Westminstenders: Plan B is Plan A again.

[RedToothBrush]

The voting starts around 7pm and is expected to finish up between 8pm and 8.20pm.

May is expected to lose. The question is by how much.

We are then expecting an immediate motion of no confidence in the government by Labour to be put forward.

May is expected to make a speech to calm the markets and then go to Brussels for an utterly pointless visit.

The Labour No Confidence is expected tomorrow afternoon after PMQs. Its expected to fail.

We move no closer to a resolution and ever closer to no deal.

Half the Cabinet want to go into cross party talks. Half the Cabinet don't.

May is apparently insistent that Plan B is Plan A. Which is what you would expect her to tell the house to comply with Grieve IV. Which again is bollocks.

But Bercow could yet refuse to indulge it.

If Plan B is Plan A again, then what's Plan C?

Crisis with a Capital C.

The stalemate grows.

I'm in favour of dropping 'stupid' for something les value-laden - but factually accurate - such as 'resistant to engaging with complex information'.

There are good, good reasons why people are resistant. And a lot of education is based around acknowledging this fact and dealing with it.

It's not a bad thing. In fact, it has no moral index at all.

And it is, frankly, most children/people some of the time and a goodly proportion of people/children all the time.

There's a great thread running by @Otto_English at the moment looking at various psychological terms, concepts, ideas around the phenomenon.

Acknowledging it as s feature of being human is OK. You can then think about ways to deal with it.

It's easier in a classroom - the whole context is about paying people to find ways to facilitate the transfer of complex information, despite the numerous barriers to that transfer taking place (and testing those paid individuals to ensure they do, and sometimes being quite punitive if they don't succeed!!!!)

It's way harder when we leave the environment of a classroom.

Honestly, there are really good reasons why people don't engage. I think it's rarer to find people who are predisposed the other way.

Because most of the things that led people to vote to leave were nothing to do with the EU, remain and change are perfectly compatible (as is remain and no change). They are two entirely separate issues that have been conflated by people with a vested interest.

I agree with your point.

But you can't 'sell' remain in a ref if you don't offer more than just the EU.

Cos you'll never be able to untangle the mess of what people think the EU does in the short time period available.

In the long term, yes untangling is necessary. In the short term, good luck.

We all know that EU would like to become a state

No, we don't all "know" this

Daily Mail readers might think this.

Some in the EU might want this.

But it is not official policy.

Many do not want this.

Working "in ever closer union" does not mean becoming a single state.

Quite apart from the point that the UK would have been in a position to stop it happening even though it wasn't going to happen if it remained a member

I don't know how you beat the leave propaganda machine, certainly not with facts! Which is the reason I'm
Nervous about another referendum, but if the only other option is no deal then referendum it has to be.

But you can't 'sell' remain in a ref if you don't offer more than just the EU.

Which is another argument against one.

There is no way to ‘sell’ staying to people who now have a long held deep conviction they want to leave. It’s tribal, it’s quasi political religion, it’s not rational at all.

Marketing political ideas based on options that don’t really exist and we don’t actually have a plan for is not really possible.

I think your analysis is sound RTB but one could also turn the Carswell point around and ask what it is that the Leavers wish us to become, once we have left. Somehow the idea that free trade will make Britain "great again" sounds not merely dated but positively Victorian. But we do need radical change to overcome the sense of alienation (to use a favourite 1970s term). Sadly, I don't see that kind of change coming within the current political system. I'm no spring chicken, but Corbyn and Cable both seem like political dinosaurs to me.

And thats the type of thinking we need to work on - 'What do we want to become?'

Where do we want to go.

I fundamentally disagree with Carswell, but he offers massive clues to how you need to think and where you need to go with a sales pitch.

And remember its a sales pitch not a deep understanding of the issues that'll win another ref.

I wish it were not the case, but thats the reality.

Long term understanding of complex issues is a goal, but you'll never manage it within the political timeframe that might appear.

I don't think Leave won because of social media. While all this is going on, there will be people who's livelihoods are dependent on social media advertising whose job it is to convince you that social media works. That way people pay them to advertise.

Which is why the US election/Russia "hacker" narrative (eerily echoed in the Leave campaign/Russia "hacker" narrative here ) is interesting. If I were a Facebook sales advertising executive, I would pay for stories like that.

Secretly, I suspect governments love stories like that too. It gives them something to do while giving them an excuse to do nothing.

As I said upthread ... I'm not dismissing social media out of hand. But I am well aware there are a lot of vested interests in making people believe it's more than it is.

I'm quite comfortable with using the word stupid for a group of people who consistently demonstrate their lack of ability to grasp the iss

STOP !!!!!

If someone hasn't the ability to grasp the issues, there are deserving of the patience and effort of those that do, to get an explanation they can grasp. They are not stupid or ignorant.

Thanks DGR
I think this is a very point to make.

Behind every remainer is an authoritarian who thinks they know how to live your life better than you do
I imagine that was from a Leaver. THIS is how Leavers feel when they hear again and again that they don’t understand or don’t know anything and if they educate themselves, learn about THE truth/facts, then they would just come back to their sense and support Remain.

The Remain side has made a huge mistake. Instead of trying to wnsurevthat people wouod fall (back?) in love with the EU, they’ve been trying to tell people they dint understand or to use fear to make them change their mind.
That sort of attitude isn’t working and has never worked.
Being condescending ‘trying to explain again’ isn’t working either.

The reality is that Leavers have their own reasons to vote leave. My MIL is desperate to go back to a more simple world where some values are shared again. Values that are actually closer to the left than the right. Her answer is to ‘go back in time’. It might not be workable BUt her feelings about the world is going is still valid and shouod be taken )to consideration.
Same with people desperate to get out of poverty. Remain means stale mate, no change. When they are actually dreaming of something better. Of course theyvare going to fight against that! And their feelings can’t be ignored either.
Because all of those feelings are the expression of massive issues within the society that need to be addressed. People might not be able to express those in facts and numbers and nice theories but their feelings are still valid.

I think something similar is actually happening in France (bar the extremists creating mayhem and using the GJ movement for themselves).

I am a fervent defender of the EU. I am not sure I wouod défend the U.K. staying in the EU as i think it would actually be detrimental to the EU and the U.K.
But what’s happening now is a symptom of a much deeper movement that has to be taken into account. Of problems that need to be addressed if we want a stable society that will ‘provide’ (safety, food, satisfaction) for everyone.
It’s also a symptoms of the deep failing of the current political system. That isn’t that Democratic after all.

Until our politicians are ready to accept that, whatever solution they will find (PV or not) will always leave the majority of people dissatisfied and ressentful.

There is no way to ‘sell’ staying to people who now have a long held deep conviction they want to leave. It’s tribal, it’s quasi political religion, it’s not rational at all.

You aren't selling to them though. You are selling to the waverers and the not quite sures.

Because most of the things that led people to vote to leave were nothing to do with the EU, remain and change are perfectly compatible (as is remain and no change). They are two entirely separate issues that have been conflated by people with a vested interest.

Yes. And ironically the changes that Leave want to see - end of austerity, more money for the NHS, better regional investment need a healthy economy to deliver that only Remain can provide.

I have a leave voting relative. He's a well off baby boomer who has held a 40 year grudge against the EU since the last referendum (75).

He is a very intelligent, well educated and def not racist man but he finds leave information that supports his view and runs with it.

If even he can't be reached with independent, well researched information then facts aren't going to work.

I’m clearly too slow to type.
Some of my points have been made by other posters already! :)

You don't start to engage with someone who likes brexit by talking about brexit.

Yes, I agree with this 100%.

The practical problem is that you can't just magic the Brexit problem away, and while Brexit is unresolved, the space for genuine policy debate is much reduced.

I genuinely don't see a solution. I don't think there is a magic way of making Brexit less all-consuming, but unless it becomes less all-consuming, it will not be possible to have a sensible debate on other issues. Something needs to happen to detoxify the issue and to allow a compromise but I cannot see what that could possibly be.

There was a great line that the Dutch MEP said in the clip posted yesterday, which was that UK MPs have to understand that NOBODY will get 100% of what they are wanting and they have to work with that.
The EU is compromising and loosing a lot too, it is nothing like clear cut.

Mistrigri in fairness to Corbyn, I think this is what he is trying to do. The problem is that Brexit is very firmly a problem that he has to engage with within the next two months. For the sake of the country. Which he doesn't want to do.

We need time and time is the very thing we lack the most.

We’ve had so long : (

Just joined MN in order to delurk. I’ve been following the Westminstenders threads for several days. Thank you! (Disappears to carry on reading in a vain attempt to keep up...)

RedToothBrush

'You aren't selling to them though. You are selling to the waverers and the not quite sures.'

Yes. I think we have to acknowledge there is a 'lost' group. They're gone. In the time available, they are a lost cause. And a waste of time and energy (fatally so, given the time constraints).

Focusing on those who display unease with the Leave narrative and a predisposition to engage is far more fruitful.

There was a great line that the Dutch MEP said in the clip posted yesterday, which was that UK MPs have to understand that NOBODY will get 100% of what they are wanting and they have to work with that.

A lot of "Leavers" would be quite happy with Remainers being angry - regardless of what Brexit they get. We're still in the "it's not enough to win, someone else must lose" phase of engagement.

THe problem is everyone has been almost forced into a "team" and, sorry dhrossetti, but social media is a massive part of that, and once you're on a team you then only see one side of the argument, eg twitter followings and Facebook groups, threads like this etc etc

You aren't selling to them though. You are selling to the waverers and the not quite sures.

Tbh I think many of the waverers and not quite sures have already defected either to Remain or No Deal. If the Remain campaign can only hope to affect the residual waverers it won’t be very effective and the result may be very close.

Selling is an essentially a superficial activity - it’s very hard to market complex ideas effectively. Leave’s success was that the ideas it marketed were very simple as well as false. They appealed to voters fitting Catfromjapan’s excellent description of people resistant to engaging with complex information'.

I don’t disagree that Remain have to sell more than the EU - but in reality that’s incredibly hard. Because the Remain ++ position is essentially complex.

We're still in the "it's not enough to win, someone else must lose" phase of engagement.

This has been one of the popular Leaver tropes since 2016. See the recurrent narrative about the EU being about to crumble, the “now you Remainers know how it feels”, and the frequent reminders that Brexit will hurt the EU too.

I've had some enlightening and useful conversations with people who will never change their minds. Listening is useful to a certain extent if you can get engagement and understand its not going to change a mind (I think it worthwhile in a long term strategy tbh)

But in terms of time constraints they are not the people to focus on.

The trouble is Street stalls are only going to attract the two extremes and not the middle type. That's going require a lot of door knocking.

I'm sorry but I can't believe there are still concerns about a superstate.Jeez.

I understand and hear that people feel frightened and worried about this but why?

The wording about close union ^^ was in the one of the original treaties, it was that general touchy-feely waffle about not fighting and having closer union of the peoples of Europe, it's absolutely not a governmental union.

Anyway. Cameron. agreed. an .exception. to .this .wording . for. the U.K.

My FiL frequently mentions this. He says he is frightened of being taken over.

But just think it through...All of a sudden all member states voting to let MEPs centralise more areas? Really? What co- ordinating an EU wide run health service, elderly social care or setting an EU wide standardised educational Curriculum? As if. No one wants this. It's a ridiculous unfounded fear and does not warrant ditching leading membership of a lucrative trading bloc.

It's all very well to say we must listen to Leavers but what do you do with FiL who is frightened of being taken over?

i would also say that there is good and bad immigration. I know the conversation is not about it at the moment but FWIW:
It depends on the attitudes of those immigrating and the percentage with respect to the 'locals'.
Ignoring housing issues, a village which saw an influx of say 40% immigrants who when they arrive use the local language, contribute to the local clubs and economy and generally be 'another friendly face' joining in would cause very little friction.
A much smaller group, say even 5% or less who don't attempt to mix, demand their own clubs that 'exclude' the locals will be far more disruptive and cause resentment.
Stereotypically Northern Europeans would come in the former scenario as lives in their original homeland is similar.
It is not about race or language, but far more about attitude.
The video of Brits in Southern Spain appalled me with many of their attitudes. I realise I am being hypocritical personally but it is down to current inability rather than not wishing to be fluent.