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

This is nice, on the march to communism folks: https://twitter.com/EdmundGriffiths/status/829437871480328193

If I was a Blairite pound shop Machiavelli I'd probably want Lewis in the race to split the left vote.

Obviously six identikit Blairites would all run at once ruining my brilliant plan at a stroke but hey.

Don't you keep eliminating the candidates with the least votes one by one until someone has got a majority? So it wouldn't matter if the vote was split?

I don't think Lewis's resignation has anything to do with the leadership. Pundits say that kind of thing because it's their genre.

He did not think it was right to vote for Brexit, without the amendments. Also, his constituency is anti-Brexit so he may have been pragmatic in voting for what would be popular there. In any case he had already promised that he would not vote for Brexit without the amendments. He has stood by his word and refused to vote for it. His resignation from shadow cabinet is presumably a direct result of that.

When I saw him spouting pro-Brexit stuff a week or two ago I was doubtful but I now think it may have been tactical.

I like him. I think he is one of the best MPs.

"one of the best MPs" is faint praise indeed

faint praise being exactly what Lewis deserves I guess

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/09/real-fight-starts-now-jeremy-corbyn-brexit-tweet

so good to see "what is the point of Jeremy Corbyn" developing separately but in parallel to "what is the point of the Labour Party"

The Guardian clearly building for a 3rd leadership challenge. Owen Jones and Clive Lewis really are two dumb dipshits

What have they said to give you that impression?

Oh good, no amendments (not even the one about the rights of EU citizens in the UK, or the one saying "maybe we shouldn't fuck up the Good Friday Agreement"). Thanks guys.

Thanks both Oxford MPs voting it through too. Guess Andrew Smith's seat is safe enough that it doesn't matter to him that 70% of his constituents voted Remain. Guess Nicola Blackwood didn't notice during her time as Chair of the Science & Technology Committee (despite being a home-schooled Christian music grad) and also representing a constituency where a significant % of voters work in research & higher education that science, research & higher ed are really dependent on EU funding, collaboration, students & workers.

Grr.

There seems to be a lot of naivety about what replacing Corbyn would mean. As much as journalists on the soft left would like to believe that his problems are his presentation, 'baggage', ways of working, etc, the tone of the coverage and framing of debate will remain more or less the same unless Lewis, Nandy, Starmer, etc, explicitly disavow any broadly leftist platform. The question is probably whether they would be any better placed to lead a mass movement capable of driving a socialist (or socialist lite) agenda in the face of that opposition.

Yes, I agree, the same vile media will attack almost any Labour leader, in a similar way -- it would be daft to think it would stop because JC stops. They would be attacking Yvette Cooper if she were Labour leader now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38917436

'I made it up yesterday.com'

Did he actually say it was "fake news"? Fucking hell, JC.

That's a legitimately contemptible move

The BBC interviewer introduced the phrase - JC was just going along with his terms.

More Aditya goodies
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/09/the-econocracy-review-joe-earle-cahal-moran-zach-ward-perkins

What got me about May's risposte was not the "labour u need a new leader lol" bit (Cameron did that, too), but trying to ride the zeitgeist via "alternative facts", which only became A Thing because the US administration she's so confident we should all be pals with introduced it with a straight face. Much more egregious than JC's fake news imo.

yeah that was a lame retort considering what had just been revealed, it must have been a toe curling moment even for the Tories.

this seems a little worrying

In unprecedented move, the Conservatives will grant a half-day debate to the Democratic Unionist Party just a week before elections to the devolved assembly in Stormont on 2 March, the New Statesman has learnt. No equivalent to the half-day debate, which will take up the entirety of the Thursday afternoon session, is being given to the other Irish parties, who will also be competitors in the elections.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/devolution/2017/02/conservatives-criticised-unprecedented-intervention-northern-irish

There's clearly some sort of horrible deal afoot here in return for their support last night.

this has being going on for some time as well: http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/10/14/news/ni-conservatives-disquiet-over-dup-love-in-to-be-raised-with-party-hq-736030/

"I fully understand the pragmatic political realities but I'm genuinely concerned that the nature of the DUP's political aspirations, and its views on social issues in particular, are not fully understood within Conservative Party headquarters."

lmao

Poor naive Tories, not understanding what the up stand for.

Obviously six identikit Blairites would all run at once ruining my brilliant plan at a stroke but hey.

They are 6 for a pound last time I checked on Bury market

Here's the "fake news" interview in full. Starts at about 5 mins in if you want to judge for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVNHaDmrLo

I don't like Corbyn but that's a very mild use of the term. He's pretty much just repeating what the interviewer said back to him.

Torygraph: Now Corbyn is copying Trump *chortle*

His media skills remain very low. It might have been an unassuming use of 'fake news' but in the context of him throwing the comment back at the beeb like a weak fish slap it just comes across as Tory-chortle fodder now. Like watching oliver hardy step into a seemingly shallow puddle only to disappear up to his neck.

Meanwhile you can always count on a Tory MP to fight for 'impartiality' over the need to condemn an actively criminal abusive President.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38923451

You're thinking of Dawn French xpost

To the qn from above Lewis' actions on this do nothing and to frame it as a concious act is pathetic. The numbers were not there to overturn anything, the Tories were disciplined in the end. That includes Anna Soubry - interviewed by OJ, who seemed to be the new Kenneth Clarke, the latest in the 'nice Tory' bollocks people indulge in now and then except that she voted to trigger A50. Its just embarrassing.

Corbyn has found it increasingly difficult to articulate his positions more widely although I read his tweet as a bigger fight than whether we are in the fucking EU. Anyone who knows what the EU is also knows they won't safeguard rights and conditions or anything. Freedom of movement is an economic need; thousands died last year at Europe's borders. The referendum result is sad, as is Corbyn inability to mount a position. Don't see why he should go because he isn't much of a Westminster operator, especially with the scum he has attempted to work with. Needless to say Labour couldn't afford to indulge in a 2nd leadership, and a 3rd? Well it won't end its woes. Although its hard to see what will.

I suspect he'll go voluntarily if Nuttall wins Stoke - not right away but not long after.

idk, the candidate Labour chose is a cunt. Not sure he should finally go because of that.

It's a John Barnes post Inverness Caley v. Celtic situation, like, OK, this is the end.

Lol! Barnesy seemed to think Celtic were a good little stepping stone for his meteoric rise to Real Madrid. I think Corbyn always knew he had hell on with this job!

I don't think Nuttall has a prayer tbh, I feel like he is a rank outsider whose chances are getting way too talked up.

I fucking hope so.

I've a fiver on The Incredible Flying Brick although that is a v insensitive name to Angela Eagle

"If you can't laugh, what can you do?" "Take up politics, perhaps?"

Fucking hell

"I arrived in Sleaford on Sunday 4th Dec, and quickly toured the public meeting places. As usual I was greeted with:
“great to see you, it wouldn’t be a real by-election if you weren’t here.”
Monday was fun, my old friend Nigel Farage held a public meeting in the local Legionnaires Club, I was there and ended up on stage when he stated that there was another party leader in attendance."

https://www.loonyparty.com/

Not just painfully unfunny, actually mates with Nigel Farage.

kerrazy guy! One of my local "eccentrics" is a sad old bigot as well, he used to have a bath fixed to the top of his car and would turn up in pubs wearing pyjamas and wellington boots. But basically a staid old nasty bigoted twat underneath all the wacky get-up.

They often are.

does any other country have comedy parties and candidates? (i don't mean protest candidates who use a comical gimmick, i think that's a reasonable honourable tradition plus i believe hangus was a two-term mayor of hartlepool and did quite a good job: i mean ftang ftang biscuit barrel garbage)

three-term in fact, blimey, good for him

Like Jon Ganrr you mean? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3n_Gnarr

Its Gnarr but I won't bother with the accent.

We had a singer-comedian called Jacob Haugaard, who campaigned for more wind on the bicycling lanes, rearming an old frigate, stuff like that. As every politician gets some sort of funding support post-election depending on the number of votes they get, he would always throw a massive party right after an election. But surprisingly, he got elected to parliament in 1994, after which he didn't really think it was that funny anymore. Now, there's a painting of him hanging in parliament, supposedly as a warning against populism :)

Also, Bebe Grillo in Italy. Though that's not funny.

tbh i find the mrloony party way more annoying than any of these guys -- who all seem to be borderline protest candidates, even if the protest takes the form of clowning (grillo's five star is a full-on populist protest party)

hangus by contrast ran to get publicity for hartlepool fc, which to be fair was his actual job as he was its professional mascot, got up as a monkey -- then when he won he put the monkeysuit away and got down to the serious business of being mayor