Westministenders: KAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMMM

[RedToothBrush]

'Quick' Recap.

Once upon a time, despite warnings to the contrary after previously attempting to recreate a speech from the 1930s, Theresa May triggered a50.

A series of events, which included a disastrous unnecessary General Election and losing seats, ensured that we have Brexit by Timetable in which every piece of goodwill was burnt up a long time ago, and the EU decided to go "see ya then".

Only this General Election, made this politically impossible as well as practically impossible, given how this would destroy our economy.

So May did the only thing she could and agreed to lock us in with sufficient progress deal, which is legally binding, if no deal is agreed. Thus giving us in essence a choice between staying in the Single Market and Customs Union due to NI or breaking an international agreement which would destroy all our international credibility and trust.

Except none of the Brexiteers really grasped what was happening. Until this week.

In the meantime we still have had spectacles of Nadine Dorries asking on the infamous WhatsApp Group why we can't stay in the CU. Any Davis saying that he has now apparently 'changed his mind' on the matter. Not that Labour are any better, with Corbyn saying we can't stay in the Single Market and leave the EU. Except of course, Norway is in the Single Market...

Fast forward through a sex scandal that's swept through Westminster, installing self appointing the vampiric Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary, we eventually ended up with a reshuffle which was possibly as pointless and as successful as the General Election. And Gavin Williamson is caught up in a sex scandal.

May has managed to drag the Great Repel Bill through the Commons, without breaking the party, but with much back room dealing and compromise with Remainers. Hailed as something of a victory by Brexiteers, this rather is a fools paradise. At what price to their ideological purity did this come? Is there much Brexit left? And there is much more to come in the Lords, with the LDs committed to working with Labour on securing at least 10 amendments. The two parties have a majority in the Lords if they work together.

Away from parliament we have had the glorious demise of Toby Young, who is forever to be remembered for eugenics.

As it has become apparent that we are increasingly looking like we are on track for BINO, the EU have told us, that we should have sucked up a compromise proposal earlier and now the Norway Option is off the table as we fucked that up by taking too long to disagree amongst ourselves and being arses to EU citz. I paraphrase slightly here, but that's about he long and short of it. Instead we get the pleasure of 21 months of the EU interfering in our law without representation. And we are already locked into this. Now Leavers can moan about this, and shock horror, actually be correct about it too! Transition will be up to 31st Dec 2020 at the latest. Which realistically is still too soon, not that any lying arsed Brexiteer is willing to admit to this. Yet.

The only way to get out of this proposal for better terms? Either beg the EU for something there is no way they will give us or revoke / extend a50.

The fall out from May's reshuffle is still going on in slow motion. Rees-Mogg has got a bigger platform to spout shit he knows nothing about, admit that he has never changed a nappy nor wiped his own arse, thinks women should give birth to football teams, and how he has never visited IKEA and has no plans to do so. Johnson has tried to build bridges. And effed that one up again. Gove has made us all be obsessed by plastic straws and turn into environmental maniacs because no other minister is good at press releases and media stunts. Arch Remainac Liddington, got Deputy PM and took over Brexshit even more from DExEU. Hunt is in no way after becoming PM and Greening is really pissed and when straight back to lead from the Naughty Step.

To cut the long story short: they all hate May and think she's shit

There are thought to be nearly 48 letters to trigger a leadership election in Graham Brady's hands. But not quite. And its not about the letters its about needing 159 MPs to no confidence her... but that is starting to sound more and more plausible in the face of Brexshit hitting the fan.

We now have a leaked impact assessment that we really were not supposed to see which is slightly less worse than Project Fear. But not by much. Its supposed to be by DExEU. Its been suggested that its actually by alt-DExEU aka the Cabinet Department (Robbins and Liddington).

Anyway, nothing is decided. May might zombie on forever. She won't, she's in a crowded field of Tories with stakes. But that sub-committee meeting on Wed 7th Feb is crunch time for something or someone.

Tick tock, tick tock, went the Brexit Clock.

Oh yeah and there's going to be a trade war between the US and EU. And there's some stuff about a ex-Belize diplomat. And Trump's coming to visit us.

Even if 70% of Germans voted for the Nazis in 1930s (far fewer did), it wouldn't make their decision right. Let's not glorify democracy too much, it's quite fallible as we can now see with our very eyes.

Russia has recently legalised certain forms of domestic violence against women.

Britain First supports mogg too. The Football Lads Alliance too, which appeared from no where and 10 000 of whom marched in autumn through london. They are not lads and not very feministy either.

Everyone was surprised at Laura Kuensberg's more forceful interview with may. I now suspect it's the bbc's collusion in preparing the way for JRM.

LondonMum8 1933: nazis got 43.9% of vote.
Enabling Act gave them dictatorial powers.
Storm troopers and brown shirts were the enforcers.
Opposition and elections were then banned.

I do glorify democracy. It's all we have.

red Russia

The far right and the far left support anything that may bring chaos, more poverty, more angry recruits.
Support built on lies and fear / hate of the "other."

Typical tactics are to spread lies to gain at least acquiescence from the wider public

• xenophobic nationalism, persecution of minorities & opposition … common tactics by all wannabe dictatorships
• and demonisation of institutions that are a key part of a country's defence against a populist coup: judges, opposition press, anyone who speaks out

The fascists gained power in the 1930s - and gained some UK public support - by blaming a foreign Jewish banking elite and German racial minorities
for the disasters that arose out of Germany's own bad decisions in previous decades

And yes, the UK and France contributed to this, with their "squeezing Germany until the pips squeak" - shameless UK & French populism

woman A Great Leap Backwards in Russia:
legalising "lesser" domestic violence is very different to some police forces / CPS not enforcing current British law
Putin has given official licence to wife-batterers, to curry support - grim if it does increase / firm up his support

International law has long limited what even an elected govt can do,
e.g. expelling or interning racial / religious minorities

The ECtHR makes European law tougher than UN, which is why May and rightwing Tories want to withdraw from it - if they dare.
The EU is some protection against this, because they would likely refuse / cancel anything but the most minimal trade arrangements if any UK govt does this.

Staying bound by the ECtHR will be inherent in the proposed transition period at least, since the UK must follow all EU rules, which has this as mandatory (many hardline Leave voters confuse ECtHR with ECJ)

The issue is not that I don't like the message. I get that you have strong reservations about Corbyn as an individual and as a leader of the Labour party, and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise.

The issue is that you made a specific and bold quantitative claim, that under different leadership, there would be a 20-point margin. I've heard this many times before - I think Blair was one of the first to make this point, so I wouldn't want you to feel that I'm getting at you specifically - and I've been skeptical about whether the numbers stack up. Having finally found a quiet moment to dig into this, my assessment is that they don't.

There's a nice briefing paper here that contains all the relevant data: researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7529#fullreport

Since 1918, only one government had more than a 20 point lead on vote share. This was in 1931, due to the great depression, a budget crisis and ensuing collapse of a Labour government. This give the National government a whopping 30 point lead.

This was also the point where the Liberal vote collapsed (lots of parallels to the 1930s indeed...). In the 30-year postwar period, 1945-74, the liberals polled mostly single-digits, as now. The largest margin in this period (1945) was 8%. In the 27 elections since 1918 there have been 7 double-digit majorities; apart from in 1931 and 1935 (the era of the National government, and therefore potentially anomalous), all of the rest were achieved when the Liberals were polling 17% or more. So there is definitely a correlation between a strong Liberal performance and a large majority for one of the two parties.

So my conclusion remains the same. To achieve a large majority without the vote on one side or the other being split by the Liberals appears to require something of the magnitude of the Great Depression to precipitate a mass movement of votes between parties. They are arguments (heard often on these pages) that Brexit could create a crisis of a similar magnitude. Except it hasn't happened yet (as we often point out), and it is unclear to me whether one should expect to see poll movement pre-empting a crisis that might yet be averted.

So in my view, any leader would have their work cut out in achieving such a large majority, even after taking into account the poor performance of the current government. I accept that there may be a number of people who are sufficiently repelled by Corbyn that they wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances, but might vote for Labour otherwise. I estimate this number as about 600,000 (based on Blair's 1997 performance), enough to squeeze a narrow majority (or most likely a Labour minority government). This is an imperfect estimate, of course, based on too little and the wrong kind of data, so I'd be delighted to see some detailed polling figures on this question. The most recent thing I've found after the most cursory possible search is this: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sadiq-khan-labour-leader_uk_59c6c7dbe4b0cdc77331aa33 but I don't see a way to extrapolate from that to the 3.2 million people who would need to switch from Tory to Labour (twice as many, if we're going via the Tory to LibDem route) to achieve the 20% margin that is felt by some to be achievable.

If anyone is interested in my opinion (which they probably aren't), I think a result like 44-36 is potentially achievable in the absence of a LD resurgence. Whether or not that would be more achievable with a different leader, I don't know. My personal preference would be for a leader who has roughly the same social democratic principles as Corbyn but furthermore unafraid to make the case for remaining in the EU and with a squeaky-clean past and image to boot so that the tabloids have nothing to rake up on him or her (and if it were a her I would be doubly-delighted). A shift back to Miliband-era blandism (epitomised for me by that awful Edstone moment) I fear (admittedly with no numbers to back this up, so we are in the land of feelings here) would be at best neutral in terms of polling numbers for Labour, and might make a few Tory voters less inclined to show up on the day.

Anyway, I agree that this is probably straying too far from the point of this thread.

This article about views on a second referendum illustrates the stubbornness of political opinion:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/03/brexit-redcar-bracknell-steel
I suspect this sort of thinking also contributes towards the steady Tory polling, despite the difficulties faced by the current government.

Brexit could create a crisis of a similar magnitude. Except it hasn't happened yet

While the boiling frog analogy might be wrong in fact, it could true as an analogy of political opinion.

A grain-of-sand by grain-of-sand emergence of changes, rather than a cataclysmic cliff-edge are not comparable.

I think there's a certain amount of weird bi-partisan jostling going on in the media too, with Ultra-Brexiteers pointing to the grain-of-sand situation screaming it's not enough to their acolytes, while Remainers point to it and say well, we never said it would be overnight to theirs.

Meanwhile, Remainers are pointing to the cliff-edge saying that's what we want to avoid to their opponents, while the Bresiteers are pointing back to them saying that's exactly what we want

Confused ? You will be after this weeks episode of Soap ...

I wonder what the halves and corners should be ?

So depressing I can hardly read the news anymore. Where did this mogg person come from?

Eeee I don't expect a government to ever win by 20%

• in fact I would find this very dangerous, unless a coalition of the 2 main parties if the country faces total disaster

However, I do expect the Opposition in opinion polls to reach this at least sometimes, against what is, imo, the most incompetent & chaotic post-WW2 govt by far

We have seen huge leads for opposition parties in the past, against not quite so disastrous govts in trouble.
Of course, this size lead is never carried through into a following GE, because many disgusted govt voters decide they just can't vote for the other side.

However, Labour have not managed a substantial even once since the EU ref, let alone the huge lead I would expect from any decent Opposition in these circs.
And Corbyn is often even behind May in voters ratings, behind the most obviously weak, incompetent, ignorant & nasty PM I can remember (my memories go back to the late 1960s)

John Major was powerless at the end, but I felt that until his "bastards" shafted him, he had the ability & knowledge required;
also that he is basically a decent human being, even if I disagreed with some of his views.
May would be hopeless even if the Ultras vanished in a puff of smoke.
She is ignorant, close-minded & stubborn - a dreadful combination for any leader
She has very nasty instincts too, wrt ethnic minorities and playing up populism (incompetently) to boost her personal support

Does anyone actually mean 20 points ahead in the polls? Isn't it just a way of saying that the opposition should be doing a lot better than they are ?

An opposition so openly seeking to deliver for the 48% while undermining a manifesto commitment to the 52% is always going to struggle to poll ahead of a Government at least trying to deliver for the majority, however chaotically, imho.

Hmm, howabout, I'm not sure how convincingly the Labour party is seeking to deliver for the 48% - a lot of us on these threads feel that they aren't trying very hard at all.

It's really easy if you follow the EURef board to think that Brexit is the only issue at the moment but occasionally I have to accept that it isn't. While politics generally are a turn-off for a lot of people, areas such as education and the NHS are ones that many care passionately about (look at the NHS march yesterday) and it would be hard to frame the Tories as doing great work in either of those two sectors. Even areas in which we are led to believe the Conservatives are in their comfort zone - economy and armed forces, for example - we find that they are bumping along the bottom.

The Labour Party should be miles ahead (whether that means by 20 points or only

Does anyone actually mean 20 points ahead in the polls?

I don’t know. You tell me. But I do find that outrageous claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny tend to undermine an argument. And 20 points (spouted by Blair and repeated unquestioningly by media commentators and others) is an outrageous claim (although I take the point that polls can show bigger swings than election results).

I share the frustration that Labour's not polling better, as given the way the electoral system works, it seems at least a 6 point margin is needed to actually secure a parliamentary majority. But there are several factors at play - the stubbornness of support for Brexit and the Tories, the failure of the Liberal Democrats to attract any support, and indeed Corbyn’s limitations as a leader. But it’s always Corbyn that’s to blame, for everything, and this gets tedious.

Anecdata, but my leave voting mother told me the other day she would consider voting for JC as he appears to be the only politician with principles and he is think8ng of things to benefit everyone.
My mother is the archetypal floater and voted leave because of the 1975 referendum but hates the way the government/country is going.
If she is considering a vote for JC there must be others out there.

Many of those in the media who are saying Labour should be 20 points ahead or massively ahead in the polls are the same ones who said Labour would be wiped out in the last election, therefore I take their political insight with a large pinch of salt.

Interesting perspective from your DM, Quentin and one which I share despite being a lot younger. Taking Eeeeew's and lala's comments from the opposing pov it would be interesting to see what impact Labour fully embracing Brexit would have. I don't understand where Remainers would desert to?

I find Corbyn desperately disappointing, although still think Labour would be better than this shower. He's not to blame for everything, but I do think he should be unequivocally, categorically standing up for human rights; calling out the Rees-Mogg untruths, speaking up for judges, women, civil servants, immigrants, ethnic minorities; all those who are being wrongly attacked or blamed.

His failure to do this so often, along with his backing for Brexit and Repel Bill legislation, makes him seem complicit with the Tories. (It also must make many people wonder whether he'd actually stick up for them, if push came to shove.)

What is his game plan? It might be too late by the time he gets round to doing something.

For anyone who feels brave enough to see a modern day government sponsored Nazi ad:
I was in Hungary last week and it was in every single ad break on government-sponsored channels.
Orban is whipping up right-wing populism and pretends to stand against the EU, but actually the Hungarian government has already secretly fulfilled its refugee quota.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexiteers-threaten-to-replace-theresa-may-with-dream-team-of-boris-johnson-michael-gove-and-jacob-a3757416.html%3famp

If this actually happens, I am going to live in the Shetlands, become self sufficient and never watch/listen to the news again.
It can’t happen can it? Please someone tell me it can’t 🔫💊

I think you're ok mrshoolies. It won't happen.

This very series of threads started as a 'Boris did that on purpose didn't he'

He won't put himself in the hot seat because he knows it's a poison chalice.

MrsH Shetlands sounds tempting!, There will be a lot planning to move up there I think.
On twitter now is #cakeism Twitter storm around the 'can't have your cake and eat it', with nice pictures of cakes. Not exactly stopping brexit, but then what is.
@A50Challenge also asking for people to follow them at 7 tonight, if anyone is on twitter.
Interesting on the state TV in Hungary Elena BBC must be getting their ideas straight out of the (ex) Soviet handbook.

Oo this is surprising

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/police-called-as-boozy-boys-wreck-michael-goves-daughters-15th-birthday-party-a3748291.html%3famp
I have just been speaking to DD about this.She is in the same year as MG’s daughter but not same school. However, she knows a few people who attended.
MG claims that he wasn’t there but allegedly he definitely was. At one point, a load of kids alledgedly went into his daughters’s bedroom, grabbed a load of revision text books and started allegedly throwing them at him and hitting him over the head with them. He allegedly was not happy and kept repeating ‘Please leave my property’ whilst turning a spectacular shade of puce.

Both parties are chasing the 52%

• after all, Leavers keep claiming legitimacy because 80% of the voters support "Brexit parties"

Many centrists and Tory Remainers see no point in changing their vote to another Brexit party !
Labour voters are 70% Remain, which Corbyn seems to be ignoring

I remember one party or the other being 20% ahead in the polls at various times
when the other party was in total disarray

Even a recently as the 1990s, Labour were 20% ahead for good chunks of time, especially under Blair, where they sometimes polled 50-60%, see 90s graphs

iirc, there was at least one poll about Labour 60% vs Tory 20% !