Why being against Brexit may well not be a problem for Andy Burnham – politicalbetting.com
Why being against Brexit may well not be a problem for Andy Burnham – politicalbetting.com
Telegraph has produced this chart as evidence of the dangers for Labour of reopening the question of Brexit.The implict argument is that, if the Brexit was wrong plurality is only 8% to 20% in 2026 in Leave-voting constituencies from 2016, it is those reflecting the minority view who will gain
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Opinion on Britain’s relationship with the European Union remains divided.
Just over a third (36%) say the UK should rejoin the EU. However, a larger proportion favour remaining outside the bloc in some form, whether through a closer relationship, maintaining the current arrangement or pursuing a more distant relationship.
Among alternative options, negotiating a closer relationship with the EU attracts the broadest level of acceptability across the public.
The poll also finds that voters believe constitutional or structural changes should often require a stronger democratic mandate. Half of respondents say re-joining the EU should only happen following a referendum.
Single market
Schengen
Single currency
Without joining the undemocratic capitalist hegemony that is the EU?
But if we rejoin we get to try to change it.
As they see it, they have sacrificed things like national subsidies to the system - so, as they see it you have to take the whole system if you want part of it.
I'd never heard of this, and now have to watch it.
‘All Night Long’ is a 1962 British film that reimagines William Shakespeare's Othello within the high-stakes world of the London jazz scene.
Patrick McGoohan stars as Johnny Cousin, an ambitious and malevolent drummer who takes on the role of the play's antagonist, Iago.
https://x.com/BadSpit/status/2058162276679705015
I very much regret we left, but leave we did. We, alongside France and Germany were in the driving seat. We rejoin at the back of the bus with Lichtenstein. Hardly seems worth the effort.
First off, we won't be rejoining the EU any time soon but it would be unwise to rule it out in perpetuity.
As for the more substantive, the question Badenoch, Davey and to an extent Polanski all have to face as the election approaches will be on which side of the fence will they sit once the votes are counted and the shape of the next Commons is known.
The first assumption is the unwisest of all - that things remain as they are. That never happens in politics and to presume Reform and Labour will be the two largest parties in 2029 is to take a decent leap of faith. Badenoch's main hope will be that isn't the case and Reform (whether through its own contradictions or via Restore) implodes to the extent it becomes an old fashioned Labour vs Conservative stand off.
Being in third place in an election isn't a position with which the Conservatives are familiar nor, I suggest comfortable.
The positioning of the Conservatives vis-a-vis Reform is critical - equidistance only gets you so far. Badenoch will have to answer the awkward question as to whether her party would prefer to support a Reform minority over a Lab/LD minority. The risk is IF the election looks like being Reform vs Labour, the Conservative vote will be squeezed mercilessly. Longer term, the Conservatives would be the likely beneficiaries of a Reform Government implosion but not if they are seen as part of or supportive of that Government.
The Conservatives are in truth becoming like the Lib Dems - a party ofisolated strongholds surrounded by vast areas of irrelevance. The locals showed these pockets of Conservative strength to be resilient but for all the crowing among some on here about the Tory performance in London, the performance outside the capital was bleak in many areas.
Ed Davey faces a different dilemma - should he actively prop up a minority second term Labour administration? Some on here seem to think that a certainty - I'm much less convinced. Rather like the Conservatives, it suits the LDs NOT to be seen to be too close to either Reform or Labour at this time or indeed any time.
I can see no circumstances under which Polanski would work with Reform and as I've seen in Newham, co-operation with Labour isn't impossible if it keeps the wolf from the door.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/18/no-tailor-made-deal-uk-eu-brexit-officials-rejoin?CMP=share_btn_url
If Burnham makes it to the top, a deal between Labour and LibDems to see electoral reform through and onto the statute book is eminently possible, the one caveat being that it’s not entirely clear whether Burnham understands the difference between genuine electoral reform to a broadly proportional system, of which STV is the best fit for Britain’s political culture and geography, and a preferential system based on the existing single-member seats (i.e. AV or SV) which, whilst reducing the wasted vote syndrome, isn’t at all proportional and indeed can deliver even more disproportional results. It’s not yet clear what his own view is, nor how he proposes to take it forward. In any Labour/LibDems deal, the LibDems would bat very strongly for STV, which has the advantage of being easily applied to both local and national elections, and is already used in Scotland and in the past by NI.
“Mrs Thatcher, I want to thank you. I won by just 74 votes and without them I wouldn’t be here. I think your visit to the constituency made all the difference. You are responsible for those 74 votes.”
“No Jeremy,” she replied gravely. “It is you who were responsible for the 74 votes. I was responsible for the 20,000.”
https://x.com/JAHeale/status/2058300540136931338
Introduced under a Labour administration.
It is clearly the best choice for Westminster.
I’d think she’d do a quasi confidence and supply, picking things to agree and disagree with on a case by case basis, hopefully getting some plus points from the electorate for restraining some of the batshittery (of which there would be no shortage) without getting covered in a lot of the general ordure flowing off the cooling rotating device (of which also there would be plenty).
Coalition means you get stuck with the bad bits for sure.
Went on a trip to Saudi with him some 25 years ago.
I was being somewhat mischivous at times. "Shh - you can't say that here!"- with a twinkle in his eye that said the point was well-made!
Least I was, until what looked very much like a B52 overhead, heading south out to sea (presumably from Fairford). It will be on station after dark if Trump decides to press the button on Tehran's energy grid.
There is just no escape from the Orange Menace.
Energy independence by accelerating move to renewals.
Deregulation and emphasis on free movement of capital. (This always ends well.)
Latin and South America is the burning priority for strategic and commercial partnerships.
Ukraine and UK not mentioned.
Jeremy Hanley's mother was the stunningly beautiful 1950s actress Dinah Sheridan.
It's a complicated subject, made rather more difficult by SK's mangled prose, but I get the drift. I'm not sure about other left-leaning voters but myself I am gratified to learn that I am not in such a small minority as I had thought. Let's hear it then for those of us who never wanted to leave but don't want us rejoining.
Also, my standards are far more exacting than can be satisified by local tradesmen!
We used to hope she'd pop in for a surprise visit during a lecture but it never happened.
And as a matter of politics, the sticking points wrt the USA and Ukraine have been considerably eased with Orban being defenestrated, and the funding for Ukraine having been released.
We aren't going anywhere, and are chasing more integration anyway via EU or other means - for example the UK is in the 9 nations who signed the Hamburg Declaration a couple of months ago to generate 100GW of new North Sea wind power cooperatively by 2050.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-europe-sign-historic-pact-to-drive-clean-energy-future
Schengen: Yes. Norway.
Single currency: No. Unless we joined in the same way that Scotland might keep the pound but without having a central bank - simply declare that it is our medium of exchange.
Though yes she would likely do confidence and supply
1) The single market meaning a single, frictionless market in people as well as goods etc will never command general consent in the UK.
2) A single currency won't either.
3) An institution which claims to both be and not be a state, and having a central bank, currency, flag, anthem, pretend parliament and so on but no single area wide defence plan or policy is, as we are discovering, complete madness.
Back to labelling it a death tax and saying more people will be hit by the levy.
So, a) how do they propose to fund social care otherwise?
and b) there is already a dementia tax of near 100% for those unlucky enough to need long term care such as dementia care in their final years. Every single penny bar £23K of inheritance can be taken by the state to fund care depending on your assets and how long you live.
Income tax on overtime above a 40-hour week should be scrapped for workers earning less than £75,000, Reform UK has said.
The party estimates what it is calling a "hard work bonus" would save a full time nurse working six hours of overtime each week more than £1,300 a year.
Reform said the policy would cost £5bn a year and could be paid for through its plans to make cuts to welfare payments.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn7p1ee447xo
Reform need to stop thinking about Trump style gimmicks and start thinking about economic plans which are both constructive and coherent.
And any tax changes should be kept as simple as possible which the above certainly isn't.
Joani Reid MP
@JoaniReid
·
22 May
The law is clear. Women-only spaces must mean women-only spaces.
John Swinney should stop hiding behind process and implement the EHRC guidance across Scotland’s public sector.
Women and girls should not have to wait for the SNP to find the courage to accept reality.
https://x.com/JoaniReid/status/2057827828301791611?s=20
"Brexit was wrong in hindsight" does not necessarily imply "we should rejoin on different terms".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/may/11/ukraine-russia-eu-ministers-brussels-putin-zelenskyy-hantavirus-spain-europe-latest-news-updates
...Kallas also discusses Ukraine’s ambition to join the EU, saying the country has made “remarkable reform progress under the most difficult circumstances.”
She says the EU should open all negotiation clusters with Ukraine before summer to progress the official accession talks.
“There is now new momentum and we must use it to advance Ukraine’s path into the EU. This means opening all negotiation clusters before summer.
Getting Ukraine into the EU is not charity. It’s an investment into our own security. And our message to Putin is clear: Ukraine’s European future is more important to us than destruction of Ukraine is to Russia.”.
If we rejoin the EU how much would we be paying into the budget net each week?
Of course if you only have at home care not residential care your home is not taken. We should use a Japanese style insurance system to fund social care
She's so desperate to get there, so desperate so fabricated a University offer at a University that was actually a College on a Course that didn't exist.
He could offer Pritti, the MP for Tel Aviv a similar gig as Ambassador there.
Boris coukd be sent to Moscow, he could meet the KDB in the open rather than vanishing in Italy at weekends.
Personally I'd be happier to see Ukraine join the EU than the UK rejoin it.
Btw, does 'remarkable reform progress' include a significant reduction in the level of corruption in Ukraine? As I understand it, Ukraine used to be amongst the few countries that could teach the Russians a thing or two about taking backhanders. Has something changed?
I haven't the slightest doubt that with a large set of new voters plus the evidence of the history of Brexit's failure plus a new Rejoin Campaign with the magic buzz words NEW and CHANGE and a younger more sophisticated electorate Rejoin would be looking at the low to middle 70%'s as a minimum.
Certain things are not pollable and this is such a thing. The campaignn needs to be put into action before any meaningful poll could be tried. All the lies paraded by LEAVE last time would this time be redundant and even open to parody. A half decent Ad Agency would think it was Christmas
We won't know until negotiations begin, and that's some time away, even for the optimists.
A man after my own heart! Tradesmen wouldn't exist if they relied on my custom. I have an electric shower to replace this afternoon. Exactly the same one as is coming out. I hope it is simply plug and play, and I haven't forgotten the DIYer schoolboy error of not cutting the water and electricity supply before going in.
Mind you as the years catch up, the post event cost to the body of painting the house or digging the garden suggests a reconsideration may be necessary in a year or two.
It's all well and good you Leavers smashing everything up and then helpfully adding we can no longer afford the repairs.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/22/andy-burnham-to-bring-in-35bn-land-tax/
On a related note far too little attention is being paid to the French presidential election next year. Le Pen's chances seem better than ever. It's another reason for Putin to try and hang on in the war on the basis that a Russophile France in the EU will be more favourable to him. Could Le Pen use opposition to Ukraine in the EU as a way to appeal to French farmers?
On other important news I have been a wheel in a human fruit machine this morning.
Any of them would encourage Labour to pander to its nutter progressive side, and do really stupid shit.
That is obvious to me, and I would vote to rejoin. Though I would vote more gladly to go for the Norway/Swiss options.
Zelensky's polical party/Situationist performance art piece 'Servant of the People' has a notional majority. In reality, it's fractured into many different factions and is unwhippable. Especially since so many members are now under investigation by NABU, etc. that the normally efficient method of just giving them cash is unavailable. He generally has to rely on the votes of the pro-Russian groups (ex Party of the Regions types), obtained by threatening them with tax audits, etc.
As I said, the political landscape needs some sort of reset to go any futher.
My wife is a keen gardiner and I nodded when she told me she'd bought 75kg of soil and offered to help her move it without paying much attention.
750litres were delivered by truck a few days later.
But I had a great time shovelling into a wheelbarrow and depositing it in a big pile. Felt so mentally relaxing and a physical workout with a purpose.
The idea of doing it in my spare time, when I can be otherwise sitting in the garden with a book (as I am now), is just crazy talk.
However, my wife does think I'm a lazy fecker.
Suppose not though, and then I can't see the LDs having anything to do with him. They are stupid, but not that stupid.
There is a slight chance that the Tories might go into coalition with Labour I feel, but not with Burnham.
High taxes AND not enough Libraries in Wolverhampton.
In short the right cannot be united.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDBhG2ZKBlA
Britain is distinct due to:
a) A high percentage of professional services occupations
b) A reliance on big money in politics
We should take his analysis with about the same pinch of salt as we do those of Tim Montgomerie.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleDieInside/comments/1pobx1p/frances_farright_leader_jordan_bardella_getting/
You fuckers aren't going to win.
The big advantage Brexiteers have at the the moment is that support for rejoining seems to shrink when people realise the terms on which we would need to re-enter (i.e money and free movement).