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

How can a man who is supposed to be a conviction politician be so sickeningly wishy-washy?

He has always had reservations about the EU and it's not completely implausible that the conviction about managed migration is genuine but it seems like a serious mistake given how much of his support is based on not pandering to the legit concerns crew. There is little point in an unpopular populist,

JFC update
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/09/migrants-should-be-told-when-to-put-rubbish-out-and-when-to-queue

But thought this was good
http://novaramedia.com/2017/01/08/how-the-guardian-changed-tack-on-corbyn-despite-its-readers

Was just posting that Guardian piece.

Eastern Europeans will queue for things even when they don't know what the queue is for, just in case, ffs. The idea that common decency is a British trait is both ludicrously xenophobic and rather oversells the British.

the idea that eastern europeans don't know how to queue is uh

say what you like about the man, at least he sticks to his guns of being 7/10 on the EU

“The insurgent has breathed extraordinary life into the Labour leadership race,” it read. “The party must harness the energy he has unleashed.”

I can recall a lot of that "harnessing energy" bullshit-speak at the time from Burnham, or was it the Graun first? I can't remember.

" a piece from Alistair Darling endorsing the ‘realist’ Liz Kendall for leader (rather unrealistically)"

lol! 2015 seems like such a distant country.

The migration line that Corbyn is pushing sounds like a capitulation to the fucking Kinnocks of this world. That goes against what Momentum say (Freedom of Movement is a must, no capitulation), and there will be a pretty clear reckoning soon enough - and Momentum themselves aren't much of anything rn so its a big test for them.

It will be interesting to see Diane Abbott's take on this.

I'm trying to imagine how I'd reacted in summer 2015 if you told me that all four of the then Labour leadership contenders would be on the record as not supporting freedom of movement 18 months later

we'll just take the six counties back while ye discuss the real issues there folks huh

The migration line that Corbyn is pushing sounds like a capitulation to the fucking Kinnocks of this world.

the stephen kinnocks of this world, your liz kendalls, your hilary benns

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/PA-20886269.jpg

Big Townsend fan.

What migration policy (with EU countries for instance) do you want Corbyn and Labour to propose?

FUCK'S SAKE CORBYN

https://twitter.com/steve_hawkes/status/818735712006766592

Sun Pol Ed there.

what's he done now :(

Seems to have preemptively partly rolled back on the capped migration speech he was supposedly going to give this afternoon aiui.

the speech that was too legitimate to be made

I thought that freedom of movement was something that came with the EU. As the PLP all seems to accept that the UK will leave the EU (Owen Smith was one of the last to resist this!), it doesn't seem surprising that they're now looking toward a different migration policy in relation to EU countries.

JC says he wants a 'managed' migration policy. Knowing JC as we do, I would imagine that his policy would seek maximum fairness especially towards people who are poor or vulnerable. I don't think that such people have much to fear from a JC government (which I am afraid will not come to pass), as against the current government.

People who might have something to fear from a JC government, judging from today's R4 interview, are the very rich, as JC says he wants a maximum income. I don't know what the figure would be but this could be the most controversial policy (as in eg: most vilified by tabloids and media Right) JC has proposed since 2015. One potential result that comes to mind: the billionaires leave the Premier League.

Freedom of movement isn't just about being part of the EU, it's about having access to the single market - which almost the entire PLP is still committed to. The idea that managed migration can be combined with single market access is, potentially, a fantasy. May seems to be moving towards clarifying that managed migration is more important than the single market, Labour needs to stake out a position on whether that is also true for them. The Kinnock line Corbyn seems to have potentially been referencing doesn't do much more than muddy the water on what might, in the end, come down to a straight yes / no.

It'll be interesting to see, if the UK does leave the single market, whether there will still be privileged access for European citizens over other (predominantly less white) countries and how that would be justified.

I'd expect a salary cap to mean executive pay being linked to a multiple of the average or lowest paid company salary, if a proposal was actually put forward, rather than a hard number.

That's a helpful clarification, for me, ShariVari, on both issues. I like the 'salary cap as multiple' policy as (in theory) people could still pay themselves a lot if they dragged everyone else up with them!

Farage / UKIP line pre-referendum was that we should leave the EU so we could give better access for eg people from India.

Xxp pinefox, yeah thats otm about JC. His big thing, the thing that makes him worthwhile despite all the risks and disadvantages, is that he won't lead by focus group, won't triangulate himself to death like a miliband, he'll do what's right, sure as kilimajaro rises like olympus above the serengeti. If he's seen to be vacillating now, it throws away his main, perhaps only political asset.

― Houston John (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, December 10, 2016 9:33 AM (one month ago)

I suspected this to be wrong at the time but I was kind of holding back until Corbyn did something that proved it.

He's dressing up broadly leftist or at least anti-establishment policies to appeal directly to racists. This is fascist-enabling bullshit that also, as a bonus, treats the working class as stupid.

The left has effectively now given up entirely on freedom of movement without a fight. The big chunk of the country that doesn't believe this bullshit is effectively unrepresented in British politics. As with last time, I don't think I could in any good conscience give my vote to a Labour party peddling this crap.

prominent MPs prepared to make an unequivocal pro-immigrant, pro-freedom of movement case:

Diane Abbott
Caroline Lucas
David Lammy

any more?

The migration issue may be very important but the media are leading with the salary cap issue -- which is being presented, from the little I've seen, as though it's a flat figure, rather than ShariVari's better suggestion.

BBC's Norman Smith excitedly / incredulously says JC's team had no idea he would say this and it is unprecedented for a Labour leader.

I think getting the 'top salary as multiple of lowest salary' idea into circulation would be basically a good thing.

I suspect it's likely that Corbyn really does believe all that unsubstantiated Lexit guff about immigration suppressing wages. Fast-forward five years to when Corbyn is gone and Brexit is widely seen as a disaster and what moral high-ground does Labour have? It becomes incredibly easy for an embattled May government to just retort "well you supported this at the time".

I suspect a salary cap is entirely unworkable and a worse option than proper progressive taxation in any case.

Maybe in 'the post-truth era' (or just in politics) it doesn't really matter what anyone 'really said at the time' especially if it's 5 long years earlier.

After all eg Cameron & Osborne weren't blamed for supporting the Labour policies that they later claimed had made austerity necessary. And things have only got more unhinged since then.

Maybe, but Brexit is a lot more prominent than the vague 'share in the proceeds of growth' line that the Etonians were trotting out ~ 10 years ago.

It may turn into one of those things, like the Iraq War, that just hangs over individual MPs for the rest of their careers.

I suspected this to be wrong at the time but I was kind of holding back until Corbyn did something that proved it.

Wait, am I wrong? Surely not. I was pointing out that Corbyn's main asset was being seen as a man of principle, who won't pander to bigotry, and if he throws that away, he's fucked. Sounds like he's thrown it away, and he's fucked.

If Brexit is _widely_ seen as a disaster (rather than seen as a disaster by you and me), does it follow in your scenario that the UK government will be under pressure to reapply to the EU?

Feels unlikely (but so have other things, to me).

's gonna be so ugly watching white leftist friends twist themselves into knots to defend the new racism

Salary cap is more like left populism.

Shame it doesn't matter...

If Brexit is _widely_ seen as a disaster (rather than seen as a disaster by you and me), does it follow in your scenario that the UK government will be under pressure to reapply to the EU?

I mean seen as a disaster by people who voted for it and are suffering under the ongoing economic decline/disappointed that the magical sunlit uplands haven't materialised. Those are the people who will dictate the future of the country's relationship with Europe (and immigrants, and the Labour Party). Labour needs proper clear blue water between themselves and the government on this issue, and they don't seem to have it.

Corbyn's entire approach to Brexit has been... well he's fucked it completely really.

there's space for a much more progressive redistribution of wealth via taxation but I'm not sure that those kind of policies aren't ultimately more ameliorative than structurally progressive

some form of stakeholding with teeth feels more like a modern leftist programme to me - if we can't seize control of the means of production and distribution we can at least aim to force them to submit to far more democratic/community-focused control - not all at once, maybe, but as a medium-term goal. businesses need to be compelled to meet the needs of the whole community, not just the profit-taking minority

prominent MPs prepared to make an unequivocal pro-immigrant, pro-freedom of movement case:

Diane Abbott
Caroline Lucas
David Lammy

any more?

― lex pretend, Tuesday, January 10, 2017 10:46 AM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk if she counts as "prominent", but this article Chi Onwurah wrote back in October was good

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/06/labour-freedom-movement-eenophobia-working-class-values

I don't know if she's made any more interventions on this issue over the last few months.

I'm curious to what Abbott would do if the Labour leadership did clearly come out against FoM, but it looks like the fudge is going to continue with Corbyn doing interviews where he plays down what is being briefed, I guess she will also continue making the case for Fom and immigration and there will be confusion over exactly what Labour's position is?

When is Corbyn making the speech? Maybe still time to change its contents entirely, talk about bringing back wooden toys.

An Owen Jones of England writes Name your demographic group: 18- to 25-year-olds, black and minority ethnic Britons, Londoners, Scots – all decisively report a desire to reduce immigration.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/10/jeremy-corbyn-nhs-labour-immigration

on anti-immigration views among BME voters

https://twitter.com/judeinlondon/status/746625153858142208

so disheartened by these useless fucks

might have known that little whey-faced shit Jones would be a legitimate concernist when push comes to shove. I'm finding Corbyn + McDonnell's latest compromises to populist dross harder to take. I'm seriously thinking of getting shut of my membership, I didn't join for some kind of neo-Blairism with slight leftist concessions.

on anti-immigration views among BME voters

https://twitter.com/judeinlondon/status/746625153858142208

― lex pretend, Tuesday, January 10, 2017 1:32 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this runnymede report on BME attitudes to immigration (from Dec 2015) is interesting, seems to broadly concur with the above analysis:

http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/Race%20and%20Immigration%20Report%20v2.pdf

Third is that there are indeed concerns about the benefits system, and many Black and minority ethnic people do refer to pressures on public services. Here there is perhaps more variation among different BME groups who are after all becoming much more diverse than they were even a decade ago. Many BME people too are concerned about the ‘fairness’ of the welfare system, although some also interpret this to mean that it is often unfair that they have to consistently ‘prove’ they are (equally) British or that their children have equal entitlement to public services and benefits.

Another more general way to put this is that while BME people may often appear to hold similar opinions and attitudes on immigration to those of the white British majority, their experiences often mean that their reasons for holding those opinions differ. So, for example, there are concerns about the fairness of benefits for new migrants, but this is often framed by older migrants in terms of the unfairness of newer European migrants getting access to benefits that older Caribbean, African or Asian migrants didn’t receive. There needs to be a much clearer positive affirmation that naturalised British citizens are equal to British-born citizens, not just in terms of rights but in terms of contributing to a national identity and to public debate, and interms of access to benefits as well.

those Congolesa Rice tweets are excellent

so good, that is the first person I have followed on twitter now. I'm getting there very slowly.

I think i've probably mentioned in the past that an "Australia-style points-based system of immigration" has been sold as a tough crackdown to white Brits but sounds pretty good to settled migrants in the UK whose family and friends overseas are being forced to migrate to Australia rather than the UK, for study or work, by a British immigration system that is perceived as being massively stacked against them in a way Australia's isn't. Trusting racist politicians to bring in more equitable rules for non-white migrants under any circumstances is obvs very naive though.

Guardian main story: Corbyn backs maximum wage.

Comments below are hidden till clicked on, except the top GUARDIAN PICK which they've highlighted.

It says:

"Corbyn in a nutshell. Everytime you think he's exhausted the bounds of ridiculousness he exceeds himself in turning a real and pressing issue into a farce."

In fact almost every commenter below the article savagely attacks the idea.

The Guardian Pick comment in full:

"Corbyn in a nutshell. Everytime you think he's exhausted the bounds of ridiculousness he exceeds himself in turning a real and pressing issue into a farce.

We can all agree the market fails in the ludicrous rewards it provides for some jobs, while others struggle. That's why you advocate a progressive tax system - by all means argue for greater taxes on wealth, income, inheritance, property, windows, stupid cocktails, red trousers, whatever. But it's economics GCSE that maximum wages don't work - set it extremely high and it's completely pointless, set it at a level it would actually have an effect and you run into all sorts of problems about incentives, departure, competition.

For God's sake. Enough. Get us a proper left-wing party back, not this ludicrous farce."

I don't know whether JC's policy idea is good or not but I find it somewhat unfortunate that the G has picked out just one comment and it is this highly polemical one.

I did Economics GCE, we possibly decided having everyone on the same wage was a dis-incentive but a maximum wage?no.

not sure why suggest something abstract like a maximum wage when you could just propose taxes that have the same effect, and would seem to frame the matter in a way that has a lot more public appeal.

conventional wisdom is that you must never mention taxes I guess