The Political Thread

[Rately]

If we had fewer politicians like Sammy Wilson, the world would be a much better place.

[Theblazeuk]

To refer back to bias; the most recent Brexit vote is, wall-to-wall, being described as a victory for Theresa May. Laura Kuenssberg using her objective, BBC hat, describes it as an 'Unconventional Win'.

Literally all that's happened is they've said go back and get a deal. It's only a win against the Conservative party itself. We're still exactly where we always were with the EU, and really exactly where we always were in Parliament.

For all those people who cry out for an Opposition thats worth talking about, I think the real issue is that this is how monumentally shit the Conservatives can be and still be described as winning.

[Jim_Campbell]

Laura Kuenssberg using her objective, BBC hat, describes it as an 'Unconventional Win'.

Keunssberg is a disgrace. Corbyn says he won't meet with May until no deal is off the table. The Commons passes a motion that (at least theoretically) takes no deal off the table, so Corbyn says he'll meet with May. Kuenssberg describes this as "a u-turn".

[Tiplodocus]

5. Brexit, for me, is like a group of people saying "who fancies eating out?". Most say yes. They then disagree on what eating out is: Italian, chippy, Chinese, Indian, Mexican? Or your Mum?

Fixed that.

[ZenArcade]

Haven't posted here in a long while. This country and its political class has gone fucking nuts over the past two years. I struggle for words: no leadership; held to ransom by a bunch of rightwing zealots and 10 venal, corrupt religious headbangers. The BBC are utterly supine. Z

[Funt Solo]

6. I am vehemently against a second referendum. While I voted to leave, I see a second referndum as a catastrophe for democracy. You don't like an answer, so you ask again? But if it is a remain, without a proper two step referendum (see point 3) then that is the government dictating the vote - you will keep voting until we get the answer we want. That's a banana republic rabbit hole.

7. And does that mean we can re-open Scottish independence? Can the SNP just keep asking until they get a yes? Is that fair? (But why not, if it's done for Brexit?).

I don't quite follow why people are so against second votes, within reason.  Like: each case on its merits.  Clearly, if you vote on something on Tuesday (& lose the vote), so then vote again on Wednesday and so on ad infinitum, then that's not reasonable because why have the vote in the first place.

But there's an extreme counterpoint to that, which is that once you've voted on something once, that's it decided for eternity.  (Which, as Prince told us, is a mighty long time.)

So, sensibly, there must be a middle ground on re-voting stuff.  The argument being used currently for a second referendum (either for Brexit or Scottish independence) is that time has passed and things have changed.  Like science, politics should be allowed to advance with new knowledge. 

(Like Brexit, economically, is actually a really shit idea, but it was sold as a great one.)

[JayzusB.Christ]

6. I am vehemently against a second referendum. While I voted to leave, I see a second referndum as a catastrophe for democracy. You don't like an answer, so you ask again? But if it is a remain, without a proper two step referendum (see point 3) then that is the government dictating the vote - you will keep voting until we get the answer we want. That's a banana republic rabbit hole.

I'm assuming you meant "While I voted to remain"...?

I agree with you in principle on the idea of a second referendum. However, in practise, I can't see a way past the current political impasse. The first referendum was practically a textbook example of how not to run a referendum and has left us in a position where parliament has been paralysed by the whole "will of the people" schtick (leaving aside the small fact of the result's illegitimacy) and I can't see anything other than a new set of instructions from "the people" breaking the deadlock. The alternative is to let the clock run down to zero and for us to crash out with no deal, an outcome for which there is definitely no democratic mandate.

On a broader note of principle, I'd have no issue if the price of a second referendum was renewing the mandate by referendum every 10-15 years, assuming that the lessons of this first clusterfuck were properly learned: a threshold set for a clear majority (whatever the usual standard is for major constitutional change); the choice to be between the status quo (EU membership) and a clearly-outlined, detailed proposal for the terms under which we might leave; additionally, if those terms could not be negotiated within a fixed timeframe (say, two years) then they would be abandoned as unworkable/unreasonable and the country would remain, making it incumbent on the leavers to come back with a better/more realistic plan before the next referendum.

While a couple of years ago I would have agreed that a second referendum would be undemocratic, I've since changed my mind. What was undemocratic was the fact that voters were misled, either by errors or, more often,  by lies.

Leaving was going to leave the UK with all the benefits of Switzerland and Norway.  Nope.  There'd be an extra 350 million available for the NHS. A lie owned up to the very day after the referendum.  Britain could stay in the single market.  Again,  no.  Britain would have control over its borders: it already did.  The Northern Ireland issue wouldn't be important. Brits could still retain full power to travel round Europe without visas. Bendy bananas, fishing rights, blah blah blah: all bollocks.

A second,  informed referendum makes democratic sense to me.  If you still want to fuck yourselves over the second time around,  knock yourselves out.

[CalHab]

7. And does that mean we can re-open Scottish independence? Can the SNP just keep asking until they get a yes? Is that fair? (But why not, if it's done for Brexit?).

It's worth noting that a large part of the case for Scotland remaining in the UK was built on retaining EU membership. Circumstances have clearly changed now.

[Keef Monkey]

7. And does that mean we can re-open Scottish independence? Can the SNP just keep asking until they get a yes? Is that fair? (But why not, if it's done for Brexit?).

It's worth noting that a large part of the case for Scotland remaining in the UK was built on retaining EU membership. Circumstances have clearly changed now.

Yeah, I wouldn't see another Brexit or Indy referendum to be in any way a compromise of democracy. As mentioned, to just redo them willy nilly wouldn't make any sense but when a situation has changed so drastically that the question has completely changed I think it's the only thing that makes sense.

Brexit was massively mis-advertised so a second vote now that people are hopefully better informed makes more sense than ploughing on with it regardless, and Scotland being removed from the EU against our will despite one of the main Better Together campaign points being that we'd be safeguarding our place in it should really necessitate another indy vote.

If the chips fall the same way again then so be it, but at least they'd have gone back to the people and let them have their say in light of new information, which seems the most democratic thing you could do in the situation.

[Jim_Campbell]

Brexit was massively mis-advertised

Not to mention the fact that the Electoral Commission has declared the referendum result unsafe due to the Leave campaign's significant overspend and dubious data collection/targetting... something which I think the remain camp should have hammering on from the minute the Commission made its finding.

[Professor Bear]

For all those people who cry out for an Opposition thats worth talking about, I think the real issue is that this is how monumentally shit the Conservatives can be and still be described as winning.

For the last couple of decades, anything in the mid-30s range of the polls for Labour is Doing Quite Well, anything around the mid-20s is Doing Quite Bad, and anything over 40 is This Is Never Gonna Happen territory - they are currently averaging between 38-40 in most polls.
You will note, however, that the same people who cry about the Opposition not doing better against the current government are the same people who spend all their time bitching about the opposition and insisting that they'll fail, that they can't be elected, that their leader is shit, that the supporters are thugs, etc, and then when the opposition does actually do well in any way at all, it's decried as Fake News from Owen Jones, a junior column writer for the Guardian upon whom they seem to have some sort of fixation.

[IndigoPrime]

On democracies and mandates, the 2017 GE rather messed up those arguments. There was less time between 2015 and 2017's GEs than between the current day and the referendum. Also, there is an argument that the mandate was effectively extinguished by the 2017 GE, on the basis that May didn't win a majority. (That one's trickier, but it's an interesting point. Blame the Remainiacs podcast for that idea.)

As for the referendum issues, JayzusB.Christ offered the tip of the iceberg. There's the little-reported matter of a shit-load of ballots for overseas voters simply disappearing. (Some numbers put those as enough to swing the result.) The franchise was dreadful (cloning the GE one, which meant that EU citizens were denied a vote, as were any Brits who'd been in the EU for 15 years, but any Commonwealth citizen who'd just rocked up could put in their 2p). Also, there's the tiny issue that the referendum was between the status quo and an aspiration.

The Irish showed how this sort of thing should be done. Create some legislation, and ask people to vote on it. If they do, the legislation becomes law. If not, it gets ripped up and chucked in the bin. If there was a people's vote, it wouldn't be about overriding the first (and, frankly, Leave could win), but a combination of ratification (should May win) and people actually being able to vote for one of two legally deliverable alternatives (assuming no deal is not on the ballot, and that May's deal is roughly as it is today).

You will note, however, that the same people who cry about the Opposition not doing better against the current government...

My problem isn't polling. Anyone arguing Labour should be ten points or more in front baffle me. It's almost unheard of for any party to secure 50% in polling; and the Tories absorbed almost the entire UKIP vote to hit their figure, while Labour has to battle to retain the new young vote, and the 'borrowed' Green and Lib Dev votes. My problem is how inept the front-bench can be, such as with the mess over the immigration bill, and things like Corbyn having to get notes from Starmer earlier over the correct line to use about the customs union (which did not go unnoticed on the other side of the floor).

What most frustrates me about Corbyn, though, is that although I like his policy outline, his stance of Brexit remains appalling, and his notions of democracy within the party are flawed. He's shown himself to be just like the rest. On the immigration bill, that's something he used to fight; now, when he could have whipped his party, he choose not to, and then it was a feeble one-line. CLPs beg for a PV. He more or less kills the option by placing so many barriers in its path. In other words, like everyone else, he does what he wants when it suits his ideology – even if that flies in the face of the majority of Labour voters and members. At least with May, you can say her Brexit stance aligns with that of most of her party's voters and members.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

6. I am vehemently against a second referendum. While I voted to leave, I see a second referndum as a catastrophe for democracy. You don't like an answer, so you ask again? But if it is a remain, without a proper two step referendum (see point 3) then that is the government dictating the vote - you will keep voting until we get the answer we want. That's a banana republic rabbit hole.

I'm assuming you meant "While I voted to remain"...?

Yeah. I voted to remain. Oops

[The Legendary Shark]

1) Nobody said "Mad Max dystopian nightmare".

2) You dismissed as "fearmongering" a number of possible effects of a no-deal Brexit that are logical consequences of the scenario and are agreed as ranging from quite likely to more-or-less-inevitable by experts in their field. You did this whilst admitting that you had little knowledge or understanding of the subject under discussion and when asked on what basis you reached your conclusion, you demanded that people explain the argument to you. It was not an ad hominem to point this out.

1) Conceded. However, everyone here seems to think that Brexit will lead to some level of disaster.

2) It's the nature of these predicted disasters (which almost always seem to begin with words like may, might, possibly and so on) which seem to me to be fearmongering. People are going to die because of Brexit, it has been said. Well, we've been in the EU for some time now and people are already dying. Membership has made no difference to the poor bastards Atos (a European company) and IDS drove to poverty, homelessness and suicide - but, somehow, if Brexit happens it will be even worse because... er, the EU won't be able to protect these people any more. If it wasn't for EU protection, our government might even have been investigated by the UN for human rights violations. Imagine that.

Brexit will cost money - just like the European companies buying up British utility companies, increasing the costs of basic necessities and taking their profits out of the country - only moreso because, er, something.

Today, British ports work well enough but, the day after Brexit, they will somehow become unfit for purpose. I don't understand how this will happen. We live on a collection of islands so we're pretty used to running ports but, according to I.P., Brexit will somehow render all that knowledge and experience worthless.

Similarly, Brexit will also render stupid all our diplomats and negotiators who, after centuries of brokering international deals of all types and scales, will suddenly find themselves robbed of the ability to make any kind of trade deal whatsoever. I don't understand how this will happen.

When Britain leaves the EU, borders will automatically go up but, again according to I.P., these won't be imposed by the EU. That means, then, that these borders must be imposed by the UK government, which works for us, and can therefore be influenced by the electorate to be as useful as possible - simply vote for the party who advocates the best border system.

I.P. again points out that insulin is not at present made in the UK. I don't understand how this is a long term problem unless our chemists are going to suffer the same knowledge and experience drain as our diplomats. I don't understand why drug manufacturers would suddenly cease supplying insulin to Britain in the event of Brexit anyway - the bad publicity alone from such a dick move would make withholding insulin from British diabetics not worth it, and then there's the money they'd lose. So there must be some other reason why insulin wouldn't get into the UK in the event of Brexit but I can only think of one - the EU imposing restrictions for some reason, but the general feeling here seems to be that the EU wouldn't do that. So, the insulin shortage is something else I don't understand.

It seems to me that the general feeling is that, if Brexit goes ahead (and I'll be astounded if it does because Project Fear seems to be working perfectly) every aspect of Britain will either rot, crumble to dust or burst into flames because... Well, as I say, I don't understand how all this doom will come about.

It won't be the EU punishing us, obviously, because it's just a trading club. Well, it used to be. The fact that its unelected bureaucrats can now veto the budgets of democratically elected sovereign governments (like in Greece) is, I'm sure, neither here nor there. In fact, I don't quite understand how a simple customs and trading club got, or even needs, such powers.

So yes, I admit my ignorance on all these things. I simply don't understand but I am glad that you do. I'd be grateful if anyone could explain some of these things to me but I by no means demand it - because many of these things (and the article that started this particular conversation off) do seem like fearmongering to me.

But I'll stick my neck out here and make a prediction (my predictions are always wrong but I have a good feeling about this one): There will be no real Brexit. There may be a technical leaving with a deal that doesn't really change anything but, by this time next year, we'll all be spitting feathers about something else our overlords are fucking up and The Great Brexit Aversion will be all in the past, "phew, we really dodged that bullet" moment.

Either that or a bunch of other European countries will be making noises about leaving themselves - but I think this is unlikely.

[radiator]

I recommend listening to Jason Hunter. But hey, what does he know? He's only an expert on international trade.