UK General Discussion: 2019. Blackadder goes Brexit.

[Coldstream]

A slight worry with a second referendum is if Remain wins but gets less than 17.4 million votes that Leave got in 2016-idk how plausible that is but maybe possible if turnout is low for the referendum (even if Remain's percentage ends up higher than Leave's), this could lead to further division about which referendum is legitimate.

Right now I’d bet on that as the most likely outcome.

Second referendum on lower turnout (not drastically lower and I doubt there’d be a mass boycott) but say around 65-70% rather than 80%. Remain wins by a larger margin (say 54-46) but with far fewer votes (say around 14-15 million).

So no one is satisfied, and you end up with a bomb throwing nihilist contingent in Parliament that’s even more aggrieved such as Cash, Francois, Jenkin etc who probably join up with Farage and lead to something of a realignment on the right of British politics.

[Coldstream]

How popular is Corbyn with Labour voters? His approval amongst the general public is dismal. I know thats not news to most people, but I just took a look and some polls have him underwater by 50 points. Thats Bush levels of terrible. 

He’s widely detested, but the party brand is strong enough to withstand it for most voters - particularly when Boris Johnson is so bad.

[Coldstream]

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?

Soft left - but the soft left covers many things.

There’s the Tribunites who are very left wing economically, probably similar to the Hard Left just not as impatient and maybe have fewer of the Tankie views on foreign policy (think Ange Rayner, Richard Burden, Alex Sobel). Basically a Corbyn-lite arrangement that’s more Pro-EU.

Then there’s the compass group types who are very liberal/internationalist - making them not so much allied to the left but opposed to the Right/New Labour types over their hawkishness, authoritarianism (on national security and police) and *sometimes* harder approach on immigration. Most of them left and became a pressure group working with the Greens and Lib Dem’s but that’s where I’d associate Thornberry and Starmer.