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

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

Didn't a puppet turkey run for the Irish presidential election in the 90s?

wow i genuinely didn't believe i could feel more patronizing contempt for Owen Smith, good effort

Mcaleese xp

That'd be Dustin the Turkey who was also Ireland's representative in the Eurovision Song Contest when they decided they didn't want to be good at it and qualify any more, aye?

xposts to Matt

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

The choice of Stoke candidate is just one piece of moronic self harm among many. But if Corbyn's stance on Brexit is also alienating the people who initially flocked to Labour because of him *and* he is simultaneously unable to prevent a crypto-fascist from winning what was formerly a safe Labour seat then people are in dreamland if they think this ends in anything other than complete disaster.

And yes I know that most of the problems are not of his own making, and that many of the alternatives are worse, but if "Corbyn" continues to be one of the main answers to the question "why don't you vote Labour" then this situation is just untenable. He means well on some issues but has completely fucked it on others, but he doesn't have enough of the answers either. And even if he did he isn't trusted to deliver them.

It's incredibly bad luck that Corbyn came along just in time for the defining political issue to be Brexit, not only because it would have boxed any Labour leader into a corner or that he was particularly unsuited to promoting the EU but because it threw a wrench into what was always going to be a long-term project of building up a grassroots social movement (and surely the momentum has been completely lost there now). Corbyn had the opportunity to tie the latter into the former by fighting for freedom of movement, EU nationals' rights, a soft Brexit that wouldn't hurt working people so much, and he fucked it.

in other words he's not just failed by the standards of centrist cunts who bang on about electability but he's failed by his own standards, the reasons the people disillusioned by Sensible Labour supported him in the first place.

I mean it's not as if there's a single member of the PLP who strikes me as a useful replacement though so have a leadership contest, don't have a leadership contest, whatever. Maybe people will have to get used to the idea that channels of resistance have to be extra-parliamentary now.

Corbyn and Momentum were a brief flicker in the pulse of what a lot of us assumed was already a dead party. it'd be nice if the initial energy and enthusiasm built up behind Corbyn can be channelled somewhere new and not left to slowly dissipate but I don't have much hope right now. engaging with our parliamentary democracy is probably the most discouraging thing that can happen to people who have some naïve desire to make this country a better place to live.

It's not really bad luck, it's part of the same thing - the collapse of a political consensus and the decline of the institutions that supported them. Corbyn was propelled to where he is a result of a political vacuum the Labour Party created for itself, and it's a real tragedy for the country that it didn't propel someone less inept at dealing with the situation. Now he's gone and created his own vacuum, his approach to Article 50 has been a complete failure on almost every level - strategic, tactical, political, economic and moral.

I doubt a straight up left-winger would get past the PLP next time round but I have enough faith in the wider membership rejecting a Legitimate Concerner. Just.

I have enough faith in the wider membership rejecting a Legitimate Concerner.

I definitely don't

The choice will probably be between a centre-right legit-concerner and a centre-left legit-concerner so it's likely to be moot. The boat has already sailed - the course for Brexit has been determined already and there seems very little Labour could have done to stop it or could do to reverse it.

xp if there's no straight up left-winger on the ballot next time around, then I guess the most likely choice would be between a "soft left" candidate spouting progressive-patriotism/Legitimate Concerns rhetoric (e.g. Lisa Nandy) and a Blairite, who might actually have a better stance on brexit and immigration (if it's Stella Creasy or David Lammy or someone)

or it could be someone who's bad on all the issues like Dan Jarvis or Stephen Kinnock

Think we'll have all four tbh.

The boat has already sailed - the course for Brexit has been determined already and there seems very little Labour could have done to stop it or could do to reverse it.

This is true but he's positioned Labour on the wrong side of the argument to make much political capital out of the inevitable fuckups. OTOH people have short memories so who knows.

Corbyn and Momentum were a brief flicker in the pulse of what a lot of us assumed was already a dead party. it'd be nice if the initial energy and enthusiasm built up behind Corbyn can be channelled somewhere new and not left to slowly dissipate but I don't have much hope right now. engaging with our parliamentary democracy is probably the most discouraging thing that can happen to people who have some naïve desire to make this country a better place to live.

this seems otm. I think it has really just highlighted how divided the left is, after this goes to shit lots of the momentum crowd &c. will leave the party and not come back. if anyone thinks there's any chance there will be a party/leader that the left could unite behind in sufficient numbers to come close to beating the tories in the forseeable future I'd love to see your working.

afaict the best hope the left have of retaining the Labour leadership after Corbyn departs is if what Progress have dubbed the "McDonnell amendment"* passes, lowering the % of the PLP a candidate would need to get backing from the on the ballot in a leadership election. for this to happen the left would need to get its people elected as delegates for Labour conference, would need to get more involved in local Labour party branches, which is part of why the current mood of fatalism amongst momentum types is worrying, I get the feeling that a lot of ppl have more or less given up?

http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2017/01/01/stop-the-mcdonnell-amendment/

*(dubbed the "McDonnell amendment" in an attempt to damage its chances, because they know McDonnell is a divisive figure, apparently)

if there are glimmers of a future I would see them in local community actions, creating projects and infrastructure as an alternative/replacement to what we've no longer got. whether that can be agglomerated into broader, more direct political action I dunno. I'm trying not to let February pessimism colour that picture.