Westminstenders: Election Special 3

[RedToothBrush]

Reactions...

Tatiana I think a lot of people did that.
It's not worth falling out with your sister.
The die is cast now.
Remain or Leave, we really are in the one boat now - heading for quite stormy waters.
And, I guess, we now have to deal with what is, not the past.
We need to make alliances and arguments based on what the coming years throw at us - and one way to do that is to embark on radical forgetting of who voted for that boat.

No way are you going to do that quickly.
But you may have to.

(One of my parents switched to a pro-Leave position for similar reasons. He didn't go as far as voting Conservative. So I guess it's easy for me to write all the above.)

Why could they just have not voted. How Remainers just gave up and voted Tory

I think a lot of Labour people did just not vote.

And, honestly, that must be quite tough, Tatiana.

(And thanks for sharing. I don't mean that in some awful management-speak way. I really mean it.
Reality is a mosaic of many little pieces - and assembling all those little pieces, when they are offered, is how we can get an idea of reality, not delusion.)

Well when Corbyn is out of the picture he won't be able to be blamed.

Blair is still to blame and he's been out of the picture for over a decade now.

catfromjapan

"we now have to deal with what is, not the past."

You are so right there. We have to wipe our eyes & get going.

Regret is the most wasteful emotion there is.

Oh I wouldn’t fall out with her, we get on very well, but I’m not sure that I will forgive her.

and sovereign equal this is the slap in the face to the EU, the sting in the tail, the rest of it is just utter bs with a mock attempt to acknowledge/placate the real concerns of remainders. Rewriting the absolutely huge role that the UK had always played in EU policy making. We'll be hearing a lot more of this little gem as the next slogan.

You have to hand it to Cummings, that he's got the gift of coming up with snappy slogans.

It will change the relationship. I already trust her less.

I've just read this article, by Sarah Ditum, in the problems with what she calls 'left-wing journalism'.*

I think it really spoke to me - and I'd love to know what other people think about it.

unherd.com/2019/12/how-left-wing-journalism-failed/

*I wouldn't call it 'left-wing journalism'. I'd call it unsubtle pro-Corbyn-at-all-costs propaganda. But that's her point, really.

My (otherwise lovely) Corbynista colleague hates Blairites even more than Tories. I said upthread that it’s that sort of sentiment that puts me off joining Labour, even though the lurch of LDs to the right and into trans fairyland (yes, I know that’s an issue in Labour too, but IMO there are more grown-ups about) has made me reject them, and my political views are now more aligned to what they were in my 20s than in my 30s-50s.

Oh please don't leave the Labour Party to your friend, born.
☹️

(🤦‍♀️The next few years are going to be a nightmare in the Labour Party.)

And, I guess, we now have to deal with what is, not the past.
We need to make alliances and arguments based on what the coming years throw at us - and one way to do that is to embark on radical forgetting of who voted for that boat.

Absolutely cat, I couldn't agree more. I realised on Friday that I have in fact already done the grieving for what was. Talking to my friends and a dejected DS, I also realised many aren't quite done with that. It's a long and personal process.

Tatiana my dear friend voted Tory too. It was such a shock when she told me...she is so kind and and generous hearted that it came as a complete surprise. I felt really sad and disappointed. It didn't last - an X on the ballot paper doesn't change her many wonderful qualities and she has a right to vote for whoever she wants. I told her though I would completely forget she did that as I knew it might colour my view if I didn't and that would be terrible.

Tatiana I do get where you are coming from.

I got a shock recently with someone close to me. Their views, well they were basically straight out of the daily Express. I knew they always were, but they have hardened so much in the last few years.

I hope I never know how they voted on Thursday.

Your sister sounds lovely. She just voted to bring this to an end. We all need normality back. We are bone weary.

And as a business owner she was probably terrified about JC - rightly or wrongly.

Even if we got a 2nd referendum and remain one.

It was never going to solve the problem.

The only way to lance this boil is to get Brexit done. Never mind if we have a Staph infection (that's the right one?) that almost kills us.

But since 2016 the only option has been to leave. I felt that in 2016 and it was only the behaviour of May / Tory party and especially Johnson / ERG that made me want a 2nd ref.

If it had been handled better by the Tories in 2016 we would have left the EU by now.

They are the problem- and their time will come.

Cheats never win.

You reap what you sow

They'll get their commupence

Hi all longtime lurker here, thank you so much for keeping me sane over the last few days (years actually!).

I really don't think any of us have to worry much about brexit "getting done", in my view it never will. Johnson, like Trump but for other reasons, has built his core support on the righteous anger of people who feel ignored mostly over brexit. It has massively paid off for him like it has for Trump. He has managed to get people to vote conservative in areas like Blyth Valley where they have felt revulsion for the conservatives for generations. The very silliest thing he could do now is "get brext done" as those people will probably go back to voting labour next time and he knows that because he thanked them for lending him their votes!

Johnson really needs brexit to drag on and on and for himself to look like the guy who is trying his best to get it done for them and being thwarted at every turn, he may have exhausted the remainder in parliament for that now with his big majority but I guess the EU will be convenient for this next year.

Surely strategically getting brexit done/uniting the country means losing loads of core support who care more about satisfying their anger at brexit being thwarted than they do about the funding NHS and fixing other social problems.

It's only my opinion but it seems obvious to me that the very best way to hang on to his new base is to keep them angry that they aren't being listened to over brexit. Getting it done would put the focus back on what's wrong in this country and highlight that the conservatives are not the best party to fix these things and likely labour would get in.

I wonder how long it will be before people realize that they're being used? I don't think it's happened yet in the states and Trump has been in for almost a full term. And he still doesn't have a wall with Mexico, but he still says he's going to build one but he can't because of whatever reason works this week. Maybe some people there are waking up? I don't know but it all looks like a big game to me where Johnson, Trump and their friends make a lot of money while people are busy being angry that brexit/the wall with Mexico are not "getting done".

I'm most concerned about the increase in intolerance and xenophobia. Only last week a football pundit linked the rise in racism at stadiums with the language of politicians. My DP told me a colleague yesterday was complaining about Scottish devolution and scottish contributions to Britain.

I think the "bigoted woman" comment marked the beginning of Labours difficulties. How does a party that seeks inclusion and support minorities win over those that blame immigration for societal problems at the same time as English nationalism is on the rise?

And he still doesn't have a wall with Mexico, but he still says he's going to build one but he can't because of whatever reason works this week

Johnson will have no one left to blame. We'll have left the EU and he has a massive majority.

This is all up to him now. And a decent opposition should hold him to account and highlight the issues that are out there, that are real and keep 'the people' angry at the very real issues going on in the NHS, education.

It's not good saying we have more children in outstanding schools when the people in these new constituencies can see for their own eyes what is happening to their local schools and hospitals.

Thanks for your comment @ThatSeventiesLass

DH is an NHS surgeon and is at the coal face of NHS dysfunction and the suffering it causes on a daily basis. I do some work with sick and disabled people. My sister has personally voted for the abuse of the human rights of the sick and disabled via the horrors of ESA and PIP. (Not to mention Universal Credit). She has personally voted away people’s motability vehicles.

I’m not sure I can forgive that.

But what doesn't add up for me Cat is that whilst many feel here (but def not all) that Corbyn as leader did it in for Labour, the fact that Johnson is also toxic didn't stop the Tories and ex Labour voting for him in droves. So it's more than Corbyn.

And I think it's more than Labour not listening. Tories don't 'listen' to opinion, they make it. Step by careful step. Not hindered by any regard for facts.

Brexit has been a plan in the making for decades.The Oxford Campaign for an Independent Britain was hatched in 1990 in opposition to the Maastricht Treaty and its founder members were Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mark Reckless and Daniel Hannan. Tories are just more strategic, have lots of money, and think in decades not election terms.

Like the Democrats in the US, Labour rely on a message of social justice that doesn't work in getting them elected. They have to become much much more strategic and start acting today if they ever want to get into office.

I don't hold out much hope. Where is their Cummings? Their Crosby? Their AggregateIQ (which had 40% of Vote Leave's budget) willing to lend their technical expertise?

Labour is not alone in being out maneouvered by those playing the long game. This is being played out in many countries.

The Tories have the press.

They create the opinion.

There are few papers that don't have a hard right agenda.

Interesting take this morning.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/14/labour-meltdown-decades-govern-votes

I think there’s a lot in this. There needs to be a complete rethink if the Labour Party is to recapture those votes. It needs to de-Islingtonise and find out what drives its working class and northern erstwhile voters. A big programme of focus groups would be a good start. And a northern leader with no taint of Momentum.

I'm not bone weary.

Take a leaf from the SNP. They're not bone weary.

Take a leaf from the Suffragettes. They weren't bone weary.

Take a leaf from those who brokered peace in NI. They weren't bone weary.

Take a leaf from the Irish who finally got the abortion rights they deserve. They weren't bone weary.

Yes, DrBlackbird.

But I do think we then come back to the question of whether people actually voted for Johnson, or whether more people just didn't vote for Corbyn.

I guess we'll find out in time.

Meanwhile, there is also the issue of Labour's rather dreadful campaign strategy, which is touched on in this article:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/hannahalothman/labour-activists-marginal-seats?twitterr_impression=true

It's a a small point but there is a whole issue about activists that isn't being talked about.

One reason for the Labour holds in big cities may be numbers of activists and not (just) a divide between cities and small towns.

Cities had hundreds of activists to call on.

Some London constituencies had 6-800 activists per day turning up.

I'm willing to bet that would be an impossible dream for many of the smaller towns and rural areas.

And pointing out that people are influenced by the press leads to denial and entrenchment. Same way brexiteers deny xenophobia was at the heart of brexit.

Johnson really needs brexit to drag on and on and for himself to look like the guy who is trying his best to get it done for them and being thwarted at every turn

That is a good insight. Which leads me to think that, as part of this strategy, he needs to perpetuate the divisions in society: the patriot/Leave/NuTory half of the electorate having the traitor/Remain/commiepinkoleftie half to blame, despise, and push against.