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

None of them but I wouldn't be enthusiastically voting for this. The only pro-remain arg was that things could get substantially worse.

oh good, we learned nothing from last week then.

People learn nothing. They are thick, misinformed oafs and only people up to zone 3 should get to vote on these matters.

Enjoy your brexit then, mate. Enjoy this country, it's what you've made it.

I dunno, I mean I watched what happened with Greece last autumn and spent the end of the year vaguely toying with the idea of voting Leave. One of Cameron's mistakes was to call the referendum at a time when the EU was the worst possible advert for itself. I came round the other way heavily when I realised that there was no 'could' about it, things definitely were going to get worse for almost everything I care about in the aftermath of a Leave victory, and so far I can see nothing that disproves that. And only a tiny proportion of Leave voters would have given even a passing thought to Greece or Hungary.

There's a lot of delusional stuff coming from Corbyn's team at the moment but the main one is that Trump's victory shows he can win here. I suppose it is theoretically an opportunity for the left but these moments are also an opportunity for the far right, and guess which one has the money, momentum, press and (increasingly) public support. If you could be guaranteed socialism in 20 years, would you accept 10 years of fascism in order to get there?

lol polls etc but:

almost half of the public (48%) believe the government is doing a bad job at handling Britain’s exit from the European Union, with 37% saying it is doing a good job. Again opinion is divided along familiar lines. Conservatives and older people are most positive (53% and 44% of over 55s respectively think the government is doing a good job) while younger and Labour voters are most critical (60% of 18-34s and 65% of Labour voters think it is doing a bad job).

Unfortunately it goes on to say that everyone still loves T. May and will vote Tory forever so blah. (Also how do even 37% of people think the current shambles is a good job)

I see Corbyn also called it a shambles in PMQs; still seems a good tack but not so great if Labour policy is "this route off a cliff is terrible but of course we don't wish to obstruct the Great British People's desire to go off a cliff so there must be no other route, no slowing down, finding a shallower cliff, putting tiny pixelated umbrellas up, etc"

I suppose it is theoretically an opportunity for the left but these moments are also an opportunity for the far right, and guess which one has the money, momentum, press and (increasingly) public support

A key point. Nothing in the last 18 months leads me to believe the Great British Public is moving leftwards.

You gonna leave Stevie? Which lib paradise are you off to? Canada? or NZ, heard they got rid of zero hour contracts over there.

Your nonsensical posturing is really such a traet, xyzzzz.

And I'm allowed to vote too!

stop it you two, ffs

Okay, whatevs.

This thread has the Dr Morbius it deserves.

Jul1o appointed Minister for Culture AND Chancellor

Man-free Cabinet or GTFO

this post examines the "will of the people" stuff in some detail: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/brexit-is-not-the-will-of-the-british-people/

...

However, in a close analysis, virtually all the polls show that the UK electorate wants to remain in the EU

Polls, how convincing!

well, as argued above, if the Brexit lot's arguments rest on simple majoritarianism, then it's worth understanding whether there really is a majority, simple or otherwise.

corbyn pressing "may's brexit shambles" angle hard today

her inevitable scripted insults in riposte were unspecific and, in the reading anyway, a little needier and defensive than i'd have imagined

More polls, more lols @ the GBP

The trouble with Corbyn trying to press the "shambles" line on anything is one of authority. The general public don't think the non-Blairite left have earned the right to judge on this score so it doesn't stick. I don't think it comes naturally to Corbyn himself, either – it feels like he's being fed the line. He's much more at home saying things are evil or unjust, and people take him more seriously when he's on that terrain.

But a lot of them don't care when he's on that terrain, fundamentally a lot of voters - especially swing voters - value competence over empathy. They'd prefer both (which is why May made that opening day speech), but the "shambolic" tag should stick. Or at least it would if Corbyn wasn't essentially shambolic himself, which is the whole problem. If he'd done this from day one he'd probably be in a better position despite the hostility from all angles.

Rutgers prof detained by NYPD and compelled to have psych evaluation based on political statements on campus & on social media. Thread:

https://twitter.com/kevinallred/status/798729156557205504

The shambles is going to stick bcz (a) true anyway and (b) being hammered from several directions, not just Corb: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-16/u-k-s-brexit-policy-chaos-is-unacceptable-italy-s-calenda-says

it's the governing party's duty to defend their governing innit tho? So even the shambolic Labour party shouldn't have authority issues when pointing out TM currently doesn't know wtf she is doing imo. I've not seen today's performance but I don't think any great political oratory skills are required to make some of the Brexit Shambles stick to May, so even Corbyn can do some damage at the moment. It sounds like the pressure is getting to her as well.

As I, now somewhat dimly tbh, recall, one of the few times Miliband was able to lay a glove on Cameron/ Osborne was the whole Budget omnishambles business, the pasty tax or whatever the fuck it was. They don't like it up 'em.

Isn't the problem here what's going to happen if she asks if he has a plan himself? The right is answer is "I'm not in government", but would he leave it there?

It worked for the Brexit campaign.

Downing St's tone in its responses to...everything lately has been fascinating, this "just GET ON with it" (both as in "we are going to" and "everyone else should") which is a bit like a tough-talking version of keep calm... rhetoric. Because it just indicates blind panic to me.

I agree with NV on democracy - I think a lot of the grasping at straws, both here and re: Clinton's greater popular vote, is unseemly, even if the actual outcome is something I want. Just accept that democracy has failed us this time.

Wary of polls about *anything* at the moment -- maybe ever again -- but if that Guardian result is accurate ("90% favour staying in single market and 70% want limits on EU immigration") then it really underlines the problem, for both parties and all factions and all tendencies (inc. Tendance Imago). Which is that a significant proportion of the electorate want something which is literally impossible (the "single market" means "no limits on internal EU migration", by definition and by the formally instituted rules of the community).

All parties factions and tendencies are looking to put together their respective coalitions from a parent population which is radically split. And not even spilt in the sense that a football match is split, into teams and supporters facing off against one another, but in the sense of many people being split, and unknowingly spilt, within their own heads: literally wanting an impossible combination of elements. (This very much includes the various different flavours of remainer btw…)

It doesn't actually much surprise me that the major parties have moved towards a more simplified stance. The shock event happened because the existing fault line wasn't taken seriously. So the parties are trying to shift so that the fault-line doesn't run right through the middle of them -- because it is (right now) the one salient issue, which it really wasn't this time last year. It also isn't terribly surprising that the major parties are both temporising like crazy, in the hope that things start to shift by themselves. May and Corbz are both super-cautious politicians, and Corbz also recognises more than most the value of patience. So he's gambling on a stubborn "Here I stand" to buoy his position up when everything else is swept away (I don't buy that he's happy with Art50 proceeding at full jolly pace: his entire career says otherwise, really).

Nor this issue is not going to stay salient the way it is now -- "Events, dear boy, events!" (Serried ranks of super-grim events… )

What the Corbz-machine* currently lacks is *anyone* who knows how to seize on and use urgency. I think this is a general problem: UKIP has collapsed into bickering uselessness in the moment of its apparent victory, and the Tories aren't far off from this. There are younger agitators who are quick on their feet -- some of them cut their teeth in the Occupy events a few years back -- but they're most of them also quite wary of the errors that earlier generations made in a similar situation (by e.g. foax like Dany Cohn-Bendit). Someone who knows how to seize on and use urgency will turn up, of course -- but it may not be anyone anyone wants. (My intution: iy won't be someone adopted and shaped and controlled by the established media, inc.tabloids as they currently exist. The Murdoch empire is not as immoveable or unchallengeable as it once was: he's old; he'll be 90 in 2020.)

*also the Corbz-machine is tiny (leadership office has distinctly less resources allocated than it did in the EdM era, and the opponents within the party are more relentlessly and openly mobilised, despite the many setbacks of the PLP being individually and collectively clueless). Momentum is of course much larger than any other faction, but not at all structured to operate as a party yet (and -- of course** -- itself internally divided).
**sigh

"Nor this issue is not going to stay salient the way it is now" s/b "Nor this issue going to stay salient the way it is now"

*cough* s/b "Nor is this issue going to stay salient the way it is now"

There was a tremor earlier at the idea that maybe maybe Merkel had said that the impossible was possible - as far as I can tell this is just throwing the UK the same bone she threw Cameron?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/16/is-angela-merkel-willing-to-compromise-on-free-movement-eu

Great last line too: (Also worth remembering is that Merkel rarely “signals” anything. She says it.)

Even if Merkel is compromising here -- which I don't think she in fact is -- it only takes one of the other 26 states involved to veto (see Italy's response further up). We spent a good three-quarters of our time *in* the EU throwing tantrums in order to get the rules specially bent in our direction: we are not going to get this bone except at the vast cost (of being boned), especially if we also insist on it in the shortest possible order. (Not to mention who our chief negotiators actually are currently…)

Well the specific bone isn't the one May wants, it's "you have to let them in but you can delay providing them benefits". Which, even if it was in her power to persuade the EU to re-proffer it (as you say, by no means guaranteed) - that was already part of the "Remain" package at the time of the referendum, so it would be hard to imagine that any of the animating engines of Leave would be particularly happy with it.

I dunno, I mean I watched what happened with Greece last autumn and spent the end of the year vaguely toying with the idea of voting Leave. One of Cameron's mistakes was to call the referendum at a time when the EU was the worst possible advert for itself. I came round the other way heavily when I realised that there was no 'could' about it, things definitely were going to get worse for almost everything I care about in the aftermath of a Leave victory, and so far I can see nothing that disproves that. And only a tiny proportion of Leave voters would have given even a passing thought to Greece or Hungary.

Greece = austerity, which is something we've all been living with for years and everyone must've thought about (The Greeks to an extreme I guess no one else went to). I also reached a similar conclusion that this was going towards a dark place. Since then you just look at the EU standing by while Ergodan does his worst, and the EU not offering any alternative to ongoing austerity (the UK and EU totally parallel on this) you think 'wtf is the EU for really?'. If Remain had won you could still have an economic collapse and the migrants thrown under a bus and I am not convinced the EU would've done anything about it, or offer any counter, or its leaders offer much.

Times we are living in. What last week has taught us, if anything, is the need to organise, resist, take care. This 'we need a 2nd referendum to save us from the thickos' is remain crybaby routine. Tedious.

*also the Corbz-machine is tiny (leadership office has distinctly less resources allocated than it did in the EdM era, and the opponents within the party are more relentlessly and openly mobilised, despite the many setbacks of the PLP being individually and collectively clueless). Momentum is of course much larger than any other faction, but not at all structured to operate as a party yet (and -- of course** -- itself internally divided).
**sigh

From what I've read its been a struggle to get a handle for Corbz and team to get hold of the party machine even after he was re-elected. The oppposition from the inside has lessened but not been eliminated. And Momentum is trying to organise in a modern rather hierarchical (old-left) way.

Quite a few setbacks, just need signs that this is temporary.

Austerity in the UK is if anything likely to get worse, not better, post-Brexit, especially as the economy goes southwards. TBH I don't think it's unfair to say that the public is/was too ill-informed, when you consider that the Leave campaign was entirely based on deliberately and systematically spreading misinformation. The public is badly informed about economics as well, which is why the Tories were able to maintain support for austerity even as it damaged the economy and many people's livelihoods. The question is how the left combats that in a way that actually resonates with people, and they are further away from that than ever right now.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/11/labour-has-checkmated-itself-brexit

This is a decent piece on the various legal permutations of what could happen:

Assume that Labour, with the help of the SNP and Liberal Democrats, succeeds in inserting into the Article 50 Bill its “Good Brexit” pre-conditions. How will Labour police their delivery?

To answer this question, we must wind the clock forward to just before March 2019, the moment the government returns to Parliament with a final deal negotiated with our EU partners.

If Labour’s Good Brexit preconditions are delivered, job done. But what about the – I would suggest more likely – situation where they are not? What then?

Logically there are only three possibilities.

First, Labour waves the deal through anyway, having failed to police its objectives.

Second, Labour blocks the deal. We would leave the EU without one. Again, Labour would have failed to deliver its objectives.

A third possibility would arise if Parliament retained a residual right to block the deal without leaving the EU. In demanding that right Parliament would, in effect, be saying: “Unless you the government do what Parliament demands, we will either reject the deal and Remain, or put the deal to the electorate in a Second Referendum.”
The first two don't achieve parliamentary control. Only the third does. And so long as Article 50 is legally revocable – which is likely but will need to be resolved elsewhere – it is a meaningful threat. Indeed, it is the only meaningful threat. Unless Parliament issues it, Labour demands for parliamentary control are mere sound and fury. They signify nothing.

But here’s the problem. McDonnell has explicitly ruled it out. “This means we must not try to re-fight the referendum or push for a second vote," he declared this week.

He’s checkmated himself. And that’s a pity. It’s a pity because it removes any opportunity for Labour to shape the terms upon which we leave the EU. And it’s a pity, because it’s just the wrong course.

Also Britain's austerity is being inflicted by our own elected government and not by the EU, there's little doubt in my mind that a lot of Leave voters are suffering under austerity but the fate of Greece is unlikely to have entered into the concerns of too many of them. A big part of the Leave appeal is basically "fuck people suffering in other countries, our concerns come first".

A third possibility would arise if Parliament retained a residual right to block the deal without leaving the EU. In demanding that right Parliament would, in effect, be saying: “Unless you the government do what Parliament demands, we will either reject the deal and Remain, or put the deal to the electorate in a Second Referendum.”

Surely Labour would be slaughtered if they tried this, though? Accused of trying to "frustrate the will of the British people" and so forth, and the debate would become all about Labour's contempt for democracy rather than the terms of whatever deal the Tories have reached. And what incentive do the EU have to agree to Article 50 being reversible once it is triggered and/or subject to another referendum? Wouldn't this would just create more uncertainty and confusion from their point of view?

If the deal was "put to the electorate in a Second Referendum", what happens if it's rejected? More negotiations with the EU and then *another* referendum? Is the hope that by then things may have dragged on for long enough and become sufficiently that we can avoid leaving the EU regardless?

xp to Matt

yeah sure up to a point but the poll we saw the other day about the numbers who want to end free movement and stay in the single market at the same time tells me that many, many people's reasons for voting (in either direction imo) were not particularly logical or rigorous

like that even needs saying over and over again every time there's a vote on something - "guess what? parliamentary democracy not only allows you to vote for stupid reasons, it encourages you and celebrates your freedom to be stupid"

I think they probably would be slaughtered if they tried that, unless the deal was so obviously terrible for Britain that public opinion was firmly against it. Which might happen considering the fuckwits that May has put in charge of securing it.

Like, Britain is leaving the EU, pretending otherwise is delusional thinking, but there's no consensus on the terms of leaving and Labour should be putting in a position where they can, if not shape them, then at least put enough pressure on the government to produce something that isn't a complete disaster.

I'm not even stoked for the madness tbh. A sorry state of affairs.

I don't really have a sense of what percentage of UK population support leaving the EU (as in, now that the referendum has happened). I mean, presumably more than 52% do, there's presumably a decent number of remainers who think "this is stupid but democracy is important", I'd have to think there are more of them than repentant leavers (though this feels like quite a policy-wonk-ish viewpoint, so it might be less common than I think?). Anyway I have no intuition for the numbers here - I could believe anything from 55% to about 90.

I think the checkmating here is that any "pressure" to block A50 is obvious bluff, for the reasons MDC and soref say. What is the point of threatening something you know you can't or won't deliver? (I ask this as the parent of two small boys - I know whereof I speak)

It feels like the Labour strategy might have been to bow to the Democratic Will Of The People by not coming out against Brexit but against, in due course, May's particular (inevitably terrible) Brexit package. Hence Corbyn's Brexit conditions from a few weeks ago and his constant hammering home that she has no plan.

The trouble with May refusing to tell her plan (bc it doesn't exist) is that it leaves Labour in a holding position where there's nothing to firmly come out against, while still having to pay lip service to the idea of not blocking Brexit bc democracy. Much as I would emotionally like to see an anti-Brexit position strongly articulated, Labour would be absolutely ripped apart by the press if they were to do this (obv the Lib Dems have nothing to lose on this so can say what they want).

I still wonder what May, Johnson etc think their leverage is. It's quite amusing to see literally everything they put to every other country being knocked back amid suppressed laughter. Imagine waking up every morning knowing your entire MO is to fight for a philosophical impossibility like free trade without free movement.