[Nonsense]

Well I'm a hard remainer, but I'm happy to say that all though I prefer Remain, no-deal is better than May's abomination of a deal. Any traitor that votes for it should be ashamed, including blow hards like Reese Mogg and Boris Johnson. I would certainly be happy to reach out to any Brexiteer who is willing to say they prefer no deal, but Remain is better than May's deal.

I certainly hope there is extra parliamentary resistance to a May - Corbyn stitch-up. In the words of the late Ian Paisley, "No surrender!". It certainly would be ironic if May and Corbyn were to come together to defend the establishment and to bail out the two party system.

I think the smart thing for the Labour leadership to do now would be to demand a Tory leadership election now so as they can get on with the real negotiations, rather than wasting their time with a lame duck Tory leader. The beauty of this, would be that it would actually help Teresa May to hang on, because the Tories would not want to be seen to be holding a leadership election at the behest of Jeremy Corbyn. If the Tories did go ahead with a leadership election it would be utterly humiliating for them. The Tories would be dammed if they did and damned if they didn't.

Nonsense-

I agree with much of what you say Rich, but the reality is of course, we are where we are for a couple of reasons that are the responsibility of a dishonest & irresponsible 'Prime Minister'.

One, is that she has consistently deceived the country, two, that when she was being finally exposed for her duplicity, she decided on handing the keys to that Westminster lunatic asylum to the inmates(MP's), whom immediately set about completing what she had intended all along as a remainer- to frustrate the people's decision to leave europe.

I know that decision is not what many people want, I also know that you think our 'democracy' is flawed, it always has been, which makes it all the more important, that when the people spoke in the referendum, it is honoured, both in the spirit & the letter in which it is delivered.

[snapdragon]

….when the people spoke in the referendum, it is honoured, both in the spirit & the letter in which it is delivered.

That's impossible.

https://infacts.org/cut-keep-list-top-1 ... -promises/

[skinster]

Another option.

Corbyn says every MP must get a 'very, very clear' message from the election results that a Brexit deal 'has to be done'.

Good.

So Corbyn reckons that traditional Labour voters flocking to vote for the only remain parties is somehow telling him he needs to deliver Brexit. Right.

The same could be said for the Tories not bothering to vote for Tories since the govt is ignoring the majority Tory vote on Brexit.

Bye, indeed.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out. People like you who base your vote on Brexit alone really show what a privileged bunch you are.

[B0ycey]

People like you who base your vote on Brexit alone really show what a privileged bunch you are.

Surely a vote for the Brexit Party is a vote on Brexit alone. Those like Galloway who abandon their values to vote for Farages Brexit must be privileged indeed as they value leaving over their economy. So what are we to make of those from Labour who are also considering voting for Farage? Red Tories?

[skinster]

:eh:

Surely a vote for the Brexit Party is a vote on Brexit alone.

I was referring to the people who are making a vote in the GE about Brexit alone.

Those like Galloway who abandon their values to vote for Farages Brexit must be privileged indeed as they value leaving over their economy. So what are we to make of those from Labour who are also considering voting for Farage? Red Tories?

A vote in the EU elections for the Brexit Party by some on the left is stated over and over again to be about respecting the Brexit vote alone, it's weird you have trouble understanding that or why a lot of the working class voted to exit the EU.

[snapdragon]

There isn't a general election in the offing, but if there were I'd make my choice based solely on the Brexit position of the party concerned.

Anything else is transitory and can be done away with or improved on, but once we're out of Europe, there's no going back.

As for respecting the result of the 2016 referendum - phooey. It doesn't deserve respect.

The people who voted because they were worried about East-Europeans taking their jobs have been shafted.

The promises the leave campaigners made were nonsense at best and downright lies at worst.

[skinster]

[Ter]

EU Not Working for Workers: High Employment, But Jobs Bad and Pay Low



The Financial Times has admitted that the European working class have seen few gains from the post-crash recovery, fuelling a continued sense of grievance against the political establishment ahead of the EU Parliament elections.

“The trend is clear across EU countries: workers are losing economic ground,” begins the salmon-pink newspaper, a normally studiously europhile gazette which is part of the unofficial uniform of the typical City of London worker.

“Subdued wage growth, underemployment and unstable jobs have all helped to fuel a sense of grievance among many workers that they are missing out on the proceeds of growth,” it reports, citing Stefano Scarpetta, Director for Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as saying that “Many EU countries are facing the apparent paradox of record high employment rates and stagnant wages” — a situation he described as “back to work but out of pocket”.

The FT notes that in EU member-states including Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom — which remains in the European Union years after the British people voted to leave it due to Remain-voting prime minister Theresa May reneging on previous promises to deliver it by March 29th 2019, and will be participating in this months European Parliament elections as a result — real wages are “still below their pre-crisis peaks.”

“[V]oters going to the polls this month will this year take home the smallest share of their countries’ income for more than a decade,” the City newspaper concedes, reported fears that populist parties appealing to “those left behind” might prosper electorally as a result — which Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini’s League (La Lega) having been previously projected to become one of the largest parties in the European Parliament after the coming elections, for example.

The FT also notes that such jobs as do exist — and a great many have been created — are often low-quality, observing that “the number of casual, self-employed and temporary jobs has increased in many EU countries,” and that “some workers have lost access to social protection measures such as unemployment and pension benefits.”

One exception may be post-referendum Britain, which — despite the repeated delays to Brexit — has seen the number of EU migrants arriving for work fall significantly since the vote to leave the EU, and a corresponding increase in wages which has been bewailed by employers demanding continued high net immigration to keep the cost of labour low.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/0 ... -jobs-bad/

It is time for the working people to show their anger at the EU.
The upcoming elections for the EU parliament are a good first start.

[SolarCross]

[Ter]

That is great news !
Both the Tories and Labour have soiled their bed and now they have to lie in it.
As I said before, come what may (pun not intended) UK as a country has split right down the middle and the mistrust and insults flying both ways will not be forgotten for at least a generation.
Seeing loads of anti-EU people manning the seats in the EU parliament will undoubtedly also provide a lot of entertainment

Here is another good article in RT about the hypocrisy of the EU:

https://www.rt.com/news/458600-verhofst ... elections/

[Rich]

Stupid people, and that seems to include virtually the whole of the commentariat look at the current difficult and painful situation of the Tories at the moment and say "uh duh, Tories must have some dumb leaders. Its a bit like stupid people look at Adolph Hitler and say: "He failed to establish and stablise Germany as one of the top 2 or 3 world empires and powers. What an idiot, rather than recognising that its absolutely amazing that starting out as a nobody in November 1918, he got as close as he did to success."

No the intelligent person' starting point is that the Conservatives (The Tories 2.0) dominant position within British politics for over one hundred and eighty years is remarkable. That virtually all the long standing western conservative parties hegemony on the political right is under threat. That the US Republicans with Trump and the British Conservatives,with Brexit, have bucked the trend, for the time being.

The Tories had been doing well out of Brexit. David Cameron's brilliant 2013 referendum promiss, contained and halted the rise of UKIP. Ironically it was the Scottish Independance Referendum, that did such damage to Scottish Labour, and fueled the astounding rise of the SNP. The referendum promise in 2015 stopped Tory votes haemorrhaging to UKIP, while a fair number of Leave voters deserted Labour. The threat of a Labour SNP coalition scared many moderate English voters into voting Conservative. This delivered Camerons small majority government. This led to the huge boon of Corbyn being elected leader. Remember just a swing of 2% less to the Tories would have probably seen Milliband into number 10 an even smaller difference might have kept Milliband as Labour leader. And then most people would still never have heard of Jeremy Corbyn.

The referendum promise was vital to for this. Without Corbyn Labour could have capitalised on the Lib Dem vote collapse. However Brexit has become a bit like World War I for the two main parties. Like the Empires of WWI you have to hang in and hope your enemy collapses before you do. So Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit strategy finally seems to be winning, although Labour have lost, support to the Brexit party and the Lib Dems. Can Labour hold its nerve. Keep pretending to want to "honour the referendum", while not delivering, while not bailing out the Tories.

The Tories plan has always been to stitch up an awfully shoddy deal and then get Labour MPs to deliver it. All the Tory Leadership contenders want May and Labour to stitch up a deal, that they can then disown. They don't want to be responsible for no-deal, but neither do they want to be responsible for a deal either.

[Potemkin]

The Tories plan has always been to stitch up an awfully shoddy deal and then get Labour MPs to deliver it. All the Tory Leadership contenders want May and Labour to stitch up a deal, that they can then disown. They don't want to be responsible for no-deal, but neither do they want to be responsible for a deal either.

Everything else in your post is dubious at best, but this statement is absolutely 100% correct. This, indeed, is the cause of the current impasse in Parliament, and is why Brexit has been delayed and may end up being indefinitely delayed.

[Rich]

Everything else in your post is dubious at best,

So for example you would say that my assertion that the traditional conservative/ centre-right parties established positions are under threat across the western world is at best dubious?

There seem to me two commonalties across a number of countries: Firstly the aftermath of the financial crash and the stagnation of wages for the bottom 70% of incomes. The second is the abandonment of traditional conservative positions on social and racial questions. Established centre right conservative parties used to stand three broad strands. Classical Liberal economics, which they too from the nineteenth century Liberal parties, social conservatism and strong defence and law and order. Lower taxes / lower regulation was never enough to win elections.

In Britain there was particular focus, even obsession with house ownership. When house ownership went in to reverse after the financial crash, it did not bode well for the long term future of the Tory party.

[blackjack21]

Now that this is over Labour only needs to firmly confront Farage and the Brexit Party and decisively win the EP-election to be Britain's leading political force.

With a rock solid 28% of the vote? What we're seeing is the wholesale destruction of the two-party system in the UK. It's more likely that the UK will have the political stability of Italy if they don't get out of the EU.

Confronting and defeating Farage in the EP-election should be the easiest thing for Labour ever to do. How do they mean to be government if they can't do that?

The likelihood is that they can't do that.

I would say the local elections was a win for Remain.

How so?

I have to say, the results are now looking significantly worse for the Tories and significantly better for the Lib Dems than when I wrote my earlier post. The Lib Dems have now made over 600 gains. the Greens are over the 160 mark in terms of gains.

A lot of voters are punishing Teresa May, but doing their level best not to reward Jeremy Corbyn. It's not that they have joined the remainers, or they wouldn't abandon Teresa May's treachery, that has to rival that of Charles I.

If the Tories did go ahead with a leadership election it would be utterly humiliating for them. The Tories would be dammed if they did and damned if they didn't.

They would be so much better off with BoJo at this point. May has imploded and there is no reviving her.

I know that decision is not what many people want, I also know that you think our 'democracy' is flawed, it always has been, which makes it all the more important, that when the people spoke in the referendum, it is honoured, both in the spirit & the letter in which it is delivered.

The problem with the EU is that it isn't a democracy. The European Parliament is a parliament in name only. UK voters aren't the only ones pissed off.

No the intelligent person' starting point is that the Conservatives (The Tories 2.0) dominant position within British politics for over one hundred and eighty years is remarkable.

What is remarkable is that voters who consider only brand identity continued to do so in spite of the evidence. It's like the Democratic Party in the US. Since Bill Clinton, it has been almost an anti-poor party--working to drive down wages. Yet, there are many voting blocs--black voters for example--who just keep voting for the Democrats no matter what. The conservatives in the UK aren't conserving a damn thing. They are working hand in glove to liquidate British sovereignty, which is as non-conservative as a party could be.

That the US Republicans with Trump and the British Conservatives,with Brexit, have bucked the trend, for the time being.

Establishment Republicans are losing for the same reason: they don't represent any significant political faction. Rich people are 1% of the electorate. It's not even close to a majority.

[B0ycey]

How so?

Because remain parties significantly increased their councillors. UKIP Significantly lost theirs. Who do you think won?

Nonetheless in regards to the European elections, The Brexit Party are polling on a narrative whilst remain doesn't seem to have a figure or party to rally behind like Farage to do likewise. Even so, the European elections will be played out like a referendum and Leave will get a third of the vote. Remain will get 2 3rds which will be split between Labour, Lib Dems and the Greens. If The Brexit Party becomes the biggest party everyone will think the attitudes in the UK haven't changed and the desire is still to leave the EU. But they'd be wrong. Because if they hadn't, Farage would exceed 50% of the vote.

[Potemkin]

So for example you would say that my assertion that the traditional conservative/ centre-right parties are established positions are under threat across the western world is at best dubious?

Their positions are no more under threat than they were, say, during the 1960s or 70s. Either your statement is trivially true (in the sense that all political positions are under threat, all the time) or is dubious at best (if you are claiming that the current crisis of conservative values is unprecedented).

There seem to me two commonalties across a number of countries: Firstly the aftermath of the financial crash and the stagnation of wages for the bottom 70% of incomes. The second is the abandonment of traditional conservative positions on social and racial questions. Established centre right conservative parties used to stand three broad strands. Classical Liberal economics, which they too from the nineteenth century Liberal parties, social conservatism and strong defence and law and order. Lower taxes / lower regulation was never enough to win elections.

Political positions change over time. Do the political parties nowadays stand for the same principles which, say, the Whigs and the Tories stood for in 1719? Obviously not. Is this a problem? Not really, no. Societies change over historical time, and political parties must change with them.

In Britain there was particular focus, even obsession with house ownership.

...which I've always thought was idiotic. How can the majority of the working class afford to buy their own home, especially in London or the South-East of England? It's absurd. This was never anything more than a lower-middle-class fantasy.

When house ownership went in to reverse after the financial crash, it did not bode well for the long term future of the Tory party.

Indeed. But they should never have pinned their colours to that particular mast to begin with. The continental European conservatives certainly don't do this.

[SolarCross]

You are all going to call me crazy but I'm calling it now, Farage will be PM next general election.

[B0ycey]

You are all going to call me crazy but I'm calling it now, Farage will be PM next general election.

I doubt The Brexit Party will even contest the general election let alone win it.

Nonetheless the next PM will be worse than Farage. It will be BoJo the clown.

[snapdragon]

You're both crazy. ( I have my fingers crossed).

Apparently, Nige is dancing with rage at Keir Starmer and Tom Watson's firm assertion that any deal must be accompanied by a confirmatory poll if it is to be passed by Parliament.

This is good news.

[layman]

Farage is showing how far you can get with big words And promises but no details or policy. He refuses to answer any questions on the many technical issues with no deal.

He is very good at appealing to ignorance and simplistic solutions. A classic popularist who will never have to prove or do anything. Just collect his big fat salary for talking - nothing else.