O/T DDay for Brexit..well sort of...

[ragingpup]

On Brexit, Corbyn has been rendered ineffective by trying to lead two parties at once. He has to be a Leaver for the purposes of the Northern Labour Party and a Remainer for the purposes of London Labour Party. His refusal to speak to May after the defeat of her deal was forced upon him by that; he picked on the only thing that might go some to appeasing both parties – that no deal should be ruled out – and then used that as a pretext to refuse to talk, for fear that he might have to say what he was for rather than what he was against. To be fair, in the absence of a willingness to upset one of his parties, it was the only course he could adopt, but it just made him look silly to all but dyed-in-the- wool Labour supporters - hence the ribbing that upset Abbott on Question Time.

I don't think that his decision not to speak to May was forced upon him at all. He tried to make a principled stance to force May's hand that was never going to work and it didn't work, and in effect made it worse for him. Bad decision. But on this occasion, I don't think Remainers or Leavers were that bothered by the decision other than that it made him look unco-operative and didn't help Labour's cause. Remainers and Leavers in the party would have been quite unbothered by him having talks with May. Complete waste of time, but at least it would have saved him a ****storm and needless criticism. Just a **** move by him is all.

[ragingpup]

Putting aside that I am not and never have been a Tory

Kerr, you see none of us believe this as you consistently fail to point out where you and the Tories differ on policy. You can't say you weren't given a chance

[ragingpup]

Putting aside that I am not and never have been a Tory, you are just plain wrong to say that the Tories called Brexit. If I'm wrong about that, you need to explain which of my points set out above are wrong. Labour including Corbyn voted for the referendum and voted to trigger Article 50. It’s as simple as that.

Labour might have had more of an input if it hadn’t advanced its unrealistic and self-contradictory six tests and Corbyn had actually agreed to speak to May a fortnight ago instead of try to hide and wasted a day of Parliamentary time on his doomed no confidence motion.

1. So, do you think that historically, the Labour Party have had the same problem with Eurosceptics as the Conservatives that ultimately led Cameron to try and solve the problem once and for all by putting the referendum into the 2015 manifesto?

2. When Labour was in power under Blair and Brown, was there similar anything like the internal warfare that forced Cameron to make the referendum a 'thing'?

3. If Corbyn had agreed to meet May 2 weeks ago, how might have this led to him having "more of an input" than he has today?

Whilst your about it, tell me more about why you think the 6 tests are "self contradictory"?

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

“Putting aside that I am not and have never been a Tory”

Lol

For Tory substitute the word solicitor

[ragingpup]

Just as an aside, Kerr is easy pickings this evening. Has he been in Wetherspoons?

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

A bit too down market

[ragingpup]

A bit too down market

Not true. He's often down the fish market on a Saturday morning, in his slippers...

(is this cyber bullying? Very un-pc. Sorry Fire)

[KerrAvon]

So, hand on heart, do you think that Labour would have had a better chance of winning the 15 and 17 elections with any of the other 3 alternatives at that time? Cooper, Burnham and the Other One?

Do you think Owen Thingy might have done better?

And finally, what would you like a Labour Party to stand for, as distinct to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats? You obviously feel very passionately about the current Great Leader and seem to indicate that you might support a Labour government if the conditions were right. But what conditions might they be? What would a Labour Government that you would like to see actually look like? What would they stand for?

I think your first question is rather simplistic in that electoral success is determined by a combination of leadership and policy.

On leadership, take Thatcher and Blair – irrespective of your view of their political philosophies - I would suggest that it is beyond doubt that they were leaders in the sense that people wanted to support and follow them. People who you would expect to vote Labour backed Thatcher time and time again and ‘natural’ Tory voters did the same thing for Blair. Thatcher wasn’t even particularly pleasant, but the fact is that she could inspire people and make them believe in her and through that accept her as PM.

Your first question is entirely leadership based. None of the four options that you mention strike me as being natural leaders (although I think Yvette Cooper might have something – I am impressed that she has the balls to stand up for what she thinks on Brexit rather than hiding like Corbyn) and if I’m right about that, they would be hampered in a GE campaign (just as Brown and Milliband were in 2010 and 2015 respectively). What I’m not sure you have thought through though is where that leaves Corbyn. We don’t have to speculate about how he would perform in a GE, because we found out in 2017 – he failed miserably despite circumstances that should have strongly favoured Labour. You can talk about how people chant his name in grime clubs, but that doesn’t put him in charge of the country. I think he is not a leader, mainly because he speaks only to his supporters and not to the public at large. He makes a fine speaker at protest meetings and events where the audience self select to be likely to support him. He is like a fish out of water otherwise.

The second issue is one of policy. As you know, I think Labour’s polices would lead to a wholesale destruction of jobs and wealth that would help nobody. I know that you choose to disagree (just as I’m sure you are aware that I think your position defies any sort of logic) , but, in a sense, when it comes to the likelihood of Labour winning, whether you or I am right is irrelevant. It’s enough that I and many others believe what I believe and that belief informs where we are likely to put our X when voting.

I think it possible that any of the four leadership candidates that you mention would have had at least a fighting chance of ending as head of the largest party had they run on more mainstream policies.

The Tories made the same mistake as you in the 2017 election when they focused solely on leadership and let Labour have the run of the policy hen house and, crucially, failed to change tack when the ‘strong and stable’ line started to fall apart.

I think both main parties (and the Lib Dems) have a leadership issue at the moment. Corbyn isn’t up to much and it is difficult to see who is waiting in the wings (animal favours Starmer, but he has broken cover and come out as a hard Remainer, which will alienate himself from the Northern Labour Party). May has ruled herself out of leading the Tories into another election campaign and it is just as hard to see where their next leader will come from. It may involve a fight for the heart and soul of the party with someone like Rees-Mogg facing off against someone like Ruth Davidson.

[Exiletyke]

Just read it but not seen the BBC video so not sure to what extent the protest is valid. Clearly many people in the current climate would argue that even presenting the argument against immigration as part of a balanced debate is promoting the argument for immigration. If his central argument is that the video highlights that there is a rise in people supporting far right organisations, I don't see how that can be denied. But without watching the video, its impossible for me or anyone to see if Lord Green has a point.

Not sure why you post this in response to my post. I have often stated that I am one of the two thirds of people that would like to see immigration controls to the extent that people arriving in the UK have proven skills to contribute to a skills gap. My comments were just highlighting that many people in the UK feel unhappy with their society for various economic and cultural reasons. I part agree with Grist above (not something I do lightly!) that if immigration in high numbers to certain parts of a country is allowed to happen without serious consideration and action on integrating the immigrants into their communities (which causes the 'dumping ground' resentment response and communities living separately, fueling resentment etc). But the heart of what I was saying is that when you accept that in the vast majority of cases, EU nationals will continue to be required to do many jobs which can't be filled by our indigenous workforce then the reality will hit home with the more immigration focused Leave voters that very few immigrants here are the no skills 'spongers' that are frequently portrayed. I think many think that even a No Deal Brexit will have a significant impact in the numbers of migrants arriving, simply as the vast majority have arrived with skills we need to fill jobs we need filled. Some employers take the piss and undercut but these are few and we will not notice the difference afterwards. But we have to also add that the new deals that we seek will involve new immigration quotas to balance out any unskilled and exploiting migrants we may successfully manage to stop.

In short, the unhappiness and resentment people hold about their society, waiting lists, poor wages, working conditions will simply not perceptively change. The same old problems will be there. I'd like us to blow out the Brexit smokescreen and focus on the underlying problems that causes the anger in the first place.

So, in short, I'm all for a form of Brexit with reasonable immigration focus that doesn't leave us short of essential workers, but recognise it won't solve diddly of the problems people have cited as reasons for voting for Brexit.

(just anticipating the response that folk might think that the vote to leave was about more than immigration. True, we will detach from the ECJ but as has been mentioned on here before, the ECJ doesn't in actuality make a difference to our own laws anyway. Again, not the slightest difference will be noticed. I personally just want to get a deal over with (and let's face it, it will have to be via a form of customs union relationship agreement across the parties) so we can start dealing with issues that actually might make a difference to our lives....

First of all rp I didn't post it as a response to your post
I would have "replied with quote" if it was a response & it followed an MMM post but you have to get in at some point
I just posted it as I thought you may find it interesting is all

[KerrAvon]

“Putting aside that I am not and have never been a Tory”

Lol

For Tory substitute the word solicitor

Fighting talk, Jolly?