Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

By the by, just saw the (wild) clip of Emily Maitlis interviewing Kari Lake. Lake casually mentions that the UK as a country is "destroyed" - again I find it so weird how much this has become a common article of faith among right-wing elites in the US. It's really odd.

I don't know about others but the Hungarian far right thinks the same of most of Europe. France, Germany, Sweden, Italy etc all destroyed by mass immigration of Muslims, descended into chaos.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I wonder what they mean by destroyed? It is a word I might use for Gaza, not for Russia or Ukraine and certainly not for a prosperous Western country.

We need a Republican to English dictionary.

[Norgy]

As most of you know, I have grown up with the labour movement. Yet, majority and election win aside, I can't remember seeing anyone as uninspiring as Starmer leading Labour.
He is a male Theresa May, and will probably share some anecdote about running in a field as his youth rebellion.

Or not touching his peas.

Corbyn was a disaster. I think most can agree, but Labour actually pulled more votes with him as leader.

[Gups]

Fair.



Over the last four years he's then ditched every promise he made in the leadership election, possibly indulged in or enabled some light factionalism for the Labour right. On that front I'd add that it's very striking that the only members of his shadow cabinet he didn't appoint to the cabinet are Anneliese Dodds and Emily Thornberry. That means the only people in the cabinet who were willing to work in Corbyn's shadow cabinet are him and Rayner (and both have to be in the cabinet). As I say: ruthless, unprincipled and effective; or very, very naive about the people.

Well, apart from Lisa Nandy, Hilary Benn, Lucy Powell, Angela Smith, John Healey, Joanna Stevens and Ian Murray

Plus Chris Bryant, Heidi Alexander, Seema Malhotra, Nia Griffith, Vernon Croaker, Lilian Greenwood, Maria Eagle, Sue Hayman and Catherine McKinnellin in junior ministerial roles.

[Josquius]

By the by, just saw the (wild) clip of Emily Maitlis interviewing Kari Lake. Lake casually mentions that the UK as a country is "destroyed" - again I find it so weird how much this has become a common article of faith among right-wing elites in the US. It's really odd.

I don't know about others but the Hungarian far right thinks the same of most of Europe. France, Germany, Sweden, Italy etc all destroyed by mass immigration of Muslims, descended into chaos.

I do wonder to what extent it's
1: actual insanity
2: knowing better but seeing political gain in saying complete nonsense to the ignorant
3: knowing the facts but having completely different ideas of what "destroyed" means. Having two blokes holding hands or a mosque in town actually does mean the place might as well be nuked as it is beyond the pale in their world view.

As most of you know, I have grown up with the labour movement. Yet, majority and election win aside, I can't remember seeing anyone as uninspiring as Starmer leading Labour.
He is a male Theresa May, and will probably share some anecdote about running in a field as his youth rebellion.

Or not touching his peas.

Corbyn was a disaster. I think most can agree, but Labour actually pulled more votes with him as leader.

No comment on starmer.
But on Corbyn getting more votes, to be fair this was according to plan from starmers team. Alienate people they can afford to alienate in safe seats and target swing voters.

It's kind of like the farage gang getting more votes than the lib dems but much fewer seats.
The lib dems were actually targeting winning as many seats as possible.
Farage just wanted to score a lot of points so he could play the victim.

[Valmy]

I wonder what they mean by destroyed? It is a word I might use for Gaza, not for Russia or Ukraine and certainly not for a prosperous Western country.

We need a Republican to English dictionary.

I mean they think a teacher having books in her classroom means she is a sexual predator so they might just be prone to panic over nothing.

[Sheilbh]

As most of you know, I have grown up with the labour movement. Yet, majority and election win aside, I can't remember seeing anyone as uninspiring as Starmer leading Labour.
He is a male Theresa May, and will probably share some anecdote about running in a field as his youth rebellion.

Or not touching his peas.

Yeah - although I suppose with Labour you always have to caveat that their greatest leader and PM is possibly the least inspiring or charismatic political leader ever The Tories and Liberals love a bit of charisma - Labour prefers men (always men) who enjoy committee meetings.

The one I always find weird with Starmer is football. He is by all accounts a passionate fan. He has played football all his life, he's a season ticket holder - he loves it. Yet when he speaks about it to the press or has to do a tweet about it - he always manages to sound like he's only just been told football exists by his aides.

Having said that - Labour's biggest majority four years after the worst result since 1935, plus pushing the SNP back to a small minority of seats in Scotland is a lot to put to one side.

No comment on starmer.
But on Corbyn getting more votes, to be fair this was according to plan from starmers team. Alienate people they can afford to alienate in safe seats and target swing voters.

As someone put it - electoral jenga. This is definitely a way of winning in FPTP:


I think half of it was the plan - I think the relentless targeting on winnable seats (and taking a very ambitious approach to what's winnable) was the plan. I think they have been surprised at some of the losses and I think Gaza and that LBC clip has had a bigger impact than they expected.

I do wonder to what extent it's
1: actual insanity
2: knowing better but seeing political gain in saying complete nonsense to the ignorant
3: knowing the facts but having completely different ideas of what "destroyed" means. Having two blokes holding hands or a mosque in town actually does mean the place might as well be nuked as it is beyond the pale in their world view.

I think there's two versions and they're sort of merging. One is the standard right-wing Americans talking about sharia and "no go zones" in x European city. This has been going on for 20+ years. I feel like every few years we discover via Fox that Birmingham is an Islamic Republic.

The other thing is that the Tories are being used as an example of what not to do in internal fights in the American right. And that's normal - whenever another country's politics are talked about it's always for the domestic implications/arguments.

For example, Nate Hochman - the right young thing fired from the DeSantis campaign for being too Nazi - goes on this a lot. The Tories are in this argument basically squishy liberals and if you go down this route this is what you get. Basically they say the Tories legalised gay marriage, had the first trans MP and have not touched any of Labour's equalities legislation, have presided over record levels of immigration and had a non-Christian, British Indian PM. Obviously I don't really but I think if you're pushing a white Christian nationalist vision of politics in the US then the Tories are a cautionary example of where any compromise whatsoever leads you. They'll often contrast it with other bits of Europe saying that at least in the rest of Europe there's a fightback while Britain's just surrendered.

I think both of those are now merging so you have the failure of the Tories because they didn't base their politics on white Christian nationalism and now Britain's basically a sharia law state.

It's kind of like the farage gang getting more votes than the lib dems but much fewer seats.
The lib dems were actually targeting winning as many seats as possible.
Farage just wanted to score a lot of points so he could play the victim.

I don't think it's that - I don't think it was deliberate.

I think Farage is shit at FPTP and he'd happily lose a percent or two of the vote to get 10+ MPs. On the other hand, the Lib Dems are really good at it - they're really good at identifying target seats (they won all but one), establishing a presence in local government and then flooding them with activists during campaigns.

Corbyn was a disaster. I think most can agree, but Labour actually pulled more votes with him as leader.

On votes alone - I wonder if this is just a reversion to the mean election in some ways.

For basically the entire 20th century turnout in the UK floats around 70-80%. Then in 2001 we have our lowest turnout ever at 59%. In the next three elections it bobs around at about 60%. The main three parties are at each election attracting fewer votes which leads to weird results like 2005 when Labour won a 50 seat majority on 35% to the Tories 32% (I think there's a few parallels with 2005 - including many Labour voters assuming victory staying at home because of Iraq/Gaza).

The Brexit referendum has the highest turnout since the early 90s and is above 70% again. The two Brexit (and, in 2019, the stop Corbyn) elections have turnout at about 70% - and the three main parties are collectively back to winning 75-80%+ of the vote just like they were back in the 70s or80s.

This election turnout's back to 60%, so second worst ever - but broadly in line with pre-Brexit turnouts. Similarly the three main parties vote is more or less trending down in a straight line since 1992 (with the exception of the Brexit years). So I wonder if it is just back to normal pre-Brexit - which wasn't good I think it's worrying that turnout is so low and that there will come a crunch point on the electoral system as we move to more and more multi-party politics.

Well, apart from Lisa Nandy, Hilary Benn, Lucy Powell, Angela Smith, John Healey, Joanna Stevens and Ian Murray

Sorry - you're right. But at least of the MPs I think most of them left Corbyn's shadow cabinet with the no confidence vote and leadership challenge after Brexit, I think only John Healey hung around.

[Norgy]

Obviously, I am happy Labour won. And with such a margin.
I would have to correct you on one point: Harold Wilson was a charismatic figure.
Blair was too, in most ways.

Labour's landslide win would seem like a reaction against a horrible past four-five years with the Tories. And I have softened my political positions. Last election, I went for the Greens.

[Sheilbh]

Obviously, I am happy Labour won. And with such a margin.
I would have to correct you on one point: Harold Wilson was a charismatic figure.
Blair was too, in most ways.

Blair definitely - I'm not so sure on Wilson. I really like all the Wilson revisionism in the last few years. But I've always read him as more wily and very politically skilled at managing a party with bigger personalities who all thought they would be better at the job than him (also true of Attlee).

Labour's landslide win would seem like a reaction against a horrible past four-five years with the Tories. And I have softened my political positions. Last election, I went for the Greens.

I think it's six of one and half of the other. For example if they weren't fundamentally okay with a Labour PM all those Tory-Lib Dem and Tory-Reform swingers wouldn't have swung.

I think there is something to the line that oppositions don't win elections, government's lose them. But I think oppositions need to make themselves look like they could credibly form a government. It's part of why I find the Corbyn year's so annoying is I don't think it's just the last 4-5 years - I think the Tories have been there for the taking for a long time and Labour just needed a minimally competent leader to win (which is perhaps what Starmer is)

And 2024 is a bit like previous examples of the Tories lose office mired in all sorts of scandals and a sense of grubby decline with Labour promising national renewal. Of course Labour normally lose office following an economic crisis with the Tories promising to manage the economy better. So....hopefully we've got a nice stable period without them now

[Jacob]

Personally I like slightly dull, serious, get-shit done type of leaders (when I agree with their priorities).

I also quite liked the Starmer I saw talking about his father in the interview Sheilbh linked.

Question for our UKers... what kind of accent does Starmer have, and what does it say about him in the world of British accent-and-class-awareness?

[Sheilbh]

Personally I like slightly dull, serious, get-shit done type of leaders (when I agree with their priorities).

Yeah. Also if they actually get stuff done. Like any other leader there is a degree of performance and you can perform dull, serious, get-shit done but actually not do much/let things drift.

Starmer will be that type of leader because he can't be anything else. My fear is less that things drift but that things don't get done and he mistakes process for action (a constant risk for lawyers ). But I think (especially after the last few years of the Tories) that base layer of communicating competence will be popular because it's novel. I hope it's also substantive.

I also quite liked the Starmer I saw talking about his father in the interview Sheilbh linked.

Same - honestly it's first time I really felt like a saw an idea of who he is. And I loathe snobbishness in this country (or anywhere) so I also really sympathise with what he was saying.

FWIW the bits I've seen of Starmer speaking since he won seem very different. He just seems a lot more relaxed, especially than during the campaign - I wonder if how much he was perhaps very tightly wound about not fucking up as leader of the opposition.

Question for our UKers... what kind of accent does Starmer have, and what does it say about him in the world of British accent-and-class-awareness?

I'd say it's generic Southern.

His background is working class - dad was a skilled worker in a factory, his mum was a nurse. I think he was first in his family to go to university (Leeds). I don't think he reads that way because his subsequent career was as a very successful barrister and eventually Director of Public Prosecutions and, indeed, Sir Keir Starmer. Also his state school also became a private school while he was attending, so he was grandfathered in - but also I think because of that accent.

I think class and place can get mixed up. So it doesn't look like the image of working class - a pebbledash semi in a pretty suburban town. But there are lots of working class people in the South who sound not a million miles from Starmer. And I think it's interesting that among the angst of Labour losing votes in safe areas and whether Starmer comes across as too robotic - Labour made really big gains in working class Southern seats like in Kent.

[crazy canuck]

Personally I like slightly dull, serious, get-shit done type of leaders (when I agree with their priorities).

I also quite liked the Starmer I saw talking about his father in the interview Sheilbh linked.

Yeah, some understated effective leadership would be refreshing.

[Gups]

I'm pleased so far, good start. The pressure will ramp up soon though with so much to do and so little money to spend.

A bit annoyed they are doing yet another  planning bill, when they could achieve nearly everything they want to through secondary legislation and amending guidance but I suppose it's more £££ for us planning lawyers.

[Josquius]

This fucking country.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/developer-defends-county-durham-tower-29554312.amp

Plans in place to convert Disused offices to flats.
Local people are not happy. One in particular needs slapping into space

Carrie-ann Hewitt also voiced concerns, stating that the "sheer size and design of the building will likely make it an eyesore and detract from the character and aesthetics of our town". She continued: "I am concerned about the potential demographic of the residents. There is a valid concern among community members that these flats may not adequately address the housing needs of our current residents but could instead attract immigrants and refugees which we have many of them already, leading to further social and economic challenges

Dumb anywhere. But this is one of the whitest britishest parts of the country.

Planning reform now.

[Gups]

You want planning reform to stop people mouthing off to local media?