Ne'er get thee stitched til Booris be ditched: UK General Election 2019

Are we going to pretend that this little Brexit matter* is all that stood between the UK and a socialist paradise? People didn't want what Labour were selling.

*fuck you

No second ref would have played into the hands of the Lib Dems. It made some amount of strategic sense to include it in Labour's platform, although I'm still not sold on Corbyn's pseudo-neutrality, which just made him look needlessly indecisive. As for all the cretins who want to rush headlong into a New World Empire Britain, there was no winning them over to begin with. Did Labour gain more than it has lost by catering to them?

And I agree with Andrew that there's a significant portion of the population (and not just in this country, mind you) that prefers sadomasochism to socialism: it's a matter of 'character' to them.

Are we going to pretend that this little Brexit matter* is all that stood between the UK and a socialist paradise? People didn't want what Labour were selling.

*fuck you

People voted for the simplicity of the message and resisted the idea of Parliament frustrating the referendum result, that much seems clear. It's over, Britain is leaving the EU and probably was all along.

Agreeing to the election was a catastrophic mistake from both Labour and the LibDems, and Labour insisting they wanted a GE all along was evidence of hubris.

Why didn't Labour, Greens, LDs work harder to form some sort of alliance? brexit party worked perfectly as a spoiler party for the tories, but greens, LDs and labour just got in each other's way.

xxp Europeans, apparently

I don't think I'll ever get used to this ridiculous pretence according to which Brits aren't European.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to thinking Europeans are the most at risk people in this brave new world. And I say that as one. Feel utterly despairing for black and Asian Britons.

Also re: the next Labour election, it's less a question of what the membership will accept and more a question of who the PLP allow onto the ballot. The make-up of the party is different from 2015 but I don't know if the votes exist to nominate a left candidate.

Obviously a lot of the country, egged on by the media, looked at Corbyn as PM and thought 'god no'. I don't think electing the closest thing they can find to Tony Blair is the answer either but god knows what happens from here.

I live in a northern marginal seat.

There was winning them over. Labour won this seat in 2017. Brexit was the issue. People did like what Labour was selling. They didn't like Corbyn but it was Brexit.

But the apparent prevarication over it. People can say the position was clear, but it wasn't. "Do this thing then pivot to this other thing" isn't simple in a psychological sense. Even just take the issue out of it, one guy was trying to do "a thing" and the other was "wanting meetings about it". People hate meetings. Corbyn is good when he is proposing action, but he wasn't proposing action on Brexit so they saw indecision and a middle manager.

No second ref would have played into Lib Dems hands yes.... but for how long? The desire for one is nowhere near what it was. So they would have had a boost in the polls for a period of time, so what?

I'm just hoping this will catalyse people to get involved in grassroots politics which willbe allowed to exist.
Otherwise just feeling a bit devastated y it, will be back there next week so hoping it isn't going to resemble the Purge.
THought people might just wake up to their best interests not being served by the amorphous fiction that is Brexit. I thought so many of teh countries relied on for empire had gone Independent decades before that people might just cop onto it.
& really do hope that people do wake up to having been conned before 5 years of a term are out.
Is there any way that this will not be a 5 year term?

It depends which Europeans you're talking about. But on average, yeah, no doubt about it.

3xp

Struggles outside Parliament are perhaps even more important than what goes on inside as that shapes governments. Struggles for a better NHS, public services, housing, jobs, decent wages, pensions, worker rights and human dignity will go on regardless of whoever is in power.

— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) December 13, 2019

I don't think I'll ever get used to this ridiculous pretence according to which Brits aren't European.

I considered amending it to non-UK Europeans, but I think Matt's right, the job is done.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to thinking Europeans are the most at risk people in this brave new world. And I say that as one. Feel utterly despairing for black and Asian Britons.

That's really not what I meant - but would rolling over on Brexit have saved any of them?

Well instead we've been rolled over

I don't think the broadband pledge helped in the end either - rightly or wrongly it underlined the idea of Labour as offering fantasy promises that they hadn't properly thought through. Any attempt to win back these seats has to focus first and foremost on job creation.

Johnson and the Tories will 100% own anything that goes wrong over the next few years - there can be no more passing the buck. Those seats can and will be won back.

there will be a lot of people thinking "if he'd just backed remain from the beginning..." and it's quite difficult to disprove. we need to come together somehow to defeat these monsters instead of retreating into recriminations.

/I don't think I'll ever get used to this ridiculous pretence according to which Brits aren't European./

I considered amending it to non-UK Europeans, but I think Matt's right, the job is done.

/I don’t think I’ll ever get used to thinking Europeans are the most at risk people in this brave new world. And I say that as one. Feel utterly despairing for black and Asian Britons./

That's really not what I meant - but would rolling over on Brexit have saved any of them?

xp
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/375/cpsprodpb/59EF/production/_110132032_optimised-sharechange.euref.chart-nc.png

electoral map for 2024 rotten; internal bloodletting will now be horrendous; jeremy corbyn will likely be held in place long enough to be a lightning rod for the EHRC outcomes; tom D proved horrifically otm about the destructive effects of yet another constitutional referendum on labour’s base

FPTP had a pretty decisive effect on the outcome. It pushed the Tories further to the right to neutralise the Brexit Party. It pushed Labour to advocate a 2nd ref to try and neutralise the LibDems. Then on the night itself there were dozens of seats where the Labour + LD vote was higher than the Tory vote, which under just about any other system in use would have resulted in many more Labour wins.

Honestly it wouldn't have made much tangible difference to the result if the LibDems had dropped out of Labour seats altogether. If (and it's a big if) a Remain majority exists in this country, it's concentrated in too few areas.

Xps. Being pro remain works well in remain areas, e.g. scotland, putney. Not so good in gammon-on-wear and wales

What else did the Tories have to offer but Brexit?

Racism
Discrimination
Inequality
Benefit cuts
NHS up for sale
etc etc

A lot of people sure are on board with all of this.

Heard way too many "well they got what they deserve, they can get fucked and fuck right off out of the eu" already today, around me and in the media here. Which isn't that unexpected really. Ugh. So sorry for you guys.

Seems so much like a return to the Victorian era. & I guess things haven't even started yet.
If Boris was acting like that before he had a mandate how much worse does he become once he's got one.
Keep thining that both he and trump ought o simply be signs that the respective electoral processes are broken but they seem to be held as beacons by some. Is this actually real? Cos my suspension of disbelief isn't working for it.

LBI otm - I understand the desire to point at a thing and say "that made the difference", but after a pasting like this, everything made a difference, including offering socialism to the English.

My mother is a leave-voting Tory and thinks that Johnson’s majority means he can start to isolate the hard right and govern as a Cameron-style social liberal, which seems optimistic to say the least.

It’s pretty much just the hard right left.

Why didn't Labour, Greens, LDs work harder to form some sort of alliance? brexit party worked perfectly as a spoiler party for the tories, but greens, LDs and labour just got in each other's way.

― Graham Kendrick Lamar (cajunsunday), Friday, 13 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

Worked in NI. But in England it would've won an extra 20 seats. At constituency level leave massively favoured the Tories

Heard way too many "well they got what they deserve, they can get fucked and fuck right off out of the eu" already today, around me and in the media here.

This is by far the most common take in France. Can't really blame them tbh.

And I agree with Andrew that there's a significant portion of the population (and not just in this country, mind you) that prefers sadomasochism to socialism: it's a matter of 'character' to them.

― pomenitul, Friday, 13 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

That's just ludicrous btw.

We have to keep offering an alternative and double down on it. A lot of people will need to do work to turn this around.

In both countries people turned out and voted within well understood systems for representative democracy. So I think it's difficult to say they're broken. I think FPTP is a huge problem, but it was as likely to deliver Labour votes as Tory ones.

I do think the interplay between the right wing press and the BBC - the hegemonic broadcaster - is disastrous for democratic accountability. The throttling of local government funding is a handy way to blame local parties for central government ideology and austerity, with the knock-on effect of making pork-barrel handouts more electorally useful, which corrupts democracy. It has been in the Tory party interests to increase a sense of political futility (the establishment). The move away from material considerations to culture wars and nationalisms results in a reduction in an understanding of and support of the civic realm - the location of the demos if you like - and so democracy is damaged once again by a lack of a sense of a shared notion of being a citizen. Ultimately the Tory party has been pursuing nationalist populism, which says that the State is the problem, and its ability to deliver social and civic structures that benefit society is in fact the expression of an unaccountable Establishment that wastes your money. Again, I think that is a failure of democracy.

But the voting mechanisms, not so much.

Keep telling yourself that, if it helps you get up in the morning. But the fact of the matter is that not everyone wants the same things as you, and some people – a lot of people – are outright malevolent in their selfishness.

xp

xpost to the 'is democracy borked' q.

Pom - people have voted for this in the past. You shouldn't lay stuff like this on people you don't know and don't care to understand.

I don’t think England realises the significance of the fact that the son of the human rights lawyer the British state collaborated in the murder of is now an MP

— Kuba Stawiski 🇵🇱 (@kayes67) December 13, 2019

I mean if you believe that's what people are why do you get up in the morning? xp

See you "I'm moving to Scotland" lot? I welcome anyone anywhere they want to be, but your patter's rotten.

Here's a thread to make you feel even more shite about the election. There's gey little hope in our result either.

— Harry Josephine (@HarryJosieGiles) December 13, 2019

pom otm and I don't know why I get up in the morning tbh

Can't really blame them tbh.

Except to say that thousands and thousands of vulnerable people will suffer as a result of this, including a lot of EU nationals who, like myself, have put down enough roots here that simply leaving isn't an option and, unlike myself, aren't privileged enough to be sheltered from the worst of it.

I mean I know you know this pom but really today my tolerance for that kind of flippancy is at an all time low.

What does 'double down' mean for you - a second Twitter account?

people you don't know and don't care to understand

Cuts both ways, you know.

I'm fundamentally neither a pessimist nor an optimist when it comes to so-called 'human nature'. You seem to be more of the latter, and that's ok.

Sorry Daniel, but you have to expect some amount of blowback from the continent after being systematically demonized for so long.

And yeah, agree with pom that significant portions of the British populace have been brainwashed into thinking that better things aren't possible and spite towards the Other is the only benefit they will ever get. Agree with xyzz that we need to continue proposing an alternative nonetheless. #hegel

The age breakdown of voters really gives the best indication of how 2024 might be. Though landscape in 2024 is of course likely to be substantially different

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

Lol you know what it means Andrew - permanently left Labour that offers the kind of things people still think are good. For a start.

That list of things people still think are good in full:

Racism
Discrimination
Inequality
Benefit cuts
NHS up for sale

better things aren't possible and spite towards the Other is the only benefit they will ever get

It's not just that, though. It's that what we believe are 'better things' aren't better at all according to their model. That spite is precisely what they cherish and nurse: it's their primary motivator – lest we fall back on a Catholic-style 'sin is separation from God' ideology, which I don't buy at all. Awfulness and selfishness and violence are their own reward for some people, and this is part of who we are as a species.