Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

If not already Cameron will go down as a witless coward by both sides at least.

my impression is that it mostly comes down to scotland ref at this point? if they bolt left-wing politics in uk is fucked for the indefinite future.

If they are barely indistinguishable from the Tories I really don't see the urgency of 1)

"vote for us and we will ignore the democratic process oh wait"

I think Labour's main selling point is that they're indistinguishable from *half* the Tory party.

nine resignations from the shadow cabinet now. that's about a third of its membership.

great bunch of lads

just two weeks til Chilcot too

was suprised to read recently (on John Rentoul's twitter , lol) that the turnover of Labour MPs has been such that there are only about 50 of them left who voted for Iraq war. 8 of them were in shadow cabinet (until yesterday at least): Benn, Bryant, Burnham, Coaker, both Eagles, Watson and Winterton

If they are barely indistinguishable from the Tories I really don't see the urgency of 1)

who else do you see beating the tories?

There's a pretty substantial risk that centre-right 'business as usual' will mean raising taxes, cutting public services, presiding over a decline in house prices / negative equity, rising unemployment, rising food prices, more food banks, etc, etc, as well as having to negotiate a withdrawal from Europe that will enrage at least half the country, if not everyone. It would be much better if it was a Blairite hand at the wheel, rather than Johnson, but it's going to be poisonous for whoever has to do it. A lot of that can be blamed on the leave campaign but there's only so far you can push the 'well you shouldn't have voted for it' line without entrenching public dislike of you. It's definitely possible that a centre-right Labour government could win an election if one was called before the end of the year but would it win the one after that or another ever again?

i mean i don't like these PLP fucks either but the tories simply have to be beaten. this isn't about some vague "what sort of direction do you want the country to move in" question, it's about who is going to write the rules of the biggest postwar settlement britain has ever seen? if there's another candidate besides labour i'm all ears. maybe the only way it can be done is via coalition? i dunno but it has to be the goal that dictates all else imo.

if no centre right Labour govt ever won again it would be worth it to keep the Tories from shaping post-EU britain.

with the situation so grave and the leave clowns having exited pursued by bear market... wonder if the eventual shake out is some sort of grand coalition. esp given what's at stake for UK. iron's so white hot right now tho, everyone's just casting around for opportunities

highly doubtful however. moment's too ripe with opportunity & would require a level of adulthood hitherto unexhibited by our political class

It's dangerous either way. A grand coalition that is seen to defy the will of the country and presides over an inevitable decline in living standards will be a gift to the far-right.

A Labour government that is seen to defy the will of the country and presides over an inevitable decline in living standards will be a gift to the far-right.

tom watson has shat it

welp glad this country has taken back control

it's a blessing that yr fascists are so incompetent; imagine if they had a plan for consolidating power and executing brexit to take the reins

Everyone's incompetent in this country.

Incompetent on a macro level, but deeply fucking terrifying on a local scale

The fact that Cameron/Osborne/Whitehall didn't plan for Brexit shows just how arrogant & out of touch they are in assuming a win for Remain.
https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/747096138814201860

It's depressingly predictable, but I hate watching the Right shape their lines in real time. This still comes home to roost though; he's already quit.

so is the revolt against corbyn down to his "leadership style" or is it really a conflict between different ideological visions of labour? asking from the USA.

glib answer: the latter dressed up as the former

If the PLP want to drive a wedge between Corbyn and his young/urban supporters among the membership, casting him as having sabotaged the Remain campaign is a decent strategy.

This is the guy who bankrolled both of the Leave campaigns to the tune of £6m:

https://twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/747126832546320384

but a lot of corbyn supporters don't trust the PLP enough to listen to them

Yep, the more effective move would have been to resign demanding that the party campaigned on a platform of staying in the EU after Corbyn had said he'd respect the result, but that would have had other costs.

If the PLP want to drive a wedge between Corbyn and his young/urban supporters among the membership, casting him as having sabotaged the Remain campaign is a decent strategy.

which in and of itself would be a purely destructive act, as the chances of those guys picking up any supporters from that younger base are basically zero.
xxp

It may suffice to disillusion the Corbynite members so they don't vote at all in the next leadership contest. Forcing Corbyn out at this point is a self-destructive act on its own.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/stop-using-google-trends

I am woefully uninformed on all that has been happening re Brexit but I imagine for whatever the name for the generation that is young and most vulnerable, it is the worst (and possibly even worse than Trump, which may not even happen but may be sad anyway).

i'm really not at all well-informed when it comes to British politics compared to others here (though I have been reading along avidly throughout all of this), so apologies if this comes off as gauche, but my instincts as a disaffected "younger voter", and those of many of my friends who broadly share my views (lots of us joined the Labour party specifically to vote for Corbyn), would suggest that there is a massive opportunity right now for the Lib Dems to rebuild their younger base and reverse a lot of the damage they did by forming the coalition in 2010.

i do think that the younger Corbyn supporters that Seandalai mentioned earlier are clued in to the tactics of the PLP and aren't gonna be gulled into thinking that because Corbyn wasn't proactive in campaigning for Remain he's "betrayed" them or anything of that nature; but the in-house fighting is obviously going to be such a millstone weighing the party down during this time where young people are desperate to have something to work with and there are plenty of young people who would abandon Corbyn and the Labour party if there was the prospect of a legitimate alternative.

i know lots of ppl of my own age who voted for the Lib Dems in 2010 and subsequently disavowed the party forever after who would return in a heartbeat if the party were to step up to articulate a dissenting POV and provide some competent opposition right now. they certainly seem to be better positioned to provide that opposition than Labour. the world is changing and expressions of undying enmity made in 2010 no longer seem as significant or as binding as they did a year or two ago.

A lot of younger people were betrayed by the lib dems tuition fee debacle, something that specifically fucked over that particular demographic. Would take a lot to restore that trust I think

*cough* five years of coalition government

idk, i know what you guys mean but I think possibly younger voters have shorter memories than you believe? in the interests of disclosure i should note here that i'm 24 now and was one of the first time voters that backed the Lib Dems in the 2010 general election, so i'm not that young but probably young enough

obviously i can only speak with knowledge of one very particular demographic and social media is always going to form an echo chamber, but i have really never known anything like the outpouring of dismay and consternation that the result of this referendum has caused, amongst tons of people who have never to my knowledge taken even the slightest interest in politics.

there is an overwhelming desire for a mainstream alternative who are prepared to go to the mattresses over this issue right now, and if Labour are incapable of providing that and the Lib Dems come out and make the right noises then i think that any voices saying "yeah but remember what happened with the tuition fees..." are going to get shouted down. idk if that's necessarily a positive but it is what is. there is a sense of desperation here such that people are prepared to bargain if there is even the slightest chances of wriggling out of this commitment

i just don't see how any credible political party can ignore the result of the referendum. so maybe the Lib Dems are the best bet.

I'd be curious as to whether 1 year of full-on Tory government has softened views of 5 years of coalition.

I don't see how any credible political party can honour the result of the referendum either. Which is why they're all either in hiding or fighting themselves, presumably.

not sure why people are expecting politicians to be trustworthy, voting is just guesswork imo

the lib dems having failed to honor their tuition fee promise pales in comparison to what they did do upon finally being in a position to exercise power - facilitating the whole structure that gave birth to this mess - & it's this that wd cast the longest shadow over any optimistic promises cast now. i don't disagree that there is room for massive realignment but they're deeply fucking untrustworthy & compromised by incredibly recent, well-supported actions

https://www.today.ng/news/world/143432/brexit-rule-second-referendum-tony-blair

here's a guy who knows a thing or two about subverting the will of the people

i just don't see how any credible political party can ignore the result of the referendum. so maybe the Lib Dems are the best bet.

but surely the result was tight enough that it's at least worth trying? if the only alternative is throwing your hands up and saying "oh well, the people have spoken"...

Osborne and Bono Botha conspicuously absent

anyway, realign into 3 new parties:

far right Rand style libertarian gangsters featuring Boris Johnson

middle of the road gently regulated free marketeers for a minimal safety net for hard-working families, no Hijabs please we're British, featuring the EU-friendly Tories, the Lib Dems, and 3 quarters of the PLP

wild eyed leftist crazies who want the state to dish out cuddles and free healthcare and some kind of democratic regulation over rapacious businesses and such, featuring Corbs and a bunch of low quality celebs probably

systems thinking

if the 17 million leave breaks down roughly into: hardcore british exceptionalist tory eurosceptics; the no future bloc of the economically and politically dislocated left-behind; the far right/UKIP; and, a rump of lexiters and ultra-neoliberals.

which of these groups doesn't go full apeshit if UK gov decides to disregard the outcome of the referendum? the only potential is presumably working on the disenfranchised labour left-behind to convince them that things /can/ get worse. absent a strong voice working on that however (and in light of thirty years of whipped up anti-EU/immigration sentiment and a continuing strong tabloid voice presumably actively nurturing resentment) how does it happen? establishment stitch up is presumably the answer but that's just grief deferred no?

yeah Windsor the actual violence that would provoke is frightening enough for me to not to want a second referendum. instead i'd want any putative future government to try to craft the most progressive set of replacement laws as possible. including, perhaps, a quite liberal set of immigration laws. these would admittedly probably stop somewhat short of the passportless reality most EU citizens have now, but it's not like we're living in an eden of freedom right now. my EEA spouse can't vote for an MP despite living and paying taxes here for years. and despite EU law guaranteeing me the right to live and work here, no HR department in the land will hire me unless i have the right piece of paper in my passport. which takes months to get.

strong arguments all, and i have no answer to them. still floating somewhere between the first four stages of grief and clutching at straws i guess

i think everybody is. there's a vacuum and the sooner Labour can start articulating a narrative that's 1) true and 2) appealing and 3) convincing and 4) treats the Tories as the paper tigers they are the sooner they can get on with fixing this mess. i certainly don't think this is 'throwing up your hands' it will take enormous effort and clarity of purpose and leadership. ahh fuck i just saw the problem.

think i'd be better off just throwing up my hands if the alternative is expecting anything whatsoever off this Labour party in the way of effective opposition