Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

I still say you should give lettuce a chance. Can't be much worse then the last few PMs you've had.

[crazy canuck]

Lettuce expired 

[Josquius]

Godwilling. At this point, and I'm not generally a fan, I even think if the right made their move and got Streeting in that would be better than Starmer.

Labour's big problem at the moment is absolutely not one of right or left but of competence...
But I don't think a lurch to the right would help them, and not sure on Streeting's competence either. Burnham does seem to have that.

[Sheilbh]

Lettuce expired 

A late and much-mourned entry into the "best PM we never had" conversation.

Have you caught his 'tagline' - 'Promise Made, Promise Kept'?

I've no idea who is doing government comms or what they're thinking. Both that line but also just on a really basic level the colour grading is normally really weird - it's like they're deliberately going for "washed out". But also Starmer's videos are often just him walking around rooms in Downing Street and occasionally signing things. It's very very odd - especially compared with, say, Macron's ones which are normally pretty good and I think Sunak's were better too.

Labour's big problem at the moment is absolutely not one of right or left but of competence...

Sure - but there's a strong moment of opportunity for the right now. Rayner's on the backbenches and (for now) too damaged to run - otherwise she would win. Burnham's not in Parliament. They might not get a better chance.

And sure it's not about right or left but Labour's a pretty factional party

But I don't think a lurch to the right would help them, and not sure on Streeting's competence either. Burnham does seem to have that.

Yeah.

I think what is needed is direction and if nothing else Streeting has a politics which I think would be a huge improvement on Starmer. There's just so much drift and inaction because the PM doesn't really have clearly formed ideas - Starmer absolutely would. On the other hand I think a lot of the Labour right think he's a great policy mind and I'm not sure that's true based on his time at Health. However I think he has been pretty competent there - some fairly solid improvements, plus he's abolished NHS England which is absolutely right and the approach government needs to take everywhere - but Health has been absolutely hosed with money by the Chancellor (especially compared to all the other departments).

On Burnham I think he's done well in Manchester. I like Burnham quite a lot. He was my first choice in 2015 and my second choice in 2010 (after Diane Abbott). But one of the challenges to him, which I think is true, is that he's a bit all things to all men and tough to pin down. And I think you see that in Mainstream, the group he's set up, which is an absolutely extraordinary collection of hard-left Corbyn allies to Blairites. I like Burnham, I think he's authentic, I think he's a good communicator - but that worries me slightly as I think clarity of vision is a big problem for Starmer and Labour.

[mongers]

With a huge majority, labour can afford to try out three or four more PMs before throwing in the towel. 

[Sheilbh]

I am alarmed at the echoes of Tories achieving their biggest majority in 30 years

I had hoped that at the very least the days of the weird psycho-drama were gone. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive"

[garbon]

Tommy Robinson has brought out 100k worth of people.

[Jacob]

The tide of Fascism is rising.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. Addressed, remotely, by Musk too.

Although this is a very big event for the far-right. But these are people traveling from all over the country to this single big march (and I think the killing of Kirk hugely boosted its visibility - lots of pictures of him). And for some sense of perspective, the Gaza marches have been up to 500,000 people in London alone with multiple simultaneous marches all over the country and even now they till regularly get 25-50,000 (again with people all over the county in protesting in different cities).

Semi-connected to that obviously not massively surprised at the Robinson march having lots of England and UK flags and a fair few American ones too. But striking that the only flags at the counter-march (frustratingly but inevitably Stand up to Racism "organised" as far as I can see) were Palestinian. I think if there's any issue radicalising people on the left in a similar way to the boats on the right, it's Gaza. I think the impact of Gaza on public opinion is under-explored.

[Tamas]

The counter-portesters should be flying at least the British flag as well. To, you know, counter the claims of the protest.

But anyways, it is grim.

[Josquius]

Didn't know this was on. Have seen Stephen Y-L is due for a rally in Newcastle next week though. Is he on tour or something?

Quite a sad contrast that the counter demo was so small and so many made it into London for the fascist one. Really abnormal.

[Sheilbh]

As ever with his mob, a lot of aggression to the police. Met have put out a statement, noting that while many were there to exercise their "lawful right to protest" there was a lot of unacceptable verbal and physical abuse - in total 26 officer injured, 4 seriously. It calls out some of the injuries: broken teeth, concussion, prolapsed disc, possible broken nose.

And this at an event where Robinson had made a big deal of and many calls for the crowd to be peaceful because any violence would be used to attack them.

[Neil]

I mean, what do you expect?  At this point, public trust has been sliding for decades, and the response of mainstream politics was to try and scramble harder to try and steal everything they could, so now the obvious hucksters look pretty normal next to the politicians.

[Razgovory]

Wait, you had fascist march in Britain and the counter-protest had the "fascism but not-as-white" flag?  That's pathetic.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Wait, you had fascist march in Britain and the counter-protest had the "fascism but not-as-white" flag?  That's pathetic.

The liberal counter-protesters couldn't make it because they were still in a committee to establish a strategy for reaching out to key stakeholders.