UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[EastAnglianLefty]

The protests in London to "protect the statues" went as well as expected.  A load of EDL and other far right goons went down to London, were kettled around Westminster, drunk a lot of beer, tried to fight with the police, there were arguments between All Lives Matter and White Lives Matter people where the former perhaps realised the people they were allied with were dodgy; there was a literal river of urine running from a hidden corner where everyone went to relieve themselves, the Tesco by Parliament was closed by police to stop them from buying all of the booze in the shop etc.

The Black Lives Matter counterprotesters stood behind police lines and laughed at what, quite frankly, was a pretty sad group of people.  Seems to be most of the far right goons you see at things like this plus some new people who broadly seem to have not quite realised they were getting themselves in for and who didn't like the fascists.

Not all of them. One of them, in a picture that's sure to make at least one front page tomorrow, went for a slash next to the memorial for the police officer who died protecting Parliament from a terrorist three years ago.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not all of them. One of them, in a picture that's sure to make at least one front page tomorrow, went for a slash next to the memorial for the police officer who died protecting Parliament from a terrorist three years ago.

Peak British Far Right.

[Cassius]

British far right continues to demonstrate the same tactical mastery that has served it so well down the decades.

[IceAgeComing]

That's why its good there wasn't really a counter protest; based on past history of the British far right all you need to do is give them enough rope to hang themselves and they do a good job of that

[Blair]

I know it's verging on galaxy brain territory but it is hilarous how absolutely useless they are compared to other European countires.

[CumbrianLefty]

Amusing comparison to be made with today's Mail on Sunday front page and yesterday's in its daily stablemate - the latter fairly well answers the question of the former.

[Blair]

We still as a country haven't even approached the terrifying fact that the far right movement came close to taking off last year; it reached a peak when Yaxley-Lennon was jailed and seemed to go off the radar but we've had credible threats to MPs from far right groups, several of them have been charged under terrorist legislation & I still have the feeling that it it actually was organised it would present a much graver threat to our politics than people pulling down a statue.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And one of them literally murdered a Labour MP four years ago. They're a joke, but a dangerous one.

[PSOL]

government reported to be dropping gender self-identifying plans

Boris Johnson is set to scrap plans to allow people to change their legal gender by “self-identifying” as male or female, it has been reported.

Measures drawn up under Theresa May’s government to enable transgender people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis have been ditched by the prime minister’s team, according to the Sunday Times.

[Blair]

In nerd news DFID (The international aid department for non-UK posters) is getting merged with the Foreign Office.  This has long been a pet project of Tory MPs who like to picture themselves being sat in tents or on the back of camels and are annoyed that the Foreign Office doesn't have any power sanymore.

It's a disaster in my view- DFID was made seperate in 1997 & was seen as one of Labour's best achievements in foreign affairs. It's always been remarkably well ran, even under the Tories it's been given to Ministers who actually care about it & have avoided turning it into a political sham (with one priti clear exception)

Of course it comes at an awful time to reshuffle departments & was planned for a while as DFID Ministers are also FCO ministers (if someone knows how this works please tell me!) so at least it ends the charade.

On a final point the people advocating this are right that the Foreign Office is useless; but the logical step was always (for me) to bring Trade back to the FCO rather than aid- I'd much rather that our trade is used as political tool rather than our aid budget.

And one of them literally murdered a Labour MP four years ago. They're a joke, but a dangerous one.

The fact that I forgot to mention that in itself a sign of how swept under the radar it is- is 3 years ago today tht it happened too.

[Zinneke]

DFID is indeed a great organization, but I also get the idea of having one minister and director for broad foreign policy. You only have to look at the Commission and the petty institutional factionalism between Trade, Devco, ECHO and the EEAS...and we're not even talking about a fully fledged foreign policy actor in the EU's case!

[Silent Hunter]

Historically, Trade has long been its own department instead of in the FCO, with a number of future PMs holding the President of the Board of Trade job before getting the top job.

[CumbrianLefty]

Part of the reason why the Cox killing got "swept under the carpet" so effectively is that literally within 24 hours of it happening, various blue ticks on Twitter turned it into an endless wail about how some nasty left wingers had been a bit rude to them - and this was EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The bigger news today is that the footballer Marcus Rashford has been conducting a very successful campaign to pressure the government to continue provided free school meals to eligible pupils during the summer holidays.

The government is currently refusing to do so and flagging up other spending commitments it has made, which is odd given that it's a very popular campaign and the additional spending it would require is not very high. There's an Opposition day debate on the issue today. Most people expect the government to U-turn, but if so it's a mystery why they haven't done so already.

[EastAnglianLefty]

And they've now backed down. Does flag up the government's continuing inability to read the public mood in good time, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some on the "left" trying to pretend Starmer/Labour said nothing about it, not cool really.

[Blair]

Some on the "left" trying to pretend Starmer/Labour said nothing about it, not cool really.

They're clearly not Labour members as they would have received an email asking them to contact their MP about the issue on the weekend- and the email came from RLB!

The funny thing is that a lot of these people think they're playing the same role that the Labour right played after 2015, but they're actually replicating the even more inept & hilarous campaign that the ultra right played against Ed Miliband after 2010.

They're attacking their image of the Leader, rather than the actual leader in front of them.

[Blair]

Oh god I opened pandora's box; it seems to be the same old accounts just screaming that Keir doesn't understand political strategy and that he left it to a footballer.... when it's so obviously clear that Labour left it to Rashford because he get top billing on radio 4/the BBC & gave the issue huge coverage with an audience who would ignore any sort of politician.

Besides the campaign won; that's the whole point of it. It's baffling that 1 million kids get free school meals & your first thought is to go on twitter.com to dunk on Keir Starmer

[DaWN]

To be perfectly frank they are just playing the same role they've always played - attacking and undermining sensible strategy so they can pontificate and mouth off on Twitter about how awful everyone else is. Only now the leadership doesn't do the same thing, they stand out much more.

Luckily for Labour they are utterly irrelevant and every time they attack Starmer people like me like him even more.

[afleitch]

I think we can look back at Corbyn and accept what a f-ing waste of time all that was.

[Silent Hunter]

It's a pity that the right didn't succeed in forcing Corbyn out, because now we've got a secure Tory government until at least 2024 and quite likely 2029.

[afleitch]

It's a pity that the right didn't succeed in forcing Corbyn out, because now we've got a secure Tory government until at least 2024 and quite likely 2029.

I think the electorate is elastic enough to see the majority wiped out in one electuon rather than two but yeah the Tories are in until 2024 even if they are 10 points down right through (a bit like Major was)

[Silent Hunter]

The majority might be wiped out in one go, but Labour is a far cry from getting an overall majority, if it even survives the EHRC report.

[DaWN]

The current size of the majority is irrelevant for 2024. If the government is unpopular enough to lose, they will lose. If Labour is seen as credible enough to win, they will win. This was true even before voting patterns destabilised to the extent they have.

Will Labour be seen as credible enough to win is another question entirely but no non-time travellers know the answer to that so there isn't much point dwelling on it.

[Former President tack50]

Well, because of the SNP sweeping Scotland nowadays, it is almost impossible for Labour to win a majority. Their vote is more efficient now than it was in say, 2015, but still not great.

Assuming the Lib Dems get say, 10% (so a bit down compared to 2019) and the SNP gets 4% (exactly the same as 2019); a popular vote tie leads to: Con 285, Lab 279, SNP 51, Lib 12.

For Labour to get an actual majority they need to be winning by at least 9 points nationally (44-35), which leads to Lab 323, Con 236, SNP 50, Lib 18; which should be a narrow majority if you account for the SDLP and the Sinn Fein abstaining.

To get an idea of how unlikely that would be, Boris Johnson would be losing his own seat in such an scenario and it would not even be that close (he'd lose by 11 points; 52-41)

Of course, you could also work assuming what I call "Spanish politics rules"; where basically anything that is not a Tory majority is an automatic Labour win, even if with a very unstable government; since no "minor party" (ie Lib Dems / SNP) will back the Tories. This is almost certainly true for the SNP, but less so for the Lib Dems I imagine.

If you think the Lib Dems would back Labour in the end, then it gets incredibly easy; Labour just needs to keep the Tories below 326 (in practice more like 310 because of the DUP and Sinn Fein abstaining). That can actually be done while losing the popular vote! A 2 point Tory win for instance (40-38) results in a parliament where Lab+SNP+Lib get 329 seats, which is a majority (269+51+9 respectively). Basically Labour just neeeds a 2017 redux.

If you think the Lib Dems would actually back the Tories, it gets a bit trickier but not by much; Labour just needs to lose by a bit less. A Tory win of 1 point does the trick (Lab 279 and SNP at 51). So basically Labour just needs to improve upon 2017 by a bit, but it does not even need to actually properly win.

This all assumes an even swing, but still should give an idea.