The General Politics Thread v2.0 (AKA the "Labour are Cunts" thread)

[Jazzy G]

51 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Yeh, but there still wouldn't have been anywhere near as many Greens or Lib Dems as Reforms - I remember seeing the numbers as they came up during the live election reporting and just being really depressed at how many Reform voters there were in comparison to the non-right-wing parties. Reform got 4.1m votes, the Greens only 1.8m

How much of that is a reflection of true voting intention though? There'll have been a fair bit of tactical voting to get rid of the Tories. We need a system where how you vote matters more than where you vote, which is what we end up with a lot during First Past The Post. 

@tiger_rick the best thing about the Lib Dems is that they seem to be willing to work with everybody. The worst thing about the Lib Dems is that they seem to be willing to work with everybody. 

[Chico Torres]

This country suffered a seismic rupture with Brexit ten years ago that has sent it into a death spiral and it can’t recover until there is another cataclysmic event. We need the full destruction of labour starting with this shameless cunt Burnham, it will mean a necessary period of suffering with Farage as PM but it needs to happen since he has been this unflushable turd on the sidelines for decades. Once he is in power he can be finally fully exposed and flushed as people realize there’s not much to govern with when your only policy is “get those yucky brown people out of our country”. Only then after a full reset when the Brexit saga that has held us hostage is concluded can there then be new beginnings but it won’t happen with more of the same old shit under labour.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Have they? Until 2024, we'd had 14 years of tory rule. During that time, cunts got into power and were cunts. The only exception was Nick Whatshisface who seemed alright until he jumped at the first sniff of power to form the coilition government with Cameron. 

Starmer was a huge disappointment but it was no secret that he wasn't very far left, if left at all. Sadly, we live in a country where the right has won almost every GE since 1979 and the only exceptions are red Tories. We've had the opportunity to vote in left-wing government and turned it down.

We don't need to be giving up. We need a Labour PM who delivers what the country needs and unites people to care as much as all those on the right do. I don't know if it's Andy Burnham, I just hope to fuck that it is. 

The bit in bold is possibly the biggest reason why people gave up. As I mentioned before, it's the people who were supposed to be delivering better that let us down, and I cannot emphasise enough just how much the Labour right fucked us. In the UK, the left-wing parties cannot put a single foot wrong - anything other than a perfect game means defeat, even when people have had a gutful of the Tories' bullshit. 

It's often touted by "centrists" that Corbyn's Labour lost two GEs, but they always fail (conveniently) to discuss just how much of that was down to McSweeney/Akehurst/MacNicol and all those other shits actively fucking over the party. I'm not talking a bit of pissing about, I'm talking about a fully-fledged, organised operation. Watch The Labour Files. You will be shocked at how detailed, organised, and far-reaching it was.

Now: take into account just how close Corbyn got in 2017 - just imagine if those turds hadn't been working against him? 

Because of them, we ended up with seven years more of Tory government than we should have had.

39 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

How much of that is a reflection of true voting intention though? There'll have been a fair bit of tactical voting to get rid of the Tories. We need a system where how you vote matters more than where you vote, which is what we end up with a lot during First Past The Post. 

Hey - you don't need to persuade me of that. I honestly believe that, if the electoral system had been truly reformed, instead of the ConDemNation pulling that bogus bait-and-switch with the AV referendum, Reform might not have got this far.

The ever-recurring problem is that no party that gets into government wants to get rid of the system that put them there.

10 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

This country suffered a seismic rupture with Brexit ten years ago that has sent it into a death spiral and it can’t recover until there is another cataclysmic event. We need the full destruction of labour starting with this shameless cunt Burnham, it will mean a necessary period of suffering with Farage as PM but it needs to happen since he has been this unflushable turd on the sidelines for decades. Once he is in power he can be finally fully exposed and flushed as people realize there’s not much to govern with when your only policy is “get those yucky brown people out of our country”. Only then after a full reset when the Brexit saga that has held us hostage is concluded can there then be new beginnings but it won’t happen with more of the same old shit under labour.

See, this is a form of thinking that I didn't want to, but have had to come to embrace.

The reason why I don't vote Labour any more is because I now think long-term.

Here's how it plays out in my mind:

1. The Tories dominate for long periods and do their usual bastardry.

2. Labour tell us "we have to get the Tories out!" and people vote to do so, including the left and the working class.

3. The Labour right sells out the left and the working class, and kicks them in the teeth for good measure. Purges them, followed by "If you don't like it, leave" to the ones still there.

4. The Tories carry on their usual bastardry, make everyone desperate.

5. The Labour right tell us "we have to get the Tories out!" and get into power, and regard their election as validation of their approach of selling out the left/working class, and carry on operating this way.

 

It's an abusive cycle, and it needs to be broken. The people who we expect to be better need to fucking learn that they can't just get away with being less shit any more - they have to be better. And I will keep voting Green in the hopes of forcing a broader left coalition until they learn that fact.

Edited July 21 by Carbomb
Russell Beardsmore

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

it will mean a necessary period of suffering with Farage as PM but it needs to happen

No it doesn't. That sort of "Well we need people to see just how shit it can be" is ridiculous in my opinion. It'd be one of the worst things that has ever happened to this country.

[Chico Torres]

7 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

No it doesn't. That sort of "Well we need people to see just how shit it can be" is ridiculous in my opinion. It'd be one of the worst things that has ever happened to this country.

And that’s why we will keep getting two sides of the same shit coin with indistinguishable Thatcher/Blair clones until we realize the biggest disaster has already happened, we need it to reach its natural conclusion which is Farage as PM in order to finally end this cycle, expose him and move on rather than being stuck in the same interchangeable right wing gimps with Burnham being the latest avatar. The entire paradigm now is a choice between right wing vs hard right, the Blair era needs to end once and for all.

[SuperBacon]

And the people that would suffer under a Reform government? Shall we just forget about them then? Let them suffer and smugly say "oh well, at least people see the reality eh? Grow up.

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

In the case of London boroughs, Labour has been seen as a bulwark for ethnic minorities against the racism of the right wing, which was kind of bolstered by the violence of the 50s, 60s, and 80s, and any vote that isn't for Labour is seen as potentially letting the Nazis in. Plus, Lammy is a black man from a single-parent, working class, council estate family in Tottenham - he's about as close to safe as you'll get, regardless of how much betrayal he has in his locker (and there is a lot).

FWIW, I live in a historically very Labour borough, where in the previous election I had felt safe in the knowledge that Labour were the worst case scenario, and at the last council election we elected a Green mayor, and it turned majority Green in May - the exact same number of Green seats gained as Labour seats lost, so it's clear where the votes were moving to and from. It can definitely change, particularly as the historic connections to the Labour party grow increasingly in the rear view mirror.

I don't buy the argument that a Farage premiership would show how bad things could get and force a correction in the opposite direction, at all. Aside from those that would suffer under that government, I just don't think politics works that way. Whatever was introduced under a Reform government wouldn't be magically overturned by a subsequent Labour or Green government, it would just push the Overton window even further to the ring. The New Normal would just be slightly closer to fascism.

[hallicks]

21 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

It'd be one of the worst things that has ever happened to this country.

I don’t think that’s in question here. The problem is the mainstream duopoly both effectively govern the population with the message “we must accept managed decline.” Unless they get rid of the self-imposed fiscal rules, there’s no outlet for Burnham to make the big changes, like nationalising the water and other infrastructure, that would start to make a difference.

To carbomb’s point, the ratfucking of Corbyn was crucial. And it wasn’t just internal Labour desperately trying to stop him, it was the entire British establishment. Cummings admitted after the fact that the only priority in the 2019 GE was to stop Corbyn. Nothing else mattered.

So, after 20 years of “we must accept managed decline”, if everyone’s lives have continued getting more shit, more expensive, with fewer jobs, with a less educated population, with rampant AI that will make it almost impossible to trust any news outlet, what is the motivation for the electorate to come back and choose which version of managed decline they would prefer? That is how Farage wins, because enough people get fed up of being fucked over and the most repugnant, cretinous, racist shithead imaginable sells the lie that only his brand of far-right ideology can make things better. And only following that disaster can things reset and improve again. So if Burnham wants to avoid all that, he better get his fucking skates on.

EDIT: just to make it clear, I am absolutely not advocating for Farage as PM in any way and I wish with all my being that it never ever happens, for the exact reasons you outline @SuperBacon. I’m just seeing the path that @Chico Torres has laid out as being difficult to avoid unless this government can offer genuine progress and hope. 

Edited July 21 by hallicks
Eirik Bakke

[Carbomb]

5 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

FWIW, I live in a historically very Labour borough, where in the previous election I had felt safe in the knowledge that Labour were the worst case scenario, and at the last council election we elected a Green mayor, and it turned majority Green in May - the exact same number of Green seats gained as Labour seats lost, so it's clear where the votes were moving to and from. It can definitely change, particularly as the historic connections to the Labour party grow increasingly in the rear view mirror.

True - similar happened with Haringey in the recent council elections; we elected a Lib Dem mayor, but returned 28 Green councillors to 21 Labour. But it does mean that there is no overall control. Even with everything that's happened, it still wouldn't swing Green (or Lib Dem).

5 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I don't buy the argument that a Farage premiership would show how bad things could get and force a correction in the opposite direction, at all. Aside from those that would suffer under that government, I just don't think politics works that way. Whatever was introduced under a Reform government wouldn't be magically overturned by a subsequent Labour or Green government, it would just push the Overton window even further to the ring. The New Normal would just be slightly closer to fascism.

This is where I do diverge from Chico, I must admit. I'm not quite at that stage of disaster socialism yet, though, truth be told, I really don't blame him or anyone for thinking that way: it seems like the only time the far-right ever get curbed is when there's some massive, cataclysmic event, like a World War. I really hope that isn't the case this time.

4 minutes ago, hallicks said:

I don’t think that’s in question here. The problem is the mainstream duopoly both effectively govern the population with the message “we must accept managed decline.” Unless they get rid of the self-imposed fiscal rules, there’s no outlet for Burnham to make the big changes, like nationalising the water and other infrastructure, that would start to make a difference.

To carbomb’s point, the ratfucking of Corbyn was crucial. And it wasn’t just internal Labour desperately trying to stop him, it was the entire British establishment. Cummings admitted after the fact that the only priority in the 2019 GE was to stop Corbyn. Nothing else mattered.

So, after 20 years of “we must accept managed decline”, if everyone’s lives have continued getting more shit, more expensive, with fewer jobs, with a less educated population, with rampant AI that will make it almost impossible to trust any news outlet, what is the motivation for the electorate to come back and choose which version of managed decline they would prefer? That is how Farage wins, because enough people get fed up of being fucked over and the most repugnant, cretinous, racist shithead imaginable sells the lie that only his brand of far-right ideology can make things better. And only following that disaster can things reset and improve again. So if Burnham wants to avoid all that, he better get his fucking skates on. 

All of this. 

I've said it before ad nauseam on here, but, in the final analysis, it comes down to sheer praxis: with their actions, the Labour right essentially demonstrated that they considered the Labour left, people in their own party, to be a bigger threat to this country than the Tories. For all intents and purposes, they allied themselves with the Tories, and that is the biggest betrayal.

Edited July 21 by Carbomb
Dean Blackwell

[Chico Torres]

2 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

And the people that would suffer under a Reform government? Shall we just forget about them then? Let them suffer and smugly say "oh well, at least people see the reality eh? Grow up.

They’re already suffering greatly, they just keep getting a carrot dangled that the reason they are suffering is because of dirty brown people and “the establishment” rather than the never ending cycle of Thatcher/Blair/Brown/Cameron/May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak/Starmer/Burnham slop that is forced upon them. The suffering won’t start with reform, it’s already been happening for decades, at least in this scenario there will be the moment of realization that it’s not about boats or grooming gangs or whatever the latest bilge is where we are either worried about brown people being here or diverting all our funds to bomb them.

[SuperBacon]

9 minutes ago, hallicks said:

EDIT: just to make it clear, I am absolutely not advocating for Farage as PM in any way and I wish with all my being that it never ever happens, for the exact reasons you outline @SuperBacon. I’m just seeing the path that @Chico Torres has laid out as being difficult to avoid unless this government can offer genuine progress and hope. 

I get that, but there is a clear difference between thinking it can happen and wilfully wanting to happen. The latter is absolutely disgusting in my opinion.

[Chico Torres]

Why is it more disgusting than your never ending cycle of Thatcher/Blair/Brown/Cameron/May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak/Starmer/Burnham and the effect that it has had on the UK already?

Only difference is that Farage has a panto villain gimmick and Burnham has a cheeky northern lad gimmick. The only hope was Corbyn but he made the fatal mistake of having empathy and caring about brown people as humans and they killed him.

[organizedkaos]

16 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

They’re already suffering greatly

There are quite a few people who aren't reform supporters who will suffer significantly more under Farage. It's them I care about.

[The Gaffer]

The U.S. elected Trump a second time. I'm not sure this weird Wheel of Time style narrative you're putting on British politics is as fated to play out as well as you think it will. 

[WyattSheepMask]

4 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

Why is it more disgusting than your never ending cycle of Thatcher/Blair/Brown/Cameron/May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak/Starmer/Burnham and the effect that it has had on the UK already?

Only difference is that Farage has a panto villain gimmick and Burnham has a cheeky northern lad gimmick. The only hope was Corbyn but he made the fatal mistake of having empathy and caring about brown people as humans and they killed him.

And that’s exactly why, he’s a character, a fake, a phoney or whatever else you want to call him. If we’re going to put someone in charge just show how bad things could get, we might as well put Captain Birdseye forward