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

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

It's Catch 22. If Labour (not just Corbyn) had clarity of purpose and leadership months ago, then Remain would have won and we wouldn't be in a situation where we need Labour (or whoever) to have clarity of purpose and leadership.

naive thoughts - the media hates corbyn (and indeed most left wingers), the hatred has made labour hate corbyn more, he hasnt been given enough a chance to prove his mettle, and i just dont envision a leadership battle being the most effective solution. surely now, when there is a gaping vacuum, is the time to make advances, not the time for intra party struggles. then again, it depends on how soon they can install a new leader.

national crisis, an outgoing tory PM, surely this would have been the time for labour to strike.

Too busy striking themselves.

he hasnt been given enough a chance to prove his mettle

his referendum campaign was that chance, what greater chance do you want?

a referendum he wasn't particular fussed over in a partnership with a bunch of Tories probably not his most obvious moment to get all statesmanlike

statesmanlike is such cobblers too, he's barely had time to introduce the kind of economic policies he'd like to see the party adopt

and to repeat the bleeding obvious, if you want to tell people that immigration is ok, you'd better have some policies in place to deal with the extra strain on state resources. rather than just nodding and going along with cutting the fuck out of everything.

basically how I break it down to an extent
https://twitter.com/huwlemmey/status/747149954750287872

(xxxxp) exactly. Corbyn had an entire year. I don't know if the rumours of him refusing to stand on a stage with Cameron are true, but if they are it seems short-sighted. We were four years away from a General Election last week, would it really have been a problem to work with Cameron to ensure that Remain won a majority?

most historic moment for the country in the last however many years and it's not the moment for the leader of the opposition to show some sort of gumption? xps

he didn't even have to stand alongside the tories, just y'know speak in a way to natural labour voters in a way that connected with them

almost the same percentage of Labour voters as SNP voters went with Remain, haven't seen anybody calling fuck out of Nicola Sturgeon

his referendum campaign was that chance, what greater chance do you want?

Most Labour voters voted remain, what more do you want? xps

We were four years away from a General Election last week, would it really have been a problem to work with Cameron to ensure that Remain won a majority?

Cameron thinks Corbyn is a friend of yer brown-skinned terrorists. But the notion this would've made any difference to anyone is hilarious.

PLANK CORBYN SHOULD HAVE DEPLOYED MATTY TAYLOR TO INFLUENCE KEY BREXIT CONSTITUENCIES, INTRODUCE SYSTEMS THINKING TO SHADOW CABINET MEETINGS

"almost the same percentage of Labour voters as SNP voters went with Remain, haven't seen anybody calling fuck out of Nicola"

I know SNP voters who voted remain in pursuit of a second independence referendum.

Is David Miliband coming back to stand for Jo Cox's seat and then etc etc save us all? That seems to be the extend of the PLP's 'vision'.

he stumbled between navigating anti immigration tories and pro immigration/progressive/liberal socialists. waitrose socialism wouldnt have cut it in old labour bases. and to be anti immigration (and do anything with cameron) would negate corbyn's core socialist beliefs. he just seems incapable of thinking 'bigger'. all they needed to do was speak louder IMO, denounce the leave campaign for what it was, remind people that the enemy was austerity cuts, not the EU, but that just didnt seem to come through. all the labour leaflets i got were just about relatively small points on what voting remain would save. he might have gotten most labour voters to vote remain, but the problem isnt that, its who those labour voters are (or arent, rather) in 2016.

Most Labour voters voted remain, what more do you want? xps

back of a fag packet calculation but

63% of labour voters voted remain

75% of green voters voted remain

if labour could have equalled that then that would have been 900k more remain voters and 900k less leave voters

Remain: 16,141,241 + 900,000 = 17,041,241

Leave: 17,410,742 - 900,000 = 16,510,742

thanks Obama

calculation based on 9M labour voters in the 2015 GE btw

Corbyn, like Cameron, didn't have a plan come Friday morning. Stir ego is looking good this morning because she came to the podium with a clear plan and looks even better because no one else has. If Corbyn had come out on Friday morning and articulated a plan for a progressive exit, making the best of the situation. If he wasn't that hot on the EU then what was his plan for a post-EU future. He didn't get control of the narrative and left the door open for the plotters, compounding a lacklustre remain campaign.

It seems like arrogance or incompetence not to have any contingency plans, not as bad as the deafening silence from the leave campaign but the remain side has been too busy collapsing to hold them to account.

ok - so Corbyn is the sole reason they didn't equal the LOL Green? Their leadership isn't any more effective than Corbyn when it was scrutinized and their small base is already signed up to the EU and composed of the base that could've belonged to Labour in the first place, had people of Corbyn's wing been more of a presence at the top of Lab in the last few years.

56% of Tories vote against Dave.

Corbyn has just issued a statement. He is 1) not standing down and 2) standing in a new election. Looks like he is taking this to the bitter, bitter end.

Good.

I'm glad too.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl1n7CqXEAAZQsl.jpg

can we extrapolate out based on however big + how presumably homogeneous a group green voters are

honestly in my cynicism for all the armchair postgaming the only thing i think might've magically worked as a silver bullet to convince our racist electorate is ... tony blair 1.0, some preternaturally gifted slimy communicator in the right place at the right time. the people who voted leave wouldn't have been meaningfully corrected by a distinction abt austerity rather than the eu causing their problems

Corbyn, like Cameron, didn't have a plan come Friday morning

This is absolutely ludicrous - his statement does talk about shaping a future where employment and social rights are protected. Which was the case whether the UK stayed in or came out of the EU.

idk what is this love with Nicola Sturgeon, she hasn't been tested yet, has had a very easy ride. Totally a new Nick Clegg-type, waiting to be pounded by the dirt of the reality of politics, which is an Independent Scotland.

ok - so Corbyn is the sole reason they didn't equal the LOL Green?

just saying it might have helped if we'd have heard his voice a bit more

There were plenty of Labour remain voices. Former labour PMs etc. The good and great of Sunderland told them all where to go.

sturgeon is one of the most experienced politicians in scotland & has a longer & more varied history in politics than the current (?) PM or chancellor

the north east is probably exactly the people that corbyn should have been connecting with tbh. if he doesn't speak for them, wtf is he even for?

Speaking for constituencies voting by margins of 68/32 or 70/30 to leave the EU would not necessarily mean taking an even more unambiguously pro-EU position.

Ok Cozen - she just seems flavour of the moment and to see her cast as 'oh if only Lab could be led by someone like her maybe all our problems would be solved' just isn't on. Doesn't stick.

I think the mistake is to think that dangling someone from the left-wing of the party is enough. Especially when his leadership has been undermined night and day by the PLP, who has spent decades doing not that much for the North East or Wales.

The problems that Labour have in these areas are far deeper. Its hard to know at all how they can be solved, or that base could be re-built. One thing you don't do is what we have seen today.

maybe flavour of the moment in england, sure, but that's just a function of ppl's general ignorance about scottish politics. she is an extraordinarily capable and experienced politician (ex-lawyer):

activist since 16, stood for WM in 1992 (no success), SNP energy & education spokesperson late 90s, MSP at opening of holyrood, then shadow cab sec for education, then for health, then justice. elected deputy leader of the SNP over a decade ago. served as SNP's holyrood parliamentary leader (ie leader of the opposition) from 2003-2007 while salmond took a seat in WM. when SNP were elected in 2007, she was cabinet secretary for health (notably successful in her handling of two disease outbreaks.) 2012 cabinet sec for cities /infrastructure/investment.

since 2014, well you probably know that story