ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Asking again since my last post didn't lead to any responses: zero covid strategy, practicable or not? I know it's academic - the govt won't do it - but would like to know...

Honestly I don't think it's credible given the country's geographic position and how contagious the virus is, it might have been an achieveable goal in Feb-March but it's too pervasive now.

This is what Kent deserves for voting Tory all the time

If there is to be a border with Kent, it should be drawn with a ruler by a brown guy who has never been there

— Ahir Shah (@AhirShah) September 23, 2020

"If there is to be a border with Kent, it should be drawn with a ruler by a brown guy who has never been there"

New Zealand is still struggling a little with zero Covid and they're remote islands with a very limited number of access points.

(Things Tories might've been right to worry about: alternate history PM Corbyn hastily signs deal to return NI in March)

🤔🤔🤔

Despite the same commitment in the Conservative manifesto none of this bill applies to Northern Ireland says @JohnHealey_MP

— PARLY (@PARLYapp) September 23, 2020

Yeah was about to post that, actually bleeding from the eyes and nose

That's the "protect our brave boys" bill?

Yes

I have a young autist in the house who seems to use quarter of a roll per dump sometimes, so I always bulk buy. I ordered 108 for 18.49 from an e-bay seller last month they didn't arrive within 2 and a half weeks after my payment, so I complained and they sent me 216 as a twofer goodwill gesture and as ruthless as I am I gave them a neutral feedback score!

Classic post

Yeah that is pretty hard to beat tbh. Just stunned appreciation when I read it.

i love that you can spot a calz post within five words

i feel like calz could post five words picked at random from the dictionary and it’d still somehow be obvious it was him

Otm all, magnificent work.

This, I have nothing to say. Good to see abstaining on the position of whether soldiers should be prosecuted for war crimes or not, that’s what I call #realopposition baby

DIVISION RESULT:
Second Reading of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill

AYES: 331
NOES: 77

The AYES have it. The AYES have it.
Majority of: 254. #OverseasOperationsBill

— Balance of Power (@BalancePowerUK) September 23, 2020

The Labour MPs that voted against. pic.twitter.com/7YMV6IUfpT

— How Upsetting (@HowUpsetting) September 23, 2020

as usual it's much easier to list the principled MP's, the rest can go to hell.

Good on them!

Labour MPs quit Keir Starmer's team to vote against bill condemned by Jeremy Corbynhttps://t.co/qqpEM6IvhV pic.twitter.com/SZ9b5OKOtf

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) September 23, 2020

I didn't even know Nadia Whittome had a junior role in the shadow cabinet. But good on her and FUCK STARMER and this sham of an opposition party. They don't deserve her.

🚨 BREAKING: #SameOldLabour just refused to back Britain's Armed Forces in Parliament 🥀

✍️ Our #OverseasOperationsBill will protect veterans from reinvestigations & vexatious claims, while ensuring victims always have access to justice.

🇬🇧 We've taken action to support them. pic.twitter.com/7TOQcRNA43

— Conservatives (@Conservatives) September 23, 2020

this pusillanimous abstention game to desperately try and play to 1098 middle-class racists in Workington is never going to be as effective as just being .. genuine Tories. It's like when they abstained on the welfare bill, nobody who hated people on benefits really believed them and also the people they are supposed to be representing didn't care much about them either.

otm

Whittome didn’t quit, she was sacked.

labour briefing guido before they’d even told @NadiaWhittomeMP she’d been sacked is absolutely shameful. pic.twitter.com/hJcw1NdruE

— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) September 23, 2020

Must be nice to be a hateful racist bigoted cunt, you have so many political homes (and media outlets) to choose from! Just being woo’d constantly and reassured that all your opinions are actually very correct and fair enough. What a life!

Nadia Whittome is my MP and I was so grateful to get someone like her after Piss Leslie defected. She's been treated like shit by the party.

Have you written to her, she's probably appreciate hearing that sentiment!

The line (or a line, anyway) is that there's things in the bill that are worth salvaging (and not worth the publicity of being against) so they'll try to amend out the bad on second reading and vote against it then if they can't.

Which we'll see but also I don't expect a labour leader with a non-fucked view on Our Troops in my lifetime.

This small crop of MPs are the tiny, tiny hope Lab have of ever being anything again (and whoever from the left wing keeps at it). But they will all be treated like shit.

60 out of 61 towns picked by Cabinet Minister for financial support were Conservative with average majority 3000 or Conservative targets. Included his own seat. pic.twitter.com/HooH4ikafQ

— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) September 24, 2020

The amendments thing is a fig leaf, there’s no chance of any of them going through.

Seconding plaxico, you’re very lucky emil.y!

Is this (and for the matter the Internal Market Bill) likely to get through the House of Lords?

yeah surprise surprise all 3 Hull MPs are snivelling Starmerite lapdogs

The thing about abstention is it's just cowardly, they clearly don't agree with the bill, they just don't believe they can win the argument so they're hoping that as few people as possible are looking at them while it's happening.

Starmer's own version of the Clause Four showdown will be replacing the Labour rose with a giant poppy.

the narrative has already been decided. Starmer's intention is to win back the votes of a bunch of Blue Labour/white working class/Red Wall types and calculate on that being enough plus the old "nowhere else to go" voters stringing along.

even if his electoral calculus is correct - that seems very doubtful to me - and even if losing a bunch of us who will not vote for that shit doesn't have an impact - maybe less doubtful but still probably not really calculated - i strongly doubt he's gonna convince the voters he thinks matters so much to vote for milquetoast fascism when the real deal is on offer from the actual government

this is like the Charge of the Light Brigade redux except not all of the Light Brigade were cunts

Starmer's own version of the Clause Four showdown will be replacing the Labour rose with a giant poppy.

Looking forward to this season's minutes silences

Red Wall in and of itself isn't enough, they have to win back the Red Wall and parts of Scotland and swathes of Southern England and those areas are pulling in such different directions that it's almost impossible to see what might appeal to them all.

tell that to Kieth

My answer to that might once have been 'policies that will materially improve people's lives' but it's hard to escape the overwhelming sense that there's a chunk of voters who have just given up on the very idea of that being possible.

I think the answer to 'lives getting better' ended up being Brexit for enough people Don't know what happens when life gets worse..

blame the EU, immigrants, any out group you care to choose; more fascism

xp it’s more that there’s such a chunk of pensioners living in homes paid off with triple-locked pensions in alliance with the rich and comfortable who don’t want any of the people they consider undeserving to share in it. Politics of spite. I know several people arguing their parents about this last December, it’s fucking scary the extent to which voting for their children’s future no longer makes an impression.

Anyway, here’s Momentum

This you @Keir_Starmer? pic.twitter.com/oJl8EsKIsq

— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) September 24, 2020

demographics are on our side, people under 40 are not getting the comfortable life which makes them buy into the system.

Maybe depends on whether this works in a world where newspapers are less of a thing and where the problems might be different, i.e. your house is flooded.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

Boris dodged the floods last year and the north still voted for him in numbers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it doesn't matter about demographics unless there's a mainstream party that represents change

They disbanded after the Euros last year, sorry.

it's "Democratic People's Republic" level bulshittery that the only policy of Change UK was "let's not change the UK"

i said mainstream tbf

Demographics are a thing too although I think a lot of younger people are radicalised in different directions.

Do think also much of the Lab offer wasn't radical enough during the Corbyn years. Social democracy is a huge part of the story of this country post-WWII (Thatcher is really known as someone who fought against it) and I think it's return got short shrift from a public that knew we got here by having that stuff in the first place.