Rayvin

This shit is endless.

They won't outright but i still think their strategy is the right one, leave the Lib Dems to take the extreme remainers and Labour can try to hoover up everyone else. I think victory can be achieved in a GE or in a referendum, but the latter is the safer bet. At least I think it is. 72% of 2017 Labour leave voters said they wouldnt vote Tory under any circumstances. It's a hard nut to crack for Johnson.

Jonathon Pie explained this best - there were the leave voters who were always going to vote leave no matter what (little englanders) and there was the marginal leave voters who actually delivered the victory for leave in the end because they were fucking pissed off about inequality and having to get their groceries from foodbanks.

That lot will gravitate to Farage I suppose. Very limited threat from thereon out.

Fully agree with you there, although we do need one to cancel out the original. We also need citizenship and critical thinking classes to be taught at schools as a compulsory part of the syllabus. I would personally go so far as to say eligibility to vote should depend on passing them.

Austerity is what caused all of this pent up frustration, and a vivid reaction to it was always coming - I hoped it would be a left wing one, hence my backing for Corbyn, but it was in the end a right wing one, since far right populism appears to be eternally more palatable to the centre than moderate left populism. Either way it was coming though, and we've known this for years now. Corbyn and Brexit are symptoms of the same thing, the failure of the centre. I've said this many times. This doesn't mean Johnson is the only way though - if we can wrench the power from the right, a left wing program could settle things down as well. I don't really believe that there is a large groundswell of opinion even among Brexit leave voters for a far right takeover of the country. Brexit itself is just such a toxic phenomenon that it's consuming the entire discourse. The culture war is indeed global, and it will continue to have an impact here and elsewhere, but if we on the left and centre actually engage with the issues properly, we can fix this. And Corbyn's Labour manifesto would address a lot of it. We need to push back against corporate globalism from a left wing position. More immediately though, I think people's enthusiasm for Brexit will die down once Boris is out of the way - I mean after him, who will spearhead it?

Just try to remember it's only some of the people. And they were always there anyway, nothing has materially changed. The fact that the Tories are so determined to avoid this second referendum demonstrates to me that they know there isn't a majority for leave now. That should be encouraging to the rest of us. It's also why Brexiters are now talking about how "two thirds of the country voted to leave, based on constituencies". They know they don't have a majority. If the real people of this country get a chance to put a stop to this, they will.

What do you mean? It seems unlikely to me that the Tories will hang onto him if he loses an election. It's not even very clear to me that they'll hang onto him if we don't leave by October 31st. He's very vulnerable, which is why he's doubling down so hard. I think once Brexit is resolved, things will settle down - which is why the sooner we have that referendum, the sooner Boris loses his legitimacy to campaign on behalf of "the people" - either his thunder is stolen, or the people change their minds.

A civil war maybe not but random acts of violence are possible. I think we now need to have that referendum asap - Parliament should pass a motion for it while it retains a majority, kick Boris out of office and form a unity government, and then simply hold firm until the matter is settled one way or another. If we still vote for Brexit then it can be implemented in whatever safe way Parliament comes up with, immediately neutering Boris' 'will of the people' platform. If it goes for Remain I would say all legitimacy falls away from him to campaign for it also, though I daresay he'll try, but it'll destroy the Tory party altogether. The only party with any policies left after all of this is actually going to be Labour.

Also going to add that no one on the Brexit side now, IMO, believes that it's for the good of the country. As evidenced by the constantly shifting goalposts on 'what the people originally voted for'. Just fucking admit that you don't care what happens as long as you get your way.

My patience with leave/Tory voters is spent now like. If you vote for this now, you are actively voting to harm the country by putting a serial liar and bully into power, a man who only cares about being in power and will say or do anything to get it. You are choosing to ignore all evidence of companies going under due to Brexit, all the warnings of medicine supplies, food prices, all the fucking chaos this has caused, and the harm that has been done simply because it's all anyone has been able to focus on - just so that you can say you were right and can avoid admitting that maybe, just maybe, when you voted for this you had no fucking idea what you were voting for because you're politically ignorant - something that isn't directly your fault because the Tories and right wing press designed you that way, but which is your responsibility to resolve once realised - at the expense of literally the entire country and 60 million lives.

He'll get what's coming to him, but it sounds like he's fully backing Cumming's people vs Parliament strategy.

Cameron's book apparently notes that it was building as an issue, and that even if remain had won it only would have shelved the issue for another 10 years. Although his polling could have been limited to Tory party MPs.

Would be great news to finally kill this stupid fucking issue once and for all.

Fair enough. As an aside, I wonder what CT makes of all of this. If he can finally see the Tories for what they are, or if he is still more interested in being 'right'.

Is this actually true in the sense that we have evidence of it, or just your impression from talking to some of them? Not doubting you as such, just curious if anyone has actually explored it - I would indeed think it would be jarring for the party's left.

Yeah when you put it like this it does seem like she's staking everything on the GE. At least she's still targeting the Tories over Labour on that front.

The evidence is what Gloom posted on the last page. And also, I might add, supporting austerity - the most damaging Tory policy of our generation. She seems far harder on Corbyn than anyone else, she's falling over herself to distance from Labour. Anyway, like I said, I'm not really following her - if I've got her wrong then my bad, but no smoke without fire, etc.

But Swinson herself is positioning herself that way by distancing from Labour and towards the Tories. I don't know enough about her policies to say one way or the other about her, but from her own mouth, she sounds prepared to enable a Tory government.

Apparently she's a popular choice because no one thinks she has any aspirations to hold power, so maybe she's played them all.

Yeah so, this speaks volumes really. I don't think she's understood that her party are being buoyed by predominantly centre-left remainers. Who will more naturally gravitate to Corbyn than any Tory lite position. Anyway, apparently there is a movement to get behind Margaret Beckett taking over as PM. Tory outcasts could support that, so presumably the LDs could too.

Well apparently that's what she thinks herself. She's ruled out working with Labour but not the Tories, according to Gloom.

Maybe once Brexit is out of the way? I cannot see how she reconciles Brexit with them at present. Also, is she fucking mental?

Surely it's impossible for her to do that given the Brexit stances? I do think she's otherwise far more closely aligned to them, but I really think they have to get on board with Labour in the end, somehow.

They do, I just think it's interesting to watch the numbers change. The argument for Labour to take over becomes stronger once their support goes past that of the Tories IMO.