Rayvin

I genuinely do not believe that anyone could have legitimately seen it coming that after a couple of small interruption to his deal, Johnson would inexplicably shelve the whole thing and go for an election instead. It's a ludicrous strategy

I was frantic because the deal was going through. I'm consistent believe it or not - while the deal looked to be going through, off the back of Labour MPs, I thought the game was up. I couldn't see any way out. With an election it's all to play for.

I absolutely know what you mean, and if this doesn't go our way I'll be right there with you - but hang on just for this one. It's still possible that we could come away with total victory, as insane as that might sound.

May as well go in tails up, heads held high. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Absolutely disgusting attitude. Should be denied service.

It is beyond scary that the margins are going to be that fine.

Indeed. The biggest threat all the way through this was that he'd actually get a deal through. Now that looks to be dead. I think from here it'll be close, but we can win it. If the Remain parties for once, finally, play this right. And frankly, I think Labour are on a good footing in not making this all about Brexit, and for having what looks to be a conciliatory stance on the matter.

I wish to draw attention to this cutting insight from the Daily Mail comment section so that we can get a flavour of the discourse on the other side - 2000 upvotes so far, 3rd most popular comment: I will be voting for THE BrEXIT PARTY no matter what. ..... In all my many years, I have never voted Conservative, and I refuse to start now. ..... Boris's deal is an EU written TREATY which is BRINO and not one bit is BrEXIT, so it is effectively Remain. ..... Labour and SNP are both Remain. ..... Swinson and her Lib-Dumbs are Revoke A50 and Remain. ..... This means THE BrEXIT PARTY is the only one worth voting for.

Of the 60 seats the LDs are targeting, 47 are Tory. It's clear which way the guns are facing from their side. I don't think 20 seats is too out there. And yes, the idea that the LDs are coming out as more right wing to appeal to Tory marginal voters is my view also. It makes perfect sense really.

This is good news and tbh does indeed swing me over to thinking that Farage doesn't care so much about getting Brexit as he does about getting attention.

Those dipshits weren't voting Labour anyway. More net good on this than net bad. In the eyes of swing voters, Trump is toxic.

Part of me thinks that the Lib Dems are taking right wing views in this because their primary target is disaffected Tories. If so, I'm happy for them to spout Thatcherite nonsense until the cows come home.

I'm never going to agree that this period was a cakewalk for Labour. No matter who was in charge they'd have the same issue - how to square their leavers with their Remainers. And I think the current policy is actually the most sound of any of the political parties. Boris isn't storming the polls because Corbyn is ineffectual, it's because he's propped up by Brexit diehards. And Labour have lost about 10-12% of their polling due to remain diehards. Reverse those two phenomena and Labour are probably a few points clear of the Tories outside of Brexit. No Labour leader would be able to reverse that. The only policy position that could do would be full blown remain, but that costs us the election even if Labour do slightly better for themselves.

Cults aside, what is it that they expect to do? The independent sees a remain coalition picking up 60 seats from the Tories. Labour just needs to hold on to heartlands and it'll be fine. I understood the political smarts of putting off this election but if they do it much longer they're going to end up reinforcing this idea that they're just running scared. I do not believe that they'll get a wipeout and am reasonably optimistic that they'll do better than the polls suggest. And if it does all go to hell, at least they'll be rid of Corbyn.

What kind of horror show is going on at Southampton that they've managed that result? They've come out of nowhere and stolen our thunder as the most abject club in the division.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-poll-boris-johnson-conservatives-brexit-lib-dems-labour-a9114826.html?fbclid=IwAR3QA-EmayT6e6rqq7iU4l6LFLLlAFI86PPgpYT2J_Ij3gAChtMFlSPTleI Remain looks well primed for tactical voting.

Do any of you ever wonder what it must be like to live in a country with reasonably functioning institutions and competent governance? Must be weird to actually have people serving the public good. Cant really imagine it tbh.

I find it fairly believable. For Remainers, this is about freedoms. For Brexiteers, it's about being right. Both deeply held views, with the latter being emotionally immature in the extreme ofc, but still.

And yet he's backing it.

Everything that stops that deal going through is going to be held up as a reason to vote for Johnson. As far as plays go, it's a good one. We need Labour and the Remain camp to be shit hot on this now. Terrifyingly. But either way, they should go for it. Meet him head on, for death and glory

Wait wait wait. His deal is still there. It almost looks like he's saying he'll grant the timetable extension for the deal to be read if there is an agreement about having a general election afterwards. So he'll continue with the deal, potentially achieve Brexit, and then crash into a general election having terrified the Labour rebels into voting for it. This is actually, depressingly, a smart move. He gets everything he's ever wanted, unless Labour can absolutely trash the deal in the meantime.

God I hope this comes back to bite him. Cummings has just put 95% pure Brexit on the table as part of an all or nothing gamble to get 100% pure Brexit. It's completely irrational from his perspective. Even from Johnson's unless he thinks Corbyn will vote it down.

If Johnson is about to go for an election then the game, amazingly, is still on.

And for what it's worth, I would take no deal over Johnson's deal. The latter does pretty much all of the same damage but more slowly. Would be preferable to go "shock and awe" on this given how limited the average voters attention span is.

I can't speak for all of us but my stance with it has been that since the Tories saw fit to interpret the result of a slender victory for leave as an opportunity to push for the pretty much most extreme version possible, I have been quite happy to respond to that flagrant abuse of power by looking for an opportunity to go totally the other way. Many remains MPs seem to have done the same. In fact, I remember one of the Tory rebels stating as he voted for Mays deal, that this was the last chance the ERG fuckheads had to vote for a deal before he and others went full remain. So that's what happened more or less. Now, granted we didn't expect the Tory party to actually side with the psychopaths, but they have at least been restrained. Anyway, the reason that we would insist a remain option on the table at a referendum is because the other two options (No deal and the surrender deal) are horrific and there is no evidence at all that they had majority backing at the referendum, given that neither was remotely discussed.