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

Consequences of Brexit are possibly more severe for Scotland. Also Project Fear's xenophobia was designed to resonate with some people who regard the Scots in a similar way as they regard immigrants -,ie. A drain on the welfare state.

i do find myself a bit surprised by how even my most reactionary of scottish relatives seem relatively unconcerned about migration. but yes, contrary to the ideas of scottish ppl who think of us as far more enlightened than our neighbours, racism more generally continues unhindered

I think that part of the reason Scotland voted remain is because of the popularity of the SNP, who are a liberal party with an optimistic vision of Europe. Obviously there are still economic problems and racism here but I'd say that since the referendum most people are feeling more confident in politics itself and more positive about the future. There aren't any parties in England that are really providing something positive to believe in - the referendum campaign in England was basically project fear v let's stop all the foreigners coming and taking our jobs

I also think that pretty much everyone in Scotland recognises that we're a small country and that being in a union with a whole bunch of other small countries would be to our advantage (and most EU member states aren't big world powers). It seems like a lot of people in England still see themselves as being a big player on the world stage and that there's significant numbers of English people who see themselves as being somehow better than the rest of Europe

One other factor, possibly - Scottish Sun far less militantly Brexit than the English edition and broadly supportive of SNP, national Scottish newspapers generally pro-Remain

there's a significant number of English people who see themselves as being somehow better than the rest of the world

from there stems the ~optimism~ that it'll all work out vis-a-vis single market vs. free movement - we're too important for people not to let us do what we want

yep, we had an empire, we dictate to the rest of the world, it does not dictate to us, a world-view still predicated on Hitlerian dominate or be dominated

It's a difficult balance between 'we are too big and important to marginalise' and 'the rest of the world is out to get us' neither of which is remotely true.

The Mail has been complaining about a "Japanese-owned newspaper" (the Financial Times) talking the economy down today.

oh man eye-rolling at my dad's stern conviction that in all international sporting events involving England every official would cheat against them because they were jealous and hated our values

Good analysis with no conclusions.

i read a sort of conclusion that i'm already at in terms of the micro-climate and the conversations we have with our friends and neighbours and work colleagues. it accounts for the near revulsion i've felt all along at the more hysterical, declamatory, "you thick bastards have ruined our country" spiel we've experienced since the referendum. if we are in a culture war i've got a foot placed square in both camps and not much love for the militants in either party.

yes I see that except I'm not sure how this operates to something substantial (and this is all left open) and also its just as much "you thick grandma" so those conversations will begin at home except I think everyone will shut the door and not even start.

Robert Kimbell @RedHotSquirrel
Ghana (population 28 million, 2016 GDP growth +4.5% and 2017 +7.7% says IMF, GDP larger than Latvia's) wants a post-Brexit FTA with the UK.

yay!

yep, we had an empire, we dictate to the rest of the world, it does not dictate to us, a world-view still predicated on Hitlerian dominate or be dominated

I'm still suddenly remembering with bemusement in the shower or wherever the headlines after Cameron's EU visit last week, the ones where they would have it he "demanded" changes to immigration, as if we had the slightest ability to demand a single thing from them.

Conrad OTM.

the two people I know who I know voted leave (work colleagues) "don't think that people should talk about politics" - this without being given a hard time by anyone - although they presumably do sort of with someone somewhere

That piece from the nondom-owned Mail is genuinely horrific. Total enemy-within fascist posturing. None of the enduring chaos could be down to experts being correct or the Mail being wrong — it must be saboteurs in big business and fifth columnists.

Xp the lala-can't-hear-you school of "vote with your gut, not with consideration"

i've seen enough people act like hectoring arseholes when discussing politics (or anything else i guess) at work or in social settings that i have some sympathy for the "let's not talk about this here" attitude

Talking of hectoring arseholes there was so much nauseousness on last night's/todays re-run of Any Questions. The combination of Caroline Flint and some scouse-gobshite UKIP twat is too much to take, one of them moments where I feel like taking a lump hammer to the wireless.

callmejez has to be 'held back' after he 'lunged' at a female reporter
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/02/jeremy-corbyn-urged-to-retire-with-dignity-as-hard-left-recruit/

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Doesn't help when you embed a video of him not lunging at the reporter within your story but all clicks are good clicks.

Aaron Banks has apparently decided May is too much of an Islamist to lead the country so is backing Leadsom. idk how much this helps her but she'll have a huge warchest to draw from if she gets on the ballot.

https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/749198783813152768

I know leave voter, and he admitted this morning he regrets the decision. He cited guilt talking to our mutual Spanish friend and watching the instant political mess. He's a 51 year old Sun reader from Barking.

My partner voted Leave, despite initially intending to Remain and also put £25 on Leave when it was 6/1. She doesn't read The Sun and is a pro-Corbyn Labour voter, so doesn't neatly fit into demographic models. i suspect there was probably a lot like that.

callmejez

??

It was just refreshing to hear him say it. I have felt so terrible about leave voters as a big group of 'other' whilst never actually talking to any. Nice to remember not everyones a fascist.

Her sister is a Sun reader in that pejorative sense that she always talks ignorant racist shite, and also is a vociferous Leaver, but was also married to a Polish national for 20 odd years. I feel that if some Remain campaigner's (espesh the Tory ones) had tried to address people like this as human beings rather than using transparent scare tactics or trying to threaten them or arrogantly hectoring them they might have got more positive results.

Gove-fish is one of the more upsetting things I've seen in a political cartoon

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmQw0nlUsAAOmra.jpg

well, thats tonights nightmare sorted.

JC speaks
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-exclusively-reveals-hes-8335834

As does Gove:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/07/02/my-confidence-in-boris-johnson-evaporated-after-the-vote-for-bre/

You can get 16/1 on him winning, compared to 5/2 on second-placed Leadsom.

This fucking paper.
http://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/749356437873238017/photo/1

everything in this guardian article is dispiriting:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/02/corbyn-keeps-watson-arms-length

A senior Labour source, close to the embattled leader, said they had blocked Watson from talking privately to Corbyn because they have a “duty of care. They [Watson’s aides] want Watson to be on his own with Corbyn so that he can jab his finger at him,” the source said.

“We are not letting that happen. He’s a 70-year-old [sic] man. We have a duty of care … This is not a one-off. There is a culture of bullying. Maybe it’s a Blairite/Brownite thing.”

this does seem to square with the theory that Corbyn is being pushed into staying by people around him, maybe Mcdonnell and Milne, unless the quoted source is in fact intentionally trying to undermine Corbyn by presenting him as a vulnerable invalid. at this stage part of me would like Corbyn to go just for the sake of his own health and happiness - I can't think of many politicians who have sustained so much vitriol from so many sides for such an extended period of time, and it seems particularly cruel when the recipient is someone who afaict never really sought to be a frontline politician but rather had the position thrust upon him.

Under the supposed extraction deal – allegedly sketched out last Wednesday by Corbyn’s director of policy, Andrew Fisher – Corbyn would have stood down as leader in return for staying in the shadow cabinet, senior Labour sources claimed.

His close ally, John McDonnell, would have remained as shadow chancellor and both men’s staff would have been retained. A place in a future leadership election would have been secured for a candidate on the left, such as the shadow defence secretary, Clive Lewis.

There would also have been a commitment to Labour retaining an anti-austerity policy platform.

Sources said that the plan was swiftly dropped by Corbyn on Wednesday evening, with one claiming that McDonnell was “keeping Corbyn hostage”.

if this plan is in any way feasible, this would surely be the best deal that the Labour left could hope for? If Corbyn is forced to resign without a guarantee that a successor will be a candidate in the subsequent leadership election, or defeated in a leadership election himself, then it's over for the hard left, the party's right will immediately set about making sure that nothing like Corbyn can ever happen again, yes?

it seems very optimistic, a deal that left McDonnell as shadow chancellor and risked another left-winger becoming leader (one who may be harder to get rid of in the long term) would surely be just as unpalatable as the current situation for a lot of the PLP?

thought the claim in that guardian article that andy burnham had sought to speak w/corbyn had been denied by andy b himself. throws doubt on the rest of the story imo

corbyn in shadow cab + mcdonnell chancellor + lewis on the ticket + anti-austerity platform would be a blinding result from this shitshow. don't see it happening

A delegation of shadow cabinet ministers, led by shadow home secretary Andy Burnham, also failed to secure a meeting with Corbyn last Thursday to try to negotiate a resolution.

https://twitter.com/andyburnhammp/status/748542119703363588

Wouldn't trust The Guardian and the 49 quid they keep asking to keep producing this 'journalism' can fuck off.

xp some people were saying on twitter that Corbyn's aides refused to pass on Burnham's request for a meeting, so both Burnham's denial that Corbyn *himself* refused to speak to him and the story a meeting was nixed are true, who knows who or what to believe at this point, though.

basically everycunt's at it & george 34ton is the useful-est idiot

https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisapplegate/why-a-pro-eu-party-could-be-screwed-in-the-next-election?utm_term=.vbMkeOeA3#.jtnYlzlVE

Corbyn must be desperate to get shot of this whole situation by now and I suspect that his main concern is ensuring that the party doesn't immediately fall into the hands of a centre-right, pro-austerity, anti-immigration clique. Why on earth anyone would agree to keeping McDonnell on as Shadow Chancellor I don't know, and this is speaking as someone who thinks he's generally grown into the role in recent months.

I'm not sure that, given the current situation, I'm that bothered whether or not the new leader comes from "the left". What's important for me, more than anything, is that they will oppose austerity. Labour can't and will not win if they support it, and the collapse of the Osborne project *might* mean the end of the austerity trap that did for Miliband and created the conditions for Corbyn's election. That's not to suggest that the Tories will suddenly become pro-big state overnight, but they might calculate that Brexit uncertainty + fiscal waterboarding is unlikely to be a vote-winner.

No party and no politician currently has a mandate to negotiate the terms of exit from the EU. Labour needs to be in a situation where they can demand a snap election before Article 50 is triggered. I just don't see how they can do that with Corbyn.

the entire PLP thinks that opposing austerity means being on the left

It should be reasonably straightforward to make the case against austerity as part of a generally pro-business pitch to the country, it's not like every economist making the case is a raging Trot, but the imagination just doesn't seem to be there within the PLP.

The bulk of the PLP appear to be trapped in some bout of collective Stockholm Syndrome where they internalise and absorb every lie that is told by the right and then just regurgitate it endlessly. Some of them probably believe it, but I'm sure the majority don't and yet they continue to bang this shit out. If they didn't, the chances are that Corbyn would have been nowhere near the leadership in the first place.

Austerity has been put on hold so it won't be a massive issue. Corbyn's team were the only ones coming up with an alternative kind of plan at he time. There is no vision on the PLP and Angela Eagle would lose against Teresa May.

The coup can only succeed by Corbyn being defeated in a leadership challenge - if he is forced out many people in London and other Metropolitan areas would stay at home at election time.

Corbyn must be desperate to get shot of this whole situation by now

Doesn't sound like it - among all the ton of rumour flying, and even with the 'a week is a long time in politics' business he is pretty defiant in the Mirror to the extent that the events of the week don't appear to have had an effect.

There would have to be huge ongoing concessions and a plan to democratise the party in such a way that he would consider standing down. And this has never been about Corbyn's media management, but about his politics.

Austerity has not been put on hold fwiw, Osborne has abandoned his surplus targets, which were unachieveable anyway, but the basic fact of an ongoing squeeze on public spending remains. Depends on the extent to which the incoming leader wants to make it an election issue.

This looks increasingly like it's going to be a May v Leadsom contest, with Leadsom refusing to rule out a Cabinet post for Farage, and being thrown by an extremely predictable interview question about publishing her tax return.

That looks like no contest then. LOL Gove though, what a disaster.

Well the target was the major driver for austerity. That and the AAA rating which is also gone. Yes there will be ongoing cuts as the economy tanks. Why Labour has to oppose but pre-Corbyn they were so awful at it..

Any upcoming gen election would be on Brexit and various issues surrounding freedom of movement. The line from Labour on this partic issue might be key.

Corbyn (should he survive to fight it lol) has not wavered on complicating the issue of immigration - so yes the cuts are what generates the fights among people on the ground over what is left - and immigrants get the worst of it. That may never get a fair hearing but unfortunately the climate is one for a long game, beyond elections - and there is politics beyond this election..

But Farage is over. I get the old Enoch Powellthing where it was better for the Tories having him 'inside the tent pissing out rather than having him outside the tent pissing in', but who could even trust Farage's aim?