The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel - The Tory leadership elections

Both are terrible but Boris doesn't pretend he's not, and having someone in charge who is upfront about that will embolden racists further.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that. xps

it will be lit bantz, you'll see the flames from space

xxp Johnson, the Tory party and certain sections of Britain are all going through prolonged midlife crises with no end in sight

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that.

The hostile environment didn't really embolden racists in any way because racists weren't paying attention to it, they were being fed propaganda about how the UK's too nice to immigrants instead.

It's going to be considerably more than "a few crass comments here and there", btw.

I would say the things Boris has said and continues to defend have a damaging effect on society, even if May may harbour views that aren't alien to those more crass outbursts. Having a scattergun populist as your PM corrodes things in a different way to May. They certainly aren't the same.

Daniel otm.

Plus supporting no deal brexit also might have an effect on this country - we prob should start a brexit thread.

I could do picking the brains of chemistry ILX with a "How to manufacture homemade sodium valproate in yr kitchen" thread before the brexit one.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

I am not convinced it will be more than colourful comments because that would require actual work but maybe you are right.

xp = Lets flip this around, did Cameron's socially liberal comments have had a more positive effect on society?

Christ

the hostile environment is a mentality, a sort of psychic warfare that doesn't just slowly trickle down from the top but has to be carried out by regular ppl (like me!) in all manner of institutions on the frontline who when dealing with ppl now have questions about nationality and bureaucratic evidence swimming around in their mind

PM Johnson will hire Bannon as his Crosby y/n

I googled “Tom Tugendhat Boris” and this was the second result, which was timely as fuck for this thread!

Read this as “Tom Tugendhat Blues”, which is almost a Tom Waits song I think?

what annoys me abt BJ is i said "boris is over" a lot so i look bad and foolish not good and smart if actually he isn't over, also tom d gets to clown me

Watch this space.

i mean this was her shtick yes, in terms of public affect, but this is not my reading of her effect on the institutions (see long post here: Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread. )

― mark s, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally (I said absent but also "in a lot of ways" as a shortcut caveat :)), and this is another way in which May has been very much more damaging than I reckon Johnson could be.

We could go to no deal under his watch but that as much to do with events yesterday, I'd say, and the point we have been bought under by May.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

The true extent of the evil that the Home Office gets up to with the UK detention system is kept far away enough from the eyes of the public that even well informed lefties often don't know the whole story, imo.

Cameron's socially liberal comments were pandering, chasing after what was already established as the mainstream, and as such probably had no effect either way. Boris, however, wants to establish a new mainstream, which I think is different.

Trump is also less harmful than Hillary because he delivers neoliberal fascism straight, amirite?

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

Didn't pom put up a poll showing that people have been very favourable on the hostile environment (I get that, as ogmor says, its a lot more than a policy, but it has its beginnings in a bunch of actions by the Home Office)? That's what I mean - people don't have to know the ins and outs of it, just that there is effort to make life miserable for non-UK citizens. I feel like that message is getting through.

re: comments I don't see anything Johnson himself says as enough of a shift, as in it will make people who are not born here feel more unwelcome. It might be embarrassing for liberal UK citizens, but anymore than that and I'd like to see a bit more speculation on what that might actually mean. xxp

I think this is overly pessimistic, he’s lazy as fuck and would rather leave the hard stuff to others.

this and the v remote idea that since he is such a self-serving wildcard there is like a 0.0001% chance he will spontaneously backtrack on everything if he thinks it'll work to his advantage somehow (this is obv a v remote chance which would surely backfire in some way anyway) are basically the only tiny straws I can clutch at for why everything isn't entirely hopeless now

but (as opposed to in his mayor days) now the "others" who will do the hard stuff are likely to be Bannonites so I'm really not sure this helps any more

he’s already partially walked back his tax policy

this backtracking will blow up in his face if he does it in the midst of a GE

Say what you like about May I think it's very unlikely she'd meet with Steve Bannon.

Just Victor Orban and directed her MEPs to support him too.

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

hitler

billy bremner

antonescu

gary lineker..

It's naive to assume that political representation only happens at the policy level. Nothing is ever 'merely' symbolic in politics, and Boris openly stands for a dumber, bolder, scrupleless Britain, one that owns up to its hostility to foreign elements. This may in turn galvanise the resistance, yes, but not before causing nigh irreparable damage.

no Turkey in the EU but a foreign-born gobbler in 10DS

Rory Stewart says if Boris prorogues that he (Rory) will sit across the road in Methodist Hall and hold an alternative parliament

— Esther Webber (@estwebber) June 13, 2019

We all know who the star of this contest is.

HoP will do a Notre Dame soon enough

internecine etonian bantz

rory founds alt-bullingdon where proles are allowed to watch through the window

This is amazing - we’re getting some real momentum here. Thank you so, so much. Let’s push this through to the end. It’s increasingly clear it’s me against Boris. And let’s win #rorywalks pic.twitter.com/YvvAf8oEE5

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 13, 2019

#rorywalks

Portillo is done

dominic grieve to set up alt-alt parliament in neighbouring westminster school hall. wonder if all old boys are invited *looks into purchasing a tie*

not before causing nigh irreparable damage

but comrade alph's point is that a great deal of this damage is already done and (within normal political procedures) already irreparable: BJ isn't the primary cause of whatever's coming, he's a symptom

Pom otm. Saying this stuff doesn't matter is a form of defeat in itself. At worst it's exonerating the fact that the next PM freely uses racial slurs. Even if it did have "no effect", which we seem to be assuming is only on the country's direction rather than individuals, the actual things said should be condemned as should anyone saying them.

But I wouldn't claim to speak for anyone in a minority targeted by Boris as to how safe or unsafe his comments made a person feel.

And if symptom is the right word for Boris, "is" is the wrong tense. He's about become PM so plenty of opportunity to be a cause.

1) irreparability comes in hues; 2) dialectical teleology perished in WW2.

xp

something peculiar in the insistence on the one hand that so many things can be classed as dialectical teleology and otoh that it was at some point in the past dealt a mortal blow and is over now

The ideology =/ the 'thing' itself.

Note that I did not incriminate dialectics per se. When 'negative' or standing at a remove from an ultimate telos, I have no bone to pick with it (on the contrary).

it has bones to pick with us all

At worst it's exonerating the fact that the next PM freely uses racial slurs.

"1) irreparability comes in hues;"

Not in this case - Johnson has the same numbers in the house as May does.

Lol oh yeah she also went on camera and was like LET’S GET RID OF HUMAN RIGHTS TO PURSUE TERRORISTS

That may well be, gyac, but the May Archetype is perceived differently from the BoJo Archetype and, alas, these things do matter on the political stage.

Oh sorry, I didn’t realise we were on the political stage, I was only intending to address the ludicrous idea that May wasn’t an extremist and that she actively didn’t damage or ruin the lives of loads of people. Since apparently we’re going with bad faith nonsense itt?

The best least worst thing that May did was blink in the face of No Deal - but everything else that she did lead to the current shower performatively ripping their eyelids off.

Anyway she went to the end of the road, and she's not in the running to replace herself - it's reasonable to be dismayed that this buffoon is replacing her.

I have no idea what we're arguing about tbh.

whether dialectical teleology cures hemorrhoids :p

I wonder if May could have beaten Livingstone to be mayor

the petty squabbling of the left, a tale as old as time

may was a hard-right monster yes obv but optics uber alles - bozza will sharpen and focus the cultural divide and force a few centrist melts (eg my dad) to confront what they are. might even work out in the left's favour, via some sort of annus horribilis of legitimised racism.