PFI though, there was a reason and I understand it, even if I don't agree)
phew!
 
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But at the moment, the default option is Leave. Parliament can force the PM to ask for an extension, as it did last time, and almost certainly will do if necessary. But the only reason to have an extension, and the only thing the new PM could do if one is granted, is then call an immediate general election. Given the way the parliamentary system works here, that would inevitably follow.

In practice though, if that seemed to be the way things were moving, then the new PM would almost certainly call a general election of his own volition rather than have one forced upon him. While he wouldn't have to, there's no earthly reason he would want to delay it.
I doubt there'll be an election as the Tories will cling to government for as long as possible - hence every time an election is mentioned one or more Tories talk about a Corbyn govt by Christmas - he's their bogeyman because they know it's a real threat. If the no deal goes ahead (and tbh I can't see why it won't unless NI finally makes the tories see sense), they'll pour more petrol on the fire that will be brexit and tell the country what a good job they're doing and until people die in the streets from lack of drugs and we run out of body bags, I'm sure the media will agree. ( dying is a probability but I think they've already stockpiled the bodybags - which are more real than the ferry company that had no ferries)
A couple more byelections and we might have a change of govt without a GE but I don't think we've time for that.
My hopes are pinned on a second ref as if there's a GE labour will honour the 2016 result but if there's a ref first and remain wins then they'll go with that.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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Hello lovey :) I'm glad to see you're still fighting the good fight :) I'm back but probably not for long as I'm hitting the road again next week.



tbh, I don't know. I'm in Doncaster and it's one of the strangest towns I've ever been in. the far reaches of it apparently have two headed natives that drag knuckles *shudders* but the town itself is thankfully more twilight zone than London zoo.
I've been hanging out with the activist communities here (under the Tories there's been a lot to get active about) and it's all the same.. whining because of the lack of ability to go down a mine and die of lung diseases or a lack of shit blue collar jobs. Most of the activists here are middle aged and most are white collar but I met an awful lot of tradesmen when I was having the house refurbed and apart from one they were all Brexiteers of the taking back control variety. I reckon out of all the people I've met and talked to about this the number of remainers is 10% max and most wont even admit it in company.
Rotherham, Sheffield and Leeds aren't quite so bad (I've been doing the saving the world thing there too) but it's still pretty hefty - and remember these are the people who will go out campaigning if there's a new vote. Some people don't even know why they voted brexit - except everyone else was so they thought they must be right.

I was up in Sunderland in mid 2017 and again everyone I spoke to, both middle class and working class thought that taking back control was good and that the car industry wouldn't leave them.. It will yet they still voted overwhelmingly brexit in the eu election.


first off, the new statesman had a change of ownership around 5ish years ago and it's pretty well in the thrall of the Blairite faction. It's not something you can rely on for anything other than a Blairite remainer echo chamber.

secondly, the most staggering thing about how truly stupid people can be is that a sizeable number think a no-deal brexit means remain. If these people are allowed to vote again then Brexit is quite possible.



you aint seen nothin yet!



according to some reports I've read, conservative membership is down to less than 50k and the average age is around 70yo. These are the people who influence the MPs. At the moment, the parliamentary party is being held hostage by the 1922 committee and I doubt any of the contenders are going to fight them.. sad but true.
The sadder thing is that it doesn't matter if the Tories started drinking babies blood, there will still be a sizeable number who will vote for them anyway as they've believe the constant anti-labour rhetoric in all media platforms and not actually caring enough to go looking for facts, believe the Tories are better economic managers and that labour is the devil incarnate. whadda we do?



you'd better hope that Corbyn stays leader as without him the Watson Blairite faction will get in and we've seen how much they don't resonate with the electorate - Miliband got one of the worst election results ever whilst two years later Corbyn got the second highest ever (after 1945 and sadly most of the vote increase was in the heartlands but there are a lot more marginal Tory seats than there were).
The Blairites won't roll back any of the stuff we're seeing now - there'll be a few token changes but the NHS won't be properly funded, nor schools, libraries won't come back, they won't stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, they won't reduce the retirement age back to what it was and outsourcing will continue...

So far austerity is directly linked to 130k deaths - the number may reduce under a Blairite labour government but not by much. It wasn't Blair who did most of the good things, it was Gordon Brown (ignore the PFI though, there was a reason and I understand it, even if I don't agree)
phew!
Sweetheart! 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

Careful what you say about Donnie! My mother was from there! Balby, if you know the area. When she was a little girl, which must have been during or just after WW1, her parents' terrace (which was where my grandparents, and later my grandmother, lived until my grandmother died during the 1980s) looked out onto green fields. And I also still have relatives in Carcroft, which was real League of Gentlemen country back then.

I also know something of the politics of the area, at least back in the days when it was still the People's Republic of South Yorkshire, and from what I hear, local government has moved from being a corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy under the fiefdom of the NUM and Comrade Marshal Scargill to being more like something out of Putin's Russia. Or maybe Borat's Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

That's cruel of me, and unfair, but there's some truth in it, and the malaise of one-party rule (particularly when the most talented went into the NUM leadership, the reliable second-raters went into national government and the others who had to be somehow employed were given local government) has, I think, a lot to do with politics of much of South Yorkshire after the defeat in the Miners' Strike and the collapse of the old trades unions and their whole political machine.

Leeds was nice when I lived there for a couple of years, up in Headingley near the cricket ground.

[ETA: note for non-Brits... this is a bit like my family being something between the followers of House Boulton and the Northern Hill Clans in GoT. Or maybe being an old Innsmouth family, related to the Marshes and the Gilmans.]

As to what happens next with the Labour Party, it all depends, as I said, how, when and why Corbyn leaves office. Whatever happens, that won't be until after the next general election.

So until we know the outcome of that, and of Brexit (the two, of course, are inextricably linked) the future is utterly unreadable. Though I have to say I am beginning to wonder, with increasing trepidation, what kind of rough beast, its hour come round at last, Brexit is turning into, as it slouches towards Bolsover to be born.
 
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Sweetheart! 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

Careful what you say about Donnie! My mother was from there! Balby, if you know the area. When she was a little girl, which must have been during or just after WW1, her parents' terrace (which was where my grandparents, and later my grandmother, lived until my grandmother died during the 1980s) looked out onto green fields. And I also still have relatives in Carcroft, which was real League of Gentlemen country back then.

I also know something of the politics of the area, at least back in the days when it was still the People's Republic of South Yorkshire, and from what I hear, local government has moved from being a corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy under the fiefdom of the NUM and Comrade Marshal Scargill to being more like something out of Putin's Russia. Or maybe Borat's Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

That's cruel of me, and unfair, but there's some truth in it, and the malaise of one-party rule (particularly when the most talented went into the NUM leadership, the reliable second-raters went into national government and the others who had to be somehow employed were given local government) has, I think, a lot to do with politics of much of South Yorkshire after the defeat in the Miners' Strike and the collapse of the old trades unions and their whole political machine.

Leeds was nice when I lived there for a couple of years, up in Headingley near the cricket ground.

As to what happens next with the Labour Party, it all depends, as I said, how, when and why Corbyn leaves office. Whatever happens, that won't be until after the next general election.

So until we know the outcome of that, and of Brexit (the two, of course, are inextricably linked) the future is utterly unreadable. Though I have to say I am beginning to wonder, with increasing trepidation, what kind of rough beast, its hour come round at last, Brexit is turning into, as it slouches towards Bolsover to be born.
ey up!
You're always welcome to come up for a visit and I'll show you around. pick your days right and I might even push the boat out and introduce you to some of the comrades in that vid. (I know all but 1 of them).
It seems the council went a bit mad around 10 years ago (don't know which political persuasion - up here it could be either) and started splashing cash to all its mates and not caring very much about its services - so much so their children's services got taken into care for a while by central govt (who extract an extortionate fee for the privilege apparently). It appears to have resolved itself as a couple of the children's services peeps got honours today... (no comment).
This is a town that destroys its history and yet wants to attract tourists but the only attractions are the wildlife park, a country house and the racing.

These days the council is between a rock and a hard place. iirc, it had the second largest central govt funding cut (something like 40%) and is struggling and has basically gone into partnership with the chamber of commerce to try to liven the place up and bring some money in (and the way they're doing it is pissing off some the comrades no end). I look at the plans and I see a white elephant myself but since they never learnt the lesson from when they effectively killed their town centre by building a shopping mall that's about 3 times bigger than the population warranted, who am I to judge?

the defeat of the NUM still has its claws into the psyche here for the older generation, even those who never saw anything more than a coal fire in their lives and their attitudes are like something from the 1980s. The town is filled with warehouses for amazon (4 now I think), Ikea and a whole slew of others I can't remember and the vast majority of the young I see are from eastern Europe who work in them. [I'll skip over the younger natives as I can't really come up with something positive]
It truly is a very strange place but you're more than welcome to share the experience with me, if only for a brief time.. I'll even take you out to balby (I looked at buying somewhere there, so I know where that is) and maybe carcroft - which I've heard of but have never been to..
 
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Innula Zenovka

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I'm from Nottingham, which is something else entirely. We are, or were all those years ago, both like our cousins in the north but also a very different and cheerfully amoral place with pretty notoriously corrupt local government. We also have large old Eastern European communities, dating back to WW2. A lot of my school friends were Polish, and one of my great friends as a teenager was a guy whose parents were members of the large Ukrainian community who fetched up in Displaced Persons camps at the end of WW2 (yes, including much of the SS Division Galicia) and ended up in Nottingham. Similarly, my late partner's father and grandfather were Latvians who were resettled in Hull at the end of the war.

These many untold stories of our country... often untold for very obvious reasons, I guess.
 

Kara Spengler

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Brexit level: Very Brexity.

I have seen a lot of posts about various things in Peterborough this week.

I mean I know I am from New Hampshire but it is just a small town people! :)
 

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The longer I follow British politics intensive, like in the last few years, the more I get the feeling that I'm watching a cricket game.
What on earth are they doing at times and why...... I somewhat get the general idea behind it most of the time, but they are two really complicated games for outsiders.
If you are not already watch TLDR news on Youtube. He does a good job of explaining why things are done.
 
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