I mean, the Lib Dems will actually vote that way as well right? I don't think it benefits anyone now to try to roll back the result of the referendum (as appealing as that thought is to me personally) and the stance he's taken seems to me to have taken away some of their credibility.
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UK PoliGAF |OT2| - We Blue Ourselves
- Thread starter Jezbollah
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I think the lib dems will vote to roll back the referendum. Remember these are national favourabilities, and the lib dems don't care about national numbers. They are laser focussed on areas where the MP voted to leave and the residents voted to stay. That's all they care about, and they are betting there's enough people who feel strongly about this, who don't feel represented by the other two parties to pick up some seats.
Farron has been defined as 'Nice But Dim Tim'. You'll see the insult thrown about online in the comments section of any article to do with him. It's a way to completely disregard him without having to engage with his arguments ... and, alas, it's working.
Personally, I think the Lib Dems have approached Brexit from the wrong angle. It doesn't matter how many times they say they don't want a 'second referendum' but want a 'first referendum on the deal', all anyone hears is 'second referendum.' And even most Remain voters don't want a second referendum.
Instead they should have pushed for staying as close to the EU as possible (ie. within the single market) whilst pushing for an EU-wide change to free movement rules. Clegg has said he thinks there is enough concern about immigration throughout the EU and EEA that a Europe-wide re-evaluation of the rules is possible.
This would appeal to Remain voters and many Leave voters. It's less divisive than May's hard Brexit, and it's the exact opposite of Corbyn's politically toxic 'leave the single market but keep free movement', because who the heck is that meant to appeal to!?
Personally, I think the Lib Dems have approached Brexit from the wrong angle. It doesn't matter how many times they say they don't want a 'second referendum' but want a 'first referendum on the deal', all anyone hears is 'second referendum.' And even most Remain voters don't want a second referendum.
Instead they should have pushed for staying as close to the EU as possible (ie. within the single market) whilst pushing for an EU-wide change to free movement rules. Clegg has said he thinks there is enough concern about immigration throughout the EU and EEA that a Europe-wide re-evaluation of the rules is possible.
This would appeal to Remain voters and many Leave voters. It's less divisive than May's hard Brexit, and it's the exact opposite of Corbyn's politically toxic 'leave the single market but keep free movement', because who the heck is that meant to appeal to!?
Nobody knows who he is. Wouldn't shock me if a lot of his unfavourability came simply from being the Lib Dems. They're growing again but they're still a long way from regaining the voters who felt betrayed by them with the coalition.
Huw_Dawson
Member
Speaking as:
a) A Lib Dem
b) Someone who's met Tim Farron only twice (but the second time was him interviewing me for a job, funnily enough)
Tim's been super good for the party. He's realigned us back to where we belong, on the centre-left. He's made friends with folks he could easily have ended up enemies with (Clegg, Lamb) and used them well. He was the right man at the right time to propose a serious recruitment drive that has paid off in spades. He's also taken a leaf from Kennedy's book and stuck to his guns on a divisive issue, rather than just supporting the government after losing votes.
He's a return to the norm after we tried out Orange Bookism under Clegg - and it's a welcome and non-confrontational return to the norm.
That said, the sheer volume of "Don't Knows" does show that he's made less of an impact than Ashdown/Kennedy/Clegg. His numbers are actually not that far off of Campbell's, another leader that took over after a defining voice for the party.
Farron's style is the same one he used when he was just the MP for Kendal, rather than the leader - be honest, keep the message simple, bring passion to the role. He's coming from as weak a position as Ashdown came from, and nobody can beat a background in the SBS for an introduction.
This matches the current situation for the Lib Dems as a whole, really. We're under the radar.
Oh, on the EU:
Don't think about how the general public feels now. Think about how the general public is going to feel in two years.
You have the Tories, dragging us out of the EU onto a deal that clearly makes us poorer.
You have Labour, with no policy on the issue.
You then have the Lib Dems, who have been campaigning for two years to give the British public (that is likely dissatisfied with the deal) a vote.
It's now quite a long time from the referendum and it's still a good year before the public can vote to kick the Tories out.
Who benefits?
The big strength we have is that we can now play the long game. We've stabilised and are slowly pulling ourselves back up in the polls. It's possible we might claim more MP scalps, and it's certain that we'll see a huge number of council seats taken over the next few years. So the strategy isn't to push Tim into the limelight now - it's to gear up for the long campaign from 2019 through to the GE in 2020. We take what we learned from Kennedy (stick up for your beliefs and be the voice of the liberal centre-left) and what we learned from Clegg (Cleggmania, the importance of treating yourself as the opposition) and we apply that to the current situation - and you get where we are at now.
a) A Lib Dem
b) Someone who's met Tim Farron only twice (but the second time was him interviewing me for a job, funnily enough)
Tim's been super good for the party. He's realigned us back to where we belong, on the centre-left. He's made friends with folks he could easily have ended up enemies with (Clegg, Lamb) and used them well. He was the right man at the right time to propose a serious recruitment drive that has paid off in spades. He's also taken a leaf from Kennedy's book and stuck to his guns on a divisive issue, rather than just supporting the government after losing votes.
He's a return to the norm after we tried out Orange Bookism under Clegg - and it's a welcome and non-confrontational return to the norm.
That said, the sheer volume of "Don't Knows" does show that he's made less of an impact than Ashdown/Kennedy/Clegg. His numbers are actually not that far off of Campbell's, another leader that took over after a defining voice for the party.
Farron's style is the same one he used when he was just the MP for Kendal, rather than the leader - be honest, keep the message simple, bring passion to the role. He's coming from as weak a position as Ashdown came from, and nobody can beat a background in the SBS for an introduction.
This matches the current situation for the Lib Dems as a whole, really. We're under the radar.
Oh, on the EU:
Don't think about how the general public feels now. Think about how the general public is going to feel in two years.
You have the Tories, dragging us out of the EU onto a deal that clearly makes us poorer.
You have Labour, with no policy on the issue.
You then have the Lib Dems, who have been campaigning for two years to give the British public (that is likely dissatisfied with the deal) a vote.
It's now quite a long time from the referendum and it's still a good year before the public can vote to kick the Tories out.
Who benefits?
The big strength we have is that we can now play the long game. We've stabilised and are slowly pulling ourselves back up in the polls. It's possible we might claim more MP scalps, and it's certain that we'll see a huge number of council seats taken over the next few years. So the strategy isn't to push Tim into the limelight now - it's to gear up for the long campaign from 2019 through to the GE in 2020. We take what we learned from Kennedy (stick up for your beliefs and be the voice of the liberal centre-left) and what we learned from Clegg (Cleggmania, the importance of treating yourself as the opposition) and we apply that to the current situation - and you get where we are at now.
Interesting split to that poll. Labour polling third amongst working class people now.
Wasn't there a guy here saying Corbyn spoke to the working class? Lol
Royal_Phalanx
Member
How anyone can support UKIP in significant numbers is beyond me, especially with how classy(lol) they are:
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-13/...by-aide-after-jihadi-for-a-neighbour-retweet/
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-13/...by-aide-after-jihadi-for-a-neighbour-retweet/
The working class vote is racist. Sorry, but that's the lesson I took from Brexit. It's not about economic anxiety or anything like that, it's about immigration and not liking people who are different.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
I don't think you would get away with saying that on the streets of Merthyr Tydfil ...
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Why have the working class become more racist? Why haven't the upper middle class been so affected by whatever it was?
I think they always have been. And to be clear, i think most people are in some form or other racist. I think that the concerns over immigration and it's impact on the white working class have been stirred up by people like Farage, and our terrible press, that has unleashed a very dark aspect of our society's - not just here, but America, Holland, France and others. Things aren't great for a lot of people out there, and in the traditional human way they respond by kicking down.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
If they always were racist, why didn't it show up in how they voted very recently? Why was nobody able to 'stir them up' before Farage? Why did we go from, say, 1974 (end of Powell's relevance) to 2005 without this kind of Farageism having any significant success?
I'd say you missed some campaigns in certain parts of the country if you didn't think racism in politics existed before 2005... ;-). I'd also say that the old UK Referendum party, and the BNPs brief rise, were all aspects of the same thing. Whilst it wasn;t on the same level of UKIP, it was there and it did have an impact, and it was very shocking at the time (no-one knew what the hell to do when working in a local council that suddenly had BNP councillors).
I think they've voted more this way than previously because things have, relatively speaking, gotten worse. We had a massive financial crisis and no-one paid for it. Wages haven't exactly been sky rocketing, and UK productivity remains low. People like Farage are always waiting on the sidelines to take advantage of that state of affairs, and when you have a complete lack of leadership elsewhere (both on the Tory and labour front benches) it gets exploited. Plus you know we had a huge amount of immigration from 2005! ;-)
I mean, ultimately we know that "immigration" was the biggest factor behind leave voters, and yet we also know the areas with the highest levels of immigration tended to vote remain. We also know that the areas with the highest rate of *change* of immigration voted to leave - which suggests a push-back against outside change coming in.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I'm not denying it exists. I'm saying the scale has changed, enormously, and you need to have an explanation for this.
This sounds economic to me.
I think economic issues lead to racism. I think in times of hardship, people kick downwards and the nastier side of our nature comes out.
People didn't vote for Brexit because of economic issues. When the debate was on the economics, Remain was winning handily (remember the Ashcroft report that said even pensioners had swung behind Remain because of economics?). Leave won when the debate shifted to immigration, and whether we like it or not that worked for a lot of people. In my view, a huge amount of that was racism - heck, on this forum how many banned people have we had who started out saying that there were legitimate concerns over immigration and then sooner or later turned out to be full on raving racists muttering about gypsies and benefit fraud? ;-)
I think the white working class vote was racist. I would love to see otherwise if you have data, but from what I've seen the younger people who were in favour of remain tended to be educated middle class. Education after all was the biggest tell for how you voted - the more educated you were, the higher the chance you voted to remain.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Agreed.
I agree. I just wanted you to admit that the root was economic. I agree that racism is the intermediary mechanism - that's sort of obvious - but racism doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. There are underlying social dynamics that give racist parties more or less strength. Failing to address those dynamics will spell the death of any liberal party.
You could just have said, it's not like my view has changed over the course of this conversation and it would have saved quite a bit of typing... ;-)
People like to feel better, and above, other people. Even the lowest want someone to stand on. In the LGBT community, white gay men make fun of lesbians and black gay people. Black gay people make fun of transsexuals. It's like a pyramid of hurt, and it seems fundamental to how we work as a species.
Saying that, I don't excuse it. We can be better than this, and when facts and evidence are presented and people look away, and prefer to rely on their 'gut feeling' and simple easy answers that blame someone else for their problems, then I have no respect for them at all.
I do agree that any liberal party needs an answer to globalisation, and the impacts it's having. But they don't do that by excusing or ignoring the racism we see in front of us, and we don't do it by throwing minorities under the bus to chase that vote.
People like to feel better, and above, other people. Even the lowest want someone to stand on. In the LGBT community, white gay men make fun of lesbians and black gay people. Black gay people make fun of transsexuals. It's like a pyramid of hurt, and it seems fundamental to how we work as a species.
Saying that, I don't excuse it. We can be better than this, and when facts and evidence are presented and people look away, and prefer to rely on their 'gut feeling' and simple easy answers that blame someone else for their problems, then I have no respect for them at all.
I do agree that any liberal party needs an answer to globalisation, and the impacts it's having. But they don't do that by excusing or ignoring the racism we see in front of us, and we don't do it by throwing minorities under the bus to chase that vote.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Right, but this is a strawman. Effectively nobody is suggesting this. Certain threads on this site like to use this strawman to distract from the fact that liberal political parties completely failed to address the economic problems, or even to deny the economic problems altogether.
Huw_Dawson
Member
There is a significant problem with Islamophobia in the semi-urban and rural working class, and an equally significant problem with racism against Eastern Europeans - something that is very rarely talked about. ("Anti-immigrant" becomes the catch-all).
That is the core of the UKIP vote. "I'm not racist, but I think muslims should go home". "The local market is now full of muslims selling cheap stuff!" "There's three polish supermarkets in my town centre now!"
This is not about economics. Saying it is about economics implies that this wasn't as severe a problem when the times were good. Growing up in a small working class town - it's been this bad for a long time. UKIP is the legitimate face of that sentiment.
To stamp it out is going to require a new generation of politicians and concerted action from the centre. The longer we let the far right dictate the message ("Don't call these voters racist, you arrogant liberals! It's your liberal economic policy that's to blame for their misery!") then the longer it's going to take for the far right to be refuted.
What we've allowed is for liberal economics to be blamed for issues related to friction in the economy - bad housing, low social mobility, lack of investment. That's not the fault of liberal economics. But the far right, who oppose liberal economics in favour of oligarchic capitalism, paint it as such.
That is the core of the UKIP vote. "I'm not racist, but I think muslims should go home". "The local market is now full of muslims selling cheap stuff!" "There's three polish supermarkets in my town centre now!"
This is not about economics. Saying it is about economics implies that this wasn't as severe a problem when the times were good. Growing up in a small working class town - it's been this bad for a long time. UKIP is the legitimate face of that sentiment.
To stamp it out is going to require a new generation of politicians and concerted action from the centre. The longer we let the far right dictate the message ("Don't call these voters racist, you arrogant liberals! It's your liberal economic policy that's to blame for their misery!") then the longer it's going to take for the far right to be refuted.
What we've allowed is for liberal economics to be blamed for issues related to friction in the economy - bad housing, low social mobility, lack of investment. That's not the fault of liberal economics. But the far right, who oppose liberal economics in favour of oligarchic capitalism, paint it as such.
Jezbollah
Member
Excellent. Fuck UKIP.
Huw_Dawson
Member
Goldsmith clung on to the lead in polls in RP, don't let the bets lead you anywhere.
Postal votes will be crucial.
Postal votes will be crucial.
CyclopsRock
Member
There's another from just before or after where she's looking the other way and has the same face, suggesting it wasn't just an awkward fraction of a second caught by a camera - that's actually how she was staring at these poor kids.Another classic snap of the PM campaigning up in Copeland.
killer_clank
Member
I'm conflicted because of course I want the Tories and UKIP to lost but at the same time if Labour win then the same fundamentals still apply and would almost definitely fall to defeat at the next general election.
Come to think of it it still just is better if Labour win both since Corbyn wouldn't bloody resign even if he lost both I reckon.
Commander Jameson
Member
This is one of the candidates for the Stoke by-election.
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/arre...othing-wrong/story-30136133-detail/story.html
Her party manifesto is lovely too. A breath of fresh air in these troubled times.
https://abolishmcrm.com/party-constitution-and-manifesto/
Her blog posts are a cracking read too, kind of like Jack's book in The Shining.
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/arre...othing-wrong/story-30136133-detail/story.html
Her party manifesto is lovely too. A breath of fresh air in these troubled times.
https://abolishmcrm.com/party-constitution-and-manifesto/
Her blog posts are a cracking read too, kind of like Jack's book in The Shining.
anonymous_abc
Member
JonnyDBrit
Member
Lib Dems meanwhile managed to gain a Council Seat in Wokingham from the Tories:
https://mobile.twitter.com/britainelects/status/832734742713733120
Emmbrook (Wokingham) result:
LDEM: 59.7% (+22.3)
CON: 33.3% (-4.5)
UKIP: 3.9% (-11.7)
LAB: 3.0% (-6.1)
Might be worth noting (not sure on prior results) the Green candidate decided not to stand, and advocated any supporters to vote LD.
Roberto Larcos
Member
This is why tribal politics ends badly. Because the Lib Dem candidate can't win, because they're wearing a yellow badge. The Conservative candidate can't win, because they're wearing a blue badge. The Green candidate can't win, because they're wearing a green badge. So we're left with two utter shits.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
UK Poligaf had the purity vs. competence argument around the time Corbyn was re-challenged for leadership.
It seems fairly self-evident who has been proven correct in this.
Unfortunately, Corbyn still being leader of Labour says just as much about the PLP in terms of their competence. If they had waited even just one month they probably would have been successful in ousting him, but they were so desperately tripping over each other to do it they botched it.
CyclopsRock
Member
Ya reckon? I'm not entirely convinced he wouldn't win again tomorrow.
While many of Corbyn's supporters are europhiles put out by "his" recent actions - it should be noted that the parliamentary party was largely in favour of voting the A50 through, whip or no whip - it would probably amount to him winning by a mere 55% in another election. He has to go of his own accord.
WhateverItTakes
Banned
Or Labour will be taken over by the dabmaster general
I just wanted to share that incredible headline.
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