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Brexit

The Westministenders / Media Baron Hunger Games continues. Is it about to all implode?

982 replies

RedToothBrush · 10/07/2016 18:51

THE BREXIT FALLOUT OUT CONTINUES - THREAD SEVEN!

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The Story So Far – Blue Corner
Johnson & Gove stabbed Cameron & Osborne. They then won a big vote about something or other. I forget the details. I’m not sure it matters anymore.

Johnson got then stabbed by Gove. Johnson joined Leadsom. Gove got stung by his mate Boles who was trying stab Leadsom, and he ended up getting stabbed by just about everyone.

Where We Are Now – Blue Corner
Out of the ashes of the mess that the posh boys made, emerged two unexpected contenders to become the Torchbearer for the Tories.

#Team May
The Home Secretary, and the former figure of hate, is now looking like she might be the choice of sanity and the one who might just be able to save us from ourselves. She is the choice of the left and centre. The left and centre now being anyone who thinks ‘The 1950s were very nice, but actually we’d prefer not to go back there. A return to the 1970s is far enough, thanks’.

She is supported by just about the entire mainstream media (which in itself is quite an achievement – The Sun and The Guardian being united in editorial opinion) and the majority of Conservative MPs. We don’t know this, but she quite possibly unites the Labour Party on the subject too.

#Team Leadsom
The Junior minister made good, and has outmanoeuvred all her superiors in the cabinet to throw her hat in the ring. The trouble is that she’s either somewhat naïve, a bit of an arsehole or a scheming liar. And that’s the charitable version.

She is emerging as the Sarah Palin of the UK, and has some dubious looking Tea Party links. In the era of post fact politics Project Fear is now Project Smear. Of course this makes her Mrs Umbridge, the poor apple pie lover, bullied by the political elite and media establishment, rather than a fruit cake.

BUT
Underestimate her appeal at your peril. She has a big field of unicorns somewhere that we’ve not been able to track down on googlemaps so far, and she is preparing to unleash them.

She is the choice of the Right. She is supported by much of the depths of twitter, Louise Mensch, UKIP, Arron Banks, BNP and Britain First.

Oh and that tax return? Hmm

Our future fate is to be decided by 150,000 Conservative Members (two thirds of whom are men and roughly 50% of whom are over sixty).

How we look back at David Cameron’s tweet on the 4th May 2015 with such fondness:
Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband.

Send me the link for the petition to ‘Come Back Dave, all is forgiven’. We have at least six weeks of this particular shower of shit to look forward to, before the next one hits.

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The Story So Far – Purple Corner
Many years ago, Nigel Farage founded the idea and started his one man campaign for the UK to leave the EU. (Except he didn’t. It was someone else’s idea. He just took over and took the credit for it). He became the poster boy for the Leave campaign, despite not being affiliated with it. He stood and claimed victory, without a shot fired.

As he said to the European Parliament with impeccable manners and good grace, ‘We aren’t laughing now’. To be fair to him, we weren’t. We were all shouting ‘FUCK OFF’ instead. After securing his £7000 pay rise as an MEP, he decided enough was enough, and it was time to ‘get his life back’ (he got sacked) and look for a career as a contestant on reality TV shows.

I hear Help I’m a Celeb have offered half a million for his services.

Where We Are Now – Purple Corner
Quicker than you can say, ‘Oh Thank God(win) for that’, we are already are starting to miss ‘Our Nige’, the cheeky chappy from next door. Instead the options are looking bleak, as candidates start to crawl out from under their rocks. The spectre of Arron Banks and his call to arms for ‘freedom’ lurks in the shadow.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr Banks so far in this story, he’s one of UKIP’s biggest donors. He and his mate Andy Wigmore run an offshore insurance company out of Gibraltar. Banks, was head honcho of Leave.eu and one of his other mates, hypnotist Paul McKenna, gave advice on how to influence people with propaganda. Banks and Wigmore have some connections with Belize. Bank’s ex-wife was accused of being one of the KGB’s best agents. They are now divorced and she has a harassment order out on him. He does not like the ‘Uk elite’ and takes it personality.
Sounds like just the kind of guy, you’d love to move in as a neighbour.

This is the very definition of shit.

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The Story So Far – Red Corner
Once upon a time, there was a man named Blair. He waved a lot of flags said ‘Cool Britannia’ and smiled a lot. But Tony turned out to not be such a good ‘un. He didn’t play by the rules and got caught out. Blair was made to appear on national television to defend himself. He cried, and told us how he couldn’t sleep at night, but actually he did do the right thing and everyone is still wrong and we are all picking on him.

Does he need to go away and think about it for a while? Say, in a locked room for several years?

Where We Are Now – Red Corner
The WMD that Bliar lost in Iraq finally turned up in Labour HQ on 24th June. However, no one has been prepared to let off a controlled explosion yet. Apparently there is something of an aversion to Big Red Buttons (otherwise know to us simple folks as ‘Agreeing on Something’ and ‘Making Decisions’) within the party.

Corbyn, the champion of Momentum, has been carrying on as if nothing is happening, there is no problem and its everyone else is wrong, insisting that since he had a mandate from the people 10 months ago and it’s all still honky dory. He’s doing his job just fine and leading is well, a bit of an inconvenience to his rally schedule.

The Unions seem to have declared war on Tom Watson. His name has been added to the ever growing list of ‘traitors’.

Across the country action has been taken against these ‘traitors’. Normally this behaviour would be classed as ‘thuggery’ and ‘intimidation’. In post-fact Britain though, this is now acceptable, if it’s from the Left. Violence against Labour members is only disgusting if it is carried out by the right, you see.

Apparently, as the Momentum chief says, ‘winning’ is only a ‘small bit’ of democracy that matters to ‘political elites who want to keep power themselves’.

Obviously political gains that help and protect the interests of the working classes and poor are surplus to requirements. I guess their ultimate aim is to win no Labour seats at all then. Good stuff. We are headed in the right direction for that one.

Angela Eagle left her doorstep, and went on the telly after a week of refusing to make a decision to say ‘Ok I’m going to stand to remove a man who refuses to make decisions’. Apparently she is doing this to ‘Heal Labour’.

Someone break it to her, that if Labour gets its legs blown off by Corbynite, the chances of them healing, are somewhat remote.

To make matter worse, Corbyn disagrees with how you get on the ballot paper, and might not be it at this rate. Or it might end up in court. Like article 50.

Owen Smith is the other pretender to the Crown of Roses. We know who he is now. He’s err… He’s still welsh!

What do we reckon the chances of Labour surviving as one party are? Zero to none? This is more like wading through shit than a shower of it.

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The Story So Far – Yellow Corner
Tumbleweed

Where We Are Now – Yellow Corner
Everyone’s been praying for a ruddy miracle to end this torture and give the country an opposition party. Finally, Tim Farron, has awoken, removed his splinters from his arse, got off the fence in response to this. Amid growing rumblings of a complete political realignment and fleeing Labour and Conservative MPs, he says:

‘Hey folks, this political turmoil looks fun, can we join in too?!’

FACEPALM

No shit left to share.

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The consensus of opinion is that we might be a tiny teeny bit screwed.
Did someone mention the EU? EU? Oh fuck that, we’ve just about forgotten all that now!
Bigger fish to fry.
British ones of course.

We need really do need Gandalf to come save us from this madness.

Sense of humour compulsory. No experience necessary though

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www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2680148-The-Westministenders-Media-Baron-Hunger-Games-continues-Who-is-trying-to-outmanoeuvre-who?pg=1 Previous thread 6

The Westministenders / Media Baron Hunger Games continues. Is it about to all implode?
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Thread gallery
18
birdbandit · 11/07/2016 22:03

The poll data is completely at odds with the perception you get on social media. I feel like someone is pulling my strong too hard.

Floisme · 11/07/2016 22:04

My first boyfriend was in Militant Tendency.

Arse.

SwedishEdith · 11/07/2016 22:04

Robert Peston's analysis - I said ages ago (semi-flippantly) that the UK will have to become a tax haven to survive

Nixon goes to China, Theresa May goes to Germany - or rather she adopts a Teutonic-style plan for workers and consumers to be on company boards, and for shareholders to have powers to properly block bosses' excessive pay.
This is a beefed up version of Labour's policy in the last election: Ed Miliband is dead, long live Ed Miliband as guru of the new Tory party.
What on earth is happening?
Three things:

  1. The success of the Leavers' anti-elite rhetorical flourishes in the EU referendum disclosed millions of people have fallen deeply out of love with an economy dominated by big companies perceived to primarily serve the interests of the executive class, while the rest muddle through on stagnating pay;
  2. With Labour in a life or death struggle between left and right, it serves the Tories to become what Robert Halfon calls a "blue collar" party - to attempt to give Labour's right no serious raison d'etre;
  3. And it would also be highly damaging to Theresa May's One Nation proposition for it to become a commonly accepted truth - which it almost is - that the Leave victory represented capture of the Conservative Party by the ideologically obsessive neo-con right.
But there are a few problems with May as born again Christian socialist. First, many of her Leave colleagues will question whether the point of sloughing off allegedly costly and stultifying Brussels regulation is to put on a skein of potentially more costly home grown rules. Second, with the UK having voted to exit the EU and full unfettered access to the single market, there are already enough reasons for multinationals to reduce their commitment to the UK. So why given them another reason to move to Dublin or Frankfurt by diminishing their ability to manage themselves as they think fit? And May does not have to take my word that Tory socialism may be a dangerous cocktail in a post Brexit world. She only has to look at the words and deeds of the current chancellor, George Osborne, who is touring the world telling anyone who cares to listen that the only way for the UK to thrive out of Europe is to become a massive western Singapore - an offshore financial centre with low costs, much-improved infrastructure and corporate taxes cut so low as to make the UK almost a tax haven. So if you think the life-or-death battle of ideas is confined to Labour, think again. The Conservative Party is a million miles from working out where it stands and who it represents following our historic vote to break with the Brussels way.
birdbandit · 11/07/2016 22:07

SwedishEdith, you are right, that make so much sense! I am new to MN, but here to stay, this is an education. X

thecatfromjapan · 11/07/2016 22:10

I think I'd really like to see more people get involved with politics: activism; joining parties. I know Red said this (some threads ago). It's the best way to insure against the shenanigans of fringe groups and the best way to ensure political parties (and politics) are representative (and not an elite past-time and way of sharing power amongst those who already have it).

Politics, activism, etc. are social activities. Although the intent is quite serious, it's also a way to meet people and make friends.

My wish is that lots of normal - non-professional politico types - will find themselves moved to join the parties that they find appealing.

RedToothBrush · 11/07/2016 22:10

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/11/corbyn-supporters-protest-over-labour-nec-meeting?CMP=twt_gu

Tomorrows meeting looking like a shitstorm brewing already.

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Floisme · 11/07/2016 22:12

Interesting Swedish thanks. The difference is that even, while having a dark night of the soul, the tory party can still send out a team.

Sorry for tired football cliches, off to bed. Wonder where we'll be tomorrow Grin

bookbook · 11/07/2016 22:15

Have been following this from the start - fascinating stuff. Thanks

MrsLupo · 11/07/2016 22:17

Evening all, only just caught up – we’ve been prolific on this thread even for us.

Firstly, thank you to the kind person who described me as eloquent, which actually has made my day (not a great day, in fairness). Sadly, I can’t be eloquent about where Mr Corbyn's been today or how he feels about a general election as I’m not his official representative on Mumsnet, much as I wish it were otherwise. I would have expected some kind of speech, if only a Corbyn-style polite congratulations to May and a confirmation that he’s ready for whatever ensues, so that’s disappointing, I agree. I don’t think having other opposition MPs confirm that position instead is necessarily a no-no, but the little bit I heard of Jon Trickett speaking was underwhelming tbh. Anyhoo.

People are still banging on about a GE. Labour, UKIP, Green are all ill prepared for a GE in the near future. WHY are they pushing it???

Now we’ve established I have no official role Wink I obviously can’t really answer this. What I can say is that personally I would welcome a general election. Why?

  1. Because it’s the right thing to do. May has no electoral mandate. I think Brexit is too monumentally important to be negotiated by someone who was not legitimately elected into number ten, especially on top of the fact that the various referendum improprieties already cast doubt on its own legitimacy.
  1. More selfishly, I live in a marginal constituency and I’m pretty certain I will get an MP of a better hue if we get to go to the polls again. Obviously I'd rather that was sooner than later.
  1. Also selfishly, a general election would delay repeal of the ECA, Article 50, negotiations with Europe etc anything from somewhat to quite a bit. There are still many people who think the longer it takes to invoke Art.50 the less likely it is to happen at all, which is a theory I’m keen to test. Worst case scenario, it gives me and mine a bit longer to formulate a Brexit/Progrexit plan of our own.
  1. And finally, yeah yeah yeah, I know what you’re all going to say, but I don’t at all believe a Conservative win is a foregone conclusion – far from it, in fact. The silver lining of the media blackout cloud is that no one seems to have the first idea quite how much grassroots campaigning Corbyn is doing and quite how well it’s going. The crazily swelling membership numbers ought to be a big fat clue, but as long as everyone is invested in pretending they’re infiltrators or ‘not real voters’ or just deluded, then of course the prospect of a Labour victory seems fanciful. This is exactly the sort of ruthless power base building that many here seem to admire in the Tories but when Corbyn does it he gets accused of being a swivel-eyed dictator. Confused I don’t know what else I can say except, well, let’s see, shall we? None of us really knows, let’s be honest, but I think I might put a cheeky £50 on at the bookies. God knows, I wish I had for Brexit, which I saw coming a mile off.

I think that one of the oddest things about Corbyn as leader of Labour is that you have to be signed up as a follower of Corbyn (rather than a Labour supporter, or even member,) to hear any news of what he's doing.

I have read this several times now and still have literally no clue what it means. Dark forces afoot perhaps. Hmm

Here’s some bedtime reading.

BigChocFrenzy · 11/07/2016 22:19

TM sounded like a European Christian Democrat = the West European version of Conservatism
This would be a radical change of direction for the Tory Party.

The German CDU and SPD have always agreed on the basic tenets of the social market and on longterm planning & public investment.
Also on mandatory Works Councils, where management and union reps discuss not just working conditions, but issues like how many production shifts, which plants should produce which products etc.
This also leads to more longterm thinking, rather than the short-termism endemic in British and US management.
I've seen this in practice, having worked in Germany.

This cooperative philosophy is a totally different concept to the confrontational management vs workers that is common in the UK.
Cooperation works very well for German industry.
The mighty German economy is based on manufacturing, whereas the British economy is service-based (including much unicorn banker-wankering) with only about 10% of GDP being manufacturing.

flippinada · 11/07/2016 22:26

BigChoc I think you are bang on the money about the similarities between extreme Left and Right.

birdband - great, isn't it? This thread is a real sanity saver.

Regarding the social media stuff - I think 'Team Corbyn' are very social media savvy. Many of my friends are on TC and merrily sharing/tweeting various memes. It's all over the place. If you weren't looking at it critically you might assume that JC is very popular and has widespread support (I've long since ceased bothering with discussion, it's an exercise in frustration).

It also creates a kind of echo chamber effect, with people sharing this stuff, getting likes for it and this then reinforces the belief that JC is liked, popular, being treated unfairly by the media etc etc.

If you look closely you will probably notice that it's the same people saying the same stuff and agreeing with each other. It's like going round in circles.

RedToothBrush · 11/07/2016 22:30

home.bt.com/news/uk-news/larry-the-cat-will-not-be-evicted-from-downing-street-cabinet-office-confirms-11364073030516

Important News: Larry The Cat gets the nod for Remaining

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TendonQueen · 11/07/2016 22:33

Agree, these are brilliant threads and I want them to continue. We're hardly out of the woods yet, and if the whole country was having engaged political discussions like this we'd be in a much better position.

I don't know what the point about having to be signed up as a follower of Corbyn to know what he's doing is either. I will fess up that I am one of the derided £3 Labour supporters - though I didn't vote for Corbyn - but I get emails from him, or at least in his name. Is there a higher level of contact with the Great Leader?

Showmethewaytogohome · 11/07/2016 22:33

MrsLupo Thanls for calling people like me dark forces Wink

Listened to a great programme about Groupthink today - will have to dig it out. Explains an awful lot I think about Momentum and Corybyn. You see at least I know some others are awful - and can say as such. Corbyn appears a no go zone with some alot of his followers

flippinada · 11/07/2016 22:37

To give you a example of the sort of thing I mean - someone made a comment on a thread about the Labour Party stating that this coup is appalling and "the membership won't stand for it and they will rise up".

Cue lots of nodding dog comments - PLP is shit, bunch of bastards, JC is the second coming, AE is the devil incarnate and so on and so forth. One voice of dissent (not me), trying to put an alternate viewpoint and being ignored or derided. Understandably they quickly got fed up and left the discussion.

RedToothBrush · 11/07/2016 22:38

www.thecanary.co/2016/07/11/embarrassing-video-cracking-everyone-except-labour-coup-angela-eagle/

Speaking of shares on FB, someone has put this up on my FB which includes a rather embarrassing video of AE doing PMQ and having a go at the tories and their squabbles from a month ago.

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flippinada · 11/07/2016 22:40

Showme - if you have a link to that programme, please post it on here.

For some context (which I forgot to include) my post at 22:37 is talking about the kind of stuff I'm seeing a lot of on twitter/FB (which are the sites I use the most).

flippinada · 11/07/2016 22:42

Yes, I've seen that one Red. More to come, I'm sure. AE will be ripped to shreds....I think TC probably hate her more than the Tories.

Showmethewaytogohome · 11/07/2016 22:46

flip It is here - Radio 4

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jyrd4

MrsLupo · 11/07/2016 22:47

MrsLupo Thanls for calling people like me dark forces

Eek, no, Showme, I honestly wasn't meaning to insult anyone. I just don't get what needing to sign up as a follower of Corbyn means. It's like he's supposed to have a cloak of invisibility only the chosen few can see beyond or something. Or was it a dig at Momentum? No clue. I only know one member of Momentum and he's a charming man in his late 40s, not the rabid, twentysomething anarchist they're supposed to be. But my CLP is starting to talk about setting up a chapter, so hopefully I'll soon have that special access and can share the secrets of the inner sanctum with you all. Wink

Showmethewaytogohome · 11/07/2016 22:52

I am a member as of today - I am not rabid. I am not a Corbyn supporter either. Will be interesting.

For info the CLP doesn't set up the chapter - it is managed and set up by Momentum and is run outside of the main LP and the CLP's - tis the issue

thecatfromjapan · 11/07/2016 22:53

No, I didn't mean that Corbyn is communicating directly with an exalted cadre. Grin Rather that a lot more of the communication has been extra-Parliamentary than I might have expected at this moment.

As MrsLupo's link suggests, it could be argued that this is a choice intended to a. adopt a direct, grass-roots communication, which has a political virtue in its own right and b. circumvent a not-friendly/hostile media. However, I do think it has generated a sense of absence where I, personally, would have preferred presence. The result tends to be that most reports of Corbyn's activities therefore tend to be relayed to and by those who are very keen supporters of Corbyn. And I do realise that (b) may be said to play a part in this.

SwedishEdith that is a worrying analysis, re. UK taking the Singapore route.

RedToothBrush · 11/07/2016 22:54

I'm just looking through my FB feed for some Corbynite.

I've paraphrased the following:
'The ones who don't agree with his policies can go back to the Labour / Conservatives'
(original was slightly less polite)

One of my friends simply replied:
'But what are his policies?'

And I think that just about sums it up really.

The likes of The Canary are having a go at Angela Eagle for not being able to say how her policies would be different to Jeremy Corbyn, but there is a real problem for AE in that; Corbyn has a manifesto he doesn't believe in - they are not his policies. Yet he's not told anyone what his policies actually are. So AE in sticking to the manifesto ends up looking stupid.

And that just is like gold dust to the Corbyn followers. So there is actually no incentive for Corbyn to produce a manifesto, because if he does he can be held to account on it. Instead its better for him to let his following believe what that his policies are anything they like, because that makes him their hero.

Oh wait. This story is starting to sound rather familiar isn't it?

There is a full on outbreak of unicorns going on.

ANYWAY
May going for a similar type of Conservatism to Merkel offers an interesting dynamic to the pot. It would suggest they are likely to get on, politically. They have similar backgrounds. And probably very similar domestic concerns at present. I wonder if that perhaps will go in our favour.

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BigChocFrenzy · 11/07/2016 22:54

There have always been up to 10 % of the population prepared to vote for very far left candidates, or very far right. Often some of the same voters.

Trouble for Labour has always been when sufficient such party members convince themselves that this time the wider electorate will vote for their policies.
UKIP and the hard right are going through a similar delusional phase.

Both extremes have convinced themselves that this time they can do it, Take Their Country Back from those who have betrayed the people

The online echo chamber helps build this belief, as does the fact that they tend to go on far more demonstrations than other groups

The vast majority of the electorate is vaguely moderate, so will only turn to far left / right if total disaster strikes the country, not just the expected Brexit recession.
All moderate parties would try to avoid this happening to the UK, as would the EU and the US.

Economic disaster has led to far right governments as often as it has to far left.
So it might be far-right UKIP who benefit from public desperation, because racist scapegoating & nativism can be very effective.

MrsLupo · 11/07/2016 22:56

Yes, fair enough, I misspoke. Members of my CLP were asking about the possibility of there being a local chapter, would have been a more accurate way of putting it. For a strident, out-of-control mob, they seem to have been surprisingly difficult for many interested members to actually find.