The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[bickster]

Well I think we can say that Labour's policy of trying to keep the Labour Leave voting constituencies onside worked really well, it managed to get rid of the very bellends like Gareth Snell and Liz Whatserface in Don Valley that it was trying to protect. The only one of those I have any sympathy for is Dennis Skinner, who despite his leave credentials was a really good constituency MP. I'm sure Bolsovers ex-mining community will love their new shiny Tory MP, the absolute whoppers.

Labour's confused constantly changing policy on Brexit really did for them. They should have had the balls to be a solidly remain party (like the vast majority of its members and voters) and gone out from the onset in those communities to explain why being in the EU was in their best interests. I guess those people are going to find out the hard way now.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

17 minutes ago, bickster said:

Labour's confused constantly changing policy on Brexit really did for them. They should have had the balls to be a solidly remain party (like the vast majority of its members and voters) and gone out from the onset in those communities to explain why being in the EU was in their best interests. I guess those people are going to find out the hard way now.

The only problem with this has always been that it is very hard to make the "Look how terrible the UK has become, more poverty, more inequality, terrible NHS, yada yada" case at the exact same time as the "Look at all the wonders the EU has done for us" case. The two don't really make good bedfellows on a political platform.

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

The only problem with this has always been that it is very hard to make the "Look how terrible the UK has become, more poverty, more inequality, terrible NHS, yada yada" case at the exact same time as the "Look at all the wonders the EU has done for us" case. The two don't really make good bedfellows on a political platform.

I'm not talking about speeches, I'm talking about one to one, out on the streets where its perfectly possible to have a meaningful exchange.

Its really not that hard either. The Tories did all that shit to you, The Tories want to leave the EU (because they want to this), The EU did this and this here, explain the benefits everyone had by being in the EU. Labour activists love knocking on people's doors as much as love screaming Oh Jeremy!

Labour's problems are many but one of them appears to be their over reliance on tweets to get their message out. They (like most of the political classes) seem obsesssed with it. The majority of the people in this country don't actually use it, they preach to their own bubble and get outraged by the other bubbles. The man on the street sees very little of this

[bickster]

At least this Labour MP seems to understand (thread)

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Labour's confused constantly changing policy on Brexit really did for them. They should have had the balls to be a solidly remain party (like the vast majority of its members and voters) and gone out from the onset in those communities to explain why being in the EU was in their best interests.

This is every bit as deluded as a Twitter leftist who insists Corbyn wasn't a problem on the doorstep. Labour backed a second referendum with an option to remain; how could they have been more 'solidly remain' without promising to cancel Brexit? Being more pro-remain wouldn't have won Bolsover or Blyth Valley or NW Durham or Penistone or Stoke on Trent, would it? Sending young activists from London to tell them on the doorstep that their vote in 2016 was Wrong, Actually would hardly have improved things.

Every bit as much as socialists need to acknowledge that they didn't win the argument for socialism this time, remainers need to accept that they lost the argument for remain in the country. Three years of arguments, protests, talking about it constantly, and the numbers never moved.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Labour backed a second referendum with an option to remain; how could they have been more 'solidly remain' without promising to cancel Brexit?

Which minute of which day was that? You are telling me what the policy was, the message and the spin, however, changed like the wind.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Which minute of which day was that? You are telling me what the policy was, the message and the spin, however, changed like the wind.

The voters in the seats Labour lost perceived the party as too Remain. Whether you perceived them that way or not is kind of beside the point. They didn't want a party that had a more consistent of explanation of why we should remain, they wanted a party that was going to act on their instruction to leave.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Every bit as much as socialists need to acknowledge that they didn't win the argument for socialism this time, remainers need to accept that they lost the argument for remain in the country. Three years of arguments, protests, talking about it constantly, and the numbers never moved.

That seems like a pretty fair assessment. 

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Every bit as much as socialists need to acknowledge that they didn't win the argument for socialism this time, remainers need to accept that they lost the argument for remain in the country. Three years of arguments, protests, talking about it constantly, and the numbers never moved.

How do we know the numbers never moved? Every indication available suggests they did.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The voters in the seats Labour lost perceived the party as too Remain. Whether you perceived them that way or not is kind of beside the point. They didn't want a party that had a more consistent of explanation of why we should remain, they wanted a party that was going to act on their instruction to leave.

This may well be true in the main but given that one of the main attack lines on the Labour leadership was that they were "unfit to govern", the inability of Corbyn to decisively give an opinion on the most prominent issue of the day was a fatal mistake. Instead of the hoped making him look 'reasonable', it made him look weak and washed away the image that he was politician of principle. Somebody told me once that 'any decision is better than no decision' and it was advice that Labour would have done well to heed! 

[chrisp65]

14 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The voters in the seats Labour lost perceived the party as too Remain. Whether you perceived them that way or not is kind of beside the point. They didn't want a party that had a more consistent of explanation of why we should remain, they wanted a party that was going to act on their instruction to leave.

Leavers perceived them as too remains. 

Their problem, was that elsewhere, remainers couldn’t be confident we wouldn’t leave under Labour as they kept saying they were going to renegotiate leaving.

Corbyn himself was leading the tactic of going for the undecided. Which unfortunately, turned out to be pretty much just him.

They tried to be all things to all people and just convinced everyone they would drag the whole thing on for years more with no guarantee it would end in any particular way. Somebody said yesterday there are three levels of decision making. Best is to make the right decision and act on it. Next best is to make a decision and act on it. Least satisfactory solution, stall and don’t make a decision for literally years.

[ml1dch]

5 hours ago, Rodders said:

If Labour do go for another Corbynista type character then it's jackpot for the tories, and thatcher's 11 years in charge could easily be broken by this horrifying buffoon. 

The aim of the two main parties' leadership has suddenly converged to hope for the same thing - make sure the Corbynite faction clings on to power in the Labour party.

[HanoiVillan]

23 minutes ago, bickster said:

How do we know the numbers never moved? Every indication available suggests they did.

I'm not talking about moving from 52-48 to 47-53. The country was split evenly in 2016, it's split evenly now. That's not enough to override the actual result of the referendum, especially given the relative geographic distribution of the two groups. We can imagine a different world, where 65-70% of the public wanted to remain, and lots of people who voted leave were out in public saying they regretted their decision. In that world, Labour's Brexit policy might have been an asset, and the Lib Dem's policy might not have been a toxic disaster. We don't live in that world, and that's not what happened.

18 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

This may well be true in the main but given that one of the main attack lines on the Labour leadership was that they were "unfit to govern", the inability of Corbyn to decisively give an opinion on the most prominent issue of the day was a fatal mistake. Instead of the hoped making him look 'reasonable', it made him look weak and washed away the image that he was politician of principle. Somebody told me once that 'any decision is better than no decision' and it was advice that Labour would have done well to heed! 

 

15 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Leavers perceived them as too remains. 

Their problem, was that elsewhere, remainers couldn’t be confident we wouldn’t leave under Labour as they kept saying they were going to renegotiate leaving.

Corbyn himself was leading the tactic of going for the undecided. Which unfortunately, turned out to be pretty much just him.

They tried to be all things to all people and just convinced everyone they would drag the whole thing on for years more with no guarantee it would end in any particular way. Somebody said yesterday there are three levels of decision making. Best is to make the right decision and act on it. Next best is to make a decision and act on it. Least satisfactory solution, stall and don’t make a decision for literally years.

They made a decision, and they had a policy. The issue is that people didn't like it, not that they didn't have it.

[HanoiVillan]

One thing that has made me laugh is seeing conversations on here like 'Dan Jarvis should be the leader of the Labour party' and then other people saying 'He can't, he's not an MP any more' and then other people saying 'Yes, he is, he was reelected the other night'.

I can confirm that Dan Jarvis is indeed an MP. But can anybody who has suggested he should lead the Labour party give me any convincing reason why, other than that he used to be a squaddie? Because Clive Lewis also used to be in the Army, and he at least has the advantage that he hasn't been 'missing, presumed [politically] dead' for the last four years.

Also, why does having been in the Army automatically make you a good candidate to lead a political party?

[Jareth]

On 13/12/2019 at 18:47, bickster said:

Anti-intellectual inverted snob Angela isn't going to win many voters back

I don't quite get the anti-intellectual description, must have missed the examples you're thinking of. 

[Davkaus]

Regardless of who the leader will be, I think it's brilliant news that McDonnell is ruling himself out for any shadow cabinet positions. See you never, comrade. 

[PompeyVillan]

30 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Regardless of who the leader will be, I think it's brilliant news that McDonnell is ruling himself out for any shadow cabinet positions. See you never, comrade. 

Both he and Jeremy Corbyn will be incredibly important to keeping seats in 2025 in seats where their sort of Labour is really popular. 

They're still constituency MPs, and they'll continue to be important voices (but probably not on a national or leadership level). 

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

2 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

Both he and Jeremy Corbyn will be incredibly important to keeping seats in 2025 in seats where their sort of Labour is really popular. 

They're still constituency MPs, and they'll continue to be important voices (but probably not on a national or leadership level). 

If Labour is relying on Corbyn and McDonnell in 2025 to 'keep seats'...then the party may as well just pack it in now!

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

Both he and Jeremy Corbyn will be incredibly important to keeping seats in 2025 in seats where their sort of Labour is really popular. 

They're still constituency MPs, and they'll continue to be important voices (but probably not on a national or leadership level). 

You could put Pol Pot up as a Labour candidate in Islington and he'd win

[sharkyvilla]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm not talking about moving from 52-48 to 47-53. The country was split evenly in 2016, it's split evenly now. That's not enough to override the actual result of the referendum, especially given the relative geographic distribution of the two groups. We can imagine a different world, where 65-70% of the public wanted to remain, and lots of people who voted leave were out in public saying they regretted their decision. In that world, Labour's Brexit policy might have been an asset, and the Lib Dem's policy might not have been a toxic disaster. We don't live in that world, and that's not what happened.

 

They made a decision, and they had a policy. The issue is that people didn't like it, not that they didn't have it.

I read rumours on here particularly that Labour had worked on an alternative withdrawal bill with the EU should they come to power.  I assume that wasnt the case or else it would have come up more in the campaign.  It would have been useful to have more clarity on what a Labour Brexit would have meant.