| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? 12:11 - Jul 5 with 2648 views | Darth_Koont |
And I say that as a remainer myself who thinks the arguments for remaining were far, far stronger and crucially more real.
But what an utter failure of a movement. To go from making Remain the most important position in British politics to most of them now agreeing that a “competent” hard Brexit is the acceptable way forward. They didn’t just achieve absolutely nothing they set out to do, they actively torpedoed a soft Brexit retaining the customs union.
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:00 - Jul 5 with 384 views | Darth_Koont |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 17:50 - Jul 5 by Swansea_Blue |
Not easy to stand up to right wing populism built on creating fears for people and then exploiting it. I don’t think we’re the only ones to struggle recently (interestingly the other big countries you immediately think of, the US and Australia, have one thing in common with us - a hostile, propaganda-like press, with Murdoch’s stench all over it). The opposition parties need to be more savvy of course, but the the game seems stacked against them. |
You raise a good question about how to fight right wing populism and the xenophobic, ignorant politics that leads to.
Re:Brexit, I’d have said that addressing the disillusionment and disenfranchisement behind the Brexit protest vote would have been a start. Oh and not feeding off and feeding into the anti-EU and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the previous decade would have helped a lot too.
Post-Brexit and more generally, this is the problem with the centre – they’re sleepwalkers who wake up when it’s too late and never seem to put 2 and 2 together re: the need to get ahead of the challenges facing the country instead of them getting worse and being exploited by someone else. | |
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:01 - Jul 5 with 369 views | Darth_Koont |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 17:55 - Jul 5 by lowhouseblue |
i assume that was for dk. corbyn went on holiday in the middle of the referendum campaign. i don't any more proof is needed. |
How long for?
Swinson said 2 weeks but that was a lie wasn’t it? | |
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:01 - Jul 5 with 367 views | MattinLondon |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 17:51 - Jul 5 by Darth_Koont |
I see the Corbyn Ate My Hamster clowns are out in full.
It would be funny if you lot weren’t the worst people in British politics. |
At the time of the referendum Corbyn was very lukewarm in his support of it. I think the most enthused I saw him was when he mentioned that he was ‘70% in favour of the EU’.
Saying that, the only reason we are where we are is because of the people who voted leave. They never seem to take responsibility for this. |  | | |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:02 - Jul 5 with 351 views | tractordownsouth |
Tend to agree with you. With hindsight, remainers should have just accepted May's deal. I wasn't a fanatical 2nd referendum advocate from July 2016 like some were - I only shifted towards that view once it became clear parliament couldn't get a deal through and successive Brexit ministers fled the scene rather than tax responsibility. However, the way the electoral map splits with Brexit under FPTP made it difficult for a 2nd referendum to happen. Leave won 52% of the vote by 62% of constituencies because remain voters were mostly bunched together in city seats whereas most marginals had small leave majorities. This put Labour and the Lib Dems (the only realistic political vehicles for a 2nd ref) at a huge disadvantage, even though in the 2019 election more voters chose pro-EU parties but the geography (and split vote) delivered a massive majority of pro-Brexit MPs. The fact the two party leaderships were so far apart ideologically and went around trying to contest each others' target seats didn't help either. So yeah I think May's deal (with the workers rights amendment) was the best it was ever going to get and would have split the Tories.
I'd argue Plaid Cymru have been pretty poor at meeting their objectives too. While the SNP haven't achieved their aims yet and the union still has a shot at prevailing, they've clearly made huge progress while Plaid have gone mostly backwards since devolution. Part of that is down to Welsh Labour's success leaving them little space to operate but they've made some really poor leadership choices too.
The Scottish Greens seem to have abandoned a lot of their principles since joining the Scottish government - they seem much more focused on the constitution than environmentalism or left wing economics. However, I doubt they'll be electorally punished as badly as the Lib Dems were after their UK coalition. While independence is still the most salient issue, they'll continue to rack up list votes from SNP supporters and given that the environment will only get worse, their support will probably grow regardless.
I think the Greens perform an entirely pointless function in the UK system because the other centre-left parties have environmental proposals which are just as radical but that's one for another day! |  |
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:08 - Jul 5 with 342 views | Darth_Koont |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:01 - Jul 5 by MattinLondon |
At the time of the referendum Corbyn was very lukewarm in his support of it. I think the most enthused I saw him was when he mentioned that he was ‘70% in favour of the EU’.
Saying that, the only reason we are where we are is because of the people who voted leave. They never seem to take responsibility for this. |
Funnily enough Labour voted around 70% remain too. It’s almost as if a black-white binary response was always going to cause massive political problems and division.
There’s a much bigger collective problem to face re: Brexit. Mainly that the case for the EU and for immigrants was ignored for decades and the anti- tendency was simultaneously fostered and exploited by both major parties and governments when it suited them electorally. These were all politicians who said they were for Remain but clearly had an ambivalence to the question and its dangers before then. We can’t just pin this on the xenophobic right wing press. | |
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:16 - Jul 5 with 304 views | MattinLondon |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:08 - Jul 5 by Darth_Koont |
Funnily enough Labour voted around 70% remain too. It’s almost as if a black-white binary response was always going to cause massive political problems and division.
There’s a much bigger collective problem to face re: Brexit. Mainly that the case for the EU and for immigrants was ignored for decades and the anti- tendency was simultaneously fostered and exploited by both major parties and governments when it suited them electorally. These were all politicians who said they were for Remain but clearly had an ambivalence to the question and its dangers before then. We can’t just pin this on the xenophobic right wing press. |
I agree with your post - the case for the EU and immigration have been issues neglected by politicians- maybe with the exception of Blair. But, in part politicians ignored the pros of being in the EU because they didn’t wish to upset Murdoch.
For me, the fact that 48% voted remain is extremely high considering the anti-EU bias in a lot of the media. | | | |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:19 - Jul 5 with 297 views | Darth_Koont |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:02 - Jul 5 by tractordownsouth |
Tend to agree with you. With hindsight, remainers should have just accepted May's deal. I wasn't a fanatical 2nd referendum advocate from July 2016 like some were - I only shifted towards that view once it became clear parliament couldn't get a deal through and successive Brexit ministers fled the scene rather than tax responsibility. However, the way the electoral map splits with Brexit under FPTP made it difficult for a 2nd referendum to happen. Leave won 52% of the vote by 62% of constituencies because remain voters were mostly bunched together in city seats whereas most marginals had small leave majorities. This put Labour and the Lib Dems (the only realistic political vehicles for a 2nd ref) at a huge disadvantage, even though in the 2019 election more voters chose pro-EU parties but the geography (and split vote) delivered a massive majority of pro-Brexit MPs. The fact the two party leaderships were so far apart ideologically and went around trying to contest each others' target seats didn't help either. So yeah I think May's deal (with the workers rights amendment) was the best it was ever going to get and would have split the Tories.
I'd argue Plaid Cymru have been pretty poor at meeting their objectives too. While the SNP haven't achieved their aims yet and the union still has a shot at prevailing, they've clearly made huge progress while Plaid have gone mostly backwards since devolution. Part of that is down to Welsh Labour's success leaving them little space to operate but they've made some really poor leadership choices too.
The Scottish Greens seem to have abandoned a lot of their principles since joining the Scottish government - they seem much more focused on the constitution than environmentalism or left wing economics. However, I doubt they'll be electorally punished as badly as the Lib Dems were after their UK coalition. While independence is still the most salient issue, they'll continue to rack up list votes from SNP supporters and given that the environment will only get worse, their support will probably grow regardless.
I think the Greens perform an entirely pointless function in the UK system because the other centre-left parties have environmental proposals which are just as radical but that's one for another day! |
I agree with the first part before you went off the rails on your Scottish bugbear. But upvoted nevertheless.
I think the electoral mathematics should have been pretty clear to anyone watching close enough. But no-one seemed to be paying attention in the media so that wasn’t really raised. Labour almost inevitably losing all of its Leave seats should have been in the calculation for a self-styled Brexit election on a Remain-ish platform but somehow wasn’t.
Far too much self-occupied navel-gazing in the political bubble. And increasingly at odds with the electorate too. | |
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| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:24 - Jul 5 with 278 views | Darth_Koont |
| Has there been a less successful political movement than Remain/FBPE? on 18:16 - Jul 5 by MattinLondon |
I agree with your post - the case for the EU and immigration have been issues neglected by politicians- maybe with the exception of Blair. But, in part politicians ignored the pros of being in the EU because they didn’t wish to upset Murdoch.
For me, the fact that 48% voted remain is extremely high considering the anti-EU bias in a lot of the media. |
But the line is that we need to court the right-wing press to get elected. If we need to court the right-wing press in government and with policy then we might as well forget the whole thing.
We need more politicians making the case for the right policies. Or indeed addressing the underlying issues and challenges the UK faces in the first place. That would be grownup politics as opposed to pretending that’s what we’d have with a technocratic, managerial and policyless void that defers to right-wing editorials. | |
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