Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Larch]

I suppose it's dumb but the vast majority of people may barely any attention to politics and I think they probably just didn't realise that things had changed or when things changed.

Yeah, and as is mentioned in the article, this is bound to disproportionately affect people who are both young and might not be very educated, and are trying to do something that until very recently was perfectly fine. They mention au pairs and people trying to find short term low skilled jobs, so I guess it's going to be mostly people in their early-mid 20s with at best a high school education (although plenty of people with college degrees who went to the UK looking for work ended up working low skilled jobs) that are chancing to find something to make some money and come back to their countries in a while, and who might have done it already in the past, so they might take things for granted.

What at least one of the diplomats seemed to agree with me on was that the draconian measures employed by the UK were too much and just keeping the person in the airport until the next flight to their home country was available should be enough. I don't know if just releasing them on their word as another one sugested would cut it, though.

It's perfectly legal to look for and apply for jobs when you don't have a working visa, it's only working which you can't do. And when you're just from spain or the like it's perfectly easy to pop over for a week or two to find a job then go home to get your things, sort out the paperwork and move over.

I don't think that's right I thought it was illegal to come to the UK as a tourist for the purpose of looking for work (like the guy in Larch's article) so if you have loads of copies of your CV that will get questions from border guards.

What about the situation of one of the guys mentioned, that was travelling for a job interview? Would you need a work permit to be able to travel for that?

[Sheilbh]

What at least one of the diplomats seemed to agree with me on was that the draconian measures employed by the UK were too much and just keeping the person in the airport until the next flight to their home country was available should be enough. I don't know if just releasing them on their word as another one sugested would cut it, though.

Yesh - I get tht I suppose my fear is you can't trust Border Control and the Home Office. So it might be fine for this sort of weird situation of people accidentally breaking immigration rules who want to go back and can afford it. My concern is that any exception for that group of people will be abused by the Home Office and we'll find our people are getting deported without having a chance to appeal etc.

The scales are very tilted already but I think it is important to basically build in process so people have a right to understand what's happening through an interpreter, possibly get legal or community advice, make an appeal etc. So to my mind - it might be suitable for these 30 Europeans - but I fear that any route to just deporting people would be abused and more draconian.

Edit: Unfortunately that process would be a nightmare if you are happy and able to go back immediately.

What about the situation of one of the guys mentioned, that was travelling for a job interview? Would you need a work permit to be able to travel for that?

I've no idea - my suspicion would be that that (or university interview) should be declared as a business trip and that your employer should tell you.

[Sheilbh]

In further Blue Wall stories Labour took the West of England (always marginal) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Metro Mayors. That would probably be a big story.

BUT. Labour's decide to explode with an absolutely shambolic re-shuffle. So far Angela Rayner the Deputy Leader has been sacked as Labour Chair and this has been mishandled badly as that story has broken to widespread fury in Labour - including with moderate MPs - while the leadership are saying they will be redeploying her in another role but nothing seems to have been prepared. Now reports that Lisa Nandy is expecting to be demoted from Shadow Foreign Secretary - where I think she's been quite effective.

I've never been a huge fan of Starmer but his reaction and lack of phlegm at one bad by-election/local government results is pretty alarming. Just seeng him doing an interview with the BBC yesterday and it was one of the weirdest political interviews I've ever seen - he was very wired. I slightly worry about his temperament now - which I didn't two or three days ago.

In short - this meme, again


Edit: We've already reached the stage where a Labour source is tweeting this to journalists: "The man is as fucking stupid as he is boring."

Left and right of the party seem pretty unhappy at sacking Rayner - especially as, reportedly, her main crime is not getting on with a senior Starmer aide.

Rayner was apparently lined up to do the Sunday morning political shows. Needless to say she's now pulled out of them.

[Tamas]

Yeah seems like a stupid move.

Apparently the problem with guys like Starmer is that he can't compensate for incompetence with entertaining moral deficiencies and character flaws. At least that's the difference I can see between him and Johnson, apart from a crumbling UK and 127k covid deaths, that is.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah seems like a stupid move.

Apparently the problem with guys like Starmer is that he can't compensate for incompetence with entertaining moral deficiencies and character flaws.

Yeah. Like it or not it feels like Johnson is the latest in the line of cads/mountebanks elected to PM (Lloyd George, Churchill, Blair) who the British people decide to like because of not in spite of their flaws. And things that they would never forgive in a "normal" politician will be overlooked for him

Having said that Starmer's sole pitch so far is competence. But the only organisations he's run are the Labour Party and the Crown Prosecution Service - and I'm seeing lawyers pointing out that whenever Starmer's decisions as Director of Public Prosecutions got controversial or were challenged (and many did - I think this is a potential weakness for him) - he had a tendency to basically just blame the career CPS and very rarely actually accept responsibility. This slightly plays into that and that past may get more attention.

But this still looks very stupid. Firstly because Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader so she has to have a shadow cabinet job so in a way he's fired the one person he can't actually fire completely - and from all accounts hasn't done it in a way that keeps her on side. But secondly I've not seen the party so united on anything in ages Burnham was defending Starmer on the BBC after his election but has already come out and said he can't support this, the left are accusing Starmer of cowardice and the right of the party aren't much happier.

To make things worse the latest reporting is that Starmer is now considering calling off a wider re-shuffle because of the strength of the backlash over this. That's even crazier because the problem with that is it just leaves him looking like the only person he's fired is Rayner and the one argument you could have was "this bit was mishandled but it was part of wider re-shuffle and now we have a better team". Stopping now just makes him look vindictive and weak.

As I say Starmer's reactions to this election, which must have been predictable, worry me slightly about his temperament. He is behaving pretty erratically here which is not great in a leader.

At least that's the difference I can see between him and Johnson, apart from a crumbling UK and 127k covid deaths, that is.

I don't think the UK crumbles any less with Labour (third in Scotland) in power v the Tories (second in Scotland) - and I posted polls earlier most people are okay with the UK crumbling if that's the democratic will of the Scottish people. I think it is really interesting that in all three nations the incumbent governments have all done well - I think it's definitely a sign that people are basically treating the pandemic as a natural disaster which could overwhelm any administration (and overwhelmed all three), but seeing the vaccine roll-out and safe lifting of restrictions as something the incumbent governments deserve credit for.

I'd point out there is likely to be another Red Wall by-election in June when almost all restrictions are lifted. It's Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire which used to be Jo Cox's seat but in that context it feels very likely that the Tories will perform very strongly and win. No doubt Starmer will react to this loss by launching a third re-shuffle

In London. Sadiq won though it was closer than expected. He got 40% in the first round to Shaun Bailey's 35% but then went on to win the second round with 55%.

On the London Assembly, however, Labour lost 1 seat, UKIP lost 2 and those 3 seats went equally to Tories, Lib Dems and Greens.

So overall it was a generally pretty good night for the Tories - they gained seats in Wales (though not as many as they'd hoped for) and London (where they performed better), held onto their seats in Scotland (which was not expected) and had some very good local election results in the rest of England. You can see the outline of a future Tory implosion. But despite the narrative around them, one of the key signs tonight is that they are holding out better in London, Scotland and Wales than I'd expected.

[Oexmelin]

I've seen this analysis on Twitter, which kinda seems apt:

"Politics in Britain is currently just a carousel of right-wing commentators telling the ostensibly left-wing party what to do to destroy itself, and the left-wing party doing what it's told despite the obvious electoral cost, while apologising for not doing it quickly enough"

[alfred russel]

It isn't hard to see the reason for Labour's struggles. Imagine the democrats in a country where 85% of the country is white, there are parties like the greens and lib dems to siphon off their supporters, and the conservative party is on board with things like universal health care.

[Sheilbh]

I've seen this analysis on Twitter, which kinda seems apt:

"Politics in Britain is currently just a carousel of right-wing commentators telling the ostensibly left-wing party what to do to destroy itself, and the left-wing party doing what it's told despite the obvious electoral cost, while apologising for not doing it quickly enough"

But I don't think that's true. I've seen that take and it's popular on the left unsurprisingly - but we've had a decade of Labour doing the opposite of what right-wing commentators have suggested (although I'd note many of the people they're describing are just centrists - they mean right-wing in a relative sense). I'm not sure we could describe Ed Miliband or Jeremy Corbyn as doing what they were told by right-wing commentators.

Honestly I think the biggest thing Labour could do for its own sake would be to get its people off social media. I think it's a huge driver of a sort of politics of self-indulgence where factionalism matters more than anything. Labour MPs constantly pile in on factional fights on Twitter - as if it's not public. It's something I've barely ever seen the Tories do. Even at the height of the Brexit issues - they may leak like a sieve to the press but they don't have their party fights in public. If there is any issue in the Labour party I can think of five or six MPs in all wings of the party who will be pushing a line on their Twitter account and rowing about it. I think those factional fights are developed even further because I can think of activists on all sides of the party with significant Twitter followings getting involved (and being egged on by their fans and attacked by their opponents). And I still think all sides would rather win the argument in the party and have control of a rump Labour Party than put their factional arguments to the side at least publicly.

It isn't hard to see the reason for Labour's struggles. Imagine the democrats in a country where 85% of the country is white, there are parties like the greens and lib dems to siphon off their supporters, and the conservative party is on board with things like universal health care.

There's something to that.

But I don't think it goes far enough. About a third of non-white voters vote Tory - and there are signs that proportion is increasing. The Tories have moved from austerity politics to very broad economic support during the pandemic, and are planning big stimulus spending afterwards (though nowhere near the scale of the US) - and they're planning to pay for it after the next election by raising corporate tax. In addition the Tories have a reasonably good record on climate and are trying to bolster/own that issue as well especially in the run up to COP26 but also with their "Green Industrial Revolution" program.

That's a challenging party to oppose from a left-wing perspective (especially looking at it in comparison with the US ). Assuming we get through the pandemic this summer - which I think is likely - I feel a little bit like I imagine it felt for the Tories in the early 2000s. At the minute the Tories are just colonising the entire centre of British politics. It would be so much easier if they were still Cameron-Osborne style austerians or even if May's quite narrow "citizens of nowhere v citizens of somewhere" approach was still taking the lead. But neither of those things are true and until Labour recognise the opponent they're facing they'll be in trouble.

[Tamas]

Sheilbh I think it's telling that you didn't consider NI when I said UK is crumbling :p

Also I would argue that the Corbyn years were EXACTLY doing what the right wing expected of Labour.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh I think it's telling that you didn't consider NI when I said UK is crumbling :p

Fair point - but Northern Ireland is different. And I've yet to see any ideas on Northern Ireland that actually engage with reality. They all basically boil down to either Brexit not happening or ignore that the core of that referendum was ending free movement which means leaving the single market.

So I think any government that isn't actively going for a second referendum or is willing to sign up for free movement of people would face the same issues. And now we're past that stage anyway, so it's just the facts on the ground.

Also I would argue that the Corbyn years were EXACTLY doing what the right wing expected of Labour.

Sadly true - and it was, and still is, so like the 80s it's crazy. I just really struggle with the idea that after four years of Corbyn Labour's apparently spent too long in a defensive posture just going along with the media.

I also think that a lot of Labour's issues are shared with centre-left parties across Europe and it's perhaps a form of British exceptionalism (or commentator parochialism) to think the main issue is, perhaps uniquely, our press.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The daily mail has been very critical of Johnson. The right-wing evil MSM stole my voters is a pathetic excuse. Waiting for demographic destiny is a fool's errand as well, many of our immigrant groups are more conservative than the native population, as they integrate they will be more comfortable voting tory.

My advice to Labour is to find out what you are for and design and place a credible range of policies in front of the electorate that will improve the country. It looks like Starmer is going to flail around and blame the Corbynites, the sacking of Rayner is pathetic and stokes Labour party navel-gazing. Labour didn't win and they didn't deserve to win even though Johnson is a bounder.

[garbon]

Yeah at what point is Labour no longer viable as an opposition? They marched leftward with Corbyn and now have marched rightward with Starmer only to see their hold on power decline.

It seems pretty bad to be a party called Labour and have your leader conceding that you've "lost the trust of working people."

[alfred russel]

There's something to that.

But I don't think it goes far enough. About a third of non-white voters vote Tory - and there are signs that proportion is increasing. The Tories have moved from austerity politics to very broad economic support during the pandemic, and are planning big stimulus spending afterwards (though nowhere near the scale of the US) - and they're planning to pay for it after the next election by raising corporate tax. In addition the Tories have a reasonably good record on climate and are trying to bolster/own that issue as well especially in the run up to COP26 but also with their "Green Industrial Revolution" program.

The Republicans of course are not on board with climate change legislation and raising corporate taxes. But put that aside, and the rest applies to Republicans as well. I'm not sure they are getting 1/3 of the minority vote, but for whatever reason Trump got a big swing in the minority vote in his favor. In terms of the relationship with corporate america, there has been a massive shift in the last few years: while republicans haven't moved off being against all taxes, they certainly aren't the pro corporate party they used to be. Especially tech companies probably have something to fear from the party right now.

[Tamas]

Yeah at what point is Labour no longer viable as an opposition? They marched leftward with Corbyn and now have marched rightward with Starmer only to see their hold on power decline.

It seems pretty bad to be a party called Labour and have your leader conceding that you've "lost the trust of working people."

As I keep saying this is a commom problem for the left in developed countries because ina historic sense they have won. The economic policies they fought for when they have been formed have been adopted by all sides, in Europe at least and only their extent is up for debate.

Couple that with the progressive cultural messages a lot of the working class is ambivalent or rather hostile toward (ethnic minorities among working class included) and you have quite an uphill battle.

[Josquius]

Yeah at what point is Labour no longer viable as an opposition? They marched leftward with Corbyn and now have marched rightward with Starmer only to see their hold on power decline.

It seems pretty bad to be a party called Labour and have your leader conceding that you've "lost the trust of working people."

The Corbyn hangover looms long. And Johnson is in a good place now with earlier corona failures forgotten with a bit of a nationalistic blitz spirit vs corona. The brexit damage tally hasn't gotten big enough yet either with corona masking a lot.

I do think going left under Corbyn was not an error by labour. It's notable he wasn't a dictator and represented a platform much more to the right than his own views :its him who was the main problem rather than any individual policy.
Same platform but with a more centrist figurehead could do well.
Whether starmer is that man is an open question.

The main problem going forward is the tories continuing to adopt the republicans tactics of pushing culture war nonsense