Forum menu
Cougar, no, that's literally the opposite of my views. That you're attacking my person rather than my arguments is pretty poor and shows you've not read my previous posts.
All, will try and catch up tomorrow. I'm not ignoring anyone, just other stuff to do.
How about if the feelings in Europe change and it goes down more right wing paths?
Then the EU needs all the rationalising voices it can, surely? The member states have the power of veto over important stuff so if right wing countries tried to do something unpalatable it'd get vetoed. That's why the EU is important - it ties countries together via economics, so any wannabe dictator would have to (ahem) leave in order to do anything drastic, and s/he then would be acting alone, it wouldn't be the EU.
Without the EU any right wing countries would be free to form an alliance to do bad stuff. This has happened before of course and is one of the founding principles of the European integration movement. As we all know.
How about if the feelings in Europe change and it goes down more right wing paths? We have a voice in the EU but it’s only one
voiceveto.
FIFY.
So, what was it that prompted you to post after 8 years absence?
Meanwhile 90M plus spent on consultants by the gov on Brexit.
Poldarn, you have given some things YOU don't like about the EU and things you think they should be doing however, to ask again
"What legitimate issues do people have where the cause is related to being in the EU?"
This means things the UK government could not control or address while being in the EU. I don't believe any of the things you mention are issues affecting the average persons life. Even the racist British values stuff could be satisfied by the government if it wanted to (which is doesn't as the even crap parties like the tories are not that racist)
Labour win in perterburough. Brexit party candidate make sracist statements. Maybe the people are not so daft. thats a 60% leave seat.
I'd attribute "the people" all the possible brexiter insults. Only 4000 or so voted Lib Dem and just over 1000 voted green. All the rest, about 28 000, voted for leave parties. Which is perhaps not surprising in a 60% leave seat.
And let's face it, the Brexit party which has only existed for a few weeks nearly beat Labour in Peterborough.
All this makes a no deal Brexit more probable IMO.
A very significant win for labour, and a sign that they can’t abandon leave voters in these marginals. In the end it shows that in these seats their remain voters will ultimately bite the bullet and vote tactically to prevent the Brexit party winning. They would have lost this if they had swung fully behind a stop brexit message.
They would have lost this won comfortably if they had swung fully behind a stop brexit message
Care to elaborate why or are we just doing panto style ‘oh no they didn’t’ level of debate now?
Point of order. the brexit party ( which is not a party) has been in existence for 3 years.
Well, my claim is as detailed as yours, but I will anyway.
Trump created an open goal when he let slip that the NHS would be a victim of a US trade deal. Everyone with half a brain knew that anyway, labour should have been campaigning on the truth for the past 2 or 3 years.
to quote myself from the other thread
time for labour to stop pandering to the false brexit narrative, and start winning the real arguments. That farage and the tories will sell of the NHS to American insurance companies, bring in privatisation to education, cut taxes for the wealthiest and inact even more damaging austerity and cuts onto the poorest, all the while under a backdrop of jobs lost to brexit.
This isn’t a difficult war to win, but it has to be fought and not just capitulated in fear. It is about time labour looked to its guiding principles and started representing the people they claim to represent and not just enabling the alt-right propagandists.
Care to elaborate why or are we just doing panto style ‘oh no they didn’t’ level of debate now?
No elaboration is possible as you are just making it up just the same as people saying going for a no Brexit would have got more votes. You are just making up that the result is because of something you want to be reality.
If the no brexit votes went to Lib Dems and Greens then it would be a good guess to suggest that Labour could have got some of those votes but lost a whole load of other votes to Brexit party.
Also need to remember this was not exactly a Labour safe seat as they only beat the Conservatives by a few hundred votes in 2017. Same sort of marginal win but against a different party.
They would have lost this won comfortably if they had swung fully behind a stop brexit message
That doesn't add up at all.
That doesn’t add up at all.
I have already explained my thinking, care to elaborate on yours?
Frankly it is a disgrace that labour are allowing this con job, on those they are meant to represent, to continue unchallenged. Especially when it is so easy to challenge, it is either sheer incompetence or deliberate, but either way it is a dereliction of labour principles.
You've just summed up my feelings about Labour in three lines, MSP.
as you are just making it up
I'm really not. The big unanswered question from the EU elections was whether the labour swing to the remain parties would persist in a general election, or if the labour remainers would come back to ensure the brexit party was defeated? Whilst this hasn't fully answered that, it's a big indicator that the latter is the case. And why wouldn't it be? Seeing as the remain vote is largely based in the educated middle classes, people who are more likely to vote with their heads than their hearts, it stands to reason that they're not going to vote in a way which ensures the brexit party wins.
Frankly it is a disgrace that labour are allowing this con job, on those they are meant to represent, to continue unchallenged.
Couple of points, firstly labour policy may be unpopular, but it's not a con job. It's a perfectly reasonable position to take the middle ground and attempt to unite people around issues which aren't brexit. Secondly, of all single issue policies that any political party has adopted, I know of none other which has been challenged and tested as much as labour's policy on brexit. It's become a national obsession, to the detriment of everything else. At least it has among those who are politically engaged, however out in the real world, most people don't care about the minutiae of policy and will continue voting on broad bush issues as they always have.
It's true that in FPTP voting, many "remain" people will return to Labour to defeat right wing candidates, despite Labour's Brexit policy.
But, why wouldn't "leave" Labour voters return to Labour to defeat right wing candidates, if it was staunchly against Brexit but for left wing policies?
Also, Labour needs more voters, not just to win back those of us that voted for them in 2017. How does it win over previously Conservative voters shocked at what their "party of business" has become? How does it win over people who voted LibDem in the last few elections? Any plans for winning seats off the SNP, as England drags Scotland out with it? How about all those new voters that need something to grab them and bring them into the voting booth?
[ this Leave/Remain split is nonsense by the way… plenty of people who voted Leave want the current shit show stopped, and plenty of people who voted Remain now think we must carry on with the boondoggle … just put forward the policy you think is best for Britain ]
So labour should not attempt to represent the working class who voted for brexit? simply abandom them to others? 30+% of labour MPs even tho remainers by and large donot think the party shoud abandomn the millions of brexit voting labour voters
They should not abandon the working class, no, but they are, by doubling down on the "jobs first Brexit" bullshit, while Brexit continues to result in the loss of higher paid working class jobs.
dazh
Subscriber
A very significant win for labour, and a sign that they can’t abandon leave voters in these marginals. In the end it shows that in these seats their remain voters will ultimately bite the bullet and vote tactically to prevent the Brexit party winning. They would have lost this if they had swung fully behind a stop brexit message.
They scraped it by 700 votes.
It was a 60% leave seat, the majority of labour voters (nationally at least) backed remain, labour saw an almost 20% fall in vote share
If the Tories were half way competent with Brexit, tbp wouldn't exist & Labour would be in big trouble.
This is a condemnation of the Tories rather than a. Endorsement of labours Brexit strategy.
labour are backing the working class by 'running down' skilled manufacturing ?
Labour should've become the remain party once jlr/nissan etc started announcing job losses late last year, from that point on they've had no excuses.
They've been hammered in the last 2 national elections & seen a 17% vote drop in this local
Their strategy isn't working electorally & its doing nothing to protect jobs.
All this is mute anyway… if we have a snap General Election before we Leave, Labour will fall behind offering some way for "the people" to speak again about Brexit. The momentum behind that will increase once we have a new Tory Leader and another Brexit deadline whooshes over the country's head. It's just the time being wasted right now, when the Tories are on the ropes, that's so frustrating.
They scraped it by 700 votes.
It's significant not for the size of the majority (which has slightly increase btw), but for the fact that they won at all when the ominous signs from the EU elections were that they would lose on account of remainers deserting them for the libdems and greens. They did lose some to the libdems it appears, but not enough to lose the seat.
The euros indicated that the vote of both main parties suffered equally. This byelection suggests that in a general election much of the labour vote will come back whereas the tories won't. Difficult to tell from one byelection of course but in the end this will come down to how much of the vote share the main parties will lose, and at the moment it looks like the tories will lose a lot more than labour.
All this is mute anyway
Hang on, you've spent the last few weeks saying with some certainty that labour was going to lose it's remain vote to the libdems and the greens if it didn't swing behind a stop brexit policy. The EU elections supported that and you and others weren't exactly shy about pointing that out. Yet now there is evidence in the other direction, you say it's not important?
They scraped it by 700 votes.
They scraped it by 607 votes in 2017. So they increased their majority, despite their MP leaving in disgrace, in one of the strongest Leave areas in the whole country.
Yet now there is evidence in the other direction, you say it’s not important?
It's important, and maddening, and politically damaging, that Corbyn and his advisors will have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards the policy… and sickening that people still think this is because they are being politically smart by trying to play both sides, when it seems obvious that it is simply because they oppose that policy and want Brexit to happen.
Edit - I think I missunderstood your post - the by-election result isn't unimportant, and I'm not dismissing it, and I think that much of your analysis is correct (for this seat and some others like it, that is a 17% fall in Labour share of the vote could still win them this kind of Brexit Party target seat as the Conservatives lose an even greater share). I was saying that all this arguing about the Labour party's position is likely to be a waste of our time, as it will most likely move to fully supporting a referendum including a remain option, if we have a snap election.
It’s significant not for the size of the majority (which has slightly increase btw), but for the fact that they won at all when the ominous signs from the EU elections were that they would lose on account of remainers deserting them for the libdems and greens. They did lose some to the libdems it appears, but not enough to lose the seat.
The euros indicated that the vote of both main parties suffered equally. This byelection suggests that in a general election much of the labour vote will come back whereas the tories won’t. Difficult to tell from one byelection of course but in the end this will come down to how much of the vote share the main parties will lose, and at the moment it looks like the tories will lose a lot more than labour.
Counting on the collapse of the Tories isnt a strategy
at the moment its a 3 way fight between Labour, a party with no manifesto & a party with no leader!
Labour should be romping home, instead they are losing vote share
if TBP or the Tories were to sort themselves out, it will be another wasted 4 years of opposition for them
It's hard to argue against Kimbers post up there ^^^.
Labour should be ahead of the tories and are wasting the greatest opportunity in a lifetime to put some daylight between them and the tories.
Nonetheless, well done Labour. I expected TBP to romp home in Peterborough. The result has got Brexiteers in quite a froth this morning, seeing as most Brexiteers were expecting a sizeable majority.
Bearing in mind the low turnout actually increasing their majority is impressive.
I'm just happy the Brexit Party didn't get in.
I bet NF is really hacked off today 🙂 ha ha.
The ford plant closure is the perfect opportunity for Labour to move it's position on brexit now. It can say 'the current fiasco isn't providing a 'jobs first brexit' therefore we advocate Norway style future trading and a vote on the presented deal' job done.
Brexit party in "totally not racist at all" shocker.
https://scramnews.com/brexit-party-insider-peterborough-byelection-loss-****stani-vote
Is the opposition (Labour supposedly) able/allowed to call a no confidence & push things towards a general election, or does the current Tory government have to initiate it?
Assuming parliament is sitting, the official opposition can call a no confidence vote… they'd need 6 Conservative/DUP MPs to back it (or 11 abstain) and every single other MP to back it (less likely than you'd at first expect). Realistically, you'd need 30 or more Conservatives to abstain.
[ don't go nuts if my numbers are one or two out ]
Wanting a general election is not a policy … the opposition should always be trying to get into power … but then, what policy would Labour enact as regards Brexit if it wins a general election?!? Around and round again we go again… he'll have to shift to where most of the rest of the party is eventually, no?
Tick. Tock.
Thanks kelvin, so it still needs overall numbers to see it through. binners, that's what prompted my post. It was just that I recalled months ago some other party saying it was down to the official opposition to get the ball rolling.
Yeah, and, realistically, plenty of the independents in parliament would block a no confidence vote, hence needing so many Conservatives/DUP to withdraw their support for the government, despite having a majority of only about 10. Might happen if no deal is upon us, but I seriously doubt it.
Corbyns daily demands for a general election are like me demanding world peace. Utterly pointless.
What it has led to is the Tory’s planning some extremely dodgy, constitutionally-dubious political chicanery to make sure it doesn’t happen, even once they’ve decided which unhinged Brexiteer they’re going to shoe-horn into number 10
The Brexiteers total contempt for democracy really is getting pretty scary
https://twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1136397276593643520?s=21
The Brexiteers total contempt for democracy really is getting pretty scary
That's probably the most ironic statement I've ever read. (contextually you don't mean voters perhaps?)
(p.s I seee your semi-normal Tory example Rory Stewart is wanting to bring in National Citizens Service for young people - you know those without a decent future, funding and opportunity etc... But yeah you keep going on about Magic Grandad.)
It looks like Labour with Jeremy Corbyn will gain from the fight between Conservative & Brexit Party if the pattern continues like those at Peterborough.
If the pattern continues then Corbyn will be next PM after the next GE, then you will have Labour in charge of Brexit or No-Brexit ... good luck to them.
p/s: I just noticed the term "magic grandad" so funny 🤣
Thing is that actually we are at war.
One hopes it is, and remains, a cold war, especially at its conclusion, but it is a war nonetheless.
The reason that it is a War lies in the starting positions of the two principal belligerents -
House of YorkLeave - No Deal, No Problem, **** the EU
House of LancasterRemain - Remain unto the breach, dear Friends.
This is a Cousin's War that has yet to reach a body count above the one in Batley & Spen, and would do well to remain as civilised.
But let's not kid ourselves that there is a middle ground now.
There is momentum on either side, regardless of the inertia in the middle - there is one side or the other - so which is it?
-
Latest yougov poll has Theresa May being more popular than Corbyn. And that's after she has resigned!
Thing is that actually we are at war.
No, we're really not. The obsessive on both sides of this issue would like there to be one, the rest of us want it sorted one way or the other so we can think about other things.
But let’s not kid ourselves that there is a middle ground now.
Evidence for that?