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Or put it this way - the electoral risk from Labour saying "YOU PLEBS WERE WRONG AND WE SHOULD STAY IN THE EU" is considerably bigger IMO.
That it was possible to caricature Owen Smith like that was one of my biggest reservations about him.
LibDems (and Plaid, and the SNP, and Greens) have far less to lose from being unabashedly pro-EU (though only the Greens had a significantly higher "In" % than Labour IIRC)
Not all the areas of Wales voted for Brexit. How can you lump everyone together ? 47.5% voted to Remain in Wales. In my constituency nearly 56% voted remain.
That's what Willow and others like me can't seem to get across.
We just have to swallow it so as not to alienate northern voters ? Good luck with that.
Of course I'm not "lumping everyone together" - even in Lambeth people voted leave, and in Boston remain.
I'm just saying that "we're going to ignore what a majority of voters just said" is rarely a good look. You have to be a bit more nuanced about it than that.
yahyah wrote:Not all the areas of Wales voted for Brexit. How can you lump everyone together ? 47.5% voted to Remain in Wales. In my constituency nearly 56% voted remain.
That's what Willow and others like me can't seem to get across.
We just have to swallow it so as not to alienate northern voters ? Good luck with that.
Not all northern ones either, I'm in real despair over Labours EU stance, to the point I'll seriously be looking at where my vote goes in 2020. Never thought I'd say that after all my Labour years, but that's what it has come to.
The thing is, those who voted for Brexit already have a government giving them just that. Some of those who voted remain are simply looking for a voice, looking for representation. I don't particularly disagree with your point about the difficult situation Labour find themselves in, I get why you say it is easier for the other parties to be unabashedly for remain, but it being "easier" for them isn't going to stop the message appealing to people and it isn't going to stop people voting for them. I have no idea how many people might feel that way, but I don't think it particularly melodramatic to suggest that the mutually exclusive priorities of different Labour voters over Brexit could prove fatal for the party. It's a possibility among many, I think. For clarity I'm not saying this in relation to Corbyn in any way, but as an observation of people I know who drifted from Labour to Ukip and their reasons for that and the nature of the Labour electorate in 2015 as revealed by polling. I don't see how the two can be reconciled and when the broad church that makes election to government via our FPTP system possible for Labour falls away, there is nothing to keep us in the fold if we disagree with Labour's direction on a major policy issue, as the things we do agree on have no greater likelihood of happening whether we vote for them or not.
Perhaps if the Tories experience similar fracturing, PR could become more likely, as all political parties struggle to achieve a clear majority, but I fear we are still some way away from this.
"Fall seven times, get up eight" - Japanese proverb
When you add the "didn't voters" in (by not voting they indicate they were happy with the status quo, as in being in EU) there is no mandate for leave. Not to mention the ones who changed their minds almost immediately and those who have changed over time after thinking about it what it really means.
It's my experience that people who don't bother to vote are not at all interested in politics, they're apathetic, and to say they are happy with the status quo is stretching it a bit.
ChrisDean wrote:It's my experience that people who don't bother to vote are not at all interested in politics, they're apathetic, and to say they are happy with the status quo is stretching it a bit.
Yep. Agreed.
So, Watson getting an interesting brief. Murdoch must be happy
AngryAsWell wrote:When you add the "didn't voters" in (by not voting they indicate they were happy with the status quo, as in being in EU) there is no mandate for leave. Not to mention the ones who changed their minds almost immediately and those who have changed over time after thinking about it what it really means.
Devil's Advocate: Conversely, there will have been voters for Remain who only voted that way because they believed the asinine, "ZOMG, it's the end of the economic world the second we vote to leave" rhetoric of Osborne and Cameron who may now have decided leaving the EU is not so bad.
Given a choice, would you prefer to be a citzen of a country led by clueless cynical chancers desperately second guessing some of its....
...citizens' worst prejudices, or a Citzen of Nowhere? Believ me, Nowhere's nice. You can read about it in News from Nowhere. So who's for..
...just ignoring the clueless cynical chancers from now on, and instead creating the Sovereign State of Nowhere, its territory covering...
...the exact same space as the country currently led by the clueless cynical chancers? Then the clueless cynical chancers can wank...
...themselves into a coma and we can get on, with each other and without them, very well indeed. #CitizenofNowhere #NowhereLiberationFront
Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum, has bemoaned Britain’s narrow view of its own history, calling it “dangerous and regrettable” https://www.theguardian.com/culture/201 ... m-director" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here's how I see it. We are in genuine danger of the UK becoming 1930s Germany. And the best we can do is a) act like twats and b) act like twats.
How about we stop doing a) and b) and learn how to work together (despite the fact that some people are a bit shit and others are out and out wind up merchants) and deal with the actual ####ing problem.
It's just a thought. But anyway, if anyone knows a decent Europe-wide grassroots, let's beat the facists organisation I can volunteer time to, please let me know.
And in the last month there has been a bit of a resurgence in championing autonomy, especially from minister Nick Gibb who did turn up at some Conservative fringe meetings. The minister, who speaks as though local management of schools wasn’t introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1988, compounded the mistake by talking about autonomy, freedoms and power for headteachers in multi academy trusts. Headteachers, while of course very senior school leaders, are employees of the trust, and as such do not have autonomy. Moreover in a MAT and usually in a federation, they will be line managed by an executive head or a chief executive, who in turn is held to account by the governing board.
Meanwhile, schools minister Nick Gibb, who until recently was very much in favour of comprehensive admissions, tied himself in knots attempting to justify the prime minister’s policies. Most ridiculously, he told an audience that we needed more grammars because so many teachers in comprehensives were trying to resist the English Baccalaureate. Cue the kind of rolling in the aisles you’d likely see at a live recording of Brendan O’Carroll’s hit show.
If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.
Which he has the right person in place in Keir Starmer to have that clarity of thought around all of the issues.
As I said earlier I don't think the HO is that important in the next few years. Yes, there's bound to be issues that crop up but since it lost justice it's not as important I don't think.
Corbyn and McDonnell's habit of contradicting and over ruling their shadow ministers doesn't reassure me that Starmer's appointment means anything tbh.
I think ultimately I have just lost confidence in Labour as a whole because none of them opposed the referendum when it went through Parliament. I appreciate the Greens and Libdems didn't either, but at least they are showing some signs of regretting that decision and that they view it as a disaster as I do. Most of Labour seems more concerned with representing other people than me at the moment, in one way or another. That's their prerogative. I'm just pointing out that they can't keep both leave and remain voters happy. The Tories have the same problem, but electorally a majority of their voters supported leave. Labour voters didn't. I feel many in Labour are ignoring this or ascribing their own antipathy to the EU to the bulk of Labour voters without evidence. Bristol, that just elected a Labour mayor, voted remain for instance. Bristol has been Libdem in the past.
Caroline's vote wouldn't have made a difference. The official Green Party position at the time was that there should be a referendum [cos you know - democracy an all that] but we were in favour of staying in, though effecting changes. As I think I've said before, I wasn't in agreement with official party policy. I believed it was far too complicated an issue to be decided by referendum. Of course the Green Party argument that any 'deal' should also be put to a referendum in order to be democratic follows the same logic. Anyone who argues otherwise [having been in favour of a referendum in the first place], is in my opinion, being illogical.
For sure the general opinion of most Greens is it's a disaster.
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
After video, Huntsman says it is time for Trump to drop out
One week after explaining why he planned to vote for Donald Trump, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said it is time for the Republican nominee to drop out of the race and allow vice presidential nominee Mike Pence to represent the party.
Universal Credit: Revision to the number of claims between 8 Apr and 1 Sept 2016 – statistical notice
We included non claimants as claimants due to the methodological error of adding people that were not claimants.This does not effect figures in anyway,please ignore.
For the second Friday in a row, Donald Trump's campaign is heading into the weekend in an existential crisis sparked by the candidate's behavior toward women — and Republicans may have had enough this time.
"It's over," a Republican strategist who has been supportive of Trump said. "Never seen anything like it. Never will
