Rayvin

What are the main issues in your view? They haven't released their manifesto yet so it's difficult for anyone to be totally clear on it. At my best attempt, here are the ones that sound fairly firm: On Brexit he wants the people to put it to bed by going to Europe and securing a Brexit deal that won't harm the country, and then putting it back to the people in recognition of the fact that Parliament has failed sort this out. On taxes it sounds like he intends to raise taxes on those earning more than £85k. Everyone else will be untouched, at least on income tax. Those earning over this figure will be paying 5% more than they are now which corresponds to a few hundred quid a year. But their take home pay is about £4k/month, so it's not a massive deal. On the NHS, Labour will of course put more money in which will reduce waiting times and improve care. The country can afford this and indeed would benefit from a good round of spending, as evidenced by the fact that even the Tories are claiming that they need to spend money now. It's good economics. That's all I know for certain really off the top of my head. Many other points have been raised like 4 day working weeks and so on (which I think would be better phrased as 32 hour weeks, since the data is actually that companies are just as productive with employees working 6 hours per day as they are when they work 8), but we don't know the specifics for the manifesto yet. Obviously he plans to renationalise rail and some utilities as well to stop them being owned by foreign governments and ideally to lower costs (although ewerk put up a decent criticism of this move a few pages back).

Yeah, fair enough if that's the lay of the land. But then the LDs are no more serious about stopping Brexit than Labour are. EDIT - in fact, Labour's stubborn sticking to the principle of letting the people putting this to bed would suggest they are in fact more serious than anyone else about reconciling the issue in a way that actually allows us to move forward.

But that could be avoided at least on the remain side if the LDs weren't attacking them. The question is, if this is all meant to be about stopping Brexit, why are the LDs undermining Labour's position on that front? It will win them no Tory voters.

So are we saying that Labour putting soft Brexit up against Remain, and remaining impartial, is the sole issue we have with Corbyn's policy at this point? Or do we want him to revoke the whole thing straight off? Because if it's the former, it's such a tiny issue (one that would become totally irrelevant as the vast majority of Labour MPs would immediately make up for the leadership's neutrality on the issue) that I genuinely think it's laughable.

Who said anything about the hardcore leave vote? The marginal leavers are the ones he should be taking aim at. I mean look, can you explain to me the strategic worth from a purely quantitative standpoint, of Labour and LDs fighting over the exact same set of voters in an issue that has a near 50:50 national split?

But this is just the thing though, there's a finite number of Remain purists out there, right? Presumably precisely none of them are going to vote for the Tories or Brexit Party. So why do we want Corbyn competing for their vote? They're not the ones we need to sell this to. Well they shouldn't be anyway - except that Labour is taking friendly fire from the LDs. I mean can you not see that the pool of potential voters lowers significantly if Labour step away from the middle ground on this issue? Are you thinking he should just be able to bring them with him to a remain position? I would suggest that with views as deeply entrenched on Brexit as they are, this is unlikely.

And yet even still, even fucking still, I would vote LD if I were in a seat in which it mattered. And I would wake up on election morning hoping that Swinson wasn't about to do a deal with the devil. Because that's where we are now, insanely. But let's not pretend that Labour are the only ones making this difficult.

Indeed - and based on this, seems to be prepared to accept Brexit as a price for even a few more seats. Maybe she's envisioning that Labour will take the blame for this in the long run and she will hoover up the centre in full. But again, Brexit then becomes acceptable collateral damage. Labour could be argued to be playing the same game of course, except that they have stuck to what is actually a sensible fucking position on the whole thing despite the damage it's doing to them. The LDs decided that they were the party of pure Remain, would back outright revoking A50 - something they knew they would never have to do - and appear to be prepared to sell all of that down the river because none of it is as important as winning a few seats. If Labour were being as cynical, it would have been easy enough for them to go full Remain.

Also, that comment about Labour's "nuanced" position - it's not that fucking nuanced. Go to the EU, get a non-suicidal deal, put it to the public. It's three clauses of less than 6 words each. Just how fucking stupid are the public if they can't internalise that? The concern I have with this is that Labour being painted as a non-Remain party is coming from the LDs. And specifically, their attack along those lines means that they're not just going after Labour on the basis of anti-Corbynism as a smokescreen to try and win over soft Tories. They're also going after Labour remainers - the only people who such a message actually is designed to influence. They don't need these people to vote LD to stop Brexit, they just need them to vote for whoever is most likely to win. In attacking Labour on this front, the LDs are making clear that winning seats is their primary focus, and stopping Brexit is secondary. And that is a serious fucking problem. It's not Labour's fault, it's Swinson's. And we shouldn't be too scared to just call it for what it is. If Labour's "nuanced" Brexit strategy is "too much" for your ordinary person, it's sure as shit not too much for Swinson. So why is she misrepresenting it?

Sure but I think it would indeed put it to bed for a lot of people.

So what do you think they should do, fight over votes with the Lib Dems? It's a strategically worthless position. I'm sorry but it just is. There is nothing to be gained from taking the same position as the LDs, all it will do it reinforce this idea that Labour has indeed abandoned Leavers. And since they haven't actually done this, I don't know why they would want to. Moreover, by remaining neutral in any eventual referendum, they are allowing the possibility for the country to move past viciously hating each other. Look, perception may be everything but you're assuming a great deal about how people outside of our specific echo chamber are perceiving this. The proof will be in the pudding I expect, but Labour are the ones who have to retain these working class leave constituencies, not the Lib Dems.

Assuming we get out of this, if I was Scottish, I would want a cast iron legal guarantee from the British government that if there is every any manner of attempt to leave the EU in future, it automatically triggers an independence referendum - I would want this at the very least. Frankly, it would probably be better to just get out once and for all just to be free of the Tories.

Owen Jones proving that he reads my posts on here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/14/lib-dems-labour-brexit-jo-swinson-remain-vote-boris-johnson The Lib Dems will protest that this is terribly unfair. Are they not a national party with the right to stand wherever they choose? Yes, this is how politics works. But the problem is this: the party has made stopping Brexit its defining cause, while simultaneously portraying it as a crusade that transcends party politics. The Lib Dems know that throwing resources at seats they cannot win and peeling away significant numbers of Labour voters will allow the Tories to win. They know that demonising Labour as a “Brexit party” – when a Labour-led government implementing its policy of a second referendum is the only plausible route to stop Brexit – divides remainers to the benefit of the Tory Brexiteers. They know that focusing their vitriol on Corbyn strengthens the position of Johnson. But ultimately they are not, by definition, an anti-Brexit party; the remain cause is secondary to increasing the number of Lib Dem seats in parliament. If your main aim in politics is to advance the partisan interests of the Lib Dems and repeat their performance in government, then this makes sense. If your only cause is stopping Brexit, however, it does not.

I agree, but yesterday he was saying it wouldn't be in the next 5 years, making this a 24 hour u-turn.

Corbyn now saying no indeyref2 in the first two years. Genuinely seems like Labour weren't prepared for this issue. Annoying and unprofessional.

Yeah I keep seeing that statement doing the rounds and I find it mystifying. Labour will give us a second vote, which will very probably result in Remain. If it doesn't, I'm not sure any of us have any leg to stand on. Even I accept it at that point, but the second vote, IMO, is basically Remain.

Agree that there's no chance of a Labour majority but the aim was always a Remain majority.

what do you mean "gets better"? It sounds good so far or something?

Proof that it needs privatization.

Someone in the comments under that saying that if they've used standard class differentiators then the working class band also includes all pensioners, well off or otherwise. Can only hope that's true but i doubt such a misleading data set would be published if it is.

What the actual fuck are the working class doing.

I'm genuinely not saying that Corbyn and Labour shouldn't be reciprocating, but stopping Brexit is the LDs raison d'etre at this point. After all of this, if Labour lose, I actually think it'll be blamed on Swinson - and the reason for that is that she has completely failed to appreciate that a good 8 or 9% of their current polling is borrowed from Labour because of Brexit. She already has the Labour Remainers, but she's going to lose them pretty fucking quickly if she refuses to make headway on this issue. Now, they'll likely just go back to Labour which you would think would be fine except that we need them to vote for LD candidates in some places. And it honestly seems to me that she's starting to make that difficult for some of them. I appreciate she needs the Tory vote in certain places and maybe there's an informal arrangement in the backroom between the two, but she needs that deal more than Corbyn does. Frankly, I'm not even convinced Corbyn is that arsed about any of this now. He'll be off if he loses for certain, and I doubt he'll give any of this shit a second thought.

I cling to this notion too, but the idea of not standing aside for Labour in remain seats pours cold water on it to a degree. She can stand aside, advocate for remain, and still appeal to Tory moderates.

Still think its more on her. In the end, Brexit is merely another issue for Labour, whereas it's the be all and end all for the LDs. I couldn't name you a single LD policy other than revoking A50. Swinson is a minor party leader with delusions of grandeur and if it costs remain the win here she'll be resigning and swiftly followed by a poll collapse for the LDs back to around 10% Labour should absolutely be reciprocating too, but they're a major party. If they start standing people down they become a minor party, leaving the conservatives free to claim that they are indeed the one true party of governance. Maybe we have to take the LDs at their word and determine that they would be happy to work with BJ over Corbyn. Perhaps that's why this won't happen.

So are the Tories trying to do a deal with Farage now? If so I think we're really in trouble. Swinson continues to refuse to entertain the notion of working with Corbyn which, as Labour is far and away the bigger party, is actually on her. It's also on her because she has nailed her cock to the mast of remain. I simply do not understand this idea that Labour aren't a viable remain option, it's a damaging lie. And it's landing with some remainers.