Westminstenders Continues. Boris is having a bad week. Corbyn resists. Its gonna be a long summer.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD ELEVEN

The dust is beginning to settle and the storm has abated. At least for the moment. The summer is about to start, and so there may be a break in proceeding.

May has had quite a first week both here and abroad.

The ground has not stopped shaking from the political ripples abroad. Made PM on Weds, Nice on Thursday and a failed coup in Turkey on Friday. The political landscape has changed once again.

At home she first cleared out the Govians and called for loyalty. She channelled the ghost of Maggie at the despatch box. She started the process of trying to make friends with Scots, Germans and the French. She is apparently now Merkel's bestie. Sturgeon is already ousted from that position after just days.

Boris, meanwhile has been rinsed by everyone he speaks to because of what he's said in the past. He's also given up his chickfeed job. Oh the hardship.

Now he looking like he's starting to regret deciding to play with the grown up. He's been trying - and it would seem, largely failing - at sucking up to the Americans. There's still no apology, but he has admitted that he has a list that is so long that he's lost track of what he needs to apologise for. I bet he's wishing for his playmates, Dave and George to come back.

Otherwise life carries on as normal, well this alternate new version of normal, with parliament breaking for the summer today. Don't worry the Martian landing is scheduled for a week Tuesday.

UKIP's polling seems to have dropped back post referendum, and things have gone rather quiet. Wolfe, Etheridge, Duffy and Arnott are all standing (Who? When did that happen? Yeah quite. Without Farage they disappeared). They plan to reform and make an assault on seats in the Labour heartlands of the provisional NW, Midlands and NE at the next general election. Hustings in August, new leader announced Sept 15th. Looks of thinly and not so thinly veiled racism to look forward to there then. The Daily Mail best make sure it upgrades its servers in time.

The Labour contest grinds on like a war of attrition. Stalking horse Angela fell at the first fence as Owen Smith (that's the MP not the journalist everyone including the media!) wins the dream unity candidate ticket for an apparent hiding to nothing against the steely stubbornness of Corbyn. Everyone with a pulse is starting to loose the will to live with it all.

The Lib Dems, have a Spokesman for Remain. Old Cleggy's back! Otherwise they seem to have been trying to do a deluded impression of the opposition party. Though with 8 MPs they aren't doing much better or worse than Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet atm.

The Green are having a leadership battle too. It must be very civilised - I've heard not a word about it. Lucas tried to get a vote about PR though the Commons. It failed. Again.

There also is a cross party idea to set up a new iniative of a progressive movement to champion Europe, which seems to be gaining some traction. It may also double as a support group for anyone who thinks the world has gone a bit nuts lately at this rate.

The SNP are pissed off, as they vow differently on everything and once again they feel that Trident has been imposed on them. Sturgeon had a good meeting with May though, and apparently the Union must remain and Scotland holds the key to the future. Though we don't know the key to which door that is - Braveheart or Brave New World.

The Republic of Ireland is making noises about a referendum about Irish Unity, but beyond that nothing about NI has really been on the radar. May is supposed to go visiting soon.

And the Welsh? Baaaaa who cares about the welsh? They made the mistake of voting Leave as well as the English and now have been forgotten, consigned to political irrelevance forever.

Article 50 has been pushed back officially until the New Year, with a first legal hearing on how to activate it due no sooner than the 3rd week in October. Leaving the EU legally will now be no earlier than 2019.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2685902-Westminstenders-Contines-Boris-outmaneovered-everyone-Now-War-and-Peace?pg=1 Previous Thread TEN

But then I realised that the world is different and he can motivate for free, by using social media and the tactics he has already been using. Its a frightening prospect. Plus most of the people in the Democrats who would normally run the 'get the vote out' are the students and young who are Bernie fans - and they aren't motivated and can't get excited about promoting Hillary.

Yes and yes...

To put things in perspective, by late June (latest numbers I could find) Hillary had raised $335M, Trump had raised $67M (72% from small donations). And he still caught up with her in the polls...

Yes, that's been the primary reason for his ridiculous statements, it all gets him free air time, so he doesn't need to pay for TV advertising.

Twitter - 71 years ago today, the results of the 1945 general election were declared. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1945 …

In 1945 there was a huge appetite for change. The shake up of the War years with people being moved from one end of the country to the other, and greater mixing between the social classes, plus the horrors witnessed by so many, opened a lot of people's eyes. At the moment I don't see the same appetite for change. I see fatalism more.

Tony Blair's landslide was even greater. Now I wonder, was some of the vote against Major's government to do with the way the EU was developing? No one asked, so I suppose we will never know.

Just catching up with today's posts. Thanks so much Red for the news links - extremely useful.

I fOund the new industrial revolution in Telegraph particularly interesting and I think there's a lot of truth in it. The rate of change is soaring, the skills and education approach to keep adapting is not one that's available to the majority of people IMO and they are the ones being left behind. If this isn't tackled then surely the current divisions in society will only continue to increase with extremist views massively appealing to the disenfranchised?

colouring following on from that article and yesterday's discussion of housing affordability this is a really insightful analysis of the UK jobs market.

www.totaljobs.com/insidejob/the-uk-salary-divide/

I think what we're seeing is fear of the bogeyman being cynically explored by politicians and being lapped up by people who want someone (foreign) to blame.

I spoke to many brexiters who voted out because of fear of Muslims (yes) or foreigners taking their jobs. The ones who don't want to appear so racist said it was because they don't want to be ruled by the eu (foreigners)
Trump is doing the same with his wall, with his approach to Muslims, French and Germans. The message from both brexit and trump has been the 'elites' don't care/protect you from the filthy foreigner- but i will.

I read yesterday's express- it was full of bile- the editorial was 'spiteful french', every other article was about foreign peril. The letters were all brexit is great.

Why is nationalism/isolationism working now? Isis.

Yes Colouringin, and it's interesting that the disenfranchised can go to the extreme left or right. What is the deciding factor for their direction?

Decades ago, I remember we talked at school about the future (the year 2000) when we'd all fly about in silver foil outfits with our personal jet packs, and we'd lead lives of leisure as robots would be doing all the old blue collar jobs. That hasn't really happened. In fact there is supposedly quite full employment, perhaps in different industries than before. Maybe it's cheaper to exploit human workers on minimum wage than to create robots for many occupations?
So will the white collar jobs be automated? The caring and leisure services, for example. By 2030 (16 years time!) if you believe the reference to Steve Fuller in this article. I'm unconvinced. I think it'll be a long time coming. However, people will need to learn different types of skills. And there's enough wealth in the world for people to work a lot less and still be rewarded with a living wage. That is if there's a re-evaluation of the worth of different jobs, leading to a narrowing of the huge differential that now exists.

I read a thought provoking article about Germany / Isis / refugees today. Again, I think its slightly off topic with regard to Brexit, but I think how we approach refugees in the context of Brexit, is very important - especially since the Syrian refugee minister has been axed.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/how-angela-merkels-open-door-immigration-policy-protects-germany-from-terrorism-in-the-long-run-a7156756.html

I don't want to get into that too much on this thread (mainly because there are about 10 million other threads on the subject at the moment and most of them tend to go south), but I do think that in terms of freedom of movement and Brexit related issues its worth at least mentioning given the above couple of posts. Refugees SHOULD be part of Brexit Britain and SHOULD be part of our future and tarred by this rampant xenophobia.

Some interesting stuff on Twitter tonight about Trump's funding.

Tweets to an article by John Pilger saying Clinton is more dangerous than Trump.

newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork

But if you look at John Pilger's site, there are lots of articles which are, oddly (?), lacking in any criticism of Putin. If you're scrutinising global politics, you scrutinise it all don't you?

The Democrats email leaks are linked to Russia.

www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-cyber-idUSKCN1060ZA

WikiLeaks threatens to release stuff to get Hillary arrested

yournewswire.com/julian-assange-my-next-leak-will-ensure-hillarys-arrest/

Edward Snowden is still in Russia????

Tweet: "Donald Trump's campaign had run out of money in late June. Suddenly he appears to have plenty of money. Where has it come from?"

It's all very, very mysterious. Slightly worried I'm moving into conspiracy theory territory here

Things go from bad to worse for Labour in Scotland.

Look at Ruth Davison's score with 2015 Labour voters.

There is plenty of stuff about Russia at the moment. WikiLeaks is widely thought to be Russian. Some of Trump's aids are Russian. I read an article from someone the other day (UK based, and respectable though I forget where I read it), interviewing ordinary Russians. They thought war was coming and were preparing.

I think I have to view it this way. What does Russia want? Or should I say Putin? Is it control of the whole of Europe? Or is it just control of Eastern Europe?

Would Putin make a move with Trump in charge. Possibly, as Trump has effectively said he would not defend parts of eastern Europe. So the question becomes, what would the rest of Western Europe do? There are questions over whether Trident is dependant on the US or not - this is important. It may affect whether the UK did anything. Could France and Germany and the rest of the EU do anything to defend parts of Eastern Europe without the USA and also without the UK?

Would Putin do anything with Clinton in charge? Possibly less likely. It depends on how much Putin wants to expand Russia. However if he did the US is far more likely to respond with the UK and the EU. Which in theory possibly means a nasty war is MORE not less likely. Is Putin this crazy? Does he feel under threat from the EU?

However at present Obama and Putin have just agreed that they should work together on the ISIS issue. Which doesn't suggest that Putin would make a move on Europe BUT he has a greater ability to fight on multiple fronts that NATO does.

Trump is perhaps more likely to get trigger happy in the Middle East. It seems that both him and Putin have much more of a shared dislike for 'foreigners' from that part of the world.

Trump is also upsetting the Chinese a lot.

I think as such, both Presidential candidates COULD put the world at risk of a world war, given instability and lack of trust throughout the world at the moment, depending on what others do.

Frankly, I'm far more worried about Turkey now. They have been making lots of rumblings about Cyprus today. They are actively trying to stir up anti-American feeling (which feeds the beast that is ISIS) more than anything. I don't think the Russians will be terribly happy at the situation there though I think they probably will fuel it to a degree as it helps to destabilise the EU and therefore perhaps further their own ambitions, but they won't want to push it too far, as they are feeling the problems of extremist themselves.

Russia probably actually need Europe more than they would like to admit in the long run right now, but will take an opportunity if it presents itself.

Many thought Bernie would have a much better chance of beating Trump, because Hillary is sleazy and is basically the Goldmann Sachs candidate (iirc she even received $ 600k making 3 speeches to them)

With the anger at the failure of the same old politics, Bernie would have captured the mood far better.

His supporters at the Convention, chanting "lock her up":

blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/07/24/bernie-sanders-supporters-chant-lock-her-up-in-philadelphia-protest-against-clinton/

Good, but frightening and depressing, analysis Red

this thread is fascinating. thank you.

More stuff:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/26/labour-could-be-forced-to-re-open-leadership-nominations?CMP=twt_gu
Will Corbyn be on the ballot Part 345689263502

www.independent.co.uk/voices/sarah-champion-wont-be-the-first-one-to-come-crawling-back-to-jeremy-corbyns-shadow-cabinet-when-a7156586.html
Will Sarah Champion be the first of many to grovel back to Corbyn?

politicalscrapbook.net/2016/07/how-british-pensioners-who-embraced-brexit-have-lost-billions-since-eu-referendum-vote/
Pensioners fucked actually its not. its the young who will have to fill that black hole who are fucked. unless the triple lock is removed

By-Election result
Hangers & Forest (East Hampshire):
CON: 45.3% (-23.7)
LDEM: 43.6% (+43.6)
JUST: 7.9% (+7.9)
LAB: 3.3% (-9.7)
(JUST: Justice & Anti Corruption)

Obviously the LD didn't stand anyone here previously. The Conservatives only just hung on. Ouch Labour.

Red We need to help refugees who are in camps.
Money invested there does more good AND the public in the UK and the rest of the EU would be furious at taking in more refugees.

There comes a point at which it becomes impossible to keep ignoring overwhelming public opposition:
there is a serious danger the electorate across Europe may turn to the far right because noone else is listening about (Muslim) immigration.
We could have President Trump, a Tory-UKIP coalition, Front National President in France ....

e.g. the detailled Pew survey across 10 EU countries (incl UK) on Muslim refugees
This survey was in spring 2016, before all the recent terror attacks
I dread to think what a survey run today would produce.

In 8 countries, at least 50% believe refugees increase the likelihood of terrorism in their country.
They also think refugees take their jobs & welfare benefits
The UK actually has milder attitudes than several other countries - they are taking the brunt.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/07/11/europeans-fear-wave-of-refugees-will-mean-more-terrorism-fewer-jobss_//_

Hard Brexit i.e. WTO option

A financial wizard on another forum was trying to forecast what would happen:

He thought it could cost 20-30% of UK GDP
And that the Tories would cut public spending by about 40% - they'd slash corporate and higher income taxes, in order to keep as much business as possible in the country.
Those cuts would be a hell of a lot more than just removing the triple lock on pensions.

He added that even 70% of the current GDP/capita is still comparable to Spain or Portugal, where they have an enjoyable enough life.
However, the political consequences to losing something are very different to never having had it.

JC and his supporters are being hypocritical in their outrage at this leadership challenge:
challenging a leader every year or so is exactly what he used to advocate - before he became leader.

On June 15, 2015, before the last leadership election, he said on BBC Newsnight:

“To avoid the personality argument I think there should be the opportunity to elect or not elect the Labour leader regularly every one or two years so that we don’t get into this idea ‘the leader’s vulnerable, we have got to get rid of the leader or don’t get rid of the leader’.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-promised-labour-leaders-8388673

www.wilsoncenter.org/article/war-fever?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRSbU4ySTFPR0l5WmpsaSIsInQiOiJEUndzTWt1Y3JQNThTcXRcL044TEFGQkRqYVNwSkFjbnUwTStpbExUek02RXRrdnFaZ3pIamlhMnNkcGtNaGpyU3JBeEFcL1RXenI2dEpOQlZiUzN6ZkJiZUpNKzlKdFFZOUxacDBmV3AwRUlBPSJ9

I think the article I read came from this. The journalist in question is or was CNN as a Foreign Affairs Correspond for 30 years. (Not sure of her current status).

Its not Brexit, but I think there are plenty of things that feed into the world politics of Brexit here. There is also this quote from the article:
Estonian officials I speak with doubt Russia would challenge NATO with an outright invasion, but something less clear, less defined, something harder for NATO to respond to? Perhaps….
As I say, I think they are far more likely to do something to destabilise and further their own ambitions rather than a full frontal invasion. Interferring in international politics, is certainly one option (Le Pen apparently receives Russian money. As do many other far right parties in Europe. You can see where this might be going...)

Certainly during the Brexit debate there were people saying that Putin would love us to leave the EU as he benefits. The same goes for American election.

Le Pen apparently receives Russian money

That begs the question - do UKIP get Russian money? Momentum?

Arron Banks, coincidentally (?), was "married to Russian Ekaterina Paderina,[5] who reportedly previously received help to stay in the UK from the MP Mike Hancock.[6] The couple are separated. The Bristol Post reported that the police had issued Banks with a harassment notice in 2012.[7]"

I've remembered all about that deportation case now

The USSR used to fund far-left parties in Europe and many hardline Stalinists (e.g. Seamus Milne) still take Russia's side. Maybe habit ?
e.g. in Syria, with the horrendous bombing in support of Assad

www.independent.co.uk/voices/so-jeremy-corbyn-what-made-you-appoint-seumas-milne-an-apologist-for-murderous-dictators-a6702391.html

However, Russia now is basically a fascist kleptocracy, run by Putin for his oligarch mates.
So they fund the far-right .
Putin strongly rooted for Brexit, because it weakens and distracts all of Europe.
The far right also rejoiced in Brexit.
So did ISIS (their message of jubilation was chilling) for similar reasons: chaos, distraction, opportunity

I think this was raised in part before, but more in focus with Arron Banks.

From UKIP's 2015 manifesto
Britain’s increasing involvement with European Union expansionism is putting us, increasingly, unnecessarily, at loggerheads with Russia. The MoD recently told Ukraine it can count on ‘any possible assistance’ in maintaining its territorial integrity. It is yet another sign that our political leaders are willing to put our troops in harm’s way at the behest of other country’s political agendas.
Approved and reiterated by Farage on a number of occasions.

Arron Banks was married to Ekaterina Paderina, who was referred to as Russia's best spy in a generation by some leading to Banks jokingly buying her a car number plate which referred to the KGB.

In terms of direct money going to UKIP from Russia, no I don't think anyone has come up with evidence for that. (please correct me if not true)

This article from 2015 talks of the same subject:
The MEPs also accused Russia of "hybrid warfare, deliberately blurring the lines between military/paramilitary activity and political activism".
You'll see there is another story linked from this about how Russia has been hosting far right 'conferences'. I think the fact this appears perhaps to be a new strategy in international relations and that democracies are weak to it would again suggest this would be the best war for a nation that had those beliefs but did not want physical conflict to go down. Especially when you consider how slow the main traditional political parties have been to use and adopt social media effectively. The creation of Russia Today is also another example - and a way of exploiting social media. The West simply is not used or get propaganda as our own politicians deliberately didn't protect us against it because they want and need the same force to control the public through their own media...

I also still don't rule out a nudge having come from Russia with regard to Turkey tbh. Even though Russia and Turkey are not on good terms at present (in fact it could be because of that that Russia could have stirred the pot, though maybe not intending things to pan out in quite the way they have)

The far right, is politically far more aligned with Putin's own politics, than the left and so subverting Europe (and US) in this war makes a lot more sense than a direct war. Whilst at the same time using the US and EU to help it where it is weak against certain Islamic threats (which are also domestic though you don't hear much about it)

Although you associate the hard left with Russia because of Communism, I do think that is the Russia of today at all. It doesn't serve the same purpose and ideal to support the left however much it could destabilise and drive politics towards the right. I don't think that Momentum have the same kind of ties, links or common ground. Its intellectually driven in many respects.