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

Cameron as worst post-war PM has been talked about (not so much on the thread), hardly been time for that, what with the economy and this most peculiar situ for the opposition.

I thought Corbyn would get on the ballot to run against a challenger. All the ballot means is that there would be a challenge.

tom's piece is worth reading if you haven't already, MDC
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/brexit-a-guide-to-britains-new-politics.html

L is for Literally the Worst: David Cameron is the worst post-war prime minister, a gambler without even the spine to bet his reputation (and the country’s economy) on something he believed in. The ruin of his reputation is a Brexit silver lining, but a very thin and unsatisfying one. [...] Each of Cameron’s moves, until the final, fatal referendum, was designed for short-term benefit  —  stave off a threat here, win a vote there. But because he seemed to have no strategic sense, each raised the stakes a little higher.

xp well Cameron fucked a dead pig so that would still leave him a fighting chance

https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/747513678271025152

turning to the actual architects of this whole calamitous shitshow for a second

can johnson be beaten in a tory leadership election?

http://www.politico.eu/article/inside-account-of-labour-mps-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-resignations-brexit/

I think it's possible. There's an anyone-but-Johnson wing in the Remain camp that'll ensure that a heavyweight challenger gets on the ballot and gets some support. The key thing will be how the leave camp (which makes up the bulk of the membership and enough MPs to get one of them in the race) takes his tacit acknowledgment that he kind of still wants to be in the EU. A few of them, like Leadsome, seem to be repeating the line that we want access to European markets but without immigration, payments or regulation. This is transparently ridiculous though and Johnson will struggle to go into a campaign with that as his main promise. Anything less isn't what the Eurosceptics voted for and they might try to find someone who'll actually leave, if they can hold their nerve.

If i was him i wouldn't run. Let someone else take the heat and come in to replace them as the voice of reason that can play both sides when it all goes horribly wrong.

xp

I agree, but I don't think he can help himself. Hell, if he will lead a Leave campaign he doesn't believe in for power he's basically incontinent with desire.

Really depressing to read soref's posts about Corbyn having to go in order to serve the needs of a party of dogs like the current shit-the-beds of Labour.

meh, English politics as per

Lolle http://politi.co/28YubVO

imagine the paranoia when the bastards start talking to each other in foreign

It's still almost everyone else's second language though.

Did anyone see channel 4 news tonight? There was a German pundit on who was weighing up the French and German positions re the triggering of article 50 and he said "and Angela Merkel doesn't want to rush it because she will look like a prig" and then the interviewer, Matt Frei, told him off about his bad language having obviously misheard him.

Is there any way short of violence that rallies like the Corbyn-supporting one can prevent themselves being hijacked by SWP and other parties?

Went down to Parliament square tonight and yeah this was the most depressing thing about it, such a plethora of types there I wouldn't want to be associated with.

Not that it was depressing overall. Just odd, mostly.

I heard that tonight when someone shouted "Jeremy!" the entire SWP turned round saying "what?"

Boom boom.

A friend who was a union FTO assured me that the SWP only had 2000 actual members nationwide a few years back, and that was before the rape scandal

They just seem to be incredibly organised at turning up to every demonstration of any kind with a fuckton of banners and copies of the Socialist Worker

grayling hapless and weaselly on newsnight

whereas evan davis just hapless and spindly

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl-vEiJXIAExmW2.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl-vF34WgAAeYBN.jpg

that's quite satisfying isn't it

George Eaton (New Statesman) on twitter:

I'm now near-certain that Corbyn voted Leave. Hear papers have more tomorrow.

John Harris‏ @johnharris1969

@georgeeaton Where's This story then? Now seen all splashes

George Eaton‏ @georgeeaton

@johnharris1969 I was just wondering same. Don't know. Was told by Chris Bryant that they'd interviewed someone told by Corbyn that he was voting Leave.

Great work.

Just to clarify, George Eaton reported having been told by Chris Bryant that he'd been told by a newspaper that they had interviewed someone who told them that Corbyn had told them he voted leave.

kind of love the idea that Corbyn and Boris would actually get into the booth and vote for each other's campaign positions, then sweat profusely on camera for months insisting that they'd voted the way they said they had

I'm sure there is some dubious source that will say that Boris voted Leave, even though it is near impossible to corroborate such bollocks.

"Instead of trying to bring the country in times of crisis he has opened the door and actively invited the UK to tear itself apart. All bravado, all tactics, no real strategy."

who says that wasnt a strategy?
#brexitparanoia

From a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/labour-rebels-hope-to-topple-jeremy-corbyn-in-24-hour-blitz-afte/

All that planning and they couldn't come up with an alternate leader.

"England"

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness
Remedies never were within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
Withered vine reaching from the country
That I love
England
You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you, England, I cling
Undaunted, never failing love for you
England

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik9vqRDqyu0

Been listening to this a lot since last Friday. Oddly prescient.

starting to think labour has a death wish.

theres no chance at this point that they, whether with corbyn or a new leader - less so with a new leader actually - could win an election at this stage, is there?

its tragic, as brexit might be terrible for england, but it could just - in my head at least - have worked to labours advantage.

oh well.

maybe something better will replace them in two elections time.

xxp

Revealing your dastardly plans in advance has ever worked for whom? Well apart from Blair labour, the Tories, Hitler etc ...

if winning the next election was the only reason for a political party to exist none would have ever been founded

Bullxit

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/06/27/sadakat-kadri/bullxit/

Fine legal writer, is Sadakat.

WTF at BBC box pop with Mr Swastika Tattoo who claimed not to be racist?

*vox pop, obvs #fuckingphone

I know! Although seemed to have some kind of mental illness.

someone on twitter has let George Eaton know that his "Corbyn voted brexit" story actually *has* been published, but Times decided not to put this amazing scoop on the front page for some reason

Labour’s leader faced extraordinary claims last night that he voted Leave in the EU referendum in defiance of his party’s support for the Remain campaign.

An MP told The Times that a member of the public had got in touch to say he had been told by Jeremy Corbyn that he was voting Out. Mr Corbyn’s team vigorously denied the claim.

The man who made the claim, Martin Waplington, said that he had been dining at Meson Don Felipe, a tapas restaurant in south London on June 17, and spotted Mr Corbyn and his family at another table.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/_TP_/article/labour-leader-denies-saying-he-d-vote-leave-2lfrn6kz2

the rest is behind a paywall. Eaton is now vigourously tweeting the link to the story at the many people taking the piss out of him

i want to believe but this is obv entirely w/out credibility - no way he disclosed a career ending vote to some dude while eating tapas w/ his family

ok, it gets better: the same story appears in the Sun, but the Sun story says that the encounter took place on 10th June rather than the 17th

https://twitter.com/msjenniferjames/status/747589450331525125

https://medium.com/@OwenJones84/my-thoughts-on-the-plight-of-labour-38413229f88?source=user_profile---------1-

Owen Jones was just waiting for an excuse.

15m ago
10:34
Farage booed by MEPs

Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has just finished addressing the European parliament.

MEPs turned their backs on him after he said none of them had ever done a proper day’s work, and they booed him at the end.

I will post a summary soon.

Huge (for the EP) applause for both Alyn Smith and Martina Anderson
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/747729114828779521

A lot of people in the Labour Party aren't going to know what to do when they can no longer use Corbyn as a lightning conductor for every excuse they need to make.

Yep. A lot of people (like Owen Jones, potentially) are also going to find it hard to unite behind an unreconstructed Brownite pushing a 'progressive case for stopping immigration', which looks like where we are heading.

The case for sticking with Labour is that 'we' collectively can push it to the left. The PLP autonomously shifting harder right and disingenuously pushing the 'we tried to be left wing and it didn't work, so never again' line will be difficult for a lot of the anti-Corbyn centrists.

Reading some of their Twitter feeds it's like they're expecting to find Barack Obama down the back of the sofa to save us all.

Both sides casting around desperately for a figurehead and there is none. When even Jeremy fucking Hunt is in the frame to be the next PM you really get a sense of how threadbare the Commons talent pool actually is.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. Has the quality of MPs declined with a shift to a more presidential style of government?

Jeremy Hunt talking about a second referendum post-negotiation, and that's a theme with a few people. But I'm curious about what the referendum would ask. Eg, what is option 2? Because the consequences of a second loss could be devastating based on that option

but if negotiations can't start til article 50 and article 50 can't be reversed then what would be the point of a second vote except to check that we're all unhappy with the way things have turned out?

Article 50 can be reversed, or at least there's nothing in it to say that it can't, and apparently EU treaty law can be treated "flexibly", i.e. can be fudged

Jeremy Hunt talking about a second referendum post-negotiation, and that's a theme with a few people.

would this even be possible now that junker has prevented all EU/MEP communications prior to Art50.

surely once we trigger Art50, then a second ref is pointless ?