PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

i was being flippant at the expense of clarity pinefox:

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is an experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia[2][3] and may overlap with frisson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response

suggesting people get a subliminal sensory thrill from the sound of authoritarianism in the morning.

Fun to see the FT leader grudgingly endorsing the idea of a Corbyn-led caretaker government.

I posted the link to that last night.

xp otm, I have never understood the tendency to tug the forelock in Ireland and I don’t understand it here either, esp considering the open contempt of the ruling classes towards the populace.

this bit in particular is hilarious:

This is unpalatable for even the most ardent Tory Remainers, and others such as the Liberal Democrats, since ousting Mr Johnson in time to affect the Brexit process may also require the creation of a caretaker government under Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn — an outcome they rightly fear.

A Socialist Motherfucking Republic

A spectre is haunting England — the spectre of Jammy Crumbum

I have some questions as an onlooker. Let's say there's an election shortly after Brexit and the Cons are able to eke out a win having "succeeded" in their goal but without the proper shitstorm in sight yet. Do we think Corbyn would be out as Labour leader if that happened, and if so, is there anyone obvious waiting in the wings as an ideologically contiguous successor? Or is there sufficient support within the party to move back to the (gulp) center?

it reminds me of the old saw about The Economist: they’ll have great articles covering in lucid detail problems and instabilities in countries across the world before concluding that more free market capitalism is the solution.

The Tories can drive the economy and welfare of the country’s citizens into the shitbin and the voice of business will still prefer it to a moderately left-wing government, who is promising more structured investment and preserving a heath system which after all is designed to keep people healthy to work.

yet no, they got the left wing heebie-jeebies.

A Socialist Motherfucking Republic

it's coming home

I really need to run into [beloved national broadcaster] in the café again very soon.

You can argue that the Tories losing their reputation as the 'party of business' matters less to their voting base now than it ever has done in the past. idk what proportion of them are 'economically active'.

The Tories winning a crushing majority would probably be the end of Corbyn - but i'm not sure a crushing majority is likely. McDonnell is the most ideologically contiguous successor, though Rebecca Long-Bailey might seem like more of a viable alternative within the same sort of left-wing space. I don't think the membership would ever endorse a centrist who has set themselves up in opposition to the Corbyn project but might back a softer left leader, like Kier Starmer, who has played ball.

It’s arguably because so much of the base is no longer economically active that has let all this happen. It’s the insulation they believe they have that lets them insist on economically devastating things in order to obtain Sovereignty.

xps: Corbyn's future would probably depend on whether he'd completed his Damascene conversion on the EU. If a case could reasonably be made that Labour's faffing about had split the vote with the Lib Dems then he'd probably not last long - if the Tories managed to put away the Brexit Party they could get a walloping majority.

If we do head in to an election with the four main parties roughly splitting the vote, what results would probably be a solid case for electoral reform - though that's going to be the least of our problems.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually seen any attempt at estimating voting preferences per constituency.

stet 100% otm imo.

and i think the care for electoral reform is incontrovertible. it’s just that the circumstances where a FPTP system delivers it are very narrow. We’re potentially quite close to them now though, if you imagine a Tories being kept out by *some* sort of Labour, Lib Dem working agreement in which the Lib Dems had enough sense to make it not just about a second referendum but also PR.

The other thing that's not been made clear to me is just *how* bad No Deal is or could be - maybe I've missed it, but it feels like Remainers/stop-no-deal folks haven't presented the problem in a very digestible way. Have they been specifically avoiding worst-case-scenario type shit so as not to be mocked for seeming alarmist?

Yeah, stet otm.

One of the big pains of having lost a referendum on PR is that any attempt to implement it without one will be complained about as anti-democratic.

There's obviously a lot of information from a lot of sources, but when Murdoch's Sky is saying it's bad, that's probably a good start:

https://news.sky.com/feature/what-would-life-in-a-no-deal-brexit-uk-look-like-11584899

Everyone loathes Ian Dunt, but he has at least done solid research on what No Deal would result in, infrastructure-wise.

Here for example: https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/07/27/this-is-what-no-deal-brexit-actually-looks-like

Lol?

I have had constituency cases of EU nationals being denied settled status despite living here for years. This is a breach of the assurances I and other Leavers gave during the referendum. Please help sort this out @patel4witham before we end up with another Windrush scandal.

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) August 28, 2019

Have they been specifically avoiding worst-case-scenario type shit so as not to be mocked for seeming alarmist

No, not at all. They've been talking about medicine shortages, riots in the street, a return to regular violence in Northern Ireland, food and petrol running out, etc. Fundamentally, a lot of people either don't believe them or don't care - assuming that stuff will level out before long or that alternative arrangements can be made before we hit crisis point.

The most damaging stuff has probably the government reports outlining what amounts to disaster planning - but again, this can be written off as negativity from pampered civil servants, etc.

if you listen to people who have a knowledge of how UK supply chains work calmly talking about what will happen in NDB it's pretty grim listening and they are not being remotely alarmist. I've heard people involved in farming and manufacturing describing how their business could be gone in a month, and describing how especially with these food imports we take for granted, how there isn't any leeway for delays or it will simply just rot in the back of hgv trucks.

Ah, so I've just not been paying strict enough attention, as I suspected. Thanks. xp

Honestly, reading the comments under local news articles (never do this btw) there seems to be a substantial body of opinion that food shortages and people going without stuff will be character building. Blitz spirit is part of it but the objective isn’t just weathering the storm, it seems to be resetting a lot of the material trappings of the last fifty years.

Oh yeah I mean to post this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/northern-ireland-troubles-violence-police-bomb-dissident-no-deal-brexit-a9075286.html

Leadership is failing, trust is being eroded, perspective is being lost, and old prejudices are flourishing. Warnings of trouble on the horizon are not being sounded purely by alarmists and those who would relish a return to conflict. Increasingly, clear-headed, respected voices in Northern Ireland are becoming seriously concerned.

And a response article of sorts from Slugger O'Toole.

https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/08/25/is-northern-ireland-spiralling-out-of-control/

I like the head boy/girl archetype thing, suzy OTM

my FBPE-est friend surprised me by saying she didn't think Corbyn as PM was "safe" - yes, I know, that's what this thread says FBPErs do, but "surprised" because I know she's voted Labour in the past, and because she regales me with tales of a very rock'n'roll 90s living in squats with punks and drug dealers and is not at all the head-girl-voting Sensible archetype in my head

and the FT yesterday tutting at Boris and then just happily throwing in that people are "rightly" afraid of a Corbyn govt, but nobody ever really explains what's worse about Corbyn than willingly crashing the pound and nuking British business, proroguing parliament, hanging out with Bannon, having ministers who were previously forced to resign for actual security/protocol breaches in cabinet...

there was a good tweet y/day which I can't find now, which quote-tweeted Gauke's "imagine if it was Corbyn" to say "imagine only being able to see anything wrong with it if you imagine Corbyn did it", and that was OTM, and yet so many people are apparently completely unable to even imagine it, and still splutter that it must be completely different somehow

"xps: Corbyn's future would probably depend on whether he'd completed his Damascene conversion on the EU"

Lol @ EU need nonsense. The future is Corbyn as leader going into a general election.

A crushing majority wouldn't be likely for the Tories because of some of the reasoning outlined above + plus social media negating much of the impact of the right-wing press (even with a tighter game on that front from the Tories) and if Brexit were to happen then that wouldn't be as much of an issue except some of its consequences that we could see. It would also focus minds on two very different competing visions for the country.

Another consequence of Brexit happening is the anger that would spill in and around both parties immediately after. You'd think both would unite around and get on with the campaign but I wonder what the effect might be, you'd think it would be felt.

EU *nerd nonsense, autocorrect is my enemy again.

That's alright, I've been assuming speech-to-text, as we've previously settled that you can't read.

For example, the original question being how Corbyn would fare after he lead Labour into an election and they lost.

It's still a weird answer.

Every time sterling drops I’m reminded of Theresa May shoehorning ‘run on the pound’ as an accusation against Labour into half of her PMQs responses (and I’m surely not alone in this).

The only future for a politician is dependant on whether votes are won. What does a fabled conversion to the EU have to do with anything?

The real answer to the question is: if Labour increase their share of seats, win or lose, Corbyn stays. If not, he may decide himself to go.

If Boris Johnson is PM with a good working majority not reliant on the DUP post a GE Corbyn goes.

If it's a hung parliament or better, he stays whatever his views on the lol EU.

One of the big pains of having lost a referendum on PR

tbf, this hasn't actually happened

more background for simon h, if he's still reading:

back during the scottish indyref in 2014 the rhetoric for stay (which in fact won) was derisively dubbed "project fear"

stay in fact won in 2014, but a force was spotted in the rhetoric -- a scorn directed at overreacting panic or similar -- and the term was resurrected during the 2016 referendum campaign, used by leavers against the warnings of remainers, and then when leave won in 2016, the rheotric could be further leveraged: because in the medium-term aftermath, 2016-17ish, and before no deal had coalesced as an option with a following, few of the warned-against dooms materialised.

hence if you took 2016 as the moment that brexit happened (which many did and do, since the immediate response from all the main parties was "respect the results"), then the doomsaying was proved wrong! things weren't so bad! (and even strong remain ppl who understood economics were arguing that the bad effects of hard-brexit-but-with-deal would be long-term – tho genuine and serious – decline not instant catastrophe)

post the 2017 electio, corbyn, despite losing it, was suddenly considered a serious threat instead of a ludicrous joke (he had prfoemred far better than predicted, against a massive MSM headwind, and pushed may into an extremely tight spot in parliament = no overall majoityt and having to make a deal with the DUP, a famously intransigent partner with no compunction abt shafting its allies if/when it felt needful)

when (end 2017) the full-on reachable alternatives to may's hard brexit proposal emerged -- = roughly a corbs-led govt vs no deal -- the MSM screamers were almost entirely committed to rubbishing and undermining corbyn, and the many technical but very concrete threats of no deal almost never reached their front pages. and besides by end 2017 a phalanx of other fears were visibly massing, including trump, global warming, fascism everywhere etc etc. so i think the portrayal, via the "project fear" jibe, still had heft! who's panicking here? guardian readers! when do they not panic? never! who has the balls to see it through? the no-deal gang, it'll be the blitz again and who won the war? (actual ans here = stalin in europe, with some US help, but this is not at all how it's understood in the UK)

and in fact it wasn't till may quit and johnson emerged as leader that the potential reality of no-deal (excluding the guardian) genuinely arrived centre-screen brit media (along with the fact that any planning had barely begun, bcz no deal under may was a threat to get ppl in line not the actual thing she was pushing for)

(we are already seeing may re-evaluated -- including by some centrist libs -- as the great lost tory hope and the only way brexit could have been mitigated)

tl;rd: the fact that civlisation didn't completely collapse the week after leave won the referendum greatly diminished the force of any presentation of worst-case scenarios -- and now that we're facing the possibility of no deal with no margin nearly no margin to mitigate, and the worst (short term) case is on us, we're seeing the sensibles centrist worldview ("obviously it can't happen here, the adults won't let it") breaking apart with terrible suddenness :(

even shorter: there are two project fears at work now, "what if no deal?" and "what if corbyn as PM?", and UK msm has assiduously amplified the second to muffle the first

Thanks for that, I knew some but not all of the finer psychological points. Good luck uk

There's obviously a lot of information from a lot of sources, but when Murdoch's Sky is saying it's bad, that's probably a good start

It's Comcast's Sky we just live under it.

booming post mark

the booming of course comes from the detonation of the uk which means lol we’re all gonna die

it'll be the blitz again and who won the war? (actual ans here = stalin in europe, with some US help, but this is not at all how it's understood in the UK)

I know this is not an original point to make, but it does feel like to a lot of ppl of a certain age the best thing that could happen to the UK would be a catastrophe equivalent to getting bombed by nazis, which is a particularly deranged version of the boomer deference/guilt towards the Greatest Generation.

This piece is relevant on that v question:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/06/today-s-75-year-olds-didn-t-fight-war-so-why-do-we-think-they-did

"actual ans here = stalin in europe, with some US help, but this is not at all how it's understood in the UK"

some of the guff I got for posting about this on the WW2 thread says it isn't just UK ppl who buy propagandist versions of history.

Meanwhile reading around what is happening to Bury FC:

Steve Dale bought Bury on 7 December 2018. 11 days later he set up two new companies, Bury Heritage & Bury Leisure & started transferring assets to them, including the club’s trophies. Some would describe this as the action of a sociopathic asset stripper #DontBuryBury pic.twitter.com/K8hAPELYGA

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) August 29, 2019

John McDonnell, just now: “This is no longer a Government. It is now a regime.”

John McDonnell, just now: “This is no longer a Government. It is now a regime.”

get their asses

I like the Corbyn/McDonnell good cop/bad cop thing A LOT.

It's all good:

He added: “The last 24 hours have revealed the true character of Boris Johnson and, as importantly, the real nature of his politics.

“It’s exposed in Johnson a deep-seated arrogant sense of entitlement. Johnson sees himself not as a modern-day Prime Minister, whose authority rests upon the support of a Parliamentary democracy.

“Instead, his actions betray that he’s reverted to a much older Tory tradition. He’s a ruler, ruling over the ruled.

“Democratic practices like parliamentary votes have become encumbrances to the freedom of the ruler. And how dare the broadcast media seek to pose questions and ask for an interview or anything more than a short clip of him grinning.”

I know this is not an original point to make, but it does feel like to a lot of ppl of a certain age the best thing that could happen to the UK would be a catastrophe equivalent to getting bombed by nazis, which is a particularly deranged version of the boomer deference/guilt towards the Greatest Generation.

I'm not sure it's just deference. There is a deep dissatisfaction with the way society has developed that crosses a lot of national boundaries. The strongest opponents of Russian hypercapitalism have often been the pensioners turning out to vote Communist every election. One of the driving forces in Polish religious revanchism has been the elderly people who feel like the benefits of economic and cultural liberalism have passed them by.

There's a lot of awful stuff being mourned by aging Brexiters (the death penalty, corporal punishment, overwhelming whiteness, class deference, etc) but i think there's also a grain of truth in the idea that, material things aside, modern capitalism isn't really working for them either. The absolute collapse in the sense of community that has come along with mobility, atomisation, the privatisation of public space, etc, hits them as hard as anyone. Rolling back to a period when 'we had nothing but we was happy', which appears to be the default description of most of their childhoods, isn't completely bananas.