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

how dare the leader of the opposition attack the government and our noble intelligence service. they are fucking hawks, when it suits.

The problem is exactly that the whole thing now is about whether or not anyones opinions of the opposition leader will change. That is not what the discussion should be about when a country is hit by a nerve gas attack. And yeah, that might be easier for me to say as a foreigner, but it's kinda mind-blowing watching this discussion from afar after an attack like this. I'm trying to imagine the same thing happening in Denmark, and Mette Frederiksen would be absolutely destroyed if she tried to do something like this.

I almost hope she will be destroyed by something like this someday. She's horrible, and I would love to have an opposition leader like Corbyn. I'm a massive fan, he is without a doubt the best Social Democratic politician in the world right now, and a massive inspiration everywhere. But it really underscores to me how badly the left needs a new foreign policy, because what he says is nonsensical.

if you want to see posturing, take a look at gavin williamson's risible performance yesterday.

You prefer the just keep your mouth shut we're at war approach. Except it's nothing to do with you in the first place.

clearly nothing about Corbyn's position is intended to show up the hypocrisy of a government that likes to drum up a bit of nationalist fervour and xenophobia but not at the expense of actually interfering with the money and business links enjoyed by its chums and supporters

and the "whole thing" is only about this to the extent that our news media chooses to make it so, which maybe tells you a little about where their priorities - and by extension, the Tory government's priorities - actually lie

It isn't Corbyn who is doing fistbumps for the cameras in a let's go do Argies fashion!

Every time May has a bid dip in the polls, she is just dying to call an emergency Cobra meeting - it's the only time she actually seems to have any authority.

How about Magnitsky-like sanctions and financial reform, perhaps suspending RT license. Basically what he says he would, without posturing about how stupid the government and the intelligence service is, and how peace loving we all are compared to them.

so your problem is not with what he's saying but how he's choosing to say it? wtf is going on itt

My problem is that the bullshit posturing half of what he is saying contradicts and undermines the reasonable half. How on earth is this so hard to understand?

Obviously nothing much going on news-wise in America. Or Denmark.

his job isn't to support foreign policy decisions of questionable motivation, his job is to call this government to account, how is that so hard to understand?

How on earth is this so hard to understand?

i'd venture that if a bunch of us itt aren't grasping what you're attempting to say then it's possible the problem doesn't lie with us

Hitting the tories on their sabre rattling is totally fair game - it's an embarassing, transparent ploy to gain some popularity with zero possibilities of actual follow-up. Corbyn has been very good at taking an explicit anti-Putin stance (more than I expected him to, actually) while still showing the conservatives up for this.

"his job isn't to support foreign policy decisions of questionable motivation"

with the likes of Chuka, Creasy and chums constantly voting with them they don't need any more help.

I has typed out a thing about the long history of security services colluding in and lying about various human rights abuses and atrocities - all well documented - but what’s the point? But yeah, totally operating in good faith and with context.

Daniel Rf otm

his job isn't to support foreign policy decisions of questionable motivation, his job is to call this government to account, how is that so hard to understand?

― as the crows around me grows (Noodle Vague), 16. marts 2018 13:11 (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Does anyone else actually believe this, because this is insane

I do believe that is a reasonable description of the minimum one would expect from the Leader Of The Opposition.

literally his job

fred the "conflict" corbyn is warning against drifting into isn't poison in a park - which you're right, has happened already - it's region-destabilizing interventions like iraq, afghanistan and libya.

Fred, what do you understand Corbyns role to be? To rubberstamp everything the government proposes?

the Defence Secretary is hardmanning it up in public, like a drunk guy outside the pub stripped to the waist screaming "come on then!" at Putin, which makes Corbyn's role as the guy trying to put an arm aroud Williamson and say "leave it, he's not worth it" a very important one

Don't they have His or Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition in Denmark?

Obviously the adversarial nature of British politics is stupid in many ways but can be useful too, on occasion.

adversarial politics is stupid but given that at least one side represents a bigger threat to the health and security of our own citizens than any amount of foreign nerve agents it's fairly understandable

LMAO is this real? Like many I do not watch Newsnight very often.

The backdrop to the BBC’s #Newsnight programme last night : it doesn’t take much to see this as right wing tabloid style smearing of the Leader of the Opposition - using image association. pic.twitter.com/1Xr5iacXFi

— Labour Left (@LabourLeft) March 16, 2018

i was literally just coming to post that, what the actual fuck

presumably in the interests of balance they later had a background of theresa may's head photoshopped onto slim pickens' body riding the nuke at the end of dr strangelove

lol

In the face of a nerve gas attack on Danish soil, I would expect the parliament to show unity and good faith towards each other. It's seriously crazy how little many people on here seems concerned about the circumstances of this attack. Of course, unity and good faith, that's only to a certain extent, we all saw how unity after 9/11 was exploited. But again, this isn't Iraq, whether or not this is Novichok is a fairly simple question, and if Corbyn doubts that he should come out and say it.

And one of the most serious jobs of the left is to seriously get more foreign policy ideas than that everything leads to 'region-destabilizing interventions'. Who are even thinking about that possibility? The only interventions in the region has been from Russia in Crimea and Ukraine, etc, what are our ideas to avoid more of those?

no war but class war son

It's seriously crazy how little many people on here seems concerned about the circumstances of this attack

government policy kills more people than this every week, we have eyes on the real issues

Who are even thinking about that possibility?

The leader of a party who led the country into a deeply unpopular war based on forged evidence and who are still (correctly) blamed for that fuck up every day.

Though ofc Corbyn was referring to a long list of British misadventures of which Iraq was just one example. But you knew that, right?

the BBC's domestic propaganda game has got so fucking crude, it always amazes me when their WS stations get so much international respect and are considered "impartial".

i listen to quite a bit of WS it's not that impartial tbh

should be called US WS at times! But SV was saying the other day that their Russian branch is very good.

it's impartial if you assume that the current socioeconomic organization of the West is the natural order of things

does any other country have a World Service? It seems like if it wasn't already there you'd take it as a very arrogant concept.

Hollywood, maaaaan

In the face of a nerve gas attack on Danish soil, I would expect the parliament to show unity and good faith towards each other.

Yeah, this is probably the context you're missing - no one here in the UK is actually taking this like it was a terrorist attack (of which you may recall we've had several recently), it's some cloak & dagger shit that needs to be deal with and that the tories are grandstanding about w/o offering solutions. No hug session needed.

Who are even thinking about that possibility?

Seriously, when the chips are down? No one. But a lot of folks are certainly pretending to in order to gain public approval, and calling that out is important.

does any other country have a World Service? It seems like if it wasn't already there you'd take it as a very arrogant concept.

Germany does, DW - it's in English. I'm sure France at least probably has an equivalent too.

Who is pretending that Britain should invade Russia?

also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c51qJ3Ad_4

tories aren't averse to assassinating our own citizens on foreign soil, why all the fuss when russia does it

xxxp We had one, from just after WW2 till 2005, 2006-ish. It was mostly meant as something to be able to inform Dutch ppl around the world. They axed it reasoning everyone was or could be online to find news in 2005, which is reasonable imo. I've fond nostalgic memories for listening to the footie scores on short wave while on holiday in Spain, when I was wee.

In the face of a nerve gas attack on Danish soil, I would expect the parliament to show unity and good faith towards each other.

How naive can you be?

Who is pretending that Britain should invade Russia?

Chris Bryant, lol.

But seriously this is totally the subtext behind how the tories and press are handling it and the fact that no one comes out and says it in quite those terms - because, again, it will never happen - doesn't make it any less dangerous and disgusting.

Just to go back up (please note that as you get older you don't learn anything):

He screwed up the response. Went too much on the attack against government cuts, his spokesman insinuated that the government might be lying. And he is vulnerable on this subject, because his own opinions are nonsense: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/15/salisbury-attack-conflict-britain-cold-war (note there's nothing about government cuts in there, he knows that was a screwup)

When did Corbyn go on against government cuts on this particular issue?

Seumas was correct that the government might be lying. There is a substantial record of this happening.