PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

Re:Boris, assuming the plan is (1) hold an election, get a majority, sit on it for 5 years til the storm has passed and (2) find some good scapegoats for the disaster and get them blamed as soon as it happens.

(1) hold an election, get a majority,

how is this remotely feasible in the middle of an economic collapse/crisis caused by the ruling party

hold it five days after No Deal day before the impact has been felt/people & still have their medicines/enough food in the cupboards.

it does seem ridiculous, yes, but also it could work, they currently have a decent lead in the polls and he could suck up some of those Brexit party votes if he looks tough enough

and I thought the people in *my* country were stupid

I've watched vox pops of people saying "get on with it" for three years now, hard to have any faith in the sound judgement of british voters

Yeah, if the next election isn't just before or close enough to Our Independence Day for Blame the EU and "this is only temporary please reward us for delivering Brexit", they surely will struggle. So Labour would be wise to block an instant election, you'd think.

Repercussions of pulling off Brexit in this way are going to be very long-term, though. It was one (reckless) thing for May to utterly discount losers' consent back when they were talking about a negotiated exit, but for Johnson to steal the hardest of Brexits in blatantly underhand ways is another. You maybe please the chipshop voxpops in English beach towns, but you permanently alienate a huge swathe, especially Remain voters who might have gone along with a negotiated Brexit.

What does the long-term political landscape look like after such a heist? One possibility is the Tories will be left trying to corral power by combining an aging and overheated base with those floaters who will respond to necessarily populist rhetoric. I don't know enough about American politics, but it doesn't sound wildly different to the situation I think the Republicans are in now. Well done, everybody.

Tracer, we did get a cartoon of Paul Mason calling for civil disobedience, then actual Paul Mason in a suit.

Why was paul mason in cartoon form? That was odd.

I think that's the filter used by the person videoing it on their phone

Look, if you could hurry up with the pound tanking, I've got some books to order from the UK.

Seriously. I’m waiting for the big drop to pay off my student loan (now 20 years old)

Also, xpost to is the Guardian bad thread, but they do a live blog for a Trump fart, but not this?

The had a live blog all day on the homepage.

It was not nearly as great as this thread.

/(1) hold an election, get a majority,/

how is this remotely feasible in the middle of an economic collapse/crisis caused by the ruling party

Out with good friend last night, who believes that lifelong Eurosceptic JC (who she hates) wants Brexit really, and if elected will nationalise absolutely everything, but at the same time he shows no leadership and we have no opposition. She should know better, because this is dumb stuff coming from a financial journalist who is usually a Labour voter but clearly isn’t able to think past a lot of FPBE nonsense.

My reply was along the lines of: I don’t care what Corbyn has voted for re: EU in the past, because as leader he’s committed to delivering the wishes of party members and not being seen to disrespect the result of the referendum and that is a really difficult proposition. Besides, re ‘leaderahip’ - it seemed in this case that a lack thereof meant not being an obvious Head Boy/Girl type. I think that archetype gets you the sort of PM we’ve had and currently have, and is a British failing.

there’s a lot of it about, by which i mean not people who are against corbyn because of policy, but against him for reasons that are quite hard to pin down. and the head boy/head girl thing - sonorous sounding assertions, reassuring ASMR sussuration of a background authoritarianism does also seem popular among *very sensible people who work by reason alone*.

susurration. i didn’t know how to spell it.

But if my friend’s thinking was working within the bounds of actual reason and not being, in its own way, a mirror-flip of the sort of Brexit vox-popper who is like JUST GET ON WITH IT, she’d see that real leadership when faced with turning this toxic juggernaut around and getting the public back to a place of safety (whether that’s via a much softer vote-honouring Brexit or ‘Remain and reform’) lies in acting cautiously and incrementally. So many ‘adults in the room’ that I know and otherwise like are just stamping their feet like little kids, and they can’t see it because they think they’re sensible.

it’s reason as tone, ime.

it’s reason as tone, ime.

I agree with Suzy!

I strongly disagree with her friend.

I don't know what ASMR means.

i was being flippant at the expense of clarity pinefox:

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is an experience characterized by a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia[2][3] and may overlap with frisson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response

suggesting people get a subliminal sensory thrill from the sound of authoritarianism in the morning.

Fun to see the FT leader grudgingly endorsing the idea of a Corbyn-led caretaker government.

I posted the link to that last night.

xp otm, I have never understood the tendency to tug the forelock in Ireland and I don’t understand it here either, esp considering the open contempt of the ruling classes towards the populace.

this bit in particular is hilarious:

This is unpalatable for even the most ardent Tory Remainers, and others such as the Liberal Democrats, since ousting Mr Johnson in time to affect the Brexit process may also require the creation of a caretaker government under Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn — an outcome they rightly fear.

A Socialist Motherfucking Republic

A spectre is haunting England — the spectre of Jammy Crumbum

I have some questions as an onlooker. Let's say there's an election shortly after Brexit and the Cons are able to eke out a win having "succeeded" in their goal but without the proper shitstorm in sight yet. Do we think Corbyn would be out as Labour leader if that happened, and if so, is there anyone obvious waiting in the wings as an ideologically contiguous successor? Or is there sufficient support within the party to move back to the (gulp) center?

it reminds me of the old saw about The Economist: they’ll have great articles covering in lucid detail problems and instabilities in countries across the world before concluding that more free market capitalism is the solution.

The Tories can drive the economy and welfare of the country’s citizens into the shitbin and the voice of business will still prefer it to a moderately left-wing government, who is promising more structured investment and preserving a heath system which after all is designed to keep people healthy to work.

yet no, they got the left wing heebie-jeebies.

A Socialist Motherfucking Republic

it's coming home

I really need to run into [beloved national broadcaster] in the café again very soon.

You can argue that the Tories losing their reputation as the 'party of business' matters less to their voting base now than it ever has done in the past. idk what proportion of them are 'economically active'.

The Tories winning a crushing majority would probably be the end of Corbyn - but i'm not sure a crushing majority is likely. McDonnell is the most ideologically contiguous successor, though Rebecca Long-Bailey might seem like more of a viable alternative within the same sort of left-wing space. I don't think the membership would ever endorse a centrist who has set themselves up in opposition to the Corbyn project but might back a softer left leader, like Kier Starmer, who has played ball.

It’s arguably because so much of the base is no longer economically active that has let all this happen. It’s the insulation they believe they have that lets them insist on economically devastating things in order to obtain Sovereignty.

xps: Corbyn's future would probably depend on whether he'd completed his Damascene conversion on the EU. If a case could reasonably be made that Labour's faffing about had split the vote with the Lib Dems then he'd probably not last long - if the Tories managed to put away the Brexit Party they could get a walloping majority.

If we do head in to an election with the four main parties roughly splitting the vote, what results would probably be a solid case for electoral reform - though that's going to be the least of our problems.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually seen any attempt at estimating voting preferences per constituency.

stet 100% otm imo.

and i think the care for electoral reform is incontrovertible. it’s just that the circumstances where a FPTP system delivers it are very narrow. We’re potentially quite close to them now though, if you imagine a Tories being kept out by *some* sort of Labour, Lib Dem working agreement in which the Lib Dems had enough sense to make it not just about a second referendum but also PR.

The other thing that's not been made clear to me is just *how* bad No Deal is or could be - maybe I've missed it, but it feels like Remainers/stop-no-deal folks haven't presented the problem in a very digestible way. Have they been specifically avoiding worst-case-scenario type shit so as not to be mocked for seeming alarmist?

Yeah, stet otm.

One of the big pains of having lost a referendum on PR is that any attempt to implement it without one will be complained about as anti-democratic.

There's obviously a lot of information from a lot of sources, but when Murdoch's Sky is saying it's bad, that's probably a good start:

https://news.sky.com/feature/what-would-life-in-a-no-deal-brexit-uk-look-like-11584899

Everyone loathes Ian Dunt, but he has at least done solid research on what No Deal would result in, infrastructure-wise.

Here for example: https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/07/27/this-is-what-no-deal-brexit-actually-looks-like

Lol?

I have had constituency cases of EU nationals being denied settled status despite living here for years. This is a breach of the assurances I and other Leavers gave during the referendum. Please help sort this out @patel4witham before we end up with another Windrush scandal.

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) August 28, 2019

Have they been specifically avoiding worst-case-scenario type shit so as not to be mocked for seeming alarmist

No, not at all. They've been talking about medicine shortages, riots in the street, a return to regular violence in Northern Ireland, food and petrol running out, etc. Fundamentally, a lot of people either don't believe them or don't care - assuming that stuff will level out before long or that alternative arrangements can be made before we hit crisis point.

The most damaging stuff has probably the government reports outlining what amounts to disaster planning - but again, this can be written off as negativity from pampered civil servants, etc.

if you listen to people who have a knowledge of how UK supply chains work calmly talking about what will happen in NDB it's pretty grim listening and they are not being remotely alarmist. I've heard people involved in farming and manufacturing describing how their business could be gone in a month, and describing how especially with these food imports we take for granted, how there isn't any leeway for delays or it will simply just rot in the back of hgv trucks.

Ah, so I've just not been paying strict enough attention, as I suspected. Thanks. xp

Honestly, reading the comments under local news articles (never do this btw) there seems to be a substantial body of opinion that food shortages and people going without stuff will be character building. Blitz spirit is part of it but the objective isn’t just weathering the storm, it seems to be resetting a lot of the material trappings of the last fifty years.

Oh yeah I mean to post this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/northern-ireland-troubles-violence-police-bomb-dissident-no-deal-brexit-a9075286.html

Leadership is failing, trust is being eroded, perspective is being lost, and old prejudices are flourishing. Warnings of trouble on the horizon are not being sounded purely by alarmists and those who would relish a return to conflict. Increasingly, clear-headed, respected voices in Northern Ireland are becoming seriously concerned.

And a response article of sorts from Slugger O'Toole.

https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/08/25/is-northern-ireland-spiralling-out-of-control/

I like the head boy/girl archetype thing, suzy OTM

my FBPE-est friend surprised me by saying she didn't think Corbyn as PM was "safe" - yes, I know, that's what this thread says FBPErs do, but "surprised" because I know she's voted Labour in the past, and because she regales me with tales of a very rock'n'roll 90s living in squats with punks and drug dealers and is not at all the head-girl-voting Sensible archetype in my head

and the FT yesterday tutting at Boris and then just happily throwing in that people are "rightly" afraid of a Corbyn govt, but nobody ever really explains what's worse about Corbyn than willingly crashing the pound and nuking British business, proroguing parliament, hanging out with Bannon, having ministers who were previously forced to resign for actual security/protocol breaches in cabinet...

there was a good tweet y/day which I can't find now, which quote-tweeted Gauke's "imagine if it was Corbyn" to say "imagine only being able to see anything wrong with it if you imagine Corbyn did it", and that was OTM, and yet so many people are apparently completely unable to even imagine it, and still splutter that it must be completely different somehow

"xps: Corbyn's future would probably depend on whether he'd completed his Damascene conversion on the EU"

Lol @ EU need nonsense. The future is Corbyn as leader going into a general election.

A crushing majority wouldn't be likely for the Tories because of some of the reasoning outlined above + plus social media negating much of the impact of the right-wing press (even with a tighter game on that front from the Tories) and if Brexit were to happen then that wouldn't be as much of an issue except some of its consequences that we could see. It would also focus minds on two very different competing visions for the country.

Another consequence of Brexit happening is the anger that would spill in and around both parties immediately after. You'd think both would unite around and get on with the campaign but I wonder what the effect might be, you'd think it would be felt.

EU *nerd nonsense, autocorrect is my enemy again.