The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[Woodsey]

I don't believe that Corbyn is massively unpopular, he has just made a huge blooper and strategic error. The amount of support he was getting in the General election was huge and the result was pretty good, considering.

If he had played his hand differently, by supporting a referendum clearly and quicker, who knows what position Labour would be in now. I'd imagine they'd be polling much differently. But here we are facing a general election in which we have no idea if it's going to be Leave/Remain focused

Beyond the cult, he's electoral poison.

Take 'peak Corbyn' of 2017, who failed to beat Theresa May despite a Tory campaign that self-destructed, and add in all the subsequent issues with anti-semitism, Panorama, the EHRC investigation, nepotism in the senior jobs, interference in disciplinary issues, significant numbers of people quitting the party some of whom are joining the Lib Dems, a pay dispute with their own staff, his weak reaction to events such as the Salisbury attacks enhancing the long-standing 'security risk' doubts about him, and the fact that there's basically public open warfare between the two camps within the party in Parliament, etc.

He was unable to get better approval ratings than Theresa May, even after she was forced out, and he'll undoubtedly score even worse against Boris.  The first clash in the Commons between them was a fair reflection of how PMQ's will look when they resume, and it's an arena where the imagery matters more than the substance of the debate.

The local and, particularly, the EU elections showed that long-time Labour voters were prepared to jump ship in significant numbers for various reasons, with Brexit probably the main one.  A lot of those voters will refuse to consider going back to Labour while Corbyn remains in charge.

The position might improve a little with a new leader, but the underlying problem is the infiltration of the party by the Trots/SWP factions within the CLP's, etc.  The party is simply unrecognisable as Labour to many former voters.  The Labour 'brand' always has intrinsic value from those voters not particularly engaged with politics who always vote Labour for whatever reason.  However, even that has been significantly eroded in the last two years.

Prof Brian Cox asks

"Isn’t the choice before the Labour Party clear? There would be a reasonable chance of a Labour government / SNP, Lib, Lab coalition this year with Starmer or Thornberry as leader, and a significantly lower probability with Corbyn as leader. Isn’t that incontrovertible?"

The fact that most Tories would like JC to stay as leader answers all the questions, his blind followers are clueless.

[MANTIS01]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

No deal was hardly mentioned before June 2016. We voted, whichever way, in the reasonable expectation that the large, sophisticated and expensive political and administrative classes of the UK and the EU, which we pay for, would be sufficiently skilled and competent to negotiate and ratify a withdrawal agreement.

Does this claim stack up?

i think i know who will answer how :-) but will throw it out there for discussion

So because Remain camp made total hash of pre referendum they want to ditch democracy and take self-appointed charge post referendum.

There there nanny knows better silly people that we let down in the first place

[TightEnd]

It was a neutral post:-) "We voted, whichever way"

Leave didn't market no deal as a serious beforehand ("will be the easiest deal in history" i think was one phrase), Remain ran a bad campaign, government since hasn't covered itself in glory

I am not taking sides, just saying no deal would not be what anyone voted for, or thought they were voting for.

If that's not grounds to revoke, absolutely fine, I merely ask the question for discussion purposes   

[Mark_Porter]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

[MANTIS01]

It was a neutral post:-) "We voted, whichever way"

Leave didn't market no deal as a serious beforehand ("will be the easiest deal in history" i think was one phrase), Remain ran a bad campaign, government since hasn't covered itself in glory

I am not taking sides, just saying no deal would not be what anyone voted for, or thought they were voting for.

If that's not grounds to revoke, absolutely fine, I merely ask the question for discussion purposes   

confident the people didn’t think they were voting for Remain when they voted for Leave

[Sheriff Fatman]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

There's a difference between the deal being one they don't like and there not being a deal at all.  That's the fundamental issue at stake now, as literally no-one pre-referendum was advocating crashing out without an agreed deal.

I've seen a few people posting this data on Twitter in the last couple of days, which is the google trends data for the term 'No Deal Brexit'  It's a relative score based on the peak being rated as 100, so they're not actual number of searches.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2015-01-01%202019-07-30&q=no%20deal%20brexit

The term doesn't even start to register a score of 1 until late March 2017, which doesn't suggest it was a prominent feature of the pre-referendum campaigning.

Ultimately, if there was a deal that could get through Parliament then that's a different situation to jumping off the no-deal cliff.  However, the block in Parliament ultimately came from the ERG and the DUP, who voted it down exactly because it was a deal they didn't like.

[kukushkin88]

More from Foster

"Am thinking of ways to explain why johnson's plan of just paying for a 'standstill' transition while ditching the Withdrawal Agreement is nuts. It's nonsense. Here's what I came up with.."

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1152203782475911168?s=20

This was good on why ‘no deal’ is all bad.

edit: wrong link, I’ll find the right one.

[kukushkin88]

A no deal Brexit would not be a 'clean' Brexit. Read Menon's piece on why simply walking away is more complicated than you might think:

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/a-no-deal-brexit-would-not-be-a-clean-brexit/

This one.

[nirvana]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

[nirvana]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

These 2 sides of the argument were quite well expressed in a discussion between Parris and Murray on Newsnight last night. Murray was the only one who made sense by any impartial measure because in the end it is really very simple. The only possible reason Parliament can have, to have made it so complicated, is to try to stop it happening.

[kukushkin88]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

These 2 sides of the argument were quite well expressed in a discussion between Parris and Murray on Newsnight last night. Murray was the only one who made sense by any impartial measure because in the end it is really very simple. The only possible reason Parliament can have, to have made it so complicated, is to try to stop it happening.

I think you are right that they want to stop it but only because they absolutely believe they’re preventing the country inflicting great harm on itself. It seems like an OK way for a representative Parliament to work in this situation.

[nirvana]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

These 2 sides of the argument were quite well expressed in a discussion between Parris and Murray on Newsnight last night. Murray was the only one who made sense by any impartial measure because in the end it is really very simple. The only possible reason Parliament can have, to have made it so complicated, is to try to stop it happening.

I think you are right that they want to stop it but only because they absolutely believe they’re preventing the country inflicting great harm on itself. It seems like an OK way for a representative Parliament to work in this situation.

Not in my opinion, either in terms of their perception of what representative democracy means or in the detail of what they believe regarding Brexit. Being a member of the EU or not is not akin to a position on eg the death penalty or abortion.

The greater harm by a long way is what has happened for 3 years/is happening when set against a smooth exit with a transition period

[nirvana]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

These 2 sides of the argument were quite well expressed in a discussion between Parris and Murray on Newsnight last night. Murray was the only one who made sense by any impartial measure because in the end it is really very simple. The only possible reason Parliament can have, to have made it so complicated, is to try to stop it happening.

I think you are right that they want to stop it but only because they absolutely believe they’re preventing the country inflicting great harm on itself. It seems like an OK way for a representative Parliament to work in this situation.

One other thing to consider about these people who believe we're inflicting great harm on ourselves - 40 or so Labour MPs voted against A50 being invoked but just about all of them voted against the WAB - this is opportunism not integrity.

[Pokerpops]

A basic Remainer position at present is that they have a moral obligation to stop Brexit because nobody voted for a WTO-only or a so-called “No Deal” Brexit.

The democratic ideal, they say, is therefore on their side now.

I give this pretty short shrift.

We weren't asked to vote for any specifics on any type of deal - that doesn't give any group a democratic pedestal to stand on when the deal is one they don't like.

It's one of the reasons I have never been able to understand the calls for a second referendum. I haven't heard an impartial genuine argument for a second referendum that is not overshadowed by simply wanting to change the result rather than a referendum being actually required.

Agree with this. Also, the remainer position or view is entirely academic outside parliament. In Parliament, the remainer can only claim this notional ideal by first acting completely anti-democratically.

A construct along the lines of ignore the vote, work against any kind of deal,  ensure that no-deal becomes a possibility and then claim some moral high ground for being anti-no deal seems contemptible to me - embodied by the likes of Starmer, Benn, Cooper et al.

These 2 sides of the argument were quite well expressed in a discussion between Parris and Murray on Newsnight last night. Murray was the only one who made sense by any impartial measure because in the end it is really very simple. The only possible reason Parliament can have, to have made it so complicated, is to try to stop it happening.

I think you are right that they want to stop it but only because they absolutely believe they’re preventing the country inflicting great harm on itself. It seems like an OK way for a representative Parliament to work in this situation.

So it’s ok to want to stop it if you believe you are doing the right thing. But not ok to want to go ahead and leave if you think that is best for the country?

Please don’t answer by saying that one group is right and the other wrong.

[MANTIS01]

Well the term “great harm” is open to interpretation and if we say it’s fine for a government to insist upon their version being applied over that of the people we no longer have democracy. Isn’t that instigating “great harm” on a society?

In fact aside from economics what is the “great harm” here?

If there is nothing else convincing then we’re saying to society that money means everything. In life you should cast aside anything in the pursuit of money. Isn’t that doing “great harm” to society?

All the service personnel who ever fought for democracy risked “great harm”

Does staying firmly entrenched in EU guarantee no “great harm” in the future?

Just more rhubarb bollox from wizardy types