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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Swinson’s great LD gamble – making cancelling Brexit party pol

Liberal Democrat members have overwhelmingly voted to cancel Brexit, should their party come to power at the next general electionhttps://t.co/mXWVMYv2lX pic.twitter.com/bvoNzXkTOo
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How it plays out at the ballot box remains (geddit) to be seen, but it undeniably gives a lot of disaffected people a political home to go to.
[Edit: poor old SquareRoot]
You'd imagine that would energise the other side. Would that be the Brexit party or the Tories?
Although 'dog's dinner' alliterates quite pleasingly.
What on earth is your demographic?
It is so refreshing to hear, and must be also for those concerned, eg Ed & Jo et al to answer so directly and simply to any question thrown at them. Will convince/attract a lot of people imo.
https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/status/1173553598405459970?s=20
Its one thing to say i think we need a vote on a deal / no deal / no brexit, quite another to say screw you 17 million who votes to leave.
I am not sure they can criticise the no-deal nutters if you are going to just ignore a referendum.
And indeed, a political party saying what will be in their manifesto & they'll do if they win the next election, will happen at every political conference across the country this month. Big deal.
The only thing that is new is recognising that a referendum result where there's been no agreement on how to deliver and has failed so far, has a time limit. I'm sure we'd all agree there's a point where any mandate expires the question is how long and how many elections / adverse results would it take? The Lib Dems seem simply to be going first.
It is therefore neither a dog's breakfast nor a dog's dinner.
It is the dog's bollox.
The Brexit Party will use it to say , The Lib Dems do not respect the referendum result.
They are correct.
If they got into government with a majority and had to implement it.
It would be a clusterfuck.
If Corbyn had announced this ,the outcry would have been huge.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1173548278824222722?s=20
After all, it was sprung on the Party within five days of Conference, no amendments were accepted (even with a very short timeline for amendments, I know for a fact that at least one was successfully submitted by the Thursday deadline after the publication of the policy on Tuesday, but rejected out of hand), and there was cleverly a separate vote on whether to take out the three lines saying "Revoke without a referendum in the event of a Parliamentary majority" to vote on separately (which seems convoluted even to me).
The result of that was that the vote to extract those lines was far less overwhelming (clear, but not overwhelming; probably somewhere between 40-60 and 30-70) but would not be reported on.
This is the problem with the current situation. Whatever happens there will be a lot of people who passionately oppose it.
Just remember that.
Whilst the Big Bang Theory is rightly excluded no Friends or Seinfeld either.
Chernobyl omitted too...
At least Mrs Browns boys didn't make it so that's something I suppose.
It will go down like a lead balloon in the largely Leave voting former LD heartlands of the South West bar a few areas like Cheltenham and Bath but the LDs seem to be willing to make that sacrifice and it will also go down badly in the Leave voting North and Midlands but the LDs are weak there anyway.
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1173537847703478273
Swinson is seen as a more right of centre and authoritarian.
https://twitter.com/PeacockJohnson/status/1173573613770944512?s=20
Add in the new MPs and the thousands of new members and the LibDems must be a very different party now. Moving away from Brexit for a moment, it’ll be interesting to see what policy platform develops.
Affluent Hampstead but Northern Working Class by birth. Hard Left Social Democrat. Guardian reader on Tuesdays. Remainer but Leave with a (soft) Deal.
And (it would appear) non-watcher of the deemed best US import TV drama.
I have been boycotting American products (where I can) since Trump but I guess the timing is wrong for this to explain it.
On the other, the LDs are (a) not going to get 52+pc of the vote in a "see.. opinion has changed" direct mandate, and (b) not going to form a majority government after the next election. So they will be negotiating with other parties to get a (probably small) portion of their platform enacted. If feels a safe-ish bet that this will not include revocation.
So quite aside from the question of mandate and Will Of The People (TM), they're going to end up being accused of treachery by remainers lured from Lab - just as they were on student fees by students lured from Lab.
It's the sort of policy which you hope wins you one seat fewer than the number required to hold the balance of power
Kamworor's half was obviously the great sporting achievement of the weekend. 13.1 consecutive miles of 4:25.5 minute miles - absolubtely mad.
Sitting in Brighton pontificating about "strengthening our democracy" is all very well, but until GPEW works out exactly how it will ever become more than a protest vote, Caroline Lucas is not really any more relevant than Andrew Adonis.
I appreciate this is some way off but it presents a good argument perhaps ~ 5 years in the future for the leave side.
I know the system was improved in other ways - in many ways, it is the long proposed graduate tax - but it looked terrible.
I don’t see that the LibDems have much to lose by their latest decision - I can’t see anything that could be thrown at them now that couldn’t already be thrown at them before? The policy implies rejoin but obviously all the parties will expect to revisit their proposals if and when we actually leave.
Meanwhile am I right in thinking that an October election is now impossible and so I can count my winnings from laying it (and September before it) at good odds? And get to vote, since I will be back in the Uk by November (although if I could i’d be tempted to look at laying that too, if not to the same extent).
It’s undemocratic and morally questionable but it might well work.
It will attract an avalanche of criticism but lots of votes.
Painful for Labour MPs. Perhaps painful for many southern Tory MPs too.
https://twitter.com/SpecCoffeeHouse/status/1173569562668912640
The Brexit Party surged because we didn't Brexit, not because it was "the wrong type of Brexit". Once we are out Farage will be a footnote in history - and the Conservative Party is not going to be worse off without Baker. Anyone disagree?
Both Lab and Con policy will ensure that Brexit will dominate the 2020s. There's a growing realisation that no-deal means years and years of talking about little else while we try to find our way in the world again from a standing start. We can make Brexit go away is superficially very tempting.
A naive view of advertising is that it's a zero sum game where similar competitors fight it out for market share. By advertising, you switch folk from one product (Pepsi) to another (Coca Cola). The overall sales of carbonated vegetable extract drinks don't change, but Coke goes forward and Pepsi goes backwards.
The reality is, when Coke advertises, both Coke and Pepsi sales rise. Sure, Coke sales rise faster, which could easily bring a higher market share (or not, as it happens). But Pepsi gains without spending a dime.
The genius of the Lib Dem policy proposal is it now starts a conversation of "which type of Remain are you?", as opposed to "should I stay or should I go?"*. Remain as a broad church does not suffer from this. It opens the Overton window, it makes Corbyn's Brexit stance look moderate, and it garners a huge amount of press. It's brilliant.
*no, that was Levis, not Coke. 1991. Fat guy in the pool hall loses his trousers.
Quite. Too simple and logical for PB.
Can you name one other party more extreme than the Lib Dems with their revoke without a referendum policy?
It'd be like UKIP having had a "leave without a referendum" policy pre-referendum.
If you wish to ignore polls you don’t like, you are at liberty to do so. You need not provide a reason.
Probably I will binge watch most of those top 5s at some point. It's the modern equivalent of reading 'those books*' you've failed to find time for when you were younger.
* We all know the ones.
Given everyone else appears to be traitors who actually step foot on gangplank or aeronautical vehicle to visit smelly foreign lands or, worse, live in said foreign lands, my view should be preeminent amongst all posters.
That's told you!
Do PBers not agree that a post referendum GE has more of a mandate than the referendum itself, and especially if the LDs DID win a majority, that that would actually be a mandate for revocation? Whilst I personally agree with Caroline Lucas, it must be said that it is a lot more honest than what most parties do with their manifestos.
Although I also agree with Adonis that this is a cynical attempt from the LDs to split the remainer vote from Hard and Soft remain. This would make life easier for the LDs, as a Tory majority government is a good foil, whereas the potential to form a government with Corbyn as PM leads to horrible things like choices and consequences and things.
I understand people change their minds but I think to the majority of folk the Lib Dems appear to only listen if they hear the answer they want from the public. Until this weekend their Brexit policy was another referendum although Swinson had said she wouldn't respect that vote if Leave won. it's all a bit silly.
The three years of chaos and national humiliation that leavers have inflicted upon us all trying to find a way to leave after the referendum vote is honour quite enough for its result.
Unlike many other policies, this one would be in the face of a very specific referendum result which has not yet been completely enacted. Thus throwing the democratic question into stark relief.
Of course, one ironic positive is that for a Party who does maintain that plurality votes should provide complete power to challenge that makes them equally as hypocritical and antidemocratic (because they previously benefited from FPTP majorities on plurality votes).
If this is a cunning ploy to highlight the need for electoral reform, then it's very well done.
Having said that, the LDs are right to take this simple position, as there is only a tiny chance of them winning a majority (not zero but close) and if they did win a GE by some tidal wave of opinion shifting it would be so momentous that the notable nature of their promise would be lost in the general crush of remainers cashing in as the Establishment closes ranks around the new establishment.
Hardcore leavers hate this because many of them only ever voted the once and think their singular vote is more important than those of us who always vote. Wrong.