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

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

-----------------

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.

-----------------

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

Great stuff red.

Front pages of express and telegraph saying how brexit is going to be fab and the doom Sayers are all twats. (That's paraphrasing)

TM can't just call a snap election. She could, I suppose, engineer a vote of No Confidence to do so. What I would suspect would happen would be that the Tories rallied round, but Labour lost support to UKIP, which for practical purposes would be as good as a Tory vote. Former LD voters, might hold their noses and support LD again in the South and West, so pick up a few seats but they have a long way to do. SNP? Don't know - possibly lose a few seats.

Thanks for the great links Red! Will read them ASAP.
It's good re the complaint about Farage being lodged with police. I don't understand the procedure.... but that one yesterday (the UKIP councillor on Facebook, advocating killing anti-Brexiters) - is that already being dealt with by police? Or do we need to petition/ report? He shouldn't get away with it.

Corbyn pretty good at that press conference. Hoping for an Overton window effect with what he was saying

The thing that really leapt out at me from the John Lanchester article was this:

Of the 330,000 net arrivals in the latest numbers, 169,000 are students *

Assuming this is true, this means that the the only way to meet the "tens of thousands" pledge is to prevent most of the students who come to the UK for study from doing so. How would they do this, by banning them or by making coming to the UK to be so unappealing that they would rather go elsewhere to study?

• However, I am slightly suspicious of the way these numbers have been presented. It seems that the 330,000 figure is correct as a net figure but does the 169,000 really represent the net number of students in terms of ones who have arrived minus ones who have left?

TM needed to reassure the Westminster Tories that they had made the right decision. In 30 mins she showed them she isn't just the cool, composed ice maiden she is normally but someone who can play the game and win (whether you like the game or not is somewhat moot, it's the one we have).

she doesn't need to be like that every week, but has demonstrated she can put in that performance when necessary. Sadly, I don't think there are many sat opposite who could do much to counter her, including (especially?) JC

My own feeling was that they could just reclassify students who came, since they are not seeking work. That immediately cuts the numbers down to something like the right-wingers want.

Things have moved on and I have some reading to catch up on!

Going back to the John Lanchester article it is interesting and it neatly highlights what I was referring to yesterday regarding the pending irrelevance of the Remain argument. I believe the Overton window has already moved.

I had to google Lanchester. My research suggests a less radical Armando Ianucci. So then I got to what Malcolm Tucker would be thinking and Peter Capaldi's Dr Who and his oppressive awareness of the dangers of imposing "what's good for you" from afar. This led me to Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and he gives a view very similar to my own in the following:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/06/beauty-beneath-brexit-bedwetting-leave-vote-diversity-genuine-change

TM needed to reassure the Westminster Tories that they had made the right decision. I am not wholly sure that she has succeeded, with talks of not starting negotiations until next year. The hard-line Eurosceptics want it now, and are not going to keep quiet.

Mandatory reselection, though.
That is going to transfer MP's accountability (and point of political focus) from the wider electorate to the narrower party members. The majority of whom are the Corbyn faithful.
It does nothing for plurality within the Party. Or informed and principled dissent.
And does nothing for stability, continuity and focus, either. The faff of re-selection rather than all the other work that can be done ...
But, hey ho, I'll just have to look at the bright side of it ...

And an interesting piece from Ianucci on the political system's divorce from the general population it supposedly serves and how that population is reacting:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/trump-boris-i-wouldn-t-write-thick-it-now-politics-already-feels-fictional

My suspicion Peregrina is that the 169,000 students is a gross figure rather than a net figure (since I assume the majority of the students who come here to study leave when their studies are over) and so they don't contribute much to the 330,000 overall net figure. I suspect that if you deduct the real net figure for students from the 330,000 overall net figure, it won't make much difference.

Much as I like Lanchester's work, I think he's done a bit of a sleight of hand with those figures.

Peregrina - no, that would just be massaging the figures rather than making an actual change. Any politician would be crucified for declaring success through that method

(Plus - many students do stay a long time, either for further study or to work. Or indeed to have children. We would need to count them as "in" at some point, why not at the start?)

HesterThrale I agree with you. After making such a dignified start to her premiership, I felt that she let her self down by that remark.

For the first time in my life, I have written to a Prime Minister. I also asked her if she could put and end to the braying, which I feel debases parliament.

UKCISA has a good summary of overseas student stats. In 2014-5 there were 312k non-EU students in HE alone. The numbers in the sector are huge - too huge to re-classify out

The PLP are angry because
JC has never performed the behind-the-scenes work that he is supposed to do as Leader of the Opposition, to make the PLP effective as the Official Opposition

all the grownup boring organisational stuff, e.g. liaising with the civil service to get info & support.

He didn't talk much with them or the Shadow Cabinet ; he mostly talked at them, reading prepared doctrinally correct statements, like an old Politburo chief.

He has continued as he did as a lone wolf backbencher leading a niche protest movement - he just added his (pathetic & inappropriate) performances at PMQs

This rendered Labour impotent & irrelevant in the HoC even before their No Confidence vote in him - it was a major reason they voted, even if the referendum was a trigger pt.
They can't do their job of representing their constituents properly and being the main oppositiom, because JC never bothered to do his job.

The UK has a^ Parliamentary system of government, not government by street protest^

As Leader of the Opposition, he received a £58k payrise to bring him up to £125k p.a.
And a taxpayer-funded official car

Taking money under false pretences when he never did the bloody job

This is such a desperate time when the country desperately needs a competent Leader of the Opposition:

• But JC is allowing TM a completely free hand to deploy measures to attract business - which of course we need urgently - but at the expense of those on low income / benefits / UK students

• He is allowing her freedom to develop a Brexit which will be profitable for the hedge-funders and vulture capitalists, but devastating for the most vulnerable in society

Bloody disgraceful job by JC

It seems that Lanchester used a figure of 169,000 representing student immigration from a 2016 ONS document being the difference between "192,000 arrived to study" and "24,000 emigrated to study abroad". So although he used a net figure it isn't one which takes into a account that students come here and a large number of them go at the end of their studies. That's a bit misleading.

However, the basic point is true that getting to the "tens of thousands" for net immigration will mean preventing or discouraging a large number of students from studying in the UK so that they study elsewhere. Without such measures it probably won't be an achievable goal.

The sheer stupidity in continuing to promote that goal gives me the fucking rage.

However, the basic point is true that getting to the "tens of thousands" for net immigration will mean preventing or discouraging a large number of students from studying in the UK so that they study elsewhere. Without such measures it probably won't be an achievable goal.

This is already happening to some extent, the UK is quickly building up a reputation as an unwelcoming country for international students. The immigration rules are draconian and post-study work visas no longer exist. Yet international students pay a lot of money to attend university in the UK, and the HE sector badly needs both their money and their talent (in the case of postgrads).

It's would be ridiculous if it wasn't tragic.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36252302

Plus, I think there'll be a increase in emigration now.

It's just occurred to me that as May and Merkel are politically similar (I think?) and Germany is economically successful why not just copy what they do? I realise I've not put a lot of thought into what's wrong with this.

www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/21/newspaper-websites-traffic-brexit-independent-guardian-mirror?CMP=twt_gu
We have helped drive up newspaper website traffic!

25000 of labour's 180,000 have been discounted as they were already members.

Copy what Germany do in what sense?

Join the Euro, gain massively from your new undervalued currency, maintain a massive current account surplus at the expense of your neighbours, allow your banks to lend vast amounts to risky undertakings in peripheral economies, when the whole thing comes crashing down, use the Euro and the EU to crush weaker economies and protect your banks.

Something like that?

Oh, and - pretend it is possible for all countries to be net exporters.

My take on the net student figure of £169k.

It is completely misleading to compare a small net component to the overall net inflow when the gross figures are in the millions. (there is an accountants joke about offsetting differences in there somewhere)

There are lies and obfuscations on all sides on this issue but I think the inequities in the discriminatory arrangements against non-EU migrants definitely fuelled the LEAVE vote.

Another thought on students is that some believe that tuition fees were only introduced to cut down and partly fund EU student migration to the UK. As they are largely unrecoverable, they do not in fact provide much in the way of extra money. Any loss of revenue could be far more efficiently and equitably recovered through a very small increase in higher rate taxation.

Slightly playing devils advocate...

International students have an impact too. They might bring money and brains, but the trickle down to the local economy is not always immediate or obvious. They need somewhere to live, they use public transport, they use the NHS. They can (in some circumstances) bring their partner and their children, who also have an impact on local resources. Not all of them are bright, rich 18yo who will be the next Bill Gates.

And the HE sector has always been a little inconsistent about post-study work: "take students out of the numbers, because they are temporary and go home after their course" AND "post-study is an important part of our offer and students need the ability to stay here and work"

some believe that tuition fees were only introduced to cut down and partly fund EU student migration to the UK.

I'd never heard this before

the second part seems strange to me - since tuition fees don't even cover the cost of UK students at my university, how are they supposed to also fund EU students?

the discriminatory arrangements against non-EU migrants definitely fuelled the LEAVE vote

Definitely a common complaint, yes. Although of course it's a race to the bottom - it's not like non-EU immigrants will ever get anything like the arrangement EU citizens are currently enjoying, the aim is rather to bring EU citizens down to the much less favourable arrangements of non-EU immigrants.

oh, scratch my previous post, I got what you meant howabout