Westminster: Brexit is the hard right's weapon of mass distraction

[BigChocFrenzy]

The fervour and divisions over Brexit have suspended normal party politics.

The staggering incompetence & unsuitability of Corbyn as a leader, together with the resulting impotence of Labour has removed the normal checks & balances in UK politics.
There is a vaccum where the Official Opposition should be, so Theresa May is under pressure only from her right.

I fear Thereas May and the Tory rightwing are taking advantage of Brexit to complete the destruction of the post-WW2 social contract and the welfare state.

Meanwhile, the constraints of civilised discourse have been loosened and those with racist or social Darwinist views now feel free to spout their poison openly.

Putin is pouring petrol on all the fires and Arron Banks is lurking < sinister emoticons required >

Zoe Williams:
"Behind a smokescreen of bogus patriotism, ideologically driven cuts to the NHS and all our public services are unpicking the bonds of nationhood"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/brexit-theresa-may-falklands-war-nhs-cuts

"We should be marching against the crisis in adult social care, the closure of care homes, the systematic exploitation of carers, the £4.6bn cut from social care budgets this decade.
We should be .... asking:

“What exactly is the plan, if we’ve decided we can no longer afford to care for the elderly and the disabled?
What do we do with them instead?”

"We should be marching against cuts in education funding"

"Every morning we wake up to someone on the radio explaining, despairingly, that you can’t fix the hospital bed crisis until social care is fixed, and you can’t fix that until council tax brings in more, and it can’t bring in more because wages are too low."

"But when everything breaks at the same time, that is not a coincidence: it is a plan.

As surely as Margaret Thatcher had an economic plan on employment, rights, industry and wages,
this century’s Conservatives have a plan on public services, which is to smash them beyond all recognition."

I've posted a few times that during the 80s and 90s, there was some unseen pressure on the UK government to remain in the EU. (which Gore Vidal mentioned in an interview in 1988 when he said that "Thatcher will be ousted by her own party").

I wonder if the same is true today ? Thanks to the likes of the Mail Express and Telegraph, we hear a lot from the Leave camp. But how homogeneous is that ?

Maybe La May looks so haunted (if nothing else she's the Tory premier equivalent of Tony Blair) because she is aware that if she actually tries to deliver on Brexit rather than talk about it, (which is all she has done so far) she too will have to go ?

Whose judgement are you questioning Lurking? Cameron's certainly must be questioned. Parliament should also take some of the rap. The question of "what is the next step?" should also have been in the legislation. Even if it was Remain - no action at present. Leave - define what we mean by Leave, begging the question, how do we test the will of the people on that? I think some Lords may have sought such amendments and got voted down.

As for Leave voters - I feel it's perfectly legitimate to think that they were voting for the NHS. For the rest - no, it's not well defined.

Whose judgement are you questioning Lurking?

Oh, Cameron is at the root of it. With his half-arsed "referendum" which had nothing whatsoever to do with the UKs membership or otherwise, and everything to do with keeping what is becoming the UK version of the National Socialists in power.

But following on from that, putting "X" in a box when you have no idea what will happen as a result is certainly a brave move (minister). Just look at the (thankfully for now) rather quiet Gisela Stuart. She encouraged us all to vote Leave, and almost immediately had to start a rearguard action to define what she meant.

Clearly none of the leavers had read "The Monkeys Paw". Which is ironic, given (some of) their harking back to a golden age. It's a Victorian classic ....

I agree with Peregrina : Parliament can't absolve itself of responsibility from this clusterfuck, which it shared with Cameron.

Where was the proper oversight? Where was the definition of its status as binding rather than advisory? Where was the definition of what "Leave" meant? Where was the White Paper?

Where. Was. The. Plan?

Cameron's hubris was in a) assuming that he wouldn't win an outright majority in the GE, so the LibDems would save him from having to follow through and/or b) assuming that Remain would win.

And Parliament colluded with him

The SNP did their best to put some rigour into the referendum's enabling legislation, but in the absence of any support with Labour MIA, couldn't get very far

As for Leave voters - I feel it's perfectly legitimate to think that they were voting for the NHS. For the rest - no, it's not well defined

But where was there any promise about the NHS ?

Sorry, but if your vote can be bought with fine words and no comeback, maybe it's not worth much after all ?

At least, with election pledges, we have a chance to pass judgement on whether promises have been delivered or broken at the next election. Not so with Brexit. As we are told. Repeatedly. Daily.

I agree with Peregrina : Parliament can't absolve itself of responsibility from this clusterfuck, which it shared with Cameron.

In case it hadn't escaped your notice, they already have.

"Will of the people"

As for Leave voters - I feel it's perfectly legitimate to think that they were voting for the NHS. For the rest - no, it's not well defined.
Actually I don't feel that at all. Some believed the bus lies true. Some believed the ttip crap. But their own campaign economists told how it would work post brexit - the NHS does not fit into the tax haven low regulation world. Having both is the stuff of fairy dust and unicorns.

LurkingHusband

You're right. I forgot. We don't live in a Parliamentary democracy any more. We live in a populist will-of-the-people-ist democracy.

Silly me.

Certainly there was no 'promise' of £350 million a week for the NHS - the bus only said that we 'could' spend this money on it. But, it was misleading enough for some people to be persuaded. IMO.

Slight correction ... "The Monkeys Paw" was published in 1902. So an Edwardian classic. My late Nan had a penchant for gothic horror, plus graveyard rambles. I think it skipped my Mum and lodged with me .

qz.com/928668/brexit-is-falling-out-of-favor-as-the-term-for-the-uk-leaving-the-european-union-after-philip-hammonds-recent-speech/

So it seems that the governemnet is avoiding the word Brexit as ministers have been told that it now polls badly.
It is now a new partnership with the European Union..

Is there a gleam of hope there?

I agree that parliament shares the responsibility for this clusterfuck.

OTOH - We (rightly) don't expect ordinary voters to have to be experts before they are allowed to vote. People voted on the question asked; it's not their fault it was a fucking stupid question.

I think it can be categorically said that even most remainers voted with only the haziest idea of how difficult leaving the EU would be. I'm an economist working for a major exporter and even so, when I watched the notorious NI select committee evidence session with the customs lawyers, I had a few Holy shit!!! moments - as did all the MPs present.

Expecting voters to be better educated on this sort of topic than even their parliamentary representatives is really asking a bit much.

Is there a gleam of hope there? I'll go for hope red

a new partnership with the European Union

Certainly sounds better than World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017

Is there a gleam of hope there?

I'll go for nope.

Some believed the bus lies true

Ipsos Mori poll one week prior to referendum indicated 47% surveyed believed the bus lies.

Yup. More than the entire proportion of the Leave vote believed a grossly misleading statement about how much UK pays EU, and that this whole amount of money could instead be spent on NHS instead, should UK vote to Brexit. Key campaign platform for Leave campaign.

So when people talk about the "will of the people" and "democracy" of Brexit vote like it was a good thing, I really cringe with embarrassment for them. How is it possible to respect any vote outcome where half the voting population did not have the most basic grip on fundamental issues, particularly when these issues were the key points of the Leave campaign?

So it seems that the government is avoiding the word Brexit

They are also avoiding the words compassion, decency, humanity and empathy. Although possibly not for the same reasons.

The real truth though, is now we are easing back into BAU, the myriad interpretations of "Brexit" are starting to fight amongst themselves. There musty have been a fair number if Leavers who had built in their minds a cogent and reasonable argument for leaving the EU, along with an idea of how it might proceed who are horrified by some of the places we might end up in. Certainly dumping the EU as a trading bloc was not their intention.

Anyone who uses the word "Brexit" is starting to run the risk of some leavers saying "hold on - I'm not a Brexiter, I'm more of a ".

And anything which suggests that the Leave contingent is less than harmonious, and has all drunk the Kool-Aid risks a very real accusation that "the will of the people" isn't quite as powerful a tool for silencing debate it once was.

The Guardian is quoting the IFS saying that the impact of this budget is actually progressive (though collectively the impact of budget changes in this parliament are highly regressive).

Had a debate with DH just now. I think it's right to raise NICs for the self-employed so that they are level with those paid by employed people. DH tried the "but they don't get holidays" line - the answer to that is that the state shouldn't have to pay for something that the employer should pay for. Theoretically, self employed people can earn a higher rate (like my DH who bids up projects and refuses badly paid ones and earns about twice as much per hour as a salaried translator). The problem is that in the UK there is a perverse incentive to treat people who are legally and practically employees as "self-employed", but this isn't really the chancellor's problem to solve (and in any case raising NIC helps reduce perverse incentives).

I'm on Hammond's side on this one, I think.

We all realise that the referendum result was the Tory party being so “clever” jostling to be the next leader that they outsmarted themselves.

The reason the hard right has been making the running is that the rest of the party has been in a state of shock that they could cock up that badly – and totally bricking it on how to come out of this situation with their reputation for economic competence intact (wtf they ever got that rep is another question)

The total horror on Bojo’s face on 24 June, Cameron’s cowardly resignation and then the fratricidal removal of several leadership candidates are all symptoms of a party in complete shock and panic.

May grabbed the opportunity to be PM, because that was her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:
she had no personal backing of loyal followers among Tory MPs or party members and she would probably have been sacked as Home Sec by Cameron if the referendum had gone as expected.

However, it’s a poisoned chalice and she will judge what will do the least damage to her premiership and reputation:

either
a major climbdown of some kind, to avoid an economy downturn and pissing off a lot of Tory business donors.
Major political humiliation, but maybe survivable if explained properly
or
driving the economy down, but pleasing some other donors.
Pleases the vocal hard right but will lose the centre and liberal Tory vote if Brexit bites noticeably

There is the added complication that she has no worries to her political left, since the Official Opposition has gone AWOL for the forseeable future.
If she appeases the hard right, the only place for anyone who opposes her plans is a vague Lab-Lib-SNP coalition, which could too easily be savaged by the media before any GE.

Also either Option Needs prep now, as Misti says and there is nothing

The cabinet is still in panicked ostrich mode

Can this govt bring total disaster out of chaos ?
On their Brexit record so far, what do YOU think ?

I agree Misti
It won't be popular though

Plan!!?
Plan!!????

Don't be so disloyal and such a bad loser!!!

You lost! We won!

Er...um...what does FOM mean again?

Sigh......

Bigchoc...I told my ds1 that the ONLY thing that cheered me up in the aftermath of the ref result was the sight of Boris and Gove at their press conference both looking like they were about to cry 👍
They looked like someone had broken into their house on Xmas morning and pissed on their presents 🎁

www.filmsforaction.org/watch/incredible-animation-summarises-noam-chomskys-5-filters-of-the-mass-media-machine/

A bit on the side of our conversation but this is a nice animated summary of how the press and government are 'manufacturing consent' (from N Chomsky). Very relevant to our times, incl all the trolls on social media.

misti your argument about choosing jobs that pay well doesn't work for low wages, people like childminders and plumbers etc... there is always a little bit of leeway but nowhere as much as you have in the sort of jobs you are referring to.
Plus you have the insecurity of the job and never knowing how much you will take home the next week/month....

peppers the net impact of this budget is beneficial for people on the lowest incomes (below about £16k) even with the NIC measures.

There isn't an easy answer to this problem, but as a general principle I see no reason why an employee on a low income should pay more NIC than a self-employed person on a low income.

The idea that I agree with the May govt about something is disconcerting but it helps that all the right wing rags are furious about it . This tells me that I am probably right lol.