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

Patriotism? What for? The UK? England?

Let's try to define Britishness yet again and fail yet again.

Of course, as discussed upthread they've given up on Scotland, this is all about England and whatever weird brand of patriotism English people claim to have.

it's just a simple feeling that England is a better country than everywhere else in the world and foreigners are bitter jealous cheats trying to rip us off from everything we rightfully acquired through our guts, intelligence and humility

Still not sure if that's about England or the UK Greater England tho tbh.

oh it's England, obv we have a few lads in the wider islands who consider themselves English tho

football commentators with thick Ulster accents who refer to the England team as "we" etc

I have never cared much for Owen Jones at all, ever. I do feel bad that he has been afflicted with the same man-boy condition as Rees-Mogg, but fuck the whey faced little cunt tbh.

Why do people dislike Owen Jones?

I find him a bit irritating as a persona, but has he had any particularly bad ideas?

Owen Jones' twitter feed is full of people (including OJ) saying they won't go on a march because the SWP will be on it.

I would not want to go into the minefield of offering a defence of the SWP, about which people evidently have very strong feelings, but if you're on the political left and you avoid demos with an SWP presence, surely you will soon not be going to any demos. Which might be convenient.

Your second post partly answers the first for me

The SWP are pretty reprehensible, but so insignificant that refusing to be seen near them in public is only feeding the Judaean Popular Front mentality that hobbles the left in the UK

Suspect the idea is that if you say things like you won't go on a march because the SWP will be there, normal right wing people will respect you more

Leads to this thing of always talking about how you don't like the SWP, Hamas, Stalin, etc

imo plays into the idea that Stalin and Hamas are always just around the corner, ready to pounce as soon as any left idea or policy comes into play

N. Vague: I think I agree.

Even if you think the SWP are beyond the pale -- if you are trying to build an 'anti-Trump movement' or something as OJ seems personally to be trying to do, then to be making divisions within it when it's less than a week old, does not feel encouraging. It's curiously like the recent Momentum debacle (don't know the details), except OJ's movement is more centrist / liberal / mainstream I would think. He talks about how glad he is that Boris Johnson's sister is involved - perhaps he is keen to build bridges in that direction.

Cardamon: OJ might have good motives for his relation to the SWP - but more broadly, yes, I do think he wants to reach out to people to the Right of him.

The motive is that SWP excused a senior member's sexual misconduct and made his accuser's life a misery. Owen Jones is just doing the unprecedented thing of acting on women's complaints. A great many women do not see what gain there is to be had in letting a bunch of rape apologists march alongside them to denounce a known sexual predator.

i understand the background suzy and i understand why individuals might want to protest the SWP and refuse to engage with their members. it's hard to see how it would be possible to organize protests on the left that weren't attended by SWP members/apologists tho. and Jones hasn't taken this stance on the Labour party which as far as i'm aware has never taken steps to censure the likes of Simon Danczuk.

X-Post:

Yes. As I said, many people think the SWP are beyond the pale because of this. I am aware that a crime or crimes of that kind is the reason, though don't know lots of details. As I said, it is an issue that people who know about it take very seriously and is very sensitive.

However, I think in general it will be difficult for people to hold demos and only allow some people to join in.

^
so, similar to what N.V. just said. (Can't really comment on the Labour / SWP comparison)

Beyond that, my general point was -- I find OJ a bit irritating, but I am not really aware of any specific views of his that are bad.

you're right tho suzy, it's a mess, i don't have an honest solution and i agree the SWP's internal politics should be held up to the spotlight. maybe protest them too while people are marching?

SWP will always turn up for rallies and marches; they own their own presses, hence the poster glut. The issue as I understand it is that they are welcome to attend but it would be inappropriate for them to lead or act as a main sponsor of an event.

Fuck the SWP obviously, but that's always been the case. Don't exactly go on many marches these days but, when I do, I try to make sure I'm not caught in the middle of a crowd of arseholes waving Star of David = Swastika flags or whatever.

xp

i agree completely with that, but the shifty fuckers do hide behind a bunch of campaign groups and not all of those groups are simple fronts as i understand it

Yeah the issue isn't that the SWP will be attending the protest (they turn up to everything as has been noted), it's that they actually organised this one. Refusing to attend is not only an ideologically consistent statement it's also a laudable one.

and there are those who are ~diplomatically~ suggesting others on the left put this aside when it's events like this one where the swp have played only a small role. v disingenuous to act like they don't know the swp's remaining ten old men and a few dozen naive undergrads don't still try to monopolise every leftist movement they can get in any way involved with

Sweet

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-paul-nuttall-pelted-9768828

Hours later, Ukip mega-donor Arron Banks also appeared to have had Creme Eggs thrown at him - which he then ate.

as exemplary expressions of englishness goes it's not quite at the level of the queen mum standing up to nazi bombers during wwii but it's at least at the level of bobby charlton in 1966

scenes in parliament rn

Well, it all just kicked off. pic.twitter.com/wHYVJdlMja

— Ben (@Jamin2g) February 6, 2017

(tweet embeds c/d?)

omg stet YES C, VERY C!

gamechanger

Is there any way of turning the sound on if you play the clip in zing? I can't find one.

Mr Deputy Speaker seems like a total arse-hoyle, but I guess this isn't the point of this historic twitter embed:p

Is your ringer on silent? Switching it back on turned the sound on for me xp

Ah yes, that works. Weird that looking at the footage via twitter doesn't require the ringer to be on but looking at it embedded in zing does. Thanks wins (and Stet of course).

On the matter in hand, it's hard to tell who's in the wrong from that clip - the speaker is on about someone taking advantage of something...

lol salmond going HAM

(tweet embeds super-classic)

Loving tweet embeds but if we can linkify them for people with images off, in the way we do with Youtube embeds, that might be better. Not keen on having any kind of images onscreen at work.

As usual, the SNP providing the only effective opposition in the Commons.

agree w matt, it should work same as images/YT embeds

still, ace in any case!

That looked feisty and I was on the side of the SNP and against the Yorkshire geezer.

Hoyle's accent is conspicuously Lancastrian but this is maybe the kind of subtle difference that only a northerner would pick up

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/02/07/what-brexit-stance-can-keep-labour-together/

Fair article.

This:

--
By a solid majority of 61% to 33% its 2015 voters backed Remain at the referendum. However, the 33% of Labour-Leave voters are disproportionately the traditional working class Labour voters that the party is struggling to keep hold of. 70% of Labour Remainers are middle class, drawn mostly from the professional classes. Labour Leavers are 60% working class, mostly those working in routine occupations or surviving on benefits. Labour Remainers tend to be graduates, Labour leavers tend to have few or no qualifications.

If we break down these two Labour tribes by their current voting intention Labour's problem becomes even clearer. Amongst 2015 Labour voters who backed Remain, 60% have remained loyal to Labour and would vote for them tomorrow. When it comes to Leave voters who backed them in the last general election, only 45% would vote for the party now.
--

- shows in effect that the Labour Leave people are holding Labour to ransom by, as it were, threatening to go to UKIP, while Labour Remain people are loyal and therefore are not taken account of. We are treated as though we have 'nowhere else to go', as they used to say about Labour voters in another context.

It is not quite true that we have nowhere else to go, though, as lots could go Green or Lib Dem, never mind the nationalist parties. But this polling does not seem to show that as a likely big prospect.

(... actually the contrast drawn by the article and thence by me is perhaps too strong: 45 vs 60 % is not such a huge gap. Perhaps the bigger issue is that ONLY 60% of Labour Remain people would vote for Labour tomorrow.)

It also suggests that Labour have to vote against Article 50 if they don't get their amendments through. They need to frame it as enforcing a soft Brexit for the good of the country, but it's probably too late for that.

"here are our amendments. oh and we'll vote in favour regardless"

"ta"

The most likely outcome is probably Corbyn forcing it through (as he arguably has to) and then either stepping aside or getting challenged from 'the left' before the end of the year - allowing whoever comes in a measure of distance.

ATM there seems to be a lot of grouping people into "leavers" and "remainers" as if this is some kind of fixed identity which supersedes everything else.

We must draw the line at branding.

Temporary tattoos, maybe.