bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

great

what are you going to do about it. imo email him back expressing concern with his position?

might phrase every post to this thread as a question, implying a rising terminal inflection?

It's already glaringly obvious which Corbynites have the capacity to ask themselves painful questions and which ones are beyond hope. Kudos to the former, STFU to the latter.

— Dorian Lynskey (@Dorianlynskey) December 16, 2019

One of the themes of tomorrow's live show. Ultimately remain failed because Labour failed and the chances of success were always slim but hopefully some other ideas will come out of the discussion.

— Dorian Lynskey (@Dorianlynskey) December 16, 2019

xps

can you two just fuck or fight already, this is tedious

DL is calm and tweeting as he always does

It's already glaringly obvious which Corbynites have the capacity to ask themselves painful questions and which ones are beyond hope.

Making a list, checking it twice

at a rapid pace with nary a flutter of consideration

the joy of being a Remainiac is you don't have to ask yourself any painful questions because the project was perfect and only failed because of Jammy Crowbar

I was right that continuity remain would get us all killed. As an Irish citizen, it gives me no pleasure to report this.

great

what are you going to do about it. imo email him back expressing concern with his position?

― imago, Monday, 16 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

might phrase every post to this thread as a question, implying a rising terminal inflection?

― imago, Monday, 16 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

No I was thinking of showing some admiration the way you did with Chuka.

gyac otm re: tedious.

Inevitably Nicky Morgan is back in the Cabinet (for Culture, Media and Sport). World Cup 2030 in the bag lads.

one out all out: a brexit from the modern world and every one of its problems please (we're all gonna die lol) they learned fucking NOTHING

xp didn’t she stand down?!

hopefully once the no deal is done we can look forward to many years of privileged liberals framing the political direction of Lesser UK solely in terms of rejoin as the universal panacea

that was all obviously hammed up for the cameras/you xxxxxp. anyway yeah tedious sorry

What’s the podcast gonna be called then? Re-entryists? xp

Nicky Morgan is no longer an MP. Neither is Zac Goldsmith, but they're talking about making him a Lord to keep him in the cabinet, hurrah!

Legit a podcast recorded by regular contributors to this thread would be more otm and 100% less gassy than that podcast, no accounting for taste

@tombarton
1m
If you were wondering why Nicky Morgan - a former Remain campaigner who stood down as an MP - was doing the rounds on TV and radio campaigning for Boris Johnson, you have your answer:

A seat in the Lords, and around the Cabinet table.

FUCKS SAKE

Imran Ahmad Khan: Taking the Wakefield seat from Mary Creagh, one Labour had held since 1932, he has run businesses in several countries and worked with the UN. Put into the seat after the original candidate, Antony Calvert, was removed over comments about food banks, Khan – who was born in Wakefield – sought to counter the criticism he had been “parachuted” into the seat by literally parachuting into the town.

xp Profiles in Venality

I suppose Morgan was due something for her bullshit performance on Good Morning defending the 50,000 nurses lie.

xxp I was reading about him earlier. He is also (apparently?) the only out gay Muslim politician in the world

Also a Tory bastard.

He’s not the only out gay Muslim politician at Westminster.

how terminally smug and clueless do have to be to post like you are on the winning side of the argument when Leave has won how national votes in a row now? I'll ask DL because I could do with some of the drugs he's on to help deal with the crushing gut-punch of last week - not that it would do me any fucking good really.

He’s not the only out gay Muslim politician at Westminster.

Waheed Alli in the Lords.

The Lords isn’t canon but point taken.

While I was trying to work out who you meant, I found the Wikipedia page of this legend:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapurji_Saklatvala

I am genuinely interested in how many centrists are going to join the Labour Party in the coming weeks - it's the closest we'll come to a real measure of the Disgusted Silent* Majority.

*not at all silent.

I saw a journalist from the fucking Sun doing it last night, so at least we know we’re set for the next four years of cut up membership cards and “I didn’t leave Labour...the Labour Party left me”

These are the same people who announce shit ‘with a heavy heart’ and explain their insults as ‘light-hearted’ and can’t speak about politics for 30 seconds without resorting to cliché. I never want to hear about the weight of their hearts ever again.

Imagine forming a knitting circle of clueless myopic posho dickheads that spends 3 years slagging off the only party that presented a viable Remain option and then saying the failure of Remain is on that party. Seriously what a fucking prize noggin, good job that cunt doesn't post here any more - he'd be getting more FP's than Fred from me.

I want to turn every office of a former Labour MP into an advice and community action centre funded by members, unions and those who can help run them. We know the Tories won’t even stick a plaster on the problems they have created.

— Alex Sobel MP (@alexsobel) December 16, 2019

how nice is this guy

TBF the Remainiacs people aren’t posh at all, if that’s who you’re alluding to.

you must be joking

on the relative scale of poshness they are about 18 wrungs up the ladder from me. But here I use "poshness" as a pejorative to sum up a general myopia towards the lower classes and a complete lack of understanding of what a set of cunts they sound like to them

I’ll be raging if I’m forced to join Labour to cancel the votes of dingbats like this out

Idly imagining PMQs with @jessphillips up against @BorisJohnson

She’d have him for breakfast. Twice.

— Emma Kennedy (@EmmaKennedy) December 16, 2019

centrist twitter sign up to ao3, its a much more suitable place for your fantasising

This from the last Labourlist members survey is quite instructive: Long-Bailey, Rayner and Thornberry all roughly as popular as each other, but RLB could feel a big benefit from McDonnell endorsement.

I have doubts to the extent Starmer support could hold up, though. pic.twitter.com/9p6zQNQXId

— Ben Gartside (@BenGartside) December 16, 2019

Relax, JP doesn’t have enough media mates to cancel out the votes of a single CLP and I’m sure not many of them will vote for her in the end.

by what metric isn't Dunty posh, Suzy?

I'm not picking an argument but FFS!

I believe he was designated honorary working class as a result of his having did brexit

yeah he consistently has done a cracking job for Leave tbf!

xpost to calz, was gonna say petit bourgeoisie with big ‘escalate with a manager’ vibes but I occasionally interact with them IRL (apart from Dunt) and through work I’ve got tons of mutuals. Have already told them off for blaming/rubbishing younger left commentariat as prime ‘get off my lawn’ bullshit. My own background is a weird combo of free school dinners and genteel grandparents, LOL.

trying to take some time away from engaging w/politics for my own personal and mental health but SLAB are conducting their own post-mortem and anas sarwar just emailed round for input. thought it may be worthwhile sharing here the thoughts I have sent him

While I agree that we need a period of reflection, what is most important is that the future leadership (i) develops a cogent (fact-based) analysis, (ii) supports that with a strategy to achieve power and (iii) then prosecutes it ruthlessly.

Radical Democracy
I have long thought that the constitutional questions are a distraction from our core message as socialists ('the real division in society is 99:1%, not 55:45 nor 52:48'). However, we plainly cannot avoid the fact that the electorate continue to engage with these questions. We need a position and new perspective on each of these. Instead of obstructing on each, we should consider the potential opportunities in both.

Among the most important key components of the Corbyn project were (alongside e.g. greening the economy, anti-Imperialism, human rights-based foreign policy etc) was its commitment to radical democracy. Unfortunately we did not do enough to articulate the opportunities of this idea to voters - nor to link it to the key constitutional questions of the day. As socialists, we need to seek to inject democracy into all of the structures of everyday life (starting by getting our own house in order in the Labour Party). A steadfast commitment to democracy in e.g. the workplace, the boardroom etc is incompatible with an obstructionist stance on the countries' (Scotland, the UK etc) right to self-determination. We should think how we link all of these ideas together into a coherent story, which can give people pride in their countries, a sense they have a stake, and a brighter outlook on the future.

Brexit
I will let the psephologists undertake the requisite analysis of cross-shares etc to help understand why, where and in what direction votes broke against us. I will say, however, that it seems to me a mistake for us to have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Establishment, in a naked disavowal of a democratic direction. We know well enough in Scotland what happens to the Labour party when it stands with the Establishment against the communities in its base.

Wreckers
In my opinion, the next leader needs to have a vindictive streak a mile wide and needs to clear out the wreckers. For four years we have had a succession of apostate MPs in the PLP who were more than happy to go on TV to undermine the party and its leadership. I fully accept that the Labour party is a broad coalition - as is necessary under FPTP - but we cannot (and should not) thole such wrecking, if we want to grasp power again. It may not be a comfortable message for many (particularly in the MSP group) but now is the time for uncomfortable messages.

Community
We need to build solidarity and understanding of Labour values at a community level. Some ideas how this may be done include e.g. engaging with the various community and civic society groups which have sprung up in the gaps created in our social fabric since 2010. We should consider using the storefronts of former Labour MPs and candidates as community hubs, where e.g. advice, resources, political education etc can be dispensed.

Blue Labour
No. Just no. One of the labour movement's core values is that 'you support me, I support you'. Whoever you are. Wherever you come from. Shoulder to shoulder. Hand to hand. We need to build a multi-racial working class movement by saying explicitly that we want to deliver for working class people (regardless of race, gender, ethnicity.) Everyone must be included - including newcomers and people who have been here for generations.

Manifestos
Without wishing to patronise, the vast majority of people do not engage with politics at the same intensity as many politicos on e.g. Twitter. The Tories had one key message backed by four or five secondary pledges. While this gets groans from us politicos (with candidates accused of being robotic etc) this strategy does have some merit. The Tories also seldom put what they are going to do in their manifestos. We should reflect on these points.

Timing
The timing of the election was not great - albeit it was difficult to avoid once the SNP had decided on a GE before the Salmond trial (as the Tories then had the numbers). SNP insight was presumably that (i) a winter election would largely neutralise our strongest asset (i.e. our volunteer army) and (ii) a Brexit election would cause us genuine issues. This will likely be a pyrrhic insight as they are unlikely to get a referendum in this parliament and indeed the Tories may look to unstitch some of the devolution settlement.

Facebook/WhatsApp
We should consider how we engage with the various Facebook Community Pages and WhatsApp CopyPasta Groups, which are many peoples' sole news vectors. For example, do we need an army of oppo bots seeding anti-Tory memes? They are going to do it to us - we need to think how we counter it and/or leverage it for our own gain. 'When they go low, we go high' does not cut it when it comes to the naked pursuit of power.

I was reading this having misread about these being your thoughts and not AS’s (I was going from “wow these are sound” to “TELL THEM ANAS” at the wreckers bit). But I like what you’ve said here!