Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/20/ditch-jeremy-corbyn-before-too-late-sadiq-khan-tells-labour

Ditch Jeremy Corbyn before it's too late, Sadiq Khan tells Labour

The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has issued a dramatic call to his party's members to dump Jeremy Corbyn, saying he has been a disastrous leader who must share a large part of the blame for Britain's forthcoming exit from the EU.

Khan, who secured the biggest win by any Labour politician against the Conservative party in more than a decade when he beat Zac Goldsmith to the mayoralty in May, throws his support behind the challenger Owen Smith, arguing that Labour faces all-but-certain defeat at the next general election without a change at the top.

The brutal intervention by Khan in an article for the Observer will give a huge boost to Smith's camp, and comes as the party prepares to send out ballot papers this week to more than half a million members who are eligible to vote in the leadership contest.

Khan says that while Corbyn – still the clear favourite to win the contest – is a "principled Labour man" whose ideas have brought hope to many, his year in charge has shown he is not up to the job and is "extremely unlikely" to lead the party back to power. Khan's message is that the party has a duty to oust Corbyn before it is too late.

"Jeremy has already proved that he is unable to organise an effective team and has failed to win the trust and respect of the British people," Khan writes, adding: "Jeremy's personal ratings are the worst of any opposition leader on record and the Labour party is suffering badly as a result. He has lost the confidence of more than 80% of Labour's MPs in parliament – and I am afraid we simply cannot afford to go on like this."

But it is his comments on what he regards as Corbyn's abject failure to rally his party behind a pro-EU message before the referendum that will be seen as the most damaging. Khan, in effect, lays much of the blame for Brexit at Corbyn's door and that of his advisers.

"Throughout the campaign and aftermath, Jeremy failed to show the leadership we desperately needed. His position on EU membership was never clear – and voters didn't believe him. A third of Labour voters said they did not know where the party stood on the referendum just a week before polling day.

"And you can't just blame a 'hostile media' and let Jeremy and his team off the hook," he writes. "I know from my own election – up against a nasty and divisive Tory campaign – that if we are strong and clear enough in our convictions, the message will get through to the public. That's a test that Jeremy totally failed in the EU referendum. Why would things be different in a general election?"

Smith said he was "hugely honoured" to have Khan's support. "Sadiq ran a fantastic campaign to win power for Labour in London this year, securing a huge mandate from party members and the electorate," he said.

"He showed that a vision of hope and optimism can win, if it's backed up with a credible plan to deliver real meaningful change for people's lives. Since that election we have seen what a difference Labour can make when we hold power."

Khan's decision to go on the offensive represents a sudden change in approach by the mayor. Days earlier, in a BBC radio interview, he refused to be drawn on who he would vote for, saying that he preferred to stay out of current internal party arguments, including the debate over who should be leader. But his aides said he had come under growing pressure from supporters and friends in the party to declare his hand and felt it was his duty to make his position known.

Khan lays heavy emphasis on his fear that another four years of Corbyn as leader will ensure another Tory government, leading to more cuts and damage being done to the country's industrial heartlands.

In an interview with the Observer last weekend, Corbyn blamed any failure to get his messages on policy across on mutinous and disloyal MPs and others who had never accepted his leadership. "We have done our best to get our message out," he said. "It hasn't been helped that prominent people in the Labour party – Labour MPs – have spent the last 10 months actively being unsupportive of our policies that have been generally agreed and supported. Now everyone agrees that anti-austerity is the right line to be taking."

Corbyn said he was using his second campaign for the leadership in 12 months as a dry run for a general election: "Since the resignations in July and the leadership contest, then clearly the public mind has become focused on the leadership contest rather than the future. I'm trying to turn this leadership campaign into a campaign of how we would run a general election. How we would win back those areas of Britain that have become disillusioned – left-behind Britain."

With Corbyn still expected by most MPs to beat Smith and renew his mandate, many senior Labour figures are beginning to focus on how to bring the party together afterwards. Tom Watson, the deputy leader, will back efforts to restore a system of elections to the shadow cabinet, which will be considered by the party's national executive committee in September as a means to rebuild trust between the leader and MPs.

Explaining his backing for Smith, who is the former shadow work and pensions secretary, Khan says: "On the big issues Owen and I have been on the same side of the argument, including opposing the Iraq war. Owen led and – more importantly – won our fight against the Tories' unfair cuts to tax credits and disability allowances, which would have hurt the most disadvantaged people in our society."

He adds: "Simply opposing Tory policies will never be enough to help the people we exist to support. At best, you knock off just the very sharpest edges of the Tory project. Winning elections is how you really make a difference. Only then are you in control – able to shape the agenda and implement Labour policies to create a fairer and more equal society."

[jimmy olsen]

Hung with a couple of English guys in Prague on my last day there, brothers age 27 and 28. Lower class types without degrees who've made good. The older one built his own small construction company from the ground up. Talked to them about Brexit. They were totally unphased by it. This is basically what they had to say about the situation.

"It's all anyone was talking about for a week, but now nobody cares. Who knows if we'll even really leave. It'll only hurt the rich people anyways. And who the hell is Teressa May, we didn't vote for her!?"

Disheartening, but I didn't bother continuing that conversation since I didn't want to poison the well and they were cool to hang out with.

[Tamas]

Hung with a couple of English guys in Prague on my last day there, brothers age 27 and 28. Lower class types without degrees who've made good. The older one built his own small construction company from the ground up. Talked to them about Brexit. They were totally unphased by it. This is basically what they had to say about the situation.

"It's all anyone was talking about for a week, but now nobody cares. Who knows if we'll even really leave. It'll only hurt the rich people anyways. And who the hell is Teressa May, we didn't vote for her!?"

Disheartening, but I didn't bother continuing that conversation since I didn't want to poison the well and they were cool to hang out with.

The lack of continued interest just sheds some more bad light on the general public (not that this is even remotely unique to the UK of course).

The Bank of England recently announced what is basically Quantitive Easing and a record low interest rate, and IIRC some Scottish bank has announced to be charging negative interest rates on saving accounts.

The post-Boris-Farage tag team world is still unveiling before our eyes.

[Josquius]

It'll only hurt rich people
Now this is what really winds me up.
You have different views to mine? Ok.
But you're in possession of the data, you want mostly the same thing, yet you come to an utterly ridiculous backwards conclusion that makes no fucking sense?
Fucking media stooges. Useful idiots of the neoliberals.

A lot of other idiocy in there too. Never voted for the pm? Duh.
Who cares, the world hasn't ended, the remainers were wrong? Do you think we have left?  Do you have a fucking clue what is going on?

[Martinus]

Hung with a couple of English guys in Prague on my last day there, brothers age 27 and 28. Lower class types without degrees who've made good. The older one built his own small construction company from the ground up. Talked to them about Brexit. They were totally unphased by it. This is basically what they had to say about the situation.

"It's all anyone was talking about for a week, but now nobody cares. Who knows if we'll even really leave. It'll only hurt the rich people anyways. And who the hell is Teressa May, we didn't vote for her!?"

Disheartening, but I didn't bother continuing that conversation since I didn't want to poison the well and they were cool to hang out with.

The lack of continued interest just sheds some more bad light on the general public (not that this is even remotely unique to the UK of course).

The Bank of England recently announced what is basically Quantitive Easing and a record low interest rate, and IIRC some Scottish bank has announced to be charging negative interest rates on saving accounts.

The post-Boris-Farage tag team world is still unveiling before our eyes.

I guess it's a class thing. All the Brits I hang out with on a professional basis (whether lawyers, big four consultants etc.) are completely horrified by the Brexit vote and think it is a big deal.

[PJL]

Hung with a couple of English guys in Prague on my last day there, brothers age 27 and 28. Lower class types without degrees who've made good. The older one built his own small construction company from the ground up. Talked to them about Brexit. They were totally unphased by it. This is basically what they had to say about the situation.

"It's all anyone was talking about for a week, but now nobody cares. Who knows if we'll even really leave. It'll only hurt the rich people anyways. And who the hell is Teressa May, we didn't vote for her!?"

Disheartening, but I didn't bother continuing that conversation since I didn't want to poison the well and they were cool to hang out with.

The lack of continued interest just sheds some more bad light on the general public (not that this is even remotely unique to the UK of course).

The Bank of England recently announced what is basically Quantitive Easing and a record low interest rate, and IIRC some Scottish bank has announced to be charging negative interest rates on saving accounts.

The post-Boris-Farage tag team world is still unveiling before our eyes.

I guess it's a class thing. All the Brits I hang out with on a professional basis (whether lawyers, big four consultants etc.) are completely horrified by the Brexit vote and think it is a big deal.

The fact that many of the better off professional classes are more concerned about Brexit than many working class people if anything proves that it will affect the rich more than the poor.

[celedhring]

Most of my brit friends (most of them ex-pat liberal professionals) are in the denial phase of the grieving process. They are certainly still very concerned about it.

[Josquius]

The fact that many of the better off professional classes are more concerned about Brexit than many working class people if anything proves that it will affect the rich more than the poor.

The rich also tend to be more concerned about keeping a healthy diet and staying in shape than the poor.

[garbon]

Is Corbyn for real?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/22/scottish-labour-leader-kezia-dugdale-backs-owen-smith-against-jeremy-corbyn

Dugdale's intervention came a day after Corbyn drew thousands to a rally in Kilburn, north London, where he said he wanted to implement a democratic shift in politics that would "empower people so they don't have to bow down before the rich and the powerful".


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His re-election campaign director, Sam Tarry, told Today on Monday that a "complete overhaul of the entire [political] system" was needed, including giving citizens greater rights to challenge decisions taken on their behalf.

"That's why we are suggesting things like citizens' assemblies, genuinely participative and representative assemblies of people that could actually start to look at the big democratic deficit issues of the day," Tarry said.

"This is really about drilling down to the local-est level possible. It is about saying we want more democracy in our economy, we need more democracy in our community and actually across the country we need more democracy.

"Ultimately what we want to do is give more people more power to design their own democracy and what I mean by that is, for example, in this country we don't even have a written constitution, we don't even have our rights properly enshrined. What I would like to see is a citizen-led process to design the regulations that govern them, rather than just be told: this is how you will be governed."

[Valmy]

Fucking media stooges. Useful idiots of the neoliberals.

Huh. How does this fit in with the rest of your post? The EU is a neoliberal project. If they were our useful idiots they would have voted to stay in the EU

[Valmy]

What I would like to see is a citizen-led process to design the regulations that govern them, rather than just be told: this is how you will be governed.

Like maybe they could elect representatives that could vote for laws

[PJL]

Fucking media stooges. Useful idiots of the neoliberals.

Huh. How does this fit in with the rest of your post? The EU is a neoliberal project. If they were our useful idiots they would have voted to stay in the EU

Indeed, in fact the majority of FTSE companies were for the EU during the campaign. And big businesses were generally more pro Remain than the smaller businesses.

[Admiral Yi]

Fucking media stooges. Useful idiots of the neoliberals.

[Josquius]

Fucking media stooges. Useful idiots of the neoliberals.

Huh. How does this fit in with the rest of your post? The EU is a neoliberal project. If they were our useful idiots they would have voted to stay in the EU

No it isn't.  It's quite the opposite. It stands up for workers rights where national governments may not be inclined to do so.
The brexiters dream britain is one of greater greater London.  A western Singapore. Max deregulation. Minimum social protections.

Note that every party from the centre right leftwards (except for one questionably legit minor far left group)  was for remain whlist everyone further to the right was for leave

[Valmy]

Note that every party from the centre right leftwards (except for one questionably legit minor far left group)  was for remain whlist everyone further to the right was for leave

Yes I know. Neo-Liberals are currently hated by the right.