The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[Cf]

Weird stuff this week anyway. 

Chancellor hands out another £12 billion ...

... while PM loses baton to Burnham for a paltry £5m

and doubles down against popular soccer player on child poverty issue for the sake of £20m

Can't be seen to have lost to a Labour mayor.

Can't be seen to be supporting a Labour motion. Not that Labour should have had an opportunity to raise it as an opposition day motion in the first place.

One good thing to come from it though is my mother was a red wall voting Tory. Said she'll never vote for them again after this.

[Marky147]

Pie up

[Doobs]

FWIW I backed him at about 7/2 a while ago.  I have just laid him at 1.4 for top 3 (he has been backed at 1.1 at some stage).   I think he is a first or nowhere bet.

Well that has changed quickly overnight.   

There is now a big chunk of money available for top 3 backers at 2.7.   I have just greened out.  Someone has clearly taken a big view on this, and I think 2.7 is a fair enough price.   I might have been able to get bigger, but that new money could just disappear.

[arbboy]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-8881815/Marcus-Rashford-set-miss-BBCs-Sports-Personality-Year-shortlist.html

[Doobs]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-8881815/Marcus-Rashford-set-miss-BBCs-Sports-Personality-Year-shortlist.html

David Coverdale makes Betfair's best trade of the year?

Was very timely for my trade too obv.

[Sheriff Fatman]

Big day tomorrow.  The EHRC report into institutional antisemitism within Corbyn's Labour Party gets published at long last.

It will undoubtedly represent a low point for the party.  Starmer has a massive job restoring credibility and trust, but has done well in the early stages (regular bouts of uproar and outrage from the Corbynites has been a fairly reliable indicator of this).  They've also spent the week getting their pre-emptive denials in place (e.g. Karie Murphy in the Guardian, Chris Williamson grifting for additional funds for his legal campaign).

Looking forward to further whataboutery from the likes of Owen Jones, Bastani, Sarkar, etc when the details get published.  Starmer is due to make a press conference at 11am.  I see little prospect that the report content will be anything other than scathing with regard to the conduct of those at the heart of the situation.  Assuming so, then he needs to commence the processes to disassociate them from the party going forward (e.g. removal of whip for MPs, disciplinary processes to expel for others, etc).

[Sheriff Fatman]

Big day tomorrow.  The EHRC report into institutional antisemitism within Corbyn's Labour Party gets published at long last.

It will undoubtedly represent a low point for the party.  Starmer has a massive job restoring credibility and trust, but has done well in the early stages (regular bouts of uproar and outrage from the Corbynites has been a fairly reliable indicator of this).  They've also spent the week getting their pre-emptive denials in place (e.g. Karie Murphy in the Guardian, Chris Williamson grifting for additional funds for his legal campaign).

Looking forward to further whataboutery from the likes of Owen Jones, Bastani, Sarkar, etc when the details get published.  Starmer is due to make a press conference at 11am.  I see little prospect that the report content will be anything other than scathing with regard to the conduct of those at the heart of the situation.  Assuming so, then he needs to commence the processes to disassociate them from the party going forward (e.g. removal of whip for MPs, disciplinary processes to expel for others, etc).

Quite the morning so far.  The report appears to be more damning than many expected, Corbyn issued a statement pretty much denying it's content and has now been suspended and had the Labour whip removed.

Starmer wasting little time, to his credit.

[RickBFA]

Big day tomorrow.  The EHRC report into institutional antisemitism within Corbyn's Labour Party gets published at long last.

It will undoubtedly represent a low point for the party.  Starmer has a massive job restoring credibility and trust, but has done well in the early stages (regular bouts of uproar and outrage from the Corbynites has been a fairly reliable indicator of this).  They've also spent the week getting their pre-emptive denials in place (e.g. Karie Murphy in the Guardian, Chris Williamson grifting for additional funds for his legal campaign).

Looking forward to further whataboutery from the likes of Owen Jones, Bastani, Sarkar, etc when the details get published.  Starmer is due to make a press conference at 11am.  I see little prospect that the report content will be anything other than scathing with regard to the conduct of those at the heart of the situation.  Assuming so, then he needs to commence the processes to disassociate them from the party going forward (e.g. removal of whip for MPs, disciplinary processes to expel for others, etc).

Quite the morning so far.  The report appears to be more damning than many expected, Corbyn issued a statement pretty much denying it's content and has now been suspended and had the Labour whip removed.

Starmer wasting little time, to his credit.

Fair play to Starmer. He’s going to appeal to a lot of moderate, sane people.

The nut job cult that worships Corbyn is in meltdown on Twitter.

[Doobs]

Big day tomorrow.  The EHRC report into institutional antisemitism within Corbyn's Labour Party gets published at long last.

It will undoubtedly represent a low point for the party.  Starmer has a massive job restoring credibility and trust, but has done well in the early stages (regular bouts of uproar and outrage from the Corbynites has been a fairly reliable indicator of this).  They've also spent the week getting their pre-emptive denials in place (e.g. Karie Murphy in the Guardian, Chris Williamson grifting for additional funds for his legal campaign).

Looking forward to further whataboutery from the likes of Owen Jones, Bastani, Sarkar, etc when the details get published.  Starmer is due to make a press conference at 11am.  I see little prospect that the report content will be anything other than scathing with regard to the conduct of those at the heart of the situation.  Assuming so, then he needs to commence the processes to disassociate them from the party going forward (e.g. removal of whip for MPs, disciplinary processes to expel for others, etc).

Quite the morning so far.  The report appears to be more damning than many expected, Corbyn issued a statement pretty much denying it's content and has now been suspended and had the Labour whip removed.

Starmer wasting little time, to his credit.

Fair play to Starmer. He’s going to appeal to a lot of moderate, sane people.

The nut job cult that worships Corbyn is in meltdown on Twitter.

The problem is you need to appeal to both wings of the party.  The immediate suspension looks like a bad strategy in response to some comments that were unlikely to lose a single Labour supporter.  Corbyn may have mad some comments in the past that could be viewed as low grade anti-semitism, but whatever they were, they are nothing on Johnson's history of racist comments, and he is the person who they need to be attacking...  And they so obviously need to start retrieving the Conservative response to islamaphobia from the long grass where Johnson kicked it.   

Corbyn should have clearly just STFU this morning, as the issue is clealy devisive and the argument is done.  Just say you accept the findings and move on.  It doesn't really matter if you believe the allegations of anti-semtism were exagerrated, or saying you don't agree with all parts of a report, there is no benefit from saying so now; and saying so clearly has its downsides as Corbyn has discovered.  How long has he been in politics again?  The thing is that Corbyn had escaped fairly undamaged from what I have read, so why issue his (preprepared?) statement at all?

I'd add that the gloating by the right wing of the party is equally unhelpful; people on both sides opening old wounds daily are all as bad as each other.  Centrists believe this (insert straw man); Corbynstas believe that (insert straw man).  It all just such clear nonsense, but just gives a terrible impression of the party to outsiders

[RickBFA]

Big day tomorrow.  The EHRC report into institutional antisemitism within Corbyn's Labour Party gets published at long last.

It will undoubtedly represent a low point for the party.  Starmer has a massive job restoring credibility and trust, but has done well in the early stages (regular bouts of uproar and outrage from the Corbynites has been a fairly reliable indicator of this).  They've also spent the week getting their pre-emptive denials in place (e.g. Karie Murphy in the Guardian, Chris Williamson grifting for additional funds for his legal campaign).

Looking forward to further whataboutery from the likes of Owen Jones, Bastani, Sarkar, etc when the details get published.  Starmer is due to make a press conference at 11am.  I see little prospect that the report content will be anything other than scathing with regard to the conduct of those at the heart of the situation.  Assuming so, then he needs to commence the processes to disassociate them from the party going forward (e.g. removal of whip for MPs, disciplinary processes to expel for others, etc).

Quite the morning so far.  The report appears to be more damning than many expected, Corbyn issued a statement pretty much denying it's content and has now been suspended and had the Labour whip removed.

Starmer wasting little time, to his credit.

Fair play to Starmer. He’s going to appeal to a lot of moderate, sane people.

The nut job cult that worships Corbyn is in meltdown on Twitter.

The problem is you need to appeal to both wings of the party.  The immediate suspension looks like a bad strategy in response to some comments that were unlikely to lose a single Labour supporter.  Corbyn may have mad some comments in the past that could be viewed as low grade anti-semitism, but whatever they were, they are nothing on Johnson's history of racist comments, and he is the person who they need to be attacking...  And they so obviously need to start retrieving the Conservative response to islamaphobia from the long grass where Johnson kicked it.   

Corbyn should have clearly just STFU this morning, as the issue is clealy devisive and the argument is done.  Just say you accept the findings and move on.  It doesn't really matter if you believe the allegations of anti-semtism were exagerrated, or saying you don't agree with all parts of a report, there is no benefit from saying so now; and saying so clearly has its downsides as Corbyn has discovered.  How long has he been in politics again?  The thing is that Corbyn had escaped fairly undamaged from what I have read, so why issue his (preprepared?) statement at all?

I'd add that the gloating by the right wing of the party is equally unhelpful; people on both sides opening old wounds daily are all as bad as each other.  Centrists believe this (insert straw man); Corbynstas believe that (insert straw man).  It all just such clear nonsense, but just gives a terrible impression of the party to outsiders

It’s an almost impossible job I think.

Labour need to appeal to moderate voters. They aren’t going to do that whilst trying to keep the Momentum crowd happy.

And I think Starmer still has the problem that party membership was boosted by a lot of the very left wing Corbynites (sheriff will know a lot more about membership make up than me).  And of course he has to keep the Unions on board too.

Ultimately without the more sensible, moderate voter he isn’t going to get elected into power.

Seems like a rock and a hard place to me.

[Sheriff Fatman]

(sheriff will know a lot more about membership make up than me).

All I can say with absolute certainty on this is that the Leeds NW CLP membership definitely gained a returning member yesterday.

[Longy]

Certainly a big gamble by Starmer and likely to cause a lot of division with the party but not nearly as much in the electorate. I think the “left” of the Labour Party has rarely  had a big enough base to win a election, 2017 is the closest that Labour with a leader from the left has ever got.
No doubt some will not vote  for Starmer in 2024 but the calculation that many of the floating voters in the centre will sway towards Labour especially if the fallout from COVID and brexit is bad, that demographic is a lot bigger.
Looking forward to my next CLP (Constituency Labour Party) meeting!

[nirvana]

Merry Brexmas everyone, fair play to Boris, imbecilic on Covid and just about anything else and yet pulls off an incredible deal that no one thought was possible.

Shame the anti neoliberal faux left still support the biggest neoliberal project in history and view this like a Blairite or Starmerite.

Massive toast to the Bennite, Shoreite and Footiteiteite tradition - it is alive and well today.

I've raised a glass to Boris already. Now, got to hope he gets replaced by someone more one nation like Priti, Liz T or the Raabster

[Doobs]

The labour party and Jeremy Corbyn sure looking like the party of Government here

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/18/lawyers-for-jeremy-corbyn-accuse-starmer-of-inflammatory-and-disingenuous-attacks

Any chance you can just all STFU and stop sniping at each other? 

[nirvana]

I hope bumbling Britain, finds it in its heart to help the EU with their vaccine crisis.

nb Is there are a more delusional group than the FBPE ers. Saw a tweet the other day that suggested if the EU came in and slept with an FBPEers wife they'd ask them if they fancy a beer and a cigarette.

Onwards and upwards, trade deals with Asia next