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

I for one welcome new Lib Dem leader Tommy Robinson etcetc

Tom D otm

by 'crank-tolerant' I guess I mean ppl who nod along to Skwarkbox and the Canary and generally think that Ken Livingstone and George Galloway are good guys who have been unfairly demonized by the Corbyn-hating media?

I for one welcome new Lib Dem leader Boaty McShitface!

(xp) that's the very fellows.

Now is that Corbyn or isn't?

... it?

Chris Williamson sort of personifies that archetype of so-called Left twitter that soref is describing, they are a fucking embarrassment.

jesus most of the serious leftists that i know irl are some version of *those guys* ;_;

. ITV’s Robert Peston has written an interesting post on his Facebook page about Brexit. Picking up on the FT story (see 11.44am), he says Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is now backing a “blind Brexit”. Here’s an extract.

My understanding is that one of the Brexit campaign’s two big beasts, the environment secretary Michael Gove, has arrived at the perhaps startling view that the least worst option now is what some are styling “a blind Brexit”.

This would be to recognise that parliament is too divided and too much time has already been wasted for a detailed plan for our future relationship with the EU to be negotiated and agreed in time for the summits in October or December.

Instead the withdrawal agreement - which formalises a default plan to keep open the Northern Ireland border and around £40bn of divorce payments by the UK - would be ratified by EU leaders, together with the highest level guiding principles for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

In other words, we would leave the EU not having a clue whether Brexit would ultimately involve membership of the single market like Norway, or the customs union like Turkey, or associate status like Ukraine or having a Canadian style free trade agreement.

To repeat, Brexit on 29 March 2019 would be blind.

exclusive interview with michael gove on his plans for 'blind brexit':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhEs9KUQ4qo

i would be surprised if corbyn parks his bike behind a particular faction, his entire MO (on the far left back to the 80s, and as leader) has always been manoeuvring to create or nurture a space which allows the split (whichever split it happens to be) to be avoided rather than exacerbated -- and indeed to maintain links with as many factions as possible after the split if it comes

so i don't think he'll publicly take a side -- we'll see, i guess

xxp that seems to be basically what Stephen Bush was yesterday predicting as the most likely scenario for March 2019 in this piece?:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/08/can-government-avoid-crashing-out-european-union-without-deal

Ultimately the only way that the government can avoid a massive row over the final relationship with the European Union in this parliament, which cannot agree on the final relationship, is to simply avoid discussing the final relationship in any detail this side of the 2022 election by having a cursory bit of language in the Withdrawal Agreement of the “there will be a trade deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union” variety and for transition to roll over until such a time as one of the major political parties wins a big enough parliamentary majority to overcome its own internal divisions or the conditions of coalition partners to decisively resolve the matter of the UK-EU relationship.

Otherwise known as “sometime never”.

So that’s what we pay these fucksticks for to say that hey have no ducking idea and throw the future of millions on a dice roll.

Peter Wilby wrote something a few month back predicting that in 10 years time UK politics would still be dominated by people arguing about whether we had in fact left the EU or not, which seems horribly plausible

i would be surprised if corbyn parks his bike behind a particular faction, his entire MO (on the far left back to the 80s, and as leader) has always been manoeuvring to create or nurture a space which allows the split (whichever split it happens to be) to be avoided rather than exacerbated -- and indeed to maintain links with as many factions as possible after the split if it comes

so i don't think he'll publicly take a side -- we'll see, i guess

I think there's maybe a point where 'not taking a side' effectively becomes joining the crank-tolerant side though, if we're not there already

Now is that Corbyn or isn't?

― Father Ted in Forkhandles (Tom D.), Thursday, 2 August 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Its not that simple in the sense that Corbyn has taken along this strand and then engaged a lot of younger people. So Corbyn must go isn't any kind of answer.

To the ppl that are saying go yes please and now - what is the replacement? Will it keep the things we like about Corbyn in the agenda and then reduce the old (effectively) Trot stuff. And no the answer isn't some sort of Caroline Lucas/Ocasio-Cortez being Labour leader dreck that yer LJs of this world are going on about.

What Corbyn has done -- and what mark s sorta hinted at in one of his posts above -- is to appear nice and affable but also staying under the radar in these periods of attack. All I've seen from Corbyn is a statement for one event. Note the young Novara crowd are going "Corbyn must say cranks are not going to be tolerated blah blah" and he he has rightly said nothing to that. Any left Labour leader will find themselves and this project under severe attack and it needs someone of just this kind of temperament to lead it - so whatever his faults..xps

This period of attack is going to be ceaseless though

"get the cranks out of politics" = "get the salt out of the sea"

xxp I don't think that soft-peddling the crank-condemnation has worked as a strategy though, otherwise we wouldn't be in the position we're in now? There are for sure a lot of ppl that will continue to attack Corbyn as beyond the pale no matter how much condemning he does, I think the ppl backing Willsman are correct to say it's naive to think that (e.g.) the Times op-ed pages are going to be "ah, fair play" and leave it there if Corbyn came out against him and similar cranks, but that's not the point, it's necessary for Corbyn to do anyway.

Also, concern about anti-semitism goes beyond the ppl who are incurable enemies of Corbyn and the left, I think there's a significant constituency that would support him/the left in some scenarios but could be permanently alienated if they don't get a grip on this stuff

This period of attack is going to be ceaseless though

this will be true whoever is leader

the corbyn wing does have to be thinking right now properly and clearly abt who comes next tho, even if they're not talking about it yet -- one of the weird failures of the blair makeover of the party was that it had *so* little forethought abt its successor cadres

I've been mildly amused by "this period of attack". Most people are off on holiday.

Imagine someone, somewhere is running a poll to see the effect on this on Labour's ratings. xps

Also, concern about anti-semitism goes beyond the ppl who are incurable enemies of Corbyn and the left, I think there's a significant constituency that would support him/the left in some scenarios but could be permanently alienated if they don't get a grip on this stuff

I seriously think you are overstating this in terms of electoral outcome. Labour lost some council seats in *checks notes* Barnet. Was that it?

Like I said a lot of this is due the fact that ppl don't care about racism - which is true because we turn away from Islamophobia all the time.

Well, I hope you're right

Not so much about the racism bit

" Most people are off on holiday."

lol. You must be joking! Although listening to BBC reportage on Labour Antisemitism on the DAB whilst out in the local greenbelt has always seemed better than Tolcarne beach to me!

A rabbi stood for the Tories in Kersal (in Salford), which has a large Jewish population, and won it from Labour in the May elections. There have been Jewish graves vandalised in at least a couple of different cemeteries round Manchester recently, it's grim

I don't think that anti-semitism allegation have a big direct effect on electoral outcome, I agree that most of the electorate just doesn't care all that much, but I think it can indirectly damage electability by losing the support of ppl in politics/media/etc ("influencers" I guess?)

has the corbyn project ever had the support of ppl in media tho? i think on the whole not -- even OJ wobbled! i think part of its gamble -- and part of its effectiveness -- has been to end-run the very controlling blair-cameron approach, on the not-unconvincing grounds that much of what we're seeing in the unravelment of politics as we had grown used to it is ppl reacting against that kind of control

Also if people are coming into politics these days do you think the Labour party will serve them by being more bothered by anti-semitism, or less?

And no the answer isn't some sort of Caroline Lucas/Ocasio-Cortez being Labour leader dreck that yer LJs of this world are going on about.

Genuinely can't parse this.

end-run the very controlling blair-cameron approach

just to unpack this a bit: blair and cameron made no moves -- and very much shaped policy -- round the ways they could make it play in the media, endlessly pampering and thus pre-empting their own coverage. the corbyn project has bent the stick a LONG way in the other direction tactically, which of course suits their personal temperaments and their ethos -- it remains to be seen whether they need to become more flexible here (i find it hard to judge bcz my own political tastes get in the way)

LJ (and this is a lot of ppl within Labour) is for someone with Corbyn's politics but without that specific old-left baggage. Someone with better communication skills and so on. At least that's what I'm getting - I've never given enough of a shit to delve in it too deeply. xp

apropos of nothing being discussed at the moment: this profile of theresa may and the quietly-blooming mushroom cloud of brexit in the new yorker is a great read and i don't think it's been posted on ilx yet (?)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/30/theresa-mays-impossible-choice

lol. You must be joking!

Well lets talk when parliament re-opens and May has to get Brexit through. We'll see who gives a damn about the NEC then.

OJ has definitely wobbled (as has Ellie Mae O'Hagan and Abi Wilkinson).

one of the blunt facts abt all politics -- i am in apothegm-delivery mode today apparently -- is that while old ppl go away all the time, old baggage really never goes away

young people often get useful stuff done by not realising this tho

also many a mickle makes a muckle

i submit that old ppl in politics don't go away enough or early enough tbh

*often enough or early enough

logansrun.png

I'm not convinced we can pin all this on the Terrible Old Left btw.

i blame the future

it's not what it used to be, that's for sure

xx..xxp Is there anything you can see on this page that might count as specific old-left baggage

well we're all talking abt politics in english

As I see it people are routinely complaining about how Corbyn -- while acknowledging how much of this is driven by a press that is hostile to him -- has dealt with the anti-semitism as an issue, which goes back to parts of the old left that minimised this as an issue. xp lol

is that while old ppl go away all the time

Actually I read a tweet from an anarchist who joined Labour last year saying that loads of the old lot are fucking up Momentum. I don't know how much of that is true.

while we're talking about the various ways in which the Corbyn project could go horribly wrong, I've seen some people raise the concern that it could degenerate into something like Blue Labour, based on the reluctance to defend freedom of movement, the 'vote labour to protect our police' stuff etc?

something like this thing that Oskar Lafontaine and Sahra Wagenknecht are pushing in Germany:

As well as rallying around traditional leftwing causes such as disarmament and a reversal of Germany’s Hartz IV labour market reforms, an unsigned position paper circulating around Berlin political circles in recent weeks suggests the movement will also advocate law and order policies and a tougher stance on immigration. “Open borders in Europe means more competition for badly paid jobs,” says the paper, which is headed “fairland”.

Stegemann, who is not a member of any political party, said he was frustrated with middle-class leftwing intellectuals lecturing working-class Germans for their sceptical reaction to Angela Merkel’s decisions at the height of the refugee crisis.

“We are dealing with an absurd situation when the winners of neoliberalism tell the losers that they must be more humane. And it galls me when politicians think it is enough to pass down moral judgments. No, politics must act.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/22/german-leftwingers-woo-voters-with-national-social-stance

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/24/lafo-j24.html

What Corbyn has done -- and what mark s sorta hinted at in one of his posts above -- is to appear nice and affable but also staying under the radar in these periods of attack. All I've seen from Corbyn is a statement for one event. Note the young Novara crowd are going "Corbyn must say cranks are not going to be tolerated blah blah" and he he has rightly said nothing to that. Any left Labour leader will find themselves and this project under severe attack and it needs someone of just this kind of temperament to lead it - so whatever his faults..xps

The problem with this is that it doesn't distinguish between the times when sailing above the fray is justified and the times when it's (both morally and electorally) unjustified or actively damaging. Just because the press are after you doesn't mean they won't occasionally have a point. This is the second case and that's why it's so damaging. If your main reaction is "this won't really affect Labour's electoral chances" then you're not really taking it seriously and that's a problem in itself.

On a moral level it's a disaster because *we should expect better*. On a political level it could be the difference that loses them another election.

Don't think most Jewish religious groups are particularly arsed which group leads the Labour Party tbh. As far as they're concerned that's trivial shit.

OJ has definitely wobbled (as has Ellie Mae O'Hagan and Abi Wilkinson).

This purity test bullshit is just that. Are you just casually saying that the ongoing nonsense - putting aside factional and opposing motives and arguments not made in good faith - will blow over without any damage? Because that’s not true and hugely dismissive.

but without that specific old-left baggage.

Criticism isn’t the same as an attack. Corbyn has long had dissenting voices in the shadow cabinet and the party but he’s weirdly stubborn on this and it is absolutely not doing him any favours.

tl;dr if you’re sick of the press talking about antisemitism in Labour, it helps if there’s nothing to back that up on. Some of the old stories brought up this week have been pretty flimsy but it’s the new stuff that keeps it going.