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

Oh god I forgot the Balls conspiracy

Balls will be on the lookout for a safe seat with strong connections to the ballroom dancing industry.

If Labour lose this by-election there's going to be a fucking meltdown.

So there's going to be a fucking meltdown then.

in retrospect, Labour agreeing not to stand in Richmond might have worked out well for them in short term at least, if it had meant that the Lib Dems would step aside for this by-election?

these are results from the last election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copeland_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

a situation where a significant number of people who voted Labour in 2015 but who also voted Remain in the referendum switch to the Lib Dems and allow the tories to take the seat seems feasible? I guess a lot depends on how well UKIP do, and if they take more votes from Lab or the Conservatives?

Copeland vote in the EU ref:

Remain 14,419
Leave: 23,528

I wonder what % of ppl who voted Labour in 2015 also voted Remain in 2016?

I wonder what % of ppl who voted Labour in 2015 also voted Remain in 2016?

65% apparently: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted/

a situation where a significant number of people who voted Labour in 2015 but who also voted Remain in the referendum switch to the Lib Dems and allow the tories to take the seat seems feasible? I guess a lot depends on how well UKIP do, and if they take more votes from Lab or the Conservatives?

I don't think UKIP will be taking votes from anyone, I think they'll be losing them to the Tories.

65% apparently

sorry, I meant specifically in Copeland. presumably lower than 65%, but still split enough to cause Labour problems if brexit is the defining issue of the by-election

I guess that in both the Witney and Richmond by-elections there was also a swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems, (obv a swing from Lab to the Lib Dems in Richmond as well, but that can possibly be attributed to tactical voting), so it could be that Remain voters in Copeland who voted for the tories in 2015 cld defect to the Lib Dems in this by-election, and that maybe tory voters are more willing to shift to the Lib Dems than Labour voters? (you'd think so, after 5 years of coalition government, but who knows)

UK ambassador to EU quits amid Brexit row

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/07/labour-must-introduce-fair-immigration-system

1) Pretty sure the referendum wasn't just about immigration.
2) Fuck you Guardian newspapers for giving these cunts the oxygen of publicity.

The party is at an existential fork in the road. It must have the courage to introduce a managed migration programme.

what's the other fork guys?

it's not so much Kinnock's racism as the desperate urgency he brings to it that really raises the eyebrows

But people are worried about more than pressures on jobs, wages and housing: they are anxious about culture, identity and the rate of change of communities.

Kinnock OTM this is not UKIP-lite. His sentiments are EXACTLY the same as theirs.

Many of the areas that voted Leave on 23 June have little or no EU immigration, so it is clear that concerns are not limited to the areas that have experienced large and rapid inward migration flows. it only takes a few nijabs and a high street sklep to expose british nationalist fragility on a hysterical scale.

They are nationwide, strongly held and generally immune to arguments based on abstract economic data.

Pretty adequate definition of bigotry there.

his analysis of "there are lots of white Brits who freak the fuck out at any visual marker of difference" doesn't really lead to a controlled immigration policy so much as it leads to forced assimilation and/or expulsion of non-whites.

I wish my neighbourhood had a high street sklep!

there's loads by my, i totally approve i just don't like most of the stuff they stock that much

someone doesn't like sugary fruit drinks

yes, i'm sailing straight for diabetes city

My mum's grandmother was Polish and owned diners, so I grew up on a few of Granny Lena's recipes: sauerkraut, gołabki, bigos and baked cheesecake (her version as made by my mum contained raisins and had a shortcrust base). All of these are great, especially this time of winter. In central London, there are very few outlets for Turkish or Polish food ;-((

Back to the matter at hand: Labour are a bit flummoxed because half of their voters want unfettered free movement (or at least the same privileges we enjoy now) and the other half are trying to blame the lack of quality jobs on immigrants.

I do wonder whether Corbyn's stock line about immigrants keeping the NHS going is counterproductive, when bursaries for nurses etc have been revoked and many underemployed young working class people would love to work in the NHS but can't afford training because of the new rules.

Back to the matter at hand: Labour are a bit flummoxed because half of their voters want unfettered free movement (or at least the same privileges we enjoy now) and the other half are trying to blame the lack of quality jobs on immigrants.

Labour voters who voted Remain = 63%
Labour voters who voted Leave = 37%

I for one took suzy's comment as a precise figure, and would be as outraged at her mendacity if it was 50.1-49.9

The leave/remain vote split in Labour isn't the same as the immigration controls split due to all the PLP appeasers. Wasn't that obvious?

I too am concerned about the rate of change in our communities

Sorry, rant.

My spouse is an immigrant (or will be if we are ever granted a spousal visa) and I've had to stop watching all TV / radio news & current events programmes as the lack of anyone willing to stand up for immigrants makes me completely despair. The worst is people like Stephen Kinnock with their "reasonable concerns" line of argument. People have harder lives due to austerity policies and the country generally being in decline, then the media tells them that this is due to immigration, so all they are really doing is saying "some people are blaming the thing they have been told to blame" - saying this is "genuine" means that this anti-immigrant feeling is actually representative of some vast underlying truth visible only to the masses and ignored by "the establishment." But anyone with a brain can see that the areas with more immigration are less anti-immigrant and that the hysteria comes from the establishment itself, the Conservative party and the majority of the media, surely Kinnock knows this. So what is he doing with this line? Just trying to position himself alongside public opinion in order to get into power and fuck the forrins? Just fuck him.

he's mostly doing that, he's also probably quite stupid, he may have a few niggling legitimate concerns in his own personal armoury. you've touched on the biggest issue here - this is not about "immigration", it's about whiteness and perceived deviations from whiteness. no racist is truly gonna be happy at a "just don't let any more in" policy.

Listening to peoples legitimate concerns hasn't helped so we have 2 listen 2 ppls illegitimate concerns now

only y/day I was thinking that Labour wasn't saying v much lately and it was frustrating; now I am wishing for some more days when they don't say anything

I find the idea of income thresholds particularly horrible for some reason, not only does it seem to disadvantage people with skilled but not well-paid vocations (e.g. nurses but also language teachers and other jobs which benefit from native speakers) but is this really a panacea to all the "foreigners are undercutting our proud native workers" talk, or will it just turn into "foreigners earn too much, look at them all earning more than I do" / added disenfranchised rage for those who earn under the threshold to count as "useful enough to import" in their own country?

also Camaraderie otm although re the establishment itself, the Conservative party and the majority of the media -- too bad the most anti-immigrant sections of the media have managed to paint themselves somehow as Not The Mainstream Media, Not The Establishment: anyone voting Brexit or hating immigrants is automatically Real England (even if billionaires, Londoners, sons of immigrants) and anyone else is the hated Metropolitan Elite, Enemies of the People, etc

RIP my local Polski sklep and its raspberry jaffa cakes, tho the one I really miss was the one I remember visiting with my mum in Swindon in the 80s, before imported prepackaged Polish food was available here; it was m/l someone's front room and you would bring your own bowl or thermos which they would ladle home-made bigos into

I find it curious that even after a friend and fellow politician has been murdered by one of the more unstable legitimate concern noggins out there, that Kinnock seems still so unquestionably invested and comfortable with this flimflam. But then again he is a Kinnock, and probably an even bigger cunt than his dad was.

I get that the Milibands and Hilary Benn have impossible examples to live up to in their fathers, but imagine being a Kinnock and still being so much worse than your dad.

Stephen Kinnock and Dan Hodges head-to-head for the title of ultimate Labour failson

I guess unsuccessful parliamentary candidate, Stronger In chairman and sometime cannabis smoker Will Staw should also be considered

sometime drug dealer, rather

n 1997 aged 17, he was caught trying to sell £10 of cannabis after a friend was paid £2,000 by the Daily Mirror to introduce him to an undercover reporter posing as an acquaintance.

No way is anyone worse than Jack "Rendition" Straw.

I worked for that undercover reporter once, on something else, she was horrible

I remember when that story broke and they couldn't say whose son it was, and my then-gf's mum being like, "You've got the internet, find out for us"

couldn't cut it as a drug dealer or an mp, maybe uncle Gordon will have a hedge fund manager position for him or something.

http://www.politico.eu/article/revealed-jeremy-corbyn-labour-plan-to-copy-donald-trump-playbook/

Unfortunately stage one of this appears to be "did you know the money from privatised railways all goes to foreigners?", which isn't quite what I was talking about upthread.

That was a Momentum video wasn't it? :-)

As I have said here before: whatever his flaws, I don't think Neil Kinnock is, historically, a very bad Labour figure. He came from the Labour left and his party's manifestos in 1987 and 1992 are arguably to the left of Corbyn's platform now (indeed they are very interesting reading). The Campbell diaries record Kinnock privately lambasting him and Blair for their tabloid politics.

Stephen Kinnock might be a bad Labour figure though.

Will Straw is indeed a poor case - failing at everything and blaming others.

Didn't Euan Blair get involved in something political?

The ridiculous thing about Stephen Kinnock is that his wife is the former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt - so his anti-immigrant bullshit is especially hypocritical.

More like par for the course.

is stephen kinnock's wife very wealthy and white

They met while studying at the College of Europe in Bruxelles, so could hardly be more globalist. She ran a quite anti-immigration government, btw, though it was still a huge improvement on the right. She kept the harsh measures they'd instituted in place, spoke all the time about how necessary it was, and about Danishness and legitimate concerns. But they didn't constantly change things up and create uncertainty, which was what happened before, and happens right now. It's slightly weird if he is copying his wife, though, as her government is widely seen as an enormous failure, and it was the first government not to be reelected since the seventies.

It's slightly weird if he is copying his wife, though, as her government is widely seen as an enormous failure

perhaps he should consider tempering her failed strategy with something more surefire e.g. blairism

He may not even believe this stuff, he's just following the focus group like a good party member.

It's slightly weird if he is copying his wife, though, as her government is widely seen as an enormous failure

His father is widely seen as an enormous failure so water off a duck's back.