The most depressing thing about the Shipman book on Brexit is discovering that even afterwards, the Remain campaigners still do not realise how and why they lost.
They get no further than “xenophobic lies” then retreat into their intellectual and moral superiority.
Leavers have not begun to address the consequences of having won through xenophobic lies.
You mean like declining voter concern about immigration? To be welcomed surely?
As usual, missing the point comprehensively.
As usual, ignoring the data completely...
Not
It’s being so cheerful that keeps you going?
The whole thing is a shitshow. Every course from here is downwards. It will be the work of generations to alter that now.
True
If the best you can do in your list of positives is celebrate that wages are rising 0.1% higher than inflation and the new normal anaemic growth, you’re struggling. The idea that this is all going to settle down when a deal that leaves Britain with the worst of all worlds is struck is fanciful. Britain is in long term decline because a group of reactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
That is nothing more than an assertion. Our economic position is certainly better than it was three years ago. I'd agree politics has become nastier, but most people aren't that into politics.
I'm far more optimistic than you are about the future. Sorry we can't agree on that.
In Trump news, the fact that the CFO of his company has just got immunity = bad news... I'm starting to worry that he might go this year... Need him to hang on until 2019 for my bets
The most depressing thing about the Shipman book on Brexit is discovering that even afterwards, the Remain campaigners still do not realise how and why they lost.
They get no further than “xenophobic lies” then retreat into their intellectual and moral superiority.
Leavers have not begun to address the consequences of having won through xenophobic lies.
You mean like declining voter concern about immigration? To be welcomed surely?
As usual, missing the point comprehensively.
As usual, ignoring the data completely...
Not
It’s being so cheerful that keeps you going?
The whole thing is a shitshow. Every course from here is downwards. It will be the work of generations to alter that now.
True, there will be a minority of very angry people (on both sides) who are determined to uproot the settlement in pursuit of absolute victory, and that could very well go on for generations, as it did in Elizabethean and Stuart England over religion, but, just as then, there will be diminishing interest for it over time.
If the best you can do in your list of positives is celebrate that wages are rising 0.1% higher than inflation and the new normal anaemic growth, you’re struggling. The idea that this is all going to settle down when a deal that leaves Britain with the worst of all worlds is struck is fanciful. Britain is in long term decline because a group of reactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
If remain had one the referendum very narrowly on the back of dubious economic claims and zero positive message for why we should be in the EU, would they have had to come to terms with the 'reasons' why they won and accepted demands for a further referendum within a couple of years?
The get out of jail clause for Remain was that it was counterfactual. If they had won, none of their claims would have been tested so it would have been impossible to say they were lying.
As it turns out many of their claims were wrong, but as they lost that doesn't really matter except insofar as it makes it less likely there will be a change of heart from the winners or a willingness to compromise over the single market.
Mr. Meeks, in your view how should someone who believed it was definitely in the UK's interest to leave the EU and who absolutely opposed (and opposes) racism have voted in the referendum?
Mr. Doethur, do you prefer to be known as Dr. Doethur?
I expect them to have weighed very carefully the implications of Leaving through a campaign won by xenophobic lies and to have taken every opportunity to challenge those xenophobic lies during the campaign when it mattered. Sarah Wollaston changed her vote because of the conduct of the Leave campaign (naturally she is now a Leave hate figure). As far as I’m aware, otherwise, Leavers were in the most part hugely enthusiastic about the lies told and at best silent on the subject. None have yet begun to come to terms with how the campaign has trapped the country in dismal parameters.
The contrast with Labour supporters wrestling with what they do in the face of anti-Semitism couldn’t be starker.
That isn't true. For example, and as I believe I said so on here at the time, I wrote to the Leave campaign setting out both my ideas for and objections to what it was doing, and I refused to either order or deliver the Turkey leaflets. I instead confined myself to fighting with just the "five positive reasons" leaflet, a bit of doorknocking and public stalls, and making my own arguments via my blog too.
What I wasn't prepared to do, is to publicly denounce the Leave campaign only a few weeks out from the biggest vote in my lifetime, when it was already subject to infighting between various factions, yet alone vote Remain as a consequence.
I suspect that probably makes me as guilty-as-hell in your eyes, but I have no regrets about what I did: I sleep well at night, I can look myself in the mirror, and I'm fully comfortable I acted with integrity. At the end of the day, that's all that matters to me.
You should have spoken out, just as Labour supporters now feel compelled to speak out. As you yourself said, voting Leave was more important to you than confronting xenophobia.
I did speak out privately. I just didn't take the same action that you would have done in the same circumstances because I assessed the significance of it to be far less serious than you. If Vote Leave had pitched in with rampantly racist posters and speeches, then I absolutely would have downed tools, as would many thousands of others.
That makes you and me different in how we see things; it doesn't make me an apologist for xenophobia.
A survey of Tory constituency associations by The Sunday Times found that since May’s Chequers deal six out of 10 have seen a rise in membership from Eurosceptics who want the plan to be ditched
Arron Banks, the “leave” campaign donor, said 3,000 people on his mailing list began the process of joining the Tories last weekend alone
May faces an “empty hall” and “open dissent” from grassroots members at the party conference, MPs say. Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen said: “The only way she’ll get a standing ovation is if she announces she is resigning and ditching the deal”
Mr. Meeks, I'm not going to feel guilty for voting based on the national interest. If you want an apology, seek one from the grinning oaf Brown who reneged upon a manifesto pledge and signed us up to Lisbon without a referendum.
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
Another bunch of people who don't get that it isn't up to us whether there is a deal - it's up to the EU.
There is a delicious irony to their campaign in that it's their fault we're in this situation though.
'Whilst Boris Johnson as Prime Minister/Tory leader appalls enough Tory MPs in the way the prospect of pineapple on pizza appalls all right thinking people I’m not expecting him to be Theresa May’s successor under the current rules.'
Mr Eagles.
'Appals' has only one L (unless you are secretly an American).
Good pun on the safe X though.
Oops, I was more distracted by my iPad turning 'practice safe x' into 'practise safe x'
Edit: Oh and making sure I used accents aigu instead of accents grave
Advising party supporters to concentrate on speaking out about their party's faults is unusual advice. A platform for perfection and a guarantee of failure.
The Tory rules are there for a purpose. They are there to ensure that the members get a choice of those that the PCP can work with, who have sufficient support across the Parliamentary Party to form a cabinet or shadow cabinet and who can therefore present a united front to the country.
The Labour party is a perfect demonstration of what happens when you don't have that rule. Most of the PLP who have any talent sit on the back benches devoting their time to giving off the record briefings about how unhappy they are, the shadow cabinet is an ever revolving joke and the party looks utterly chaotic. Even if Labour won a majority of seats it seems very unlikely they would have a majority in the Commons for their business.
So the test for Boris is not whether he is popular with the membership, it is whether he can work with enough of his colleagues to pass the test set out above. The indications right now is that he can't. If he retains the ambition of leading the country and his party he is going to have to do something about that. The last thing this country needs is 2 completely dysfunctional parties at the same time.
'Whilst Boris Johnson as Prime Minister/Tory leader appalls enough Tory MPs in the way the prospect of pineapple on pizza appalls all right thinking people I’m not expecting him to be Theresa May’s successor under the current rules.'
Mr Eagles.
'Appals' has only one L (unless you are secretly an American).
Good pun on the safe X though.
Oops, I was more distracted by my iPad turning 'practice safe x' into 'practise safe x'
Mr Eagles, your iPad should be tried at Nuremberg.
Mr. JohnL, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty, not Blair.
And it was Blair who decided we did not need a referendum, pace the manifesto, since Lisbon had been watered down. Hence your ire is directed at the wrong grinning oaf.
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
That is an interesting question. Doesn't a democracy need to take into account the interests of the whole. I guess it depends upon which definition you go by. What if 51% decide to exterminate the 49%. Is that democracy?
In a parliamentary democracy that is fortunately irrelevant, unless the 51% faction has a majority in both Houses. It is instructive to look at the history of 5th century Athens and see the casual votes for murder and genocide that direct democracy can produce, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytilenian_Debate
Mr. JohnL, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty, not Blair.
And it was Blair who decided we did not need a referendum, pace the manifesto, since Lisbon had been watered down. Hence your ire is directed at the wrong grinning oaf.
No, Brown had the option to call one as well and specifically rejected it.
Brand Brexit stands for more than xenophobia now; although that facet of it still gleams malevolently and every single leave voter is culpable for that. It has also come to represent a sort of national joke which invites derision. Brexit is now desperately uncool and unless a way is found to make it more attractive to the younger generations they are just going to reverse it in a decade or two. Its current cultural niche, as perceived by the young, is a combination of a Reliant Robin and having herpes.
Brand Brexit stands for more than xenophobia now; although that facet of it still gleams malevolently and every single leave voter is culpable for that. It has also come to represent a sort of national joke which invites derision. Brexit is now desperately uncool and unless a way is found to make it more attractive to the younger generations they are just going to reverse it in a decade or two. Its current cultural niche, as perceived by the young, is a combination of a Reliant Robin and having herpes.
Yes, and I think the experience of BINO will lead to a new accession before I fully retire.
One of the pleasant and positive aspects of Brexit has been to motivate the Euroenthusiasts to activity. A few years too late of course, but no change of direction is final.
Anyway, as I have both Communion and a wedding to play for, I must go and make sure my organ is in perfect working order. I'm a bit worried about my eight foot horn, which I pulled out at the wrong moment yesterday so it flopped.
Mr. JohnL, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty, not Blair.
And it was Blair who decided we did not need a referendum, pace the manifesto, since Lisbon had been watered down. Hence your ire is directed at the wrong grinning oaf.
No, Brown had the option to call one as well and specifically rejected it.
I appreciate that you like to frighten other people with visions of hordes of swarthy-skinned Muslims being poised to come to Britain when it suits your political purposes, but that's xenophobia.
My vote - and the vote of many millions of other Leave voters - was to do with an unending encroachment on democracy by a unelected elite - who represented poor value for money, money that it was felt could be better spent.
That you ascribe your own warped notions to how I came to my decision in the ballot box clearly demonstrates that you appreciate fuck all.
I had no confidence the EU wouldn't continue, by hook or crook, to undermine the concept of the nation state, and use the European Treaties to progressively develop a body jurisprudence that would increasingly undermine our common law system. And, I could see no natural end or limit to it, as "ever closer union" implied.
It's own behaviour - its tin-eared, dogmatic (and even arrogant) pursuit of this - led to my vote. Nothing else.
One of the reasons I voted Remain! A European susperstate, especially a West European one, would be a great improvement on what we have had for the past 1000 or so years.
Perhaps you'd like the return of slavery too with your Roman Empire?
No wonder the Tories are anti-Europe. It suits their sneering mindset.
A European super-state is a very small niche in UK politics. Those who espouse it might be happy taking instruction from Luxembourg's finest. But you can expect to be mocked for it.
As an Essex resident I have to take instruction from ‘the finest’ in the City of Westminster.
But wait; I can vote for an MP to express my views there (the current one expresses few if any of my views, but that’s the system!)
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
That is a very good point. Once again, as at every stage of May's premiership, there is no leadership, no vision, no attempt to persuade. Why has she not been out there batting for her Chequers deal at every opportunity, explaining why in her view it is a good compromise for the country and in our interests?
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference. She has absolutely no idea how to do politics. Having explained how I think the Tory rules are supposed to operate how the hell did the party end up with a choice between her and Leadsom? Is it a nanny fixation?
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
That is an interesting question. Doesn't a democracy need to take into account the interests of the whole. I guess it depends upon which definition you go by. What if 51% decide to exterminate the 49%. Is that democracy?
In a parliamentary democracy that is fortunately irrelevant, unless the 51% faction has a majority in both Houses. It is instructive to look at the history of 5th century Athens and see the casual votes for murder and genocide that direct democracy can produce, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytilenian_Debate
Maybe one should have some fundamental rules such as 'All men (and women) are created (born) equal', but that then leads to the question as to who decides the rules as many may not be popular such as a right to bear arms. How do you decide what is fundamental and if that is a result of democracy it is a Catch 22 situation.
Anyway, as I have both Communion and a wedding to play for, I must go and make sure my organ is in perfect working order. I'm a bit worried about my eight foot horn, which I pulled out at the wrong moment yesterday so it flopped.
See you later.
Happens to us all ydoethur, usually after too much drink in my experience.
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference.
She would be absolutely and genuinely surprised to discover people don't do that.
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
That is a very good point. Once again, as at every stage of May's premiership, there is no leadership, no vision, no attempt to persuade. Why has she not been out there batting for her Chequers deal at every opportunity, explaining why in her view it is a good compromise for the country and in our interests?
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference. She has absolutely no idea how to do politics. Having explained how I think the Tory rules are supposed to operate how the hell did the party end up with a choice between her and Leadsom? Is it a nanny fixation?
Mr. JohnL, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty, not Blair.
And it was Blair who decided we did not need a referendum, pace the manifesto, since Lisbon had been watered down. Hence your ire is directed at the wrong grinning oaf.
No, Brown had the option to call one as well and specifically rejected it.
Yes it does John. Please read it, particularly the following sentence:
He promised the committee there would be a full debate in Parliament on the 250-page text but no referendum.
That was his position and he stuck to it. Since the treaty in question did not come into force for more than two years, and indeed the Irish had two referendums on it in that time and the text was changed, he would have had ample time to change the government's position. Your defence is not merely unconvincing, it is simply wrong.
In a sense it is also irrelevant, but it is instructive that you have swallowed revisionist positions on this.
Anyway, as I have both Communion and a wedding to play for, I must go and make sure my organ is in perfect working order. I'm a bit worried about my eight foot horn, which I pulled out at the wrong moment yesterday so it flopped.
Mr. Meeks, in your view how should someone who believed it was definitely in the UK's interest to leave the EU and who absolutely opposed (and opposes) racism have voted in the referendum?
Mr. Doethur, do you prefer to be known as Dr. Doethur?
I expect them to have weighed very carefully the implications of Leaving through a campaign won by xenophobic lies and to have taken every opportunity to challenge those xenophobic lies during the campaign when it mattered. Sarah Wollaston changed her vote because of the conduct of the Leave campaign (naturally she is now a Leave hate figure). As far as I’m aware, otherwise, Leavers were in the most part hugely enthusiastic about the lies told and at best silent on the subject. None have yet begun to come to terms with how the campaign has trapped the country in dismal parameters.
The contrast with Labour supporters wrestling with what they do in the face of anti-Semitism couldn’t be starker.
If only Labour supporters were wrestling with their consciences. One MP only has resigned on this issue Many of the Labour supporters on here have doubled down on their support for the party and have done exactly what you criticise Leave voters for. Other Labour MPs have, apparently, grumbled but done the square root of damn all. And the voters seem to be behind Labour and don’t care about this issue so, using your arguments about Leave voters, they must be deemed to be enthusiastic supporters of its anti-semitism or moral reprobates because they don’t care about it.
But in any case you do not know - and cannot say - that all Leave voters were enthusiastic for the lies or that they were silent. They may have said things in private to canvassers etc. You can only legitimately criticise those public figures who were in a position to say something and didn’t.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
The UK is one of the least xenophobic countries in the Western world.
I hear a lot about "xenophobia", sometimes with a few tenuous anecdotes, but precious little evidence for it.
I agree that the UK is one of the less xenophobic of countries, it is more the direction of travel that worries me.
I don't think there's any detectable travel in that direction.
I do, but we do move in different circles.
I know a lot of both EU and non EU migrants to the UK. Mostly it is lowgrade stuff and non violent, but it is increasingly common.
I don't think we do. I'm married to an EU national, socialise with them, and work in a very internationally diverse team in London.
I've seen nor heard none of what you describe. The (few) ones who rant about Brexit are all to a man (and they are mostly men) white, middle class English Remainers.
Jeremy Corbyn has been made the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party over his suggestion in 2013 that some British Zionists do not understand “English irony”.
Mr. Eagles, 'practise' is correct as a verb. The noun is 'practice'.
Mr. JohnL, Brown is the one who signed it. He did not have to do what his predecessor wanted.
The treaty had been watered down after the French and Dutch referendums. Tony Blair determined this meant there was no need for a British referendum. Gordon Brown had only just become Prime Minister and had not yet established a judge-led inquiry into time travel.
The political parties can't ignore the wishes of their members and do what their MPs want as an alternative - the MPs won't be MPs for long if that keeps up.
As for Chequers is or isn't BINO who cares? Chequers is dead. Skewered by ERG amendments and rejected by Barnier. Here and now our choices are rescind A50, leave to EEA/CU either immediately or at the end of a lengthy transition, or crash out wi' nowt.
On a lighter note....anyone else think that the photo of the Pope on the front of the Observer makes him look suspiciously like the High Sparrow?
I have rewatched all of Game of Thrones over the past 2 weeks (oh the joys of insomnia)
And the High Sparrow - with his soft voice and apparent reasonableness combined with his army of enforcers reminds me of someone else in contemporary politics...
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
That is a very good point. Once again, as at every stage of May's premiership, there is no leadership, no vision, no attempt to persuade. Why has she not been out there batting for her Chequers deal at every opportunity, explaining why in her view it is a good compromise for the country and in our interests?
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference. She has absolutely no idea how to do politics. Having explained how I think the Tory rules are supposed to operate how the hell did the party end up with a choice between her and Leadsom? Is it a nanny fixation?
As well as damaging the country, Brexit poisons your party. May was unobjectionable, unlike Leadsom. Just about loyal but not invested in the Remain campaign either.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
The UK is one of the least xenophobic countries in the Western world.
I hear a lot about "xenophobia", sometimes with a few tenuous anecdotes, but precious little evidence for it.
I agree that the UK is one of the less xenophobic of countries, it is more the direction of travel that worries me.
I don't think there's any detectable travel in that direction.
I do, but we do move in different circles.
I know a lot of both EU and non EU migrants to the UK. Mostly it is lowgrade stuff and non violent, but it is increasingly common.
Yep, most of the non-Brits at our place have had F*** Off back to where you came from moments over the last couple of years. One or two have taken the advice to heart and done just that. Compared to most places the UK remains a very tolerant country, but it is a simple fact that the current Labour leader has a significant problem with 90% of British Jews, while the favourite to be the next Tory leader is a serial dogwhistler who is happy to be seen in the company of white supremacists and believes there are votes in ridiculing oppressed minorities.
Jeremy Corbyn has been made the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party over his suggestion in 2013 that some British Zionists do not understand “English irony”.
Mr. JohnL, Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty, not Blair.
And it was Blair who decided we did not need a referendum, pace the manifesto, since Lisbon had been watered down. Hence your ire is directed at the wrong grinning oaf.
No, Brown had the option to call one as well and specifically rejected it.
Yes it does John. Please read it, particularly the following sentence:
He promised the committee there would be a full debate in Parliament on the 250-page text but no referendum.
That was his position and he stuck to it. Since the treaty in question did not come into force for more than two years, and indeed the Irish had two referendums on it in that time and the text was changed, he would have had ample time to change the government's position. Your defence is not merely unconvincing, it is simply wrong.
In a sense it is also irrelevant, but it is instructive that you have swallowed revisionist positions on this.
It was Blair who made the decision. By the time Brown came to power, it was decided. You may be correct that Brown could have held a referendum after the fact, and so could Cameron, who did not because, as he said, it would be pointless, and so could Theresa May next month if she has nothing else on, but it is a footling point since the substantive decision was made by Tony Blair who was Prime Minister at the relevant time.
Jeremy Corbyn has been made the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party over his suggestion in 2013 that some British Zionists do not understand “English irony”.
I think there will be a shortage of whitewash in B&Q in the coming weeks.
The panel hearing the complaint, made up of Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Dame Margaret Hodge, will have the power to suspend or even expel the Labour leader....
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
Indeed there is no BINO. The massive increase in bureaucracy that Dominic Raab set out last week applies to most Deal contexts.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
The UK is one of the least xenophobic countries in the Western world.
I hear a lot about "xenophobia", sometimes with a few tenuous anecdotes, but precious little evidence for it.
I agree that the UK is one of the less xenophobic of countries, it is more the direction of travel that worries me.
I don't think there's any detectable travel in that direction.
I do, but we do move in different circles.
I know a lot of both EU and non EU migrants to the UK. Mostly it is lowgrade stuff and non violent, but it is increasingly common.
I don't think we do. I'm married to an EU national, socialise with them, and work in a very internationally diverse team in London.
I've seen nor heard none of what you describe. The (few) ones who rant about Brexit are all to a man (and they are mostly men) white, middle class English Remainers.
I am guessing that professional and semi-professional diverse teams in London aren't where it's at. The fruit pickers of Lincolnshire are likely more vulnerable.
If the best you can do in your list of positives is celebrate that wages are rising 0.1% higher than inflation and the new normal anaemic growth, you’re struggling. The idea that this is all going to settle down when a deal that leaves Britain with the worst of all worlds is struck is fanciful. Britain is in long term decline because a group of reactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
If people want to dislike foreigners nothing can prevent that. The important thing is to acknowledge and understand the consequences - not to pretend you can dislike foreigners, vote to make it harder for them to come into the UK and pay no economic price.
One of the curious and paradoxical effects of Brexit is to reduce the number of white Christians migrating to the UK, and increasing the number of non EU migrants. In the last year 180 000 net from Non EU countries, mostly from Asia, Africa and Middle East.
But that will be the next target of the dog whistlers. It will be even more nasty.
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
The political parties can't ignore the wishes of their members and do what their MPs want as an alternative - the MPs won't be MPs for long if that keeps up.
As for Chequers is or isn't BINO who cares? Chequers is dead. Skewered by ERG amendments and rejected by Barnier. Here and now our choices are rescind A50, leave to EEA/CU either immediately or at the end of a lengthy transition, or crash out wi' nowt.
Chequers is not dead but will be the likely basis of the Deal next year
Britain is in long term decline because a group of reactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
Jeremy Corbyn has been made the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party over his suggestion in 2013 that some British Zionists do not understand “English irony”.
I think there will be a shortage of whitewash in B&Q in the coming weeks.
The panel hearing the complaint, made up of Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Dame Margaret Hodge, will have the power to suspend or even expel the Labour leader....
That's English irony right there, Jeremy.
Its true though - if the comments were made by ANY other member they would have been suspended. Had they been made by any other member and then all these other comments had come out then they would be in very serious trouble.
Thing is though, Jeremy will simply point to his consistent behaviour over the decades standing up for the oppressed-as-long-as-they-aren't-Jewish. See. A consistent anti-racism-as-long-as-they-aren't-Jewish campaigner proves he doesn't have a problem with those capitalist globalist media owning apartheid monsters...
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
Brand Brexit stands for more than xenophobia now; although that facet of it still gleams malevolently and every single leave voter is culpable for that. It has also come to represent a sort of national joke which invites derision. Brexit is now desperately uncool and unless a way is found to make it more attractive to the younger generations they are just going to reverse it in a decade or two. Its current cultural niche, as perceived by the young, is a combination of a Reliant Robin and having herpes.
Even the younger generation opposes joining the Euro.
Plus of course voters always get more conservative as they get older, otherwise voters who voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975 would not have voted to Leave the EU in 2016
Before someone pops up and asks again why I am still in the party and seeking election under the Labour banner its simple. The alternative is a Tory government whose engage in repeated bouts of dog whistle racism (Are you thinking what we're thinking?) and do all they can to shit on the disabled. Its hardly like the Tories are a bastion of goodness.
If a population prefers to be xenophobic, should their democratic preference be denied? On what authority?
The UK is one of the least xenophobic countries in the Western world.
I hear a lot about "xenophobia", sometimes with a few tenuous anecdotes, but precious little evidence for it.
I agree that the UK is one of the less xenophobic of countries, it is more the direction of travel that worries me.
I don't think there's any detectable travel in that direction.
I do, but we do move in different circles.
I know a lot of both EU and non EU migrants to the UK. Mostly it is lowgrade stuff and non violent, but it is increasingly common.
I don't think we do. I'm married to an EU national, socialise with them, and work in a very internationally diverse team in London.
I've seen nor heard none of what you describe. The (few) ones who rant about Brexit are all to a man (and they are mostly men) white, middle class English Remainers.
I am guessing that professional and semi-professional diverse teams in London aren't where it's at. The fruit pickers of Lincolnshire are likely more vulnerable.
For those at our place it’s been comments on the street rather than at work.
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
It might be significant that IDS suggested Hammond should be replaced as Chancellor not by Boris, Gove or Jacob Rees-Mogg but by Sajid Javid. If the Home Secretary has become the thinking Leavers' leader of choice, then we are back to Hunt and Javid pipping Hammond for a place on the final two.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously a worse place than it was three years ago and is getting worse, more divided, more unhappy, more extreme politics, lower long term growth, more isolated. There is no light on the horizon and none can be expected for years. But there we are.
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
It might be significant that IDS suggested Hammond should be replaced as Chancellor not by Boris, Gove or Jacob Rees-Mogg but by Sajid Javid. If the Home Secretary has become the thinking Leavers' leader of choice, then we are back to Hunt and Javid pipping Hammond for a place on the final two.
They get no further than “xenophobic lies” then retreat into their intellectual and moral superiority.
Leavers have not begun to address the consequences of having won through xenophobic lies.
You mean like declining voter concern about immigration? To be welcomed surely?
As usual, missing the point comprehensively.
As usual, ignoring the data completely...
Not
It’s being so cheerful that keeps you going?
The whole thing is a shitshow. Every course from here is downwards. It will be the work of generations to alter that now.
Except it isn't, is it?
Unemployment is at a 45 year low, inequality is at a 30-year low, the public spending figures last week were very, very good, wages are now rising faster than inflation, the economy is growing, and we've had a fantastic Summer.
Basically, the downsides are there's a lot of political drama on both sides of the channel, some are embarrassed by it, and more are worried by what the lurid headlines might mean. But, once it all settles down, and a deal is done, most people will breath a sigh of relief, and carry on with their lives. And be loathe to touch the subject again.
True, there will be a minority of very angry people (on both sides) who are determined to uproot the settlement in pursuit of absolute victory, and that could very well go on for generations, as it did in Elizabethean and Stuart England over religion, but, just as then, there will be diminishing interest for it over time.
If the best you can do in your list of positives is celebrate that wages are rising 0.1% higher than inflation and the new normal anaemic growth, you’re struggling. The idea that this is all going to settle down when a deal that leaves Britain with the worst of all worlds is struck is fanciful. Britain is in long term decline because a group of reactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
I do not want to misrepresent your views so please correct me if I have got this wrong. But you seem to be implying that it is ipso facto racist to wish to have controls over who is allowed to immigrate into the country and or reduce the numbers doing so. Is that really your view?
If the best you can doreactionary nationalists decided that it was worth pandering to racism in order to indulge their hatred of the EU.
Not really. I'm contesting your assertion of shitshow and absolute decline, which is 'inevitable for generations'.
It's pure hyberbole, and well you know it. The rest of your post just reads like a late night A C Grayling rant.
Sorry.
Britain is obviously ayears. But there we are.
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
Yep - a society in which so many feel they have no stake is not sustainable. This is why I always believed Leave would win. Concern about immigration was the most obvious expression of the general dissatisfaction people felt. The problem is that nothing has changed and nothing looks likely to change. We are not yet at the end of the beginning and both main parties have retreated to comfort zones of populist nostalgia. This one is going to run and run.
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
The Chequers Deal is not BINO.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
That is a very good point. Once again, as at every stage of May's premiership, there is no leadership, no vision, no attempt to persuade. Why has she not been out there batting for her Chequers deal at every opportunity, explaining why in her view it is a good compromise for the country and in our interests?
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference. She has absolutely no idea how to do politics. Having explained how I think the Tory rules are supposed to operate how the hell did the party end up with a choice between her and Leadsom? Is it a nanny fixation?
You say May is not a politician. But she managed to go to the top of the greasy pole!
She does not have a personal supporters club. Maybe that's why she became PM. And stays there as other groups cancel each other out.
On a lighter note....anyone else think that the photo of the Pope on the front of the Observer makes him look suspiciously like the High Sparrow?
I have rewatched all of Game of Thrones over the past 2 weeks (oh the joys of insomnia)
And the High Sparrow - with his soft voice and apparent reasonableness combined with his army of enforcers reminds me of someone else in contemporary politics...
GoT has some great baddies. Ramsay Bolton was vile and some of his scenes torturing people were genuinely disturbing but for me it was the High Sparrow that gave me the shivers.
Before someone pops up and asks again why I am still in the party and seeking election under the Labour banner its simple. The alternative is a Tory government whose engage in repeated bouts of dog whistle racism (Are you thinking what we're thinking?) and do all they can to shit on the disabled. Its hardly like the Tories are a bastion of goodness.
Yet the entire Labour party cheered when Gordon Brown ranted about "British Jobs For British Workers" like a BNP street thug.
As to the disabled this is from 1997:
' Disabled protesters have thrown red paint over Downing Street's gates during a protest against the Government's welfare reforms.
The group chanted slogans against the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, outside his official residence, Number 10 Downing Street.
The paint was thrown at the gate blocking public access to the street from Whitehall.
"Blair's Blood" was daubed on the pavement nearby.
Four protesters got out of their wheelchairs to smear the red paint on the road.
Kevin Donnellon, 35, a thalidomide victim, said the Government's intention to reform the benefits system would lead him to lose his invalidity benefit and mobility allowance. '
' Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power. More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts. '
' More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget. '
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
It might be significant that IDS suggested Hammond should be replaced as Chancellor not by Boris, Gove or Jacob Rees-Mogg but by Sajid Javid. If the Home Secretary has become the thinking Leavers' leader of choice, then we are back to Hunt and Javid pipping Hammond for a place on the final two.
He prefers Javid to Hammond as Chancellor, no surprise there. Boris and Mogg cannot be Chancellor as they oppose Chequers and collective responsibility in Cabinet thus precludes it.
IDS also sat near Boris in his resignation speech as a show of support and likely wants a Boris v Javid final two which is the likeliest outcome at this stage if May goes
Before someone pops up and asks again why I am still in the party and seeking election under the Labour banner its simple. The alternative is a Tory government whose engage in repeated bouts of dog whistle racism (Are you thinking what we're thinking?) and do all they can to shit on the disabled. Its hardly like the Tories are a bastion of goodness.
Yet the entire Labour party cheered when Gordon Brown ranted about "British Jobs For British Workers" like a BNP street thug.
As to the disabled this is from 1997:
' Rebel Labour MPs have reacted angrily to a leaked memo which shows the government is considering cuts to disability and sickness benefits. '
' Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power. More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts. '
' More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget. '
Maybe what we have discovered in the last three years is that what we thought was a reasonably contented country was not in fact so and that we were living in a fool’s paradise, one reason possibly that extreme politics has had a purchase on us. It is - or should be - a wake up call which few are heeding.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
We're seeing the failure of liberalism. It gets blamed for the fact that not everyone benefits from globalisation, that there is apparently free migration, that people don't feel in control of their lives or at home in their communities, that banker type spivs make fortunes of the backs of ordinary people.
Liberalism was the big loser in the 1930s faced with the rise of fascism, communism and militarism. It was ascendant post war as the disaster of the alternatives was undeniable. Now we are turning full circle with Brexit, Trump, the rise of xenophobic parties in Europe.
@another_richard as I have disabled parents I do know a little bit about the relative impact upon disabled people of the various governments over time. There is a world of difference between tightening up to prevent abuse - Blair - and driving disabled people to commit suicide after "curing" them - Cameron/May.
if your only response to the disgusting abuse of the most vulnerable by this government is whataboutery then thats pretty sad.
The political parties can't ignore the wishes of their members and do what their MPs want as an alternative - the MPs won't be MPs for long if that keeps up.
As for Chequers is or isn't BINO who cares? Chequers is dead. Skewered by ERG amendments and rejected by Barnier. Here and now our choices are rescind A50, leave to EEA/CU either immediately or at the end of a lengthy transition, or crash out wi' nowt.
Chequers is not dead but will be the likely basis of the Deal next year
I still don't see how the Irish position gets resolved. The UK cannot agree to the EU backstop position. It is just leaving a buffet of shit sandwiches for her successor. The whole "settlement" would unravel a few years down the road. And with it, Brexit Redux comes to the fore.
Some months back, I honestly thought it impossible that anybody would want to try and re-open the final Brexit settlement. There would be no political mileage in it, I assumed. Who is going to want to go through all this again? Can't happen.
But such is Theresa May's political brilliance.
It is one reason why I can see No Deal Brexit has its attraction. It will be final. No dog returning to its vomit there....
Before someone pops up and asks again why I am still in the party and seeking election under the Labour banner its simple. The alternative is a Tory government whose engage in repeated bouts of dog whistle racism (Are you thinking what we're thinking?) and do all they can to shit on the disabled. Its hardly like the Tories are a bastion of goodness.
As I have said before you are a loyal party member and am sure you condemn Corbyn and hope to influence the party within. There must be many thousands of labour supporters like you
I wish you well as labour wrestles with this serious problem for the party
Before someone pops up and asks again why I am still in the party and seeking election under the Labour banner its simple. The alternative is a Tory government whose engage in repeated bouts of dog whistle racism (Are you thinking what we're thinking?) and do all they can to shit on the disabled. Its hardly like the Tories are a bastion of goodness.
Yet the entire Labour party cheered when Gordon Brown ranted about "British Jobs For British Workers" like a BNP street thug.
As to the disabled this is from 1997:
' Rebel Labour MPs have reacted angrily to a leaked memo which shows the government is considering cuts to disability and sickness benefits. '
' Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power. More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts. '
' More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget. '
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
It might be significant that IDS suggested Hammond should be replaced as Chancellor not by Boris, Gove or Jacob Rees-Mogg but by Sajid Javid. If the Home Secretary has become the thinking Leavers' leader of choice, then we are back to Hunt and Javid pipping Hammond for a place on the final two.
Hunt v Javid is the most likely. Hammond is just a boring accountant
The political parties can't ignore the wishes of their members and do what their MPs want as an alternative - the MPs won't be MPs for long if that keeps up.
As for Chequers is or isn't BINO who cares? Chequers is dead. Skewered by ERG amendments and rejected by Barnier. Here and now our choices are rescind A50, leave to EEA/CU either immediately or at the end of a lengthy transition, or crash out wi' nowt.
Chequers is not dead but will be the likely basis of the Deal next year
I still don't see how the Irish position gets resolved. The UK cannot agree to the EU backstop position. It is just leaving a buffet of shit sandwiches for her successor. The whole "settlement" would unravel a few years down the road. And with it, Brexit Redux comes to the fore.
Some months back, I honestly thought it impossible that anybody would want to try and re-open the final Brexit settlement. There would be no political mileage in it, I assumed. Who is going to want to go through all this again? Can't happen.
But such is Theresa May's political brilliance.
It is one reason why I can see No Deal Brexit has its attraction. It will be final. No dog returning to its vomit there....
Staying in the single market for goods and to some extent for services as Chequers set out effectively resolves the Irish border issue.
No Deal Brexit also makes it more likely a future Labour government agrees a second EU referendum to reverse Brexit, Chequers Deal Brexit likely cements Brecit longer term, at the most we would go back in the single market once EU immigration is under greater control
Jeremy Corbyn has been made the subject of an official complaint to the Labour party over his suggestion in 2013 that some British Zionists do not understand “English irony”.
I think there will be a shortage of whitewash in B&Q in the coming weeks.
The panel hearing the complaint, made up of Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Dame Margaret Hodge, will have the power to suspend or even expel the Labour leader....
That's English irony right there, Jeremy.
That's a hanging jury if ever I saw one. Surely those who have already expressed such forthright views such as Hodge and Berger really ought to disbar themselves?
Ben on the existing rules it is highly unlikely we will have two former Remainers in the final two.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
It might be significant that IDS suggested Hammond should be replaced as Chancellor not by Boris, Gove or Jacob Rees-Mogg but by Sajid Javid. If the Home Secretary has become the thinking Leavers' leader of choice, then we are back to Hunt and Javid pipping Hammond for a place on the final two.
Oh God. You think Hammond is going to get 'pipped' to a place on the final two? He will be lucky to get 20 votes if he stands.
If Boris really can't get enough votes to get on the final two ballot, the Leavers will coalesce around whichever Leaver looks most credible. This will not under any circumstances be Gove, as he is (quite correctly) considered to have sold out Leave. JRM would have a chance if Boris does not stand. Alternatively, start looking at the list of all the Leavers who have kept their principles relatively intact. If Raab ends up resigning before the contest he might have a shot. Otherwise check the other Leave cabinet ministers, excluding Leadsom and Grayling of course. Even Steve Baker might make a run if Boris does realise he can't win. But there is no way in the World that Leave MPs (of which there are of course well over 100) will not put a Leaver in the final two and whoever that is will win the membership vote.
Sorry, Javid has blown it. He will be a good deputy to a true Leaver, but he will never be able to get over his tragic mistake in backing Remain.
Comments
I'm far more optimistic than you are about the future. Sorry we can't agree on that.
I'm starting to worry that he might go this year... Need him to hang on until 2019 for my bets
You're worried about rising bigotry, and want Corbyn to be PM?
A Better Brexit group of 40 Tory MPs close to Michael Gove plan to threaten to oppose a no-deal departure.
Given that Gove regrets the way Vote Leave campaigned and that he ended up ending Dave's Premiership I suspect it won't be long before Gove will be publicly supporting BINO.
As it turns out many of their claims were wrong, but as they lost that doesn't really matter except insofar as it makes it less likely there will be a change of heart from the winners or a willingness to compromise over the single market.
That makes you and me different in how we see things; it doesn't make me an apologist for xenophobia.
A survey of Tory constituency associations by The Sunday Times found that since May’s Chequers deal six out of 10 have seen a rise in membership from Eurosceptics who want the plan to be ditched
Arron Banks, the “leave” campaign donor, said 3,000 people on his mailing list began the process of joining the Tories last weekend alone
May faces an “empty hall” and “open dissent” from grassroots members at the party conference, MPs say. Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen said: “The only way she’ll get a standing ovation is if she announces she is resigning and ditching the deal”
A departure in name only could very well see UKIP come roaring back, or a similar party rising rapidly.
There is a delicious irony to their campaign in that it's their fault we're in this situation though.
Edit: Oh and making sure I used accents aigu instead of accents grave
Advising party supporters to concentrate on speaking out about their party's faults is unusual advice. A platform for perfection and a guarantee of failure.
The Labour party is a perfect demonstration of what happens when you don't have that rule. Most of the PLP who have any talent sit on the back benches devoting their time to giving off the record briefings about how unhappy they are, the shadow cabinet is an ever revolving joke and the party looks utterly chaotic. Even if Labour won a majority of seats it seems very unlikely they would have a majority in the Commons for their business.
So the test for Boris is not whether he is popular with the membership, it is whether he can work with enough of his colleagues to pass the test set out above. The indications right now is that he can't. If he retains the ambition of leading the country and his party he is going to have to do something about that. The last thing this country needs is 2 completely dysfunctional parties at the same time.
As Sky's Economics Editor has pointed out, the Chequers deal is closer to a hard/no deal Brexit than to a soft Brexit.
It's just that May is so piss-poor at politics, both sides are rinsing it now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7141279.stm
I know a lot of both EU and non EU migrants to the UK. Mostly it is lowgrade stuff and non violent, but it is increasingly common.
One of the pleasant and positive aspects of Brexit has been to motivate the Euroenthusiasts to activity. A few years too late of course, but no change of direction is final.
See you later.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/factcheck+did+blair+promise+euro+referendum/558277.html
But wait; I can vote for an MP to express my views there (the current one expresses few if any of my views, but that’s the system!)
Mr. JohnL, Brown is the one who signed it. He did not have to do what his predecessor wanted.
Her idea of leadership is to make a one off speech and refer back to it from time to time as if we all walked about with a copy of it in our back pockets for reference. She has absolutely no idea how to do politics. Having explained how I think the Tory rules are supposed to operate how the hell did the party end up with a choice between her and Leadsom? Is it a nanny fixation?
https://twitter.com/Glinner/status/1033463835565404160
A million tiny violins cried out as one.
He promised the committee there would be a full debate in Parliament on the 250-page text but no referendum.
That was his position and he stuck to it. Since the treaty in question did not come into force for more than two years, and indeed the Irish had two referendums on it in that time and the text was changed, he would have had ample time to change the government's position. Your defence is not merely unconvincing, it is simply wrong.
In a sense it is also irrelevant, but it is instructive that you have swallowed revisionist positions on this.
F1 post-race ramble will be up late, probably on Monday.
But in any case you do not know - and cannot say - that all Leave voters were enthusiastic for the lies or that they were silent. They may have said things in private to canvassers etc. You can only legitimately criticise those public figures who were in a position to say something and didn’t.
I've seen nor heard none of what you describe. The (few) ones who rant about Brexit are all to a man (and they are mostly men) white, middle class English Remainers.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/26/jeremy-corbyn-official-antisemitism-complaint
I think there will be a shortage of whitewash in B&Q in the coming weeks.
As for Chequers is or isn't BINO who cares? Chequers is dead. Skewered by ERG amendments and rejected by Barnier. Here and now our choices are rescind A50, leave to EEA/CU either immediately or at the end of a lengthy transition, or crash out wi' nowt.
And the High Sparrow - with his soft voice and apparent reasonableness combined with his army of enforcers reminds me of someone else in contemporary politics...
That's English irony right there, Jeremy.
There is the phenomenon of the middle-aged woman who, to the astonishment of her husband, family and friends, walks out of her marriage. Everything seemed fine, there were no obvious signs of distress, nice house, a good lifestyle, kids doing well, the usual dinner parties but in reality she was not happy and the prospect of another 20 or 30 years like this, without even the distraction of work or children, was just too much to bear. Now she’s poor, has lost her social circle and is prey to all sorts of unsuitable partners. How daft of her when what she had before was so much better. But that’s the point: to her it was not good and not better than the imagined alternative.
Maybe you and I and people like us who benefited hugely from the previous settlement need to realise that for others it was not anywhere near as it good as it was for us and ask ourselves why that was.
After all in the last 3 contested Tory leadership elections Leadsom, David Davis and IDS all managed to get to the final two as hard line Eurosceptics as that wing of the party will ensure it gets a candidate sent to the membership.
Though as no alternative leader polls much better than May v Corbyn Labour and most poll worse if May does get a Deal next year it is not impossible she could still lead the Tories at the next general election anyway
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6042765/amp/EU-offer-UK-stay-single-market-goods-without-free-movement.html
Thing is though, Jeremy will simply point to his consistent behaviour over the decades standing up for the oppressed-as-long-as-they-aren't-Jewish. See. A consistent anti-racism-as-long-as-they-aren't-Jewish campaigner proves he doesn't have a problem with those capitalist globalist media owning apartheid monsters...
Plus of course voters always get more conservative as they get older, otherwise voters who voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975 would not have voted to Leave the EU in 2016
https://mobile.twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/1033614010611052544
She does not have a personal supporters club. Maybe that's why she became PM. And stays there as other groups cancel each other out.
As to the disabled this is from 1997:
' Disabled protesters have thrown red paint over Downing Street's gates during a protest against the Government's welfare reforms.
The group chanted slogans against the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, outside his official residence, Number 10 Downing Street.
The paint was thrown at the gate blocking public access to the street from Whitehall.
"Blair's Blood" was daubed on the pavement nearby.
Four protesters got out of their wheelchairs to smear the red paint on the road.
Kevin Donnellon, 35, a thalidomide victim, said the Government's intention to reform the benefits system would lead him to lose his invalidity benefit and mobility allowance. '
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/41746.stm
this is from 1999:
' Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended the proposed cuts in disabled benefits, which threaten to cause the largest backbench revolt since Labour came to power.
More than 60 Labour MPs remain set to vote against the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill when it returns to the Commons on Thursday.
They are deeply concerned about the effect on disabled people of plans to means-test and restrict access to incapacity benefit.
Several major charities previously resigned from a government advisory panel in protest at the cuts. '
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/347747.stm
and this is from 2004:
' More than one million claimants are to lose benefits of £23.30 a week in a clampdown by Tony Blair on welfare abuse.
The Prime Minister's advisers have drawn up plans to scrap the disability premium, paid to about 1.1 million people, as part of a strategy to save £2 billion in the welfare budget. '
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1471533/Blair-faces-revolt-over-plans-for-23-a-week-cut-in-disability-benefit.html
IDS also sat near Boris in his resignation speech as a show of support and likely wants a Boris v Javid final two which is the likeliest outcome at this stage if May goes
Liberalism was the big loser in the 1930s faced with the rise of fascism, communism and militarism. It was ascendant post war as the disaster of the alternatives was undeniable. Now we are turning full circle with Brexit, Trump, the rise of xenophobic parties in Europe.
if your only response to the disgusting abuse of the most vulnerable by this government is whataboutery then thats pretty sad.
Some months back, I honestly thought it impossible that anybody would want to try and re-open the final Brexit settlement. There would be no political mileage in it, I assumed. Who is going to want to go through all this again? Can't happen.
But such is Theresa May's political brilliance.
It is one reason why I can see No Deal Brexit has its attraction. It will be final. No dog returning to its vomit there....
I wish you well as labour wrestles with this serious problem for the party
No Deal Brexit also makes it more likely a future Labour government agrees a second EU referendum to reverse Brexit, Chequers Deal Brexit likely cements Brecit longer term, at the most we would go back in the single market once EU immigration is under greater control
If Boris really can't get enough votes to get on the final two ballot, the Leavers will coalesce around whichever Leaver looks most credible. This will not under any circumstances be Gove, as he is (quite correctly) considered to have sold out Leave. JRM would have a chance if Boris does not stand. Alternatively, start looking at the list of all the Leavers who have kept their principles relatively intact. If Raab ends up resigning before the contest he might have a shot. Otherwise check the other Leave cabinet ministers, excluding Leadsom and Grayling of course. Even Steve Baker might make a run if Boris does realise he can't win. But there is no way in the World that Leave MPs (of which there are of course well over 100) will not put a Leaver in the final two and whoever that is will win the membership vote.
Sorry, Javid has blown it. He will be a good deputy to a true Leaver, but he will never be able to get over his tragic mistake in backing Remain.