Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

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This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

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So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

Am a bit puzzled by "least dirty thing in the laundry basket" - Owen Smith hasn't done much, because he hasn't had much time in politics...

I don't see what Eagle has done that was so reprehensible, the Gulf War business was of its time, when a decision was being made with limited information.

I think she is likely to be the most intelligent and capable candidate.

I am starting to think that Labour is particularly tough on female candidates perhaps due to a strand of female=virtue which is still sometimes propounded even by those who would think of themselves as feminists. I simply can't imagine that a female Home Secretary from the Labour side who has done what May has done would be a realistic candidate. Maybe it's the same for male candidates too though - a persistent demand for 'clean' candidates rather than electable ones, or at least a belief that having got your hands or votes dirty makes you unelectable.

Having felt uninspired by the two current potential challengers to Corbyn this article caught my eye.

theconversation.com/two-strong-potential-labour-leaders-who-might-not-be-on-your-radar-62568

Interestingly Lisa Nandy's name was mentioned quite a bit in the days immediately post Brexit.

Stuart Home wrote an essay, years ago, about the damage the notion of (political) purity does in the Left. So I think you have a point there.

a belief that having got your hands or votes dirty makes you unelectable.

This is a real problem for Labour.

The Tories will be the natural party of government until this squeamishness about dealing the world as it is can be out to bed.

I can see the appeal of having someone young and camera friendly, but isn't some experience of the process of government a good thing if at all possible?

I agree with pp who see that the Trump campaign narrative is very similar to the brexit campaign.
I like Eagle too, at least she seems empathic, a rare thing in politics.

Interesting about the Olympics being the last time the country felt united. Tbh, I think plenty in the regions saw it as London gaining at the expense of the regions. I vaguely remember rumblings about transport cuts in the North West and have just found this and this

Melania Trump accused of plagiarising Michelle Obama in convention speech

Watched a programme on Trump voters in California last night - some of the things they were saying were echoing the Brexit discourse, sometimes word for word. Harking back to the glory days, people's jobs stolen by immigrants willing to work for less, etc.

The centre right are gaining ground in France too (the election next years is theirs to lose). Even the very hard right appeal to more people there too now.

The situation is actually not that dissimilar to the UK - it's not that people are enthusiastic about voting to the right, they're really not. But the socialists in power are hated by their natural electorate for pursuing hard right politics, and the far left is (as always) splintered. I think (hope) that Juppé will end up getting elected, he's no progressive but he's very well known as a traditional, honest, moderate right-winger.

I would be vetiver bsurprised if Melania actually wrote it herself.

Corbyn has taken out the following full page advert in the Guardian today. I find it quite worrying no Labour branding and the use of I instead of we.

(when I say I hope Juppé gets elected, I mean, as opposed to Sarkozy or - god forbid - Le Pen. A socialist victory is not even on my radar right now. And I'm really not sure they would deserve to win.)

the article says Melania Trump was helped by a team of speechwriters - at the very best that's still sheer incompetence from the Trump campaign.

That's right tiggytape. They're like Blairites, but without the record of electoral success or previous popularity.

In both countries it seems that the "moderate" left-wing parties are pursuing right-wing politics that turns off their natural electorate, yet the far left (or real left?) is still unelectable. Deeply depressing.

Can I go back to summer 2012? That year was quite good.

God, me too. I would certainly vote to cancel 2016. Or rewind and do it all again.

I'm getting seriously scared by the prospect of Trump being president.

Ew, yuk, at that Corybn ad. Very disturbing. Wonder who (Momentum, presumably?) funded that.

YouGov poll on the Labour leadership election today... grim

Corbyn has a lead of more than 20 points over both his main rivals, the YouGov poll suggests. In a two-way contest he would beat Angela Eagle by 24 points and Owen Smith by 22 points, the poll suggests.

Corbyn’s net approval rating with Labour members has gone up over the last three weeks, from +3 to +14, despite Labour MPs passing a motion of no confidence in him. This may be the most remarkable finding in the survey, and perhaps the “despite” in my previous sentence was inappropriate. It may well be the case that Corbyn’s approval ratings have gone up precisely because he is perceived at war with his MPs. If so, this suggests that Labour’s attempt to find a leader acceptable to both members and its MPs could be doomed to failure.

www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jul/19/owen-smith-angela-eagle-theresa-may-brexit-trident-politics-live

Hilary Benn saying

1. Labour will not split
2. He will support any leader elected as long as it's not JC.

What precisely is he planning on doing then, if JC is elected leader again?

YouGov poll is online - self-selecting. From [[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/whats-the-matter-with-polling.html?_r=0

"The new economics have driven many election pollsters to the Internet, where expenses are a fraction of what it costs to do a good telephone sample. However, there are major problems with Internet polls. First is what pollsters call “coverage error.” Not everybody is reachable online; Pew estimates that 87 percent of American adults are Internet users.

But Internet use correlates inversely with age and voting habits, making this a more severe problem in predicting elections. While all but 3 percent of those ages 18 to 29 use the Internet, they made up just 13 percent of the 2014 electorate, according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Some 40 percent of those 65 and older do not use the Internet, but they made up 22 percent of voters."

I think the suggestion is that the PLP may get their own "Parliament" leader, as distinct from the Party leader, and ask for this leader to be considered the official leader of the opposition. I'd heard this before, and the journalist reiterated the suggestion to Hilary Benn (although he didn't pick up on it).

No idea if it can work...

So, let Corbyn still sit at the front but kind of ignore him?

In fairness Corbyn would probably love that. He'd get to do his thing with the grassroots and Momentum, and not have to deal with all the boring stuff that comes with actually leading a parliamentary opposition.

Kind of like being the Queen of the opposition?.. rally the troops around a powerless but popular figurehead, while other people get on with the job

I was reading up on some of the comparisons that have been made between 2016 and 1848 yesterday. There are a number of people pushing for and wanting a '2nd American Revolution' and state that the US today, looks a lot like pre-1848 France with inequality with the poor having very little and there being a rich elite. (You can google away to your hearts content on the idea of the 2nd American Revolution - I find it depressingly right wing and reactionary for the most part and frankly I don't know what's decent quality and what's nut job land. If you want to read up on the background for 1848 France its here though. Its particularly poignant given the events of last week and the principles of equality liberty fraternity being under threat. There is a nice BBC article from the day before Nice exploring the modern debate on what equality, liberty and fraternity mean to the French here and that can only be sent to take on greater significance now)

This sentiment, is a lot to do with what Trump is feeding into. And indeed what Brexit fed into. I think its clearly well studied and probably been developed into a modern day political strategy based on the historical model.

In 1848 there was a revolutionary wave that spread through out the world and caused numerous governments to collapse. Over 50 countries were affected. It is known as 'Spring of Nations', 'People's Spring' or 'Springtime of the Peoples' in some, which immediately starts to resonant with present day terms. (Again wiki here)

This was sparked by 6 factors: widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership; demands for more participation in government and democracy; demands for freedom of press; the demands of the working classes; the upsurge of nationalism; and finally, the regrouping of the reactionary forces based on the royalty, the aristocracy, the army, the church and the peasants. Again, all present day themes.

Another similarity cited are the rise of the popular press at the time which helped to spread ideas about nationalism and socialism to the wider population.

[[http://www.historyextra.com/feature/1848-year-revolutions
The Arab Spring]] had similar parallels drawn with it. This article making that comparison, caught my eye with the last paragraph in particular:
History is not destiny, but it is all we have. Our past suggests that revolutions usually end in reaction. Either the ruler holds his nerve and destroys the revolution, even if it takes a grinding civil war or a Bonaparte, Lenin or Khomeini emerge to seize control. The liberal centre, initially the intellectual engine of revolution, disappears, or is eclipsed as the parties of reaction and radicalism on either periphery grow in strength.

There are exceptions, but they are rare. Summing up the events of 1848, Alexis de Tocqueville, the French politician and intellectual, wrote: "Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom".

Incidentally on reading about the revolutions of 1848, I also did notice comments about the complete bewilderment of the liberal minded centre when it happened.

www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/13-charts-showing-the-inequality-challenge-facing-theresa-ma?utm_term=.jpMVKrwLl#.aeWzlyvaV
Buzzfeed rather helpfully have done an article today, that shows the problems May faces in inequality and illustrates the above beautifully.

And they also point out this:
www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/david-cameron-was-the-worst-pm-for-housing-since-1923-labour?utm_term=.afdOx3Kyk#.sk08M243b
David Cameron was the PM for housing since 1923.

I think the most revealing thing about the whole new revolution wave idea is that despite appearing to be successful, historians tend to be united in the belief that most of the 1848 revolutions failed to deliver on their utopian promises.

I think for this reason as well as recent events, compounding things, that Trump is likely to get in, despite the polling now (God help us all) unless there what is happening in the US now, takes a even bigger turn (not beyond the realms of possibility).

I do think there is going to be a lot more political turmoil, over the next 12 months or so worldwide as thing have become and are being deliberately destabilised.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/the-most-depressing-thing-about-pauline-hansons-view-of-muslims-the-facts-no-longer-matter?CMP=twt_gu
There are signs that post fact politics are hitting Australia too.

It is interesting as there is a sentence in there that says: 'This is the most worrisome aspect of a conversation that is always framed in the shielding rhetoric of free speech – the facts make literally no difference.'

All this has a hollow irony to me, as we also have Erdogan busy, removing free speech and rebranding it 'terrorism' in Turkey over the last few days.
www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/jul/19/erdogans-crackdown-hes-becoming-a-dictator-video?CMP=twt_gu

I certainly see how events around the world can be twisted and used for this purpose of 'protecting democracy' under the circumstances.

I appreciate a lot of this is non-Brexit talk, but I do think its very much Brexit related and in context with the wider global picture which is helping to shape the Brexit debate and will influence what Brexit actually does end up meaning.

Back in the EU, Johnson doesn't apologise but does display humility.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-eu-hitler-reference-brussels-eu-foreign-affairs-council-summit-a7143476.html

And the Guardian have done an article on Johnson and the public longing for the return of the days of the Empire (Have they been on MN again?)
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/19/boris-johnson-is-perfectly-in-tune-with-britains-post-colonial-lament?CMP=twt_gu

Today marks the start of legal challenges to a50.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/19/government-awaits-first-legal-opposition-to-brexit-in-high-court
Dos Santos claim in court today.

Yesterday one of the lawyers trying to do a case, funded by crowd funding got a reply to a letter re: how they intend to implement a50. The government said they were due to have a hearing on the matter in October.

I'm not expecting too much more from the claim in court today. This was much of the intent of the claim anyway, to force the government to say how Brexit would be triggered. The High Court will be setting a timetable for the Brexit challenge in court today.
@JolyonMaugham has said will live tweet it for at least part of the day.
@JoshuaRozenberg also appears to be doing similar.

Anyway, football is already kicked down the road until October at the earliest now.

Other developments include:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5d64eba8-4d29-11e6-a576-7e3b95eebc8f
David Davies who opposed the 'snoopers charter' and was taking the uk government to court over the issue has quietly dropped his name off the case. (If I can find a better article that isn't behind a firewall, I will try). Funny how he does so when he gets a cabinet position under the person who was trying to get the snoopers charter in place...

And some stuff on Jeremy Hunt, thought to become the Minister for the former NHS. So much for £350million.
www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/19/jeremy-hunt-survived-cabinet-reshuffle-what-now?CMP=twt_gu