Will Britain ever just piss off and get on with Brexit? -mod warning in OP (21/12)

biko

Please supply a list of approved sources so I can do better next time.
Do I need to add trigger warnings, perhaps?

Funny how the content in the video is not mentioned by you or Padre_Pio.
I suppose you have no issues with that...

Padre_Pio

biko wrote: »

Shooting the messenger eh? Difficulties to see past the logo in the video?

Honestly I don't care, BoJo will do better than Corbyn IMO, I just don't like using one example to tar a movement.

Millions didn't vote for BoJo, that's no reason to associate them with those on the extreme left, it's beneath you.

biko wrote: »

Jacket only available in XXXL size

Again, Id expect this from some re-reg troll in AH, not a mod in the Current Affairs forum.

biko

Millions more did vote for Boris.

Do you believe for a second Tory voters would be out on the streets acting like this if Labour had won?

biko

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Again, Id expect this from some re-reg troll in AH, not a mod in the Current Affairs forum.

I am not a moderator of this forum, just a poster like yourself.

SaintLeibowitz

biko wrote: »

Please supply a list of approved sources so I can do better next time.
Do I need to add trigger warnings, perhaps?

Funny how the content in the video is not mentioned by you or Padre_Pio.
I suppose you have no issues with that...

Just educate yourself. No one should have to take you by the hand. Continually posting scutter from far right twitter accounts is not a great look. Maybe then people will engage with you.

biko

SaintLeibowitz wrote: »

Just educate yourself. No one should have to take you by the hand.

That's a "no" then.
Thanks I guess.

Padre_Pio

biko wrote: »

Millions more did vote for Boris.

Do you believe for a second they would be out on the streets acting like this if Labour won?

They ARE out on the streets.

From the same Guardian report you linked:

Hundreds of protesters clashed with police when they marched through central London and in front of Downing Street in a demonstration against the election of Boris Johnson.

Separate marches were organised on the day by Stand up to Racism, Love Music Hate Racism and Antifascist Action (Antifa), and demonstrators were confronted by a pro-government group. The police contained people in Victoria and the protest was dispersed

Professor Moriarty

biko wrote: »

Millions more did vote for Boris.

Do you believe for a second Tory voters would be out on the streets acting like this if Labour had won?

A minority of voters voted for Johnson. In fact, millions more voted not to have Johnson as PM than voted to have Johnson as PM.

theological

biko wrote: »

Millions more did vote for Boris.

Do you believe for a second Tory voters would be out on the streets acting like this if Labour had won?

Protesting against a democratic vote just doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

It's one thing to disagree with the Tory victory, fair enough. The logical outcome of that position should be to work out what went wrong with the Labour campaign and aim to win the vote next time surely?

Perhaps I have something wrong, but isn't this the reason why the Tories won in the first place? Far left ostrich syndrome. Ignoring the actual people to promote their agenda?

Labour have lost the working class vote because they became too London centric on the Brexit issue, and too far left in tandem. They need to figure out what went wrong. I suspect if they found the same political space as Blair did they could win again, but it's going to take them a long time to figure that out.

biko

Tory did their best election since 1980s and Labour did their worst election in history.
But somehow people didn't vote for Boris?

weisses

biko wrote: »

Millions more did vote for Boris.

Do you believe for a second Tory voters would be out on the streets acting like this if Labour had won?

People using their Democratic right to protest ...... The horror

Professor Moriarty

biko wrote: »

Tory did their best election since 1980s and Labour did their worst election in history.
But somehow people didn't vote for Boris?

Correct. A sizeable majority didn't.

biko

Padre_Pio wrote: »

They ARE out on the streets.

From the same Guardian report you linked:

Thanks, strangely it doesn't show in my link, but I found it on another similar article.
I wonder if the word Guardian uses - "confronted", really means anything. Actual confrontation should surely have garnered more news than a single sentence.

biko

weisses wrote: »

People using their Democratic right to protest ...... The horror

Not a single person in this forum, including you and me, wishes to restrict people's right to demonstrate their opinions, unless they break hate speech laws.

Padre_Pio

biko wrote: »

Not a single person in this forum, including you and me, wishes to restrict people's right to demonstrate their opinions, unless they break hate speech laws.

Funny you should mention that. Here's a quote from some of those "lefty" organisations you wish to demonize:

"We must now prepare to build a movement against a Prime Minister who has used racist and dehumanising language to describe Muslim, African and Caribbean communities, and the racist policies that will almost certainly accompany the forthcoming attacks on living standards for working people.

"Boris Johnson has a track record of bigotry. He is refusing to apologise for describing Muslim women as looking like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”. Islamophobic incidents went up by 375 percent in the week after he made these statements. Nor did he apologise for calling black people "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles."

"These comments are part of an ever-growing list of racist comments Johnson has made and defended that have caused widespread shock and outrage.

"The government’s Windrush scandal led to misery for thousands of black Britons who arrived decades ago. People were deported, denied NHS care, and lost their job as part of a deliberate “hostile environment” which Johnson’s government is set to continue."

biko

I don't agree with those Boris statements either.
Nor the antisemitism from the opposition.

biko

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

A minority of voters voted for Johnson. In fact, millions more voted not to have Johnson as PM than voted to have Johnson as PM.

I think you are confusing "voting for" with "voting against".
A vote for Jo Swinson isn't necessarily a vote against Boris.

Or do you think people showed up in droves to vote 90% against Swinson?

Professor Moriarty

biko wrote: »

I think you are confusing "voting for" with "voting against".
A vote for Jo Swinson isn't necessarily a vote against Boris.

Or do you think people showed up in droves to vote 90% against Swinson?

I'm not confused at all. I'll simplify. Millions more people voted for parties other than the Tories. Ergo, millions more people wanted a PM other than Johnson. I'm sorry, but that's as simple as I can make it.

Junkyard Tom

biko wrote: »

Tory did their best election since 1980s and Labour did their worst election in history.
But somehow people didn't vote for Boris?

People voted for BoJo's message 'get Brexit done' which is understandable. I'd say the entire establishment shitting a brick over Corbyn (don't forget the policies Corbyn supports are popular, moderate, and likely to make regular people's lives better) didn't help either.

BoJo has become the man who promises to cure the eurosceptic disease he helped infect the British public with.

biko

More voted not to have Corbyn as PM
Even more not to have Swindon as PM

It seems 98% did not want the Green party to lead the country.
I totally read this as UK hates the environment.

Am I doing this right?

Professor Moriarty

biko wrote: »

More voted not to have Corbyn as PM
Even more not to have Swindon as PM

It seems 98% did not want the Green party to lead the country.
I totally read this as UK hates the environment.

Am I doing this right?

No, you're not. You're extrapolating based on your own misplaced biases. Bit like many Leave voters. Keep it simple for yourself. People who voted for Johnson wanted him as PM. People who didn't, didn't. Simples.

theological

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

No, you're not. You're extrapolating based on your own misplaced biases. Bit like many Leave voters. Keep it simple for yourself. People who voted for Johnson wanted him as PM. People who didn't, didn't. Simples.

They were the biggest party therefore he won the election simple.

Those protesters are part of a tiny minority of sore losers who don't accept the principle of losers consent. People like that are the reason why places like Workington went blue.

Whinging and whining about the result won't change anything nor will it contribute to Labour winning the next election. Whinging about the referendum result was the reason why the remainer parties lost this one.

Brexit is certainly going to happen now. It's time for those who were advocating for a second referendum to accept that. More whinging won't change that.

Professor Moriarty

theological wrote: »

They were the biggest party therefore he won the election simple.

Those protesters are part of a tiny minority of sore losers who don't accept the principle of losers consent. People like that are the reason why places like Workington went blue.

Whinging and whining about the result won't change anything nor will it contribute to Labour winning the next election. Whinging about the referendum result was the reason why the remainer parties lost this one.

Brexit is certainly going to happen now. It's time for those who were advocating for a second referendum to accept that. More whinging won't change that.

He is PM because of FPTP. About as undemocratic a system as you can get. And Brexit is happening because Johnson and his ilk lied and lied in 2016. But it's all good.

Tony EH

biko wrote: »

Shooting the messenger eh?

Some "messengers" deserve to be shot.

Eric Cartman

Ive no issue with people disliking boris, being upset the conservatives won , thinking comie corbyn was a better option etc...

But the people out saying this is the rise of the ‘far right’ comparing him to hitler, saying this is naziism etc... are off their rockers, its the british conservative party, theyre centre right by literally any barometer.

I wonder how many of those out protesting actually attended a ballot box, i bet its nowherenjear 100%

MadYaker

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Ive no issue with people disliking boris, being upset the conservatives won , thinking comie corbyn was a better option etc...

But the people out saying this is the rise of the ‘far right’ comparing him to hitler, saying this is naziism etc... are off their rockers, its the british conservative party, theyre centre right by literally any barometer.

I wonder how many of those out protesting actually attended a ballot box, i bet its nowherenjear 100%

Do you have any examples of sane people doing this? Everyone needs to stop taking the most extreme sample from left or right and trying to paint everyone on that side of the spectrum with the same brush. It only widens the divide. Everyone knows Bojo and Trump aren't nazis and the tiny tiny tiny minority of people who do think that need to be ignored and not made viral on twitter. The internet and smartphones have been a disaster for the human race.

end of the road

knipex wrote: »

Its that attitude that got this election result.

it's still correct though.

knipex wrote: »

If you think Corbyn is center left then the center has moved even more to the left than I thought.

it hasn't, it is exactly where it always has been. however some people are used to having things as they are, or being told that anything other then what exists is far left or marxist, when it's as far from it as it gets.

knipex wrote: »

I see how... how stupid was I... Of course he isn't nationalizing business, he is renationalizing.. That's not far left at all...

well no, he's renationalising services which either shouldn't have been privatized in the first place, or which certain parts of them should have remained with in the state with the bits that could work being privatized only doing so.
nothing far left about his plans there tbh, it was just taking back what wasn't delivering for the people.

knipex wrote: »

People don't want hard left policies. They never did.

and they weren't going to get them with corbyn, however the campaign against him made out, and was effective at making out, that they were.

knipex wrote: »

A small group of hard left managed to take over the Labour party and convince themselves that the people did and then insulated and spat on every moderate in the party.

The result wasn't pretty

the hard left did not take over the party, the actual left did, and the blairites decided they did not want to be part of the party any longer, that was their choice, but it is unfortunate they didn't stick around and make it work, which they could have done so.

knipex wrote: »

There is noting more scary than a True believer, convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong. Especially when they are surrounded by an echo chamber.

exactly, which is why corbyn and his modernisation had no chance, because the true believers who did not want him in power mounted an effective campaign to stop him and people fell for it hook line and sinker.

Padre_Pio

Unfortunately the extremes on either side shout the loudest and are used to tar the entire opposition as either the loony left libtards who want to flood the country with immigrant pansexuals, or racist, pussy grabbing conservatives who'd want to kill the poor.

See example from Biko above.

Snickers Man

theological wrote: »

This election result is also seismic because the Conservative party is now the party of the working man. Labour have lost this vote and may never get it back.

The Conservative party must now change. It cannot be the party for wealthy people in leafy suburbia and country towns in the home counties. Boris needs to make it a one nation Tory party like what he has said.

One Nation Toryism is nothing of the kind. Historically, it was rather an unholy alliance between Two Nations: the very rich and the very poor ranged against the educated, earnest but largely underpaid salaried middle class who were portrayed as the enemy.

Disraeli is the British politician who is credited with inventing One Nation Toryism but in fact he never uttered any such phrase. Rather, he accepted that there were Two Nations in the one country, the rich and the poor who were as different from each other as chalk and cheese. Disraeli saw that they could nevertheless form an alliance against his biggest threat: the capitalist, rationalist, free-thinking Liberals in the middle. That was what it was about: buying off the poorest with minimal concessions to welfare to prevent the upstart middle class from getting too big for its boots.

The book in which he outlines his theory is subtitled "Two Nations". Not one. That's a bit of a giveaway!

The welfare state, when constructed first by the Liberals (under Lloyd George) and later Labour, differed greatly from the visions of the likes of Disraeli in Britain and Bismarck in Prussia. It promised to create a more equal society, a true One Nation if you like, in which greater equality would be a unifying factor.

The Tories had no truck with that. They would give the poor some minimal welfare but would mainly compensate them with intangible benefits: shared ownership of a nation that ruled the world, that was the heart of a mighty empire, membership of which exalted all who belonged to the dominant nation. Prussian, and later German, authoritarian leaders offered much the same deal, with disastrous consequences.

It can be seductive, and clearly the British lower classes, the left behinds, the poor and hopeless have this week bought into that One Nation Conservative mirage. Crystallised into the issue of Brexit which is portrayed as allowing the British to "break free" from foreign domination, to "get their country back" (Nigel Farage) or throw off the bonds of "Slavery" (Ann Widdicombe) and most importantly, divert the "£350 million a week we send to Europe" into the NHS (Boris Johnson), they have put their faith in Boris rather than the boring middle class graduates who dominate today's Labour.

There is a conundrum at the heart of the Labour approach. A party whose main appeal was always to the working poor is vulnerable to its own success. What does it do when some of the poor benefit from the very policies of subsidised education, housing and healthcare to the point where they are ready to become relatively rich themselves?

Does Labour attempt to constrain them, in the name of greater equality for all? Or does it just bid them farewell as they become Tory supporters (as so many did, especially during the reign of Thatcher) or does it subtly and inevitably move with the times to become more representative of its upwardly mobile constituents?

By adopting the latter approach it cannot avoid moving away from (abandoning even) its original hard-core supporters. Instead it becomes the party of choice for many well educated, well meaning but not especially wealthy middle class people, especially in the public sector, who compensate for their restricted earning power with the conviction that they are at least the moral guardians of society. They determine what is acceptable, reasonable, sayable even. They are, after all, the decent, industrious, charitable, EDUCATED, socially concerned classes who move society's norms towards their way of thinking which is, of course, no more than they would expect any decent reasonable person to do.

Inevitably, they become associated with an unbearable priggishness, called Political Correctness, which repels many people, not least many within their own social milieu. It becomes a useful stick which their avowed and natural enemies above and below them in the social pecking order can use to beat them.

The Tory One-Nation approach avoids that conundrum by simply refusing to allow the loyal lower orders to ascend the social ladder. Equality was never part of the deal so they have to stay in their place. Could be worse; you could be foreign.

The trouble with One Nation Toryism is that you have to have another "nation" with which to compare yourselves favourably. If not the "politically correct elites" in your own country then some other bogey man: Brussels bureaucrats, islamic jihadists, foreign governments trying to tell us what to do, or most vulnerable of all: immigrants. "Send them back" It is built unavoidably on conflict. And it can be hard to turn off the venom if you ever think it might be a good idea later on.

We should know on this island where a "one nation" all-class alliance leads. Was there ever a better example of such an arrangement than the Orange State of Northern Ireland in its 50 years of existence before being prorogued in 1972? How well that worked out!!!

Britain is storing up big trouble for itself down the line.

And that's only internal relationships. Wait till you start talking about relations with other countries!!

theological

There's a lot in that post. I'm going to stick to what you've said about 2019 rather than the 19th century. I'm not convinced by the conflation between both time periods.

You say lots about the educated middle class but it is the focus on the educated middle class in the Labour party that lost them this election. Snobbery loses elections. It's a good thing to be able to transcend boundaries like what Johnson did on Tuesday. It's worth pointing out that a minority of people in the UK are university educated and that university education doesn't automatically mean that you are superior or more intelligent.

On the point where you ask if Labour need to hold on to the working class the answer is obviously yes. It's more interesting on the Conservative side to ask this question. What comes to mind is how is Johnson going to hold on to working class votes in the North and Midlands. It seems like the work starts now. Yesterday he visited Blair's old seat in Sedgefield and committed that he would spend on infrastructure in the North. If he manages to work on their priorities they might keep voting Conservative while confining Labour support to metropolitan sorts.

On Brexit the political class who have been punished in this election need to learn that refusing to listen to the British people as they voted to leave in a referendum isn't going to gain you favour. Leaving the European Union is a legitimate choice. There are many successful countries outside of it. There's no good reason why the UK can't be either.

Your post is a catalogue of why you don't like the Conservatives but how do you envision Labour winning again in Britain after the damage Jeremy Corbyn has caused to that party?