craner

Beast of Burden
But just because I'm saying that I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland tried to force through independence doesn't mean that I can't criticise poroguation, gerrymandering, lying etc I'm not endorsing any kind of anti-democratic move, it's just a vague prediction that is loosely tied up with my wider prediction that everything is fucked now. Basically the thing I care most about is stopping Brexit and that's done and dusted - even though more votes were cast for anti-Brexit parties apparently, the Tories are already saying this election delivers a clear mandate for Brexit. Now that's why an election is no substitute for a referendum in terms of sorting out that single matter (in the Euro elections the Tories claimed the results meant that people wanted to get on with brexit while Labour and others claimed the opposite). Referenda have the advantage of clarity at least. Anyway, whatever, the Tories are in power, have a large enough majority to do what they want and they are gonna force through Johnson's crappy deal so they claim it's done when really all that will have been done is the damage, the (all but) irrefutable step of leaving. After that they will try and keep the ongoing negotiations out of the news and play them down as much as possible. But our rights WILL be diminished and our economy and our future potential etc.

Cross posts I think. Prorogation point was to Sufi.
 

version

Well-known member
Alan Johnson's line about the working class always having disappointed people like Lansman was painful to watch.

 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hottest of takes I read on Twitter today, from a Corbynite lambasting a Labour MP saying that people in his constituency were anti-Corbyn, was (and I quote) "It’s the tories you should be blaming".

Yep, it's the Tories' fault that Labour lost. Because they beat them. The same way that when your football team loses, it's the fault of the winning team.
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah, as much as I like Corbyn, wanted the Tories to lose and have a lot of issues with the media, how dirty the Tory campaign was and so on, this feels much more like Labour losing it than the Tories winning it. Nobody really trusts Boris, he didn't have a great campaign, he hid in a fucking fridge at one point and stole a reporter's phone, and yet, he's apparently picked up the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher...
 

version

Well-known member
Well, I don't really see Scotland leaving as a bad thing, certainly I don't blame them. I just mean it looks as though it will happen... or maybe we will end up with some situation like in Catalonia where they hold a referendum deemed illegitimate by the UK government and there is major civil unrest.

Sturgeon's said it has to be legal and accepted within both the UK and the EU, but who knows what happens if they're still in the same spot in a few years time.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
And with Scotland, yes same. Three elections on the go, if they want to leave, maybe it is time.

I despise nationalism, not sure it will work out how they think. Like I have always said too, the idea that an independent Scotland would be a left wing dream is hilarious: Scotland has a very conservative rump, nationalist or not. The union was also based on a Scottish enthusiasm for the economic and military benefits of the British Empire.

I remember in the run-up to the independence referendum a few years ago, social media was full of lefty Scots painting their country as somehow inherently green, peaceful and socialist, as opposed to nasty old Tory England.

Because, you know, it's not like Scots were highly active in every aspect of British imperialism or like industrial capitalism basically began there or anything. :rolleyes:
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, as much as I like Corbyn, wanted the Tories to lose and have a lot of issues with the media, how dirty the Tory campaign was and so on, this feels much more like Labour losing it than the Tories winning it. Nobody really trusts Boris, he didn't have a great campaign, he hid in a fucking fridge at one point and stole a reporter's phone, and yet, he's apparently picked up the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher...

Tory vote share went up by just over 1%. Labour's fell by about 8%.
 

droid

Well-known member
Look at the commonalities between this and the environment that gave us Trump. Utterly toxic media, historically disenfranchised constituencies and a perverse anti-democratic electoral system. Its no coincidence that the anglosphere nations that have swung to the far right are the ones in which neoliberalism is the most advanced. We have a burgeoning conspiratorial right problem here, but they will have great difficulty gaining political power simply because of the PR system.

Corbyn failed to send a clear message, folded on the Brexit position that succeeded in 2017, and was ultimately too principled and naive to fight dirty when it was needed.

But let's face it, the game is completely rigged.
 

droid

Well-known member
Scotland is fortunate in that its nationalism has been harnessed by a what is essentially a centre left social democratic party. It could be much, much worse - as we have seen.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't know anything about Scottish independence, it was the least important part of what I was trying to say.
 

Leo

Well-known member
trump won in large part because a lot of resentful people wanted to stick it to the washington/coastal elites, even if in some ways it meant voting against their own best interests. Boris/brexit probably won because a lot of resentful people wanted to stick it to faceless Brussels bureaucrats, even if in some ways it meant voting against their own best interests.

lots of resentment out there, just waiting for the right con man to come along and stoke it.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I keep seeing this and it's truly scary. I mean, if I were a Tory voter who doesn't fit into Hatie's idea of white English I'd be wondering what the fuck I'd done....
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
"Indeed the Conservative overall vote share is only a percentage point or so higher than 2017. They’ve won scores more seats because the Labour vote is down 9 points. 2019 is (largely but not exclusively) a story of Labour decline rather than a profound Conservative surge."


if that's true this does suggest this is more corbyn's failure than it is johnson's success.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
this from last year was brilliant.

focussing on towns (towns turned from labour this election). "local" and "community" emphasis. "an honest days work could earn you a decent days pay" speaks to that working class/lower middle class aspirational idyll that that thatcher was great at tapping into. "rebuilding britain" has patriotic overtones and also gets the public spending message across in a way that doesn't sound scarily radical nor profligate. "lost control" taps into effective leave messaging. and so on.

if they could have managed to make the campaign feel more like this those red wall seats might have held up.

 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Adam Wagner is brilliant here, really incisive:
I think he gets at the character flaws at the heat of the party, that have kinda spilled out and created a culture.

know everyone sees their own hobbyhorse as the true reason for the loss but I do think there was a wider lesson in how the faction in control of Labour handled the upsurge in antisemitism. Denial, alternative facts, striking out, lack of empathy. It’s a pattern of behaviour.

This is exactly it and until this culture is gone, Labour have zero hope.
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
if they could have managed to make the campaign feel more like this those red wall seats might have held up.

Not up here in North Notts. Here it was all about Brexit.

Typical conversation:

— You can vote Labour and still have Brexit.
— No, that would probably mean no Brexit; people would probably vote against it this time.
— In which case we shouldn't have Brexit, should we?
— Yes, we should, we've voted for it.
— Why is Brexit so important anyway?
— Because democracy.
— Isn't a second vote democracy?
— No, we've voted to leave.
— So just fuck everyone and everything else?
— Jeremy Corbyn supports terrorism.
 
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