Brexit discussion thread IX (Please read OP before posting)

Strazdas

Sam Russell wrote: »

Is Cummings a committed political activist or a gun for hire?

Does he believe this stuff he pushes?

More the latter I think. Pete North launched a blistering attack on him on his blog on Wednesday, describing him as having a massive ego, being arrogant and a bully and thinking (wrongly) that he is the most gifted political strategist and thinker in Britain. Going by that description, he probably thinks he is lending out his brilliance to mere mortals.

Sam Russell

Strazdas wrote: »

More the latter I think. Pete North launched a blistering attack on him on his blog on Wednesday, describing him as having a massive ego, being arrogant and a bully and thinking (wrongly) that he is the most gifted political strategist and thinker in Britain. Going by that description, he probably thinks he is lending out his brilliance to mere mortals.

So Boris and Cummings on a mutual ego trip.

Sad to see as it affects us greatly.

Stop moaning ffs

Strazdas wrote: »

More the latter I think. Pete North launched a blistering attack on him on his blog on Wednesday, describing him as having a massive ego, being arrogant and a bully and thinking (wrongly) that he is the most gifted political strategist and thinker in Britain. Going by that description, he probably thinks he is lending out his brilliance to mere mortals.

So he’s from the current affairs/imho forum on boards then.

Makes sense.

It’s apparent he has divilment in mind on a national scale. And somehow has gotten into the ear of someone to end up in Boris ear.

A Bannon lite but in a british vein.
Thing is they might just fall for it and it’ll end badly.

McGiver

If Watson doesn't make the move then it's a no deal crash out and US takeover of the UK. I don't understand how it's possible they don't see it coming.

No way Labour can win GE or at least end up second with high % of votes if they don't ditch Corbyn. His ratings are abysmally low. This whole Brexit operation is an existential threat to UK as a Liberal welfare state and Labour should be up in arms fighting it. But they don't.

I believe Watson would beat Johnson in GE in terms of personality profile. He is just a normal decent person and Johnson is extremely controversial so people would prefer Watson i believe. But Corbyn is so unlikeable that he can't persuade people to become the PM even against Johnson the Clown I.

Strazdas

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

So he’s from the current affairs/imho forum on boards then.

Makes sense.

It’s apparent he has divilment in mind on a national scale. And somehow has gotten into the ear of someone to end up in Boris ear.

A Bannon lite but in a british vein.
Thing is they might just fall for it and it’ll end badly.

Apparently, Cummings regards himself as having a greater mind than anyone in the UK civil service. Pete North describes him as an unemployable crank who wouldn't last five minutes in a real job, given his arrogance and lack of social skills.

Stop moaning ffs

Strazdas wrote: »

Apparently, Cummings regards himself as having a greater mind than anyone in the UK civil service. Pete North describes him as an unemployable crank who wouldn't last five minutes in a real job, given his arrogance and lack of social skills.

Coupled with the fact that his only ‘qualification’ is he ran a blog.

The worlds going to hell if governments are hiring internet cranks to form their campaigns and policies.

Yet here we are.

BobbyBobberson

Pete North is a strange chap. He makes some excellent, balanced points on Brexit and then in the same day may be ridiculously abusive to someone on Twitter. Either way I find his thoughts on Cummings to be interesting, I do think he is being held up as an absolute genius by some of the media. Beth Rigby especially glowing about him, would be nice if they focused on his contempt of parliament a bit more.

Strazdas

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

Coupled with the fact that his only ‘qualification’ is he ran a blog.

The worlds going to hell if governments are hiring internet cranks to form their campaigns and policies.

Yet here we are.

It's very much in keeping with British politics at the moment. Opinionated blowhards with huge egos, who think they are far more intelligent than they actually are. Cummings and Johnson would be cut from the same cloth.

trellheim

Apparently, Cummings regards himself as having a greater mind than anyone in the UK civil service. Pete North describes him as an unemployable crank who wouldn't last five minutes in a real job, given his arrogance and lack of social skills.

He has now won two votes for Boris - 2016 Vote Leave, and his election to PM; he currently can do no wrong at all. All of the Spads for all of the ministers have been directed to report to him alone so defacto he is in control of the machine; they have 5 weeks to get control of the machine so expect stuff on the way

hill16bhoy

McGiver wrote: »

If Watson doesn't make the move then it's a no deal crash out and US takeover of the UK. I don't understand how it's possible they don't see it coming.

No way Labour can win GE or at least end up second with high % of votes if they don't ditch Corbyn. His ratings are abysmally low. This whole Brexit operation is an existential threat to UK as a Liberal welfare state and Labour should be up in arms fighting it. But they don't.

I believe Watson would beat Johnson in GE in terms of personality profile. He is just a normal decent person and Johnson is extremely controversial so people would prefer Watson i believe. But Corbyn is so unlikeable that he can't persuade people to become the PM even against Johnson the Clown I.

Labour would do diddly squat under Tom Watson. He isn't a leader in either personality or policy terms.

There would be mass defections at grass roots level.

By far Labour's best hope is for Corbyn to adopt an unequivocal Remain position and for the party to unite around that.

Labour grass roots activists are pretty much all pro-Remain.

A putsch against Corbyn will only fail again and destroy any chance they have in an election.

Strazdas

BobbyBobberson wrote: »

Pete North is a strange chap. He makes some excellent, balanced points on Brexit and then in the same day may be ridiculously abusive to someone on Twitter. Either way I find his thoughts on Cummings to be interesting, I do think he is being held up as an absolute genius by some of the media. Beth Rigby especially glowing about him, would be nice if they focused on his contempt of parliament a bit more.

I agree in principle about Pete, but one advantage he and his father (Richard North) have is that they actually know Cummings, Farage and Banks in real life, having worked alongside them. Both gentlemen are scathing about the aforementioned, describing them as spivs and shysters.

McGiver

hill16bhoy wrote:

By far Labour's best hope is for Corbyn to adopt an unequivocal Remain position and for the party to unite around that.

Won't help, he's unelectable and not fit to be the PM anyway. Zero leadership. Good as an armchair Socialist, but that's all.

Sam Russell

hill16bhoy wrote: »

Labour would do diddly squat under Tom Watson. He isn't a leader in either personality or policy terms.

There would be mass defections at grass roots level.

By far Labour's best hope is for Corbyn to adopt an unequivocal Remain position and for the party to unite around that.

Labour grass roots activists are pretty much all pro-Remain.

A putsch against Corbyn will only fail again and destroy any chance they have in an election.

Besides they have no time. They need to come out strongly for Remain - either with a second ref or just go straight for 'Revoke - let us cut out the lies!'

Strazdas

trellheim wrote: »

He has now won two votes for Boris - 2016 Vote Leave, and his election to PM; he currently can do no wrong at all. All of the Spads for all of the ministers have been directed to report to him alone so defacto he is in control of the machine; they have 5 weeks to get control of the machine so expect stuff on the way

Oh yes, he is definitely running the show. I heard one former Downing Street adviser suggest it was his idea for Johnson to sack everyone from May's cabinet.

Sam Russell

Strazdas wrote: »

Oh yes, he is definitely running the show. I heard one former Downing Street adviser suggest it was his idea for Johnson to sack everyone from May's cabinet.

Unfortunate side effect of that ploy is that it creates a large body of disaffected Tory back-benchers that can coalesce around a suitable candidate for alternative PM.

McGiver

Sam Russell wrote:

Besides they have no time. They need to come out strongly for Remain - either with a second ref or just go straight for 'Revoke - let us cut out the lies!'

That's insufficient with Corbyn as the leader. He is untrustworthy, so even if he said "Labour supports remain unequivocally" the electorate won't buy it.

Strazdas

Sam Russell wrote: »

Unfortunate side effect of that ploy is that it creates a large body of disaffected Tory back-benchers that can coalesce around a suitable candidate for alternative PM.

Indeed, with some big hitters like Hammond and Hunt on the back benches, not to mention Rory Stewart etc.

It's massively high risk. Everything Johnson is doing is a big gamble at the moment.

Sam Russell

Strazdas wrote: »

Indeed, with some big hitters like Hammond and Hunt on the back benches, not to mention Rory Stewart etc.

It's massively high risk. Everything Johnson is doing is a big gamble at the moment.

Just needs a few to read up on the Fixed Term Parliament Act and they could cook his goose.

Would Corbyn buy it though? Perhaps the majority of Labour MPs might though.

hill16bhoy

McGiver wrote: »

Won't help, he's unelectable and not fit to be the PM anyway. Zero leadership. Good as an armchair Socialist, but that's all.

It would help massively.

When the election is called, it's likely that it will be fought on a straight Leave/Remain question - unlike the 2017 election.

I expect a pact between the Tories and Farage to not split votes in marginals.

That will focus the minds of Remain supporters, who are now likely a majority.

If Labour adopt an unequivocal Remain stance, the game changes, and Labour becomes the only viable way to stop a Tory government intent on no deal.

The young, pro-Remain grass roots which did so much to get out the nearly 13 million Labour voters in 2017, but which has grown disillusioned by the party's equivocal stance on Brexit, suddenly becomes re-energised.

As it is, Labour's membership and support is massively pro-Remain, but its equivocal stance on Brexit is driving people to the Lib Dems and Greens, which means there's a massive risk, and probably a likelihood, of splitting the pro-Remain vote and haanding a thumping majority to Johnson.

trellheim

Neatly headed off at the pass last week by the 1922 committee making it a year before you can challenge for Tory leader by which time we will all be looking back for these happy times

Leonard Hofstadter

Strazdas wrote: »

Indeed, with some big hitters like Hammond and Hunt on the back benches, not to mention Rory Stewart etc.

It's massively high risk. Everything Johnson is doing is a big gamble at the moment.

The danger is, it just might work.

People thought Leave wouldn't win (though I always thought the Brits had the capability of doing something like this, since I was living there at the time and got to understand just how badly misinformed they are about the EU by the gutter right wing press), and they did.

Same with Trump. Of course, as counterpoints, the far-right did far worse than the polls were predicting in the European elections this year, and there have been notable setbacks, such as in The Netherlands, where oddly enough the Social Democrats had quite a spectacular revival, so it's no guarantee, but I think it's fair to say the climate in England in particular is fertile ground for the far-right to do well, and like I say, Vote Leave did run a very effective campaign. Since most of the bigwigs in Vote Leave are now in charge of the UK Government, of course they could run a successful one. Don't forget that while plenty of people don't like Boris over there, a lot of people do like him. Thatcher after all was reviled by a substantial portion of the British electorate and she still won three elections (although she never won on the basis of taking the UK out of the world's largest single market and committing economic suicide and making the UK a poorer country).

I listened to the YouTube video linked earlier where Cummings was speaking.

It's very clever what he did (also I think highly objectionable from a moral standpoint), if the other parties haven't cottoned onto it, then they could easily lose again. I see this as a direct attack on democracy.

There badly needs to be rules on social media so people like him cannot manipulate and target the general public like that. The scariest thing about it is because it's personalised advertising, I see completely different adverts to everyone else. At least in traditional media, everyone can see what everyone else is doing.

PropJoe10

McGiver wrote: »

Won't help, he's unelectable and not fit to be the PM anyway. Zero leadership. Good as an armchair Socialist, but that's all.

The sooner that Labour get rid of Corbyn and get someone with actual concrete policies and some credibility in, the better. He is half the problem in the Commons at the moment. Stands for absolutely nothing.

Valhallapt

Any signs of Steve Bannon’s hand in all this? I know he was involved in the referendum vote, but is he back in the picture again?

Stop moaning ffs

Valhallapt wrote: »

Any signs of Steve Bannon’s hand in all this? I know he was involved in the referendum vote, but is he back in the picture again?

Was in contact with Johnson and later Johnson denied even meeting him yet Bannon on camera was able to tell specifically what he advised him on.

It was boris’ comment about Muslim women in hijabs looking like letter boxes came soon after afaik

hill16bhoy

Valhallapt wrote: »

Any signs of Steve Bannon’s hand in all this? I know he was involved in the referendum vote, but is he back in the picture again?

Chloe Westley's appointment as digital media advisor to Johnson smacks of Bannon's fingerprints.

Westley has some very dodgy associations including being the frontwoman for the US funded astro-turf anarcho-capitalist group the "Taxpayers' Alliance".

She tweeted the following about Anne Marie Waters, the co-founder with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon of the far right Pegida UK group:

beggars_bush

The best bet is for the Lib Dems to gain disaffected Tory voters (one third of them according to polls) and gain a load of seats
Labour to hold their share of seats on a remain campaign
And the Tories to haemorrage votes due to people's fear of a no deal scenario and BoJos crew who have taken control

Or maybe I'm mad

devnull

Excellent article here
https://news.sky.com/story/no-amount-of-hope-or-optimism-will-ease-boris-johnsons-challenges-11770360

You can say that there are "fantastic alternatives to the backstop" all you like, you can say the EU will negotiate a new deal with us all you like, you can say you can go for no-deal while adhering to the Good Friday Agreement all you like, you can say there are tech solutions to the border, again and again and again, but it doesn't make it happen, it doesn't will these things into existence.

Sometimes in politics, where there's a will, there isn't a way and you have to will something else, a compromise or half way house - something the PM's side have often seemed unwilling to do.

Really nails the problems that the vision of Boris has and all the issues in reality that no amount of cheerleading and bluster about the future and how if you believe in something enough it will happen will resolve. Hope and belikve in oneself, better known as being deluded, will save the UK.

It is good to see some people in the media calling him out for exactly what he is and telling it like it is, sadly time and time again when the Brexiteers come on TV they are not challanged anywhere near enough.

Tell me how

beggars_bush wrote: »

The best bet is for the Lib Dems to gain disaffected Tory voters (one third of them according to polls) and gain a load of seats
Labour to hold their share of seats on a remain campaign
And the Tories to haemorrage votes due to people's fear of a no deal scenario and BoJos crew who have taken control

Or maybe I'm mad

Brexit Party are likely going to come storming in to Westminster depending on the status of Brexit at the time of the election.

While I believe there is a majority, at this point, who want to remain within the EU, there are also large numbers who have bought in to the Farage, Daily Express, Mark Francois rhetoric.

THE UK could have a very unbalanced parliament for the next ten years out of this.
The days of Labour/Conservatives/Lib Dems taking 90% of the seats are gone for a while I'd imagine.

trellheim

I listened to the YouTube video linked earlier where Cummings was speaking.

It's very clever what he did (also I think highly objectionable from a moral standpoint), if the other parties haven't cottoned onto it, then they could easily lose again. I see this as a direct attack on democracy.

Linked here again https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=552&v=CDbRxH9Kiy4&fbclid=IwAR3HWc31AxZy7RALpdJsj-Buvecr2AItgJBr2PJR-ucPk5zsBWZggeEY6qo

seriously folks stick it on and listen - this is what we are in for and you need to know the tactics being used.

upupup

trellheim wrote: »

Linked here again https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=552&v=CDbRxH9Kiy4&fbclid=IwAR3HWc31AxZy7RALpdJsj-Buvecr2AItgJBr2PJR-ucPk5zsBWZggeEY6qo

seriously folks stick it on and listen - this is what we are in for and you need to know the tactics being used.

"Brexit:The uncivil war" shows how Dominic Cummings did it...highly recommended,I have a lot of respect for cummings after watching it.He fooled everybody with the leave campaign,I wonder can he fool them again...Probably
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U9PtoH5bsM