The Westministenders Hunger Games continues. Hunting for the Opposition.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT OUT CONTINUES - THREAD EIGHT!

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Each of the parties seem to have a taken a very different style to their leadership contests.

The Tory party have been well documented as doing in the classic style of Hamlet. After the entire Conservative Party have spent two weeks stabbing each in the back and front, May steps forward to take the crown for herself.

But what about the others?

The UKIP leadership contest seems to be in comedy style of Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights. In a strange turn of events, that no one predicted and seem quite absurd, they seem to be changing their rules so their new leader must have been a member for 5 years. The punchline is this rules just about everyone out, apart from Neil Hamilton and Steven Woolfe. As BigChocFrenzy points out, we are expecting Arron Banks to hand out the brown envelopes. We are just waiting for the poorly thought out, and badly booked racist band to turn up and make everyone cringe in horror and distract everyone from UKIP's candidates and their manifestos in the process.

Meanwhile Labour Party decide to do what they thought was Star Wars Panto. After spending a week going “She’s Standing”, “Oh No She’s Not” Angela Eagle is declared the Empire Strikes Back candidate by Diane Abbot. Well if she’s the rebel leader, then who is Darth Vader and the Emperor?

Unfortunately, you’d be forgiven for thinking the performance is starting to look more and more like a re-enactment of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, by the minute:

A battle of wills between two forces locked together in a room with ultimately different and opposing self-interests. This is only resolved when the new leader to the dynamic who sought to upset the institution, and give the others their freedom, is lobotomised and subsequently killed in an act of mercy. His murderer manages to escape the prison to the cheers of those still stuck inside.

The Greens of course are a foreign language film, no one has heard of and no one is really that interested in watching.

The Lib Dems are merely sat in the audience. With Tim Farron heckling.

But where is Gandalf?

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At least some sanity has returned and we now have some leaders. May can now get stuck into the job of handing the nightmare that is Brexit whilst making herself at home at Number 10. Rumours are circulating that it’s been left a bit of a pigsty.

We will follow May, on her new adventures to foreign lands to persuade Merkel and Juncker to hand over a mythical unicorn to the UK. Meanwhile will we continue our own hunt for the opposition, whilst we all consult our dictionaries for the meaning of the word ‘Brexit’ in bafflement in the wake of ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

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Sense of humour compulsory. No experience necessary though

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2682358-The-Westministenders-Media-Baron-Hunger-Games-continues-Is-it-about-to-all-implode?pg=1 Previous thread 7

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/13/billionaires-bought-brexit-controlling-britains-political-system

Buying our political system.

I know Eats. And yet they are. Have you seen that Pool article I linked to?

I found it on FB. Don't read the comments underneath it though unless your blood pressure need raising. Dreadful minimising and victim blaming.

I know BigChoc

Peston Latest goss: Hammond chancellor, Greening foreign, Rudd home, Milton chief whip, Grayling Brexit. 75% of 4 great offices for women, if true

I've realised that one of the reasons a lot of 'Leave' voters seem quite oblivious/unbothered about the dire economic news is because there seems to be something quite strange going on. I think there is a strong, embedded sense that the EU vote was actually on two possible futures (and not about Yes/No to EU membership)

That is, the vote was not Future 1 - in EU versus Future 2 - outside EU, but rather Future 1 - that which was outlined by the Remain group (and dubbed 'Project Fear' by Leavers) versus Future 2 - everything will be wonderful (and dubbed 'unicorn-fest' by Remainers).

The up-shot of this is that I notice quite a few people seem to think there is something magical involved in the power of having voted in the body of the majority: by sheer force of numbers, they have been proved 'correct' - and that Future 2 is now going to unfold: being in a majority means that they 'guessed correctly' and, being in a majority, that future is now going to happen - as if by magic.

There is a powerful innoculation in place against seeing anything negative occurring, in preventing any further engagement or questioning, and in actually entertaining the thought that voting to leave the EU does not, in fact, mean in any way that the predictions of 'Project Fear' were wrong. Future 2 was not a necessary outcome of voting to Leave the EU.

Furthermore, I think it explains why negative economic news is somehow equated as being the 'fault' of Remainers: an absolutely weird mental back-flip and otherwise inexplicable.

I've been reading lots of chatter from Leavers and I'm sure this is a 'thing'.

The irony of the Tories needing a functioning Labour party...

IIRC Cameron said this explicitly in the first PMQs after the Referendum. I'd imagine PM May would also want this because she now needs to perform a careful balancing act of the two sides of her party and if they believe there's no opposition they would want to run amok.

That is a hugely depressing article, Red.

That article about women Labour MPs is absolutely shocking

The up-shot of this is that I notice quite a few people seem to think there is something magical involved in the power of having voted in the body of the majority: by sheer force of numbers, they have been proved 'correct' - and that Future 2 is now going to unfold: being in a majority means that they 'guessed correctly' and, being in a majority, that future is now going to happen - as if by magic.

Yes.

Thank you.

That is very insightful.

There's a thread on MN where an enthusiastic Brexiter says she is "watching THE PLAN unfold"

It's bizarre.

The up-shot of this is that I notice quite a few people seem to think there is something magical involved in the power of having voted in the body of the majority: by sheer force of numbers, they have been proved 'correct'

I was mulling this over the other day and realised that some of the regretting Remainers (Regrainers?) will have regretted that their choice put them on the "losing side"

- and that Future 2 is now going to unfold: being in a majority means that they 'guessed correctly' and, being in a majority, that future is now going to happen - as if by magic.

We voted for Future 2. We were not given Future 2. This means someone stole our Future 2. OMG! it was those bastard Remainers, they even more horrible than we thought.

That article from The Pool is horrific. It's killed off any remaining shreds of sympathy I may have had for Corbyn.

I feel we may be in need of something more light-hearted to remind us of how screwed up everything is right now.

Just read it Flipp

It's like the world has time warped back to the 1970's

Abuse is definitely a reason I would never go into politics myself. Despite being interested in it, and thinking I could do a good job at it given half the chance.

The work isn't the problem though is it?

On Corbyn I can't help but feeling like there has been some type of invasion of the body snatchers going on with his supporters.

It doesn't seem to matter what facts are presented. They will keep the faith regardless - it's like a cult of personality.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/homophobic-slurs-against-angela-eagle-wallasey-ive-only-experienced

In defence of Wallasey CLP.

No, Red.

I remember a webchat with Zac Goldsmith on Mumsnet and a poster pointed out that his racist campaign ultimately deterred (silently, invisibly - because it stopped people before they started,) Muslim, Black, Ethnic Minorities - and a whole host of other vulnerable groups - from entering political life.

I am appalled to see this in the modern Left. For all the claims of wanting to make politics more accessible, more inclusive, this behaviour ultimately deters all but those who are protected - by wealth, by privilege, by a certain type of personality - from entering politics at a public level. It effectively reproduces elitism by making the entryway terrifying to anyone who is not privileged and protected.

That's grim.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/13/corbyn-critics-destroying-labour-party-members?CMP=share_btn_tw
Pro-Corbyn piece - in mainstream media

Yes, I've basically stopped debating with Brexiter pure believers (but not with the more pragmatic ones)

It's like they are convinced they can repeal Newton's 3 Laws of Motion, merely by instructing Parliament to repeal them, like any other laws.

The anti-immigration Leavers seem particularly convinced "the government" can switch the country and the economy to WTO rules via an iPad App, with no adverse consequences.
They believe because they've been told it's that simple

At least some of the Leave.eu leaders had some ideas of the world's complexity - well, evidently Boris only realised afterwards.

Some prominent Leavers have written openly that the WTO is a dleiberate way of "forcing" the "socialist" UK to become more efficient, i.e. a serf state with China pay & conditions, with a privatised nhs and a tiny handful of oligarchs ruling with absolute power.

Thank you cat - that analysis of the referendum makes sense.

I find it interesting in that I was and am very pro-remain but I don't think there is anything to be achieved by fudging or failing to deliver something different which could reasonably be classed as a Brexit without s significant mandate. I certainly don't think another referendum would be the answer, maybe a GE on whether it was EEA or something similar or WTO... At least by that point there could have been a very thorough search for unicorns...

eats - you say that, I watched last night as a someone on Twitter posted repeatedly that JC had been instrumental in campaigning to leave the EU, and was the major force in that poster 'taking back his country' and so he would never vote against JC in anything.

At which point I seriously started to wonder what is actual reality.

It's awful, isn't it. What happened to a "kinder politics" and inclusivity?

A source close to Mr Corbyn confirmed the leader had opposed a closed ballot because he believe NEC members should be "accountable" for their decisions.

He said: "Holding secret voting on the NEC is virtually unprecedented. It's a very unusual situation and I think the idea that those people should be accountable for the decisions they take".

Can't verify the source on that. It does seem to be consistent with both sides of the story though.

There is something of the 'Future 2' thing with the Corbyn fans, too, that everything will change if he can just stay in power.

Josh May ‏@JoshMay_PH 9m9 minutes ago
Michael Gove-ally Nick Boles announces he will not be serving in Theresa May's Government.