Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

On the left this paper's interesting - and some of the stats/tables are really interesting:

I think the housing bit and age profile are particularly interesting. And I think there's a bit of both identity and economics going on, but they don't map easily.

Yes, this is an assessment I've seen before and it really lines up well with what I've observed.
Places where the working class hold strong remain Labour.
Places where the working class has been destroyed and where you have to leave if you want decent work have flipped.

This will be the hill I die on - Corbyn's brand of politics is nothing to do with old school Labour. He'd have been treated with the same sort of benign contempt by Attlee, Bevin or Bevan as he was by Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown - as an essentially harmless eccentric. Now we know he did a fair bit of harm.

Corbyn is a bit of a loony left nutter.
Labour under Corbyn however hasn't been that. One positive thing I will say about Corbyn is that he didn't impose his views and rather allowed Labour to return to the party's centre. The Labour manifesto really wasn't anything radical at all. The error was in presentation, not individual policies themselves.

Also on the working class - I think what is typically meant is "white working class" in smallish town, but ignores that the urban working class has always been multi-ethnic. If a definition of working class doesn't cover East London, or Liverpool, or Leicester then I'm not sure it's really working - and those areas are still overwhelmingly Labour.

I'd say the working class in larger cities holds not because its more diverse but rather because there are opportunities there that don't exist in smaller towns. Even if you're from the arse end of Liverpool, no matter what the statistics may say you aren't as deprived as someone from Blyth. You have the thriving parts of Liverpool under an hour's walk away from you and plenty of opportunity around.
This helps both to give people actual opportunities and perhaps more importantly improves their perception of opportunity.

I query if you can rebuild the left on the old working class politics of the 19th and 20th century (at least without re-unionising ) because class used to be the single biggest indicator of how you vote. That's not been the case for the last few elections: it's age. And one factor that may be relevant in those "white working class" areas is they are ageing, they have more pensioners than average and fewer workers. In Europe with PR this has means there's a pincer movement - the social democratic parties are losing young voters to the Greens and old voters to right populist/far-right parties. Our system protects Labour, but is the challenge not how do you win back the old heartlands but just how do you build a coalition of young people plus middle aged folk that could beat the current Tory coalition of middle aged plus pensioners?

Sure.
This is an often underreported side of the current wave of populism. There's the nasty racist stuff, but then there's the lovely stuff of waving a magic wand and bringing all the factories back, making the local high street thrive again, etc..... Utterly infeasible, but it doesn't stop people with a 5 year old's understanding of economics saying it.
This is a big part of why I could never get on board with Corbyn. He was left wing, but he was of the backwards looking left, not the forwards looking left.
We do live in a world where jobs for life in factories are a thing of the past, and rather than futilely shouting against this we should be seeking to make sure the replacement works for the majority rather than just the minority.

[Tamas]

Politicians join in rendition of Auld Lang Syne after vote confirming UK departure from EU on Friday

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/29/brexit-meps-to-vote-on-withdrawal-agreement-ahead-of-uk-departure

[The Larch]

Politicians join in rendition of Auld Lang Syne after vote confirming UK departure from EU on Friday

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/29/brexit-meps-to-vote-on-withdrawal-agreement-ahead-of-uk-departure

And right afterwards apparently Farage and his clowns did one last show before being made to leave the parliament.

[Zoupa]

Bon débarras

[Maladict]

Bye chaps. 

[Josquius]

Smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast

[The Minsky Moment]

before being made to leave the parliament.

Wow there is a benefit to Brexit after all.

[Tamas]

before being made to leave the parliament.

Wow there is a benefit to Brexit after all.

Heh, now without a regular paycheck apart from his "investments" in Russia, he will have to be extra obnoxious and annoying, having to make a living as a media darling.

[Syt]

Austrian commemorative stamp. Apparently they were printed last year but recalled when Brexit was postponed. They printed it over with the new date.

[Tamas]

Now that's just mean. 

[The Larch]

 

[alfred russel]

Dumb stamp to shade UK white and leave Norway, Switzerland, the Balkantard countries, and various eastern European states off.

[Syt]

Dumb stamp to shade UK white and leave Norway, Switzerland, the Balkantard countries, and various eastern European states off.

Those are not part of the EU.

[Admiral Yi]

I didn't realize Finland was in.

Nice troll Austria.

[Syt]

I didn't realize Finland was in.

They're the ball sack to Sweden's flaccid cock.