"oh you don't get me I'm the end of the union": lol brexit is how we're all gonna die

https://media.giphy.com/media/Bu8ADbj7NuRry/200.gif

reality:
So why, when we see so much evidential support for the centre and a centrist offering, aren’t people voting for the Lib Dems? They recently polled at only 6% on our monthly Opinium/Observer political poll.

― ||||||||, Sunday, 3 February 2019 8:52 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coalition with the Tories and a fucked electoral system that means that a vote for them (or any other upstart) is pointless. The undemocratic electoral system in the UK is at the root of a lot of the problems of post war Britain.

Stevie, my sample is people my age/older who might as well all be FB mates with that moron Frances Barber, because that’s the noise they make (and they all voted LibDem).

It'll be the ravens next, mark my words https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/03/queen-to-be-evacuated-if-brexit-turns-ugly-reports

This thing about 'theoretical centrists' polling well is surely fairly meaningless

1) they get to be theoretical, while 'left' and 'right' are already present, which means the centre can be whatever the poll respondent wants them to be

2) The number of people who think of themselves as in the centre even though they really aren't, because they're just positioning the centre as where they happen to be

When I see stuff about the queen being potentially evacuated I just think of S5 of The Wire

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/02/our-survey-a-majority-of-party-members-back-mays-deal-if-changes-can-be-made-to-the-backstop.html

As I thought above.

At the end of last year, there was no sign at all that Party members were willing to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, according to our survey. Seventy-one per cent of respondents opposed it and 26 per cent supported it.

But last month, the suggestion that the Northern Ireland backstop might be removed from the deal won a majority for it. Thirteen per cent of those surveyed said that they would back the deal outright, and 40 per cent that they would do so were the backstop to be removed from it. So 53 per cent lined up behind one of those two options. Forty-five per cent said that the deal would not be acceptable to them even were the backstop to be removed.

Since then, the Prime Minister has thrown her weight behind the so-called Brady amendment – whipping the Parliamentary Party to support Sir Graham’s motion to remove the backstop from the Withdrawal Agreement. In the wake of last Tuesday’s votes, she told the Commons that she would now “take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement”.

This seems to have done her a power of good with Party members. According to this month’s survey, the proportion who oppose her deal under any circumstances is down to 36 per cent. These will be some Second Referendum backers but mostly No Deal supporters. (The best part of 90 per cent of Party members are opposed to the former, according to last month’s survey.)

In summary The Guardian report on a handful of the usual tedious plotting Labour rebels, make a big deal about the Opinium poll (the only one I've noticed giving Tories any lead at all) then give its CEO a column to advocate a new centrist party. Why I oughta stop reading...

fucking groundhog day!

I wouldn't freak out or read too much into individual polls (and there's a lot of road before the next election in any case) but I think that mini-Labour slump is a reflection of the fact that we've hurtled past the point of constructive ambiguity/fence sitting as a viable strategy.

Corbyn could just about get away with not articulating a clear Brexit approach because enough Remainers, particularly young left Remainers, could be convinced that they were following the steps agreed at conference. That appears to have fallen by the wayside, with a second referendum apparently off the table, not least because of the size of the expected Labour rebellion would make that impossible. But there's also a growing sense that the leadership have over-indulged the MPs who abstained or voted against the Cooper amendment, essentially they got away with it and they'll be emboldened next time round.

One of the lessons of Blairism is that if you try and be all things to all people you end up meaning nothing to anyone, it's hard to envisage any group, Remain or Leave, feeling that Labour's approach is sufficiently Brexity OR Remainy for their liking.

The only real way forward for Labour now, if they're going to avoid No Deal, is to work with the government to find a deal that will get through the Commons *and* that May will swallow. Both party leaders will make a lot of noise about one thing while quietly preparing to do the other. The SNP is already spinning a narrative about Labour "facilitating a Tory Brexit" - which probably won't hurt them too much in Remain metropolitan centres but could cost them several seats in Scotland that they might otherwise have won.

It would also bail the country, and the Tories, out of a complete disaster and would also allow May to claim victory when a deal finally gets through. The danger is that Labour are also aware of this, and in all the subsequent brinskmanship we end up clownishly falling off the cliff anyway.

the Blairism comparison is a bit odd here because if that regime were handling brexit as the opposition party they'd double down on Remain/2nd Ref and UKIP would polling in double figures again.

Mrs May added that while Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, did not back her plan in a crunch Commons vote, he does support her bid to win new protections to ensure the backstop deal - a customs plan to avoid a "hard" border between Ireland and Northern Ireland if a free trade deal between the UK and EU is not reached - is not permanent.

I assume this is a broad translation for "keeps banging on about staying in the customs union" but who the fuck knows.

I don't think anything's going to get UKIP back into double figures.

“We will remember”. But we won’t even fucking google. Britain got vastly more than Germany got under the Marshall Plan - more than any other European nation. https://t.co/UwwekG8o7T

— Marina Hyde (@MarinaHyde) February 2, 2019

In Wolverhampton, people know what they want, and they want it good and hard.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/is-a-no-deal-brexit-becoming-more-popular_uk_5c51b14be4b00906b26f7b66

When ppl post made-up, ahistorical crap on twitter, they often get away with it. Not just right wing Twitter either.

no one has time to check - and when you needles are being hidden in needlestacks its not always easy either, even if you do have time

funny smell coming from some of them needlestacks :p

It feels like we're deep into nihilism mode, owning the libs, owning the gammons, owning the centrists, owning whoever is there

I felt it myself, when the FBPE fools finally realized they were the owners of an empty bag and shut up. "Lol you cunts" I said to myself as a possible lifeboat was deflated (no matter how useless and unlikely that lifeboat was)

the Blairism comparison is a bit odd here because if that regime were handling brexit as the opposition party they'd double down on Remain/2nd Ref and UKIP would polling in double figures again.

I really don't think this is true, it's important to distinguish how they're behaving as an opposition-within-an-opposition to how they'd behave if they were leading the opposition. They're pretty much trained from birth to follow the polling and triangulate according to it, so they would probably have gone for full Accepting The Result while attempting to find ways of attacking the Tories from the right, or attacking them from a mangerialist/administration point of view.

If I had to stake money on it, I think they'd probably be advocating a version of Soft-Brexit-But-Racist while saying "omnishambles" a lot.

"Lol you cunts" I said to myself as a possible lifeboat was deflated (no matter how useless and unlikely that lifeboat was)

Probably the most succinct encapsulation of our current historical moment that I've ever read.

xxp

I know you are talking about the broader picture of UK political social media rather than Kawczynski doing Mogg style made up shitposting. But I'm starting to grow very weary of lots of lefty twitter, think things need to cool down a little bit, and I say this as a complete Tory despising, semi-tankie reactionary type whose totally guilty of all sorts of angry, kneejerk shite posting.

Or maybe I'm just talking shit and need a twitter break.

Matt DC OTM on what Blairites would be up to if they were leading the Labour Party right now.

but wouldn't that mean ... oh nevermind - too depressing I'm off for a walk.

Varadkar on RTE - "the fact that the British Government resiled from a legal agreement with 28 states illustrates the need for the backstop".

— Jonathan Mills (@Muinchille) February 3, 2019

could be convinced that they were following the steps agreed at conference. That appears to have fallen by the wayside, with a second referendum apparently off the table

these were never a chronological set of steps. "all options are on the table, which includes another referendum" was only ever a lip-service sop to the membership, in any case. the leadership office knew from far out that a second referendum wasn't viable

The only real way forward for Labour now, if they're going to avoid No Deal, is to work with the government to find a deal that will get through the Commons *and* that May will swallow. Both party leaders will make a lot of noise about one thing while quietly preparing to do the other...

this is true I think but it needs to be done in a way which minimises the political pain for labour. the difficulty is that may is so politically tin-eared that she could (and is likely to) do things which make it more difficult for the leadership to whip it through

three likeliest outcomes now are:

- no deal;
- 'soft' labour split where backbenchers throw their lot in with may to vote her deal through, committing political harakiri in the process;
- labour front bench finessing the politics in such a way that they can conscionably whip the may deal through without too much political damage.

all of those options are probably terminal for the may govt though

I still think that MPs will vote through whatever happens to be on the table at 11.59pm regardless of whether its the original WA or not.

Given the rate of business departures from the UK it will probably be too late for a lot of people's jobs in any case.

No deal advocates have no plan for no deal.

Never mind the more excitable stories, the following WILL happen in a no-deal Brexit

1/

— David Henig (@DavidHenigUK) February 3, 2019

Wrong - No deal advocates have a plan. It’s to blame everything that goes wrong on the EU. Why mess with the classics.

That poll is laughable.

Isn't the fence-sitting from Labour ending simply because we are actually reaching crunch point? It has been useful as a strategy and its now about making sure the Tories own the consequences of Brexit in an election should we actually get to one later this year.

The problem is we all share the consequences of Brexit and there are plenty of worried people who under the circumstances aren't too sympathetic to transparent political game playing.

Also whichever way you jump off the fence you risk pissing plenty of people off, perhaps without any real electoral benefit.

Agreed that isn't enough to the migrants who are unsure of their future. For Labour it has been a very grim damage limiting exercise - one of a specific sort. Also one where Labour have had to try to not articulate too many details - party because they have not been the party to negotiate Brexit.

As I see it Labour had to keep much of that electorate who voted Leave onside - but they could perhaps afford to piss off Remainer/People's Vote crowd that live in metropolitan areas, who can go and vote Lib Dem now. I guess we will see whether that has worked or not later in the year.

or Green ;)

or that person who will be The People's Vote candidate who will run in the Islington North constituency in the next election. Will get more votes than The Greens.

Not sure what the Green Party's position on cloning is, but cloning Caroline Lucas is their only hope of making any headway in UK politics.

clone their bougie nonsense voters while they’re at it

program green deals and imperialist wars into their brains.

theres that many leavers looking to vote labour that flinging away remain/second ref is the
....idea?

i know ive asked this before but....where is this coming from? just not liking the flavour of labour/centrism of the majority of remain/second ref crowd?

The fact that a shitload of Labour MPs are from constituencies where Labour voters voted Leave - voters who, nonentheless, voted Labour at the GE, I would imagine.

but they could perhaps afford to piss off Remainer/People's Vote crowd that live in metropolitan areas, who can go and vote Lib Dem now

Not sure about that - there must be quite a few marginals that fall into that bracket, including places that Labour surprised people by picking up in 2017.

Also Scotland.

The only seats Labour has any hope of getting in Scotland based on last election are all snp, so won't help vs tories

The only seats Labour has any hope of getting in Scotland based on last election are all snp, so won't help vs tories

Oop

Picking up seats from anybody helps v the Tories in purely arithmetic terms

helps what? it's quite clear the very slight Labour renaissance will completely collapse if there is any kind of brexit let alone a hard one. it has already collapsed.

Picking up seats from anybody helps v the Tories in purely arithmetic terms

― Brex Avery (Noodle Vague), Sunday, February 3, 2019 3:52 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Doesn't change tories majority at all tho? Labour needs to take Tory seats in England to win a GE.

Labour aren't going to win a GE under Corbyn, ffs, get real.