"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

thread seems mainly otm:

Not sure what he means about the right having 'little to do' in an independent Scotland or Wales?

"the Italian philosopher famously said ..."

The Italian Leninist and Communist Party leader famously said

even a voting id requirement with no cost still introduces a barrier to voting, let alone when people have to pay for a driving license or passport. there's no reason to believe voter fraud is a problem in uk elections, but disenfranchisement already is

— michael wave (@SzMarsupial) May 10, 2021

i mean what is twitter if not the "grouse farm" amirite

If they can keep the economy afloat and reward target areas with investment in services and infrastructure (while punishing solidly Labour ones with austerity), i'm not sure why this model couldn't see them successful for the long-term.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Monday, 10 May 2021 bookmarkflaglink

The economy afloat is a big if depending on various factors outside their control. Also the quality of these projects for poorer areas will probably not cut the mustard after a while as Tories will never want to give poor people money.

Their best bet electorally is divided opposition and increased barriers to voting. Basically a return to Victorian-era England without empire or Union.

On bed. Watching Lost =) love it!

— 𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕒 🙈🙉🙊 (@my3monkees) March 26, 2009

Lol wtf, this is the post.

48% of Black voters have no form of formal photo ID https://t.co/QJnFszLaxF

— Jason Okundaye (@jasebyjason) May 10, 2021

Mark S: yes, the grouse moor.

On bed. Watching Lost =) love it!

— 𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕒 🙈🙉🙊 (@my3monkees) March 26, 2009

oh sorry, I see that's already been posted

we have to go back

If they can keep the economy afloat and reward target areas

This seems like a big if — Brexit effects haven't really been felt because of suppressed demand during Covid but there are already noises being made by all the transport firms, convenience stores reducing inventories etc.

Suspect we're not going to have Johnson for much longer either – they know they can't reject IndyRef 2 forever, they know they can't fight it with him because he's toxic in Scotland, and if they feel safe from Labour they'll as a result probably indulge themselves in some more Cummings-Gove infighting until Gove takes over on an "I can save the union" pitch. Can Gove (or any of the other possibles) pull off the same mass appeal that Johnson has? It'll be expensive if so.

xp Either that or go full republican voter-suppression I guess, yes.

Sarwar praised for losing seats.

Starmer tells staff Hartlepool was bitterly disappointing but says delighted at Wales and Scotland performances - praising Anas Sarwar and Mark Drakeford.

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021

Further to earlier discussions about the UK media/political class definitions of 'working class' excluding non-white people, I noticed over the weekend there is another group that's excluded, all the better to fit the narrative, young people. I heard John Curtice commenting on how Labour is losing the working class vote and is now relying on votes from middle class liberals, students and young people and I heard it again today from some Telegraph hack. And, of course, there are no working class people in Liverpool and Manchester.

I think if the grip of useless Lab councils is released this is a step forward of sorts. This is just Tory council behaviour.

What you need to know about Labour losing Durham County Council is that the process was set in motion when the council tried to do a fire and rehire of its teaching assistants in 2016. National politics is relevant, but my have DCC made a pig's ear of it around here.

— Charlotte Austin (@c_j_austin) May 9, 2021

One thing about Lab decline is it will allow other things in their place. Not saying all of them will be good, and it will be painful but at least getting rid of these moribund councils is a step.

Managerial class/Blairite Lab councils have a lot to answer for wherever they have lost to Tories.

All true, and of course there are plenty of old school Blue Labour/entrenched graft local councils for who Blairism was a flag of convenience at best, this rot is very long established

The BBC and other irritants rolling out local voters who are (sometimes inarticulately) expressing this dissatisfaction so smug FBPEs on Twitter can say "look it is the electorate who is bad" are part of the problem and a failure of journalism

I'm sure it's incompetence and not malice tho

too many of them are seemingly quite enthusiastic to make "difficult decisions". I felt like garroting this Labour council creep sat in front of me at a school meeting as he was coldly explaining to someone in tears that it was too bad and there was nothing he could do about their disabled kid's school transport was not being funded any more. He wouldn't even try and explain austerity, just sat there arrogant and smug as fuck with a reproachful "let's be grownups now" look for anyone saying this shit was unacceptable.

The BBC and other irritants rolling out local voters who are (sometimes inarticulately) expressing this dissatisfaction so smug FBPEs on Twitter can say "look it is the electorate who is bad" are part of the problem and a failure of journalism

Endlessly oscillating between contempt for people who have started voting Tory over the last decade and contempt for people who have stuck with Labour over the last decade.

Your reminder that Rayner is no tribune of the Left. https://t.co/T6Tx8n2PdA

— Et tu Keith? (@paulewart23) May 10, 2021

Reminiscent of the state of Scottish labour councils just before they all collapsed seemingly forever

Very interesting line from Starmer at shadow cab - he says he will devote his summer "not having rallies of the faithful but speaking to people who don't vote for us."

Pretty obvious shift there from the previous leadership.

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021

Focus group are back, awouuu

Interesting strategy. Like when MTV decided not to play music.

as though rallies of the faithful were an option

lol

that is a good point

bad news for Starmer's legions of admirers lol

even with the party being skint and short of legs on the ground I get a feeling there will such a supernatural effort to flood Batley & Spen with doorstep campaigners, from the tories as well, that the area might become (more) uninhabitable.

People have been saying "BJ doesn't want to be PM / will step down / will be forced out" for some time now.

There has never been any evidence for this from the disgusting BJ himself. He just goes on being PM, and seemingly, on the whole, strengthening his position.

It's true that it can be hard to sustain things long-term, and specifics like Scotland might count against him. But so far the "BJ won't last long" line looks like a tradition of wishful thinking.

It really is amusing, as poster Conrad says -- there are no faithful!

I will record here for posterity my formulation of new theories of KS, which I am considering the Ockham's Razor theory:

Why does KS do the strange things he does?

There is a mysterious idea that we often hear: roughly, "KS is a prisoner of the Labour Right".

But why would he be? They don't have anything on him. Even eg Mandelson has no mechanism to get special access to KS. We talk as if KS is powerless before these people.

So, as a couple of twitter commentators have been saying today: there's actually a simpler explanation: KS *is* the Labour Right. This is what he wants.

Does that square with KS's past? I'm not sure. Plainly it doesn't square with his leadership campaign.

It does remind me of some kind of fictional narrative -- maybe it was eg: an episode of LoD where corrupt "Dot Cottan" hit himself and was acclaimed for fighting a criminal. KS would be Dot. He benefits from the pretence that he's struggling with someone else, when really he's not struggling at all.

Or: THE USUAL SUSPECTS - where KS is Kevin Spacey (I'm afraid so!), who is viewed as a hapless pawn of others - but is really the criminal mastermind.

In short, maybe we should look at what KS does and think: this is simply what KS wants, rather than, as some of us have done, trying to work out a complicated reason why he has felt forced to do it.

Quite separately: I'm coming to think that William Davies had a point recently in observing how it is now very standard on the political Left to disdain "Remainers", when the majority of the people involved are / were themselves "Remainers".

I understand how, in a tortuous process, the discussion got here, and I realise that there is a distinction, if you like, between "Remain voter" and "Remainiac" ("Remainer" technically seems to cover both!).

But Davies' point is still sound -- many people who did not want to leave the EU now routinely talk as though that position was reactionary.

You can square the circle if you basically agree with Perry Anderson that the EU is bad.

In short, maybe we should look at what KS does and think: this is simply what KS wants, rather than, as some of us have done, trying to work out a complicated reason why he has felt forced to do it.

This goes so far but how far can we really go with "This is actually part of his plan"? Becoming a joke figure? Putting his current position at risk? I can buy the idea he (subconsciously at least) doesn't want to be PM, sure. But I don't see that he wants to risk his current position, or to do quite so badly

@AngelaRayner now addressing shadow cabinet: in Hartlepool, the people who had anti-immigrant sentiments went to the Tories. "We need to deal with that."

Hartlepool 97.9% white, 97.4% born in the UK, 95.6% born in England.

Like anyone would want to move to Hartlepool!

It's true that it can be hard to sustain things long-term, and specifics like Scotland might count against him. But so far the "BJ won't last long" line looks like a tradition of wishful thinking.

Also: Scotland is going to be more than a mere specific very shortly, it's going to be a Problem. To the extent the Tories give a fuck about the union – which I think they do, even if just for selfish reasons – they can't wear Boris. You'd be as well trying to win indyref with Thatcher.

"In short, maybe we should look at what KS does and think: this is simply what KS wants, rather than, as some of us have done, trying to work out a complicated reason why he has felt forced to do it."

Most of what I've seen is laughter at how it has come apart so quickly. The decisions have been so bad that anyone is looking at this as incompetence, nothing else.

Hartlepool couldn't be more demographically different than Batley & Spen, there was a much bigger UKIP/Brexit Party vote in the former. If Angela thinks pandering to racists is a winning strategy in other constituencies then they will maintain this losing run.

Hadn't looked at the final results.

FINAL LOCAL RESULTS:

Starmer has lost 326 seats (-7%), the worst local election results for a new opposition leader in over 40 years.

CON: 2,345 (+235)
LAB: 1,345 (-326)
LD: 586 (+7)
GRN: 151 (+88)

➡️ Corbyn lost 18 seats (-1%) in 2016

➡️ Starmer has lost 326 (-7) seats pic.twitter.com/Bdm03Ju6h5

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) May 9, 2021

lol even worse than IDS

the red faced man is turning up the racism

would love it if Kieth wrote some Jack Reacher style spy fiction novel like IDS did. Never got round to reading Tom Watson's political thriller The House.

This goes so far but how far can we really go with "This is actually part of his plan"? Becoming a joke figure? Putting his current position at risk?

Yes. This makes sense.

But: there is an increasingly pervasive view on the left that "the Labour Right doesn't care about winning power in the UK, only about crushing the Left and maintaining its own position".

I don't know whether that's true, but supposing it were true, it could make sense that KS cares more about attacking socialists than succeeding as Labour leader.

While some of his actions do look self-destructive, some - like appointing a more right-wing Shadow Chancellor / cabinet - might be examples of my theory of simply "take him at his word".

I would think for some of them their desire to maintain their own position at all costs facilitates the delusion that this is all a necessary, painful process which must be endured at all costs to secure an electable, sensible Labour party to one day rule over the rubble

I think the pinefox is correct - that Starmer does these things because they align with what he actually wants. However it seems pretty clear that he has no political or moral weathervane of his own. Right or left or anything else. He reminds me a lot of Laura Kuenssberg in this respect. People like to say she's a Tory, but her real tribe is insiderdom. Which skews Tory! So a whole lot of what Starmer does and says must be the consequence of conversations with advisors, people pushing him in certain directions, presenting him with a menu of options from which he chooses. What's harder to imagine is Starmer questioning the menu itself.

i think you're right except that i think with kuennsberg its that insiderishness is a tory trait that is there is a more conceptually tight correlation btweeen these things

like insiderishness is about a certain attachment to existing power and hierarchy

I think Kieth and his ilk do want power, they are just astonishingly shit at getting it, they have learned nothing since 1997 but they still think they are the smart set. Not even electoral disaster can shake their faith in the middle way

Starmer is understood to have been intensely frustrated that the row over the reshuffle meant that he could not visit places where Labour had exceeded expectations after a set of election results that were disappointing overall.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/10/starmer-moves-to-calm-labour-tensions-with-shadow-cabinet-address

Garbage Guardian narration. But a specific problem: KS hasn't made a public speech since Friday, but the paper quotes him verbatim talking internally to Labour staff.

I don't like these conventions - like unnamed sources who make up most of every politics news story now. People should come out and talk on the record or not be quoted at all.