Europe --- In or Out

[Renton 21985]

Aren't Labour voters still at about 2/3rds for Remain? It's not like Labour has been rapidly losing Remain voters.

 

That said, Rents, for what it's worth, this has shaken my faith in him. I'm hugely pro-Europe and will be gutted if we leave. I wish he'd come out more strongly on this, but given the state of the Tories and the high likelihood that we're getting another general election very soon, I think there's a case to be made for Labour positioning themselves as far outside of this as they can. The were killed in the last GE over the Scotland affair, it'll be hard for anyone to pin this on them. Corbyn has made this all about the Tories.

 

After this all goes down, Corbyn might even look like a viable person to vote for. He hasn't sullied himself in the eyes of the working class in this campaign, and he'll look a fucking load more competent than the Tories to everyone else.

 

For clarity though, that's not worth it for me. I can see his view, if that's it, but I'd rather have the Tories and be in Europe than have Labour and be out.

Not sure what proportion of labour voters are remain or leave but I think it's labour who are now swinging to Brexit. Agree completely with your last sentence, we have second chances in general elections but Brexit will be permanent. I think a general election might happen this year. I can't imagine Corbyn winning it no matter who the opposition is.

[Renton 21985]

I might add that I think Corbyn is a symptom of the disease of British politics, not the cause. I don't blame him for being where he is or have a personal opinion on him. But he's not a solution either. A lot of the blame really does go back to the "liberal elite" characterised by Blair and Brown. They didn't take the problems of the disaffected seriously enough in the good times and are now reaping the results. The referendum is the outlet for the pent up anger in this country. Things are going to get much worse for 90% of us. It's also not unique to the UK though, clearly. I expect Trump to win in the event of Brexit.

[Rayvin 5295]

Fair enough - I read this just now in the Guardian about the general feeling in the working classes. Makes sense, and I'd be the first to admit that it's easy to forget how hard things are for some people:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/17/britain-working-class-revolt-eu-referendum

 

Leaving the EU won't improve anything for anyone, least of all the working class, but that's where we are.

 

I'm starting to wonder if Labour will survive this at all actually, I don't know how you reconcile people like you and I, who fall into the more 'lefty', 'bleeding heart', group (probably more me than you!), and the working class who have just turned their backs on progressive policy-making in a fully understandable moment of madness.

[Rayvin 5295]

I might add that I think Corbyn is a symptom of the disease of British politics, not the cause. I don't blame him for being where he is or have a personal opinion on him. But he's not a solution either. A lot of the blame really does go back to the "liberal elite" characterised by Blair and Brown. They didn't take the problems of the disaffected seriously enough in the good times and are now reaping the results. The referendum is the outlet for the pent up anger in this country. Things are going to get much worse for 90% of us. It's also not unique to the UK though, clearly. I expect Trump to win in the event of Brexit.

 

This is a really fair comment. Agree with pretty much all of it, even the stuff on Corbyn. Would still maintain he was better than the alternatives but that's because I was in the grouping of 'those who were sick of the status quo'

Edited June 17, 2016 by Rayvin

[Dr Gloom 22147]

this referendum could completely redraw the political battle lines. you've got the far right on the tory and ukip side reaching out to the white working class voters who traditionally voted labour. on the other hand you've got centrists from both parties sharing a stage to campaign to remain. people talk about Labour being in ruin, but it's hard to predict what a leave vote would do the tories. we may end up with an entirely new political landscape.

[Christmas Tree 4821]

A lot of the blame really does go back to the "liberal elite" characterised by Blair and Brown. They didn't take the problems of the disaffected seriously enough in the good times and are now reaping the results. The referendum is the outlet for the pent up anger in this country.

Was just going to post something along these lines. Cameron might have given the go ahead for the referendum, but this was never going to go away.

 

Also, I'm not sure why you think there will be a general election. 5 year set term is written into statute and I can't see the conservatives repealing it.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

Cameron's position will practically be untenable. Johnson and Gove don't have a mandate to govern. Divisions within the Tory party in the event of a leave result may result in a government that is unable to govern.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

good read by Janan Ganesh in the FT

 

Certain types of political column are dead before they trouble the printing presses. There is the banal exhortation, which asks the government to “show leadership” and “make the case” for something. There is the misplaced reportage, which substitutes local colour and vox populi for argument. There is the insurance policy, which says an improbable event “could” happen, its veneer of originality actually risking nought.

And then you have the speculative futurology. Rather than deal with politics as it is, this projects you forward to a time where all is transformed. The clairvoyance is plausible but also reads like a dart thrown at a board.

Once in a while, however, the arrow feels true in the grip and its destination seems inevitable. Only the flight path is to be worked out. Britain’s referendum on EU membership has not illuminated anything except the future of party politics.

If there is a lesson from recent weeks, it is that mild Conservatives and moderate adherents to the Labour cause share more with each other than with the rest of their own parties. On Europe, but also migration and globalisation, they want to amend the status quo not break it. In their tone is an absence of anger that my trade habitually elides with a lack of passion.

Against them in this referendum is a party in all but name and formal incorporation, drawn from the Tory right and the Labour left and incubated in the Leave campaign. These politicians are conservative and anti-establishment at the same time. From their Euroscepticism you can usually, though not always, infer a wider mistrust of markets and the social disruption they bring. Theirs is the cross-party craving for order and rootedness that dealt Margaret Thatcher her sole parliamentary defeat — on the loosening of Sunday trade laws — 30 years ago.

Concepts are another drag on political writing so let us ground this one in personalities. Amber Rudd, the Conservative energy secretary, is in the same party as Iain Duncan Smith, who quit the cabinet after one pious dissent too many and now campaigns for Leave. But she is in a different party to Labour’s Chuka Umunna, with whom she shares a homing instinct for the ideological centre and the kind of ease with modernity that cannot be feigned. This trio is not rare in its odd distribution across party lines. There are strays and misfits everywhere.

This used to be explained away by the primacy of economics. Politicians with a shared disposition to the world nevertheless favoured different levels of expenditure and regulation at the margin. But take Ms Rudd and Mr Umunna, or George Osborne, chancellor, and his former adversary Ed Balls, or even David Cameron and any of 100 Labour MPs: do they disagree over the size of the state more than they agree over Britain’s place in the EU, its future as an open economy, its indispensability as the liberal thumb on the continental scales? And which of the two sets of issues is now the real stuff of politics?

Recent general elections were fought on authentic but small differences in fiscal policy that winnowed further in the implementation. Under the blur of digits, these politicians have the same basic orientation. Scorn it as the Davos consensus but it has done more for British prosperity and self-respect than the admixture of socialism and Tory paternalism ever could — or, to judge by the 1970s, ever did. If this settlement is menaced by forces that will outlast this referendum, it is myopic of its guardians to remain separate out of fealty to a party system that was forged in the industrial age for an empire nation.

Plotting a trajectory from dart to board is beyond this column. Britain’s electoral model is sticky. It coddles incumbents and stymies newcomers. It will not be the presiding generation of leaders who attempt a reconfiguration: their tribalism is in the marrow. But between the Tory brawl over Europe and Labour’s death-walk behind Jeremy Corbyn, there may eventually be a way to a different arrangement of forces.

If it comes, do not expect pristine lines between parties and immaculate coherence within them. You will still have to choose the party that fits your instincts least badly. There will still be ovoid shapes in round holes. But at least elections between a Christian Democrat-style party and a Liberal-ish party would correspond to the arguments we are having today. Millions of Eurosceptic Labour voters would have a team, and so would those of us who want more not less of the world as it is. I hear the Tory and Labour moderates newly mingling in the Remain offices rather get on. As a glint of the future, it will have to do.

[Christmas Tree 4821]

Cameron's position will practically be untenable. Johnson and Gove don't have a mandate to govern. Divisions within the Tory party in the event of a leave result may result in a government that is unable to govern.

Not at all. It's the party that is elected to govern. Who they choose as their leader is up to them.

[PaddockLad 17646]

Both main parties in the UK are from finished after this iyam. Calling this referendum has "polarised them to death". In the late 60s Enoch Powell was expelled from the Tory party by Edward Heath for the "rivers of blood" speech. Today, Boris Johnson sits in the cabinet without a fuckin bother on him. Labour doesn't represent the people it was originally supposed to because they don't really exist anymore, and the referendum is proving it precisely. This is what happens when you ditch democracy and hand things over to the CoL and Wall Street

[Rayvin 5295]

Not at all. It's the party that is elected to govern. Who they choose as their leader is up to them.

It won't be as simple as that mate. The Tory party is literally tearing itself apart. Most Tory MPs, remember, want to stay in the EU. The Brexit Tories themselves are the ones who are saying we'll need a new GE. No one has a mandate to rule the clusterfuck we're about to live in.

 

I'm not entirely sure people are aware of how seismic this event is...

[Alex 35572]

Think Will Self was correct when he said both the Tories and Labour should split into two parties because both represent too broad a church. PL is correct though, i.e. they won't be doing that any time soon. Can only see electoral reform / a move to PR bringing that about and why on Earth would the political elite allow that to happen?

[Rayvin 5295]

good read by Janan Ganesh in the FT

 

Certain types of political column are dead before they trouble the printing presses. There is the banal exhortation, which asks the government to “show leadership” and “make the case” for something. There is the misplaced reportage, which substitutes local colour and vox populi for argument. There is the insurance policy, which says an improbable event “could” happen, its veneer of originality actually risking nought.

 

And then you have the speculative futurology. Rather than deal with politics as it is, this projects you forward to a time where all is transformed. The clairvoyance is plausible but also reads like a dart thrown at a board.

 

Once in a while, however, the arrow feels true in the grip and its destination seems inevitable. Only the flight path is to be worked out. Britain’s referendum on EU membership has not illuminated anything except the future of party politics.

 

If there is a lesson from recent weeks, it is that mild Conservatives and moderate adherents to the Labour cause share more with each other than with the rest of their own parties. On Europe, but also migration and globalisation, they want to amend the status quo not break it. In their tone is an absence of anger that my trade habitually elides with a lack of passion.

 

Against them in this referendum is a party in all but name and formal incorporation, drawn from the Tory right and the Labour left and incubated in the Leave campaign. These politicians are conservative and anti-establishment at the same time. From their Euroscepticism you can usually, though not always, infer a wider mistrust of markets and the social disruption they bring. Theirs is the cross-party craving for order and rootedness that dealt Margaret Thatcher her sole parliamentary defeat — on the loosening of Sunday trade laws — 30 years ago.

 

Concepts are another drag on political writing so let us ground this one in personalities. Amber Rudd, the Conservative energy secretary, is in the same party as Iain Duncan Smith, who quit the cabinet after one pious dissent too many and now campaigns for Leave. But she is in a different party to Labour’s Chuka Umunna, with whom she shares a homing instinct for the ideological centre and the kind of ease with modernity that cannot be feigned. This trio is not rare in its odd distribution across party lines. There are strays and misfits everywhere.

 

This used to be explained away by the primacy of economics. Politicians with a shared disposition to the world nevertheless favoured different levels of expenditure and regulation at the margin. But take Ms Rudd and Mr Umunna, or George Osborne, chancellor, and his former adversary Ed Balls, or even David Cameron and any of 100 Labour MPs: do they disagree over the size of the state more than they agree over Britain’s place in the EU, its future as an open economy, its indispensability as the liberal thumb on the continental scales? And which of the two sets of issues is now the real stuff of politics?

 

Recent general elections were fought on authentic but small differences in fiscal policy that winnowed further in the implementation. Under the blur of digits, these politicians have the same basic orientation. Scorn it as the Davos consensus but it has done more for British prosperity and self-respect than the admixture of socialism and Tory paternalism ever could — or, to judge by the 1970s, ever did. If this settlement is menaced by forces that will outlast this referendum, it is myopic of its guardians to remain separate out of fealty to a party system that was forged in the industrial age for an empire nation.

 

Plotting a trajectory from dart to board is beyond this column. Britain’s electoral model is sticky. It coddles incumbents and stymies newcomers. It will not be the presiding generation of leaders who attempt a reconfiguration: their tribalism is in the marrow. But between the Tory brawl over Europe and Labour’s death-walk behind Jeremy Corbyn, there may eventually be a way to a different arrangement of forces.

 

If it comes, do not expect pristine lines between parties and immaculate coherence within them. You will still have to choose the party that fits your instincts least badly. There will still be ovoid shapes in round holes. But at least elections between a Christian Democrat-style party and a Liberal-ish party would correspond to the arguments we are having today. Millions of Eurosceptic Labour voters would have a team, and so would those of us who want more not less of the world as it is. I hear the Tory and Labour moderates newly mingling in the Remain offices rather get on. As a glint of the future, it will have to do.

 

This is a good post, thanks.

 

It is becoming harder to see how the middle class Labour side can co-exist with the working class Labour side. And any Tory with half a brain will want to be as far as possible from the Tory right after this.

 

On the plus side, this is perhaps the change this country has been crying out for. Would far rather the EU wasn't the sacrificial lamb though.

[Renton 21985]

It's fascinating mind. Another reason we are heading towards this I'll fated outcome is that people have stopped trusting authority and experts. If they did, Remain would win by a margin 99%. Distrust o f politicians is understandable, although the level of cynicism in mainstream politics has reached ridiculous proportions. But distrusting experts, when you have no ability to even understand the issues yourself let alone predict the outcome?

 

It just seems we live in an increasingly irrational world. Maybe social media has played a part. I read a book about a decade ago called "How mumbo jumbo conquered the world" by Francis Wheen, I think he may have predicted some of this.

[ewerk 31195]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to blame Corbyn for a lot of this as well. He has been completely anonymous I'm this campaign, and it is his voters, the ones with the most to lose, that are swinging to Leave. Not surprising he has done fuck all really considering he is in fact a eurosceptic himself. What a fucking disaster his appointment has been for us all.

You clearly missing his appearance on The Last Leg.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

Not at all. It's the party that is elected to govern. Who they choose as their leader is up to them.

 

it's not like blair stepping aside for the unelected brown mid-term. don't expect it to be a smooth transition if cameron is forced to resign after a leave result given the divisions in the party.

[Dr Gloom 22147]

rumours on twitter that farage has been offered a cabinet seat in a post-brexit, boris led government. possibly bullshit, but they can get to fuck with that shit

[Christmas Tree 4821]

 

it's not like blair stepping aside for the unelected brown mid-term. don't expect it to be a smooth transition if cameron is forced to resign after a leave result given the divisions in the party.

Brown was elected

[Alex 35572]

You knew what he meant though. It's naive to think all people vote for their MP or even their party of choice at a GE. For many, it's a choice of PM. Wonder how many people on here could name their MP without googling it (not a dig, politics is about the big personalities leading the parties essentially).

[Rayvin 5295]

rumours on twitter that farage has been offered a cabinet seat in a post-brexit, boris led government. possibly bullshit, but they can get to fuck with that shit

 

Farage isn't even an MP, how could he be involved at all?

[Alex 35572]

 

Farage isn't even an MP, how could he be involved at all?

Do you have to be? I know, in the past, members of the Lords have been in the Cabinet.

[Christmas Tree 4821]

You knew what he meant though. It's naive to think all people vote for their MP or even their party of choice at a GE. For many, it's a choice of PM. Wonder how many people on here could name their MP without googling it (not a dig, politics is about the big personalities leading the parties essentially).

But that's not how our system works. No government is going to call a general election to change party leader.

[Christmas Tree 4821]

Do you have to be? I know, in the past, members of the Lords have been in the Cabinet.

You don't. But this is never ever going to happen.

[Alex 35572]

But that's not how our system works. No government is going to call a general election to change party leader.

I was responding to your laughing at the 'unelected' bit. The clue to that was that I quoted the post where you were doing that. Not that I think Gloom was arguing that a party leader change automatically brings about a GE but joining the dots for you is beyond tedious tbh.

Edited June 17, 2016 by Alex

[Dr Gloom 22147]

Brown was elected

 

by a united party, mid term. not in a general election.