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

There's a picture of Diane Abbott out on the piss the night of the 1st, and video of her speaking earlier in the day on the 2nd.

But I came here just now to mention Corbyn's "choose to be gay, choose to be lesbian" gaffe.

Get rid of him. I hate him now

Meanwhile in Stoke the patriotic pissing contest hots up.
https://twitter.com/MalcCarter/status/827131239190634497

But I came here just now to mention Corbyn's "choose to be gay, choose to be lesbian" gaffe.

― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo), Thursday, 2 February 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Apparently is more games from the press: https://twitter.com/AllyFogg/status/827198603835772928

I love him. JC for President

Not suggesting it's any more than mis-speaking from Corbyn but you shouldn't be failing at language when you're the leader of the party. And I'm on his side.

Corbyn seems to have a good record on these issues so without seeing the video I am willing to cut him some slack.

Yvette Cooper has been full of shit so I am not willing to cut her slack on whatever it is she has to say on immigration today. Corbyn not being Yvette Cooper or Dan Jarvis is - amazingly enough - a viable argument for keeping him on. Not that I'd shed a tear if he doesn't last.

May fluffs lines like crazy in every speech she gives but as usual people just can't help but look the other way.

but you shouldn't be failing at language when you're the leader of the party

May, Cameron etc. do this all the time.

They already had the job. He wants the job.

p sure he doesn't actually even really want the job he currently has

Xyzzy and mark clearly otm god help us

it turns out that Will Straw almost became notable for a fifth thing (as well as being a drug dealer/posing for a photo with some blacked-up morris dancers/failing to be elected as a Labour MP/masterminding the Stronger In campaign):

But despite its popularity with a generation of young males, it appears not everyone was a fan of Eurotrash.

In fact, former home secretary Jack Straw was apparently so appalled when he walked in on his son watching the show that he secretly lobbied for it to be axed from the airwaves.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4186192/Jack-Straw-tried-Eurotrash-axed-Channel-4.html

Been enjoying David Allen Green's scathing comments on the White Paper. https://twitter.com/Law_and_policy

Labour: "Of course we will vote for Brexit whatever happens, but there should be a white paper to assure us that the Brexit we are all voting for anyway is good for hard-working British people."
Tories: "Hm. If we must. You vote yes first, then we'll arrange some sort of white paper."
Labour: "Yes yes, what could go wrong?"
(gives white paper task to the work experience kid with instructions to say nothing informative, scrape together some charts and who cares what they say cz surely nobody will check, editorialise a little if you like about how marvellous leaving will be because even though we already had sovereignty and will gain nothing and stand to lose a lot some people had ~the feels~)

Global Britain though.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/everything-know-brexit-white-paper-5-minutes-theresa-may-article-50-single-market-2017-2

i thought the idea that we'd have brexit in name only had kind of disappeared with the hardline rhetoric of recent weeks, but that seems to suggest otherwise.

tho if you're going to fudge on things, why the determination to leave the customs union?

I suspect the strategy, if one could be said to exist, is to be as vocally pro-Brexit as possible while working behind the scenes to ensure as little as possible actually changes. Which strikes me as a surefire way of ensuring you piss literally everyone off, including/especially the people you are supposed to be negotiating with.

I had assumed that was the strategy, but I assumed that more in the aftermath of the referendum. In recent weeks and months it seemed to me like they were going to actually cut all ties and consequences be hanged. I mean, that's why people have been talking about the dangers of a hard brexit, right? But if that article is true, and you're right, then they have successfully duped a lot of people. The entire media narrative has been about an actual hard brexit, not a postured one. Like that article is the first time I've seen the return of ideas like transitional agreements, or the notion of Brexit in name only.

I mean it'd be a lot less worrying if that was the case, apart from the risk of getting undercut by the right, I'm just not convinced it is.

Part of my problem with the Labour...strategy?...is that it's going to completely destroy them in Scotland. And, of course, that was already a problem after the independence referendum, but people have been working hard trying to reverse that, and this ruins that. Scottish labour can't claim to speak for working people in Scotland while labour votes against their wishes.

Of course, that may be a calculated risk - but the fact that Scots (and, indeed, others) are always the sacrifice is part of the SNPs case.

Doubt Scotland has crossed Corbyn's mind at all tbh, he seems completely oblivious to its existence.

Interesting, good even, to see Crabb dismissing the prospects of immigration reduction (crucially by pointing out both the unfeasibility and undesirability). Pile it on.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/03/brexiters-face-rude-awakening-on-immigration-warns-ex-minister

(xp) losing the one remaining seat in Scotland vs. potentially dozens in the Midlands and Northern England = no-brainer

I know! And that's why no one will vote labour in Scotland.

It's not the only reason in fairness.

I don't actually believe that calculation but everybody involved in politics seems to, so, hey ho.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/lisa-nandy-labour-should-be-a-party-of-patriotism-not-placards_uk_5895fdf6e4b0a1dcbd029a2a

this is totally Nandy positioning herself as a potential replacement for Corbyn if Labour loses the upcoming by-elections, right?

(I was also thinking that Owen Jones coming out and explicitly saying that he would "struggle" to vote for Corbyn in a leadership election might be another sign of a possible Clive Lewis leadership bid?)

this seems a pretty awkward attempt to consolidate "I am a liberal on immigration" with "people are right to blame immigration and immigrants for problems in their communities"

The Wigan MP, tipped by some as a future unity candidate who could succeed Corbyn, said that defending EU ‘freedom of movement’ was a good example of how out of touch Labour had become nationally.

“I am very liberal in my outlook around immigration….But I feel very, very angry - like many of my constituents - that the system of free movement has allowed us to ignore the skills and aspirations of young people in towns like mine.”

“If you look at opportunities for young people in towns like mine….it’s allowed a skilled and mobile population across Europe to gain advantage at the expense of the rest of us.

the fucking Labour party was formed in the teeth of accusations of lack of patriotism precisely because it was formed by people who believed in the rights of all human beings to economic and social justice. socialism is internationalist or it's nothing. Labour MPs risked public violence in protesting against the blind jingo-driven slaughter of World War I. stand up and take a bow Lisa Nandy, what a model of integrity you are.

Definitely some sort of Thermidorian Reaction being lined up if Nuttall wins Stoke.

Just watch yer jaw, Jezza.

“If you look at opportunities for young people in towns like mine….it’s allowed a skilled and mobile population across Europe to gain advantage at the expense of the rest of us.

Surely if the Europeans are 'skilled' then that is an 'advantage' that they have merited and should be able to use?

And if we have 'freedom of movement' then weren't the 'young people in towns like mine' also potentially just as 'mobile' as the other Europeans, ie: if they were 'skilled' enough then they could go and work in Poland or Zaragoza?

You wouldn't be earning very much if you went to Poland. Also you'd be living in Poland. Though, admittedly, if you come here from Poland you might be living in Greenock.

Poland was very cheap last time I was there. You wouldn't need to earn much.

Just read more of Nandy's interview. Dreadful.

--
“Most people’s view that I meet in Wigan is that we just need to get on with it and decide what comes next: ‘We had that debate so why are you still having it?’

“What matters to people in their everyday lives…we’ve moved quite far away from that in the last few years on the Left."
--

Well, quite a big fuss was made about Parliament needing to be able to debate Brexit and not just leave it to the executive. That's what the story of Gina Miller, the two court cases, the Mail attacks on 'enemies of the people' etc were about. That's why you're still having that debate.

She says 'on the Left' but no statement in her interview makes her sound like she is on the Left.

It's amazing how Labour MPs all default to same vague guff whichever end of the party they're ostensibly from. Maybe they're just shellshocked from being berated by frothing racists on a weekly basis, but there's always an issue of employment or housing or healthcare in there that is virtually never actually framed as such. Labour can't win on immigration, it can win by promising to improve the social housing stock, invest in healthcare, use a more activist state to create jobs - especially manual work. That's assuming that anyone believes them capable of delivering on that, which is admittedly a huge assumption.

Nandy's comments make me think: 'Local people' trying to get away from 'freedom of movement' and 'immigrants' seem to be saying 'we are not really as good at our jobs as those other people so we can only prosper by banning them from competing with us'.

Like if English football clubs were bad in European competition so they banned themselves from competing in Europe and thus stopped failing at it.

And if we have 'freedom of movement' then weren't the 'young people in towns like mine' also potentially just as 'mobile' as the other Europeans, ie: if they were 'skilled' enough then they could go and work in Poland or Zaragoza?

Didn't know Norman Tebbit posted on ILX

“If you look at opportunities for young people in towns like mine….it’s allowed a skilled and mobile population across Europe to gain advantage at the expense of the rest of us.

No attempt to give local young people any of those skills or mobility then? What a fucking tool.

Yes. Perhaps it is bad that people should have to go far looking for a job.

I think my point was: being 'mobile' is not an unfair advantage that continental workers have over Britons. Within the EU as it has been, we have had the same right to be 'mobile' as them. We can't blame 'them' if they are (no doubt with difficulty, effort, struggle etc) using this right and we are not.

You're on a very slippery slope when you start implying that the problem with the poor is that they're insufficiently driven.

There are fewer jobs in much of the rest of Europe than there are even here, that's kind of the whole issue.

Lots of jobs in the UK and Germany. It's the lack of range and the conditions (zero hours etc.) that need addressing here. Not sure 'opportunities' is supposed to mean now.

“If you look at opportunities for young people in towns like mine….it’s allowed a skilled and mobile population across Europe to gain advantage at the expense of the rest of us.

No attempt to give local young people any of those skills or mobility then? What a fucking tool.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Sunday, February 5, 2017 1:36 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair, she does also talk about that immediatley before that bit I quoted, but she's still coming at it from the angle that it's immigration that has allowed the govt to get away with failing to give opportunities to young people in Wigan, that immigration should be blamed rather than the tories

She highlighted the Government’s decision to axe the bursary for nursing degrees, a move that this week led to a sharp drop in the number of people applying for the course.

“There was a week in the EU referendum when there was a Labour politician who went onto the TV and said you are more likely to be treated by a migrant in the NHS than queuing behind one.

“And somebody said to me in Wigan: ‘Why should I be grateful that we can attract people to come here and work in hospitals, when you’ve just abolished the nursing bursary and I have not got a hope of getting a job in that hospital now? So thanks very much’.

“If you look at opportunities for young people in towns like mine….it’s allowed a skilled and mobile population across Europe to gain advantage at the expense of the rest of us.

Yes, I think these are good points.

I still think Nandy seems to be scapegoating foreigners who are probably just trying to get by.

there are a lot of things that make relocating to poland (and other parts of eastern europe, presumably) difficult, especially long term. I know a couple who have had to move back to the UK after working in poland for a few years because there was no way they could get a decent pension there doing what they were. I'm not sure how freedom of movement/brain drain has impacted the inequality across europe but it's certainly still a big problem

Nursing is a bit of a red herring. The number of training places is capped by the government and courses are heavily over subscribed. Candidates losing out on the opportunity to train are, by and large, are doing so to other, possibly more privileged, British and Irish young people. The crisis in numbers is less about a finite number of opportunities for people being trained than it is about retention. Two years of experience in the NHS translate to a much higher salary in the private sector, or in the Gulf or Australia. Hypothetically you could argue that if EU nurses were not available then the government would be forced to bump up the salaries of British nurses by 50% but I wouldn't bet on it.

Nandy presumably knows as well as anyone that opportunities come through training, investment in education, a diversified economy and a level playing field for kids of all backgrounds. When she starts articulating how she plans to deliver that, I'll welcome her jockeying for the leadership.

In the wide-ranging interview she also says:

“There is a real need for Labour to articulate emotions and values. And if we forget to do that then it finds only one outlet and that is the populist right or the radical left. And I think both of those things are a dead end for this country and for the world."