UK General Discussion: 2019. Blackadder goes Brexit.

[vileplume]

The danger for the Lib Dems isn't that people who like Corbyn will stop voting for them (which I agree there are very few of) but that those who lent them a vote to stop Brexit think they're blocking an attempt to stop no deal. You don't have to like Corbyn to think it was a tactical error to rule out a government lead by him before any discussions happened, something that neither the SNP, Plaid or Greens or even a couple of Tory rebels did.

The Lib Dem problem is that you can't court Conservative Remain voters in the south without losing dissatisfied Labour voters elsewhere. Not really a controversial statement.

Conservative Remain voters/soft Leave voters are electorally more important to the Lib Dems though for the simple reason that they're more prevalent in Lib Dem target seats. Focusing on Labour Remainers at the expense of Tory Remainers would see them get decent seconds in places like Lambeth and Islington but very few extra seats.

If there's one thing Tory Remainers hate more than Brexit it's Jerermy Corbyn so Swinson definitely made the correct electoral choice by not jumping into bed with him.

[vileplume]

Maybe if Labour and even Lib Dems didn’t reject every deal May offered , this day may not have come . The fact is Corbyn wants No Deal Brexit which is why he torpedoed every Deal Brexit , as once the deadline passes no deal Brexit will happen.


Yes Boris shouldn’t have done this but this day wouldn’t have come if the parliament accepted Theresa May’s deal

That's nonsense. If Corbyn can't get remain, then he wants Norway Plus, which is about the opposite of no deal Brexit.

Except Corbyn would probably quite like a No Deal Brexit provided the Tories get all of the blame for it. Corbyn does not like the EU out of principle (his half-hearted act fools exactly no one) and a No Deal exit would cause the kind of chaos that would be quite likely to propel him into Downing Street to implement his socialist agenda, with the added bonus that he wouldn't have any of those pesky EU rules getting in the way.

[vileplume]

The point re the "GNU" discussions is that Swinson is (not for the first time) arguing in pretty transparent bad faith - a major reason why Corbyn "doesn't have the numbers" is because she has vetoed the LibDems supporting him, whilst demanding that he "steps aside" for some still ill-defined "grandee" ignores that as the leader of easily the second biggest party in the Commons he is *constitutionally entitled* to have the next go at forming a government were PM Johnson to be VONCed. She is making that demand because she doesn't want her party put on the spot (backing JC likely won't help them in the Tory leaning seats they are targeting at the coming GE, but not doing so could quite possibly lose support elsewhere) and is maybe getting carried away with their present good poll ratings and forgetting the parliamentary party is (even after recent defections) a poor fourth in HoC terms, still well behind the SNP. There are actually limits to how much they can throw their weight around.

It would be political suicide for the Lib Dems to back Corbyn even in the slightest seen as most of their target seats are Tory held and broadly on the centre-right. If there's one thing that disillusioned Tory Remainers hate more than Brexit, it's Jeremy Corbyn. Plus Swinson herself is from the 'Orange Booker' (right leaning) wing of the Lib Dems so I'm not sure why anyone in their right mind would expect her to facilitate a hard left PM. She's put forward alternatives, e.g. Clarke, Harman who would be more 'unifying' figures particularly given their length of service, and is genuinely trying to find a compromise but Labour is refusing to budge. Presumably this is because the masterminds behind the Corbyn project (e.g. the notoriously anti-EU Seumas Milne) have calculated that Labour won't get the blame if Britain crashes out of the EU so they have literally no incentive to compromise.

[vileplume]

But my point is that whilst centrist "grandees" might be more "acceptable" to LibDems, that doesn't mean they are more acceptable to EVERYBODY. As too many on here seem to assume.

I can actually see the reasoning why Swinson and her supporters don't want to back Corbyn. My point is that others have different perspectives, which are no less valid because centrists don't agree with them.

Indeed, given that there is a strong argument that Corbyn/Brexit/Trump are ultimately all down to the failure of "third way" centrism, a bit more humility and understanding from them on occasion might not go amiss

Yes but Swinson and the Lib Dems are trying to compromise, Corbyn is not. You could literally pull the name of a Labour MP out of a hat and chances are that person would be perfectly acceptable to the Lib Dems as an interim PM (only the small number of Labour Brexiteers or Corbyn and his clique wouldn't be). If Corbyn was interested in stopping Johnson he'd put the name of a Labour MP forward to be interim PM, presumably one whose career is virtually over and has no future ambitions, and end this whole farce of a government now. As it is he is stubbornly refusing to budge from the 'Lib Dems and rebel Tories must make me and only me PM' despite knowing they are never going to do this as they fundamentally oppose everything he stands for and with his atrocious approval ratings it would be utterly toxic for them to associate with him. Thus I must come to the conclusion that the Labour leadership are less interested in stopping No Deal than they are in prematurely deflecting the blame from themselves should it happen, presumably under the assumption that the fallout from a No Deal crash out would win them the ensuing election.

As for the last point, I would generally agree with that. However that's not an argument to make Corbyn PM. Imagine if America had a parliamentary system and Clinton was PM and, I don't know, was on the verge of invading Syria, horrifying sections of the Democratic Party. I'm sure you wouldn't expect Democratic Party rebels to agree to put opposition leader Trump in charge to stop the invasion (assuming he'd take the anti-Hillary position) now would you?

[vileplume]

But the LibDems are "compromising" on *what*, exactly? An alternate universe in which Swinson with all of 18 MPs (at time of posting) actually becomes prime minister??

As usual, it is the left that is expected to concede to the centre.

She is under no obligation to put a Labour PM in at all but nevertheless she has basically offered to throw the Tories out of power and put in a Labour PM and a presumably a Labour dominated cabinet with the one minor caveat that the leader of said government is not the extremely unpopular, hard left Corbyn. Any Labour party genuinely motivated by stopping No Deal would be biting her hand off.

And as brucejoel99 correctly says the left don't have anywhere near a majority of MPs in this parliament, so yes, they do indeed have to make concessions to the centre if they want to get anywhere. It's basic arithmetic I'm afraid.

[vileplume]

But the LibDems are "compromising" on *what*, exactly? An alternate universe in which Swinson with all of 18 MPs (at time of posting) actually becomes prime minister??

As usual, it is the left that is expected to concede to the centre.

If Labour had a majority, Corbyn would be PM.

If the LibDems had a majority, Swinson would be PM.

Neither has a majority, so neither will be PM. Who does become PM will require a negotiation (one where Labour obviously has more bargaining power). It's really not that hard to understand if you stop being a hack for five minutes.

David Cameron didn't have a majority and he became PM. Theresa May didn't have a majority and she became PM. And furthermore, every election in my country since 1996 has been a hung parliament, and never once did one party get to dictate to another who its leader and who the Prime Minister was.

Well that's because Cameron and May could control the confidence of the commons by being acceptable enough to third parties (the Lib Dems and the DUP respectively). Corbyn on the other hand is totally unacceptable to everyone from the centre or centre-right and thus cannot control the confidence of the commons and therefore cannot be PM with this parliament. Swinson has put forward workable alternatives which Labour has pigheadedly chosen to turn down.

Also whilst it is true the Lib Dems, or any other party for that matter, has no business in dictating who the Labour leader is, they are, like it or not, at present in a strong position to influence who gets to become PM. Third parties exerting influence in this way is not an unheard of concept either. If Labour had won enough seats in 2010 that a Lab-Lib coalition was possible the Lib Dem's price for any deal would've been Gordon Brown's resignation as PM, whether he stayed Labour leader or not would've been irrelevant as that is internal Labour Party business.

There is nothing saying the leader of the ruling party has to be PM, it can be anyone that control the confidence of the commons. Whilst it is true that having a Labour government led by someone other than the Labour leader would be very dysfunctional long term, the particular arrangement that the Lib Dems are suggesting would be for a matter of weeks and only to achieve one specific goal so this wouldn't be an issue at all.

[vileplume]

How many factions are there in Labour? Hard Left, Soft Left, Trad Right, Brownites, Blairites and...?

What faction do Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry belong to?

The soft left, they aren't Corbynite true believers by any stretch of the imagination. If either one wins the leadership if Corbyn fails at the next election they'd move drastically back towards the centre in terms of rhetoric though their policy platform would be fairly similar to what was proposed in the 2017 manifesto (which many on the 'hard left' felt didn't go far enough).

[vileplume]

How many factions are there in Labour? Hard Left, Soft Left, Trad Right, Brownites, Blairites and...?

What faction do Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry belong to?

The soft left, they aren't Corbynite true believers by any stretch of the imagination. If either one wins the leadership if Corbyn fails at the next election they'd move drastically back towards the centre in terms of rhetoric though their policy platform would be fairly similar to what was proposed in the 2017 manifesto (which many on the 'hard left' felt didn't go far enough).

I assumed they were further right. Angela Rayner is Soft Left and I thought Thornberry and Starmer were a bit to her right.

So the potential leadership candidates are all on the left?

Hard Left: Pidcock, RLB, McDonnell
Soft Left: Rayner, Thornberry, Starmer
Trad Right: none
Brownites: none
Blairites. none

Someone from the right of the party will probably run (similarly to how the left always fielded a candidate even though their chances of winning were then negligible), though they will almost certainly get nowhere. Plus I would probably include Rayner as hard left as she certainly is a Corbynite true believer and a key player in the project despite the fact that she may not be as extreme as someone like Laura Pidcock.

Also the differences between the Blairites and Brownites was almost entirely personality driven and is thus no longer a relevant distinction in this political time. Treating them as one faction named something like the 'modern right' (as opposed to the traditional right) would be in my view more accurate.