Funny how it's only ever "left wing" ideologists that think it is better to be a servant. Talk about a complete rejection of 'Power to the people'. Or are you guys now openly right wing authoritarians? That is a serious question given the comment you just made. It was the left wing of the Labour Party, Benn, Foot, Castle, etc., that originally rejected EEC membership. Can someone explain, without sounding like a captalist gammon, why you seem to have switched?
Another "this is not my Brexit". This time it is Andrew Neil: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...-killed-dream-Brexit-dividend-stone-dead.html
True. What they claimed Brexit would give the UK was the freedom and sovereignty to make our own decisions and the domestic government would be judged at the ballot box accordingly. Of course the likes of Andrew Neil, and just about every other Brexit voter, thought that the government would enact their "vision" of Brexit. Unfortunately for them, the vision of Brexit each voter had was different to others. The majority were never going to be happy with the outcome, especially as many of the visions were fanciful and, in some cases, impossible to achieve. I guess Mr Neil can choose to vote out the Tories, when the time comes, if there is another party selling the dream he has of a post Brexit UK (good luck with that!).
Free to enjoy higher taxes and poorer public services. Free to enjoy higher inflation than our neighbours and competitors. Free to cherry pick IMF data and GDP charts. Free to fail to understand that a 4% rise tomorrow does not cancel out a 4% drop today. Free to experience a gradual and irreversible decline in just about every area except the wealth of the very wealthy. Free to explain all this away with deflection and irrelevant word salad. What a win! So much winning!
I probably disagree with you on a number of things, but nothing quite as hard as Farage being a person.
Sunak has set everyone straight today that a Swiss type deal is completely out of the question. Tory MPs are circling the wagons to defend. So where did the notion come from? I have a theory that Times journalists are nothing like as smart as some think, but I also have another theory that they probably base their stories on something. So was this the first attempt by the current Government, tearing its hair out over the size of the mess it has inherited (from itself), to test the water? If so the water was pretty hot. But someone else on here suggested previously that the Tories, rather than Labour could be the first party to break ranks on Brexit and I think that’s a good shout.
That was me I think. The Tories, being "in charge" will have better access to the numbers that will be telling them that unless we get better access to the SM we are doomed to a slow decline. I'm sure Rishi, being a pragmatic banker, is desperate to get out of the corner they've painted themselves into. I've seen a quote that he said he went on the Leave side so that people could not question his Britishness. Starmer is making huge mistakes.
Your last sentence pains me greatly. I cannot tell you how much. There is no evidence to suggest that the voters Labour must convince, in order to win, are likely to back a rejoin campaign. We’ve had polls in favour of EU membership before and we still lost again and again. The South of England and shires, where this could play well, will not reliably go Labour. It must win in the towns and cities. In the Midlands and North that means accepting the Brexit vote and not challenging it, even with people who think they were conned. They don’t like the EU enough. The best Labour can do is argue that it will resolve the NI protocol by working positively and accepting terms around divergence and by having practical and ethical migration/asylum policies. The polls may show rejoin favoured and buyer regret, but the politics start when Labour says it would rejoin. At the moment, it would get slaughtered, drawing the entire fire of the Brexit loons and their press, giving them renewed purpose. Most likely the Tories then win again. That should be unthinkable.
It doesn't matter what Starmer does or says, the right-wing press will portray it however they wish. Starmer said that British businesses must wean themselves off 'cheap' labour. The Telegraph's front page headline today says: "UK must wean itself off migrant labour". That is not what Starmer said. In fact, he said stuff about the importance of foreign workers to the economy. But it literally doesn't matter. The port-faced old buffers and weirdos who still read the Telegraph have alternative reality. The Mail does much the same. Those two papers do more to distort and run down Britain on a daily basis than almost anything else.
Are people still listening to the Tory and Brexit loons though? I get the argument that it might be too soon to campaign to rejoin but there is no need for Starmer to play the "cheap workers" myth that the loons and lexit supporters used during Brexit. I think it is time for Labour to highlight the huge issues that Brexit has caused. People have seen it for themselves. The data is known now. We have the facts and they show that Brexit has been an economic disaster and continues to be so. Labour can continue to use their "we will make Brexit work" slogan but that could include looking at "Swiss and Norway" style relationships and yes, that should include FoM because the lack of labour in our ageing society is a major factor in our economic stagnation. People can see what it looks like to be poorer now and I am sure that they are open to some movement to a closer relationship with the EU if it can be shown that they will be better off.
At the moment, the right is tearing itself apart. Why give it any reason to unite? There is plenty of opportunity for Labour to resolve much of Brexit’s mess, but politics is the art of the possible. It needs to win power and we need to focus on the election maps.
What really worries me is this growing talk (amongst the 'opinion formers') of autarchy - I was repeatedly taught that it's little more than economic gibberish - is this a harbinger of things to come?
The neo-liberal fantasists who preach and worship at the Temple of Brexit are continually having their gospels shown to be how extremely damaging they are to our economy. I just hope that implosion isn't going to cause permanent (ie decades long) damage to this country.
But why does he need to talk about migrant labour when, by doing so, he is arguing against FoM. This is the man that, only a few years ago, was very pro-EU. If Labour do take a softer line if/when they are in power then his words now will come back to haunt him.
We are nowhere near FoM. It’s simply not the question at the moment. The public is highly sceptical around immigration and while that isn’t always thought out, it has to be dealt with. But as a CBI bod is explaining on the TV now, while the headline was of no return to unlimited cheap overseas labour (a popular policy across social classes), Starmer actually set out a plan to plug labour gaps in the short term with immigration and develop a coherent approach to migration for the future. There’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done by that promise.
It already has. We are into the period of managing that damage while the electorate and opinion formers continue to demand unicorns.
It'd just be an act of self-harm. Whichever way you slice it, what you're proposing Labour does is set out a campaign based on a message of 'you were wrong' to half the electorate. I just can't see that being a winning proposition. And @Moose is spot on that it'd just galvanise the Brexit loons at a point where they've started to lose their grip on the levers of power for the first time in a decade. Even with the polls looking formidable for Labour (which in itself is admittedly meaningless given a GE campaign could still be 18 months away), the swing they need to get back to a majority without being propped up by the SNP is well into landslide territory. Starmer can only do that by threading the needle from a policy perspective and frankly letting sleeping dogs lie. Even if those sleeping dogs have fleas and stink to high heaven. We can put them out of their (our) misery later on...
I don't expect Labour to make noises about the SM and CU and FOM, let alone rejoin. But he seems to be going out of his way to double down on the opposite. He may well find himself outflanked. And personally, I now find myself in a genuine dilemma. Do I believe Starmer, in which case I will not vote Labour, or do I keep the faith that he's 'playing the long game' - i.e. lying? And as public opinion and debate swings to allow him a much more nuanced approach, I can only conclude that he is misguided at best, or has surrounded himself with brexitty types (he has) and they've converted him. I'm hoping that the LDs will test the water with a full blooded call for SM and CU membership/Norway, which is now a lot easier to sell positively than the negative/project fear approach at the referendum. In the same way as UKIP forced the Tories into the referendum, a resurgent LD party on a pro-EU ticket might wake the Labour Party up.
He's not letting sleeping dogs lie. He's slipping mogadon into their pedigree chum by needlessly trying to appear to out ERG the ERG.
I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. We are supposed to believe that Starmer is saying one thing but will do something completely differently when in power. He's not really demonising migrants and blaming them for low pay when using the "term cheap overseas labour"? He's just playing the bigots and racists to get their vote? A reminder the the NIESR found that migrants reduced the average hourly pay at the low end of the market by a maximum of 8p per hour. If low pay is the problem then there are much more efficient ways of fixing it than stopping migration! I am a genuine floating voter. Obviously I don't want a continuation of this disastrous Tory administration but I don't want a pro-Brexit government either. I live in a traditional Tory southern parliamentary seat. But it is now vulnerable and Labour recently claimed the council. I have a few friends who are floating voters like me. They are also pro-EU. I think there is a good chance we will vote LD, even if that risks the seat staying Tory, rather than believe Starmer is still a remainer playing a game for the northern red wall.
Offering working visas for specific trades etc doesn't work though, does it? We tried it with agricultural workers. We tried it with truck drivers. We tried it with abbatoir workers. Nobody came. Why would you? "You can come for 2 years to do this shittty job until we've trained "are own" and then you can **** off.
You are not alone in wondering what long game Starmer is playing. At some point it would be nice to see a bit of socialism, rather than just expelling socialists. It’s probably best to take him on his word. But he’s not being advised by Brexiteers, merely by strategists like Mandelson who are triangulating the approach that they think will win. But in this instance, he is adopting the only approach available. The electorate are highly problematic on this point. Overwhelmingly, they reject mass-migration. Every poll says so. No matter that they still expect jobs to be filled and the economy to grow. Brexit has never made sense and it won’t now. The only possible policy currently is managed migration, however nicely or otherwise it is dressed up. But as long as I can remember, a left/progressive goal has been a highly trained/waged economy raising the standard of living (and productivity) of UK workers to something nearer that of their Scandinavian and German counterparts. What is not to like about upskilling UK workers as the first response? Saying that we should not rely on cheap foreign labour should not be an insult to anyone, as long as we welcome and reward people who do come here.
But that’s not impossible by a long way. That’s the surly, resentful Brexiteer way. The UK can be more appealing and more generous.
By the time the next GE is held, it's doubtful the current Labour lead will be as high, so there will need to be a good performance by the LDs in constituencies that will be unlikely to go Labour. I'm not sure an anti-Brexit manifesto would deliver those results where needed.
As a rejoiner, I am hoping that the polls narrow and that Labour needs support from the LDs to oust the Tories. Labour can then blame steps towards re-integration with the EU as the price demanded by the LDs. Mind you, even the LDs seem to be taking a very nuanced approach towards the SM/CU/EU. Surely with the two main parties being firmly pro-Brexit they can see the advantage of differentiating themselves.
The Icelandic owners are exerting their sovereignty and taking back control of their factory: Landmark Grimsby seafood factory closing after losses of £8 million PS. Grimsby voted 69.9% leave.
