Westministenders: Groundhog Day

[RedToothBrush]

Groundhog day is 2nd Feb.

Its also today. And yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before.

We have all turned into Bill Murray.

That's Brexit in the UK.

The only progress seems to be linguistic gymnastics not policy.

No action has been implemented, we are still on words going nowhere.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Pain @BootstrapCook's tweets are brilliant; especially the price rise ones since 2010.
There's another little thread on twitter in which someone's worked out his EU contributions weekly as being 78p.
That's nearly 3 Freddo chocolate bars, apparently; people are having fun with that stat.

Apologies if this has already been posted.

www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/layoffs-arrive-in-brexit-britain-and-auto-workers-are-up-first/ar-BBJcEuL?li=AA54rU&srcref=rss&utm_content=bufferadc96&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

There's another little thread on twitter in which someone's worked out his EU contributions weekly as being 78p.
That's nearly 3 Freddo chocolate bars, apparently; people are having fun with that stat. smile

Do you think if I just sent the EU a cheque for £50 a year they would let me keep freedom of movement

Somerville I think it was more lived experience. She died in 2001 aged 98 and as a young woman fought in the Irish War of Independence. As a member of Cumann na mBan she was later held as a political prisoner in Kilmainham and was fiercely opposed to the Anglo Irish Treaty of 1921 which resulted in partition. She remained a 32 county republican all her life but was fiercely opposed to the IRA violence in NI and bombs in Britain that resulted in civilian deaths. She felt that dialogue was the way forward but never completely trusted the powers that be in Westminster and the more extreme unionists. I wonder what she would make of what is happening now.

A random assortment of quotes from this one article:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/17/neil-kinnock-jeremy-corbyn-labour-stop-brexit-save-nhs

“Even contempt for ‘experts’ cannot obscure the evidence that the Johnson-led Brexit vote has already damaged and will inflict future harm on the NHS,” Kinnock said. “Meanwhile – vitally - Brexit has already diminished, and will continue to depress, the revenues on which the NHS depends. “If Johnson really wanted the extra NHS spending, which is sorely needed, he wouldn’t be using the issue as a ploy to feed his lust for the Tory leadership but would be working to end Brexit.

The pressure on Labour’s leadership comes as a second major donor pledged a six-figure sum to fund a campaign to stop Brexit and warned that he would “not be silenced” by attacks he believes are designed to discourage those opposed to Britain’s exit from the EU. Stephen Peel, an Olympic rower and former Tory donor, said he had not been put off by attacks aimed at George Soros, the billionaire financier who faced a backlash from Brexiters after giving £400,000 to a new anti-Brexit campaign.

News of the donation came as a key Labour policy meeting descended into chaos and acrimony yesterday, after an extraordinary row over an internal party post led to claims of bullying and gerrymandering.

Labour really need to sort themselves out. They could probably stop all this nonsense if they wanted to.

Labour really need to sort themselves out

yesterday, we had a leaflet introducing our Labour candidates for the local elections ... obviously nothing whatsoever about their position on the biggest issue of this generation.

Chatting with DW, and we are starting to think it's LibDems - the only party that won't take a vote for them as a vote for Brexit.

It's time for a change anyway ... the incumbent Tories have actually been not too bad for local issues, until they managed to undo 12 years of good work last year with a one-sentence email.

I'm voting lib dem next time. We live in a marginal tory held seat and I would much rather vote labour and get the tories out. I am also a labour member. But I'm not having my vote taken as a tacit acceptance of brexit like it was last time.

Ukip managed to get a referendum without coming anywhere close to winning anything so I don't see why, if enough people vote for pro EU parties, we can't do the same.

Yep
Lib dems for me too
Which is a wasted vote here but....

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/18/ukip-gerard-batten-islam-muslims-quran

Analysis of voters suggests the over-50s will continue to vote heavily Tory to protect their wealth
They support austerity.
Their aims are to stop cheap housing and resist more public spending

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/17/labour-dreaming-uk-wants-socialism-privatisation

Thera are several of us here over 50, over 60, who don't think like that, but we are a clear minority in the older age group

Analysis of voters suggests the over-50s will continue to vote heavily Tory to protect their wealth

No one asked us ... they couldn't be more wrong - and we own our home etc etc.

Another over 60 who has never voted Tory and doesn't intend to start.

As for LibDems being a wasted vote, which it will be in many areas, don't forget that the percentage of votes cast also matter. The BBC have used this as the justification for having UKIP routinely on the Question Time panels, despite them having no MPs now. Once on, of course, they are free to spread their poison.

Another one who has never voted Tory and am 56, a home owner and looking forward to a generous final salary pension scheme (albeit with not quite the full number of years)

However, I will never ever vote Labour again - even though I am strongly left wing and am happy to pay more taxes for good public services to my personal financial detriment.

Westministenders are not typical of the population, particularly the 50+ and 60+ voters

Check out the militant "I'm all right, Jill" older posters on several recent threads

• no empathy there for the young, just droning on about 15% interest rates (which I suffered too, but were only a few months and on v much lower mortgages)

If I were young now, I would almost certainly be at the start of a very different life to what I have now, what I have enjoyed wrt education, career, home, pension, brokerage accounts …
I recognise young people now are most unlikely to have the same luck we did, not at similar ages and for similar effort & talent

Govt chickens out of planned HoC committee meetings in Washington Embassy

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/18/mps-fake-news-inquiry-barred-uk-washington-embassy-donald-trump

“The fact that our own elected MPs weren’t able to hold a committee meeting at the UK embassy in Washington DC
because of fears it would upset the president is, frankly, embarrassing,”

said Murray, a supporter of the Open Britain campaign group.

“People didn’t vote for Brexit just so we could cosy up to Donald Trump.”

I voted Labour at the last election as we had a shot at getting rid of our Tory MP (didn't get her out, but margin narrowed enough for her to take drastic action)
Am dismayed that my vote was interpreted as support for Brexit'so will definitely be voting Libdem next time. So my MP should relax a bit, she's safe for many years to come if others do the same.

Labour really need to sort themselves out. They could probably stop all this nonsense if they wanted to.

I understand their reticence though, the minute they come out on opposing Brexshit the Tories and the right wing media are going to go all out on the whole will of the people narrative again, but by being relatively silent they can allow the Tories to destroy themselves on this

BigChocFrenzy - maybe the difference is that I live in Scotland, so I only know Remain voters - almost all of whom (including my now 81 year old Dad) are over 50!

I had the local Labour candidate knock on my door on Thursday (solidly Tory council of which it is rumoured the Conservatives may lose control). I'm a lifelong Labour voter and said that I couldn't vote for them because of the party's Brexit stance, he looked gloomy, I got the impression that I wasn't the first person to say that (this is an area that voted 75% to remain). He said maybe I should concentrate on local issues but I told him I can't, it would just be seen as an endorsement of national policies. As a parting shot, I said I wasn't very impressed by Corbyn's unilateral declaration that self-ID'ing men are women at which point he looked really incredulous, as if he hadn't believed until that point that such bigots existed and scuttled off.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/18/labour-win-election-party-of-remain-brexit

This research shows something stark**
– that regardless of region, age, class or the type of constituency,
the number of Labour voters who supported Remain vastly outstrips Labour voters who supported Leave.

It shows that Labour is the party of Remain in every age group, class and every region of the country, including in the north and among working-class voters

According to the British Election Study, just 9% of Labour’s total vote in 2017 is likely to have been Leave supporters, for whom Brexit was the issue they were most concerned about.
By comparison, 30% of Labour’s vote in the BES seems to have been those who voted in favour of EU membership and labelled Brexit as their most important issue.

I do understand the position Labour is in. They have got to try to make sure that the Tories shoulder the full blame when the shit hits the fan, so hence their fence sitting now. As it stands any slight compromise and the Heil and Torygraph plus May's Brexshitters will be screaming how it's all Labours fault that Brexit has failed. After all, they are still milking Labour's years in Government for all the ills of the country, despite having had eight years to sort things out.

^This is madness. Surely at some point, Corbyn is going to have to change the party's position (and preferably before the May local elections)?

I think time is running out for the fence-sitting strategy. Yes, I completely agree with the analysis that the Conservatives should carry the can and any move is going to be twisted as a way of kicking that can towards Labour (I mean, come on, why wouldn't they? It's going to be carnage) but ... tick, tick, tick.

It shows that Labour is the party of Remain in every age group, class and every region of the country, including in the north and among working-class voters

Ironic in a way, since it was the Tories that took us in ...