ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Great to hear cp

xp

ah the Down to the Countryside stage of our cultural revolution!

yeah the big win out of all of this is CP’s dad being home.

pic.twitter.com/wHe4Qv4znC

— LEXIT_LOVER69 (@coso9001) December 24, 2020

can't remember if I posted about it on ilx but my dad came home from hospital yesterday afternoon. he got "lucky" I suppose. caught covid in hospital but very minor case of it, so far. had a fever and breathing problems for 2 days. chest x-ray clear. 2 more days observations, no further problems, sent home to self-isolate for 10 more days. but at least he's home for Christmas

Labour is a pro-EU Social Democratic Party - it's not radical to abstain or vote against this crappy deal - why destroy your reputation? Our movement is anti-Brexit.

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) December 24, 2020

alls that I saw was "it's not radical to abstain"

Good news CP!

Christmas Eve is always special. But just maybe Santa needs more than the carrots, milk & biscuits on offer from our kids! pic.twitter.com/v8DrYCKa0u

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) December 24, 2020

when you indoctrinate your own kids into austerity loving tories!

Haha what a terrible tweet.

OK, I've taken everything into consideration from you guys, and some other things too, and have now decided I don't like him.

His political standpoint is almost by the way...

he can't even switch off the terrible boss smarm for his Christmas twee(t). It doesn't compare well with Corbyn actually looking like Santa in a homeless shelter on Christmas day.

next year santa gets nothing ungrateful git

eat your fucking carrot

“jemma showed me your text. i’m sorry daddy”

It'd be different if Boris had imposed "one carrot, one pie" restrictions

fair enough the mp count means any opposition is futile but also leaves me with the impression that if he were pm he would have made exactly the same decisions johnson has from everything from covid to schools reopening to brexit deal to landlords etc etc he is boris johnson with a slightly less ridiculous haircut

In fairness to him (again, the worst kind of fairness), the voice in his ear seems to have told him to do them quicker, which would have made some difference.

(It's arguable whether he would or wouldn't have copied Johnson's prime cuntery, hinting that people shouldn't go out to businesses but not officially ordering them closed for two weeks, so as to cut down on insurance claims)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/24/brexit-talks-followed-common-pattern-but-barrier-raising-outcome-is-unique

"This is the first trade deal in history that has been about erecting barriers rather than dismantling them. There will be more red tape, more friction."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqF961JXEAIaOwL?format=jpg&name=large

he's done the Atkins Diet, he's done the steroids - now he's embracing krishna consciousness for the next stage of his journey

trying and failing to comprehend the mindset of a man who would conceive of, create and post that image, on xmas day no less

I was like eh whatever about that tweet but a few proseccos in and remembering the bile corbyn used to get any time he just dared to breathe i'm now like lol fuck sir quiff and his weird stilted patter

I've never put much stock in highfalutin ideas like taking some moral high ground over the melts by not acting as hateful as they did, fuck that shit why should they have all the fun?

Yeah fuck the moral high ground it's just sometimes i can't muster the energy to care deeply about every last feckin semi colon the way the melts can with corbyn

Only high ground i'm interested in is the physical, as order a rain of ordnance down on the hapless melt trenches while they give it the full willem dafoe agnus dei in platoon

there is a twitter account where they do a screenshot of some melty or bigoted tweet with an expanded picture of the poster above who is usually either quite ordinarily old, ugly, bald, overweight - usually a combination. Because of course it's fair game to appearance shame people as long as their politics suck shit! We all get dragged into sometimes I suppose, but this fucker is a consistent repeat offender.

it'll end in tiers

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/24/from-tariffs-to-visas-heres-whats-in-the-brexit-deal

Quite something. Arbitrations, adjudications, committees, reviews. Nobody is really, really leaving.

Yeah as people read this thing it seems to net out as the EU gets lots of free trade in things it sells to us, and has a say in how we compete in things it cares about, and we’re in for a rough time on things we sell to them, like services. Meanwhile Cummings would like to be thanked.

Its revenge for skibbereen

it's looking like a hard brexit with no discernible benefits for anybody, including any kind of freedom from EU hegemony - the worst of both worlds! lol and people say tankies are nuts, these brits are the real extremists. Was hearing a report yesterday that the cost on businesses of all the extra paperwork, admin fees etc and time is going to run into the billions.

but our sovereignty tho

It's what's in here mate *thumps chest in the vague region of the heart*

is this the point where the so called disaster capitalists cash in on their shorting stock bets on the UK or do they have to wait a bit longer to get paid out? Maybe they should have done their shorting bets with P4ddy P0wer.

so... when's the BrEUnion?

this might be discussed in the next remainiacs podcast or perhaps not.

A little bird at the @ukhomeoffice tells us @pritipatel has asked Civil Service to scope a policy paper on the restoration of the death penalty in the #NewYear2021 and the #Tories have the majority to do just that. #DeathPenality

— Black and Asian Lawyers For Justice (@BameFor) December 25, 2020

Christ I hope that's a lie

Numbers doesn't mean a majority tho

kieth labour won't want to seem weak here

This isn’t going to happen unless they leave the ECHR, which contravenes some of the key requirements of the Brexit deal. I’d be surprised more than half of the parliamentary Conservatives were in favour, either.

Patel presumably senses weakness at the top and wants to position herself if there’s a leadership challenge.

By executing them?

Look, let's hear her out

"Brussels won't let us kill you, vote Leave!" - was that one of the arguments?

on twitter solomon hughes is a useful uncynical filter for the investigation element (he also works for the morning star, which is possibly even terfier ffs, but it's a trade-off some radical journalists feel they have to continue to make for the sake of being published at all in outlets that other journalists pay attention to, and also being paid)

it's one of the rare twitter journo accounts that is reliably good, because he is a very consistent Starmer hating voice that seems quite distinct from most of the the other Starmer hating posters I read, that usually tend to be all trying to do a who can shout the loudest about the same link every day competition. And he's also good on the long term rot within the PLP.

lol deems

Reposted from my Guardian threadfail, which I will ask mods to nuke momentarily:

Forgive me going on a rant on this dull St Stephen’s Day, but I was unlucky enough to see this dogshit take float across the tl, and after unfollowing the fool who put it there, I have thoughts on this!

Is it possibly true to say, as @KeohaneDan does, that had Irish government managed politics of the backstop better, the DUP would have accepted it? Maybe. The mystery of the backstop is it is broadly everything people in DUP would say they wanted in September 2016.
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) December 26, 2020

So, firstly, typically English (ignorant) view of this issue. Brexit is and was something forced upon us by GB, much like the plantations and the border itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So we come back to Ireland being expected to manage the politics of the event, like GB is an unruly customer at the bar and GB is some roaring drunk who can’t be trusted to drive home and it’s our fault if we give them the keys. Meanwhile we are expected to tolerate any amount of vomiting, shouting and pissing on the floor. Ok.

When you speak of something being acceptable to the DUP, you have to remember that you are speaking of a group who view the tricolour (a flag where one third of it is Orange to recognise unionists in the country) as provocative, who view any attempt from Irish in the North to have language rights or their views taken seriously as seditious at best and subversive at a median. This is not a serious view and Bush shouldn’t pretend it is one.

The political emphasis on the NI-only aspects of the backstop were plainly a disaster by both Irish and British governments: it meant that in the UK, Labour MPs didn't realise how close to what they wanted it was, DUP MPs saw it as erosion of the union, etc. etc.
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) December 26, 2020

Like... Ireland was trying to protect the porous border, that the hard right Tories didn’t want the same laws applied to GB are a problem for ye, not for us. Again, this is the hand ye dealt yourselves and refuse to deal with reality, and that applies to citizens who keep voting for jingoistic, sabre-rattling blowhards who’ll annoy the right people while their own children starve.

And it’s all “the DUP, the DUP” here, as though unionists are the only people whose views matter to the outcome. Border communities are mostly Irish, they are and were always the people most likely to be fucked by the return of a hard border, and their views weren’t being represented by the fucking DUP now or ever. But NS gonna NS I guess!

But the only way to avoid that would have been to emphasise and enhance the UK-wide nature o f the backstop, which would have aggravated the problem of the backstop within the Conservative Party. So....¯\_(ツ)_/¯
— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) December 26, 2020

So close and yet not to the actual answer here. Anyway, as ever, fuck Brexit and fuck Stephen Bush. Happy New Year.

aren’t those tweets more about how interested parties manoeuvre to get the best outcome from the dogshit that is brexit? i think it came off an observation that the border in the irish sea will be a lot more potentially damaging than many people for example the tories seem to think and that the backstop would have been a better outcome for many including the DUP. hence looking at the quoted thread and working through whether there were any other outcomes if things had played out differently in the balance between Ireland, UK Parliamentaru mathematics and the DUP.

in ireland people often say that england sees the entire world as an extension of the palace of westminster its feuds squabbles and desires. this is p *irksome* in and of itself, but it also as gyac pointed out, means that many lobby types like stephen bush cant understand that there are actually many more centres of gravity around a border with such a complex and fraught history.

the point (or A point) is his analysis of how this might have been better framed in westminster by the irish gov misses that there are multiple fora that this is being addressed in. and ireland is a lot more outward looking than the uk, people in the street tend to be much more politically informed and average people are attentive to uk media. there have been many outcries in ireland throughout this about the appalling and ignorant discussion of NI politics in uk media. irish politicians are elected by irish citizens. the question of brexit, despite having been foisted on ireland by the uk is hugely consequential for ireland. i think its striking to look at the irish media that there is a far less accusatory tone taken in general than the implicit 'uppityness' ascribed to varadkar repeatedly. (it was also quite striking the difference in tone used by say marr talking to irish politicians rather than uk counterparts). irish politicians can not simply address everything to the whims of uk politicians/newspapers.

I think this stuff tends to feel even more galling when its somebody like stephen bush who has a *veneer* or being more analytic than the average westminster lobby numbskull. its this weird arrogance of missing like most of the picture as it faces irish politicians and then offering these high-toned recommendations that have not even managed to benefit from hindsight. there is a strange criticism that comes up from uk journalists from time to time, complaining that the irish response hasn't correctly gauged and addressed the shape of westminster's general ignorance. its so rude and old fashionedly colonial in the way that it can only legitimate the knowledge and information that already exists within its own narrow purview. that same familiar lack of curiosity dressed up as analysis.

My sources tell me that @Keir_Starmer is considering backing the death penalty for people who call him "Kieth/Keith" and "wet wipe" online, and say he should be 20 points ahead. He is a pro-life human rights lawyer and takes no pleasure in making sure this happens.

— Simon Hedges (@Orwell_Fan) December 26, 2020

It's OK, he'll probably abstain

:p

hence looking at the quoted thread and working through whether there were any other outcomes if things had played out differently in the balance between Ireland, UK Parliamentaru mathematics and the DUP.

many lobby types like stephen bush cant understand that there are actually many more centres of gravity around a border with such a complex and fraught history.

the point (or A point) is his analysis of how this might have been better framed in westminster by the irish gov misses that there are multiple fora that this is being addressed in. and ireland is a lot more outward looking than the uk, people in the street tend to be much more politically informed and average people are attentive to uk media. there have been many outcries in ireland throughout this about the appalling and ignorant discussion of NI politics in uk media. irish politicians are elected by irish citizens. the question of brexit, despite having been foisted on ireland by the uk is hugely consequential for ireland. i think its striking to look at the irish media that there is a far less accusatory tone taken in general than the implicit 'uppityness' ascribed to varadkar repeatedly. (it was also quite striking the difference in tone used by say marr talking to irish politicians rather than uk counterparts). irish politicians can not simply address everything to the whims of uk politicians/newspapers.

its so rude and old fashionedly colonial in the way that it can only legitimate the knowledge and information that already exists within its own narrow purview. that same familiar lack of curiosity dressed up as analysis.

It was the freaky Cameron fandom that first started me turning against Bush. I don't often use up my free NS pieces on him anymore, he's basically a wanker is my very nuanced take!