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

also lol since when did the unions have any sway or power

The cuddly band of unions around the world all working together sounds great in theory until you consider that maybe unions in India aren't going to be too happy with their members' jobs all being moved to the UK, any more than the reverse.

Some of it sounds like "we decide who gets the cheap immigrant labour"

this is not a position unknown to the trade union movement

If all workers in Britain suddenly unionised I suppose they could agitate for jobs to go to them not to immigrants, but would this do anything for people who are chronically unemployed already, who are out of work already after years of de-industrialisation, etc?

Talking of India: http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/11/07/india-shows-the-ultimate-failure-of-the-brexit-project

the necessity of unions' role in protecting their members against incursions from wage-undercutting labour has always meant that they aren't the ideal instrument for class solidarity, even if you accept the chronically unemployed as belonging to the same class as skilled or semi-skilled union members - which unionists have almost never believed to be true

all this aside, unionization is one of the few protections working class people have ever had

Agree

Are any of Labour putting forward serious proposals for new job creation + protections for workers (surely the way to solve both poverty and 'legitimate concerns')?

"this is not a position unknown to the trade union movement

"this is not a position unknown to the trade union movement"
Yeah, but this one I wouldn't trust much.

I was once at a company where during the '07 recession they felt empowered enough to effectively have zero hour conditions, in the gaps between big contracts starting and finishing they would just casually say "we haven't got anything for the next month (even though they could have allocated people onto other sites) come back then" to staff who were f/t and not self-employed. One of my colleagues was a member of unite and he said they were a waste of time when he took his grievances to them.

this fucking scrote:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/10/nigel-farage-jokes-about-trumps-alleged-sexual-assaults

thank god ukip are in such disarray right now - if they were any better organised, i would actually be fucking terrified at the potential repercussions of the trump result on our politics, particularly given that there will likely be a growing public impatience with the government failing to deliver the glorious brexit that was promised.

corbyn's weak response to the election not much helping my state of mind. now is one of those moments to galvanize the left, but just like after the brexit vote, cometh the hour, cometh the vague mumbles and a bit of shuffling about

I don't think Farage can really claim credit for the success of a billionaire reality TV star.

In further 'this fucking guy' news:

@George_Osborne
Came across this anti-Trump protest here in New York last night - can't help wondering how many of them voted ....

Everyone out last night will have voted. D'oh!

Perhaps he hasn't heard of the ... the ... electoral college.

@George_Osborne
Came across this anti-Trump protest here in New York last night - can't help wondering how many of them voted ....

Hillary beat Trump %58.8 to %37 in New York. But then, numbers never were Osborne's strong point, were they?

i was there. i didn't vote because i'm not allowed, but i have voted against him several times fwiw.

also clinton won 59% of the vote in NYS, but 82% in manhattan, 75% in kings (bk), etc., etc.

Jon Cruddas on the splits in Momentum:

Arguably, the real tension lies between traditional Leninist far left politics based around a discernable industrial working class base and the post-operaismo—literally the new “post workerist”—left. The latter was highly influential within the anti-globalisation movement and the post-crash Occupy and student anti-cuts protests. For this group, the working class base of the left is disappearing, thanks to technological change and automation. The new core left project is pushed by the urban, globally orientated, networked and educated youth—rather than any group resembling the proletariat. The class absolutism of the old guard is at odds with the new “autonomists” and their rejection of mainstream left political parties, unions and traditional representative democracy.

For this group, the fashionable talk is of “accelerationism” and even “fully automated luxury communism,” with technology offering new straightforward route maps toward some vaguely defined era of “post capitalism”—captured in the current post-workerist fad: the Universal Basic Income.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/momentum-crisis-labour-party

Cruddas, earlier today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYZpZr3Cv7I

Momentum's statement on the US election is all I need to know: http://momentumpress.tumblr.com/post/152969802602/momentum-statement-on-the-us-election

While Corbyn's own statement was weak as long as he keeps on being an enabler for this I'm all for it.

hmmmm

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/Readmit_expelled_socialists

Yes a press release on the Momentum website is truly the moral lead we've all been craving in these dark times.

I can only assume someone somewhere has asked Corbyn to soft-pedal on all this because it looks more "statesmanlike" or whatever, in the magical fictional world where he might conceivably be PM, but if he can't be relied upon to show moral leadership on an issue of this magnitude then what on earth is the point of him? Plus all this vague guff implying that because Trump also represents a threat to the neoliberal status quo then there must be something good about it if you look hard enough - something that is also I suspect behind his Brexit stance.

Obviously Bernie Sanders now has nothing to lose but the difference between him and Corbyn this week has highlighted how desperately the Labour left needs a better figurehead.

Think I'm going to let my LP membership lapse. Really raw about politics atm, and I don't regret my membership - I do think Corbyn is a Good Thing. Even with the reduction in price it's still money I could be drinking, and I hate the meetings.

Also, way to go tacking "and all forms of racism" onto every sentence when someone's accusing one of your boys of being an antisemite but not when the US elects an actual fucking fascist.

There's a kind of optimism I find absolutely infuriating in British politics. The same people saying that 'nothing will change, it won't be that bad' have been saying it about Trump. Let me have my moment of misery, damnit!

god I've been reading re-admit as read-mit all day

I'm nearing the point of agreeing that Corbyn isn't very good but am too hateful of every centrist neolib conclusion that seems to lead to, because in this case, bad player or not, the problem is absolutely the game itself and fuck wanting to play it

like, well done realists, you win, let's get a nice telegenic orator in and win some hearts and minds on the road to full socialism in 3016

Or, some funny bloke that makes up his own words and might actually appear on "Tipping Point" to get his face over to people.

Yeah I mean anyone who thinks that another technocratic centrist is the answer right now just has a profound lack of insight or understanding of anything.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the divide is not between 'electable centre-ground moderates' vs people who are too right/left-wing. It's between politicians people believe will do something for them vs politicians they don't. Remember the 2015 election was basically fought between three dudes competing on how much they were going to take away from people. One of them had to win and the British public forced his exit the first chance they got.

Unfortunately Corbyn is in that camp for too much of the country as well, he's just a terrible communicator when it comes to people who aren't already predisposed to listen. I don't want another glossy neoliberal centrist, I want a competent version of Corbyn, one who isn't going to squander what might be the left's only opportunity in a generation.

otm

He doesn't really 'get' America; his/Milne's analysis of the GOP vote doesn't mention the kind of exurb dweller who swung this, much as the Brexit analysis given by the vast majority of UK politicians doesn't acknowledge the well-off golf-club types who really swung it.

He is a not very dynamic and driven leader ok a useless fucker - but nevertheless a useless fucker operating in difficult conditions, and as the only trustworthy candidate offering a genuine opposition to austerity he still has my support. Pure selfish self interest here, but when I get completely sick with politics it's the only motivation left to carry on engaging.

Just heard about the local Y Pat centre losing funding and staff. For some severely disabled people it offers just about the only social interaction they get outside of family. The Labour centrists have supported the austerity agenda at every vote, and then carried on with hypocritical smooth-tongued lip service to social inclusion blah blah, so fuck every last one of them cunts forever.

his/Milne's analysis of the GOP vote doesn't mention the kind of exurb dweller who swung this, much as the Brexit analysis given by the vast majority of UK politicians doesn't acknowledge the well-off golf-club types who really swung it

It's because it gets in the way of the convenient 'people who have been failed by the neoliberal consensus' narrative, a narrative that also requires downplaying the white supremacist angle. A lot of the voters you describe, maybe even the majority of Trump voters, would have the neolib consensus back in a heartbeat if they felt they were still the ones benefiting from it.

This supposed Brexit march seems to be being organised mainly by the Telegraph. If it actually happens there must be a counter-protest.

I was never someone who deified Corbyn - I don't think very much of him, tbh, be he was a handy tool for moving the party to the left and that was valuable. The long term effects of that are still to be seen. His inability to not say unpopular stuff about foreign policy was deeply unhelpful to me where I live, because lost of the people I was canvassing were forces/ex-forces and lots of them were sympathetic to moving left. But all I got in return was Falklands/Hamas/trident.

Not that he was necessarily wrong about those things, but you don't win elections on foreign policy, but you can lose votes based on it.

There never seems to be any planned strategy on how to respond to Tory baiting without falling right into their not so cunning traps. Which is one reason I'd dread it it if they called an election right now, although I don't see what will change a few years down the line if Milne is still stealing a wage.

There never seems to be any planned strategy on how to respond to Tory baiting without falling right into their not so cunning traps

This seemed to be more of a Cameron/Osborne thing. I'm not sure May/Hammond are putting much thought into how to undermine Labour other than coming up with her hilarious PMQ zings.

Yes a press release on the Momentum website is truly the moral lead we've all been craving in these dark times.

― Matt DC, Friday, 11 November 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Let's have a recap from this morning - an article is posted about how Momentum is useless (from the quote, I am not reading the rest of it). I post an excellent on the money response from Momentum that is allied to the current leader of the Labour Party.

Ultimately yes it wasn't a good statement from Corbyn - but again it was never ever about him, but what is around him, and what I am saying -- and what that statement by Momentum shows -- is that this is still good and worth holding onto. But please be an Einstein and tell me who can replace Corbyn that is from the left-wing of the party AND is a better PR maN AND would be allowed on the ballot AND then when he/she does get elected will unify the party on policy on all sides.

Ultimately when push comes to shove Corbyn did the following: 1) voted against the Welfare Bill when most other abstained and 2) in the EU debate talked of 'no upper limit to immigration' (but you know not standing in with Cameron was his biggest crime). I am prepared to give him some leeway against some crappy tweets and statements. The actions and example have mostly been good.

Granted, it probably will not do me any good (the pessimists are always right in the end huh?) but I'd like to see Corbyn stay, and more importantly for Momentum and the activism around it to mature, and hopefully to allow for the space for some progressive politics. Better than screaming that he isn't a good communicator and doesn't love the EU for the billionth time.

There isn't anyone else, that's the problem, although the reasons for that lie in 20+ years of poor selection policies from Labour, so that when new intellectual direction was desperately needed there was nothing.

Once again the problem isn't that Corbyn doesn't believe in the right things, it's the danger that this might all be snuffed out or pushed back to the margins after the next election if he doesn't get his act together. There isn't necessarily time for it to mature.

there are at least two problems :

jeremy corbyn isn't good enough ;

there isn't anyone else .

can either be solved ?

how ?

sign caroline lucas in the january transfer window?

how indeed

& we always come back to this when this week saw a benefit cap that will lead to not just individuals but families becoming homeless which will surely lead to deaths fairly soon.

it's quite depressing/frustrating to read discussions about waiting until 2020 to weed out the dead wood of the PLP etc. so that we'll be in a better position by 2025 when we're in quite a desperate situation with regard to people's lives and i don't hold the view that we can afford to wait for Corbyn's massive failure. I'm perfectly willing to accept something close to a Blairite at this point.

Good for you dude, Lib Dems are that way ---->

I like Farron a fair bit, in fact.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/11/brexit-could-be-reversed-government-lawyers-may-argue

A standard Blairite would be very unlikely to win either at this juncture (adopting either the policies that Blair etc actually followed, or the ones the current Labour right claim they would follow now). It would be virtually impossible for them to come up with policies on Europe, welfare, the economy and immigration that would be acceptable to enough of the country.