the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

on friday march 29 next year we're gonna get annexed by russia while the remainder of the eu points at us and does the nelson laugh

god, the nation run by corrupt plutocrats with no regard for human rights, what a chilling vision of the future

What do people think - has Corbyn fucked it? Lots of shouting about his statement today, but then the Tories love a chance to talk tough on national security.

Stephen Bush was good on this today.

It's easy to see how voters will look at a big, scary nation in Russia, at an uncertain ally in the White House and a divided ally in the European Union, and decide that actually, it's all too worrying and the prudent thing is simply to step away from it all. Most of us aren't former double agents, after all. While Jeremy Corbyn is not quite a founding shareholder as far as scepticism of foreign policy adventures go he certainly got in early as far as buying stock went, and its electoral value may be some way short of its peak. And as far as Theresa May goes, the expectation that she will "look strong" as a result does hinge rather on some kind of victory emerging from the stand-off with Vladimir Putin, which seems fairly unlikely, to put it mildly. If the United Kingdom's austerity-stretched defences and threadbare alliances are left exposed - and don't rule out the possibility that the unity among Nato and the EU will not last very long - then again, there is a political benefit to Corbyn, too.

But equally, that the attack happened here in the United Kingdom may change things as far as public opinion goes. We don't know, absent a sustained set of polling, and thus far we don't have anything other than hunch.

Another potential complication comes via EuroIntelligence, which highlighted a Die Welt interview that has had little pick-up in the British press: according to former German defence official Hans Rühle, anyone who comes into direct contact with Novichok will die. If that turns out to be the case not only for the Skripals but for others caught in the attack, the public may decide that merely expelling 23 diplomats and a Royal boycott of the World Cup is rather thin gruel. Corbyn's portfolio could yet turn out to be insufficiently well-hedged if the public mood recovers some of its pre-Iraq appetite for intervention abroad.

That last paragraph seems particularly pertinent.

One of their major problems is that as far as the party grassroots go it feels as if the only dividing lines the sceptics have with the party leadership is that they like bombs, the single market and McDonalds restaurants, only one of which is particularly popular among Labour party activists. Their crisis looks set to continue no matter what.

Good zing here though.

lol wtf are we gonna do if the public decide the government's actions to date are 'thin gruel', declare war on russia?

a lot of people like McDonalds it's true

i don't remember that much appetite for intervention abroad pre-Iraq

pre-WWI maybe

not sure jingoists have ever been a majority, they're just loud. loud and purple in the face.

The government isn't going to do anything beyond expelling a few diplomats, this is entirely a gamble over whether bellicose sabre-rattling is going to be a vote-winner or, at the very least, whether it's going to lose Labour enough votes next time around.

They might decide to get tough on a few money laundering rings and maybe freeze a few assets but I'm really not sure that's a Pandora's box the government want to open.

i guess it's all useful cover for a government that has actually achieved the sum total of fuck-all since they were (kinda, sorta) re-elected

i don't think it'll make much difference since they already thru every bit of "Corbyn loves terrorism and hates us for our freedom" last time round, the kinda muttonheads that respond to that stuff have already decided against him

Plenty of PLP would get rid of Milne, given half a chance.

"Russia: go away, shut up, pay £30,000 for dinner with me" pic.twitter.com/Bl851QIhIN

— Leo Mikłasz (@leomiklasz) March 15, 2018

slamdunk.gif

maybe he's angling after 60K

I think Milne made a mistake in saying as much as he did, can't keep the old opinion writer down I suppose. The chances of the government actually being right (when it comes to who initiated the attack at least) are too high to say much beyond the bare minimum.

I bet risible Walter The Softy fool doing the tough guy act almost wees himself when he sees people walking down the street with umbrellas these days!

I thought the press didn’t usually name the spokesman who’d made a comment ?

Foreign policy is Corbyn's thing

this is news to me!

judging by the way sam coates summarised what milne said yesterday -- with quite a lot of strategic indirect speech to allow the words used the questioner to seem as if they were being said, or directly resisted, by the questionee -- i think this was a bit of a deliberate ambush… to actually force him to stumble into saying "it depends what you mean by responsible!" (which always looks shifty).

instead, milne leant very hard on the fact that may was at that time still distinguishing between "russians responsible = putin ordered it" and "russians responsible = stuff unfortunately stolen from their labs" -- and this i think is where the question of the reliability of the intelligence services arises (in terms of competence as much as malice), since what kind of long-term response the uk govt makes depends on which of these two meanings of responsibility they end up considering salient). for sure the uk security services can make this distinction, but (a) can we trust them to? and (b) more importantly, who in the rest of the world is going to trust them to? assuming we know what RT will say, what will the infowars line be and who will be being swayed by it?

the stupid thing is of course that this issue arises even more urgently for the govt, who badly need a fallback short of full-on casus belli -- but risk being bundled into more extreme confrontations than they actually want to set in train, just by the way the media is going after corbyn at the moment. better by far they have independent confirmation for what russia's role is (and indeed that the chemicals are what porton down say they are and come from where porton down say they do) -- it gives the govt time and space not to be backed into a corner i suspect they really don't want to be in

ambush = by newspaper reporters (possibly coates himself) on milne, if that's not clear

(and to be clear, the kind of ambush that's absolutely a political reporter's job, even if he's doing that job for murdoch) (and even on best interpretation, milne's highly lawyerly reply still of course looks shifty and is spinnable against him, though not as badly as other replies would have been)

No 10 releases joint statement from UK, US , Germany and France calling on Russia to explain itself and provide full details of Novichock programme to OPCW, chemical weapons watchdog

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) March 15, 2018

I have missed a lot of this political story. What has Milne said?

I do not understand how the UK can stand up to Russia in any military way. In that sense tough talk to Russia doesn't seem to mean much. It seems hollow and I suppose, as Mark S says, takes people to a place they don't really want to be.

I agree, though, with proposals to stop dirty Russian money, etc.

Well this is it - Labour would be the only ones who would be able to formulate policy that could 'hurt' Russian interests - they could freeze assets, seize Russian property from houses to businesses, they could pass policy to regulate contributions to political parties and press ownership. Stuff the Tories could never do.

#nationaliseChelseaFC

I just read this:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/03/jeremy-corbyns-russia-stance-has-reopened-labours-wounds

On this basis, the Labour attacks on JC and Milne are outrageous.

“I think obviously the government has access to information and intelligence on this matter which others don’t; however, also there’s a history in relation to WMD and intelligence which is problematic to put it mildly,” Milne told lobby journalists outside the House of Commons chamber.

“So I think the right approach is to seek the evidence; to follow international treaties, particularly in relation to prohibited chemical weapons, because this was a chemical weapons attack, carried out on British soil. There are procedures that need to be followed in relation to that.”

In response, Chuka Umunna tweeted: “Have read the comments of the Leader of the Opposition’s spokesperson. Mr Milne’s comments do not represent the views of the majority of our voters, members or MPs. We’ll get abuse for saying so but where British lives have been put at risk it is important to be clear about this.”

Another Labour MP, Anna Turley declared: “I’m afraid Seumas doesn’t speak for my Labour or British values.”

This is Brass Eye stuff.

British values, that's why I vote Labour.

please somebody Novichok these cunts

I am watching the 6pm news and walkabout Theresa May has just - I can’t believe I’m writing this - given a fist bump to a young woman on a rope line. *HURL*

must be new dlc

She's obviously been told, "You screwed up Grenfell, make sure you don't fuck up this opportunity."

Eat your words, Stormzy.

We really need a Salisbury rapper to come along and tear off a strip off her...

She's really in her element (milking) situations like this. Get wheeled out to a nice safe(!!) Tory place where she won't be greeted by mobs of Waspi Women/Disabilty/Grenfell/anti-Austerity activists baying for her blood. A nice chance to briefly exhibit a thin veneer of strength and stability.

I wouldn’t go that far, what you could hear of her conversational style was Maybot 101.

it's quite reassuring to hear that tbh!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYU3D_TXUAAZKnJ.jpg

when you think yr getting tankie putin but the real revolutionary threat lurks within

this makes it look like the Putin doll is subservient to henchman Corbz.

i like corbyn's double-down on this one

“Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption,” he said.

“However, that does not mean we should resign ourselves to a ‘new cold war’ of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyite intolerance of dissent.”

can't argue with any of that

the huge difference between the response to this and, say, Grenfell where there must be a proper investigation and the bottom of things must be reached, whereas here strong leadership apparently means acting on the basis of uncertainties but claiming absolute clarity

https://i.imgur.com/ZYynQnK.jpg

what do you think was the question?

Stephen Kinnock doesn't seem to realise everyone is still laughing at him.

The Russian *experts* on Today earlier: Misha "McMafia" Glenny and Hitchens, talk about scraping the barrel! Although Hitchens broadly agrees with Corbyn's approach. .

why does Stephen Kinnock hate our freedoms?

Maybe he should go on hunger strike again to drum up more support.

can't decide if a lot of MPs weren't allowed Action Mans as kids or if they were

Whatever happened to Hilary "Winston" Benn btw?