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Election night 2019 / aftermath II

Tony L said:
Here is a rather good post from musician, Labour activist and all-round good egg Billy Bragg on Facebook. I think it is well worth reading as an analysis:
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I see he makes the point that many are making about vote numbers: "As a result, his personal ratings were worse than any Labour leader, yet he was able to win more votes than Blair did when he won the 2005 election. In fact, the 10.2m who voted for Corbyn’s Labour Party on Thursday was only a fraction down on the 10.7m who gave Blair his second term in 2001" but they never seem to acknowledge that the population is increasing.

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Brian said:
Is that so?

I don't habitually vote Labour.
Nobody knows how I voted in the EU referendum except my wife and adult kids, but that's an old topic so let's move on from making stuff up to concentrating on what you do know for sure, eh?

Kind regards
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Secret ballot?

Naivety epitomised!

Lol

I guess you also think that failing to enter yourself on the electoral registry a crime?

Lols.
 
Tony L said:
Here is a rather good post from musician, Labour activist and all-round good egg Billy Bragg on Facebook. I think it is well worth reading as an analysis:



PS As many know I don’t agree with screen-scraping, especially whole posts, and even more so in today’s publishing/copyright culture, but I honestly don’t think he’d mind it being reposted at all and will obviously remove it immediately if so. It also fits very nicely on what is primarily a music forum!
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It's a really good thought piece on why Labour lost and what they should do in the coming months.

"Labour have long resisted the introduction of proportional representation for Westminster, but recent elections have shown us that the current First Past The Post system is no longer fit for purpose. Under PR, a coalition of pro-remain parties would have won the election on Thursday. More importantly, a system in which everyone’s vote counts is a crucial factor in restoring public trust in politics."

Billy could make a great Labour leader, but has said he doesn't want to be a politician.

I posted on pfm a while go that I thought Labour would lose. This was down to Corbyn's refusal to apologize for antisemitism and his sitting on the fence for three years about Brexit, other than to say that Labour would implement it.

Labour went downhill the moment Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered and he turned Labour into a Brexit Party. His sitting on the fence after that during a lot of PMQs was embarrassing, while May and Johnson huffed and puffed about how great and fair a British Brexit would be.

The Labour-supporting journalist Paul Mason said he met many Labour racists on the doorstep in northern towns, who were going to vote for Johnson. That's the unfortunate reality of modern-day Britain. Mason has been the Economics Editor of Newsnight and Channel 4 News, so I trust his judgement. Those who hate immigrants voted for racist Johnson.

Any move by Labour to please their former supporters up North, should be done very carefully, if at all. Labour has to find new supporters and shouldn't chase the old ones, who have just stabbed the Party in the heart.

Having said that, the chances are I will vote Green. Labour now seems like a Party of the past, while the Greens are very much about the future.

Jack
 
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jackbarron said:
It's a really good thought piece on why Labour lost and what they should do in the coming months.

"Labour have long resisted the introduction of proportional representation for Westminster, but recent elections have shown us that the current First Past The Post system is no longer fit for purpose. Under PR, a coalition of pro-remain parties would have won the election on Thursday. More importantly, a system in which everyone’s vote counts is a crucial factor in restoring public trust in politics."

Billy could make a great Labour leader, but has said he doesn't want to be a politician.

I posted on pfm a while go that I thought Labour would lose. This was down to Corbyn's refusal to apologize for antisemitism and his sitting on the fence for three years about Brexit, other than to say that Labour would implement it.

Labour went downhill the moment Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered and he turned Labour into a Brexit Party. His sitting on the fence after that during a lot of PMQs was embarrassing, while May and Johnson huffed and puffed about how great and fair a British Brexit would be.

The Labour-supporting journalist Paul Mason said he met many Labour racists on the doorstep in northern towns, who were going to vote for Johnson. I think that's the unfortunate reality of modern-day Britain. Mason has been the Economics Editor of Newsnight and Channel 4 News, so I trust his judgement. Those who hate immigrants voted for racist Johnson.

Any move by Labour to please their former supporters up North, should be done very carefully, if at all. Labour has to find new supporters and shouldn't chase the old ones, who have just stabbed the Party in the heart.

Having said that, the chances are I will vote Green. Labour now seems like a Party of the past, while the Greens are very much about the future.

Jack
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Ironically, Jack, I think it was Corbyn's lack of full on Brexit support that did for him in all the safe Labour seats that have gone. You criticise him for it but obviously if he'd backed remain wholeheartedly then the defeat might well have been even bigger.

As much as Brexit is a bad idea it seems we're going to get it one way or another, better to accept it and make a plan to get through it rather than stick to your guns and rule yourself out of government for a generation.

I know Brexit gets a hard time on here (and rightly so, I would have voted remain in the referendum given chance) but he had to acknowledge where the momentum was and play to it, and it wasn't with remain.
 
matt j said:
Ironically, Jack, I think it was Corbyn's lack of full on Brexit support that did for him in all the safe Labour seats that have gone. You criticise him for it but obviously if he'd backed remain wholeheartedly then the defeat might well have been even bigger.

As much as Brexit is a bad idea it seems we're going to get it one way or another, better to accept it and make a plan to get through it rather than stick to your guns and rule yourself out of government for a generation.

I know Brexit gets a hard time on here (and rightly so, I would have voted remain in the referendum given chance) but he had to acknowledge where the momentum was and play to it, and it wasn't with remain.
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I'm not sure where the momentum was (I would have guessed nowhere, as the country hadn't moved much since 2016), but the Momentum was definitely with Remain.
 
Seanm said:
The personal story's great but then there's the white-working-class-are-losing-out-to-the-ethnics interviews with The Spectator, her break with Corbyn over his defence of free movement, the arms industry cheerleading, the voting against Iraq War inquiry. Not saying she's a fanatical Blue Labour member or anything but amongst the things we have to defend right now are Labour's antiracism and antiwar positions. This is what the right are already attacking in lieu of any actual ideas and we need a leader who isn't already half way down that road already. I'd rather Philips TBH.

Agree on the prescription, although it has to go deeper. We need to address the rot in local councils as a priority - need a strong national offer for the May local elections.
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OK, thanks. I see most of what you're referring to but can't find anything about support for the arms industry so please share a link if you have one.

I get that Jess Phillips could tear into Johnson nicely at PMQs etc, but I've never seen her show the slightest enthusiasm for the current policy direction, so I just don't trust her, I'm afraid.

I am in a "period of reflection", as they say.
 
glancaster said:
I'm not sure where the momentum was (I would have guessed nowhere, as the country hadn't moved much since 2016), but the Momentum was definitely with Remain.
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The momentum was with leave voters sticking to their guns and willing to vote for anyone, be it Farage's bunch of shysters or Tory, so long as Brexit was secured. If you live anywhere outside of the M25 you would know this.

Yes you can point at a few folk marching on London but compared with the amount of people sat at home who voted leave and wanted to keep it that way it was a drop in the ocean.
 
gassor said:
That's exactly what the Tories want you to think. PS welcome back.
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Thanks, but I'm just passing through - intrigued by Sean's comment about Rayner.

I don't care what Tories want. We either increase investment in public services, underpinned by a green industrial revolution, or - sooner or later - we'll see what 21st century English fascism looks like.

Fix our hearts or die.
 
matt j said:
The momentum was with leave voters sticking to their guns and willing to vote for anyone, be it Farage's bunch of shysters or Tory, so long as Brexit was secured. If you live anywhere outside of the M25 you would know this.

Yes you can point at a few folk marching on London but compared with the amount of people sat at home who voted leave and wanted to keep it that way it was a drop in the ocean.
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I do live outside the M25, as a matter of fact, but carry on.
 
More voted for remain parties. With hindsight the only hope would have been a Lab/Lib Dem electoral pact (to counter Farage’s antics) both parties on a second ref, electoral reform ticket.

It was never going to happen, obviously but looking back, it was probably their last chance at pushing back the nasty, insular nationalism we’re now stuck with, probably for a very long time.
 
OK, one last thought. The Tories have put the issue of the EU to bed by becoming UKIP/The Brexit Company.

If the Lib-Dems have any sense they will become the Rejoin party.

This leaves Labour with the same dilemma it faced this time. I can see this killing Labour's chances in 2024.

The only hope is that the effects of Brexit on the economy become apparent before then, but they will take time to manifest and they are likely to be relatively subtle (reduced growth rather than negative growth), so I'm not sure that will be enough.
 
matthewr said:
Although it was the LibDems who chose that because they thought the European elections meant they were going to win 100 seats. Which forced Labour to follow a few days later.
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Although why Labour felt they had to go for it still baffles me. Maybe Jeremy and his entourage really thought they could win, despite advice to the contrary from some old pros (elephant trap etc.). Or maybe they were afraid of appearing to chicken out. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
 
droodzilla said:
The only hope is that the effects of Brexit on the economy become apparent before then, but they will take time to manifest and they are likely to be relatively subtle (reduced growth rather than negative growth), so I'm not sure that will be enough.
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Really? I thought Brexit was going to be 'End Of Days', people dying in the street etc? Now we've shifted to relatively subtle and taking time?
 
oldius said:
Meanwhile, the media which is owned by billionaires who are based offshore, is allowed to dramatically influence political thinking.
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mum-boy-ae-floor-whose-21071305

Indeed, the boy had flu and tonsillitis, though Jeremy stated that he 'had' pneumonia not suspected pneumonia.

Shameful by the Labour party to use the NHS as a political football in my opinion, trying to gather votes through fear.

We have one of the best health care systems in the top 20 of the world.

Politicians and the media constantly telling us/them that the NHS is failing and people are dying is
bullshit and hardly likely to bolster self esteem of those who work there.

Shameful and disgraceful.
 
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