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

But I won't even row back either.

one of the unfortunate consequences of the EU branding itself as a symbol of European peace is that it's led to this ahistorical mythology where lots of ppl think it was actually a major cause of postwar peace rather than a symptom of it

The acronym finder is rubbish today xp

ffs he's called plaxico

Mr Umunna criticised the Labour leader's foreign policy positions, saying he acted as "an apologist for a hard-right Russian government that thinks it's OK to poison people on British soil".

He also accused him of "lauding authoritarian regimes in Venezuela and Iran" and "failing to support the prescription of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation".

Labour has said it will not seek to block the government’s decision to ban the political wing of Hezbollah in the UK, but suggested the move by Sajid Javid was motivated by his leadership ambitions rather than actual evidence.

Membership of the Lebanon-based group’s military wing is already outlawed, but the proscription will now be extended to its political arm, the home secretary announced on Monday.

Labour has previously advocated dialogue with Hezbollah’s political wing.

anyone willing to guess how BJ will obey the law but not request an extension on 19/10?

Quick question for any passing Americans: do you know who the Lib Dems are?

― gyac, Monday, September 16, 2019 9:55 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been aware of the Lib Dems since 2010 but I still haven't the foggiest notion what they're for

not "for" as in what they're in favor of, but "for" as in their functional purpose

they are good for me to poop on

^this is the sort of incivility that's driving out all dissenting opinion when this thread sorely needs more lib dem perspectives

At first I read that as 'they are too good for me to poop on' and it got me cogitating.

theyre neither labour (good, mostly, some of the time) nor tory (bad) and in a lot of countries theres space for developing these kind of little buffer parties so bad ppl from the good party can go, and ppl from the bad party can go, but in the uk they just make sure the bad party gets what it wants

They’re like the PDs if the PDS weren’t defunct and marginally more left wing. Their emblem is the piss diamond and their last but one leader thought that chemicals in the water turned the fricking frogs gay.

which now

these kind of little buffer parties so bad ppl from the good party can go, and ppl from the bad party can go, but in the uk they just make sure the bad party gets what it wants

― provisional ilx (darraghmac), Monday, September 16, 2019 11:50 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I guess the problem in the American system is that going to such a party would just be a way of permanently removing yourself from power at any level above City Council.

In the 00s, the Lib Dems were opposed to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, opposed to ID cards for British residents and citizens, and were historically strong in the western parts of England and in non-urban parts of Scotland for some reason. For much of that time, they had a leader called Charles Kennedy who was popular but had to resign eventually due to alcoholism, which ultimately killed him at 56. They also picked up a lot of support in cities for opposing the Blair/Bush alliance and by 2010, had 50+ MPs. By then, their leader was Nick Clegg, who was to the right of Kennedy and he promptly went into coalition with the Conservatives.

This makes such uncomfortable reading. (On Chuka’s prediction they win 200 seats):

Some fear the party is at risk of forgetting the precarious majorities it will have to defend in the 12 seats it won in 2017. “What we don’t want,” says one senior Lib Dem MP, “is to end up in the situation we were in 2010, where we looked at the polling, got way ahead of ourselves, and forgot we had seats to defend as well as attack”. Others question whether some of the new targets are worth their time and resources at all. “I looked at that list and thought: Warrington North? Really? We haven’t even kept our deposit there since 2010,” says a target seat candidate.

Shocked to read this guardian editorial, stupid aside about Lisbon excepted.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/16/the-guardian-view-on-a-liberal-democrat-revoke-a-promise-that-wont-be-redeemed

Pouring one out for Charlie K literally

But in the interests of helping my American brothers and sisters the Lib Dems are basically the Dems except in the UK we sometimes have a proper leftish party to turn to

Shocked to read this guardian editorial, stupid aside about Lisbon excepted.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/16/the-guardian-view-on-a-liberal-democrat-revoke-a-promise-that-wont-be-redeemed

― gyac, Monday, September 16, 2019 12:14 PM (five minutes ago)

this has surprised me a wee bit

anyone willing to guess how BJ will obey the law but not request an extension on 19/10?
― prorogue mahone (||||||||), Monday, 16 September 2019 19:09 (one hour ago)

there was this piece by everyone's favourite Windmill Jolyon (a square asks: why is he so nicknamed?)

https://waitingfortax.com/2019/09/15/the-flaw-in-the-benn-act/

(tl;dr: insincerely offer and hope to pass the Withdrawal Agreement, thus fulfilling the obligations of the Benn act, but then deliberately impede the WA ratification processes required and bomb out with No Deal - that's just my probably not 100% accurate summary there)

not sure if I think that's true btw but who the hell knows any more, not me anyway

Even Polly gets it, holy shit

This has been unjustly mocked: what, renegotiate and then vote against your own deal? But that is entirely rational. Make the deal as good as it can be – if leave wins again, it would be implemented. But no Brexit is a good Brexit, and Labour would this time lead the progressive parties’ fight to persuade the country to remain, advocating EU reforms if we stay. Some Labour MPs would take the leave side: the party should be tolerant, as Harold Wilson was in the 1975 referendum, with no need for a Johnsonian expulsion of dissidents.

I don't think there was ever really a chance of the Guardian (as opposed to individual Guardian writers) flag waving for Swinson's LibDems and I'm surprised anyone thought they would.

But MI6…

I don't think there was ever really a chance of the Guardian (as opposed to individual Guardian writers) flag waving for Swinson's LibDems and I'm surprised anyone thought they would.

― Matt DC, Monday, September 16, 2019 9:28 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

the median guardian columnist is a sensiblecentrist people's voter who is scared of corbyn, nostalgic for the london olympics, and is "against populism". so i thought they'd lap swinson up tbh

Swinson has all of that in theory, but has been so shit at it that they can't get behind her.

btw I'm glad that after the conflict itt we can all be brought together again in hating ben elton

i see the guardian wrote another editorial today

i opened it and read it,
it said they were suckers

Even now I doubt that's an accurate representation of the median Guardian columnist and even if it were I don't think that would have enough bearing on their leader writers to have them repping for someone who was literally a member of the coalition government and has never seen fit to repudiate it.

In any case she's put herself in a position where the LibDems are going to get attacked from both sides during the campaign, which under different circumstances might actually benefit them, but these flimsy policy decisions are going to get torn apart. She doesn't strike me as someone who's going to perform well in the TV debates either.

And they will actually bother to attack her, unlike Tim Farron who was transparently so little of a threat that May and Corbyn could get away with ignoring him altogether.

Tim Farron was the leader of a party who couldn’t say gay sex isn’t a sin and who was cagey about abortion. You don’t have to do much when they were alienating swathes of prospective voters.

lib dem leaders in the late 2010s are going to be killer pub quiz questions in a few years

Farron made me LOL at the debates with that 'where's May? maybe outside your front door measuring the cost of your social care' quip. Tough act to follow for The Overton Swindow.

lot of pro-Swinsonites annoyed by Polly's column in the comments, mainly with variations on "oh but revoking isn't extreme!"

well, I mean, if you find a nice way to position it I might agree, it's not really extreme as in outlandishly radical, though in another sense it is, y'know, a literal extreme of the currently viable-ish spectrum

(nicer positioning as in try to make it less "fuck the 17 million" and more "everyone tried to do what the Leave campaign promised but sadly it turns out that it isn't as simple as some people said it was so let's stop the timer, go away and think through our real options" or even "everyone's tired of Brexit so how about we just don't")

but "we're for revoke now so we won't work with anyone with more support and more realistic plans", that's extreme in the face of an imminent No Deal

and "we'll revoke if we win an outright majority, which we are never going to in a million years, so instead we'll just split the vote and then who knows what we'll do, probably sign up for a coalition with Boris doing whatever kind of Brexit and whatever else he wants as long as we get an unwinnable referendum on a watered-down version of one of our less interesting policies" is fuckin' dangerous, stop that shit, please

what are their other policies tho

Nobody cares.

well, yeah

having policies is the old politics

Also I rudely didn’t respond to the question about windmill Jolyon - he owns literally two windmills and he is called windmill Jolyon to distinguish him from the lesser Jolyons like Jolyon Green and the other one who matters even less.

The shitposting left calls him a windmill fucker, which was why there was much mirth at the guardian calling him a “windmill enthusiast” recently.

thank you!

windmills are cool tbh

I don't want to own one though

which is good, because I can't afford to

ilx should co-own an oast house

Rural Kent though....

Lighthouse or nothing.

Expectation vs reality. https://t.co/lN5V0iV2eq pic.twitter.com/eUx1y2h3q4

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 16, 2019

I mean, of all EU countries. Luxembourg. Can you even name a famous person from there? How many people are even citizens?

andy schleck!!

(also fränk schleck)

Can you even name a famous person from there?

I mean, 'famous' is a relative term but Pierre Joris is an incredible poet and translator.

I liked Luxembourg when I visited around 10 years ago, lots of art and nice food. Not exactly someplace to go clubbing, though, and all the older men were sockless Sven Goran Ericsson types.