UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So far Michael Gove has already ensnared what will probably be a controversial tenure in justice.

Do we think this is going to be hilarious, an absolute disaster, or both?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How long before he goes full Rajoy?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How long before he goes full Rajoy?

He's on a 1-seat majority

He has 330 out of 649 non-Speaker seats. There are four MPs from an abstentionist party. In practice his majority is 330-315, in theory 331-319. It's a narrow majority, but should, sadly, hold.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Can someone please explain to me why the hell the fox hunting ban is such a charged issue? Is it for purely symbolic cultural reasons or is there some sort of ex-fox-hunters' lobby or what? How many people even did this when it was legal?

Whittingdale and Patel seem like scum.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Let's just say if the people who enjoyed part in, say, cockfighting had Eton educations and double-barrelled names, we would probably be seeing an impassioned debate on the importance of the cockfighting tradition.

So, cultural posturing 'Deep England' stuff at best, then. I don't suppose the Tories could focus on standing up for maypoles or Ray Davies instead. May Day is kind of a commie thing now in any event.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The more I read about Priti Patel the more putrid she seems.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wasn't he semi-important in the Scottish devolution process?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who are these people who like tuition fees?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I find it hard to believe that one could in good faith argue that one should have to pay one's own money for the minimum level of education required to do respectably in the world. Previously in most places that level of education was high school. In today's economy it's college. If free university was good enough for a Britain in which a university education wasn't strictly speaking necessary for most people, it certainly ought to be good enough for a Britain in which one is.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Every school in England will be forced to become an academy by 2020, apparently.

How do these differ from normal schools?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In Deep Shyt has resigned, apparently.

Over disability cuts, apparently. Good to know he has some standards.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will Khan retain Tooting? I know Johnson has been both Mayor and MP for the past year.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For the record the laborites I've spoke to in london are very worried about turnout, especially in my own constituency which has a 13,000 lab majority

So, how much should I, as someone who quite likes Khan and hates the philandering race-baiter, be panicking right now?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Supposedly Labour is going to lose a lot of councillor seats. They had a row/dispute about anti-Semitic undertones among some party members that Corbyn never dealt with effectively.

Yeah, I know. And frankly some of them have some of it coming.

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That's what I was concerned about, so good.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Supposedly Labour is going to lose a lot of councillor seats. They had a row/dispute about anti-Semitic undertones among some party members that Corbyn never dealt with effectively.

Yeah, I know. And frankly some of them have some of it coming.

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That's what I was concerned about, so good.

And on top of that, Labour's structural problems are so dire that the Tories will pretty much occupy 10 Downing for the foreseeable future unless all of the following things happen:

1. Labour somehow gains traction and topples some of the Scottish nationalists. Labour's path to a majority is virtually impossible without Scotland unless there is some incredible crisis that the Tories are blamed for.
2. Labour stops losing voters to UKIP and gains them back. Some blue collar workers are flocking to Farage in the UK over anti-immigrant feelings just like they are flocking to Trump in the States.
3. Labour finds a leader who is between Corbyn (too far left for the UK) and Blair (too moderate). They swung from one extreme to the other and have a leader who is as unpopular and lowly regarded as Tony Benn in the 80s. Maybe Khan, who looks like he will win the London election, is that guy.
4. Labour gets the anti-Semites out of their party. The Tories will pretty much beat them like a drum over this.
5. Labour and the Lib-Dems come closer together than they have been in some time to develop a coalition if the votes are there for Labour to potentially form a minority government. There is serious bad blood between Lab and Lib over Clegg selling out to Cameron

I'm very aware of all these problems. I still support (meaning, essentially, since I'm not British, 'root for') Labour.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Since when have people been talking up Gove as the likely successor? The last I heard it was all about May and Osborne.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mark Reckless is Welsh now?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You have to say that Dan Jarvis looks incredibly good on paper; in a post-Brexit world most will see the need for STRONG LEADERSHIP and Jarvis is a former Army Major. Also he's not tarnished by any frontbench experience.

On the other hand he's only been in Parliament for five years. Not that that matters to anybody any more.

My feeling is a soft-Left or old-school Right veteran MP with a strong personality and some frontbench experience but nothing terribly high-profile would be ideal, but I can't tell whether I just think that because of wishful thinking or not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm interested in who (if anybody in the immediate term) will take Ian Murray's position, as he's the only Scottish Labour MP left.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chris Bryant has gone and written a barnstormer of a resignation letter.

Link?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

God Corbyn's new Cabinet is awful- not only made up of Corbyn hacks, but also off my quick numbers 50-60% is from the 2015 intake. I can't see how this Cabinet is going to get through a GE

I've literally never heard of any of these people.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Laura Kuensberg has just floated the possibility of Mandelson running for leader.

I suppose he might stand a chance of winning, if his opponents were Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Farage...

I mean, say what you want about Corbynistas, but Kuenssberg could at least try to pretend to be impartial, couldn't she?

Doesn't the leader of the Labour Party have to be in the Commons?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Corbyn refuses to resign, says no confidence vote has 'no constitutional legitimacy'

...what does that even mean?!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Corbyn refuses to resign, says no confidence vote has 'no constitutional legitimacy'

...what does that even mean?!

That a vote of no confidence according to Labour's party constitution is non binding to the leader

Deeply worrying if true.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So what is the actual procedure by which someone can call for a new leadership election for Labour?

Someone besides the current leader gets at least 50 MPs to nominate them to be leader.

MPs+MEPs, isn't it?