UK EU Referendum Aftermath

[droid]

Sure, but there's no long game here. Its the frog and the scorpion, except in the middle of a biblical flood.

 

[craner]

As for being divorced from reality, I was literally the only person on this forum who predicted a Leave victory.

 

[craner]

"Doom-mongering" was how Droid described it.

 

[luka]

as a therapist i find your defensiveness intriguing

 

[droid]

Maybe you're a savant. Brilliant at predicting referenda results, but childlike and simple in the rest of your dealings with the world.

 

[luka]

is being divorced from reality something that worries you a lot?

 

[droid]

'Doom-mongering' is not pejorative btw. One of the highest compliments I can give actually.

 

[luka]

hes very defensive today isnt he droid? just a group of old friends chewing the fat and suddenly this huge paranoid reaction. i do hope everything is ok with him.

 

[luka]

oliver is everything alright with you?

 

[droid]

He's under a lot of stress. You all are. The country is disintegrating before your eyes.

 

[Mr. Tea]

never heard of him, but youve misconstrued my remark in any case. i was just explaining how credit ratings work cos you didnt know. think of them a bit like bookmakers odds. paddy power might not be offering exactly the same price as labrookes

I'm aware that there are several agencies that produce these ratings and I'm aware that they're not generated by infallible* algorithms, icily detached from the messy subjectivity of economics. I thought the recent headline was that the UK had lost its unanimous AAA rating for the first time, which I see now is not the case.

*in fact the fallibility of them is amply demonstrated by the fact that Greece still had its AAA rating right up until the credit crunch, when it was open secret that the country was fucking brassic

 

[luka]

Well you're aware now cos I just told you. Thanks Luke

 

[john eden]

Some quick things, sorry it's been a hectic week.

1. I don't regret abstaining in the referendum, even though like many people I predicted the result wrongly.

2. Whilst the Harris article is generally correct to say that poor people voted out, this simply isn't true in inner London boroughs like Hackney, Tower Hamlets etc. If you overlay this with age demographics it all gets quite complicated.

3. Bottom line: I underestimated how angry people are. That anger will only intensify when people realise that a Leave vote won't deliver them what they were promised. Obviously I would prefer it if they didn't channel it in racist ways but that seems naïve now. I do think the potential for a new politics is there and can still be seized from the far right though.

4. Corbyn isn't going anywhere because he actually believes in what he is doing. It's not a pragmatic/career thing as it seems to be for many of his Labour opponents. I don't think a split in the Labour party would be a terrible thing if it lead to a coalition with the SNP / Greens etc. I have no idea if that is realistic though. Probably it isn't.

5. There isn't going to be a second referendum.

6. I don't know what is going to happen economically and I don't think anyone does. (Yes it will be quite bad in the short term). Given that the alternative was the certainty of grinding austerity you can see why people went for the nuclear option of uncertainty really.

 

[droid]

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

I don’t think anyone can really suggest Corbyn is doing a brilliant job in parliament. That matters more to politicians and political commentators than it impinges on general popular perception, but that’s not to say it’s unimportant. The apparatus of the party shares a lot of responsibility for how dysfunctional it has become; it was stupid and irresponsible for the right to launch a civil war in the wake of the vote, and now that Corbyn hasn’t blinked it’s difficult to see a way out of it. It will nevertheless be very hard for Team Corbyn to function in parliament, especially if the whips go. Corbynites new to parliamentary process shouldn’t underestimate the impact of that.

It would be wonderful to have a media-friendly Corbynalike who shares (at least) his domestic policy positions, possesses political-process competence, and is perhaps unencumbered by the bunkerish mentality of Milne et al. (I’d also like a unicorn and several million dollars in cash.) Had she not lost her seat to the SNP in 2015, Katy Clark would have been the natural choice here. For now, that’s just not possible. The golpisti make a lot of electability, but that’s not the only calculus at work here, as is obvious in the selection of Angela Eagle as the replacement candidate. Electability arguments proceed on two vectors: one, charisma and telegenic power - Eagle, while perfectly competent, doesn’t possess these. Two, the ability to ‘reach’ voters beyond Labour’s core, or to those disaffected Labour voters dropping off left and right or simply to abstention. It’s unclear anyone in the party can do this.

This conflict is also about whether socialism of Corbyn’s (or indeed, any) kind has a place in mainstream politics and within the Labour Party. That there is no young, competent left candidate is partly an artefact of British political life, and partly because of the left’s atrophy within Labour for decades, but it is hard to imagine that even if there were they would be allowed anywhere near the ballot. If Corbyn, for all his frustrating qualities, is removed from office now, it is hard to see how the party doesn’t take a sharp rightward turn on migration, economic policy and internal democracy. (The assumption is that Corbyn leaving decapitates Momentum, but that is also questionable.)

Two broader issues working here: anxiety about Labour’s fragmenting base and declining vote share in its traditional heartlands; a changing relationship between the party’s elected politicians and its membership. The instinct of many of Labour’s politicians is a kind of neo-corporatism, where government balances the interests of capital, labour and the state, a political strategy which requires a certain insulation from their electoral base and degree of political autonomy. This is why MPs often trot out their Burke when they decide to ignore their constituents (they rarely mention Burke was not long after tossed out of his seat by Bristol’s electors). Disquiet about distance and lack of accountability, a sense that the PLP do not reflect the desires and political direction of the membership, and a departure from the ‘common sense’ of the functioning of representative democracy, means the trust that undergirds that relationship is very heavily eroded. On that, either the base changes or the PLP does.

Many Corbynites talk about deselection/reselection as if it’s an easy option. Not only is it (at the moment) a very complex and obstructed process, it seems obvious to me that at least some deselected MPs would not leave quietly. A number would fight their seat independently or as some SDP mk.ii candidate, either formally or informally a split from Labour. Who wins those seats in that eventuality is an open question, but it will probably be neither. That probably spells the end for the party as it currently exists – and it is, in fact, unclear which way the major unions go in that case.

In the meantime, we are in the midst of an enormous constitutional crisis, heading into a very deep recession and Boris is on his way to the Tory leadership. In the view from 30,000 feet, it is hard not to see the travails of the Labour Party and the deadlock over the implications of the plebiscite as reflecting some of the same problems of the relationship between people, democracy and state.

The naturalistic reading of party rules is that Corbyn is on the ballot in a leadership election unless he resigns. If he is, it still looks like the membership will return him to the leadership. What then?

 

[john eden]

Does anyone closer to Labour than me have any insight into the barmy timing of this vote of no confidence?

Is it

a) just to get it out of the way before Blairism is utterly discredited when the Chilcot enquiry is published?

b) because the centrists are so craven that they would rather destroy their own party than have Corbyn at the helm?

 

[droid]

Does anyone closer to Labour than me have any insight into the barmy timing of this vote of no confidence?

Is it

a) just to get it out of the way before Blairism is utterly discredited when the Chilcot enquiry is published?

b) because the centrists are so craven that they would rather destroy their own party than have Corbyn at the helm?

+

c) Need time to establish new, unknown tory-lite leader before upcoming election.

d) Tunnel vision - fixated on single aim of removing Corbyn.

e) Short term thinking, idiocy & inexperience.

 

[Mr. Tea]

2. Whilst the Harris article is generally correct to say that poor people voted out, this simply isn't true in inner London boroughs like Hackney, Tower Hamlets etc.

Newsflash: London isn't most of the UK or even most of England.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Given that the alternative was the certainty of grinding austerity you can see why people went for the nuclear option of uncertainty really.

As a general rule, it's a good idea never to ask "How much worse could things get?", because you might just be about to find out.

Anyway, I think for most Leave voters the economic argument - even the argument against austerity - wasn't the main reason for voting. If it was, Corbyn would be demolishing Cameron (or Boris, or whoever) in approval ratings and would be in a good place to call an early election and become the next PM with a large Labour majority. People voted Leave because of immigration and the chimaera of 'sovereignty'. And, you know, having to buy bananas of a certain approved curvature by the kilo instead of by the pound.

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

corbyn was right to remind ppl in the commons that cameron is to blame for most if not all the nihilism in england right now, but maybe corbyn only makes sense as someone to remind the govt of their failings, someone better off in opposition, rather than as a leader. only saying this really as the future for him looks so bleak that any hope of him staying in the job looks pointless.

media types seem grimly excited right now, whether just about the impending apocalypse, or because the scope of coverage is massive, but this is worth a look -
https://twitter.com/b_judah