What is the point of Labour ?

[NotThePars]

7 minutes ago, Thistle_do_nicely said:

yeah, I had wondered about that myself. if theres a second indyref and the yes vote gets, say, more votes than in 2014 but it's a narrower % of say 48% then the swing is small enough that another indyref could conceivably return independence in a pretty short timescale, so a few more SNP majorities (SNP campaigning would pretty much have to go from any mention of another referendum to "only we can fight to get more powers for Holyrood and look after your interests at Westminster") would be motivation enough to keep the pressure up.

Could end up dragged into a pointless conflict in the Middle East that's deeply unpopular in Scotland which brings up the question again, who knows what the future holds. Probably a pointless conflict in the Middle East tbf.

Might split a bit more between SNP / Greens especially on the list seats but personally I can't see myself ever voting for a unionist party again, referendum or no referendum.

I like my local Labour candidate but lol at endorsing Starmer. If there's no Greens constituency candidate then I'll spoil that vote and vote Greens on the list.

[Guest Jedi]

The Gammon Wall could come back to Labour at the next GE, as by then Brexit will have had some space to play out the complete mess it will be. Also, the Tories will have been in their natural territory of making savage cuts to public services, post-Covid.

The biggest problem Labour have in forming a govt is of course Scotland. Either by the time of the next GE, Scotland is Independent, leaving Lab fighting for seats across England, a fight it is always unlikely to win overall, or a 2nd Ref has been lost in Scotland, and the SNP are in a conundrum of where to go next, at which point how Labour handled the 2nd Ref would be key in any form of recovery for them.

So, overall, yes, it might well be that Labour have to see how Independence pans out in the next 2 or 3 years, before imagining what their future might be.

[Detournement]

54 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

Do you think a 3rd referendum would be granted by Westminster?

Calling for a 3rd referendum after 2 defeats in the space of 6 or 7 years, with absolutely zero chance of getting one sees a decent chunk of soft Yes and soft No voters ditch the SNP imo. Not to mention the 'holding my nose till after indy' voters too.

 

People just want what they want these days. Indyref and Brexit referendums have galvanized each sides. Indyref2 is unlikely to end in a handshake and better man won regardless of the outcome. 

If the SNP payroll are dependent on the 30-38% of Scottish voters who have always been for independence and always will be for their livelihoods then they will keep pushing it. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Old thread but a good one, Tories are obviously worse but they didn't have to look far for ideas.
 
 

Also outsourced assessment for Employment & Support Allowance to ATOS

[Detournement]

49 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/28/starmer-prepares-to-reopen-old-labour-wounds-over-brexit-deal-vote

Am I going daft or did the red wall not want a hard brexit?

It's daft to say that a loosely defined collection of constituencies 'want' anything. There will be various groups/positions as are there are everywhere.

Starmer is doing the correct thing on this. Parliament is there primarily to legislate not campaign and on something as important as leaving the EU the opposition parties should be working to get the best deal possible and minimise the influence of the ERG.

That is the only realistic, reasonable and responsible position and it's obviously the Corbyn position. The People's Vote arseholes of all parties knew they were risking hard Brexit and a huge Tory majority to achieve their personal goals of knifing Jez for the Blairites, continued SNP hegemony for the Murrells, winning a couple of seats in London for the LDs and getting on the telly for the Greens. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Detournement

[Detournement]

31 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Not buying that tbh. The 2nd ref policy of 2019 labour included all that as an option and the red wall voters rejected it, kenning fine what the alternative was.

I'm neutral on what they're doing, I just don't get why they think it will be popular with red wall voters in particular. Who are mainly people motivated by immigration above all other things.

In the long, long run up to the 2019 election there were Labour MPs on the telly* every single day saying they were going to stop Brexit, Starmer announced his own personal support for a 2nd referendum at the conference , David Lammy incredibly said that Brexiteers were worse than Nazis at a huge rally and Andrew Adonis told people who wanted the UK to leave the EU not to vote for Labour. It's not really a surprise that people who wanted the referendum result to be respected felt this outweighed the policy decided at conference.

Red Wall is just the political patter du jour the same as middle England was  or the rust belt. It negates any need to seriously consider the class composition of the electorate.

*I honestly believe that the saturation of BBC coverage on Brexit was designed to help the Tories as it was their biggest asset in any upcoming election. I also think they purposefully broadcast that Stop Brexit shouting roaster's voice for hundreds of hours to radicalise soft gammons. It's the same thing with bizarre non stop Blackford interviews.

[GordonS]

On 26/11/2020 at 19:36, Jedi said:

 

Federalism could work if the second chamber required a 'majority' of two of the four areas for a vote, otherwise, clearly the numerical superiority of English members would always carry.

Any Act of Parliament that provided for federalism and things like voting thresholds in Parliament could be undone or amended by simple majority in Parliament.

That's what happened with the 2019 general election - under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 there shouldn't have been another general election until 2022. To call an early election was supposed to require a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons (as happened for the 2017 election). But instead they passed another Act, the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, and that only required a simple majority.

Federalism in the UK would require a written constitution to change some of the fundamental principles of our present constitution, and I don't think anyone realistically expects that to happen. 

[CambieBud]

And the more Starmer appeals to the prejudices of Northern England the more marginal SLab will become.
You hate love to see it

This is spot on. The further to the right Sir man of the people Starmer moved to try to win back Brexiteers in Northern England, the more boxed in they become here. A lost cause

[Granny Danger]

39 minutes ago, CambieBud said:

 

 

This is spot on. The further to the right Sir man of the people Starmer moved to try to win back Brexiteers in Northern England, the more boxed in they become here. A lost cause

 

 

The irony is that with an independent Scotland the ability of the Labour Party to win a majority in rUK will be nigh on impossible in the short-to-medium term.

 

[Gordon EF]

Labour abstaining on the covid tier level vote in England. Who saw that one coming?

[Arch Stanton]

5 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Labour abstaining on the covid tier level vote in England. Who saw that one coming?

What is the point of an opposition which doesn't oppose?

[dirty dingus]

[Guest Jedi]

SNP also abstaining on the vote...although in fairness, it does only affect English tier levels.

On the point of Federalism, it would indeed require a written constitution in order to work, otherwise, as suggested, a parliamentary majority could overturn a vote in the second federal chamber, so it would need to be agreed in advance that at least two of (London, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff) representatives would be needed to pass any legislation, not just one.

'If' a second Independence ref results in another No vote though, what happens next? Does that put federalism on the table? No could only win again by a pretty small majority as things stand at present, but would that mean the status quo just continues, or would there be a push for a federal UK model in those circumstances?

Still think that it would be better for Labour to get on board with this, they have to be offering some alternative to the status quo, otherwise they remain irrelevant in Scotland.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

 

[G51]

It's so incredibly hard not to absolutely fucking despise Keir Starmer and what he's done to English Labour.

So I'm not going to try.

[Antlion]

On 01/12/2020 at 09:40, dirty dingus said:

Never noticed before just how much Cherie resembles celebrity fame-seeker Lauren Harries. 

[Detournement]

Naomi Wimborbe-Idrissi suspended now. Wrong type of Jew.

[Arsenal till I die]

So who's this Murray bloke who got passed up? Can't be the same Murray who keeps defending the Tories surely?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

A few years ago there was a documentary about rows of nice old 2 up 2 down brick terraces in Liverpool and the struggle between people wanting to buy them to live in them as homes and developers who wanted to knock them down and build on the land. Joe Anderson came across as a nasty piece of work in it, telling people who were appealing to the council to leave buildings up so they could buy them that nobody wanted to live in them.
Anyway he's just been arrested on suspicion of fraud related to development deals.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/04/mayor-of-liverpool-arrested-as-part-of-investigation

He's not unique in the Labour Party.

[CambieBud]

 

The absolute state of this. There are only two options.

1. Independence or
2. Continued subservience to Boris/ Gove/ Rees Mogg