As I said last night, nobody will quit this week...
Fair play - you did seem confident
Been in a meeting 10-12. Got out (of the meeting, not the Labour Party), saw this, wondered why. Still can't answer that, have asked my pro-Blair friends on WhatsApp and "They've simply had enough" was the response of one who has himself simply had enough.
They are all bloody idiots. And no doubt they have positioned "The Independent Group" to hoover up more fall outs of Labour and then the fall outs of the Tories. Whats the point in people like Boles and Soubry staying around when the zealots are after their heads?
A schism was coming. In both parties. Had expected it to happen once no deal Brexit becomes the only remaining option. But as I also posted over the weekend, Brexit is already done - already happening, the impacts of crash Brexit already hitting with increasing severity. So why wait?
As I said last night, nobody will quit this week...
Which one is "nobody"?
All of them
I think Berger going is unfortunate - she's different to the rest in that I don't think she set out to wreck Corbyn from the beginning (she did after all join his first shadow cabinet, and from memory she wasn't one of the main malcontents constantly running to tell the press how awful Corbyn was), and she actually seems to have some substance about her (her work on mental health). Not to mention she, unlike the others, has legitimate grounds for complaint, since she does seem to have faced some pretty horrible antisemitic abuse.
The rest though.....yeesh. I doubt Ann Coffey would even be recognised in her own street.
The country needs a political party who supports Remain and aren't the soiled Lib Dems who created the Frankenstein monster Cameron.
Which is why the Lib Dems should, and I think will, elect a leader with no ties to the Coalition era.
My reading is that Moran realises Swinson is tarnished and is starting to think herself forward toward the job. Unless today changes everything, of course.
I agree.
Moran is an empty vessel. There is nothing that looks like a political philosophy about her. She has not demonstrated anything that looks like leadership quality - she is a band-wagon jumper and virtue signaller. That doesn't make you a leader.
I know there are very few LDs who can become leader post-Cable. But it baffles me as to why Moran is seen as viable. She hasn't endeared herself to her constituents since winning her seat. Indeed her posturing has been off-putting.
That's honestly not the impression I have from people I know in her seat. She seems well-liked and respected, more so than Nicola Blackwood was. Would that those of us lumbered with Robert Courts as an MP could say the same...
It may be the circles in which we move - but I have not heard a single positive thing said about her since she took the seat.
It may be that living in central Oxford, my perspective is somewhat different to someone who lives in North Oxford or Abingdon.
I could believe that, certainly.
On a raw political level she (or her agent, who I think is a Focus-wielding operative of the old school) may have made the right calculation there - central Oxford is Lib Dem / Labour / Green in any case, and is never going to vote for a Conservative candidate in a month of Sundays (your good self excepted, I'm presuming!). The trick appears to have been to get the Greens to stand aside, which brought a lot of the Oxford vote on-side, while campaigning and leafleting hard in areas like Abingdon.
Honestly though, I'd far rather have Nicola Blackwood than Robert Courts out here in the sticks.
I spoil my ballot more often than I vote for any party - so whilst I am naturally right of centre, I am not permanently allied to any one party.
I had serious issues with Blackwood and her religious views. Evan Harris assumed he would retain the seat with ease - and that arrogance cost him.
I agree that the tactical game being played out last time was effective. But there is no guarantee they could make it happen next time.
I see Corbyn's gang are merrily tweeting that the departing MPs should voluntarily stand down and restand in by-elections, presumably on the basis that people thought they were voting for a Labour candidate in 2017.
That's a great idea, Jeremy, but how about all your city MPs do the same, on the basis that people appear to have thought in 2017 they were voting for a party that might actually oppose Brexit?
*Checks Labour manifesto* Err
Quite!
And an interesting contrast with UKIP under Farage, where the default position was that a defection should result in a by-election. This will feed nicely into claims by Brexit supporters that Remainers are not democratic.
It could be argued that sitting as an independent isn't as big a step as joining another party
And it would be bollocks. Remainers scared of democracy, who’d have thunk it?
I think this move pushes Labour in a slightly more leave direction actually, the bunch that have left are very remainery so the remaining 250 odd now by default tack toward leave a touch.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
We can but hope that they don't allow the MP for Peterborough to join - if she is ever allowed to return to the Commons (which ought never to happen - but who knows these days)
I had serious issues with Blackwood and her religious views.
Ha - that's St Aldate's for you. How anyone can pass up the chance of dignified, thoughtful worship at Christ Church in favour of rattling a tambourine on the other side of the street is beyond me. Although in my experience the real wingnuts are at St Ebbe's...
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
Field has said no. I imagine they'd welcome Woodcock & Lewis; O'Mara & Onasanya, not so much.
As I said last night, nobody will quit this week...
Which one is "nobody"?
All of them
I think Berger going is unfortunate - she's different to the rest in that I don't think she set out to wreck Corbyn from the beginning (she did after all join his first shadow cabinet, and from memory she wasn't one of the main malcontents constantly running to tell the press how awful Corbyn was), and she actually seems to have some substance about her (her work on mental health). Not to mention she has legitimate grounds for complaint, since she does seem to have faced some pretty horrible antisemitic abuse.
The rest though.....yeesh. I doubt Ann Coffey would even be recognised in her own street.
Can't comment about how widely recognised she is, but I like Ann Coffey - she gives the impression of competence and clear-headedness. I'm rather glad she's involved. Chuka always gives the impression of pitying everyone who doesn't have the good fortune to be Chuka Umanna. Still, rather him as PM than Corbyn. Rather any of them than Corbyn. Even Mike Gapes.
Looks like they could soon be eight: from Woodcock: "It was inspiring and humbling to see my friends setting out why they are leaving the Labour Party to start something new. A sad day for them but the beginning of a time of great hope for all those of us who want our country and our politics to change."
We already know that from their "statement" - Clegg-esque waffle about a "mixed economy", how they essentially want to keep the economy running the way it has for the past 40 years, but put on a sadface when they see homeless people.
To be fair, there is a market for that - there's quite a lot of wealthy liberals who want to (virtue-)signal that they're compassionate and therefore not Tory, but who also don't want to actually give up any more of their income to put their "compassion" into practice (nice guys though I'm sure they are, Southam Observer and Roger are good examples of that). But it's just not a very large market, nor is it concentrated in marginal seats.
But the market for "people who think the current Conservative government couldn't run a whelk stall, but will never vote for a party led by an unreconstructed Trotskyite" is potentially quite big, no?
This is the same sort of argument that's been made at almost every election for the past 40 years about how the conditions were good for a third party to make a breakthrough (most recently for the Lib Dems in 2017).
The only party that's done it in recent times is the SNP, and they only because they actually got a set of policy positions that lots of people agreed with, rather than just benefitting from how crap people thought the established alternatives were. If there isn't a strong enough "pull factor" from the new party, people will just default back to the same old parties like usual; a "push factor" from the two main parties is not and has never been enough on its own for a new party to rise.
If you look around Europe it's pretty clear that the only thing that holds back new political movements is our outmoded electoral system. It props up the 2 old parties who simply have to wait for Buggin's turn however clueless and incompetent they are.
If you don't brand and promote your new party until after Brexit comes to a head, there is less chance that party will be identified simply as a second referendum party?
Tbh, I don't fully understand who is doing what, when and why at the moment. If I were pushing for a second referendum within Labour, for instance, I'd have been publicly demanding deadlines for each step of the Labour approach to reach that point, for at least the last 3 months.
I see Corbyn's gang are merrily tweeting that the departing MPs should voluntarily stand down and restand in by-elections, presumably on the basis that people thought they were voting for a Labour candidate in 2017.
That's a great idea, Jeremy, but how about all your city MPs do the same, on the basis that people appear to have thought in 2017 they were voting for a party that might actually oppose Brexit?
Why would they have thought that, since Labour's 2017 manifesto didn't oppose brexit?
But the Corbynites have a point; the people didn't know what they were voting for when they elected the splitters, so the people deserve a second vote...
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
I looked at the list and really most of them are personally tarnished to the point that you would not want them or very pro Brexit (eg Frank Field). Not sure I saw any obvious candidates.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
We can but hope that they don't allow the MP for Peterborough to join - if she is ever allowed to return to the Commons (which ought never to happen - but who knows these days)
Frank Field isn't joining it ... "he has his own plans" per a tweet from newly St Hodges
I had serious issues with Blackwood and her religious views.
Ha - that's St Aldate's for you. How anyone can pass up the chance of dignified, thoughtful worship at Christ Church in favour of rattling a tambourine on the other side of the street is beyond me. Although in my experience the real wingnuts are at St Ebbe's...
I am told there are no tambourines used at St Aldate's - other than by the musicians in the band.
But speaking in tongues does seem to happen there....
British politics was in an unsustainable position until today, where the only national party to be fully anti-Brexit is marooned on about 7% in the polls because of association with a previous coalition. Something had to happen in those circumstances, given that around 50-55% of voters are against Brexit.
Looks like they could soon be eight: from Woodcock: "It was inspiring and humbling to see my friends setting out why they are leaving the Labour Party to start something new. A sad day for them but the beginning of a time of great hope for all those of us who want our country and our politics to change."
Dan Hodges needs to get out more. This evening, DecrepitPolls will run an impromptu focus group in the fish and chip shop to see if this launch has any traction in a constituency of one of these MPs.
The immediate reaction from the first person I asked, a fairly conservative chap, was what are they complaining about Corbyn has been clear on anti semitism and did Berger deserve the criticism she got.
Looks like they could soon be eight: from Woodcock: "It was inspiring and humbling to see my friends setting out why they are leaving the Labour Party to start something new. A sad day for them but the beginning of a time of great hope for all those of us who want our country and our politics to change."
Sex pest Party
Yes, which is why he'll probably not be the eighth
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
The country needs a political party who supports Remain and aren't the soiled Lib Dems who created the Frankenstein monster Cameron.
Which is why the Lib Dems should, and I think will, elect a leader with no ties to the Coalition era.
My reading is that Moran realises Swinson is tarnished and is starting to think herself forward toward the job. Unless today changes everything, of course.
I agree.
Moran is an empty vessel. There is nothing that looks like a political philosophy about her. She has not demonstrated anything that looks like leadership quality - she is a band-wagon jumper and virtue signaller. That doesn't make you a leader.
I know there are very few LDs who can become leader post-Cable. But it baffles me as to why Moran is seen as viable. She hasn't endeared herself to her constituents since winning her seat. Indeed her posturing has been off-putting.
That's honestly not the impression I have from people I know in her seat. She seems well-liked and respected, more so than Nicola Blackwood was. Would that those of us lumbered with Robert Courts as an MP could say the same...
It may be the circles in which we move - but I have not heard a single positive thing said about her since she took the seat.
It may be that living in central Oxford, my perspective is somewhat different to someone who lives in North Oxford or Abingdon.
I could believe that, certainly.
On a raw political level she (or her agent, who I think is a Focus-wielding operative of the old school) may have made the right calculation there - central Oxford is Lib Dem / Labour / Green in any case, and is never going to vote for a Conservative candidate in a month of Sundays (your good self excepted, I'm presuming!). The trick appears to have been to get the Greens to stand aside, which brought a lot of the Oxford vote on-side, while campaigning and leafleting hard in areas like Abingdon.
Honestly though, I'd far rather have Nicola Blackwood than Robert Courts out here in the sticks.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
We can but hope that they don't allow the MP for Peterborough to join - if she is ever allowed to return to the Commons (which ought never to happen - but who knows these days)
Frank Field isn't joining it ... "he has his own plans" per a tweet from newly St Hodges
Seriously though, these MPs are right to resign from Labour.
Labour is a broad church, always has been, but it does have certain de minimus standards, and one of these - perhaps the single most important one - is that to be a Labour MP you have to prefer a Labour government to a Tory one.
If you fail that test, if you prefer the Tories to be running the country over Labour, but do not feel comfortable actually joining the Tories, and for some reason you have taken umbrage with the Liberal democrats, then the IG is most probably the place for you.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
How many of the seven would have left Labour if brexit wasn't a issue ,it's a one issue grouping.
Well at this stage I do not think this is a new party, it may become that. At the moment I think this is a attack Corbyn group that is free of having to answer to their local branch. They will attack him week in week out on antisemitism, bullying, support for Brexit, etc. The plan being to bring him down or so that he loses the next GE. They would then like Labour to clean house and let them back into the family.
British politics was in an unsustainable position until today, where the only national party to be fully anti-Brexit is marooned on about 7% in the polls because of association with a previous coalition. Something had to happen in those circumstances, given that around 50-55% of voters are against Brexit.
Exactly right. And that is why I think The Tiggers might have more bite – and bounce – than their detractors think.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
That is an entirely wrongly pitched comment on two levels.
First, what they want is not "distraction and division". What they want is a social democratic Britain. It is pure People's-Front-Of-Judaea Splitterism to claim otherwise.
Second, it isn't "the Labour vote". Labour does not have a God-given right to the progressive vote.
I thought better of Thornberry. The arrogance in that statement has just perfectly encapsulated why a split is needed.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
We can but hope that they don't allow the MP for Peterborough to join - if she is ever allowed to return to the Commons (which ought never to happen - but who knows these days)
Frank Field isn't joining it ... "he has his own plans" per a tweet from newly St Hodges
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
In other words, 'you should support the dirty rotten party which Labour has become because there's no acceptable alternative'. A reasonable position, from her point of view, but one oddly jarring given that Labour adamantly refuses to accept a similar argument when Theresa May deploys it in favour of signing the EU Withdrawal Agreement.
Will the Independent Group become the home of Independent MPs like WoodCock, Field, O'Mara etc or will they remain Independent of the Independent Group
We can but hope that they don't allow the MP for Peterborough to join - if she is ever allowed to return to the Commons (which ought never to happen - but who knows these days)
Frank Field isn't joining it ... "he has his own plans" per a tweet from newly St Hodges
When I saw Frank Field recently (he wasin Dartmouth, presumably on a "get away from all this shit" break), I thought how frail he looked. I suspect he will announce he will not stand at the next election.
No-one thought to throw a hundred bucks at Cloudflare or AWS to make sure it stayed up on day one, when all the media were going to be looking at it. This stuff really isn’t difficult any more. Poor show.
It is behind Cloudflare but a CDN is not a magic talisman against bad design and implementation. Maybe they did not even test it because QA is not Agile!
QA is so last decade. Testing is what the customers get to do these days.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
Whats the point in her posting that? The main way you can spot a Corbynite is that they demand fealty to Corbyn from those they attack whilst they do the exact opposite of what Corbyn has asked them to do.
Thornberry may as well howl at the moon for all the good that will do. The cult - having screamed "go join the Tories" abuse at these people - is now hurling abuse at them for having done what they demanded and quit.
British politics was in an unsustainable position until today, where the only national party to be fully anti-Brexit is marooned on about 7% in the polls because of association with a previous coalition. Something had to happen in those circumstances, given that around 50-55% of voters are against Brexit.
Exactly right. And that is why I think The Tiggers might have more bite – and bounce – than their detractors think.
Yes it's Chuka Umunna, not Chukka Ummuna or Chukka Umuna or Chukka Umunna or Chuka Ummuna or Chuka Umuna.
This is a major obstacle for him if IG were to pick him as leader.
Another reason to go for Mike Grapes.
There was once a horse in the Grand National called Polish polish. The announcer said 'This is Polish polish not to be confused with Polish Polish nor polish polish nor polish Polish but Polish polish
Those familiar with USA or European Parliament arrangements will be familiar with the concept of the "group" ("caucus" in the States). This separation of "party" outside Parliament and "group" inside is interesting in a UK context.
Clearly, both sides are working on a compromise whilst absolutely denying there’ll be any such thing.
No, I think she's going to do a Dave and ask for too much. The EU is an incredibly inflexible organisation. With very poor decision making and long term thinking.
No-one thought to throw a hundred bucks at Cloudflare or AWS to make sure it stayed up on day one, when all the media were going to be looking at it. This stuff really isn’t difficult any more. Poor show.
It is behind Cloudflare but a CDN is not a magic talisman against bad design and implementation. Maybe they did not even test it because QA is not Agile!
QA is so last decade. Testing is what the customers get to do these days.
I'm back to getting 503s, but during the brief period it was loading the page, all the links in the navigation bar were broken, as was the hilariously pointless "I agree" feature.
As for my own views on the Umunna not Party, they are the same as with all of the Tory-enabling scab groups on the left like NHA and TUSC - just fuck off you self-satisfied zealot wazzocks.
Clearly, both sides are working on a compromise whilst absolutely denying there’ll be any such thing.
No, I think she's going to do a Dave and ask for too much. The EU is an incredibly inflexible organisation. With very poor decision making and long term thinking.
Yet still its been swifter, more decisive and more united that our HMG.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
That is an entirely wrongly pitched comment on two levels.
First, what they want is not "distraction and division". What they want is a social democratic Britain. It is pure People's-Front-Of-Judaea Splitterism to claim otherwise.
Second, it isn't "the Labour vote". Labour does not have a God-given right to the progressive vote.
I thought better of Thornberry. The arrogance in that statement has just perfectly encapsulated why a split is needed.
Nick has always been of the ‘nothing to see here’ tendency.
Those familiar with USA or European Parliament arrangements will be familiar with the concept of the "group" ("caucus" in the States). This separation of "party" outside Parliament and "group" inside is interesting in a UK context.
As for my own views on the Umunna not Party, they are the same as with all of the Tory-enabling scab groups on the left like NHA and TUSC - just fuck off you self-satisfied zealot wazzocks.
Can't comment about how widely recognised she is, but I like Ann Coffey - she gives the impression of competence and clear-headedness. I'm rather glad she's involved. Chuka always gives the impression of pitying everyone who doesn't have the good fortune to be Chuka Umanna. Still, rather him as PM than Corbyn. Rather any of them than Corbyn. Even Mike Gapes.
Hats off! You got the single 'k' right, the single 'm' right and the double 'nn' right too.
And still got it wrong!
But yes, nicely put, 'CU' does appear to rather like himself.
However, in the UK the convention is that the group is within the party and it's the party that's important: for example the LOTO is the leader of the Labour party, not the leader of the Labour caucus in the UK Parliament.
So does this separation of party and group affect legal funding and status? For example, will this new group be allowed to access Short Money without an "Independent Party" in existence?
As for my own views on the Umunna not Party, they are the same as with all of the Tory-enabling scab groups on the left like NHA and TUSC - just fuck off you self-satisfied zealot wazzocks.
A stirring appeal to the better angels of our nature...
Seriously though, these MPs are right to resign from Labour.
Labour is a broad church, always has been, but it does have certain de minimus standards, and one of these - perhaps the single most important one - is that to be a Labour MP you have to prefer a Labour government to a Tory one.
If you fail that test, if you prefer the Tories to be running the country over Labour, but do not feel comfortable actually joining the Tories, and for some reason you have taken umbrage with the Liberal democrats, then the IG is most probably the place for you.
From the centre right perspective, I absolutely sympathise with the 7 and the longer term consequences are so unknowable that it might keep us all going for months if not years. I could vote for any of them for their personal qualities, sense and integrity, and especially their opposition to the new racism of our horrible age.
Planting your flag on the anti Brexit, pro Remain ground is probably less than useful, but more importantly there can be virtually zero chance of a new party succeeding in the liberal/progressive/social democrat ground. It is occupied already, even if by bad tenants. As Matthew Goodwin demonstrates the unoccupied ground is on more populist, traditional and centre right territory.
Those familiar with USA or European Parliament arrangements will be familiar with the concept of the "group" ("caucus" in the States). This separation of "party" outside Parliament and "group" inside is interesting in a UK context.
We already know that from their "statement" - Clegg-esque waffle about a "mixed economy", how they essentially want to keep the economy running the way it has for the past 40 years, but put on a sadface when they see homeless people.
To be fair, there is a market for that - there's quite a lot of wealthy liberals who want to (virtue-)signal that they're compassionate and therefore not Tory, but who also don't want to actually give up any more of their income to put their "compassion" into practice (nice guys though I'm sure they are, Southam Observer and Roger are good examples of that). But it's just not a very large market, nor is it concentrated in marginal seats.
But the market for "people who think the current Conservative government couldn't run a whelk stall, but will never vote for a party led by an unreconstructed Trotskyite" is potentially quite big, no?
This is the same sort of argument that's been made at almost every election for the past 40 years about how the conditions were good for a third party to make a breakthrough (most recently for the Lib Dems in 2017).
The only party that's done it in recent times is the SNP, and they only because they actually got a set of policy positions that lots of people agreed with, rather than just benefitting from how crap people thought the established alternatives were. If there isn't a strong enough "pull factor" from the new party, people will just default back to the same old parties like usual; a "push factor" from the two main parties is not and has never been enough on its own for a new party to rise.
If you look around Europe it's pretty clear that the only thing that holds back new political movements is our outmoded electoral system. It props up the 2 old parties who simply have to wait for Buggin's turn however clueless and incompetent they are.
That's not true. 1992 and 2005 show that a poor government will beat a poor opposition. In a different way, so did 2017. It's very rare for a party to take power from opposition without having got their house in order. Feb 1974 is probably the last (and only post-war) instance.
Is there any evidence that the remaining centrists want to be bound in such a way? Membership of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow Cabinet does not look like it is regarded as a glittering prize.
These are people who have been completely committed to the Labour movement for all of their adult lives, far longer than the twelve quid class warriors who gravitated towards Labour when they realised their extreme views on Ireland and Palestine were finally becoming mainstream under Corbyn.
British politics was in an unsustainable position until today, where the only national party to be fully anti-Brexit is marooned on about 7% in the polls because of association with a previous coalition. Something had to happen in those circumstances, given that around 50-55% of voters are against Brexit.
50%-55% may vote to remain, but only a fraction of those are dedicated Remoaners whose party allegiance depends on its brexit stance. The simple fact is there are a lot of remain voters who are sympathetic to a hard left Labour and a party offering some kind of blairism-cum-yellow bookery is not going to entice them away.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
And by the way - sorry to go on, this has made me a bit riled - when a group of MPs expressly call out anti-Semitism in the Labour party, do you not see how accusing them of fomenting distraction and division in "our" ranks is a really, really bad look?
Would it not have been better to choose a metaphor other than "the enemy within"?
Unless Wollaston/Allen are able to persuade another 4 or more conservatives to switch sides (and thus deprive the government of its working majority) then I struggle to see the appeal of making the move before Brexit. As part of the parliamentary party their views on Brexit count and they are able to influence May. Outside the party they lose all influence in the short term.
As for my own views on the Umunna not Party, they are the same as with all of the Tory-enabling scab groups on the left like NHA and TUSC - just fuck off you self-satisfied zealot wazzocks.
The use of the word zealot when talking against a group that contains Luciana Berger who left thanks to antisemitism was probably not the best choice of phrase...
British politics was in an unsustainable position until today, where the only national party to be fully anti-Brexit is marooned on about 7% in the polls because of association with a previous coalition. Something had to happen in those circumstances, given that around 50-55% of voters are against Brexit.
50%-55% may vote to remain, but only a fraction of those are dedicated Remoaners whose party allegiance depends on its brexit stance. The simple fact is there are a lot of remain voters who are sympathetic to a hard left Labour and a party offering some kind of blairism-cum-yellow bookery is not going to entice them away.
Is that true? I'm not as up on my alignments as I used to be, but if I was asked which group would be least likely to Remain, the hard-left would be one of my first choices.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
That is an entirely wrongly pitched comment on two levels.
First, what they want is not "distraction and division". What they want is a social democratic Britain. It is pure People's-Front-Of-Judaea Splitterism to claim otherwise.
Second, it isn't "the Labour vote". Labour does not have a God-given right to the progressive vote.
I thought better of Thornberry. The arrogance in that statement has just perfectly encapsulated why a split is needed.
Nick has always been of the ‘nothing to see here’ tendency.
He has Arsene Wenger levels of ability in missing stuff he doesn't want to notice.
We already know that from their "statement" - Clegg-esque waffle about a "mixed economy", how they essentially want to keep the economy running the way it has for the past 40 years, but put on a sadface when they see homeless people.
To be fair, there is a market for that - there's quite a lot of wealthy liberals who want to (virtue-)signal that they're compassionate and therefore not Tory, but who also don't want to actually give up any more of their income to put their "compassion" into practice (nice guys though I'm sure they are, Southam Observer and Roger are good examples of that). But it's just not a very large market, nor is it concentrated in marginal seats.
But the market for "people who think the current Conservative government couldn't run a whelk stall, but will never vote for a party led by an unreconstructed Trotskyite" is potentially quite big, no?
This is the same sort of argument that's been made at almost every election for the past 40 years about how the conditions were good for a third party to make a breakthrough (most recently for the Lib Dems in 2017).
The only party that's done it in recent times is the SNP, and they only because they actually got a set of policy positions that lots of people agreed with, rather than just benefitting from how crap people thought the established alternatives were. If there isn't a strong enough "pull factor" from the new party, people will just default back to the same old parties like usual; a "push factor" from the two main parties is not and has never been enough on its own for a new party to rise.
If you look around Europe it's pretty clear that the only thing that holds back new political movements is our outmoded electoral system. It props up the 2 old parties who simply have to wait for Buggin's turn however clueless and incompetent they are.
That's not true. 1992 and 2005 show that a poor government will beat a poor opposition. In a different way, so did 2017. It's very rare for a party to take power from opposition without having got their house in order. Feb 1974 is probably the last (and only post-war) instance.
1992 would probably have turned out quite a bit differently had Thatcher not already been ousted by her party.
As for my own views on the Umunna not Party, they are the same as with all of the Tory-enabling scab groups on the left like NHA and TUSC - just fuck off you self-satisfied zealot wazzocks.
The use of the word zealot when talking against a group that contains Luciana Berger who left thanks to antisemitism was probably not the best choice of phrase...
Why? Luciana has been targeted by religious hatred driven by zealotry. Does that mean that she herself cannot be a political zealot?
No-one thought to throw a hundred bucks at Cloudflare or AWS to make sure it stayed up on day one, when all the media were going to be looking at it. This stuff really isn’t difficult any more. Poor show.
It is behind Cloudflare but a CDN is not a magic talisman against bad design and implementation. Maybe they did not even test it because QA is not Agile!
QA is so last decade. Testing is what the customers get to do these days.
I'm back to getting 503s, but during the brief period it was loading the page, all the links in the navigation bar were broken, as was the hilariously pointless "I agree" feature.
Adds to list of dev agencies not to use for a simple but high volume website. I’d have assumed they had an MP’s intern do it, rather than professionals who should do research and testing.
I think @DecrepitJohnL got it right, they’ll have inadvertently made the main page not static so it couldn’t be cached by the CDN, and the server VM doesn’t have enough uplink bandwidth and/or processor available. What we used to call a classic case of the Slashdot Effect.
Comments
They are all bloody idiots. And no doubt they have positioned "The Independent Group" to hoover up more fall outs of Labour and then the fall outs of the Tories. Whats the point in people like Boles and Soubry staying around when the zealots are after their heads?
A schism was coming. In both parties. Had expected it to happen once no deal Brexit becomes the only remaining option. But as I also posted over the weekend, Brexit is already done - already happening, the impacts of crash Brexit already hitting with increasing severity. So why wait?
The rest though.....yeesh. I doubt Ann Coffey would even be recognised in her own street.
I had serious issues with Blackwood and her religious views. Evan Harris assumed he would retain the seat with ease - and that arrogance cost him.
I agree that the tactical game being played out last time was effective. But there is no guarantee they could make it happen next time.
There is no desire within the Corbyn bubble to do anything about it.
Chuka always gives the impression of pitying everyone who doesn't have the good fortune to be Chuka Umanna. Still, rather him as PM than Corbyn. Rather any of them than Corbyn. Even Mike Gapes.
I'm now sure that nobody will follow them.....
This is a major obstacle for him if IG were to pick him as leader.
Another reason to go for Mike Grapes.
Tbh, I don't fully understand who is doing what, when and why at the moment. If I were pushing for a second referendum within Labour, for instance, I'd have been publicly demanding deadlines for each step of the Labour approach to reach that point, for at least the last 3 months.
But speaking in tongues does seem to happen there....
Not a huge fan of parties standing aside in elections, but prepared to make an exception for Luciana after the way she’s been treated.
If you criticise or abuse these individuals, if you impugn their motives, and if you encourage any others to join them, you are helping them not hurting them, because you are taking your eyes off the prize and allowing our movement to be distracted and divided, which is exactly what they want.
The only thing that anyone should do in response to the action of these MPs today is to respectfully and politely ask them a simple question: Do they intend to put up candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and split the Labour vote?
Labour is a broad church, always has been, but it does have certain de minimus standards, and one of these - perhaps the single most important one - is that to be a Labour MP you have to prefer a Labour government to a Tory one.
If you fail that test, if you prefer the Tories to be running the country over Labour, but do not feel comfortable actually joining the Tories, and for some reason you have taken umbrage with the Liberal democrats, then the IG is most probably the place for you.
Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://api.theindependent.group/data. (Reason: CORS header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' does not match 'https://planb.firstsketch.net').
How are these people so bad at this?
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1097472748463550465
First, what they want is not "distraction and division". What they want is a social democratic Britain. It is pure People's-Front-Of-Judaea Splitterism to claim otherwise.
Second, it isn't "the Labour vote". Labour does not have a God-given right to the progressive vote.
I thought better of Thornberry. The arrogance in that statement has just perfectly encapsulated why a split is needed.
Thornberry may as well howl at the moon for all the good that will do. The cult - having screamed "go join the Tories" abuse at these people - is now hurling abuse at them for having done what they demanded and quit.
A major surprise might be about to happen.
Those familiar with USA or European Parliament arrangements will be familiar with the concept of the "group" ("caucus" in the States). This separation of "party" outside Parliament and "group" inside is interesting in a UK context.
These jokers are responsible: https://www.seraph.agency/
And still got it wrong!
But yes, nicely put, 'CU' does appear to rather like himself.
However, in the UK the convention is that the group is within the party and it's the party that's important: for example the LOTO is the leader of the Labour party, not the leader of the Labour caucus in the UK Parliament.
So does this separation of party and group affect legal funding and status? For example, will this new group be allowed to access Short Money without an "Independent Party" in existence?
From the centre right perspective, I absolutely sympathise with the 7 and the longer term consequences are so unknowable that it might keep us all going for months if not years. I could vote for any of them for their personal qualities, sense and integrity, and especially their opposition to the new racism of our horrible age.
Planting your flag on the anti Brexit, pro Remain ground is probably less than useful, but more importantly there can be virtually zero chance of a new party succeeding in the liberal/progressive/social democrat ground. It is occupied already, even if by bad tenants. As Matthew Goodwin demonstrates the unoccupied ground is on more populist, traditional and centre right territory.
I expect the seven to disappear into obscurity after the next election barring perhaps Umunna who has the weight of a heavy Remain seat behind him.
These are people who have been completely committed to the Labour movement for all of their adult lives, far longer than the twelve quid class warriors who gravitated towards Labour when they realised their extreme views on Ireland and Palestine were finally becoming mainstream under Corbyn.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1097480361263673345
Would it not have been better to choose a metaphor other than "the enemy within"?
*stomps off and angrily throws things at things*
https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1097474367280369664
https://urbigenous.net/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.html
I think @DecrepitJohnL got it right, they’ll have inadvertently made the main page not static so it couldn’t be cached by the CDN, and the server VM doesn’t have enough uplink bandwidth and/or processor available. What we used to call a classic case of the Slashdot Effect.