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

Sadly there seems to be virtually no chance of Labour coming to a unified line on immigration anything ever

fixed.

I just read that Independent link and why does Northern Ireland not get a say?

well the scottish and welsh governments lodged applications to intervene in the case. not sure the nordies did, especially because half of the power sharing executive are unionists

trying not to be too parochially petty but i would absolutely love it if the scottish government was given a veto over article 50 and prevented brexit

i mean i would love it mainly because im into being an eu citizen and the economy of the place my retired parents live not going tits up but i would also enjoy the schaudenfraude of subverting the democratic will of the english and welsh

It's more likely that Sturgeon would use it as a bargaining chip in any independence talks. If Scotland does indeed get a veto it might come down to a straight choice between Brexit and Scottish independence, I can see a lot of British nationalists fucking fuming at the very idea.

Meanwhile...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper

I just read that Independent link and why does Northern Ireland not get a say?

Belfast High Court rejected a N Irish challenge to Brexit - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37796836 - but it's going to the UK Supreme Court and in light of recent decisions that must stand a good chance of being overturned?

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

this was the plan all along tho as any fule (except bojo??) kno

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/20/john-mcdonnell-hilary-benn-deselection-leeds-central-labour-party

what a shame for the bairn

http://i.imgur.com/UZC6joC.jpg

austerity is back hashtag baby

Taxing the employment benefits of middle income earners doesn't seem like the kind of thing tory voters will like. If they still have a 14 point lead after doing that I will either despair or take some comfort that the polls must be all bullshit, again.

Cyber physical systems.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/21/sir-richard-branson-funding-new-campaign-group-fighting-brexit

alan miliburn

Chuka Umunna and Bob Geldof /siren gif

branson is like the anti-trump lol

not that i fully endorse him

lol

@realDonaldTrump
Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

We're all going to hell.

We're all going to hell! (corrected)

the guardian article I posted has now omitted the second i they'd added throughout that turned "milburn" into "miliburn"

didn't farage already say he didn't want that job (as if anyone would give it to him)

'I do not want what I can not have'

farage is the most influential british politician of the 21st century, he's not going to be satisfied with a mere ambassadorship

if only there was some kind of cadre of professional diplomats available to the nation that meant we didn't have to rely on the likes of Nigel

I would like to believe though that there's some sector of his support that would see him as tarnished by hanging around with Trump - the fault lines don't line up exactly.

Which would be useful if UKIP ever felt the need (by which I mean opportunity) to return as a political force - at the moment their ghost is doing most of their work for them.

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/800997290915807232

a few of my in-laws are ukip-supporting leave voters and they've been uncharacteristically muted on social media about nigel's recent adventures - maybe i should politely ask them for their thoguhts over xmas dinner

Maybe it would've been best if Farage had actually won the RIGGED South Thanet seat - wouldn't be hearing about him quite so much.

http://i.imgur.com/2zU7ya5.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-must-stop-being-obsessed-with-diversity-says-stephen-kinnock_uk_58342344e4b09025ba335e02?4ajlwhfr&

Kinnock sounding pretty ukippy here - weird that he's literally, explicitly saying what Bernie Sanders was being attacked for supposedly saying yesterday (but didn't really afaict)

I mean

“What we need to see in the progressive Left in the country is an end to this identity politics. We need to be talking far more about commonality rather than what differentiates from each other - let’s talk about what unites us.

“Every group is actually struggling with the same problems of social mobility, the same problems of disempowerment, the same problems of feeling that they are being left behind. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or what your background is. What matters is that you’re poor and you’re disadvantaged and we’ve got to be there to help and engage with every single one of you - not just those who seem to have been taken priority over others.”

Technotwat.

Labour Must Stop ‘Obsessing’ About Diversity, Says White, Middle Class, Cis-Het Oxbridge Graduate

Here's an idea, they could pledge to actually do something that would unambiguously benefit millions of working class people or... they could keep trying to sound more racist. Which is the biggest vote-winner?

The Labour MP said the party needed to stop practicing “identity politics” and “understand the role of the state is to manage immigration”.

His Remain campaigning must've been interesting.

“We’ve been obsessing about diversity,” he added.

“The huge mistake we’ve made, we have played the game of identity politics and identified groups, whether it is by ethnicity or sexuality or whatever you might want to call it, rather than say, ‘we stand up for everyone in this country and that includes you, the white working class’.”

I thought the problem was they spent so long obsessing over Tory voters that the white working class (possibly rightly) thought they didn't give a shit about them?

remember when the Labour party was founded to stand up for everyone in this country? i miss those days

Some truths that need to start getting self-evident:

1. What's left of the working class and the trade union movement can't support alone the weight of a party popular enough to hold workable power. If it ever could.
2. Labour has always been a collab between working class and middle class members/voters, because of 1.
3. If the Labour Party has any point at all it's to increase economic equality and to attempt to make the machinery of Capitalism work for the good of all citizens, by whatever means seem most effective.
4. YOU HAVE TO SELL THAT TO ENOUGH PEOPLE HONESTLY - Not sneak piddling redistributions of wealth through by stealth
5. A decent system of PR wd be an improvement on First Past the Post but only if the Party itself can stop centralizing power and restore proper democracy to the regions

― Westwood Ho (Noodle Vague), Monday, June 8, 2009 11:57 AM (seven years ago)

nothing if not consistent

i guess the only thing i think differently now is that it's not so much working + middle class as that swathes of people who consider themselves middle class are basically proles irl and should be appealed to with the same offer as the working class and the below working class. don't actually call them proles tho because some of them get really funny about it.

For real that was a great post (which is the reason I found it so quickly), I still quote it nearly word for word if I need to resort to that argument in the pub.

Point 5 still stands as well, any even vaguely centre-left party that doesn't put electoral reform at the heart of its policy agenda is basically dead in the water. Then again most of Europe is just as fucked as we are so maybe it's just a more novel way of letting the fascists in.

Has Brexit actually helped working people? Bear with me:

- Brexit slump does not materialize
- However, it is still anticipated on the horizon
- Therefore, Chancellor announces (x) of new spending, reversing years of Tory austerity (he says 187b but I don't believe that's all actually new)
- New spending creates jobs and demand in the conomy

Without Brexit, and the fears over its economic impact, would that new spending have been announced? We would still have Osbornomics and the race to surplus, right? Just playing devil's advocate here.

We would still have Osborne. And Cameron. In celebratory mood.

True.

I mean, things would arguably be much much worse - that's what I'm saying.

Virtually nothing I saw yesterday suggested that Hammond is interested in reversing austerity, certainly not in reversing welfare cuts. He just hasn't doubled down like Osborne would have. There might be some new infrastructure projects, but Osborne was a late convert to that form of stimulus anyway.

We'd still have Cameron and Osborne merrily slashing away at the welfare state, but on the other hand we wouldn't have a gigantic clusterfuck with no obvious solution that is putting off most new investment in the country. It would be shit either way (especially for the unemployed and those on low incomes) but the pedal towards blue-collar Toryism after the last election suggested that they were aiming for a particular voter group anyway, and that's the group that might benefit under your optimistic scenario.

The whole point of yesterday's speech was to show how dire the public finances are about to get, potentially laying the ground for even more austerity but mostly in order to start chipping away at support for leaving the Single Market. None of which comes over in today's particularly detached-from-reality Mail front page (which also neglects to mention the murder of an elected representative by a Nazi terrorist).

... in fact it can't find space for it until PAGE FUCKING THIRTY