Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Iormlund]

Even post-Brexit?

Of course.

Why would we care about that? We only care about precedent.  To this day we don't recognize Kosovo's independence.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean I think Spain will definitely be against a country that forces its way out of Britain joining the EU, yes. I also don't think that's a very realistic scenario. Sturgeon is going to probably deliberately walk a line where she just keeps Scottish independence front and center, the Tories will not grant a referendum and she knows that. She knows she has no legal power to force her way out. In fact going that route very likely makes the SNP look "radical" which actually probably hurts the Scottish independence movement. She's likely just setting herself up to play the aggrieved party for five years in hopes that when a more hospitable government sits in Westminster she'll have kept interest in independence alive and at high levels of support.

Corbyn and the Momentum guys crying about the press, about the dishonest Tory campaigning etc has been one of the most pathetic things I've seen in recent electoral politics. To me all that stuff is just summed up as: "We got out politicked by our political opponents in a political contest." That's literally what politics is, the ability to set narratives, generate support, attack your opponents successfully and etc. Corbyn can cry that many of the things said about him were lies, but most of them even when they weren't wholly true, contained in their genesis a kernel of truth. Those kernels of truth were not easy to deal with because Corbyn is a radical more suited for student union politics than national electoral politics. Something his supporters never wanted to admit but now are forced to do so.

There's also probably some serious math that I think Labour needed to consider. The country is probably 50-52% remain, but a good portion of those remain supporters are not remain voters. It's like the % of Americans in favor of gun control, the problem with building an electoral coalition around them is a huge portion of them aren't willing to primarily vote on that one issue. The remain vote was always split in weird ways, something like 40% of the conservatives wanted to remain and 30% of Labour voters wanted to leave. The bad thing for Labour is almost none of the conservative Remain voters were willing to vote for Jeremy Corbyn, and why would they? He's a social and economic radical opposed to everything they've ever voted for--AND he and his party have always been wishy washy on Brexit. I actually think Brexit was a no-win issue for Labour because there was no way to cobble the Remain vote into a broad coalition like you could with Leave, because a large portion of Remain voters just didn't care as much about the issue and weren't willing to abandon other core political principles just to band together in a Remain coalition. So I think Corbyn's strategy of being wishy-washy on Brexit probably was not actually wrong. If he had just been a dramatic champion of Remain Labour likely still loses, especially in the North and Midlands. To have won this election Labour needed to come up with some other compelling argument that they could comprehensively present to the electorate.

One of the big ways the Dems beat the GOP in 2018 was focusing with extreme focus in lots of individual districts on the issue of healthcare, and the GOP's efforts to roll back Obamacare. If they had just ran a leftist anti-Trump hate campaign they likely would have done far poorer. There were signs Labour was trying to drum up some similar sort of approach by scaremongering about the NHS, but frankly many of their allegations on that front just never made sense. Plus, Boris embrace of increased social spending helped undermine that attack. To be honest as much as he's made fun of, Boris really positioned himself tremendously well for this election, and created a very difficult candidate for a Corbyn-lead Labour to seriously undermine. It's hard when one of your best arguments against Boris is his broad unfitness for office, when your own leader is even more unfit for office.

[Sheilbh]

On the kernels of truth it's really interesting to look at Corbyn's ratings as a leader - I've always disliked him even when he was a backbencher over anti-semitism and Ireland especially - but that stuff didn't cut through in 2017. His ratings are low from 2015-17 when there's a Labour civil war going on. Then he gets a look at from the people and his ratings go up a lot in the 2017 campaign and they remain pretty decent for a long time. And the Labour civil war stops because everyone takes a "not now, we're too close" attitude. Until Salisbury. His response to the Salisbury attack I think gave credibility to what people like me had been saying about Corbyn from 2015. His ratings never recover after Salisbury and the security stuff does cut through this election, because we've seen how he responded to an attack in this country.

I also kind of agree on Brexit. The other point is they arguably went too far towards remain because they were losing leave votes to the Tories and remain to the Lib Dems, Greens and SNP. But in our system losing votes to a third party is manageable, losing votes to your direct opposition basically counts twice.

I also think we underestimate the work of Theresa May. I thought that the strategy that Boris was doing was basically the same as May's and I didn't see it working in constitutencies where it hadn't already. So in 2017 we saw localised swings in some areas of the country of 15-6% which is enormous and put the Tories only 3,000 or so votes from Labour. I thought that was them topped out, but actually I think it gave them the platform they needed to make this breakthrough now as without that election I'm not sure Johnson would be able to get a 20-25% swing that would have been necessary to win those seats (from 2015 levels).

Corbyn and the Momentum guys crying about the press, about the dishonest Tory campaigning etc has been one of the most pathetic things I've seen in recent electoral politics. To me all that stuff is just summed up as: "We got out politicked by our political opponents in a political contest." That's literally what politics is, the ability to set narratives, generate support, attack your opponents successfully and etc. Corbyn can cry that many of the things said about him were lies, but most of them even when they weren't wholly true, contained in their genesis a kernel of truth. Those kernels of truth were not easy to deal with because Corbyn is a radical more suited for student union politics than national electoral politics. Something his supporters never wanted to admit but now are forced to do so.

As I say the concept of the "discourse" and "narrative" has destroyed the left. They're all so absorbed in their second year media studies reading list that everything is just about the "discourse" and the media "narrative", which is why they're happy with talking about a "30 year project" before they'll actually win

I totally agree the UK press has always been biased against Labour, the Tories have always run campaigns like this and had more money than Labour - good leaders win despite it. But it was really depressing seeing on Newsnight a failed candidate from the Corbyn wing debating with Jack Straw who listed issues with Corbyn including his personal experience of seeing Corbyn defend the IRA in the 80s (i.e. before the ceasefire) and she basically said he was just "repeating the media's lines" and he was like "no, these are facts."

Why would we care about that? We only care about precedent.  To this day we don't recognize Kosovo's independence.

Interesting. You should be kicked out of NATO

Edit: Needless to say I've re-joined the Labour Party to vote for soft left candidates at every level and for the next leader, so hopefully we can win back the party ().

[Tamas]

I am not sure if the SNP will pause to think whether Spain will grant Catalonia the perfect precedent in exchange of gaining fuck all. One of the constants of this Brexit mess was most Brits including their politicians ignoring the fact that Brexit and the EU itself involve other nations and are not a 100% decided in UK politics.

[garbon]

Ibalnkot sure if the SNP will pause to think whether Spain will grant Catalonia the perfect precedent in exchange of gaining fuck all. One of the constants of this Brexit mess was most Brits including their politicians ignoring the fact that Brexit and the EU itself involve other nations and are not a 100% decided in UK politics.

If you are going to advance that thesis, I think you need to come up with a more tangible connection between Sturgeon/SNP and the behavior of English politicians.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think the long story on Britain's relationship with the EU is Brussels regulations and many other aspects of EU membership tweaked off a sizable portion of the British public, but people were willing to put up with it because of the money. I honestly felt 2015 was just a momentary surge in stupidity, that British society would wake up from when they understood the economic costs of Brexit. If anything the more we know about those costs, the stronger it appears support for Brexit is. The reality is we didn't live in the world we thought we did. We live in a world where people care far more about political tribalism and cultural issues than they do economics, and "it's the economy stupid" was a poor analysis of politics that had somehow risen to primacy of thought for a generation.

The economy matters quite a lot but in a way that has been to the benefit of these populist movements and moments.  The two big reasons are the severity of the 08 crash but also the relatively quick and long recovery.  The "unforeseen" crash badly dented the popular reputation of mainstream pro-consensus politicians, experts and business leaders, despite the success of those mainstream politicians and experts in responding to the crisis and averting much worse outcomes.  The long stable recovery period that followed - characterized by unusually low unemployment rates - has lulled people into a false sense of security and lowered the perceived cost of pursuing economically dubious policy choices.  Specifically to Brexit, the remainers overplayed the potential economic fallout ("Project Fear") and Brexit voters were lulled by the stable macro environment into choosing heart over head.  There has been some economic fallout, but the perceived effect has been muted by the continuing strength of the global macro-economy.  The temptations to do "wrong" things is higher because the perceived cost is lower.  Thus, American cultural warriors feel safe enough to put Trump at the wheel; while in Britain, nostalgic imperialists and radical libertarians feel secure rolling the dice on the disruptions of Brexit.

[Tamas]

Ibalnkot sure if the SNP will pause to think whether Spain will grant Catalonia the perfect precedent in exchange of gaining fuck all. One of the constants of this Brexit mess was most Brits including their politicians ignoring the fact that Brexit and the EU itself involve other nations and are not a 100% decided in UK politics.

If you are going to advance that thesis, I think you need to come up with a more tangible connection between Sturgeon/SNP and the behavior of English politicians.

Don't tell me you have not noticed over the last three years how EU interests or the mere fact of the need for their consent have been repeatedly ignored.

[OttoVonBismarck]

On the kernels of truth it's really interesting to look at Corbyn's ratings as a leader - I've always disliked him even when he was a backbencher over anti-semitism and Ireland especially - but that stuff didn't cut through in 2017. His ratings are low from 2015-17 when there's a Labour civil war going on. Then he gets a look at from the people and his ratings go up a lot in the 2017 campaign and they remain pretty decent for a long time. And the Labour civil war stops because everyone takes a "not now, we're too close" attitude. Until Salisbury. His response to the Salisbury attack I think gave credibility to what people like me had been saying about Corbyn from 2015. His ratings never recover after Salisbury and the security stuff does cut through this election, because we've seen how he responded to an attack in this country.

Yeah, while she's a much more minor figure here, Corbyn's anti-semitism seems to track very closely to Rep. Ilhan Omar's. I don't necessarily think either individual sits at home at night foaming at the mouth in abject hatred of Jews. But I do think they walk in circles with many fellow travelers who profoundly believe Israel is a significant source of evil in the world. This becomes very easy to slide into a form of "mild" anti-Semitism, where maybe the person would not admit or even express abject hatred for Jewishness or Jewish individuals, but they are very comfortable saying things that in their mind is just criticism of Israel but which to all other observers is just rank anti-semitism. I could be wrong and it could just be they are genuine anti-semites, and my reading of their behavior isn't really a forgiving one, I think it's still wrong and if you're anti-Israel and a politician you have an obligation to be able to talk about that very clearly without using the language and tropes of real anti-semites/skinhead types.

I think someone said it earlier,  Corbyn has so often looked like an anti-semite that his true beliefs aren't actually as important as his public actions, as a national level leader he has an obligation to get his actions/words right, not just his inner feelings.

As I say the concept of the "discourse" and "narrative" has destroyed the left. They're all so absorbed in their second year media studies reading list that everything is just about the "discourse" and the media "narrative", which is why they're happy with talking about a "30 year project" before they'll actually win

I totally agree the UK press has always been biased against Labour, the Tories have always run campaigns like this and had more money than Labour - good leaders win despite it. But it was really depressing seeing on Newsnight a failed candidate from the Corbyn wing debating with Jack Straw who listed issues with Corbyn including his personal experience of seeing Corbyn defend the IRA in the 80s (i.e. before the ceasefire) and she basically said he was just "repeating the media's lines" and he was like "no, these are facts."

Yeah, I mean the GOP has frankly been a lot better at skull-duggery politics for a really long time. The Democrats have actually beaten them quite a bit in spite of it, in '92, '96, '08, '12. In fact every Dem loss has been highly correlated with lackluster national candidates (Gore, Kerry, Hillary),

[Iormlund]

Interesting. You should be kicked out of NATO

Truthfully it wouldn't make much of a difference. If the Sov ... Russians are at the Pyrenees everyone else has fallen.

In any case our main defense weakpoints are excluded from the Treaty (the enclaves by Morocco).

[Sheilbh]

Interesting. You should be kicked out of NATO

Truthfully it wouldn't make much of a difference. If the Sov ... Russians are at the Pyrenees everyone else has fallen.

In any case our main defense weakpoints are excluded from the Treaty (the enclaves by Morocco).

I suppose the other point is that unlike Kosovo, by definition if an independent Scotland is applying to join the EU, it will have reached an independence settlement with rUK. Surely that would be a relevant difference from a Spanish perspective?

[The Brain]

by definition if an independent Scotland is applying to join the EU, it will have reached an independence settlement with rUK.

How is that?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean I imagine what's being envisioned is a situation where, without permission from Westminster, Sturgeon has the Scottish Parliament pass legislation to enable a referendum. The referendum is held and votes for leaving the union--most likely unionists boycott the referendum as illegitimate due to not being sanctioned, and secession wins overwhelmingly. Then Sturgeon begins to basically assert Scotland is no longer part of the UK, and starts attempting to establish international relations etc. Basically like Catalonia was starting to do in a similar circumstance.

If Scotland goes down that path I do not see essentially any significant country recognizing it as a state, and I see the EU being outright hostile to any associations with Scotland--established entities like the EU aren't going to want to create the precedent of playing nice with essentially rogue breakaway provinces of other countries.

If Scotland left on legal terms under UK law, I think the picture would be quite different yes, because Catalonia had tried to break away illegally definitely is a major reason the EU never would have accepted it.

[The Larch]

Interesting. You should be kicked out of NATO

Truthfully it wouldn't make much of a difference. If the Sov ... Russians are at the Pyrenees everyone else has fallen.

In any case our main defense weakpoints are excluded from the Treaty (the enclaves by Morocco).

I suppose the other point is that unlike Kosovo, by definition if an independent Scotland is applying to join the EU, it will have reached an independence settlement with rUK. Surely that would be a relevant difference from a Spanish perspective?

What Spain opposes are unilateral declarations of independence, not independence per se. At the time of the first referendum in Scotland it was said that Spain would not oppose Scotland joining the EU as an independent country if the independence process was legally agreed with the rest of the UK.

[Sheilbh]

by definition if an independent Scotland is applying to join the EU, it will have reached an independence settlement with rUK.

How is that?

If it's able to make an application it'll be an internationally recognised independent state. So there'll either have been an independence settlement or Johnson went full Milosevic and the international community intervened.

I mean I imagine what's being envisioned is a situation where, without permission from Westminster, Sturgeon has the Scottish Parliament pass legislation to enable a referendum. The referendum is held and votes for leaving the union--most likely unionists boycott the referendum as illegitimate due to not being sanctioned, and secession wins overwhelmingly. Then Sturgeon begins to basically assert Scotland is no longer part of the UK, and starts attempting to establish international relations etc. Basically like Catalonia was starting to do in a similar circumstance.

I think the position's a bit different.

I'd expect unionists would participate because they think they'd win - the polls are still 45/55 - I've never seen any suggestion of unionists boycotting a referendum. Especially as a significant portion of the unionists think the SNP have a mandate for a second referendum. The unionists have never taken the view that Scottish nationalism is entirely illegitimate, in the way that seems to be the case in Catalonia and Spain.

Scotland's already passed legislation authorising a referendum, but they've not passed the referendum legislation. Expectation is Sturgeon will formally submit the request for a referendum before the New Year.

[The Brain]

If it's able to make an application it'll be an internationally recognised independent state. So there'll either have been an independence settlement or Johnson went full Milosevic and the international community intervened.

So not by definition then.