Westminstenders: Exit 2020 Vision

[RedToothBrush]

Yet it is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and the superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, capturers and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility. And it occasionally happens that this underworld becomes a political power and changes the course of history.
Norm Cohn ‘Warrant for Genocide’ 1970

(As referenced by Nick Cohen).

We have a deal (or bits of a deal). Bino til Dec 2020. Then the cliff?

Still a long way to go. It sounds better than it could be. But worse than it initially seems.

woman The SWP have staged a coup d'etat and taken over Labour
The Tories have a weak leader struggling to keep the hard right on board

It's what can happen under an FPTP system:
the far left and right can't get representation in Parliament under their own colours, so they infiltrate the main parties;
just a few careless decisions by moderates and not paying attention allow the extremes to take over

Yes, BigChoc. And then the moderates in both those parties leave and ... you end up getting governed by a group representing a minority, theoretically elected democratically but actually very, very undemocratically (with reference to how they are representative of the opinion of the majority of the electorate) elected from within the party structure.

It's very hard to think of any resolution of this situation any time soon.

cat I agree that lack of a big party machine - along with tribalism - means a new centre party would not get elected in sufficient numbers.

FPTP is a big barrier - Macron could start a new party and win under the French system, but wouldn't have had the same success under FPTP

Also, no time for a new party to start and the next GE is too late even if they squeezed out a miracle and won

Any centre grouping would have to form within the next few months from existing MPs
i.e. a temporary all-party alliance only to stop a hard Brexit

• but JC is the roadblock here, because it would probably be no improvement to replace, or threaten to replace, May by him

I honestly think that there has to be a massive reinvigoration of the centre, with a mass influx of moderates back into political parties. That seems to be happening in the US but not here.

Yes. I agree with that, BigChoc.

Both Cameron and May made the terrible decision to put party first, before country

They should have said that, particularly after such a narrow vote, Brexit would be handled on a cross-party basis, discussing policy and forming a consensus with all the other parties.

This should have been done before invoking A50 - along with the impact assessments & outline plans of the various scenarios

The only way I could see a cross party effort happening would be another election, where the seats won didn't give any one an overall majority and there would be no way to make the arithmetic of one or two parties in coaliton work.

E.g. something like, the Tories and Labour got 270 apiece, LibDems 35 SNP 45, Plaid Cymru 10, DUP 8, with Sinn Fein getting 10 but not taking their seats and the speaker not counting. This assumes no reduction in seats- which at present is not looking as likely as it was 18 months ago. So to get a majority the winning party would have to get 319 seats - Lab and SNP could almost do it but would need either PC or LD on board. Similarly the Tories would have to get the DUP and SNP on board. I think we can safely assume that they have blown any chance of a coalition with the LibDems for the forseable future. Fantasy? Not necessarily - the SNP got almost all seats, was it 54 in 2015? The Lib Dems have been up to 60 odd. It's possibly a bit generous for PC. SF and DUP very likely I would think, with demographics beginning to favour SF.

Any centre grouping would have to form within the next few months from existing MPs

I think we are seeing the beginnings of this at the grass routes level with the various elections coming up in May. Depending on how those results go, I think we might well see the beginnings of something at a Parliamentary level. It might be happening more in the US because Trump is a very clear figure to rally against, whereas Brexit is still hopelessly undefined - we might crash out, we might get BINO, but BINO would suit quite a lot of people.

RTB
Derby North's Labour MP, Chris Williamson, has been found in breach of the members' code of conduct. He failed to declare part-ownership of a property in Derby.
He's apologised, but says he was misled by the way the rules are written which he maintains are misleading.

LOL
Neither here nor there, but this is straight out of the unofficial playbook of how white people get away with stuff black people would be shot for in the US - you show that you are a really law abiding citizen by implying you are familiar with the rules, and you also imply that you have given them some thought, and thus your crime is an honest mistake.

You know, that Pete North thread has annoyed me.

I read the slightly desperate clutchings of a slightly desperate but also desperate clutchings of a desperately arrogant man.

He can't quite admit his part, his responsibility, in unleashing a shitstorm.

He's pleading with us - Remainers, anyone - to accept his dream that this shitstorm won't be as bad and as huge a mistake - a once-in-three-generations-mistake - as he knows (deep down) it is.

He wants us to collude in his fantasy (that there can be an up-side, the car-crash can be avoided), shore up his ego (he was right) and (and this is the bit that grates) take the blame for it going wrong (the whole 'Remainers who stick to a hard Remain will be responsible for things going wrong).

He needs a psychiatrist, frankly - not molly-coddling or collusion.

Weirdly, Chris Williamson was the one who floated the idea of higher-band council-tax payers paying significantly more council-tax and played the whole 'political purity' card in so doing. I genuinely don't understand how people like this manage that level of cognitive dissonance.

BigChoc
red I am staggered that the civil servant in charge of doling out the NHS part of the DUP bung is married to one of their MPs

He should have been transferred to avoid that blatant conflict of interest

You should not be stunned by conflicts of interest in NI, BigChoc.
Emma Little Pengelly's father is Noel Little, who was arrested in Paris in 1989 along with a South African diplomat and an American arms dealer and two others from NI.

A court later heard that the loyalists were trying to procure arms from South Africa in return for missile technology from Northern Ireland, where a model of one missile and parts of another one had gone missing from a Territorial Army depot in Newtownards and from a Short factory in Belfast.

The court was told that Little, from Co Armagh, was the main instigator of the plot.

All three loyalists were given suspended sentences and received fines of up to 50,000 francs.

A year before the French arrests, a massive consignment of arms was smuggled into Northern Ireland from South Africa and the weapons were divided between Ulster Resistance, the UDA and the UVF.

A large number of the weapons have been recovered, but the whereabouts of many of Ulster Resistance's guns are still a mystery.

Several years ago Little, who had been photographed in 1986 with a red-bereted Peter Robinson after one of Ulster Resistance's first rallies in Portadown, denied to a British newspaper that he had been involved in the first gunrunning plot.

But he added: "I would deny it even if I was (involved)."

Little is now a church steward.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/terrorist-father-of-dups-newest-mla-emma-pengelly-works-as-steward-at-st-annes-cathedral-31592183.html

Ulster Resistance:
Origins
The group was launched [in 1986] at a three thousand-strong invitation-only meeting at the Ulster Hall. The rally was chaired by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Press Officer Sammy Wilson and addressed by party colleagues Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Ivan Foster. Also on the platform was Alan Wright, the chairman of the Ulster Clubs. The launch rally was followed by a number of similar assemblies across Northern Ireland.[5][6] Its aim were to “take direct action as and when required” to end the Anglo-Irish Agreement.[7]

At a rally in Enniskillen, Peter Robinson announced: "Thousands have already joined the movement and the task of shaping them into an effective force is continuing. The Resistance has indicated that drilling and training has already started. The officers of the nine divisions have taken up their duties."[8][9]

At a rally in the Ulster Hall, Paisley spoke of a need for an extra-governmental Third Force to fight against the aims of Irish republicanism. He was then filmed dramatically placing a red beret on his head and standing to attention. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson was also photographed wearing the militant loyalist paramilitary regalia of beret and military fatigues at an Ulster Resistance rally.[10][11][12]

A mass membership failed to materialise, but active groups were established in country areas such as County Armagh, attracting support from rural conservative Protestants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Resistance

It's all very incestuous.

ALittleAubergine Sat 24-Mar-18 09:41:24
I still think labour would have been a better choice than tories in the last election and from the look of things, in the next ge as well unless there are big changes both ways

I agree with that, Aubergine. Warts and all, I would prefer Labour (though I am not commenting from the UK). That being said, I think they fatally squandered the chance to provide a real opposition to Brexit, and they did this for ideological reasons.

JC seems to underestimate the threat Brexit poses to the UK economy and fails to understand that the socialism he wants may well end up taking place in Cuba-like conditions, with Cuban results, if Brexit goes through. You need an economy that generates money to make socialism work.

^Pete North can fuck right off.%

I agree Icantreachthepretzels.
This is 'shutup Remainers, you lost' yet again.

The result was 48-52. It it had been 80-20 then yeah, will of the people, whatever...

But 48% of people voted for no part of Brexit at all, whether soft or hard or anything in between and they certainly did not vote for the firesale that will happen after Brexit, or the economic disaster.

How could Pete North have missed the forces lurking in the background who would end up shouldering moderates out of the way? He was right in the thick of it in the IEA. You can't see all that he had a front row seat to and still think that your vote 'yes' or 'no' will somehow be interpreted in the very nuanced way you want it to be interpreted.

This is intellectual dishonesty.

RTB
I read north as saying, think about why voters voted to leave. Much of that was for domestic reasons, which include lack of transparency and poor accountability at local level. It includes a proper discussion over wealth being tied up in older generations in land and house value. It includes this Westminster bubble idea. Its stuff like an alternative to the dementia tax.

And whilst I also agree with your point, I also think that means we fail to provide an alternative to the hard left and right in other areas because there is so much energy spent on stopping brexit.

It means you aren't setting an agenda on other issues.

Brexit does remain my biggest issue. The Withdrawal Bill bothers me deeply. But at the same time, if it becomes all consuming there is nothing to persuade leavers that your vision is better either.

RTB, you can't set an agenda in other areas without first steering the ship away the iceberg. Writing manifestos while heading straight for it is folly.

Icantreach
Pete North is wrong. We don't have to explain why the status quo is good. They have to explain why change is better - and specifically the particular change they have chosen (brexit). The fact is -it isn't better it is decidedly worse. It is them that has to justify themselves, not us. No remainer was claiming that the EU was perfect - none of us wouldn't have been happy with some reform. But this change is catastrophic and it is not our responsibility to pitch an alternative future. The facts are on our side! It is the leavers responsibility to either deal with reality and make some hard decisions, or find a way to make unicorns real.

^^This

And I agree with The Cat's post of Sun 25-Mar-18 03:30:19 (He can't quite admit his part, his responsibility, in unleashing a shitstorm....)

I wasn't thinking along conspiracy lines yesterday, although I can see my posts probably came across that way. It was more an overwhelming sense of disappointment in those involved in politics at the moment. Using a six year old story as a retaliatory attack just seems a bit pathetic , you either have to admit you had no idea about it previously, which given the history is highly unlikely or you did know about it but chose to ignore it for your own benefit. I am not even sure now if I am making myself clear, I would just like someone , anyone, to stand up and be a political grown up , who I could vote for

Pete North can fuck right off.

He's just used some nice prose to pad out "Get over it, you lost," followed by "Let's all pull together and Think Nice Thoughts to make Nice Things Happen," and "It'll be Your Fault when My Sunlit Uplands don't materialise."

So to quote the wise words of one of MN's own Leavers, "Not my circus, not my monkeys".

morning all. blatant place marking.

I agree Pete North can fuck right off.

Like pretzels post of 23:15, I also agree we also know a lot of what needs changing domestically. A lot of us our out there campaigning for remain and for these changes. There's a massive cross over on the venn diagram and North is ignoring that as if there's none at all.

It doesn't change anything for the rich bastards who want to capitalise on the disaster though. Or those who just don't like forriners. But tbh I'd rather help out those who are starving and struggling to put a roof over their heads than those who would willingly inflict that on others.

our??? Thanks for the dodgy grammar change there autocorrect

We have the numbers. That's why one tiny thug rally in the midlands was reported on bbc, and why the many thousands who marched to stay in EU was not. Not reported in Observer or Independent that I can see.. The Pro EU marches have been reported in non english press though, and the news black out is also noted across the EU27.

We have the numbers; which is why local BBC which did report on some of our marches seems to have reduced the actual numbers in attendance by over 50%, as a matter of policy. In Leeds, they refer to hundreds on the march. In Ipswich they referred to 200, for 1000.
Just in attendance at the Leeds For Europe March were a dozen pro EU groups from the north of England.

But when some old men pollute a river it has dozens of press in servile attendance to stinky kippers. I include North in that description.

I’m glad that the blackout has been noted by other countries - I saw a French article acknowledging how the march hadn’t been reported by uk media and although it made me incredibly sad (and weirdly, embarrassed) to see, at least the marches have got some acknowledgement.

I wonder how the bbc can justify showing the US March for our lives as it’s top story while ignoring the marches here. Isn’t the fact that it’s two marches make it too much of a direct comparison to be drawn for them to get away with?

We have the numbers; which is why local BBC which did report on some of our marches seems to have reduced the actual numbers in attendance by over 50%, as a matter of policy.

They have always done that. I remember one Peace group march in the early 1980s which I went on. We arrived at about 1 pm, marched, heard the speeches and were leaving to get our coach, when other coaches coming down from the north, Wales, the west, were still arriving, three hours later. The reports said there were 10,000 on the march - we reckoned at least 100,000 or even twice or three times that.

But the encouraging thing is the statement we have the numbers because eventually, we won that battle. I am not sure if the protest was specifically against Cruise missiles, but they are gone, and the old Peace camp at Greenham Common is a memorial garden, and the camp is turning into a business park.

True, Peregrina and pain