Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

it seems kind of unprecedented for a government to press ahead year on year with a policy that it doesn't believe in, which it could change, but doesn't.

Hence snap GE, which they'll hold if they think Labour can't win it.

if that's the case, at least charisma's not going to be a major deciding factor anymore

Boris phrasing - "that person cannot be me" = "the next PM cannot be as good as me"

wonder who he will back though? not gove obv

eye on the ball...

Corbyn: "Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel than our Muslim friends are for the self-styled Islamic State"

I think he might have just committed seppuku there.

http://reaction.life/boris-undone-newspaper-column/

It seems that the highly confused and implausible Boris version of Leave that emerged in that Daily Telegraph column helped convince Michael Gove that he should challenge Boris for the leadership, or rather it gave those who want to stop Boris the ammunition to persuade Gove that Boris cannot do it. Team Boris is pointing out that Gove read and helped edit the Boris column before it went to press, but that does not preclude him having pushed it through while having doubts.

gove's strategy was not unlike a sprint finish in a bike race - let boris do the work and then nip round him in the last 500 metres

or pushing it through seeing his big chance xp

Boris' strategy looks like convincing your mate to go base jumping with you and having a fag at the top of the building while he plummets to his doom.

I mean if Gove really did push that column through knowing full well it was a turkey then I've got to say I'm impressed.

Theresa May is tacking markedly towards the centre in her campaign launch statement: https://www.facebook.com/TheresaMayForPM/posts/1349767708373332

Jesus.

have tories and labour agreed to alternate rest days and full-on batshit days now

Well Labour anti-semitism report launch leading to charges of anti-semitism and leaving at least one Jewish MP in tears suggests not

lol guess not then

leadsom
gove
may
fox
crabb

our kind of people

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

somebody at work just told me about Boris, I lolled here as fast as I could

look slow down I can't keep up with the comedy

Not a fan of the phrase "Jewish friends", but people getting stoked up about that Corbyn sentence is such disingenuous idiocy - I love people Jewsplaining my needs as a Jew back to me.

On the other hand this Ruth Smeeth thing sounds fucking dark

How on earth do you manage to get yourself reported for antisemitism at the launch of your own antisemitism report? That is genuinely astonishing.

Last night I floated the idea of mandatory reselection of literally everyone in the Commons and that seems like a more and more appealing idea right now.

JUst slightly taken aback that Boris'd bung something as naff as the bus joke into a speech that should be that significant. He wasn't guaging things by whether anybody laughed at it or anything? Like oh yeah got a couple of guffaws i'll stand, no nothing better stand down.
Or is he going to claim he's losing it which is why he's coming out with utter banalities.

sorry did corbyn literally just compare the nation of israel to ISIS on the day the anti-semitism report was launched?

No.

ah ok - his quote sort of looks like that

The point is pretty clearly that a lot of morons on the left expect British Jews to be held accountable for the actions of Israel when they'd be the first to say it's wrong to do the same thing with British Muslims and terrorism.

can't believe some people might be deliberately misinterpreting Corbyn

It wasn't a direct comparison but he really should have thought twice about it under the FFS Don't Mention Hitler rule.

yeah it seems needlessly inflammatory. 'i'd no more expect ordinary Labour voters to be held responsible for the actions of a few Momentum activists than all Italians to be tarnished by what Mussolini did'

'hey it's just a thought experiment'

corbyn making mistake of thinking anyone cares about anti-semitism in labour except as a stick to beat him with lol

I mean, if he'd resigned on Tuesday, release of this report wd be some page 94 shit right now

Not sure why there was a need for the report. You won't keep the morons who go on about this quiet. xp = not sure how much attention its going to get, especially compared to this other report next week.

He does mention Hitler later in fairness - he says FFS Don't Mention Hitler.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/angela-eagle-to-launch-labour-leadership-bid-in-battle-for-the-s/#update-20160630-1136

(scroll down a bit to get the full text)

If you want me I'll be in the Snooker Loopy thread.

@Peston
Am told @angelaeagle may not announce candidacy at 3, so MPs can have "period of reflection" about why they have lost confidence in leader

Has this not been it?

How on earth do you manage to get yourself reported for antisemitism at the launch of your own antisemitism report? That is genuinely astonishing.

Trump has been calling people out on the racism of calling him out on his racism so, y'know.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmJcNx0WkAEIRGo.jpg

Is the PLP just trying to make Corbyn go insane by doing basically nothing and leaking wildly contradictory rumours to idiots like George Eaton in the meantime or wha

Wonder if any of them have a nihilistic desire for Chilcot oblivion to hurry up at this point

corbyn making mistake of thinking anyone cares about anti-semitism in labour except as a stick to beat him with lol

yep.

i dont see it as inflammatory. you cant pretend the two views dont exist, or that they arent frequently intertwined.

left wingers are always held up to near unreachable levels of scrutiny. they have to be absolutely perfect and spotless.

FFS, what is really so wrong about these sentences?

"Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu Government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.

"Nor should Muslims be regarded as sexist, antisemitic or otherwise suspect, as has become an ugly Islamophobic norm. We judge people on their individual values and actions, not en masse.

“I will continue - as Labour Leader - to pursue the causes of peace and justice in Israel-Palestine, the wider Middle East and all over the world. But those who claim to do so with hateful or inflammatory language do no service to anyone, especially dispossessed and oppressed people in need of better advocacy.

“Of course we as Labour Party members must all be free to criticise and oppose injustice and abuse wherever we find it. But as today's Report recommends, can we please leave Hitler and Nazi metaphors alone (especially in the context of Israel). Why? Because the Shoah is still in people's family experience.

"If every human rights atrocity is described as a Holocaust, Hitler's attempted obliteration of the Jewish people is diminished or de-recognised in our history.

"Other human rights atrocities from African slavery to the killing fields of Cambodia, the Armenian and Rwandan Genocides are all of course to be remembered, but diluting their particularity or comparing degrees of evil does no good.

xp http://youtu.be/7qnd-hdmgfk

jesus christ Corbs nobody's interested in the language of nuance don't you get it?

must admit my first thoughts on Boris were in line with Ewan McGregor's
https://twitter.com/mcgregor_ewan/status/748477453631426560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I don't want him anywhere near power, but the lazy cowardly irresponsible twat has helped fuck us all. Get to fucking work on cleaning this shit up and take the fucking blame when the far-right violence ramps up.

why would he do that when cameron isnt going to clean up the shit hes left for everyone either?

That might be the only classy thing Seaumas Milne has written

xp true, Cameron setting the example I guess - he seems to be broadly getting away with walking away from the corpse.

I'm somebody on the 'hard' left who has constantly argued that the left has a problem with anti semitism. And it was rejected within the SSP, the stop the war coalition and the Labour Party. The people of Israel are consistently 'othered' in a way I can't think of other any other people being. And we all tolerate groups that cross into anti-semitism protesting along side us. Whenever I complained about groups or banners which I felt were, if not hateful at least unhelpful, I was just told that this was how people oppose Israel (and apparently the only way to discuss what is happening there). It was never cool. There is, of course, much more anti semitism on the right, but that doesn't excuse the fact that we made a safe space on the left for people who are just antisemitic.

(I should add that I bowed out of politics after the invasion of Iraq, and things might be better now - I just doubt it)