Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Poll in the Evening Standard has Starmer and Johnson neck-and-neck on who would make the best PM. I think between elections, this is normally a better predictor of the next election than party polling. It's also the first time a Labour leader's been level-pegging in 13 years.

Also positive for Starmer's effort, only 16% of people see Labour as "extreme" down from 50% during Corbyn's leadership. However only 27% of people think Labour is fit to govern (which is the lowest since 2016). Mixed bag but broadly positive.

So, inevitably Gina Miller has launched a new centrist pro-European party to further split the anti-Tory vote I swear to God Cthulu could be rising from the Irish Sea and there's a group of prominent-ish people in this country who'd respond by launching a new centrist pro-European party.

Also interesting (because it agrees with me) but Burnham has welcomed the appointment of Gove to his department on broadly the same reason I think it's a good/interesting move. He said it was "good news" for levelling up: "The thing about Michael Gove is at least he does things. You may disagree with me, but he acts as a minister. He creates an agenda, and he then implements it."

[Josquius]

2/3 saying brexit is to blame for the crisis seems good.

Look to the amount blaming the last Labour government and the EU though...

[Richard Hakluyt]

I blame Asquith myself, bloody Liberals 

The visas for truckdrivers and poultry workers is a glimpse of light in my opinion. The first step has been taken by brexiters which will make it much easier for a future rational government to greatly improve relations with the EU.

Our personal immunity from shortages continues; my wife went for a covid test and filled up at an empty garage en route.

[Sheilbh]

Look to the amount blaming the last Labour government and the EU though...

Yeah I just think that sort of shows partisanship rather than anything particularly meaningful. So about 50% of the country really doesn't like the EU and about 30% of the country really doesn't like the Labour Party - we knew that already. 30% is about the floor of the Tory (or Labour) vote so far and all the evidence indicates we're still about 50/50 on the EU.

What I think is striking is that - in spite of those partisan bases - is 2/3s to 70% blame some combination of Johnson, the government and Brexit. So even some of those anti-Labour/anti-EU partisans are putting blame in that direction and the vast majority of people are I think making the right call in terms of "blame" - though I for one would like to add, "Structural factors/employers" as an option

[Sheilbh]

Our personal immunity from shortages continues; my wife went for a covid test and filled up at an empty garage en route.

Same the only shortage I've seen in my area is bottled water brands in the local Co-op

Edit: Having said all of that it is incredible that the Tories still have a really persistent lead on the economy and the deficit/debt v Labour from the last Labour government, which I think is kind of astonishing given the last 11 years. But I think part of it is that the Tories were very relentless on attacking Brown's record and people agreed with it - and for the last 11 years Labour have spent most of their time debating whether or not Labour governments are good

[Josquius]

Labour made their own mess there. Its a big problem that for the past decade the Tories have been going "Labour are shit and crashed the economy!" and Labour rather than pointing out the facts was going "True. But next time we won't!".
The gold stuff for instance as you mentioned is a particularly idiotic myth that just won't die.
Also likely a problem is just how ignorant and insular many people in the UK are. I don't think many get what happened in 2008 and that it was a global issue.

[Sheilbh]

Labour made their own mess there. Its a big problem that for the past decade the Tories have been going "Labour are shit and crashed the economy!" and Labour rather than pointing out the facts was going "True. But next time we won't!".

Yeah - of course that's just good politics from the Tories and stupid politics from Labour. I mean I remember Labour bringing up Black Wednesday and "Tory boom-and-bust" well into the 2000s.

Also likely a problem is just how ignorant and insular many people in the UK are. I don't think many get what happened in 2008 and that it was a global issue.

I think that's universal and a real example of all politics is local. There's a sense that there was a global financial crisis (it's called the "global financial crisis" for a start) but no sense of what that meant or the politics of the crisis in other countries.

I think we're seeing it in covid times - it's really striking that despite it being a global pandemic each country (and sometimes each state or province) is going through its own response almost as if it only affects them. There's no sense of what has or hasn't been done/tried in other countries. It's very weird thinking about it - that this should be a moment of global learning and experience but isn't. We are all experiencing our own pandemic in each jurisdiction and I think in a similar way experienced the financial crisis locally too.

[Josquius]

I think that's universal and a real example of all politics is local. There's a sense that there was a global financial crisis (it's called the "global financial crisis" for a start) but no sense of what that meant or the politics of the crisis in other countries.

Which Labour really needs people to remember. Brown (debatably) saving the world should be a big point in their favour instead there's the fiction that Labour simply crashed the economy by spending too much.

I think we're seeing it in covid times - it's really striking that despite it being a global pandemic each country (and sometimes each state or province) is going through its own response almost as if it only affects them. There's no sense of what has or hasn't been done/tried in other countries. It's very weird thinking about it - that this should be a moment of global learning and experience but isn't. We are all experiencing our own pandemic in each jurisdiction and I think in a similar way experienced the financial crisis locally too.

I am seeing some mention of other countries. But its very selective and weird.
Certain people were keen to talk up Sweden last year for instance (oh how quiet they have become) and brexit supporters wouldn't stop banging on about how the EU's vaccination programme has apparently been such a disaster and only due to brexit we're doing OK whilst they're not (I'm still seeing this, despite it being obvious they were just a few weeks behind us- further ahead of the covid curve than we were)

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - I think the other side is you see some people talking up New Zealand/Australia as the "zero covid" model.

But I think that links to my point that other countries don't exist. They're not having their own experience which we can learn from, or not. They are only there as intruments within domestic politics. So Sweden shows we should be more relaxed, New Zealand shows we should be stricter; EU procurement was a disaster and shows the virtue of Brexit (it helped in procurement but was always clear the EU would be fine by the summer/September), I now see people pointing to EU figures as a point that Brexit was irrelevant after all (normally % of population vaccinated without noting that much of Europe has been vaccinating children over the summer while the UK hasn't).

None of this is really engaging with the global-ness of the pandemic or other experiences, but instead just using them to make points about local politics.

And I think there's something very similar with the financial crisis - and, worryingly, I think there's something similar with climate. I don't think this is specific to the UK I think it's quite a common issue/approach. We face these global challenges with different (and unevenly distributed) impacts around the world in a fundamentally parochial way.

[Tamas]

Project Fear!

A petrol station worker says the demand for fuel has been "unprecedented" at his small local garage and that shop sales have "tanked" following a weekend of panic-buying.

Yasser Ahmed, 37, who runs West Drayton service station with his father, said he had "not had time to breathe" as people clamoured to fill up their tanks.

"It's unprecedented," he told the PA news agency.

"We had a delivery Friday morning.

Driving in that's when it started hitting me there was a lot of talk on the radio (about) panic-buying.

"When I got into work it was considerably busy but not too bad. By the afternoon, when my dad left, I was non-stop, didn't have time to breathe.

"If there was a spillage outside, it's a single-man operation, I was having to hold everyone, clear the spillage then rush back in. I couldn't even sit down."

Ahmed said his four-pump station had gone through 30,000 litres of fuel - the amount it would usually sell in a whole week - in just two days.

"That's completely not normal," he said.

"Yesterday we didn't open up, we lost a whole day yesterday, today dad is in, only because we have a lot of regular customers from the local community who are going to work and want to grab their coffee first in the morning.

"That's the only reason we opened up. We're not selling anything inside, our shop sales have tanked.

"People are saying on social media that petrol station owners are doing really well and making a lot of money - we're not. We make our money from shop sales, and they're gone."

Ahmed said he had placed an order immediately on Friday afternoon but was still waiting on confirmation of another fuel delivery for Wednesday.

"We're a family-run business, just myself and my dad, so we're going to have to work however we can.

"It's like in the pandemic, we just did what we needed to do to get by.

"Everyone is panic-buying through fear that it's going to run out and, because of that, it actually has run out.

[Tamas]

OMFG. here's footage of a woman emptying a plastic water bottle to fill it up with petrol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kkRX2p9wH4

[Richard Hakluyt]

 

[Sheilbh]

Incredible.

Yet again:

Reuters
@Reuters
Behave normally, UK transport minister tells Britons queuing for fuel

This is going to end in someone accidentally burning down their house because they've got water bottles and open buckets of petrol lying around

[Sheilbh]

I refer to mine and Syt's memes. On the day the shadow chancellor gives a pretty well received, and I think quite important speech (especially in relation to energy transition) - this happens

Labour shadow cabinet minister quits after Keir Starmer orders him to oppose higher minimum wage
Andy McDonald says party is 'more divided than ever' under Sir Keir
Jon Stone
Policy Correspondent
2 minutes ago

Keir Starmer has been hit by a shadow cabinet resignation in the middle of his party conference after a row with one of his top team over minimum wage policy.

Andy McDonald, the shadow secretary of state for employment rights, said on Monday afternoon his position on Sir Keir's was "untenable" and that he could no longer work for the party leader.

In his resignation letter Mr McDonald said Sir Keir's office had "instructed" him "to go into a meeting to argue against a National Minimum Wage of £15 an hour and against Statutory Sick Pay at the living wage".

Mr McDonald said this was "something I could not do". He warned that Labour was "more divided than ever" under Sir Keir's leadership.

The resignation is a blow for the Labour leader who was hoping to turn the page on a row with the party's left wing that characterised the first part of the conference.

Sir Keir kicked off the conference with a defeat on plans to end one member one vote for Labour leadership elections, but narrowly passed alternative changes to Labour rules that will make it harder for MPs with less support from their colleagues to get on the ballot.

During negotiations with trade unions over the rule changes Sir Keir was reportedly taken to task by union leaders for not backing a £15 minimum wage.

The party says it wants a £10 minimum wage at least, around a £1 increase from the existing £8.91, though the existing rate may have already risen closer to that level by the next general election.

Mr McDonald told reporters outside Labour conference in Brighton: "It was a compositing meeting yesterday when the membership and the unions were promoting [a £15 minimum wage] and to be asked to defend the position and not support what the party and unions wanted to do is something I couldn't in all conscience sustain."

This is what we should be doing. Is it really unreasonable to expect people going to work, our key workers not to have the level of pay and to be able to sustain their position?"

In his resignation letter, Mr McDonald continued: "After many months of a pandemic when we made commitments to stand by key workers, I cannot now look those same workers in the eye and tell them they are not worth a wage that is enough to live on, or that they don't deserve security when they are ill.

"We live in a time when the people of this country have a renewed awareness of how important the work done by millions of low-paid workers truly is. To have the Labour Party, the party of working people, fail to realise that is a bitter blow.

"I joined your frontbench team on the basis of the pledges that you made in the leadership campaign to bring about unity within the party and maintain our commitment to socialist policies.

"After eighteen months of your leadership, our movement is more divided than ever and the pledges that you made to the membership are not being honoured. This is just the latest of many.

"I am immensely proud of the work my team has done to produce Labour's Employment Rights Green Paper, which was unveiled earlier this week. I will continue working with comrades across the movement to ensure that this agenda is delivered.

"I look forward to being free to fight for the working people of this country from the backbenches."

Mish Rahman a Labour NEC member from the left of the party, said: "Labour has to be the party of working people not bosses. During the leadership election, it seemed like Starmer understood this - but this resignation proves he does not.

"By asking a shadow minister to argue against a higher minimum wage and decent sick pay he has demonstrated just how put of touch he is with working people."

Reaching to the news, Conservative chairman Oliver Dowden said: "Labour are divided and fighting among themselves. Now they are even resigning during their own party conference! Labour's conference gets more chaotic by the minute. How can people trust them to run the country?"

Keir Starmer's office has been approached for comment but not yet responded.

There are very few chances for the opposition party to really get attention - especially about its policies/direction. That's largely because government parties have a structural advantage: they're in power so they can do stuff. Party conference is one , not least because all the media go to x conference and more or less report on that party. This one as already overshadowed by the fuel crisis but even when it's kind of going okay it somehow falls apart because they had a massive fight about the internal electoral processes of the Labour party (which, for some reason, they think voters care about) and now a front-bencher from the left resigning the day before Starmer's speech to get maximum attention

Edit: Wait, what - apparently the campaign on the UK left for £15 minimum wage was more or less totally inspired by the campaign in the US Yet again just cutting and pasting politics from the US is maybe not the best approach....

[garbon]

Unrelated to current events, how has I never seen this clip of the Thorns?

https://youtu.be/xh0sMgO2JBE