Seanm
pfm Member
Where’s that lip-reading fella?
How Long Before A Vote Of No Confidence In Johnson Government?
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Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
The depths some will go to have a whinge.
Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
kendo
Prussian bot
Corbyn being "prescriptive" = Bad
Swinson being "prescriptive" = Good!
I wonder if they're all thinking "If Boris Johnson can make it to be PM then there's literally nothing to stop me..."
I would agree about the not very good part but unless all the other opposition parties and the non-right wing press join in it is not going to work. Supporting a successful vote of no confidence rather than an unsuccessful one has to become the lesser evil for the labour leadership and that is only going to happen if their current position starts to seriously lose voters (as it should) rather than gaining them as it likely is at present with people taking the stunt at face value. Since the voters will be mainly shifting between labour and the libdems it makes the position somewhat different for the other opposition parties.
No sure what you mean by climb down since there appears to be nothing to climb down from. Unless the other parties and media start to join in she will have to put it down and get on with other things but for those of us that want a no deal brexit stopped it is good to see someone risking a bit to try to stop it.
PS Perhaps I was expecting too much too soon and the non-right wing media will start to put pressure on the labour leadership.
Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
Why do you say, “as it should”? The current position of Labour is fine. Obviously, Labour should not do anything that improves the chance of a tory majority in a GE.
It’ll be useful if you clarify whether you support Labour losing votes, given this will help enable another tory govt.
Other than tactical reasons to keep a real tory out there is no reason a Labour voter need switch to the plastic tories.
kendo
Prussian bot
Fine?! The current position of Labour in Scotland is dire. I don't see or hear anything from the party up here or at Westminster that will bring about the reversal that Labour desperately need to recover or even approach their former dominance up here.
Possible extinction event?
Seanm
pfm Member
It’s bad in the sense of stupid: she’s given an ultimatum with nothing to back it up, which Labour will refuse, and she’ll have to back down. And this in the middle of her first climb down.
I’m guessing she just massively overestimates her own power. Chuka syndrome.
Seanm
pfm Member
You can’t stop Brexit with stunt politics, which is all she’s offering except obstacles.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
No-deal Brexit should sound the death-knell of the Tory party as it will calamitous for the country. But no-one appears to be suggesting this. How can the party of prosperity which thrives on its connections to the business world not feel like an endangered species? In theory the country; workers, managers, health and social services are going to be kicked in the teeth and yet there is no sign that the Brexit clamour is dying down. Even with a no-deal, the Tories could still win a GE. True Labour hasn't been at its best but it's not all down to them. My question really is; when did self-flagellation become a thing?
Tony L
Administrator
I’d have thought having such piss-poor and incoherent leadership it is actually predicted to lose 30 seats come a GE wasn’t a particularly great strategy with regard to that aim!
Because it is dishonest to pretend you want to vote out the current government and then block the only way to do it. The more people understand why the labour leadership is doing this the more support they will lose.
It is currently looking fine for the labour leadership but less so the labour members who would like to stop no deal and remain by a substantial margin.
Like effectively killing a vote of no confidence in the current Tory government? Yeah right.
As a lifelong labour supporter what I would like to happen is that the hard left controlled labour party lose enough votes to the greens, libdems, SNP,... so that they have a significantly moderated role in a new coalition government. In practice this likely means the libdems getting more seats than labour with the conservatives as the largest party (unavoidable at present I suspect) but unable to form a right wing coalition government.
It depends on what you call a labour voter. I have been a labour voter all my life (except for a couple times when living in lib vs con seats where I voted tactically against the conservatives) and want to vote labour but I will not vote for a hard left controlled labour party as is the case for many labour voters. I suspect that after the current process of deselecting labour MPs has completed there will be less confusion about traditional labour and "new" labour. It is a pity that the new labour label has already been taken. "Real" Labour perhaps? Or "Hard" Labour?
Seanm
pfm Member
Can I ask why Corbyn’s plan could never work in a million years, despite (already) securing the support of the other opposition parties, the centrist press, one Tory rebel and Swinson’s own backbenchers, while Swinson’s, which nobody at all takes seriously, represents “the only way” forward?
She isn't offering anything other than the support of a handful of MPs for a unity government. Stating that conservative MPs will not vote against their own government to make Corbyn PM is stating something that is pretty much beyond dispute. Corbyn and his cronies know this just as well as she does. How many would vote with a unity candidate as PM rather than divisive one is uncertain but the chances look pretty reasonable the vote would succeed in this case. Corbyn and his cronies know this (almost certainly better than we do and so what Corbyn doesn't want is people asking him why he won't step aside. He seems to be an honest person and so is rather unlikely to come up with barefaced lies in the way of many other politicians. His only option would be to avoid answering and his lack of smarts will be a hindrance. I hope we get to see the media bang away along these lines but it won't of course won't be the tory media because he doing exactly what the tories want in killing a vote of no confidence.
We broadly need more tories to vote against their own government (a very difficult thing to do and close to career suicide) than labour MPs vote to support Johnson's government (likely to be a minor problem for them given the support for brexit among the labour leadership). I suspect you are already perfectly well aware of this. If Corbyn doesn't step aside for a unity candidate there will be effectively no tory support in a vote of no confidence and it will fail.
Seanm
pfm Member
Have to say I think this amounts to a conspiracy theory. If Labour are in fact pursuing no deal, by offering their own plan for stopping no deal that they know won't work, why are the other opposition parties backing him? Why is The Observer backing him? Are they in on the plan, or have they been deceived?
There is no such thing as a unity candidate. It will be difficult, but not impossible (this is the gamble) to get 7 more Tory MPs to back Corbyn. It will be completely impossible to get hundreds of Labour MPs to back Ken Clarke. Even people who don't like Corbyn (e.g. Sadiq Khan) will not allow their leader to be sidelined like that because they know it will delegitimise the party as a whole: it will destroy their electoral chances. And this is before Johnson and his team get working on the People vs Parliament narrative.
Again, this has been widely accepted by the other opposition parties, by the centrist media, and, implicitly, by the Lib Dems themselves. It's why the Greens and the SNP got behind Corbyn's plan immediately, and dismissed Swinson's out of hand. It's why The Observer are not saying, "Why is Corbyn blocking Swinson's excellent plan?!" which they would absolutely love to do.
Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
Ken, Sorry, I thought it was obvious the specific point was in relation to the Labour position on the VoNC. The Labour position on this is fine, imo.
Don't be ridiculous. Everybody in opposition apart from a few labour nutjobs will vote no confidence in Johnson's government regardless of whether Corbyn, Clarke, Harman or Screaming Lord Such RIP is proposed to lead a temporary government. All that matters is getting sufficient Tory MPs to vote against their own government. That requires Corbyn to step aside.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Doesn’t
Seanm
pfm Member
They will vote no confidence in Johnson; they 100% will not vote confidence in Ken Clarke or anyone else, for the reasons I've mentioned. If this weren't the case Corbyn's enemies would be all over this, demanding he step aside. But they're not, quite the opposite: here's Sadiq Khan in his letter to Swinson:
“There is no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn is the only viable choice to lead a temporary government of national unity in order to stop no-deal,” he said. “There is simply no viable parliamentary majority or justification for any of the alternatives you have put forward … It is not too late to do the right thing in the national interest and change your position for these crucial talks.”
That's Sadiq Khan. Now it might be that this consummate centrist player has gone hard left, or been taken in by Corbyn. But a more likely explanation is that he knows that Swinson's plan would torpedo Labour as a whole. Johnson would get back in, and no deal would go ahead.
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