Brexit process

[Lord Beria3]

Oddly enough I agree with you UE.

Becoming an openly Remain party is politically dangerous for Labour.

[Little John]

A small shift in one party or another could lead to huge changes in the final result.

Yes. So the question Little John needs to answer is "What changes to its brexit policy would shift Labour's electoral prospects in a positive manner?"

And the answer is there isn't one. Labour's policy is the only one that makes sense, and moving in either direction on brexit (at this point) would lose them votes. The only thing that makes sense is for Labour to wait until it finds out what happens to Johnson when he finally takes over. Things could then start changing very quickly, including a general election being called and Labour moving its brexit position in response to whatever the tories do.

I simply don't understand why people are attacking Corbyn. There's nothing else he can do apart from what he's doing. It is not his fault that Labour is split on brexit.

The problem with that approach is that by the time Labour finally gets off the fence, it will be too late and their vote will collapse yet further. The time to pick a side has long since passed.This is no longer about mere political expediencies. It is an existential issue and the voters know it and they will not forgive short term, politically expedient machinations.

[UndercoverElephant]

A small shift in one party or another could lead to huge changes in the final result.

Yes. So the question Little John needs to answer is "What changes to its brexit policy would shift Labour's electoral prospects in a positive manner?"

And the answer is there isn't one. Labour's policy is the only one that makes sense, and moving in either direction on brexit (at this point) would lose them votes. The only thing that makes sense is for Labour to wait until it finds out what happens to Johnson when he finally takes over. Things could then start changing very quickly, including a general election being called and Labour moving its brexit position in response to whatever the tories do.

I simply don't understand why people are attacking Corbyn. There's nothing else he can do apart from what he's doing. It is not his fault that Labour is split on brexit.

The problem with that approach is that by the time Labour finally gets off the fence, it will be too late and their vote will collapse yet further. The time to pick a side has long since passed.This is no longer about mere political expediencies. It is an existential issue and the voters know it and they will not forgive short term, politically expedient machinations.

If Labour gets off the fence now, their vote will reduce further. So what is the point in them doing it? Your argument appears to be that if they delay any further, it will cost them even more votes in the future, but there's no evidence to suggest this is actually true.

The bottom line is that Labour is very likely going to have to fight a general election in the forseeable future, but as things stand we still don't know what the tory policy on brexit is going to be at that election, nor do we know whether Johnson and Farage will do some sort of pre-election pact to not stand against each other. And until we do know these things, Labour has nothing to gain by making a significant move on brexit.

You cannot change anything when you are stuck in opposition.

[Little John]

There is no evidence to suggest that showing one's colours unequivocally will increase votes?

You are just taking the piss now ... right?

You did actually see the EU election results? You did notice which parties gained votes, to the extent one was raised from the dead and another came out of nowhere, and which parties vote's collapsed in that election?

However, I suspect it's way too late for Labour now no matter what they do. The Remainers and Leavers, sick of waiting on Labour's (and the Tory's)
prevarications, have chosen other champions. The EU elections have already shown us that.

As for the Tories, they have always had a more venal instinct for survival when push comes to shove. So, given the wake up call of the EU election results and with a consequent Johnson leadership that takes the UK out of the EU on October 31st, they have at least the possibility of surviving this crisis of the political class. If, on the other hand, Johnson fails to do so, then Farage or something like him is what comes next.

Either way, the Labour party, as currently constituted, is dead.

[PS_RalphW]

The latest Opinium poll has Labour in the lead on 25% and LD fourth on 15%

The one thing the recent opinion polls have told us is that they don't tell us anything about the likely result of the next election, whenever that is. Corbyn is following a high risk strategy by sitting on the fence, but he could still be our next (but one) prime minister

[UndercoverElephant]

There is no evidence to suggest that showing one's colours unequivocally will increase votes?

You are just taking the piss now ... right?

Of course I am not taking the piss. Why are you finding this so hard to understand??

Labour did not cause brexit. They did not call that referendum and they were not responsible for negotiating Theresa May's terrible deal. They are split, both in terms of members and voters, and they have decided that the best policy is to not to go hard remain or hard leave but to try to get into power instead. Labour cannot "show its true colours" BECAUSE IT IS SPLIT. It doesn't have any "true colours" to show. It's true colours are themselves split.

You did actually see the EU election results? You did notice which parties gained votes, to the extent one was raised from the dead and another came out of nowhere, and which parties vote's collapsed in that election?

However, I suspect it's way too late for Labour now no matter what they do. The Remainers and Leavers, sick of waiting on Labour's (and the Tory's)
prevarications, have chosen other champions. The EU elections have already shown us that.

I still don't understand what point you are trying to make. You appear to just be expressing discontent, both with Labour and myself, but you aren't being clear about what you think Labour should actually do.

Either way, the Labour party, as currently constituted, is dead.

Sigh.

If there was an election called now, my money would still be on Corbyn to end up in Downing Street when all the shouting is over. That's not dead. That's the first marxist Prime Minister in British history, which will be quite some achievement given the level of resistance in powerful places.

I don't see how either the tories on their own or a tory/bxp alliance can get a majority. I also don't see how the libdems could possibly pick up enough seats to be the largest party. That means Labour is on course to be the largest party in a hung parliament, and I am yet to see you or anybody else suggest a credible alternative timeline. Even if the tories somehow manage to succeed in taking the UK out of the EU with no deal before an election, they'll still lose when that election comes.

[Potemkin Villager]

This is an interesting take. Is blowing fuses in remainer heads. What if you start by acknowledging that the Irish border simply cannot be closed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCcffoqcWsw

I am not sure what this guy's stichk is. I certainly agree that a border in Ireland would be impossible to police and always has been very porous.

There are of course plenty of existing land borders between the EU and third countries viz:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ ... pean_Union

I am sure all have varying degrees of very profitable porosity.

[kenneal - lagger]

It would be interesting to see what the reaction of the Irish and their government would be to being told by the EU to build a fence along the Irish border.

[UndercoverElephant]

This is an interesting take. Is blowing fuses in remainer heads. What if you start by acknowledging that the Irish border simply cannot be closed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCcffoqcWsw

I am not sure what this guy's stichk is. I certainly agree that a border in Ireland would be impossible to police and always has been very porous.

There are of course plenty of existing land borders between the EU and third countries viz:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_ ... pean_Union

I am sure all have varying degrees of very profitable porosity.

I think the difference is that in this case any attempt to make it less porous would inevitably seen as political. It will be impossible to separate economic and political motivations for hardening the border.

[Potemkin Villager]

If the tories could ditch Arelene and her gang of gougers, the border would suddenly appear in the middle of the Irish Sea.

Of course they can't and an election would just replace one set of intractable problems with a different set.

Brexit is the snafu of all snafus.

[Little John]

Those pesky Northern Irish people voting for those DUPer's and then, even more shocking, the DUP MPs doing what they promised their electorate they would do. Namely, everything in their power to protect the Union.

Yes, indeed, this democracy thing is a bitch aint it....

[UndercoverElephant]

It would be interesting to see what the reaction of the Irish and their government would be to being told by the EU to build a fence along the Irish border.

I think they would simply refuse.

[Little John]

Labour: betrayer of the working class

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/0 ... ing-class/

Brendan O'Neill

Jeremy Corbyn and his cheerleaders conquered the Labour machinery four years ago with a promise to return the party to its radical, socialist, working-class roots. What have they actually done? Made Labour into the party of the establishment. Made it into a political instrument for the preservation of the status quo. Made it the backer of an oligarchy – the European Union – that is defined by its censorious hostility to socialist policies in its member states. The Corbyn movement has made Labour into a party not for the working class, but against it. Against its own traditional support base; against the people who were the backbone of the party for decades; and against the thing that these people are more likely than any other social constituency to have voted for: Brexit.

Labour’s confirmation today that it is a party of Remain is not just a tactical move or a tweak in strategy, as many are claiming. It is far more significant than that. It is the end of an era. Or at least it confirms the end of an era that has in fact been a long time coming. It confirms Labour is no longer the representative of people who labour, but rather has become an outfit of the metropolitan middle classes and the woke bourgeoisie, the vast majority of whom oppose Brexit. This is far more significant than Tony Blair’s ‘Clause IV moment’, when, in 1995, then party leader Blair replaced the constitutional clause committing Labour to the socialist ideal of the common ownership of the means of production and replaced it with talk of tolerance and respect. Because the Corbyn movement has not simply trashed Labour’s socialist ideals, but the very thing upon which such ideals were traditionally based and which make such ideals possible to pursue in the first place – democracy; the engagement of as many people as possible in the political process.

Labour’s official embrace of Remain is full-on. This morning Corbyn himself, previously said to be reticent about backing a second referendum, says Labour policy is now to demand a second referendum that includes an option to remain on the ballot paper. And, he says, Labour would campaign for remain. Think about what this means. Labour will defy the largest act of democracy in UK history. It will campaign for the overthrow of this democratic act. It will happily defy the 17.4million people, which includes an estimated four million Labour voters, who backed Brexit. It will betray the historically massive bloc of voters who supported Brexit which, according to every serious statistical breakdown, contains a disproportionate number of working-class voters. It has positioned itself against democracy.

And if the left isn’t for democracy, what is it for? The origins of the left are in arguing that ordinary people ought to have a right to a say in political affairs, to shape and determine their political surroundings and everyday lives. From the Peterloo Massacre to the Chartist uprising to Sylvia Pankhurst’s radical cries for female suffrage and socialist democracy, every significant left campaign of modern times has been devoted to expanding the democratic ideal; to involving as many people as possible in decision-making processes that were previously considered the preserve of the well-educated and the aristocratic. In devoting itself to overturning a radical act of democracy, a vote for democracy, Labour tramples over this tradition and positions itself as the party of the new globalist elites rather than the majority of British voters – a party of the few, not the many. Many of us have said this for years, but others will now surely realise it too: Labour is in no meaningful way a left-wing party or a party of the working class.

It has been claimed for years that, whether you agree with Corbyn or not, you have to admit he is at least a man of principle. We now know how untrue this is. Under pressure from the woke middle classes who make up the ranks of Momentum, and from a trade-union movement which has become utterly cut off from its working-class members, Corbyn has ditched everything he ever believed in. He has ditched his longstanding Euroscepticism and his determination to preserve Tony Benn’s legacy of radical English democratic ideas. He has betrayed Labour’s own 2017 manifesto, its working-class voters, and his own hero Benn, whose sceptical, democratic legacy he has now killed and buried in return for the flimsy backing of the entitled, irate metropolitan defenders of the status quo. Corbyn’s legacy will be the destruction of Benn’s legacy, and for what? For the pay-off of a few more months of power at the top of the Labour Party. He is the most unprincipled, unscrupulous, power-hungry politician in British politics right now – and that’s saying something. RIP Labour.

[clv101]

Rather than this move showing how Corbyn has ditched his principles, I think it more likely shows how he's losing power and influence. Unless we have an election in the next three months, I doubt he'll contest another as leader.

[Lord Beria3]

Looks like nobody is happy with this shift.

Even on the Guardian online comments many seem unhappy with Corbyn and have stopped trusting him on Brexit.

To sum up - too little too late.