The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[HanoiVillan]

37 minutes ago, blandy said:

I could go into greater detail, but basically from whipping to support triggering A50, and even before that, on the day of the ref result, when Corbyn practically burst with keenness to trigger it that day, Labour has been horrendously wrong and error prone time and time again. Better opposition has come from Tory rebels than labour’s leadership.

Calling for triggering A50 the day after the referendum was a huge mistake to be sure, although not one that had any meaningful consequences in the end. However, there was no alternative to whipping to support triggering A50 in 2017; if they had whipped against it, the Tories would have run their election campaign on Labour trying to 'cancel the referendum result'. The decision to back triggering A50 ended up neutralising Brexit as an issue in the 2017 election, and it's true to say that without that decision, we wouldn't have ended with a hung Parliament, but with a large Tory majority, and we would already have left under May's WA.

[bickster]

24 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

if they had whipped against it, the Tories would have run their election campaign on Labour trying to 'cancel the referendum result'.

You say that like it would have been a bad thing. Labour might actually have won if they'd done that. Why Labour failed to realise that then and to a great extent it's leadership still don't realise that today, I can only speculate as to their lack of intelligence. Labour should have been against this from the off, leading the debate against leaving the EU instead of going along with the Tories every step of the way.

The Tories campaigning on "Look Labour want to cancel the referendum" would effectively have been free advertising to the half of the country that didn't want to leave and Labour could then have lead that remain debate instead of hiding and  giving the Tories a free run

Corbyn however appears to have been taking his cue from the Trotskyites of Socialist Worker and The Workers Revolutionary Party... not really a shock though

[Mic09]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

You say that like it would have been a bad thing. Labour might actually have won if they'd done that. Why Labour failed to realise that then and to a great extent it's leadership still don't realise that today, I can only speculate as to their lack of intelligence. Labour should have been against this from the off, leading the debate against leaving the EU instead of going along with the Tories every step of the way.

The Tories campaigning on "Look Labour want to cancel the referendum" would effectively have been free advertising to the half of the country that didn't want to leave and Labour could then have lead that remain debate instead of hiding and  giving the Tories a free run

Corbyn however appears to have been taking his cue from the Trotskyites of Socialist Worker and The Workers Revolutionary Party... not really a shock though

I think you might be right, I really think that Labour was afraid to go against the 52% who have just won the most democratic vote there is - a referendum. I think that considering Tories had a big advantage back at the time, it just wouldn't have player well with the press.

They could have played it better, but I guess that's the beauty of hindsight! No one has that a crystal ball to see into the future, but some are better at predicting possible outcomes than Corbyn is. 

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, bickster said:

You say that like it would have been a bad thing. Labour might actually have won if they'd done that. Why Labour failed to realise that then and to a great extent it's leadership still don't realise that today, I can only speculate as to their lack of intelligence. Labour should have been against this from the off, leading the debate against leaving the EU instead of going along with the Tories every step of the way.

The Tories campaigning on "Look Labour want to cancel the referendum" would effectively have been free advertising to the half of the country that didn't want to leave and Labour could then have lead that remain debate instead of hiding and  giving the Tories a free run

Corbyn however appears to have been taking his cue from the Trotskyites of Socialist Worker and The Workers Revolutionary Party... not really a shock though

That's just not what the situation was in 2017. In the actual reality of 2017, Labour *did* consolidate and win the votes of large numbers of remainers, which is how they reached over 40% of the vote, because those voters felt they didn't have anywhere else to go, or decided to vote based on issues other than Brexit. There were no large numbers of extra Remain votes that Labour didn't collect.

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Labour *did* consolidate and win the votes of large numbers of remainers,

Who now want nothing to do with them because the approach was duplicitous at best

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

Who now want nothing to do with them because the approach was duplicitous at best

That's fair enough as an opinion. Obviously I don't share it, but you're entitled to it. However, it doesn't help your point about 2017.

[bickster]

28 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That's fair enough as an opinion. Obviously I don't share it, but you're entitled to it. However, it doesn't help your point about 2017.

Well it does because there were many who already didn't like Labour's approach back then, me included and I know plenty of others, who simply didn't vote Labour as a result. They'd already alienated a good percentage of remainers who might have voted for them. as well as myself and my family I know of many of my friends who felt the same and voted accordingly. Whilst it is only anecdotal, I can't believe that my group of friends are the only one's, that will translate across the country. 

[Sam-AVFC]

4 hours ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

The fact is we just don't want the same things anymore. Single currency? No. Federal Taxation? No. EU Army? No. Further expansion whilst retaining freedom of movement? No. Closer integration? No. The list goes on.

That isn't a fact though.

For me it's:

1. No, but only because I'd prefer our own control over currency as opposed to giving a shit what our currency is called or any emotional attachment to sterling.
2. Really couldn't care less as long as the money is spent sensibly. The only real difference of this would be the point at which are contributions were made anyway.
3. I'd be ecstatic if this meant our overall military spending dropped. I simply don't buy that every country in the world needs a huge standing army to protect them. To me it's largely about defence anyway and if the evil EU paymasters wanted to invade a country and we disagreed would we not have a power of veto?
4. By this do you mean more countries joining? I don't see an issue with this as long as rash decisions aren't being made. The normal bogeyman in this argument, Turkey, applying to join in 1987 suggests to me this isn't that much of a risk if members don't want to accept a country.
5. Yes.

I'm sure the list does go on, but I think you'll find your list is what you (and others) don't want, not "we".

[HanoiVillan]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

Well it does because there were many who already didn't like Labour's approach back then, me included and I know plenty of others, who simply didn't vote Labour as a result. They'd already alienated a good percentage of remainers who might have voted for them. as well as myself and my family I know of many of my friends who felt the same and voted accordingly. Whilst it is only anecdotal, I can't believe that my group of friends are the only one's, that will translate across the country. 

I'm sorry, but that's really weak.

Here is the reality: British elections are conducted on a first-past-the-post system. You need to win a majority of seats to form a government. The Tories and DUP combined to win a majority of seats in 2017. For Labour to have won, you would need to be able to identify dozens and dozens of seats that Tories won that would have been won by a Labour party that planned to cancel Brexit, and that number would need to be enough to cover additional seats transferring from Lab-Con as a result of that stance.

That can't be done, which is why you're wrong about this.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Mic09 said:

I think you might be right, I really think that Labour was afraid to go against the 52%

It's more like they didn't want to go against the approx 25% of their voters that voted Leave, they thought it would be much better to potentially lose up to 75% (it was never going to be the full amount) of their voters that wanted to remain. They also appeared not to think about gaining voters from other parties who would have possibly changed allegiance in order to prevent leaving

But as long as whoppers like Gareth Snell can still be an MP thats OK I guess

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

10 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

That isn't a fact though.

For me it's:

1. No, but only because I'd prefer our own control over currency as opposed to giving a shit what our currency is called or any emotional attachment to sterling.
2. Really couldn't care less as long as the money is spent sensibly. The only real difference of this would be the point at which are contributions were made anyway.
3. I'd be ecstatic if this meant our overall military spending dropped. I simply don't buy that every country in the world needs a huge standing army to protect them. To me it's largely about defence anyway and if the evil EU paymasters wanted to invade a country and we disagreed would we not have a power of veto?
4. By this do you mean more countries joining? I don't see an issue with this as long as rash decisions aren't being made. The normal bogeyman in this argument, Turkey, applying to join in 1987 suggests to me this isn't that much of a risk if members don't want to accept a country.
5. Yes.

I'm sure the list does go on, but I think you'll find your list is what you (and others) don't want, not "we".

That is a fair point. I did generalise, I didn't really have the time to set out the individual wants of every single voter in the country.

Do you think there is a reason why even the most ardent remainers aren't talking about any of the issues listed as reasons why the UK should stay in the EU though?

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Calling for triggering A50 the day after the referendum was a huge mistake to be sure, although not one that had any meaningful consequences in the end. However, there was no alternative to whipping to support triggering A50 in 2017; if they had whipped against it, the Tories would have run their election campaign on Labour trying to 'cancel the referendum result'. The decision to back triggering A50 ended up neutralising Brexit as an issue in the 2017 election, and it's true to say that without that decision, we wouldn't have ended with a hung Parliament, but with a large Tory majority, and we would already have left under May's WA.

I think that call Corbyn made was not just, as we agree, a huge mistake, it was also indicative of his personal stance, and absolutely nothing since has changed to say that wasn't the case. You say that "there was no alternative to whipping to support triggering A50 in 2017" and that it ended up "neutralising" Brexit in that election. I think both those claims are extremely contentious.

Politically, I guess you're saying what Labour did was have the same top level policy (Leave wit ha deal, trigger A50) as the tories on Brexit, and thus make the election all about other stuff, and because Labour lost by less than a lot of people expected, that was "good" from a Labour perspective. It's all sliding doors moments, but I really wonder whether the consequences aren't (even from a Labour supporter perspective) actually dire. We are 2 and a bit years down the road now, from that election, the Tories are the government, nothing Labour wanted to do has been achieved, the timescale on A50 has been extended twice as the country fundamentally wasn't adequately prepared (logistically, legally etc., never mind politically) to leave. It's not gone well.

The whipping to support A50 rather than principled opposition has helped facilitate that situation. I think there is and was a powerful case to say, effectively, "The referendum voted to "leave, but only just"  and that what should have happened is that the Gov't and opposition should have worked together prior to triggering A50 to come up with a "this is what parliament wants from Brexit - this is how we see the future". I accept it was primarily May that stopped that happeing, but what I don't accept is that Labour couldn't have presented (if it was their desire to Leave, which they say it was) an argument that "no, we should not trigger A50 until we have determined what we want. We should not throw away our (the UK's) only card in the "game" with the EU so recklessly. A kind of "In the national interest of leaving, as voted for in the ref, the Government needs to work with parliament and Labiour to set out what the UK will  be asking for and what the future will be like, not recklessly storming off down a path selected by control freak May determined only by her own twisted views on immigration and utter lack of empathy or understanding for anything or anyone". SOmetimes, in other words, the opposition needs to oppose, not just out of performing their role as defined, but because they also know that what the government is doing is wrong and foolhardy. They didn't. They haven't for large parts of the ensuing years. Cooper, Letwin, Grieve, the SNP, and other backbenchers have lead the actual (sane) opposition, and the role of leading the insane opposition has gone to the ERG throbbers. Corbyn's been a liability and remains one. His appeal to a segment of the population is high (though not as much as it was) but his appeal to the much larger rest of the population in somewhere down towards "rattlesnake in a lucky dip" levels.

[Sam-AVFC]

42 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

That is a fair point. I did generalise, I didn't really have the time to set out the individual wants of every single voter in the country.

Do you think there is a reason why even the most ardent remainers aren't talking about any of the issues listed as reasons why the UK should stay in the EU though?

I don't expect you to set out everyone's view, but that's why making a point about something that "we" as a nation do/don't want doesn't work as this is clearly a hugely polarising matter. The fact is there are huge numbers of differing opinions and I don't think anyone debates this would have changed lots since the referendum too.

Yes I do and I agree exactly with what you're getting at that they're afraid those arguments wont wash with your average Brexit voter.

Where I think they have gone disastrously wrong is imo they should have been explaining to people the benefits of these things and why they aren't as scary as some people seem to think rather than being afraid to debate the issues. By avoiding it none of those people would have considered the opposite view, but the politicians have protected their own careers.

Also explaining how some of these issues they see have been caused by previous governments and austerity, not the big, bad Romanian. Driving home the point that we can send EU citizens home we just chose not to administer it, that we can don't have to pay medical costs for EU citizens, but we choose not to administer it that we can veto any big decisions in the EU etc...

Edited September 20, 2019 by Sam-AVFC

[bickster]

5 hours ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

The fact is we just don't want the same things anymore. Single currency? No. Federal Taxation? No. EU Army? No. Further expansion whilst retaining freedom of movement? No. Closer integration? No. The list goes on.

Single Currency - opted out already

Federal Taxation - what kind of fantasy is this?

Eu Army - This'll be the one that hasn't happened yet, is unlikely to happen and we'd be able to veto anyway

Further Expansion - Each case on its merits surely?

That's a whole load of bogus bogeymen there

Currently we can veto every single one of those but guess what down the line when we rejoin (for I believe it is inevitable) we won't be able to

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think that call Corbyn made was not just, as we agree, a huge mistake, it was also indicative of his personal stance, and absolutely nothing since has changed to say that wasn't the case. You say that "there was no alternative to whipping to support triggering A50 in 2017" and that it ended up "neutralising" Brexit in that election. I think both those claims are extremely contentious.

Politically, I guess you're saying what Labour did was have the same top level policy (Leave wit ha deal, trigger A50) as the tories on Brexit, and thus make the election all about other stuff, and because Labour lost by less than a lot of people expected, that was "good" from a Labour perspective.

Yes, that is what I'm saying. Brexit has always been a terrible issue for the Labour party. The party almost entirely didn't want it, but being a national political party does mean that you have to take note of national election results, which the 2016 referendum was. What's more, Leave voters are much more efficiently spread across the country than Remain voters, who are piled up in constituencies that Labour win anyway (in London and other city centres) or in constituencies that Labour aren't competitive in for other reasons (such as Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of the southwest of England). By contrast, Leave voters are more evenly spread, including in large numbers of seats across the Midlands and North where UKIP had been chipping away at the Labour vote for years. Simply ignoring those voters was not an option.

By contrast, Labour came out with a popular manifesto in 2017, and were winning debates on a wide variety of other issues. The Tories' own manifesto was an embarrassment that their candidates had to frequently abandon or disown on the campaign trail. It was absolutely right and logical for Labour to try and focus attention on *all the other issues except Brexit* in 2017, not just because it was politically expedient to do so, but also because all of these other issues are also extremely important, and politics doesn't begin and end with Brexit.

10 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's all sliding doors moments, but I really wonder whether the consequences aren't (even from a Labour supporter perspective) actually dire. We are 2 and a bit years down the road now, from that election, the Tories are the government, nothing Labour wanted to do has been achieved, the timescale on A50 has been extended twice as the country fundamentally wasn't adequately prepared (logistically, legally etc., never mind politically) to leave. It's not gone well.

You are attempting to make the same impossible argument as bickster is above. For Labour to have won that election, you need to be able to identify a very large number of seats that voted Tory that would instead have voted Labour (while preventing others from going the other way) if your preferred policy had been adopted. That will be impossible. By contrast, in the history that has actually occurred, we still haven't left the EU more than three years after the referendum, and nearly two and a half years after triggering Article 50. For people whose primary political goal is 'not leaving the EU', I really don't see how that period of time could have been much more successful.

My primary political goal is not remaining in the EU, but ending austerity, and I accept that the last decade has been largely shit for me. However, there is no plausible path from 'we won't trigger A50' in March 2017 to 'austerity has ended' today.

18 minutes ago, blandy said:

The whipping to support A50 rather than principled opposition has helped facilitate that situation. I think there is and was a powerful case to say, effectively, "The referendum voted to "leave, but only just"  and that what should have happened is that the Gov't and opposition should have worked together prior to triggering A50 to come up with a "this is what parliament wants from Brexit - this is how we see the future". I accept it was primarily May that stopped that happeing, but what I don't accept is that Labour couldn't have presented (if it was their desire to Leave, which they say it was) an argument that "no, we should not trigger A50 until we have determined what we want. We should not throw away our (the UK's) only card in the "game" with the EU so recklessly. A kind of "In the national interest of leaving, as voted for in the ref, the Government needs to work with parliament and Labiour to set out what the UK will  be asking for and what the future will be like, not recklessly storming off down a path selected by control freak May determined only by her own twisted views on immigration and utter lack of empathy or understanding for anything or anyone".

I have spent the last week being told, by every Tom Dick and Harry, that 'we'll renegotiate the Future Arrangement and then put it to a referendum versus Remain' is an impossibly difficult concept for the British public to understand, and you want me to believe that they'd have been able to run on *that* word salad?

[bickster]

WIll I get a rebate on the 5% of my passport that is now useless?

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

For Labour to have won that election,

Ah, there's the confusion  - I'm not arguing that "if they'd done differently Labour would have won the election" - because they wouldn't. They won't win any election with Corbyn as leader. What I'm trying to put across is that Labour's position has been both tactically wrong and ultimately damaging for the nation (contributing to, rather than being the primary cause of..).

By fudging - as you imply ignoring/taking for granted the remainy strong Labour sets and voters in the South etc. while chasing Leavey voters elsewhere, pretending to be all things to all people, they've ended up being neither fish nor fowl. Remainers see them as a Leave party (they are a declared leave party) and Leavers see them as untrustworthy too. So tactically I think they've failed, I think their support has tailed away as the ignored remainers desert them, and leavers have wandered off to an extent to Tories and UKIP   - they've actually managed to diminish the pool of people that will vote for them at a time when the Tory Government is punging new levels of all time record fustercluckery. Some achievement, that. And the Brexit shambles rolls on.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Ah, there's the confusion  - I'm not arguing that "if they'd done differently Labour would have won the election" - because they wouldn't. They won't win any election with Corbyn as leader. What I'm trying to put across is that Labour's position has been both tactically wrong and ultimately damaging for the nation (contributing to, rather than being the primary cause of..).

By fudging - as you imply ignoring/taking for granted the remainy strong Labour sets and voters in the South etc. while chasing Leavey voters elsewhere, pretending to be all things to all people, they've ended up being neither fish nor fowl. Remainers see them as a Leave party (they are a declared leave party) and Leavers see them as untrustworthy too. So tactically I think they've failed, I think their support has tailed away as the ignored remainers desert them, and leavers have wandered off to an extent to Tories and UKIP   - they've actually managed to diminish the pool of people that will vote for them at a time when the Tory Government is punging new levels of all time record fustercluckery. Some achievement, that. And the Brexit shambles rolls on.

If you believe the bolded part - and of course you might be right - then it's hard to see what relevance any of the rest of it has.

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I have spent the last week being told, by every Tom Dick and Harry, that 'we'll renegotiate the Future Arrangement and then put it to a referendum versus Remain' is an impossibly difficult concept for the British public to understand, and you want me to believe that they'd have been able to run on *that* word salad?

No, not on my word salad - an internet post on a football message board typed out in a rush is not meant to be something Labour could have "run on". Not that they were "running" on what they did anyway, were they? It's my thought about where I think they went wrong but trying to be constructive at least in saying what they could have done differently. 

[bickster]

Just now, HanoiVillan said:

If you believe the bolded part

If you don't believe the bolded part...