Brexit Vote

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

It confounds me that Labour resists being the Remain party. Sure, some of their old voters might abandon them, but the writing was on the wall that you need to make a decision where your party stands. Pretending that Brexit doesn't actually matter, is just lying to themselves.

Especially since the Tories are now Hard Brexit. There are voters who want to oppose that, and the Opposition could have offered that option. Instead it was left to the minor parties to hold the Remain banner, which is insane.

They resist because Corbyn is a lifelong Euroskeptic who hates the EU and always has. And because he really only listens to two people, both of whom are likewise hard Brexit - Katie Murphy and the virulent anti-Semite Seumus Milne.

As for Labour needing the SNP to win an election, that's fine - if Labour-SNP had the seats for a majority, the SNP would certainly back a Labour government when push came to shove. And if Labour decided to change leadership and embrace remain, I'm not convinced they couldn't eke out a narrow majority on their own from England and Wales (if it was the right leader). They'd poach most of the LDP vote.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Without Scotland, Labour cannot win a general election no matter who is Leader. They lost 40 of their 41 seats in 2015 under Miliband. In 2017 they eked back just six of them. Without some accommodation of the pro-Remain SNP, I don't see a return for Labour in Scotland, and by extension, a return for Labour in the Parliament at Westminster.

A pact among Labour, LibDems, and the SNP might command a majority of the seats. Good luck creating such an entity with Corbyn as Leader. LD and SNP would demand a commitment to Remain as part of any such deal.

Yeah, Labour's only path to power is Remain. But as everyone keep reminding us, Corbyn is just as stubborn about resisting Remain as Theresa May is.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Yeah, Labour's only path to power is Remain. But as everyone keep reminding us, Corbyn is just as stubborn about resisting Remain as Theresa May is.

There's a key difference. May was resisting Remain because she was trying to keep her party from disintegrating - she was actually pro-remain (barely). Corbyn resists because he believes in Brexit at the visceral level, deep down in his soul. It's the belief that's been the spine of his political career.

[James Rye]

In other words, Corbyn gonna lose against whoever gonna be Tory PM. Given he already lost to "Maybot" despite her losing like what 10-20% it says a lot about Labour.

[Guardian Enzo]

It says more about Corbyn than it does about Labour IMHO.

[Toukairin]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

It says more about Corbyn than it does about Labour IMHO.

If Corbyn loses again, expect Labour to boot him into disgrace. What they need very soon is a younger face and firm Remain guy at the helm of the party. If they got it right with Tony Blair back in the day, it's perhaps time to revisit that winning recipe.

[James Rye]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

It says more about Corbyn than it does about Labour IMHO.

Well, Labour is still keeping Corbyn, so they only got themselves to blame if they lose again.

[DracoS]

Originally Posted by Toukairin

If Corbyn loses again, expect Labour to boot him into disgrace. What they need very soon is a younger face and firm Remain guy at the helm of the party. If they got it right with Tony Blair back in the day, it's perhaps time to revisit that winning recipe.

Tony Blair created buckletloads of long term problums through. I know plenty of people that won't vote Labour becuse of his legacy as well.

[Guardian Enzo]

If it were up to MPs Corbyn would have been ousted years ago, but he changed the rules to make it almost impossible to remove him as leader. I could see them getting trounced by Boris and Corbyn still refusing to go.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by DracoS

Tony Blair created buckletloads of long term problums through. I know plenty of people that won't vote Labour becuse of his legacy as well.

Is that mostly because of Iraq, or because of his lack of enthusiasm for socialism?

Blair seems an intelligent fellow when I see him interviewed. Never understood why he followed Bush into the Iraqi morass.

[Arabesque]

Blair is an intelligent man, and any time you still hear him give talks that fact remains clear. He had done a lot of things, many of them good, some of them no so good. He was more concerned than anything with winning, retaining power and doing as much as he could within the system to bring as much good to the country. Always seeking the "Third Way" whenever possible.

It's been nearly 2 decades now, but the situation that led to Blair agreeing wholeheartedly to join with Bush on his war was, at the time, the "best" one for the UK. Blair's entire Third Way movement had been hinging on Labour being pro-US on the foreign policy position, and 9/11 happening made relations between the 2 countries closer than ever. So going into Iraq, at the time, was more of a question of how committed the UK was to "it's closest ally".

Even if people noticed that there was something wrong (and many did) Blair didn't have much of a choice given the degree he was committed to making it seem he was team USA all the Way. And it would have all worked out brilliantly too, had it not turned out that the Bush administration lied, and the entire situation in Iraq going to hell.

This goes also into why Corbyn is so unopposed at the moment: there is no one on his opposition that the Labour voters trust to lead the party. Ed Miliband might have been the guy to save Labour had he won the general election, but people didn't want a compromise candidate, they wanted someone different, something new.

Didn't help that the ones that belonged to the Blair camp ended up being not as smart as Blair himself, or worse, opportunistic and only care about advancing their own careers over deposing Corbyn (see the ChangeUK sad saga for latest developments on that front).

The current situation in the UK indicates that there aren't a lot in the populace who trust any of the current major parties. And as a result, there really isn't anyone who is interested in the idea of good governance, so much as jumping at the opportunity at reshaping the country in their image.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Is that mostly because of Iraq, or because of his lack of enthusiasm for socialism?

Blair seems an intelligent fellow when I see him interviewed. Never understood why he followed Bush into the Iraqi morass.

As much as a mess the Tories were in at the time (*), I couldn't bring myself to vote for Blair from the start as he came across as "smarmy" to me - there was just something untrustworthy about him, like he was a used car salesman or something. Putting it another way, he was a bit too "smart" (calculated) rather than "wise".

(*) Tories in a mess - yeah, how things have changed!

The first time I voted I was so disappointed that there was no member of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party standing in my area...

[Guardian Enzo]

If Labour could snap their fingers and swap in Sadiq Khan as party leader before the next election, they'd have a real chance.

[DracoS]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Is that mostly because of Iraq, or because of his lack of enthusiasm for socialism?

Blair seems an intelligent fellow when I see him interviewed. Never understood why he followed Bush into the Iraqi morass.

Iraq was just his biggest lie. The New Labour era was very big on "spin" in general.

[SeijiSensei]

New polling from YouGov of Conservative Party members reported today on Twitter.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...231609345.html

51% believe they have more in common with members of other parties that share their Brexit viewpoint than with other Tories that differ on Brexit. Large majorities for Brexit even if it meant the departure of Scotland or Northern Ireland. 54% favor Brexit even if it means the Conservative Party is destroyed in the process.

46% favor Farage as Tory Leader.

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Large majorities for Brexit even if it meant the departure of Scotland or Northern Ireland. 54% favor Brexit even if it means the Conservative Party is destroyed in the process

I find this to be very disturbing and strange. Think nothing shows better how insane and out of touch the Conservative Party has gotten. Mind you, the party is officially called the "Conservative and Unionist Party".

[SeijiSensei]

"And here two misconceptions kick in. The first is the claim that Parliament is sure to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

"This brings in the second big misconception, which is that no-deal would soon lead to friendly talks on a speedy free-trade agreement similar to Canada’s, during which both sides could agree not to impose trade barriers. This is highly unlikely.

"The risk of a no-deal Brexit under a new prime minister is greater than many think, and the consequences more serious. Any would-be Tory leader should acknowledge this. The worry is that many of them don’t even seem to realise it."

https://www.economist.com/britain/20...no-deal-brexit

[James Rye]

Stewart is pretty much the only one ruling no-deal out. The others don't, but if push comes to shove they probably would ask for another extension because no deal is so incredible damaging to them. Even Boris knows that no deal means leaving Nr10 in like less than two months after it happened.

Gotta say, didn't expected Stewart to actually nearly double his votes from 19 to 37. He still never gonna be PM for the Tories, alone his "tax cuts are bad and are not helping anyone expect the richest" wont get him any fans among the Tories MPs.

[Guardian Enzo]

Johnson was actually loaning out supporters, trying to get Stewart eliminated. He's still a 100-1 longshot but the only one Boris really fears in the final 1 on 1 vote.

[SeijiSensei]

Every time I see Conservative party members interviewed, most of them are fine with a no-deal Brexit. For most it appears to be their first choice. The party in Parliament may be more mixed, but Tory members prefer Brexit at all costs. See the chart in Kakurin's post above.

That's the electorate that matters for the leadership vote, not the MPs nor Conservative voters.