|
Pluskut Tukker posted:An outcome where you cede all control to 'Brussels', give up on limiting worker migration from Europe, and cough up £50 billion is not an outcome that can be portrayed as a win by anyone. Also, my last point was that the rightwing press has power because members of government treat it as if it had power, not because it is able to sway voters. Besides, in comparison to the complete mess that the current government is, Corbyn should be leading by 10+ points in the polls instead of barely pulling even with May. Again with the superficial nonsense. Labour are currently polling at the same level that Blair got in the 1997 landslide victory. There are two key differences to note: (1) Lib Dem collapse. Apparently the Lib Dem brand is now so toxic that "never Labour" centrist Tory voters have nowhere to go anymore for a protest vote. The fact that 4 million remain voters still are willing to vote Tory is far more about the Lib Dems (who are also, you know, an opposition party) than Labour. (2) Age polarisation at an unprecedented level. We've never seen anything like it. Labour IS streets ahead with people of working age. But the Tories are streets ahead with old people. But it helps explain some of the stickiness of the Tory vote. Old brexity people have an ideological reason to back the party offering the hardest brexit and they're protected from a lot of the risk. No job to lose. Pensions go up with inflation. They're safe, and they don't give a gently caress if the young people suffer because of it. So it's worthless commentary to throw your arms in the air going "what a shambles, Labour should be miles ahead" because it completely ignores what's actually going on and doesn't offer any suggestions about what to do next.
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 13:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 08:49 |
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:Again with the superficial nonsense. Labour are currently polling at the same level that Blair got in the 1997 landslide victory. There are two key differences to note: I have no objection to people calling me dumb as long as they explain why I'm being dumb so I can take in the new information and perhaps change my mind, so thank you. This was interesting and I think you're right after all on Labour's polling share being as high as it could realistically be. I still don't see where a pro-soft Brexit coalition in Parliament is going to come from though - as far as I can tell there are not enough people willing to put the interests of the country in avoiding Brexit above the interests of party unity yet, so that leaves Britain with the pro-Leave Conservative government it has right now.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 14:18
|
|
|
Pluskut Tukker posted:I have no objection to people calling me dumb as long as they explain why I'm being dumb so I can take in the new information and perhaps change my mind, so thank you. This was interesting and I think you're right after all on Labour's polling share being as high as it could realistically be. I still don't see where a pro-soft Brexit coalition in Parliament is going to come from though - as far as I can tell there are not enough people willing to put the interests of the country in avoiding Brexit above the interests of party unity yet, so that leaves Britain with the pro-Leave Conservative government it has right now. The soft-Brexit (or even no-Brexit) coalition definitely exists in theory; but it's very difficult for a pro-Remain MP of any party to appear to be ignoring the referendum result when they represent a constituency that voted leave as most of them do. The political cover they need to push their agenda is showing signs of appearing (albeit astonishingly slow to anyone who pays attention to what a mess this all is) as "Wrong to leave the EU" is now polling slightly ahead of "Right to leave the EU" as of October. If the EU refuse to move on to trade talks next month we should expect there to be further movement in opinion against Brexit, and who knows what disasters will happen before then even. Crucially we can see that the Midlands and North crosstabs are both statistically tied on Brexit now so if "Wrong to leave" can pull ahead there it reduces the political risk for a lot of Labour MPs in particular.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 14:34
|
|
|
Labour is definitely going to pull ahead over time if the political situation remains broadly as is, on account of being the only party that can realistically attract new voters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 14:56
|
|
|
Cerebral Bore posted:Labour is definitely going to pull ahead over time if the political situation remains broadly as is, on account of being the only party that can realistically attract new voters. Labour can also get a further 1% swing each year just from the death rate of Tory voters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:07
|
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:Labour can also get a further 1% swing each year just from the death rate of Tory voters. It's some primo black comedy that the Tories are literally killing off their own voting base.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:18
|
|
|
Cerebral Bore posted:Labour is definitely going to pull ahead over time if the political situation remains broadly as is, on account of being the only party that can realistically attract new voters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:25
|
|
|
Pluskut Tukker is right. The soft Brexit option is not going to be acceptable to a huge chunk of the British population. For someone with a decent economic understanding of affairs it is obviously the best option. But unfortunately the vast majority of the electorate does not fit that description. For the unwashed masses a soft Brexit is all of the negatives of EU membership with very few of the positives. No longer will the UK be able to veto deeper integration. The UK will continue to have to contribute funds. And abide by 'STRAIGHT BANANA' EU regulations. And FOREIGNERS will still be able to come to the UK to steal jobs. The softer medium/long-term economic benefits of a Norway style agreement are far harder to explain to the lay person - especially when neither of the major parties is willing to go to bat to do so. We're going to get a no deal, hard Brexit crash-out in 16 months time. But long-term thats probably the best for all concerned. The UK economy can crash for a decade, then they can learn their lesson and re-apply for membership and promise to abide by all the rules properly this time. And join the Euro. And in the meantime while they're out deeper integration can be achieved. It'll result in both the UK and EU being in a better position 20-30 years from now than we'd get with a continuation of the status quo. Blut fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Nov 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:33
|
|
|
Did somebody call for the bad take brigade, or what?
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
Geriatric Pirate posted:Ah, the sense of false hope that I guess keeps you from killing yourself until 2022 the tories have been remarkably resilient to collapse for a party of incompetent sexpests but you're just demonstrating your own ignorance if you think anybody below 65 is voting for that loving mess if/when it does finally burn down in a Boris Johnson fit of pique. They tried to filibuster a debate on lowering the voting age, and succeeded in blocking a vote, because Labour approval below 20 has been closing in on 70% for some time, if it hasn't already reached it. Youth turnout at Brexit and the last election was at levels it hasn't been since the 90s. Any cuts to the NHS, any winter crisis, is going to kill mostly conservative voters. The conservative parties two top polling leadership candidates were "None of the above" and "none of the names listed" at their own conference. Only an absolute buffoon can think they're going to pick up votes on the back of a self induced economic crisis. Blut posted:
The hidden advantage here is that the worst of the brexit voters have no idea what a soft brexit is, no idea what an EEA deal is, and absolutely believe they're going to stay in the single market anyway, just with less immigration. Ignorance doesn't disappear when something they won't like rears its head, they think they're keeping free movement of goods and capital and nobody has been able to convince them otherwise. Spangly A fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Nov 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:37
|
|
|
The idea that the UK will in any way "learn its lesson" and start being a credit to the international community after 10 years of economic famine seems hopelessly naive. We'll get worse, not better.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:50
|
|
|
Cerebral Bore posted:Did somebody call for the bad take brigade, or what? So, can some UK goon then explain to us ~continental types~ what the May goverment is doing right now? If soft brexit/EEA membership is acceptable to the majority of the population, why are they loving around? Are they just trying to placate their minority xenophobic voter base? Then they clearly must understand that the time to do a proper EEA deal has already run out and dragging their feet is making the situation worse every day. What is the plan here? How long will the dragging of feet continue?
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:51
|
|
|
Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:So, can some UK goon then explain to us ~continental types~ what the May goverment is doing right now? If soft brexit/EEA membership is acceptable to the majority of the population, why are they loving around? Are they just trying to placate their minority xenophobic voter base? Then they clearly must understand that the time to do a proper EEA deal has already run out and dragging their feet is making the situation worse every day. What is the plan here? How long will the dragging of feet go on? Self-destructing, mostly.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:53
|
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:If the EU refuse to move on to trade talks next month we should expect there to be further movement in opinion against Brexit, From your lips to God's ears, but I'm not at all convinced people will use this as a reason to change their mind about leaving the EU; if anything, I think it might strengthen Leave voters in their opinion about the EU being bad. There is to my mind nothing about the future negotiations that will be likely to endear the EU to British voters in any way, since that is the very nature of the process: no Brexit deal can be better for Britain than the EU membership deal. I also don't think that waiting for political cover to appear for MPs or Labour as a whole to start formally supporting Remain instead of Leave is a smart strategy. Many voters take their cues for what position they should take on a political position from their preferred politicians/parties, so if you want voters to back Remain, you should start backing Remain as a party, and explain to your voters why you're doing so. That also means ending the support for Brexit 'under the right conditions' , or if it is a 'jobs-first Brexit' , since supporting something like that only implies that the right kind of Brexit exists in some ideal universe and thus validates the pro-Brexit position. Maybe demographics will eventually make Labour the dominant party, but as it is, the UK is Brexiting on March 29, 2019 at 23:00h GMT so if you want to stop that, you better act now. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Nov 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 15:59
|
|
|
Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:So, can some UK goon then explain to us ~continental types~ what the May goverment is doing right now? If soft brexit/EEA membership is acceptable to the majority of the population, why are they loving around? Are they just trying to placate their minority xenophobic voter base? Then they clearly must understand that the time to do a proper EEA deal has already run out and dragging their feet is making the situation worse every day. What is the plan here? How long will the dragging of feet go on? Theresa May is ferociously incompetent and a fun primer is watching how her drug ban had to have a hasty ammendment to not ban caffeine and medicine, which has seen drug dealers walk out of court because more than one lawyer has succesfully argued ket and heroin are legal now. She has no idea what she is doing, no power, and no control. She does not read impact assessments or white papers, and does not listen to civil servants who correct her. She attempted to do all government paperwork herself, and kept this up for longer than the Yes, Minister's Jim Hacker managed in a parody tv show. David Davis believes the EU is exactly the same as it was when it was formed, and aggressively rejects evidence otherwise. He has appeared drunk on TV during negotiations. The UK has no negotiating team capable of working at this level, and has not attempted to hire one. It could have, but it tried to ban French speakers from applications, and when this wasn't legal they didn't bother. Boris Johnson tours the world making enemies and insulting people while asking Sikh's what they want to drink and reciting Rudyard Kipling poems in former colonial vassal states. I don't think he's actually entered an office in a while. May's government is built arounding placating Boris Johnson and other rebels, and the idea him and Davis got the jobs as punishments seems more likely by the scandal (multiple a week, now). There is no plan. They don't know what they're doing. They are not capable of understanding the requirements, and they aren't going to try. They don't appear to understand what international obligations, legal ones, are. The Florence speech was supposed to have EU leaders present, except they didn't tell them or the city of Florence that there was going to be a speech. Your continental governments should be preparing a worst case scenario, because the UK is going to burn. Thankfully (for you guys), it seems to be leaking through that this isn't an act, they really shouldn't be here. Pluskut Tukker posted:From your lips to God's ears, but I'm not at all convinced people will use this as a reason to change their mind about leaving the EU; if anything, I think it might strengthen Leave voters in their opinion about the EU being bad. There is to my mind nothing about the future negotiations that will be likely to endear the EU to British voters in any way, since that is the very nature of the process: no Brexit deal can be better for Britain than the EU membership deal. "Guardian posted:
We know we're hosed. Spangly A fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Nov 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 16:02
|
|
|
I'm sorry for British remainers; but it's really in the interest of the EU that the UK gets out and stops vetoing any attempt at turning Europe into something that can potentially work. Pompidou not upholding De Gaulle's veto was the worst thing that ever happened to the European project. Brexit is a unique opportunity to heal.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 16:04
|
|
|
I recall why I started paying attention to international news more than National ones, my country is the kind that has the gall to let a corruption scandal be swept under the rug even with the European Commission asking for its money back.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 16:26
|
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:(2) Age polarisation at an unprecedented level. We've never seen anything like it. Labour IS streets ahead with people of working age. But the Tories are streets ahead with old people. But it helps explain some of the stickiness of the Tory vote. Old brexity people have an ideological reason to back the party offering the hardest brexit and they're protected from a lot of the risk. No job to lose. Pensions go up with inflation. They're safe, and they don't give a gently caress if the young people suffer because of it. I don't think talking about the situation like this is particularly illuminating. Lots of "old Brexity people" vote for Labour. May might not have called the election if it hadn't looked like former Labour voters who'd switched to UKIP in the pre-referendum days might decide to vote for her given her hard Brexit stand. Instead most of them returned to Labour and the gains the Tories made in Scotland were made up for by the seats Labour won in an areas with large middle class and graduate populations.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 19:35
|
|
|
I had the dumbest most confused look on my face when I heard an old guy in the radio talk about how he voted for UKIP because Labour "aren't left-wing enough" two elections back
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 19:47
|
|
|
cloudchamber posted:I don't think talking about the situation like this is particularly illuminating. Lots of "old Brexity people" vote for Labour. May might not have called the election if it hadn't looked like former Labour voters who'd switched to UKIP in the pre-referendum days might decide to vote for her given her hard Brexit stand. Instead most of them returned to Labour and the gains the Tories made in Scotland were made up for by the seats Labour won in an areas with large middle class and graduate populations. Except what you say isn't actually true? Let's look at the difference in the Labour lead between the 18-24 demographic and the 65+ demographic over all the general elections since 1997 as a measure of the generational divide: 1997: (+22) - (+5) = +17 2001: (+24) - (-2) = +26 2005: (+10) - (-6) = +16 2010: (+1) - (-13) = +14 2015: (+16) - (-24) = +40 2017: (+35) - (-36) = +71 Source: Ipsos "How Britain Voted" A blunt statistic but it shows the general trends, in particular with regards to the 65+ vote. Nobody is saying that *no* Brexit voters voted Labour. But old voters in particular voted Tory more than before, and young voters are voting Labour more than before. The evidence points to the hypothesis that younger UKIP voters mostly went to Labour and older UKIP voters mostly went to the Tories. If this isn't an avenue for discussion then what exactly is?
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 20:26
|
|
|
Spangly A posted:There is no plan. They don't know what they're doing. They are not capable of understanding the requirements, and they aren't going to try. They don't appear to understand what international obligations, legal ones, are. The Florence speech was supposed to have EU leaders present, except they didn't tell them or the city of Florence that there was going to be a speech. You've put people in power who have been shielded from the consequences of their actions all their lives. They are now utterly incapable of comprehending that their actions will have consequences. Your honest best bet right now is to murder the lot.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 20:33
|
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:Nobody is saying that *no* Brexit voters voted Labour. But old voters in particular voted Tory more than before, and young voters are voting Labour more than before. The evidence points to the hypothesis that younger UKIP voters mostly went to Labour and older UKIP voters mostly went to the Tories. I don't know the exact demographic figures but a significant amount of Labour's support right now must come from Leave voters. Labour holds a large number of seats in both London, where the remain vote was about 60% and in the areas in the north like Yorkshire where, conversely, the leave vote was around 60%. There are presumably a lot of northern Labour voters who expect Labour to lead Britain out of the EU should Corbyn become prime minister.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 21:20
|
|
|
cloudchamber posted:I don't know the exact demographic figures but a significant amount of Labour's support right now must come from Leave voters. Labour holds a large number of seats in both London, where the remain vote was about 60% and in the areas in the north like Yorkshire where, conversely, the leave vote was around 60%. There are presumably a lot of northern Labour voters who expect Labour to lead Britain out of the EU should Corbyn become prime minister. You mean North Yorkshire where 7/8 of the constituencies are held by Tories? Again, I'm not saying that Labour doesn't have a fair few leave voters in its support - the figure is around 32% in fact. But the point is that the demographics matter a lot as to what kind of leave voter it is. A Labour leaver is much more likely to be younger and a Tory one old. What we've seen recently is that working age people are becoming less keen on Brexit. This isn't surprising given the YouGov survey which shows that older (especially 65+, i.e. retired) leavers are much more likely to accept economic damage and are the only age group willing to accept a friend or family member losing a job as a result of Brexit. The age divide on all of these things is absolutely essential in understanding why the polls look the way they do and why this government seems to have such resilient support in the face of all this chaos. Labour leave voters are much less likely to accept economic damage as a price for Brexit and so will have a much more open mind to a soft Brexit or no Brexit if things continue to get worse.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 21:40
|
|
|
Lord of the Llamas posted:You mean North Yorkshire where 7/8 of the constituencies are held by Tories? I was thinking of Yorkshire and Humber, sorry. A place where Labour hold a majority of the seats but which had, I think, one of the largest vote shares for Leave in England. Still strikes me that there must be a lot of relatively older voters who turned out for Corbyn last June. The collapse in the UKIP vote didn't benefit the Tories anywhere near as much as they thought it would. This surely can't all be put down to Labour winning over young UKIP voters when younger voters aren't particularly attracted to leaving the EU in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 22:16
|
|
|
cloudchamber posted:I was thinking of Yorkshire and Humber, sorry. A place where Labour hold a majority of the seats but which had, I think, one of the largest vote shares for Leave in England. Still strikes me that there must be a lot of relatively older voters who turned out for Corbyn last June. The collapse in the UKIP vote didn't benefit the Tories anywhere near as much as they thought it would. This surely can't all be put down to Labour winning over young UKIP voters when younger voters aren't particularly attracted to leaving the EU in the first place. Sure it can. By younger I don't just mean the youngest. The 2015 UKIP vote was also age correlated but to a much smaller extent than it became after the referendum. Only the 18-24 demographic had below 10% UKIP vote in 2015 (12.6% national share). A lot of talk was being made of UKIP being a gateway drug to the Tory party earlier in this year and indeed the polling evidence showed that for a while, indeed when the general election was announced about half the 2015 UKIP vote was defecting to the Tories and almost none of it going back to Labour. My hypothesis would be that the gateway drug narrative probably applied to a number of older voters but not so much to the younger voters. If you look at the kind of constituencies you were talking about (e.g. these) the trend does seem to be that Tory majorities held up better than Labour majorities. Across the country the Tories did win more 2015 UKIP votes than Labour, but in the end Labour won enough (and it would've been correlated with who they voted for prior to 2015) such that the Tories couldn't turn those gains into seats. Lord of the Llamas fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Nov 13, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2017 22:39
|
|
|
Shibawanko posted:Holland has a new government. I already hate Dijkhoff, that kind of neoliberal-with-a-human-face common sense-ist, who I can easily see succeeding Rutte as the next prime minister.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2017 02:30
|
|
|
Wonderful, our Parliament now has a flag: Making the Netherlands Great Again ( with a 100 Euro flag). Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Nov 14, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2017 16:31
|
|
|
Oh Christ they didn't even hang it up the goddamn wall?
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2017 23:10
|
|
|
Gort posted:I had the dumbest most confused look on my face when I heard an old guy in the radio talk about how he voted for UKIP because Labour "aren't left-wing enough" two elections back Much like the BNP before them (or indeed literal  ) UKIP were fine with some populist leftwing economic policies (for white native working class people) to go along with the racism while meanwhile Labour at the time was New. There's a reason they got so many votes from places like the Northeast , it's standard far right tactics.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2017 23:21
|
|
|
Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:So, can some UK goon then explain to us ~continental types~ what the May goverment is doing right now? If soft brexit/EEA membership is acceptable to the majority of the population, why are they loving around? Are they just trying to placate their minority xenophobic voter base? Then they clearly must understand that the time to do a proper EEA deal has already run out and dragging their feet is making the situation worse every day. What is the plan here? How long will the dragging of feet continue? I suggest you look at the Tory MP base, not the electorate as a whole or even Tory voters tbh.
|
|
#
?
Nov 14, 2017 23:25
|
|
|
The international reaction to the UK government continues to be 'They can't possibly really be that stupid, incompetent and self-obsessed, can they?'
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 15:38
|
|
|
Pluskut Tukker posted:Wonderful, our Parliament now has a flag: hahahahahahahaaaa
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 16:44
|
|
|
I don't know what happened there but I'm going to assume some right wing party (Wilders' or whatever his name is party) made it one of their ultimate goals to get a flag in the parliament since there wasn't one and that was viewed as "anti patriotic" or some dumb poo poo like that. And they even got some votes with that And I'm probably gonna be right. We truly live in the dumbest times, relative to the available knowledge.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 18:03
|
|
|
The proposal for the flag indeed came from Freedom Party, a joint venture with the SGP which is the Evangelical party (the one that thinks women should be in the kitchen, definitely not to be confused with the Christian party or the Christian lite party). Every party went along with it, except for the Animal Party. The Green party noted that the flag from the European Union should be right next to it, so look forward to that.
Mierenneuker fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Nov 15, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 18:17
|
|
|
orange sky posted:I don't know what happened there but I'm going to assume some right wing party (Wilders' or whatever his name is party) made it one of their ultimate goals to get a flag in the parliament since there wasn't one and that was viewed as "anti patriotic" or some dumb poo poo like that. And they even got some votes with that Yes, the proposal to display the flag was made jointly by Wilders' party (PVV) and the hard-right Christian theocrats of the SGP . An earlier proposal to do so by the PVV a few years back was still voted down. This time, a large majority of Parliament voted in favour (the only people brave enough to vote against were the Animal Rights Party). I doubt we'll get an EU flag displayed under the current composition of Parliament.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 18:20
|
|
|
Mierenneuker posted:The proposal for the flag came from the SGP, the Evangelical party (the one that thinks women should be in the kitchen, definitely not to be confused with the Christian party or the Christian lite party). Every party went along with it, except for the Animal Party. The Green party noted that the flag from the European Union should be right next to it, so look forward to that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 18:20
|
|
|
Hambilderberglar posted:They should have only included an EU flag so the PVV could wail and gnash their teeth about European Superstates or whatever the gently caress happens in Geert Wilders' paranoid fever dreams. Indeed, and also to annoy Baudet.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2017 18:22
|
|
|
Politico has a nice article about the fight about the relocation of EU agencies as a result of Brexit:quote:Brussels wanted keep the race for Brexit’s biggest spoils from turning into a feeding-frenzy for self-interested member countries. It failed. If this process sounds undignified, that's because 1) it is and more importantly, 2) there are massive economic benefits at stake from getting to host an agency. The EMA has close to 900 in highly qualified and paid personnel and the EBA around 180, but each agency also constantly holds meetings and hosts guest experts, so getting to host an agency also guarantees tens of thousands of hotel stays for visitors each year. Every member state has the same number of votes, the votes will be held in secret and apparently records of the vote will be destroyed after the meeting, so it's impossible to predict how this ends up.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2017 09:25
|
|
|
Pluskut Tukker posted:Politico has a nice article about the fight about the relocation of EU agencies as a result of Brexit: Croatian media wrote about our campaign for EMA. Nobody expects anything from it, though. We don't have capable diplomats or strong allies in the EU and our main argument is that Croatia doesn't have other European agencies. I learned from the article that we're not unique in that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2017 09:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 08:49 |
|
|
I suppose Croatia's problem is also that it isn't really rich enough to bribe the other member states with anything, while the salaries offered would also be lower for the staff. The consideration that the EU really should offer an agency position to a member state for moral reasons won't count for much when there's so much money at stake.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2017 09:59
|
|