Neverending Story 3: The Ongoing Brexit Thread

Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. There is no winning on this issue for the Tories.

 

As time goes on and the tories struggle to implement brexit it also becomes easier for labour to say we need to have a confirmatory ballot, 'to break the deadlock'.

If Johnson becomes PM and insists on going to the EU with an ultimatum to have a no-deal brexit, despite the commons explicitly having said the threat isn't one they agree to, a confidence vote and resultant GE gets ever more likely.

Of course, it's also just as likely he'll cave and have to deal with the rubes.

In short...



Like he said, anything can happen in the next half hour/6 months.

 

Which is why I think some of the moderate Tories are backing him. They know they're screwed in the short term, so might as well get shot of Johnson's ambitions at the same time.

 

Some interesting perspective on all this from the beeb's Kayta Adler...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48767118

I have to say, reading that it all sounds alarmingly familiar to anyone who's read their history about the run-up to WWI. Not to say we're going to have a war, of course... just that political miscalculations can have disastrous consequences if people make too many assumptions.

 

Or they're not actually that moderate and have been lying to their constituents.

 

All Bojo and Hunt have to do is get past 200,000 old people, and then these promises will evaporate like the US defense in 40-degree weather.

 

That is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.

 

Hyde... this years Polly Toynbee in her readiness to abandon the left and try and bring in the 'year of the Libruls'

Unfortunately Williamson's one of these big-mouthed prats who can't keep his trap shut so it's right to complain about his witless ramblings but as to whether we should be throwing people out of the party because somebody thinks they're antisemitic, with only the most incoherent statements to back it up... that's another matter.

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing the back of the guy as he's too stupid to be an MP and has a big mouth, (an unfortunate combination), but to say we should throw some red meat to the meeja dogs, (like THAT will satisfy them), seems a poor plan.

 

A German becomes EU president the second Britain steps out of Europe. Coincidence, I think not...

 

Von der Leyen is a huge step down from Juncker. Don't expect her to do much good.

 

Just saw this in HuffPo, (which I don't normally read, tbh), which covers the position in a vote of no confidence...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...hnson-jeremy-hunt_uk_5d1cf92ce4b0f312567e0caa

It's going to be 'interesting', shall we say,

 

An opposition party that makes news like this does not deserve to govern.

 

Do you follow the Tory related news lately?

 

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Assume that a) I do read the news and b) understood the words you wrote as well as your intent. Also assume that, if your answer is what I expected, for us to have a lengthy, productive discussion on whataboutism.

 

The retarded beauty of a two party system is that one choice usually is less shitty than the other. So yeah directly comparing Labours shittiness to the Tory shittiness isn't whataboutism but a necessary step to decide "who deserves to govern".

Your absolute statement of "does not deserve to govern" is directly dependent on the shittiness of the other parties on the ballot.

Less shitty then the others is the relevant qualification here.

 

... except that the same sort of thing happens in the conservatives, (they have brexit party 'infiltrators' who are overtly racist and Islamophobic), and yet that's NEVER covered by the 'meeja'.

Almost ALL parties have malcontents and trouble-causing idiots so, on that basis, nobody should form a government.

 

Really? Ya think?

Yeah, the 2 party system is largely a function of the FPTP method of choosing politicians so it clearly IS often a straight choice between one unpalatable person and another, hopefully, slightly less unpalatable.

In truth, though, there is almost no significant antisemitism in the labour party, (the number of cases referred, let alone acted upon, is LESS than half a percent IIRC), whereas the proportion of conservative party members that are Islamophobic, (and outright racists), is nearer 40% on most measures and goes right to the top of the party.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/23/london.race

Boris Johnson has apologised for referring to black people as "piccaninnies" and talking about "watermelon smiles".

During a debate for the London mayoral contest on Monday, the Conservative candidate said he was "sad" that people had been offended but insisted the words had been taken out of context.

In a column published in the Daily Telegraph six years ago, Johnson mocked Tony Blair's globetrotting: "What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies," he wrote. It also mentioned "watermelon smiles".​

So, yes... it IS a choice... between a party where people speak, (or 'tweet', more accurately ), unthinkingly and without considering the harm their word or a party whose very essence is 'othering' and outright racism.

 

Fascinating.

See, a two-party system only works if the alternative is viable. When the alternative isn't viable, and the governing party isn't viable, something called "Partisan realignment" occurs. In the United Kingdom and the United States, there have only been a handful, but they do occur.

Unless the two major parties find ways to be viable, they disappear and are replaced by other parties. It is precisely what appears to be happening in the United Kingdom right now. In Scotland, the SNP is supplanting the two main parties, while in England and Wales the Liberal Democrats and Greens appear to be supplanting Labour while the Brexit Party is supplanting the Conservatives.

Obviously the pattern can reverse itself, and a betting man looking at British history wouldn't bet against the status quo. But I wouldn't hope that a race to the bottom is the way out. Someone in Labour is going to have to be the adult in the room, kick out the shitty people making news, and get to the business of governing.

Conservatives benefit from status-quo bias in the media. Not just in the UK, but in most parts of the world. Whining about it gets you literally nowhere. Complaining about how poor Jeremy Corbyn isn't treated fairly gets Labour, along with £2.75, a cup of coffee.

 

Well, there's one gone...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48909477




No huge loss, tbh.

She represents a constituency where 3 out of 4 probably voted to remain but she's an ardent brexiter.

 

Brexit explained....

 

The alt right fascists in the Netherlands like Baudet and Wilders always bang the drum of being demonised by the left=everybody criticising them, but have no problem using it themselves towards others.