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UK PoliGAF |OT2| - We Blue Ourselves

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Number45

Member
There's not enough space there because that's basically labours position, badly articulated as it is. By choosing to go hard on remain, it opens up the possibility of taking a number of seats from labour and the tories in the metropolitan areas where a 'better brexit' stance wouldn't.
I mean, the Lib Dems will actually vote that way as well right? I don't think it benefits anyone now to try to roll back the result of the referendum (as appealing as that thought is to me personally) and the stance he's taken seems to me to have taken away some of their credibility.
 

Maledict

Member
I mean, the Lib Dems will actually vote that way as well right? I don't think it benefits anyone now to try to roll back the result of the referendum (as appealing as that thought is to me personally) and the stance he's taken seems to me to have taken away some of their credibility.

I think the lib dems will vote to roll back the referendum. Remember these are national favourabilities, and the lib dems don't care about national numbers. They are laser focussed on areas where the MP voted to leave and the residents voted to stay. That's all they care about, and they are betting there's enough people who feel strongly about this, who don't feel represented by the other two parties to pick up some seats.
 

Hyams

Member
Farron has been defined as 'Nice But Dim Tim'. You'll see the insult thrown about online in the comments section of any article to do with him. It's a way to completely disregard him without having to engage with his arguments ... and, alas, it's working.

Personally, I think the Lib Dems have approached Brexit from the wrong angle. It doesn't matter how many times they say they don't want a 'second referendum' but want a 'first referendum on the deal', all anyone hears is 'second referendum.' And even most Remain voters don't want a second referendum.

Instead they should have pushed for staying as close to the EU as possible (ie. within the single market) whilst pushing for an EU-wide change to free movement rules. Clegg has said he thinks there is enough concern about immigration throughout the EU and EEA that a Europe-wide re-evaluation of the rules is possible.

This would appeal to Remain voters and many Leave voters. It's less divisive than May's hard Brexit, and it's the exact opposite of Corbyn's politically toxic 'leave the single market but keep free movement', because who the heck is that meant to appeal to!?
 

Protome

Member
I don't know much about Farron, but that unfavourability rate is surprisingly high. What do people not like about him?

Nobody knows who he is. Wouldn't shock me if a lot of his unfavourability came simply from being the Lib Dems. They're growing again but they're still a long way from regaining the voters who felt betrayed by them with the coalition.
 
Speaking as:

a) A Lib Dem
b) Someone who's met Tim Farron only twice (but the second time was him interviewing me for a job, funnily enough)

Tim's been super good for the party. He's realigned us back to where we belong, on the centre-left. He's made friends with folks he could easily have ended up enemies with (Clegg, Lamb) and used them well. He was the right man at the right time to propose a serious recruitment drive that has paid off in spades. He's also taken a leaf from Kennedy's book and stuck to his guns on a divisive issue, rather than just supporting the government after losing votes.

He's a return to the norm after we tried out Orange Bookism under Clegg - and it's a welcome and non-confrontational return to the norm.

That said, the sheer volume of "Don't Knows" does show that he's made less of an impact than Ashdown/Kennedy/Clegg. His numbers are actually not that far off of Campbell's, another leader that took over after a defining voice for the party.

Farron's style is the same one he used when he was just the MP for Kendal, rather than the leader - be honest, keep the message simple, bring passion to the role. He's coming from as weak a position as Ashdown came from, and nobody can beat a background in the SBS for an introduction.

This matches the current situation for the Lib Dems as a whole, really. We're under the radar.

Oh, on the EU:

Don't think about how the general public feels now. Think about how the general public is going to feel in two years.

You have the Tories, dragging us out of the EU onto a deal that clearly makes us poorer.
You have Labour, with no policy on the issue.
You then have the Lib Dems, who have been campaigning for two years to give the British public (that is likely dissatisfied with the deal) a vote.

It's now quite a long time from the referendum and it's still a good year before the public can vote to kick the Tories out.

Who benefits?

The big strength we have is that we can now play the long game. We've stabilised and are slowly pulling ourselves back up in the polls. It's possible we might claim more MP scalps, and it's certain that we'll see a huge number of council seats taken over the next few years. So the strategy isn't to push Tim into the limelight now - it's to gear up for the long campaign from 2019 through to the GE in 2020. We take what we learned from Kennedy (stick up for your beliefs and be the voice of the liberal centre-left) and what we learned from Clegg (Cleggmania, the importance of treating yourself as the opposition) and we apply that to the current situation - and you get where we are at now.
 

Jezbollah

Member
Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (-)
LAB: 24% (-2)
LDEM: 11% (-)
UKIP: 14% (+2)
GRN: 4% (-)

(via YouGov / 05 - 06 Feb)
 

sammex

Member
C4i9nBkXUAA-3te.jpg


Interesting split to that poll. Labour polling third amongst working class people now.
 

Maledict

Member
Wasn't there a guy here saying Corbyn spoke to the working class? Lol

The working class vote is racist. Sorry, but that's the lesson I took from Brexit. It's not about economic anxiety or anything like that, it's about immigration and not liking people who are different.
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
The working class vote is racist. Sorry, but that's the lesson I took from Brexit. It's not about economic anxiety or anything like that, it's about immigration and not liking people who are different.

I don't think you would get away with saying that on the streets of Merthyr Tydfil ...
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
The working class vote is racist. Sorry, but that's the lesson I took from Brexit. It's not about economic anxiety or anything like that, it's about immigration and not liking people who are different.

Why have the working class become more racist? Why haven't the upper middle class been so affected by whatever it was?
 

Maledict

Member
Why have the working class become more racist? Why haven't the upper middle class been so affected by whatever it was?

I think they always have been. And to be clear, i think most people are in some form or other racist. I think that the concerns over immigration and it's impact on the white working class have been stirred up by people like Farage, and our terrible press, that has unleashed a very dark aspect of our society's - not just here, but America, Holland, France and others. Things aren't great for a lot of people out there, and in the traditional human way they respond by kicking down.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
I think they always have been. And to be clear, i think most people are in some form or other racist. I think that the concerns over immigration and it's impact on the white working class have been stirred up by people like Farage, and our terrible press, that has unleashed a very dark aspect of our society's - not just here, but America, Holland, France and others. Things aren't great for a lot of people out there, and in the traditional human way they respond by kicking down.

If they always were racist, why didn't it show up in how they voted very recently? Why was nobody able to 'stir them up' before Farage? Why did we go from, say, 1974 (end of Powell's relevance) to 2005 without this kind of Farageism having any significant success?
 

Maledict

Member
If they always were racist, why didn't it show up in how they voted very recently? Why was nobody able to 'stir them up' before Farage? Why did we go from, say, 1974 (end of Powell's relevance) to 2005 without this kind of Farageism having any significant success?

I'd say you missed some campaigns in certain parts of the country if you didn't think racism in politics existed before 2005... ;-). I'd also say that the old UK Referendum party, and the BNPs brief rise, were all aspects of the same thing. Whilst it wasn;t on the same level of UKIP, it was there and it did have an impact, and it was very shocking at the time (no-one knew what the hell to do when working in a local council that suddenly had BNP councillors).

I think they've voted more this way than previously because things have, relatively speaking, gotten worse. We had a massive financial crisis and no-one paid for it. Wages haven't exactly been sky rocketing, and UK productivity remains low. People like Farage are always waiting on the sidelines to take advantage of that state of affairs, and when you have a complete lack of leadership elsewhere (both on the Tory and labour front benches) it gets exploited. Plus you know we had a huge amount of immigration from 2005! ;-)

I mean, ultimately we know that "immigration" was the biggest factor behind leave voters, and yet we also know the areas with the highest levels of immigration tended to vote remain. We also know that the areas with the highest rate of *change* of immigration voted to leave - which suggests a push-back against outside change coming in.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
I'd say you missed some campaigns in certain parts of the country if you didn't think racism in politics existed before 2005... ;-). I'd also say that the old UK Referendum party, and the BNPs brief rise, were all aspects of the same thing. Whilst it wasn;t on the same level of UKIP, it was there and it did have an impact, and it was very shocking at the time (no-one knew what the hell to do when working in a local council that suddenly had BNP councillors).

I'm not denying it exists. I'm saying the scale has changed, enormously, and you need to have an explanation for this.

I think they've voted more this way than previously because things have, relatively speaking, gotten worse. We had a massive financial crisis and no-one paid for it. Wages haven't exactly been sky rocketing, and UK productivity remains low.

This sounds economic to me.
 

Maledict

Member
I'm not denying it exists. I'm saying the scale has changed, enormously, and you need to have an explanation for this.



This sounds economic to me.

I think economic issues lead to racism. I think in times of hardship, people kick downwards and the nastier side of our nature comes out.

People didn't vote for Brexit because of economic issues. When the debate was on the economics, Remain was winning handily (remember the Ashcroft report that said even pensioners had swung behind Remain because of economics?). Leave won when the debate shifted to immigration, and whether we like it or not that worked for a lot of people. In my view, a huge amount of that was racism - heck, on this forum how many banned people have we had who started out saying that there were legitimate concerns over immigration and then sooner or later turned out to be full on raving racists muttering about gypsies and benefit fraud? ;-)
 

Maledict

Member
You mean the 'old' working class vote was racist.

I think the white working class vote was racist. I would love to see otherwise if you have data, but from what I've seen the younger people who were in favour of remain tended to be educated middle class. Education after all was the biggest tell for how you voted - the more educated you were, the higher the chance you voted to remain.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
I think economic issues lead to racism. I think in times of hardship, people kick downwards and the nastier side of our nature comes out.

Agreed.

People didn't vote for Brexit because of economic issues. When the debate was on the economics, Remain was winning handily (remember the Ashcroft report that said even pensioners had swung behind Remain because of economics?). Leave won when the debate shifted to immigration, and whether we like it or not that worked for a lot of people. In my view, a huge amount of that was racism - heck, on this forum how many banned people have we had who started out saying that there were legitimate concerns over immigration and then sooner or later turned out to be full on raving racists muttering about gypsies and benefit fraud? ;-)

I agree. I just wanted you to admit that the root was economic. I agree that racism is the intermediary mechanism - that's sort of obvious - but racism doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. There are underlying social dynamics that give racist parties more or less strength. Failing to address those dynamics will spell the death of any liberal party.
 

Maledict

Member
You could just have said, it's not like my view has changed over the course of this conversation and it would have saved quite a bit of typing... ;-)

People like to feel better, and above, other people. Even the lowest want someone to stand on. In the LGBT community, white gay men make fun of lesbians and black gay people. Black gay people make fun of transsexuals. It's like a pyramid of hurt, and it seems fundamental to how we work as a species.

Saying that, I don't excuse it. We can be better than this, and when facts and evidence are presented and people look away, and prefer to rely on their 'gut feeling' and simple easy answers that blame someone else for their problems, then I have no respect for them at all.

I do agree that any liberal party needs an answer to globalisation, and the impacts it's having. But they don't do that by excusing or ignoring the racism we see in front of us, and we don't do it by throwing minorities under the bus to chase that vote.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
I do agree that any liberal party needs an answer to globalisation, and the impacts it's having. But they don't do that by excusing or ignoring the racism we see in front of us, and we don't do it by throwing minorities under the bus to chase that vote.

Right, but this is a strawman. Effectively nobody is suggesting this. Certain threads on this site like to use this strawman to distract from the fact that liberal political parties completely failed to address the economic problems, or even to deny the economic problems altogether.
 
There is a significant problem with Islamophobia in the semi-urban and rural working class, and an equally significant problem with racism against Eastern Europeans - something that is very rarely talked about. ("Anti-immigrant" becomes the catch-all).

That is the core of the UKIP vote. "I'm not racist, but I think muslims should go home". "The local market is now full of muslims selling cheap stuff!" "There's three polish supermarkets in my town centre now!"

This is not about economics. Saying it is about economics implies that this wasn't as severe a problem when the times were good. Growing up in a small working class town - it's been this bad for a long time. UKIP is the legitimate face of that sentiment.

To stamp it out is going to require a new generation of politicians and concerted action from the centre. The longer we let the far right dictate the message ("Don't call these voters racist, you arrogant liberals! It's your liberal economic policy that's to blame for their misery!") then the longer it's going to take for the far right to be refuted.

What we've allowed is for liberal economics to be blamed for issues related to friction in the economy - bad housing, low social mobility, lack of investment. That's not the fault of liberal economics. But the far right, who oppose liberal economics in favour of oligarchic capitalism, paint it as such.
 
Another classic snap of the PM campaigning up in Copeland.

C4t7EeoWIAIaJMO.jpg
There's another from just before or after where she's looking the other way and has the same face, suggesting it wasn't just an awkward fraction of a second caught by a camera - that's actually how she was staring at these poor kids.
 
reckon labour will win both by-elections which will slightly muddle the narrative

I'm conflicted because of course I want the Tories and UKIP to lost but at the same time if Labour win then the same fundamentals still apply and would almost definitely fall to defeat at the next general election.

Come to think of it it still just is better if Labour win both since Corbyn wouldn't bloody resign even if he lost both I reckon.
 
This is one of the candidates for the Stoke by-election.

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/arre...othing-wrong/story-30136133-detail/story.html

15856668-large.jpg


A by-election candidate arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred has denied doing anything wrong.

Barbara Fielding - who is standing as an independent in next week's Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election - was arrested at her Draycott home this week after a complaint about her website.

Her website calls for all immigrants to be repatriated, warns of the 'seeping tide of Islamic warriors' and looks to 'take back control' of the UK for 'white nationals'.
But the 78-year-old insists there is nothing unlawful about what she has written.


Her party manifesto is lovely too. A breath of fresh air in these troubled times.

https://abolishmcrm.com/party-constitution-and-manifesto/

VOTE. BARBARA FIELDING. TO GET OUR WHITE EUROPEAN SUPREMACY BACK.

We were once the greatest nations on the planet.

We had the greatest White Inventors, Manufacturers, Producers, Farmers, Skilled Workers, Labourers, Architects,Engineers, You name it, We White Germanic Europeans, were the supreme race, All over White Western Europe.

The illegal immigrant Israeli Jews didn’t like that, nor did the rest of the Islamic Asian Indian states. They wanted to be us, and were determined to take over our lands and culture by stealth.

So they married into as many White Wealthy families that they could find to give them white children and dominance over the lower classes with their nasty religion and Israeli Jewish terrorist Karl Marx political views.

Then using their wealth gained by marriage alone, they bought All Propaganda and Media. And that which they could not buy, they took control of by total management, employing only Jewish or those married to Jews, as employees. The British Broadcasting Corporation was a victim of this.

Then these Israeli Jewish Illegal Immigrants and Asylum Seekers, made Laws against us White UK Nationals, such as Anti-Semitic Laws, Racial Equality Laws, Anti Racist Laws.

They had the audacity to Imprison Us White UK Nationals, for speaking out against them in our own lands, which they now rule over.
I am going to kick out the whole manky lot, and take back control of the United Kingdom for us White Nationals.

And you White National Reporters who read this, must help me in this by-election on 23rd February to win this seat, so that I can begin to put my plans into action, even if it is under the Tory Government. At least I can help them to put a few things right before its my turn to be Prime Minister.


This party is for the advancement of Indigenous English, Welsh,Scottish and Irish Nationals only.

The Abolish Magna Carta Reinstate Monarchy Party Members will lose the shackles of democracy and all the trappings that go with it.

We will have the power of free speech which has been denied to us for so long.

The following are just a few of the items we intend to redress:
  1. The Unsigned Illegal document, The Magna Carta, will be Abolished.
  2. As good business people, our Queen or King will be head of Government and will attend Parliament as required, or as they wish.
  3. Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy Party, fully intends to Nationalize and make profitable the Coal Industry, Electricity, Gas, Water, BT, National Lottery, Royal Mail, Post Office, BBC & Railways.
  4. Abolish Magna Carta, Reinstate Monarchy will stop All Foreign Aid, and use this money to pay toward the National Debt.
  5. Age discrimination will be punished with imprisonment.
  6. V.A.T. Returns are time consuming and costly to business. It will be drastically altered along with Import and Export Taxation.
  7. Council Tax will be abolished.
  8. Unions will be outlawed.
  9. Income Tax will be rearranged to make it fair to all and sundry.
  10. Employment Law will be reduced to give Employers their right to choose whom they employ and how much each employee is paid.
  11. Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay, and Sick Pay will be abolished.
  12. Employment linked Pensions will be abolished, and Employees will be encouraged to make their own Retirement Savings Plans.
  13. Maternity Leave will not guarantee future employment.
  14. Government Pensions will be paid only to those who work and pay National Insurance Contributions.
  15. The Workhouse will be reinstated for vulnerable people.
  16. Grammar Schools will return. Sex education will be abolished.
  17. All Schooling and Education will be paid for by parents.
  18. All Police Officers will pass tougher exams before recruitment.
  19. Many Royal Mail workers will be recruited from Ex Servicemen.
  20. Nuclear Power will be banned.
  21. Fracking will incur imprisonment.
  22. Laws, Courts, and the Prison Service will be reformed.
  23. All Benefits to Asylum Seekers and Immigrants will be stopped, and All will be repatriated back to their country of origin, All other Nations will be encouraged to repatriate their English, Welsh, Irish.
  24. Asylum Seekers, Immigrants, Their Ancestors & Descendants will be removed from All Banks, NHS, Government & All Security positions.
  25. Human Rights Laws will be abolished.
  26. Churchill will be charged with Treason and causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden.
  27. The ethnic origins of All members of Government will be checked.
  28. The Israeli terrorist Karl Marx will be charged with Treason and causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy.
  29. Blair family Assets will be confiscated & paid to Hussein’s family.
  30. Compensation will be paid to Dwarves created by Thalidomide.
  31. Dentists, Optitions & Hearing Specialists will be taken out of the NHS. Doctors & Surgeons will have pay reductions, & many restrictions as regards dangerous medications to patients.
  32. All child Benefits will be abolished to restrict society burdens.
  33. Every Nation on this planet needs Ethnic Cleansing as the terrible Israeli Karl Marx, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, Abu Hamza etc., proves.
  34. Radio, TV, Films, Writers & Reporters will be regulated.
  35. The Death Penalty for anyone using a Radio Signal to kill or control another human being or animal, except in warfare.
  36. All Pornography, Homosexuals, Transvestites etc. will be removed from Films, Plays, Radio, Television etc.
  37. Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to own or work in any British Radio, TV, Newspaper or Magazine.
  38. Asylum Seekers, Immigrants & their descendents will not be allowed to work in any food preparation, Medicine or Pills or Vaccines manufacture or preperation, to prevent sabotage.
  39. Chemical Castration for Paedophiles and Murderers.
  40. Asylum Seekers & Immigrants, their ancestors & descendents, must not be allowed to assess or check any school, college or university exams in the UK as this may be detrimental to Welsh or English students.
  41. All Company Law will be drastically altered in favour of the Employer.
  42. Unemployment Benefit claiment time will be cut to a minimum.
  43. All disabled parking spaces will be banished.
  44. Blue Badges will be obsolete and cancelled.
  45. Housing Benefit will be discontinued.
  46. All Irish Traveller sites will be closed, and All Irish Travellers, their ancestors and descendents will be repatriated back to Ireland.
  47. We will Not sell Arms to other nations.
  48. The British Armed Forces will be for our defence of the UK only
  49. British Armed Forces will Not interfere in other nations disputes.
  50. The British Armed Forces will Not train other nations in warfare.
  51. British Armed Forces can be hired, Payment first, at their discretion, to help in natural disasters, rescues, etc, as they see fit.
  52. British Armed Forces will be manned by indigenous English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Nationals only.
  53. Judges will no longer be able to promote their friends, colleagues, or favourites to be judges. The vacancies will be applied for as ordinary jobs and an IQ test will be used to assess the suitability of the applicants.
  54. Psychiatrists and Mental Health workers will have a higher IQ than the patients they pretend to be superior to.
  55. Drug addicts will no longer receive free treatment via the NHS for their addiction.
  56. The NHS will be abolished, along with all the scams that go with it.

Her blog posts are a cracking read too, kind of like Jack's book in The Shining.
 

CCS

Banned
Say what you will about Corbyn, he's got an incredible ability to unite people.

This morning my mum, who's the sort of leftwinger for whom "Blairite" is one of the worst insults in her vocabulary, told me unprompted that she'd rather have Blair back than Corbyn.
 

Jackpot

Banned
The Stoke by-election is a real farce.

Nuttall's in hiding, Labour's candidate was outed as a twitter troll, and an independent was arrested for inciting racial hatred.
 

Jex

Member
Say what you will about Corbyn, he's got an incredible ability to unite people.

This morning my mum, who's the sort of leftwinger for whom "Blairite" is one of the worst insults in her vocabulary, told me unprompted that she'd rather have Blair back than Corbyn.

At the end of the day, basic competence is more appealing to some than ideology.
 
The Stoke by-election is a real farce.

Nuttall's in hiding, Labour's candidate was outed as a twitter troll, and an independent was arrested for inciting racial hatred.

This is why tribal politics ends badly. Because the Lib Dem candidate can't win, because they're wearing a yellow badge. The Conservative candidate can't win, because they're wearing a blue badge. The Green candidate can't win, because they're wearing a green badge. So we're left with two utter shits.
 

Moosichu

Member
At the end of the day, basic competence is more appealing to some than ideology.

Unfortunately, Corbyn still being leader of Labour says just as much about the PLP in terms of their competence. If they had waited even just one month they probably would have been successful in ousting him, but they were so desperately tripping over each other to do it they botched it.
 
Unfortunately, Corbyn still being leader of Labour says just as much about the PLP in terms of their competence. If they had waited even just one month they probably would have been successful in ousting him, but they were so desperately tripping over each other to do it they botched it.

Ya reckon? I'm not entirely convinced he wouldn't win again tomorrow.
 

Jezbollah

Member
I think while he has the adoration of the hardcore Labour party members, Corbyn is safe. The only way he leaves is if he decides to jump.
 

Mr. Sam

Member
While many of Corbyn's supporters are europhiles put out by "his" recent actions - it should be noted that the parliamentary party was largely in favour of voting the A50 through, whip or no whip - it would probably amount to him winning by a mere 55% in another election. He has to go of his own accord.
 
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