I’ve a feeling it’s been pulled (see note at bottom) – or else I missed it in the article
Yeah. I read it in the actual paper edition, and I think she said 'just because some ****ers voted for Brexit'. Seems like that got her in trouble with her in-laws so she asked the Grauniad to cut it.
He could and should have dumped all the blame on the tories,.
This has the slight disadvantage of being completely dishonest. There was no good Brexit that Labour could have done better. Labour did not support either side - it allowed party members and elected reps to choose for themselves. The majority of the electorate voted for Brexit. Blaming Brexit all on the Tories is just rubbish.
...and rubbing the electorate's nose in it by saying "hey ****s you were wrong and we are going to un**** your stupid decision" isn't a votewinner. Even if it would be correct...
Me too. I cannot vote for a brexiteer party which is what labour are.
I'll remind you both again of Douglas Adams' "lizards" theory. Whatever you may think of Labour, it has to be better than the alternative.
SNP and Greens for me I have alternatives that are not brexiteers
and rubbing the electorate’s nose in it by saying “hey **** you were wrong and we are going to un**** your stupid decision” isn’t a votewinner. Even if it would be correct…
the polls say it is a vote winner even in the red wall seats.
By being an enthusiastic brexiteer Starmer is writing off large parts of the UK and it will cost him seats. The polls have been moving that way for a long time and will continue to do so - and would move more if he showed leadership on this issue
There was no good Brexit that Labour could have done better
NO brexit is the big one - and a less hard brexit would have been better.
But the labour / tory pact gave the tories 10 scottish seats that saved Mays government. that pact cost us so much.
vote labour get tory
You do know that a lot of traditional Labour voters voted for brexit. A definitive poll of my cycling group who usually voted labour voted to leave.
Starmer knows that too.
There is hard polling that makes it clear opposing brexit is a vote winner overall. Yes they would lose some votes but they would gain more - even in target and red wall seats.
No imagine if Starmer had spent the last year opposing brexit and leading public opinion - it would have been even greater positive towards rejoin
Starmer said he wanted to be a leader for all of the UK. His enthusiastic support for brexit and lying about it ( we can make brexit work) will cost him dear i Scotland and in remainer places in the south.
What does opposition to something that has happened and can’t easily be reversed look like? Opposition to the position we are now in as a result of Brexit makes sense… propose changing it. But a simple “we shouldn’t have left, or deary me”… what’s the point? No need to rub some people’s faces in the mess, just to make others feel vindicated in their “I told you so” positions. Every year more and more people will realise that Brexit was a mistake, they don’t need Labour telling them so but not offering a quick route back to a time and arrangements it won’t be in their power to return us to. We gave up control. Labour can’t simply get it back for us, they can only crack on with rebuilding relationships and improving agreements.
a lot of traditional Labour voters voted for brexit
Lots of traditional X voters voted for Brexit, for all X. Nevertheless, they are a dying breed (again, for all X). Both figuratively, in the sense of changing their minds (albeit slowly and partially), and literally, in the sense that they were largely towards the elderly end of the demographic and are dying out.
Remember, no-one at all under the age of 25 voted for Brexit (um..ok make that 24y and 10 months). Not a single one. By next June, you can make that no-one under 26.
Chasing a dying demographic seems a bit silly to me. There was possibly a case for it back in 2017-19 when Brexit hadn't turned out to be a complete bit of a mess. Sticking with it now just makes Labour leadership look clueless, backward-looking. They aren't offering anything to me.
That may be true, but taking a "screw the Brexiteers, they're all dying anyway" approach doesn't fix anything because younger voters don't bloody show up and vote! Brexiteer OAPs will be at the polling station at 7.01am...
https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/age-and-voting-behaviour-at-the-2019-general-election/#.ZE-MR6TTU0E
I also suspect that younger voters aren't as interested in rejoining the EU as much as "we" are, precisely because they've never known it and didn't take a position on Brexit. But I don't have stats for that.
Kelvin - they could pin the mess on the tories. Of course they could make strong moves back to the EU and make that policy. They could stop lying about it by pretending they can "make brexit work"
All of which would be vote winners and would spread labours appeal across the UK
for sure the SNP and lib Dems will make it an election issue and will gain votes and seats off the back of it.
Stop being a brexiteer apologist. the labour party position is not the only possible one.
Except the young represented the lowest turnout. Apathy doesn't decide elections.
I'm about to to meet my cycling group who are in their early 60s. They'll be around a while longer and sadly they'll be brexity as last week. They're not suffering with their final pensions and income from additional properties.
There is hard polling that makes it clear opposing brexit is a vote winner overall. Yes they would lose some votes but they would gain more – even in target and red wall seats.
No imagine if Starmer had spent the last year opposing brexit and leading public opinion – it would have been even greater positive towards rejoin
Starmer said he wanted to be a leader for all of the UK. His enthusiastic support for brexit and lying about it ( we can make brexit work) will cost him dear i Scotland and in remainer places in the south.
1) okay, let's see this "hard polling"
2) Brexit has happened (and it's a shitshow). You may as well oppose the Second World War or the metric system. The only sane thing to do would be aligning with the EU on trade and then proposing a route back to entry - which will take a decade at least, even if the EU feels at all acommodating to the UK. It will also be difficult and time-consuming.
Reigniting the historic culture war over Brexit that Labour spectacularly lost on would be a cosmic mistake (which tbf means there is a 50% chance Labour will do it). It would be like adopting a "coal not dole" platform.
3) specifically which are these down South remainer seats that Starmer is going to lose because he won't stand on an anti-Brexit platform?
Kelvin – they could pin the mess on the tories.
Labour can't blame Brexit on the Tories because half of Labour and a majority of voters were in favour of Brexit.
Labour can't blame bad Brexit on the Tories because, as you say and I agree, there is no such thing as good Brexit.
politecameraaction - read the article I linked to above for the polling
A majority of voters were not in favour of brexit - a majority of the voters that voted - a very different thing and that majority has clearly gone now - and the referendum was advisory only.
Labour can’t blame Brexit on the Tories because half of Labour and a majority of voters were in favour of Brexit.
More accurately a majority (just) of those that voted, it wasn't a majority of the total electorate.
I also suspect that younger voters aren’t as interested in rejoining the EU
Depends on your definition of younger. At 60 there's a large tranche of people younger than me who know exactly what the benefits of being in were.
Lib dem target seats
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
map those against the seats that voted remain or only very closely for leave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum
A whole swathe of seats where being brexiteers will lose them votes compared to a rejoin stance
Lib dem target seats
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
/blockquote>I want Lib Dems to take seats off the Tories. Growing the Labour vote in those seats is problem 100 behind 99 others for the Labour Party, and for the UK. And at this stage probably counter productive.
EDIT: If a few Labour seats go to the Lib Dems as well, I’ll just shrug. Arguably Labour have insulted the people of Sheff&Hal in recent years with the previous representative they gave them, and deserve to lose that seat.
I've given up debating on this and other politics threads because the STW (same three *******) just swamp discussion by volume and repeating over and over again. It makes this place frankly unpleasant, and you can't ignore them because they suck everyone else in and poison the debate for all
But the last time I disagreed with TJ on this was 6-8 weeks ago, and I was interested by that article and whether things have moved further. Maybe they have but it's still not clear cut, and I can't leave that unchallenged. If you go beyond the headlines in the Keegan article, and look at the actual poll
https://consoc.org.uk/publications/red-wall-polling-2023/
Among Red Wall voters:
Exactly half agree that Brexit has made Britain worse off
46% say Brexit was a mistake
On General Voting Intention, Labour has a lead of 33% over the Conservatives
This lead could shrink to 30% if Labour said Brexit was a mistake, but the Party would still win all 42 Red Wall seats.
So in the red wall seats, the election battleground, labour would lose votes by coming out for Brexit. But not by enough to sway the result. And indeed, it may increase votes in other seats, that they will already win or which LD are on to win, further increasing majority.
It might be cowardice but at present there isn't any chance for the Tories to mobilise on 'they don't respect the vote you made' 'antidemocratic', 'they want to reopen the debate and waste all that time and money again....' and when the benefit is winning 527 or 550 seats against a risk of ****ing it all up ..... does it matter?
Right, I'm out again.
I'm more concerned about what Labour will actually do if they win. If they spend 4 years pissing about "making brexit work" in the way they've talked about, the party will fall apart and we'll have another decade of Tory.
Fair enough jonv although there is a typo in there yo might want to correct 🙂
so coming out against brexit would lead to a bigger majority and overall be a vote winner at a time when polls are tightening and the election win does not look assured any more. the polls against brexit are only going one way
Remaining brexiteers and continuing to lie about it will lose them seats and of course as ever I am most concerned about Scotland. Starmer says he wants to win all over the UK. His pro brexit stance will not go down well here and means they will not make the gains he wants and is an easy weapon to use
Remember this is before the campaign. Lib Dems and SNP will ensure this is a significant point in the election.
I know several English ex labour voters who will not vote labour because of their embrace of brexit
A majority of voters were not in favour of brexit – a majority of the voters that voted – a very different thing
"Voters" are people that actually vote. I am not a marathon runner just because I could get off the couch and run a marathon.
Lib dem target seats
3 of the first 40 seats are Labour, and winning that 40th seat would require a 14% swing from Labour to Lib Dem against the backdrop of a Labour vs Tory national contest. It ain't gonna happen. The rest are Tory and a couple of SNP, Lib Dem and Green seats.
The idea that Labour is losing out in the south of the UK by not pursuing some intransigent rejectionist anti-Brexit platform is not plausible.
Fair enough jonv although there is a typo in there yo might want to correct 🙂
Have read and can't spot it.
intransigent rejectionist anti-Brexit platform
I don't understand how you can portray the idea to align and rejoin the SM and CU in such a manner. It smacks of trying desperately to set up a silly straw man to distract from the paucity of the argument.
The intransigence is surely the idiots pretending that Brexit can be made to "work" in any other way, despite the growing mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Jonv
labour would lose votes by coming out for Brexit.
I think you mean against 🙂
some intransigent rejectionist anti-Brexit platform is not plausible.
Errmm - yes it is. Its the enthusastic embrace of brexit and the telling of blatant lies about it which is not plausible and will cost labour votes and seats
for rejoin I meant, yes. Ta
It smacks of trying desperately to set up a silly straw man to distract from the paucity of the argument
I refer to you to TJ's post two after yours, and his others on this thread, where he is advocating that Starmer campaigns against Brexit and blames the Brexit mess on the Tories. That is an approach that is bizarre (Brexit has already happened), hypocritical (Labour and the electorate's fingerprints are all over the stupidity of Brexit too), and self-sabotaging (by picking a culture war with a significant chunk of the electorate - the same culture war that was lost a few years ago!).
There's also the possibility that by re-opening the can of Brexit worms that could hand the Tories a huge opportunity to attack Labour as the party that wants to drag us all through that endless crap a second time which itself could be a vote loser.
I suspect that's part of it. There's people who think it was a mistake, then there's people who want to start undoing the mistake now, and people who just want to move on despite the mistake because they dread the whole idea.
If I was in charge of Labour electoral campaign, I'd want more evidence that one poll in March is showing given that the strategy they're already following is doing all right.
The polls have being moving that way for many months.
its too late to change now tho really - but what a missed open goal.
Make the tories take all the blame and be ahead of and leading public opinion not being dragged in the direction the public are going reluctantly
Labours poll lead is because the tories are so awful not because of any great love for labours position.
Labour will regret this I am sure. Its such an obvious weapon for the lib dems and SNP
I think one of the issues is that her we have politicians prepared to say the truth on Brexit and it creates a positive feedback. If you don't have that it becomes less obvious. Brexit and the disaster it has caused is a common topic here
It comes back to the concept that you don't win arguments by telling people how stupid they are/have been. It's difficult to grasp I know.
But it works so well on here Del 😉
Personally I think there's a big difference between agreeing that Brexit was a mistake and voting for a party looking to take us back into the uncertainty that we had for 4 years. I'd probably be comfortable doing that but I can see that many others are looking for stability after the shite tsunami that has been Tory government.
Also disagree that nothing can be done to make Brexit less damaging than it has been to date. Using the bad divorce analogy, we can carry on being obtuse and using lawyers to sow discontent. Or we can work with the EU to improve our future relationship and make life better for our children.
It’s difficult to grasp I know.
Says the person going for the passive aggressive variant.
Its also, unsurprisingly, overly simplistic.
You dont have to call people stupid but point out how they were lied to and how the issues that they hoped were going to be addressed werent and never would have been.
However then of course you actually need to have some suggestions how to solve those issues.
Perhaps some of those issues were though?
but what a missed open goal.
It's not though, Labour can't take us back into the EU by itself, so they're just making undeliverable promises.
No but they could have pinned the tories with the blame and said the were going to move to the eu.
As well as not lying about making brexit work
you don’t win arguments by telling people how stupid they are/have been
Again with the rather childish straw men. It's almost like you don't want to engage with the substance of the discussion.
I'm sure the Labour advisors know what they're doing and pretending Brexit is a good idea is, on balance, a vote winner.
It won't be winning my vote, but I'm a drop in the ocean, apparently. It is what it is.
Thats not what the polls say
I value politician that tell the truth - or at least sound plausible
How about
"You were lied to about Brexit, dirty russian money was used to pump out propaganda, the far right wanted it for their own reasons, We are going to undo the damage it has caused as quickly as possible"
"BTW - here are examples of the damage"
And keep on hammering that line. make the tories own it
Ah leave it a few more years then rejoin SM @ CU and sell it as a Brexit win as we couldn't that whilst in the eu.
We've gone so far down the rabbit hole there's no point in using reason, its a whole new game for another generation of players.
Anyway people will soon forget the freedoms they had and you don't miss what you've not had, we may never have close ties, just got to get used to having to spend a few hours of your holiday going thru etias or get a decent holiday home with a golden visa now your part of a "high-wage, high-skill" economy.
