brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire

been re-reading Capitalist Realism lately because v true but horrible when you know how it ends

also telling other people that depression is systemic gets you a lot of blank looks

yes that's a colossal hill for people to climb -- our individual responsibility for health and for success in life is the lesson we've had hammered home all our lives

i mean, any systemic explanation is a colossal hill: i've been thinking all morning how a wide programme of education could -- over many years -- have given people a better sense of the interconnectedness of the global economy, and how small britain is and how dependent on the good will of others, its neighbours especially… and that if this had been attempted, then the often understandable impulse behind "we voted for brexit and brexit means brexit" would (could) have been channeled elsewhere

but imagine the political will and focus required to establish such a programme, and all the things working against it (including rival and well funded economic worldviews that would also demand equal time in the class room)

my dad grew up in the era of pink maps and whatever socialist impulses he had where always at odds with his sense of the English as a chosen people. the educational system worked in the exact opposite direction to what you're describing for a lot of the twentieth century and any hope of a realignment got squished by Gove when he was trolling the NUT for fun

someone -- i think one actually of the novara mob -- said that if the #resistance #remainers actually want to win the second referendum they are so busily calling for, they very much need to get boots on the ground the way momentum has, except many of them despise momentum and want to win the argument by media shortcuts (bcz they are media ppl) or just a kind of trust in the vagaries of polls ("50.001% are now anti-brexit! hold the second referendum right now and all will be normal again!")

(reversion-to-the-mean yes, things do tend to swing back from extreme -- except but are you sure you know where the mean actually is now? it may actually be somewhere really dislikeable, in which case we have a LOT of political work on our hands and our models shd be those who undertook such kong-haul work in very dismal circs)

brb setting up a small company that offers "kong-haul work in dismal circs"

We can see that "May has to go". What replaces her?

I reckon (I know centrist me) that May can threaten the backbenchers with her resignation and a call for a general election. The only option is to hang on and hope things will change.

The only real option is to let the whole balance of the government shatter and the pieces fall where they will. Something needs to happen to break all this Tory false unity.

want to win the argument by media shortcuts (bcz they are media ppl) or just a kind of trust in the vagaries of polls ("50.001% are now anti-brexit! hold the second referendum right now and all will be normal again!")

This shit drives me mad, also the Clegg interview in the Guardian last weekened where he was calling for Tory rebels to rise up. There's a real sense of 'stop Brexit, job done' about it all that is completely at odds with reality. I'd guess that actual Momentum is Remain by a comfortable majority in any case.

slugger o'toole on the problems the DUP are creating for themselves:
https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/12/04/can-the-dup-square-all-its-circles-before-time-runs-out/

ps my own rushed-to-the-presses book on this entire story is going to be called the time of the fractal zugzwang, kickstarter to follow

what seems to have eluded all the Remoanist Dads is the sheer political difficulty of getting a second referendum - if they seriously think that Article 50 can be averted they'd be much better off trying to create a groundswell demand for that rather than relying on technicalities and a naive belief that the numbers will pan out differently - nobody's selling much of a case to the non-believers

can't sell much of a case to the turkey that votes for christmas

Had enough of Centrist Dads and similar insisting Corbyn secretly voted Leave when he’s said why he chose Remain, especially when GFA hinges on borderless travel and trade between NI and RoI.

may going and the tories shattering are the same, i think: this is what she holds over them and it works until it stops working (i've been using the word "brittle" to describe her position for over a year -- at some point you have to acknowledge that she's also located an implausible seam of resilience, but i do think that *any* decision publicly made that can't be cloaked in absolute ambiguity of interpretation is a step away from this seam)

can't sell much of a case to the turkey that votes for christmas

ok, but this is nonetheless the selling that is necessary, there isn't a magic route round the xmas-bloc turkey

gradually i am working towards the most mixed metaphor in history, maybe that will be our salvation

if they seriously think that Article 50 can be averted they'd be much better off trying to create a groundswell demand for that rather than relying on technicalities and a naive belief that the numbers will pan out differently

This is true, although I suspect the main point of difference the second time would be a higher turnout among the young, which could make a non-negligible difference. But nothing lasting can be done without an intensive and co-ordinated attempt to change public opinion at ground level. The last election showed that can be done, and that it's dangerous to rely on what you *think* people thought last time round.

It certainly won't be done by waving a copy of the New European and banging on about how stupid people are on Twitter.

yeah i think they probably could win it on a second referendum but without turning some hearts and minds a 52-48 in the other direction would be a trainwreck

Just talked to a load of 17yos about media/politics. The future is: None of them ever bought a paper, only half on Facebook which is "for parents", Twitter is "boring", all love Snapchat (especially the Economist's page!), largely care about tuition fees & Tories hating animals.

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) December 5, 2017

ok, but this is nonetheless the selling that is necessary, there isn't a magic route round the xmas-bloc turkey

agree, but it doesn't seem like something that can be done briefly or for the purpose of a referendum, even if you carried a new referendum. when people start talking about how to address this issue it reminds me of the post-mortems when england get knocked out of the world cup.

(especially the Economist's page!)

This is a trap street, yes?

agree to this yes (except i have no idea what the world cup is obv) -- i think we're in for the long hard haul either way

xp jim w = political editor at buzzfeed, in itself a "jetpack made of alien cheese" kind of a concept

Agree with that xps. It's everything and nothing in terms of reasons why.

There are too many different camps (all increasingly at odds with each other) within Leave to have to tailor an argument just for the purposes of winning a second referendum by a larger margin than 52%.

xps probably underrated how much of a driver for anti-tory votes animal rights stuff is.

it does seem like electoral reform could go a long way to provoking some meaningful change - the two parties contain multitudes of views that go too far along the political spectrum - a system which reduced their power and increased the chances of coalition, and led to more parties cropping up, would probably be good. but we've prob seen in recent years the strange suspicion of coalitions that exists in the uk and the perception that they are weak or a sign of a decadent state or whatever.

True, but also closet Tories/blueish-greens are big fans of OMG look what they’ve done to the elephants shares on social media (most of the women I know like this post little else).

I can handle the idea of a Buzzfeed political editor, it's Jim W who's the alien cheese

A political writer I follow was noting during the animal sentience nonsense that, despite being nonsense, it turned up all over their twitter feed, from people who have no other noticeable political opinions.

LocalGarda completely otm up and down that post.

this thread is quite long: wondering if a new one ("the day after the deadline" usw) makes sense?

during the election campaign, when May came out with her pro-foxhunting stance, the strength of the reaction- and more importantly the people doing the reacting, first made me suspect that something was happening here and I didn't know what it was, do I, Mr Jones

we wouldn't be in this shitheap if cameron didn't have to straddle positions so wildly opposed to each other that it caused the trousers of the country, entrusted to him as pm, to split.

xpost

who do ppl think is going to bring about this electoral reform, and how?

Labour could have done it after 2005, from a position of strength, having won a majority off 35% of the vote. But lol @ Blair or Brown giving a fuck

well yeah - another case of turkeys voting for christmas - however these turkeys are wilier.

xpost

xp I realise that is not exactly answering ur question

i'd like to add a "having gorged themselves on the organic feed of power" to my last metaphor pls

A few DUP ppl rt-ing Ruth Davidson's statement on the negotiations.

nu-thread iftyou want, inc."provocative: opening question to ignore:
the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

We had a referendum on it! Reversing two referenda would be a neat trick.

britons care about animals. only need to see the reaction to the tories don’t think animals are sentient meme to appreciate this. there was a tory media blitz the day after that all kicked off online

They care about animals, it's disabled people they hate.

A lot of leavers I know/have read online, seem to have reduced their argument to 'the fishermen!' and a vague notion of sovereignty.

so davis thinks that a non-customs-union, non-single-market "regulatory alignment" with the EU is going to let ireland swerve around the border issue? hmm

A NEW THREAD EXISTS PEOPLE

lol soz

here: the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

non-www link: the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions