Westministenders: Its time to fire the starting gun. At our own heads.

[RedToothBrush]

Its time for the suicide. The note will say simply, "The EU made us do it".

David Davies, says that despite May’s assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK, that actually we don’t know this as he hasn’t got round to quantifying the impact of no deal.

He still has no answers for anything apart from “I dunno” and “I’ll do it later”. I can’t wait for when the dog ate my homework excuse.

After 9 months. That’s how far we’ve got. Brexit negotiation skills will have 18 months (not 2 years as it’ll need to be ratified). We are still hiring people for the Brexit department. What about all these EU agencies that the UK will have to replicate and hire and train up in 2 years time?

I’m still waiting for Davies to tell me what all these potential benefits he keeps going on about are too. Benefits for who exactly? Ah yes we know the answer to this one too, even if its not being said. Its political elites and elites with lots of money who can consolidate power and enslave the population through debt and desperation. Goodie. Just what I’ve always wanted. As long as I can wave my Union Jack. Oh. Shit. Bugger.

Nicola Sturgeon, has been doing a good job of showing Brexiteers exactly what they look like to Remainers by holding up the mirror of irony to the Vampires of the 19th Century State. The sight of them tripping over themselves saying its irrational to hold a ‘blind vote’ and that the economic argument is flawed is hilarious. If you are not British.

Hammond has been forced to u-turn on NIC budget announcement as it was not in the spirit of the manifesto. What happened to the manifesto pledge to the protect interests in the Single Market. Lets be honest, the New Tory Manifesto read simply: “We’ll wing it and see what we can get away with”. I wonder how many people would vote for that.

Its Brexit at all costs. No matter what. We must keep the foreigners out. Even though Davis hasn’t done an assessment on the financial impact of migration. Just think about that for a second. Actually don’t because you might actually want to shoot yourself in the head.

At best the government are still relying on Game Theory as a basis for their negotiations and the EU are already going, “Er we don’t think so”.

Perhaps this is the intention of May’s tour to build consensus. She’s handing out guns and bullets to anyone who displays rational thought, to blow their own brains out.

May’s weakness is her manner and her chip on her shoulder for the law. Her own party are not immune to it. She seems to think trade deals are not done based on goodwill. May’s weakness is Britain’s folly.

Pass the blindfolds round, and get on your knees and await our own execution by our own hands.

Bang.

RIP The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. I will remember you with nostalgic fondness but equally with bitterness and shame. Our finest hours are long since passed (and were tainted with the excesses of exploitation anyway) and we must accept this as part of the process of ‘accepting Brexit’.

Now its time for the empty hand to start being shown and the blame game to begin in earnest. The politics of hate have only just begun and the divorce has not started yet. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are the kids we might not get custody of.

We’ll be blacking up again, running around groping women like Benny Hill and pushing people back into the closet as we hit the off switch before you know it. As well as having nice shiny new ID cards we’ll have to pay for the privilege of owning and carrying at all times, to prove we aren’t nasty illegal immigrants or those equally nasty legal ones clogging up our NHS (by working for it).

Don’t worry though. Uncle Donny will save us. If he doesn’t die suddenly after eating a bowl of Russia soup or have a fatal heart attack after accidentally falling out of a tenth story window.

IMO - Labour needs to go after the central vote in the North, where people would probably not vote rather than vote for another party. In the south-east and west, the LibDems are the better bet, where people are unlikely to vote Labour, but as we saw in 2015, would desert to the Tories.

Then all Remain MPs need to start working together, Labour, LibDem, SNP, Green. If any moderate Tories wanted to join them, fine, but at the moment, I think they are a lost cause.

He appealed to Murdoch to. Always useful.

Mother and Ghost
I think the so called "die hard" labour is indeed the real one. Blair and Brown messed that up big time.
My generation (me and my friends I mean) can see them both clearly and I would always choose Corbyn over Blair no matter what. My point is Khan is not Blair through and through as someone said upthread. I think he is actually somewhere between Blair and Corbyn (he was one of the ones who voted Corbyn in and I think he is a closet Corbyn supporter and is smart enough to know what to play. I will never think the same about people like Tom Watson. I haven't followed him forever but in the last two years, I have begun to really dislike him. He is part of that group whohave effectively helped to bring down the party from inside. I know Khan can't just be made the leader tomorrow. But then I think Corbyn's removal (or the attempts so far) would be downright stupid right now. Every bit of news that could give or did give material to Dacre and cronies to make fun of Labour is a very dangerous thing right now. And it was so in the last couple of years since Corbyn came.
We are in it all for the long run. Why hurry? Even with Sadiq, Labour has very little chances to win unless something major happens. I doubt Sadiq Khan can actually effectively counter things in parliament at this stage anyway so best would be that he keeps working at his image and we get to understand his politics a bit more while the Brexshit proceeds.
Anything hasty right now will further doom Labour.

It might help if he wasn't character assassinated by the press but then every lab leader in recent memory save Blair has been.

I have a feeling that we will know more about Corbyn very soon, like within a year or so of triggering article 50. That's when he will live or die off completely.
Like I said, I don't think all the anti-Corbyn activities all around were not considered hasty by people like me. The only positive probably was that the younger generation (specially the ones who will be of voting age in the next ten years) will have a very clear idea of what Labour did and was doing when the EU referendum was announced and the results were implemented. Internet keeps everything alive no matter how hard you try to delete it. And this generation doesn't really read Daily Mail or Guardian only.

Thanks Peregrina for the link to the Johnson story - it was competely inevitable and underlines May's poor judgment in choosing Johnson for the post.

The die hard version isn't actually the real labour party.

The party has always been one of factions united under a common cause. It was set up to be a broad church. For eample Fabians have been within the party since 1884 prior to the founding of the labour party and are still very much a part of it

There is no 'real' party hard left or right. The real party is all factions working together. That can not be forced or demanded. That is where the current leadership has got it all wrong

Whoops I meant the fabians were founded in 1884 prior to the founding of the labour party in 1900

No mother. I am not a supporter of Cornyn or Momentum for that matter. If there is an election tomorrow, I won't vote Labour. I am just saying that for our generation, it's far too early to intervene at this stage. The Labour MPs don't come across as sensible to us. All my Labour loving friends of 20s-30s believe it's mainly Labour MPs who have lost what honour they had and not Corbyn. "I don't know how competent he is because all the time I only heard "he is fucking incompetent" so I will wait and watch". That's what I hear all the time and I think I will give credit for this kind of patient approach because I think that no leader of Labour could have stopped Brexit vote from happening. it was far too complex than that oversimplification.
I think right now is the time to sit down, reflect and let the events take their course. I think we will have a much clear picture by the end of this year.

Poorboy
I think your argument is very sound. I also think that's the way forward if Labour has to survive and that is why Khan is a good candidate so far.
I used the word "die hard" because that's what the label has been for the last two years and I am not old enough to really know Labour politics before Blair. See the effect of media?

Traditional Labour mainstream: Wilson, Healey, Callaghan and many others like them

Don't confuse traditional Labour with the far left that they always fought to keep out of the party.
They'd have liked Tom Watson and found Corbyn an abomination, because traditional Labour has always been quietly patriotic

He really did support and praise the IRA, who killed British soldiers and civilians. He really did support the IRA terrorist campaign

• that's not Tory propoganda - I remember him from the early 1980s. I remember TV interviews with him and also speeches he made at uni.

That was long before mobile phones, but there are bound to be films of him which the Tories can run in party political broadcasts and on social media.
Labour would be slaughtered when led by the IRA's chum.
Especially in the current patriotic mood, he just guarantees May a big GE majority to do exactly as she pleases

I suppose if you can't remember the series of leaders before Blair and don't know post-WW2 UK political history, then you may not realise how staggering incompetent Corbyn is as a leader.
He is quite unprecedented.

. He can't / won't perform the duties that are mandatory for any Leader of the Opposition
. He can organise student protests, but not the sophisticated political machine that any major party has.
. The function of an Opposition is to oppose, unless there is a very good reason not to. He organises a 3-line whip to force his own MPs to support Tory policies, some of which are against Labour Party policy, e.g. opposing protection for E27 expats
. He didn't send people to the Shadow Cabinet briefings that senior civil servants provide the Official Opposition. So Labour don't have the background info they need to be effective.
. In Shadow cabinet mtgs, he just reads prepared speeches, like some N Korean leader and doesn't accept questions. These mtgs are supposed to be discussions, with the leader just First Among Equals.
. His appearances in front of the media are often embarassingly inept, because he doesn't use the professional media reps that any political party has on tap.
. He deosn't hide his disdain for the national anthem and the national flag. That is one hell of a problem for anyone who wants to be elected PM of the country

I look back with nostalgia to the politicians in both major parties who were actually competent and reasonably knowledgeable about their jobs.
When they didn't know something, they used civil servants to find the answers
They respected experts and facts

Currently, Dunning-Kruger dominates both Tory and Labour, in fact almost all political debate

Painfully correct BigChoc.

I suppose if you can't remember the series of leaders before Blair and don't know post-WW2 UK political history, then you may not realise how staggering incompetent Corbyn is as a leader.
It's not that I can't remember. I was a child then.
This is a big problem for Labour: the younger generation can't understand the detailif anti-Corbyn sentiments among the traditional Labour members unless they dig deeper. And the only examples they have are of Blair/Brown which doesn't help at all.

Strange how that article on the Anglophone press and the Dutch election seemed to assume that proportional representation automatically means coalition governments, as if coalition governments were something to be abhorred.

Also, I suppose it is easy to forget that Ireland is part of the Anglophone world. The Irish Times was not breathlessly forecasting the domino effect that many papers were. www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/geert-wilders-extends-lead-in-polls-ahead-of-dutch-election-1.2914769

LH that thread you linked is pure gold.

If the young really think JC is wonderful how come his support is slipping amongst voters so much. The labour party momentum members and or JC supporters are not representative of the younger generation any more than JC represents the left. This is bearing out in the polls in which he and labour are falling through a black hole. It is not JC supporters we need to care about. It is the electorate.

There seems to be a belief system now that if 'most people I know are x' then everyone is x. It's called an echo chamber. They are dangerous and prevent true inspection of reality

Agree with your posts on JC bigchoc and I didn't know all the parliamentary reasons why he is so bad. (I did have lunch in1989 with the lovely Barbara Castle, though, she was elegant, tiny, funny and feisty. She was a friend of a friend, and spoke in defence of the ambulance workers who were then on strike, at my work place)
JC is not fit to polish her boots, as they say.

Can I just correct your detail that Khan voted Corbyn in (in 2015), Valentine? Sadiq did indeed put his name on Corbyn's nomination so that he could get -iirc - the 35 names he needed to proceed. Like many of the others who put their names on his ballot paper, they felt Corbyn was unelectable and simply wanted to broaden the debate within the party. Khan did not subsequently support Corbyn at the election and Corbyn certainly did not support Khan when he ran for mayor. Khan went out of his way to distance himself from Corbyn during the mayoral election and - with the sort of gesture that has long promoted party unity - Corbyn, in a fit of pique, refused to attend Khan's inauguration.

I don't think anyone could describe Khan as a closet Corbynite .

Can we all stop referring to Corbyn as JC? I keep wondering why Jesus is relevant on a Westminstenders thread