A Political Thread

[Peat]

But hasn't Corbyn still got massive support in party? Wasn't that massive protest outside Westminister last night for him to remain?

Not sure I'd call the protest massive but yes, it would surprise no one if Corbyn won the next leadership election.

 

[Which Tyler]

My sister summer it up quite well:

52% of the country is not racist. However, now the racists believe 52% of the country back them, emboldening them to do whatever the hell they want.

That's why we're seeing a rise in incidents like this. It's awful and needs to be stamped out asap.

EDIT ncurd beat me too it!

Ahem

I'm sure you'll all be amazed that this has been eating at me a bit.
I have reported the abuse to my MP, and asked him to publicly condemn such behaviour; I have also reported it to the police who are logging it for statistical purposes, but otherwise there's not a lot they can do - which is important in and of itself. My MP has so far condemned the behaviour... in a private email to myself, but nothing seems to have appeared in the press, twitter or facebook. The cops are sending a community officer around to talk about CCTV type options.

This stuff is happening, and far worse than Ali and I have suffered, and twitter / facebook seems to be full of people witnessing abuse, sitting there quietly and tweeting about how awful it was.

IMO it is incumbent upon all of us to actively object to abuse; to (intellectually) confront and challenge the abuser, to publicly offer our support to the victim we have just witnessed; and to do so in a way that leaves no doubt in the abuser's mind that their behaviour was unacceptable.
Currently the racists and biggots seem to think that the leave vote is a mandate to spout their hatred. It is no such thing; and we all need to make this point to them.

There is a petition at change.org asking the home office to condemn the behaviour; pity it's not on petition.parliament.uk, but there we go.
I urge anyone on here to sign that petition; to email their MP to publicly oppose biggotry; and I would urge anyone who actually witnesses abuse to step up and confront it. I urge victims to report it, to their MP and to the police.
As Edmund Burke said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

 

[nickdnz]

It's a complex situation some aren't 'racists' as in they don't believe that the people are inferior they just believe that the country is too full and we need expel those who weren't born here as a way alleviating the 'pressure'.

But then there are minor differences between Racism, Bigotry & Xenophobia. The last one is key news articles with hateful lies enter the national psyche and become truth they fear them not because they are different because they genuinely believe it will threaten their way of life.

The problem is - racism is rarely incredibly overt anyway. The same argument you make here; probably applied equally in southern USA which wished to keep schools segregated during the 60s.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Problem is a lot of the rhetoric around immigration, both pre and post referendum, has been misguided at best, straight up false xenophobia at its worst.

EU immigrants contribute more than they take out in total, but people don't seem to realise that. On top of that, people seem to think that by voting out they'll be stopping people from countries outside the EU coming in, when naturally that type of immigration is not affected by Brexit.

Also the biggest irony for me is that we'll probably have to accept freedom of movement anyway if we want to join the EEA (think some Leave campaigners have admitted as much by now), which makes the damn immigration argument fall flat on its face anyway!

I take your point. It's terrible that the world now views UK as Xenophobic because of Brexit. I ended up voting remain, although initially intended to vote leave because there are lots of things I do not agree with the EU namely Political Union. Freedom of movement is a tricky issue, I accept there must be some form if UK is to have access to the single market. But I'm in favour of freedom of movement of labour, as opposed to unrestricted movement people in the EU i.e. you have a job in any EEA/EU country then you have every right to be in that country; rather than the current position of just moving to a country to look for work. How this would be implemented is another matter.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

I don't understand Corbyn's intentions for staying. Does he seriously intend to stay as leader of the opposition on the basis that he truly believes that with him as leader they are a party ready for Government? Or he intends to turn the Labour party into a party of protest; with no possibility of Governing and to hell with whether they get wiped out in a General election.

 

[ncurd]

How is that really any different to our standard immigration policy from outside the EU from say the USA? I know we could accept workers for low-skilled jobs but I don't think it will be a tangible difference. How many come looking for work anyway without something tangible? Tallshort will probably be best to answer that question but my intial guess would be 'not many.'

Given it some though myself but I can't see a compromise I'd be happy with as for be to be happy with leaving they would have to be.

Access to the EEA
Continue to be enforced to conform to EU employment laws.
Continue to be answerable European Convention on Human Rights in the European Court on Human Rights (the goverment needs to be answerable to courts it can't potentially fully control).
Free Movement of People

The last one is the kicker for most leave and I know that.

 

[munstermuffin]

Not sure I'd call the protest massive but yes, it would surprise no one if Corbyn won the next leadership election.

Yeah maybe it was media who made it larger than it was but still it strange no support from MPs but makor support outside

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

I don't understand Corbyn's intentions for staying. Does he seriously intend to stay as leader of the opposition on the basis that he truly believes that with him as leader they are a party ready for Government? Or he intends to turn the Labour party into a party of protest; with no possibility of Governing and to hell with whether they get wiped out in a General election.

When you find out, can you let me know?

The Tories will be willing him to stay. He's their greatest asset.

 

[Thingimubob]

@Which Tyler haha my bad, didn't see your post at all!

I take your point. It's terrible that the world now views UK as Xenophobic because of Brexit. I ended up voting remain, although initially intended to vote leave because there are lots of things I do not agree with the EU namely Political Union. Freedom of movement is a tricky issue, I accept there must be some form if UK is to have access to the single market. But I'm in favour of freedom of movement of labour, as opposed to unrestricted movement people in the EU i.e. you have a job in any EEA/EU country then you have every right to be in that country; rather than the current position of just moving to a country to look for work. How this would be implemented is another matter.

Yeah I can't see an easy way of implementing it myself. That said I'm not really against the way Freedom of Movement works now. A EU citizen can move here and look for a job, sign up for an NI number, but can't claim benefits straight away while they're doing so (6 month wait I believe), so aren't exactly a massive drain to our services as we've seen Leave campaigners point out.

I'm gonna admit I have a pretty big personal investment in the EU / freedom of movement anyway as my partner is German, and I plan to move to Germany at some point . If we leave properly, I'm going to need to find work before I go and hope they're willing to sponsor a visa, so I am clinging on to the hope freedom of movement stays!

 

[Zapphod]

Xenophobic? Of course you would give up the sovereign powers we did to be part of a basket case economy like the EU? No didn't think so

You say that as though you have powers at all, countries are controlled by political parties, political parties are controlled by those who hand over the most cash and they are the ones with vested interests in handing over cash who usually couldn't give a rats arse about anyone but themselves.

The fact is that the UK will still be at the beck and call of the USA, UN, EU and a host of other self serving acronyms the only difference is that now you get less say in how that goes.

 

[j'nuh]

The biggest issue with migration and the pro-EU debate...we didn't engage in it. Instead of promoting the good things about migration and a positive picture we allowed to leave to beat us with a stick about it.

Unfortunately, I feel that this is where the wipeout of Lib Dems has been felt. Neither Labour nor the Tories could afford, in the political climate, to be enthused by immigration. For pragmatic, party-interest reasons, they didn't touch the topic (aside from a small handful of MPs). Only the Lib Dems had a chance of engaging with voters on the merits of immigration and gotten away with it. And tbh, with the wipeout of the Lib Dems, the EU's staunchest allies were gone. I honestly feel that the Lib Dems could have turned the entire referendum - they were the only ones that have championed the EU for years.

I know it isn't the perception.

That's why I'm telling you the perception is wrong and that the language you use feeds it and helps create the very thing you were worrying about in that post.

And yes, if Corbyn's name is not on the ballot paper, it won't make friends. Not that they'll make too many friends even if he is. Rightly, in a lot of ways. And things will continue to get worse. And the various parts of the left will continue to blame the other parts of the left. Its all very Python-esque.

I don't think the perception is wrong.

Labour's shift to the right has sent leftism in the country into a sorry state. For example, we're now a country that perceives trade tariffs to be inherently bad. (Not saying that I agree with trade tariffs, but there is a more nuanced case for them that the left will never be able to make without any representation.) With a contraction of the ideological battleground that politics has been fought over, so too has there been a contraction of the public imagination. If elections are fought between parties of the soft right and the hard right, the country is not going to get any more left. Hence as a country we default to the right.

For the last few decades, the working classes have had a choice: do you want to vote lightly against your interests, or heavily against your interests? So when a candidate comes around that the working classes can actually back, who holds their interests at heart, it's not hard to imagine why they care so much for keeping him. The worry of the left is that if Corbyn fails, the left fails, and may never recover.

At one point, Labour could have made Corbyn work. But Corbyn's failure to make an impression has been in part a failure of the PLP for not backing their leader. The right of the party suggest they want party unity, as do you, but where was the unity under Corbyn? Corbyn was never given an honest chance, and now the right want us to unite under their terms, under their candidate. Worst of all, the right didn't attempt to win through discourse; they tried to brute force their way through Corbyn.

And like a lot of the soft left, I have been forced into being against Corbyn. Not because I disagree with him, his politics, or that he's inherently unelectable... but because the right's ongoing harassment has damaged Corbyn beyond being salvageable. What I don't want is for the Labour party to overcorrect and abandon the left again. Thankfully, Angela Eagle is a pretty decent middle-ground option.

 

[valley commando]

I can imagine 52% ain't xenophobes, but the thing is, it looks like it's still a considerable number of people who feel and act that way. Or is it that they are getting a disproportionate amount of media coverage?


THIS.
The remain campaign focused, almost exclusively on economic issues. They completely failed to understand (or refused of acknowledge) what triggered people voting to leave.

If the benefits scroungers were not allowed to vote the result would have been different. I know I am repeating myself but you should have to earn a salary to earn the right to vote, with the exception of those in further education and pensioners.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

If the benefits scroungers were not allowed to vote the result would have been different. I know I am repeating myself but you should have to earn a salary to earn the right to vote, with the exception of those in further education and pensioners.

and we should have literacy tests to vote, unless your grandfather voted then you are excluded
how bout a poll tax where you have to put $50 up to vote?
or give college educated people two votes

 

[Peat]

I don't know, Angela sounds the lesser of two Eagles to me.

Corbyn probably was never workable and is inherently unelectable. He lacks the flexibility, intelligence, charisma and desire to be a leader. He caught the edge of a massive wave and rode something that anyone on Labour's hard left could have rode.

As for the left - yes its in a sorry state. Yes some of that is down to Labour's right.

Labour's right is willing to work with the left. Its not going to fall in line just like that and will argue and shizzle, but it is willing. People like Cruddas and Nandy are in Labour Together with Hunt. Labour's left comes up with some great ideas that'll resonate with the public, the right will work with them.

The Tories will just shout the hard left down regardless.

I think this will be my last post on this particular facet of the subject. If people want to keep seeing Labour's right as the enemy, and its pretty clear this is where we are regardless of whatever you and I agree, then cool beans. Lets just bury this corpse already and welcome twenty years of Tory rule. Gods knows the impossibility of persuading rhe British people not to cut off their noses has been illustrated well enough recently.

I will note though that despite numerous claims that the centre and soft left have been bullied into this by Blairites, I've seen precious little evidence for this. Hilary Benn is soft left. Angela Eagle is soft left. If anyone's actually seen the evidence, then by all means, lets hear it.

 

[ncurd]

I've ranted about this on Facebook and the issue simply is refusal to belive they've lost because of the mandate. The situation is completely untenable.

This is a bit like the EU referendum lots of people voting their droves for something that will ultimately screw them over badly. Corbyn might be the greatest thing since sliced bread but to keep him the Labour party will completely collapse in parliament for 3 and a half year just when we need a strong opposition on the most.

 

[Gavin]

If the benefits scroungers were not allowed to vote the result would have been different. I know I am repeating myself but you should have to earn a salary to earn the right to vote, with the exception of those in further education and pensioners.

Haha what a stupid a comment. Yes, only allow people who can get a job in this tight economic climate to vote, it is their vote which really matters.

By your suggestion I would not have been allowed to vote for over a year because I was unemployed, even though I have two degrees but not given the opportunity for a job.

Also how do you define a benefit scrounger?

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Also how do you define a benefit scrounger?

someone's who vote wish didn't count and you are able to hold superiority over them

 

[valley commando]

Haha what a stupid a comment. Yes, only allow people who can get a job in this tight economic climate to vote, it is their vote which really matters.

By your suggestion I would not have been allowed to vote for over a year because I was unemployed, even though I have two degrees but not given the opportunity for a job.

Also how do you define a benefit scrounger?

Someone with multiple children claiming they're better off on benefits (ie lazy ********) anyone who spends their benefits on drink or drugs, anyone on benefits with a sky dish and or a big screened TV, anyone who is on benefits who goes can afford to go on holiday.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Corbyn always seemed to me to be an excellent Labour backbencher, never a labour leader even in old labour he lacks that leadership quality and the ability to get people to like him.

 

[Peat]

If I had my way, voting would be subject to a small examination, and you'd get paid if you voted.