UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[vileplume]

for posters actually from the united kingdom - which of the various stories swirling around are actually prominent right now and which are just popular here on atlas atm?

Well this Corbyn anti-antisemitism thing has certainly been the hot topic of conversation in the media the last few days but whether the electorate outside the Westminster bubble cares or not is another matter entirely... Obviously Jewish voters will care but they're a pretty small minority that already votes very heavily Tory nowadays anyway. The most that has probably happened is it perhaps ensures greater Jewish turnout come May which gives the Tories a bit better chance at holding the London borough of Barnet (the marginal of Childs Hill has a fairly large Jewish population as does does Hale to a lesser extent). It could also tip a few marginal wards with large Jewish communities in Greater Manchester to the Tories e.g. Sedgley in Bury, Kersal in Salford. But other than that all that will happen is the Tories will say I told you so about Corbyn/Labour whilst Labour voters will either make excuses or ignore it and find some other reason to carry on voting Labour and everything will carry on as it was before.

[vileplume]

Ah, those innocent days of mid-January 2018. Remember back then? Baggy trousers, dirty shirts, jumpers for goalposts. People thought Facebook was as harmless as tobacco. And Christine Shawcroft, the Momentum director, was appointed chair of Labour’s party disputes panel by her fellow NEC members, the day after three seats were filled by pro-Corbyn candidates. It wasn't even a very right-wing predecessor who got sacked.

Anyway, two months later Shawcroft has quit. She is not herself accused of any anti-Semitic statements, but it is reported that she lobbied for the return of a suspended activist. The claim is that he shared a Facebook post putatively denying the Holocaust, photoshopped to read, in an puerile manner reminiscent of elements of this forum, "Muh Holocaust". In the current climate, this was not going to go well for her among the rest of the party.

(Sorry if this doesn't count as something "real British people" care about.)

They should definitely care but my point is they won't care enough for it to change anything or weaken Corbyn's grip on the Labour party. Depressingly enough all that will happen is there will be a few suspensions and/or resignations, Labour will hold another sham enquiry which will conclude the problem is down to a few bad apples and the party at large is not at fault, Tory voters will carry on voting Tory, Labour voters will carry on voting Labour and we will be exactly where we were before this scandal broke. I hope I'm wrong but my opinion of the British electorate and their ability to care about any issue they don't perceive as affecting them directly is not overly high.

[vileplume]

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And weren't the Lib Dems at one of there really low points when these seats were last up?  Losing even more ground doesn't really make sense.

They were polling roughly 9% which is slightly better than they're doing now but their support is probably more concentrated now than it was then which helps in first past the post elections. As it happens I don't think they will net lose seats, I think they'll make very modest net gains. Whilst this is obviously better than a net loss it won't really justify #LibDemfightback that you'll probably hear when they do significantly less badly than this forecast is suggesting they will.

As for councils I think it's a near certainty they'll gain Kingston, Richmond will be much more interesting though. If they do have as bad a night as this forecast is suggesting Sutton could be in serious danger to the Tories but they should probably hold it albeit with a much decreased majority.

[vileplume]

^^ of course there are a lot of poor people in London, and not just ethnic minorities, white people as well, particularly in the east of London and north of Hampstead.
But you also can't deny the overwhelming majority of the top 10% live in London and the commuter towns and cities around London (Wandsworth, Chelsea, Hampstead, Richmond park, Buckinghamshire Herefordshire, Surrey, Berkshire, etc) .

In Germany, they redistribute extensively from the wealthiest states to the poorest states,
I wish we had a similar system in the UK ....

Not to be picky but I assume you mean Hertfordshire? Herefordshire is a small rural county on the Welsh border (the second smallest in England after tiny Rutland). But even Hertfordshire has it's fair share of poverty especially in towns like Watford, Stevenage, Hatfield, Wewlyn Garden City, Hemel Hempstead and Borhamwood. These towns are very socially divided within themselves though for example Watford has the extremely wealthy areas around Cassiobury Park and extremely deprived areas around the hospital, Hemel has the very poor council built suburb of Adeyfield and the very wealthy Boxmoor (lots of new money) etc.

Inner London also has a lot of 'hidden poverty' and Conservative controlled boroughs like Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and Wandsworth rank relatively high up on the indices of multiple deprivation. North Kensington (site of Grenfell) for example is for example really deprived whilst South Kensington is very rich but not all that many people live there due to many properties lying empty as second homes often owned by foreign investors who can't vote. Even Chelsea has a significant amount of poverty on the World's End estate.

This article from the Guardian shows the change in central government funding by district between 2010 and 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2015/jan/14/council-cuts-burden-falls-again-on-north-and-inner-cities.

As you can see the central government cuts fell disproportionately on the north and the inner cities including central London. Most of the suburbs and small town districts across the south only saw minor reductions in funding, interestingly 9/11 districts in Surrey actually saw funding increases (the only 9 councils in the country to receive funding increases over this period). The government has allowed local councils to keep more of the money raised locally in business rates and this should help mitigate the affect of cuts in areas with thriving commercial sectors e.g. most of central London but this isn't helpful at all to the Knowsleys or the Hartlepools.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/osborne-to-allow-local-councils-to-keep-26bn-raised-from-business-rates

[vileplume]

Bercow really doesn't like May.

Who does at this point?

She's still more popular than Corbyn though...

[vileplume]

Beautiful poll from the Gold Standard!

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1083868601491382272

If you're still rooting for Corbyn to take power after the last few months, you're either rooting for an antisemitic terror state or a war to prevent one.

lol. Corbyn will be in power and nothing of substantial difference will happen in regards to Israel-Palestine,  Israel will continue to be a settler state oppressing the rights of Palestinians. The west bank will continue to be a poverty-stricken sh!thole and Gaza will continue to be run by religious fanatics as their hospitals and schools get shot at by the Isreali government. Youll be happy.

Corbyn could flat-out support a one-state solution (which he doesn't btw- he supports a two-state solution 1967 borders- albeit with stupidly supporting the right to return) and nothing would change.

But let's ignore the fact that conservatives support the vilest anti-Semitic and war criminal regime around the world such as Saudi Arabia.

The Corbyn is an anti-semtie is a dead trope that won't work with the British people and is designed to have people ignore the vile policies implemented by the conservative government.

#Corbyn for PM

Your coldblooded endorsement of the Western world's most antisemitic would-be leader in generations is noted. He won't be allowed to get control of Trident one way or another. Never again means never again.

Rather bold, IMO. Despite taking satisfaction in a majority of selections for marginal constituencies this time around, I’m still wary that Corbyn will have a big enough mandate with the PLP to go forward with abolishing Trident when he assumes the premiership. I like your thinking, though.

If Corbyn becomes PM (and yes it's still an if) it's very doubtful he'd have the numbers to abolish it. All Tory MPs will oppose the move as will the DUP and a huge number of Labour backbenchers. He'd probably need Blair-esque numbers in the house of commons which would require winning over loads of habitually Tory voters which isn't going to happen as these voters really, really dislike him. Len McCluskey and several other prominent union leaders oppose abolishing it too so it could even split his base.

Plus it would probably be advisable for Corbyn to stay away from issues such as abolishing trident altogether as nobody really cares about it beyond his hard left activist base (foreign policy more generally is an electoral minefield as far as Corbyn is concerned). Focusing on domestic 'bread and butter' issues such as austerity, inequality, the NHS etc. as they did in the 2017 election (avoiding 'culture war' issues too) would be a much better strategy as Labour's ideas carry on these issues have a much broader base of support.

[vileplume]

Labour and Tory MPs in talks over setting up new centrist party

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Why not simply join the Lib Dems outright?

They’re mainly social democrats on the economy, whilst supporting more authoritarian social policies- basically the opposite of the the Lib Dem’s.

But yes agree with other postings- this will be a rump of MPs who don’t have much in common beyond having different reasons for hating Corbyn and his project. If 100+  MPs quit then I’d be more open minded about creating a credible party of the centre left but this doesn’t look like anything close to that.

It’s easier for them just to retire in 2022- Chuka is the only one of the group who actually had a cabinet level future

I had the impression Umunna in particular was very much an economic centrist - I thought he'd have fit in well with the Lib Dems. The others perhaps less so, but as noted they are not prominent. This split was rumored last summer, too, though (with most of the same names), so seems not especially likely to be imminent.

I think strategically even if they were perfectly aligned with the Lib Dems on policy, it would make sense to run separately in an alliance as the SDP and Liberals did rather than as a single party in order to cast the widest net possible.

He was Ed Milibands business secretary and wasn’t even one of the right wingers in the shadow cabinet back then who were worried about the deficit.

For non U.K. and non labour members don’t underestimate how much Labour members are repulsed by the Lib Dem’s- this has existed long before 2010

It's apparently quite common for Labour activists to hate the Lib Dems more than the Tories. Apparently the way they see it is at least the Tories stand for something however much they disagree with their ideology, whilst the Lib Dems are seen as dishonest and duplicitous willing to say anything to win votes. It's the same reason many on the Labour left actually had a grudging respect for Thatcher (who they saw as at least honest and willing to stand up for her beliefs) whilst they never had any respect whatsoever for Blair (who they saw as a charlatan). Thatcher was actually friendly with militant supporting Liverpool Labour MP Eric Heffer for example and actually attended his memorial service after he died.

[vileplume]

I was all too ready to gang up on the IG, since I do strongly suspect that at least Umunna's concern for antisemitism is a pretext and that the only thing he really cares about is making sure a real left-wing party will never win power in the UK (Berger is of course a different story and I do have a lot of sympathy for her), but Horus' posts in this thread and the general atmosphere that seems to be emanating out of it are pretty much proving them right. Congrats, people.

Yeah, this. And what totally  i n g ridiculous is that Labour is managing to bring itself down by failing to deal with a bunch of obsessives who have got way too involved in the "Israel" thing, which is an issue that a) Real life people, you know , the ones Labour are supposed to stand for, who are more worried about the state of housing, schools, whatever don't actually care about b) Britain's position on is totally irrelevant anyway.

Welcome to the modern Left. The Labour Party is no longer a party of the working class; at the last election the Conservatives had more lower social-grade voters than Labour. It's not surprising you fixate on irrelevant issues when your voters are the ones with no real problems and wish to virtue signal as a kind of atonement for their privilege. This situation of course is unsustainable, because the virtue signallers are precisely the people who have most to lose from a Corbynite old school "real socialism".

This is false. The ABC1C2DE categorisation is not fit for purpose nowadays, it was designed for the era of 50 years ago. For example the majority of pensioners (who are now the true base of the Tory party) are classified towards the lower end of the spectrum even though as a group they have a lot of disposable income and/or a lot of assets. In contrast young professionals who live in the large cities (a group the Tories struggle with) are classified as AB despite the fact that many are actually very hard up as most of their income goes on rent/bills. It is true Labour has been struggling in post-industrial areas but the type of people who have stopped voting Labour are for example people who come from a working class background, bought their council house in the 80s, are retired, comfortably off and fairly financially secure. On top of these there have been new middle class housing developments in working class areas (see for example North East Derbyshire). The type of people who tend to live on these new developments on the peripheries of cities tend to have fairly high incomes, work in the private sector, own their own homes and tend to be ideologically conservative. The truly poor in these areas do not vote Tory and are still strongly Labour, young people from a deprived background are one of the most Labour demographics in the country for example.

Your point about Kensington is also false. The northern part of the constituency is extremely deprived and very ethnically diverse giving Labour a very solid base vote. On top of this the Tory voting south has been rapidly depopulating due to a large proportion of the housing stock being bought up by foreign nationals who can't vote, as second homes or as an investment. The wealthy, owner occupiers that there are left in south Kensington are still very strongly Tory/anti-Labour, look at how badly Labour got crushed in wards like Bromton and Hans Town and Queen's Gate in the 2018 council elections for example.

Canturbury is more interesting. In contrast to most of the other Kent seats it has been moving towards Labour for sometime now but it was a huge shock when the Corbyn surge actually flipped it. The primary reason for this is that Canturbury used to be a military town and places with ties to the armed forces tend to lean further to the right than their demographics would otherwise suggest look for example at Portsmouth and Plymouth with their ties to the navy. However this heritage is mostly gone now and Canturbury has transformed into a university town and the university keeps on rapidly expanding. It's not just the students but the huge increase in public sector workers that have come with the university expansion that has transformed Canterbury. Whitstable in the north of the constituency also has a growing arty/alternative population. It is correct to say that the Tories do much worse than they 'should' do amongst well paid public sector workers e.g. doctors primarily due to their 'private=good, public=bad' dogma however most of the new public sector workers as well as the students don't tend to have much disposable income and a lot will rent.

It is completely disingenuous to imply Labour are a party of the comfortably-off middle class (though it's true many of the activists will be) or that the Tories are a party of the working class. The two biggest predictors as to whether someone will vote Tory are age and if they own and live in their own home (especially if they have no mortgage). However these two factors connect: financial security. Older people are much more financially secure than the young and people who own their own home have a large amount of wealth tied up in assets (their home) which especially in and around London has exploded in vale in recent years and on top of this they don't lose ~half (or potentially even greater than that) of their monthly income in extortionate rent payments. Home ownership falling is probably the biggest long term problem for the Tories and is the main reason for their increasing weakness in the cities. In contrast many young Labour voters in the cities might on paper have good jobs but seen as most of them rent by the end of the month many are struggling.

I can't find the chart right now but Labour only won 2 seats of the 20% least deprived constituencies  and by contrast the Tories only won 1 of the 10% most deprived. Poverty is highest in the inner cities even in areas that appear to be fairly wealthy hence it is unsurprising that these areas are Labour's base.

[vileplume]

Probably, but probably not under that name - they'll form a proper party first.

A major undiscussed problem for TIG is if a general election comes too early for them to form a proper party or to formulate any policies. For example there is a fair chance we could get one this summer and without any organisation or a movement behind them it's highly likely they'd lose all of their seats.

[vileplume]

I don't think the polling numbers of TIG are really as impressive as they may seem at first sight when you consider how unpopular both parties are among the general public, how much publicity the defections have received and the fact that they are very new and so haven't received much scrutiny yet.

A few things to consider:

Firstly, what suggests that they may be able to exceed the Lib Dems in the long term? Both are centrist and staunchly anti-Brexit. The Lib Dems' main problems can easily hurt TIG too, such as the fact that the Lib Dems have become seen as toxic on the due to their coalition with the Conservatives, particularly among left-wing voters who may normally find an anti-Brexit message appealing. Its worth noting that all 3 of the polls on TIG so far have been taken before the defection of the 3 Conservatives. This could hurt TIG's chances among left-wing voters in the same way that working with the Conservatives hurt the Lib Dems' chances. Not to mention the fact that TIG is likely to end up in some sort of alliance with the Lib Dems anyway. For these reasons, I don't see TIG being much more formidable than the Lib Dems have been so far.

Secondly, I can't stress enough that you shouldn't underestimate Corbyn. It has long been acknowledged that his main weakness is Brexit. It makes sense that so long as Brexit is the issue getting headlines, Corbyn will struggle. However, last election, Corbyn was able to shift the conversation away from Brexit to domestic policy, where he is much more passionate and his ideas are much more popular among the electorate. Next election, Corbyn will likely do the same and Labour will surge again.

Thirdly, although TIG presents itself as the middle ground of British politics, I doubt it'd be perceived that way. They are decidedly on one side of the biggest issue in Britain at the moment. The pool of voters they can appeal to is limited. Conservative voters, the vast majority of whom are pro-Brexit won't be moving to TIG in large numbers, and most Labour voters will be reluctant to move over. Many staunchly anti-Brexit Labour voters will view TIG as too moderate on other issues.

Not sure about that. Their model is obviously En Marche, with Chuka (or Soubry?) playing the role of Macron. Modem had been around forever but not really gained momentum because of baggage and a leader without charisma and conviction. A TIG/LD arrangement could work out quite nicely in the UK, with the LD party assuming the role of Modem, and competing only in ancestrally LD seats. TIG runs the tables in the Southeast, and remain voting urban clusters of the Midlands (no idea about Scotland) and you have a formidable force. Obviously they'd need some sort of manifesto which adrdesses all the issues (education, infrastructure, housing, healthcare, etc. in a very third way way without being associated with third way. Perhaps Milliband could play the role of Valls and endorse them? Regardless, France shows the way forward.

As Thumb 21 says, it's extremely unlikely TIG would sweep the South East for the simple reason that there are too many leave voters for a 'Remain' party to sweep the region (remember the South East actually voted leave). Only 1 constituency in the South East held by the Tories is over 60% remain (Winchester which the LDs will target) and only another 8 are over 55% remain. Plus as we found out today May is not going to allow a no deal whatever she may say (she was a remainer after all) and for TIG to break through in the Tory stronghold of the South East you'd really need a no deal and the chaos that would come with it. May will indeed continue to push her deal until the bitter end but if parliament still refuses to pass it I think she'd reluctantly choose a 2nd referendum to avoid a crash out. In this scenario the Tories would be far more vulnerable to a resurgent UKIP or this new 'Brexit' party in strongly leave areas than they would be to TIG.

Other than being strongly pro-remain there isn't really any overarching ideology that unites the members of TIG. Take Anna Soubry and Luciana Berger as an example: Soubry is a dyed in the wool Cameroon and is very pro-austerity whilst Berger is a genuine social-democrat who was hounded out of Labour due to the torrent of antisemitic abuse that she received which the Labour leadership did nothing about. 

As for the British Macron the French top two system massively favours 'centrist' parties compared to the British first past the post as the 'centrist' party are usually the second choice for both right and left wing voters. Even if TIG somehow managed to get 30% of the vote it's unlikely they'd actually win that many seats as they'd get lots of good seconds whilst the Tories and Labour (owing to far better vote distribution) would still win the vast majority of seats in England and Wales as they would get their votes in areas that are demographically friendly to them whilst collapsing to negligible vote shares in areas that aren't. Umunna is probably the most similar to Macron personality-wise out of TIG but he comes across as quite inauthentic and a bit of a slimeball. Plus he may well have skeletons in his closet re. his personal life (widely speculated as the reason why he dropped out of the Labour leadership contest in 2015).