Boris outmaneovered. Et tu Gove & Corbyn? The Westministenders Hunger Games Continues

[RedToothBrush]

Following the Machiavellian Govian shambles? Utterly gobsmacked at the Labour clusterfuck?

Who will strike next?

Who will the shadowy hand of Osborne back?
Can Gove be launched back into space and back to the planet he came from?
Can May save the country from almost certain doom?
Will Leadsom patronise us all to death (whilst silently stabbing people in the back with a sweet smile)?
Can Johnson make a decision he can stick to, and can we persuade him to give up being a politician?
Will Steven Crabb get rid of that god awful beard?

Will Corbyn shoot himself in the other foot?
Will Angela Eagle get a spine and just stand?
Who the fuck is Owen Smith?
Will the Blairites be foiled and damned?
Are momentum a bunch of thugs or a force for a better, for the people?

Will Farage disappear back under his rock?
Will people wake up to Arron Banks?
What will Dominic Cummings destroy next?

Have we seen a coup d'état?
How do we improve democracy and representation?

All these questions and more.
Sense of humour compulsory. No experience necessary though

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2670552-Has-Boris-been-outmanoeuvred?pg=1 Previous thread 1

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2672388-Has-Boris-been-outmanoevered-Will-someone-please-tell-me-who-is-in-charge Previous thread 2

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/a2673982-Have-Boris-and-Jeremy-been-stabbed-in-the-back-Please-can-we-have-some-leaders Previous thread 3

Ginger absolutely agree - but no one will tighten the reins now Not until they realise there is no one to do the jobs no one wants and all the migrants have buggered off to someone better. Taxi!

I have to admit that regarding Corbyn, I am torn. Is he stubbornly holding on because he doesn't want to admit defeat, doesn't want to pass the power to someone else? Or is he strongly aware of the people that DID vote him in and are supportive of him, and feels that if he steps down that he is letting them down?

I tend to lean towards the latter, mainly because of the appallingly dreadful antics of the MPs. I still say that if they don't like him as leader, they need to grow up, find a challenger that can beat him, and do the challenge in the appropriate way. If not, they need to put aside their differences and get back to work - you know, for the good of the country. Whether or not he is electable is kind of irrelevant if there ends up being no GE.

Ginger I just think Dear Leader thinks about himself. Not the LP. Not his country. Just himself. He is a terrible leader. You can not lead if there is no one behind you to follow. The MP's may not have gone about this in the right way but it does mean his relationship with them has disintegrated. He has to take responsibility for this and fall on his sword - he knows the rules of politics, he's been around long enough

He is destroying the LP. The only flicker of hope is that the unions are starting to chatter including Red Len's Unison

www.itv.com/news/2016-07-02/trade-union-survey-indicates-unease-over-jeremy-corbyn-as-labour-leader/

Show Is there not a bit of irony that the unions are starting to chatter about this, when they kept supporting him, right up until today? Perhaps had they not done so, he may have stepped down sooner. They have also contributed to this.

The "tens of thousands" [immigration] was a figure Cameron pulled out of his arse in the lead up to the 2010 General Election. I remember hearing it at the time and being disgusted because firstly it was obviously a lie and secondly because it was to stir up anti-immigrant feeling for electoral advantage. What I could never have guessed is how this kind of glib divisive lie that politicians can tell without even blinking an eye could have such a huge effect.

Ginger absolutely agree

I think the 30000 new members since the referendum line is also being trotted out in support of jc. I know s few people who have joined the Labour Party in the last week - all the people I know are joining to get Corbyn out! I don't think he should take these new members as an overwhelming vote of confidence.

I've had a sense of unease over the past couple of days that I've struggled to rationalise and even articulate to myself. However, I think I'm beginning to understand.

There seems to be an increasing number of calls on the Leave side that the negotiating team must be pure Brexit.

The Leave side got a majority and under the terms of the Referendum they won. As far as I'm concerned that means we leave the EU. There should be no re-run of the Referendum. I could imagine a second Referendum on, say, whether we put forward a key negotiation point in the negotiations to leave, but we do leave.

However, in broad terms Leave and Remain each have half of the voters. Once the button to leave has been pressed, both should have a voice in carrying out the process of leaving. But I'm hearing people say the vote was on the basis of limiting immigation and so there must be no one in the UK negotiating team who did not state during the campaign that there must be immigration controls. Their view is that there must be ideological purity in tackling issues that they want but that were not on the ballot paper. The result was leave the EU. It said nothing about immigration and other issues that the voters didn't vote on. Democratically this is out of whack. The negotiation is for permanent change, it isn't about governing for 5 years following a general election and then the next lot having their turn.

Agree nauticant. It has so often been said that there are too many immigrants and that the country can't cope that people believe it, whereas I don't think that's true.

V true too nauticant! The vote was about leaving the EU and should now be about getting the best deal for all people.

It was also interesting reading Gove's manifesto. I really don't understand how anyone can think he has a mandate for that sort of change without a general election? The referendum plus balancing books by 2020 were the cornerstones of 2015. Both have gone.

Another wonderful essay article on Brexi from Fintan O'Toole: Brexit and the politics of the fake orgasm

It's about the lack of seriousness in politics and in the Brexit campaign and how it might open the door for reactionaries who actually mean what they say.

I think his writing on Brexit has been better than anyone's.

nauticant this is also my worry about the next Tory government, the hardline anti-immigration anti-Single Market Tories are trying to claim democratic legitimacy for their agenda, but it actually wasn't democratically approved at all.

If not, they need to put aside their differences and get back to work - you know, for the good of the country. Whether or not he is electable is kind of irrelevant if there ends up being no GE.

We are past this, though. Nevermind working together effectively when they've told him they don't trust his leadership and want him out, how about political credibility? How can they be a credible opposition, when 80% of the MPs are on record as saying they have no confidence in the leader? Labour will be laughed out of every political spin room.

It's not even about being electable at this stage, it's about being heard in the political debate. Being a loud, credible voice proposing alternatives and holding the Tories to account. Corbyn has been an abysmal failure in this regard - witness the referendum campaign, which looked to everyone like Tories arguing among themselves.

I suspect it is true that the country can't cope with immigrants.

The Tories have been dismantling the state's ability to cope with its people for the last 6 years.

Austerity has eviscerated our public institutions to the point that thdy are struggling to cope.

Immigrants can be integrated into a functioning society. When everything is broken or breaking, when the health service, schools, social.services, local authorities are all failing to meet the demads placed on them, how can you increase those demands and imagine it will be fine.

It won't be fine.

Brexit was won on the basis of reducing immigration and not being bound by EU laws.

It would be a massive betrayal of the electorate to go into negotiations with no intention of honouring either.

DoinItFine you may be right, and the current "solution" will only make the problem worse

I never ever for one second thought that Brexit would help anti-immigration feelings. It will only make everything worse.

Brexit was won on the basis of reducing immigration and not being bound by EU laws.

On the understanding that everything else would stay pretty much the same, including access to the Single Market.

The electorate was never asked: do you care about immigration and regulations enough to completely restructure our economy outside of the Single Market, destroy its financial backbone and start a brand new strategy based on non-European trade?

We can't possibly know that for sure, Doing! All we know is the result of the vote.

We know the result of the vote, we know the "content" of the Leave campaigns promises.

Nobody voted for everything staying the same except now we get no say in the rules we are bound by.

And yet that is what is being recommended as the negotiating position by people who have their own interests foremost in their minds.

On a lighter note - I wonder what Boris is up to this morning - packing for his hols?

Do you think Lady MG is hubble and bubbling?

I struggle with the idea that the deal requirements can be voted on by the public. It would have to be carefully worded and a delicate balance between what the public wants and what the EU is prepared to offer. I would be concerned that the public and the EU offer will never agree, and then we end up angering the EU by delaying further and losing ground on the negotiations.

It's going to be quite tricky IMO. That's why I think we need to make sure to get the best negotiators as possible involved.

My view on the refugee crisis is pretty much Noam Chomsky's:

In some countries, there is a real refugee crisis. In Lebanon, for example, where perhaps one-quarter of the population consists of refugees from Syria, over and above a flood of refugees from Palestine and Iraq. Other poor and strife-ridden countries of the region have also absorbed huge numbers of refugees, among them Jordan, and Syria before its descent to collective suicide. The countries that are enduring a refugee crisis had no responsibility for creating it. Generating refugees is largely a responsibility of the rich and powerful, who now groan under the burden of a trickle of miserable victims whom they can easily accommodate.

I can accept that the UK doesn't want any more EU free movement and prefers an Australian system, but it bothers me to see facts mixed up and 'immigration' being blamed for the NHS troubles (for instance).
Though again probably not the best thread for this.

Fawful Sorry, I wasn't meaning to imply that immigration was causing the problems in the NHS. I was merely pointing out that many are simply not aware of the rules regarding immigration and the NHS/benefits - such as the hospital employee that I dealt with (which is kind of shocking, considering it's her JOB!).

We know the result of the vote, we know the "content" of the Leave campaigns promises.

Yes, and they were inherently contradictory. The most prominent Leave campaigner consistently promised that trade with the EU would stay exactly the same, the only difference would be less regulation and less immigration.

Nobody voted for the EEA option, but nobody voted for the WTO option either. The Leave campaign promised Britaon could have the best of both options, which is impossible.

So no, there is no clear democratic mandate either way.