MPs quitting Labour & Conservative parties discussion thread

prawnsambo

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Between him being confirmed as Labour leader in 2015 and the 2017 general election being called we were told repeatedly about what a joke shop Corbyn was, how hard left policies in the UK had no base of support and how we was expected to be crushed at the ballot box.

He got 40%.

Now it’s the same stuff again about how he’ll be crushed at the ballot box with explanations that his 40% in 2017 was because of this, that and the other. Anything but an endorsement of his manifesto and campaign. Fair enough.

Labour polling did not look good when the election was called. In fact that's why it was called in the first place. So I don't know why you're saying that people were misguided about their prospects, they didn't look great at the time. And I remember looking at tracking after the election and Labour were gaining steadily coming up to polling day.

Polling is not looking good for Labour again. But if there's a hard brexit, I'd confidently say that the Tories will be decimated. Even TM's deal could clobber them as nobody will be happy with it. So the next election is Labour's to lose as far as I can predict.

Franz Von Peppercorn

prawnsambo wrote: »

Labour polling did not look good when the election was called. In fact that's why it was called in the first place. So I don't know why you're saying that people were misguided about their prospects, they didn't look great at the time. And I remember looking at tracking after the election and Labour were gaining steadily coming up to polling day.

Polling is not looking good for Labour again. But if there's a hard brexit, I'd confidently say that the Tories will be decimated. Even TM's deal could clobber them as nobody will be happy with it. So the next election is Labour's to lose as far as I can predict.

?

How are the Tories decimated if there's a hard Brexit? They have most of the Brexit vote.

Professor Moriarty

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

?

How are the Tories decimated if there's a hard Brexit? They have most of the Brexit vote.

They are the government. A hard Brexit will hammer Britain's economy and they, rightly, will be blamed.

prawnsambo

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

They are the government. A hard Brexit will hammer Britain's economy and they, rightly, will be blamed.

Thanks. I'm actually surprised that the question was asked tbh. I'm sure there will be a slight delay while the reality/dreams interface collapses under the weight of empty shelves and no chicken in KFC, but when it does, the sound of cognitive dissonance exploding heads around the UK will probably be heard in outer space. And then will come the fury and that will be directed mainly at the Tories. I don't expect Labour to get off lightly either, but they will be able to do a Pontius Pilate and say it wasn't their brexit.

Gbear

prawnsambo wrote: »

Thanks. I'm actually surprised that the question was asked tbh. I'm sure there will be a slight delay while the reality/dreams interface collapses under the weight of empty shelves and no chicken in KFC, but when it does, the sound of cognitive dissonance exploding heads around the UK will probably be heard in outer space. And then will come the fury and that will be directed mainly at the Tories. I don't expect Labour to get off lightly either, but they will be able to do a Pontius Pilate and say it wasn't their brexit.

They already believed that their problems were down to fantasy reasons related to the EU.

Why will that change post-Brexit? They'll shift their ire where they're told to, whether that's the mean EU punishing the UK, or the no good scroungers, or the foreigners, or people with silly hats.

If anything, I think, as it usually does, the increasing difficulties will breed more and more extremism and reward ever more dangerous populist nonsense.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

They are the government. A hard Brexit will hammer Britain's economy and they, rightly, will be blamed.

So people who support Brexit are going to change to remain after a recession? I doubt it. Nationalism triumphs over economics. This country is proof of that.

If things don’t work out the brexiters will blame the EU for unfair terms, adopt a Battle of Britain mentality, cheer any deal with any foreign country no matter how small, and a high percentage of the remainers will likely emigrate if they can. The politics and the population itself will change, as it did here post 1921.

Franz Von Peppercorn

prawnsambo wrote: »

Thanks. I'm actually surprised that the question was asked tbh. I'm sure there will be a slight delay while the reality/dreams interface collapses under the weight of empty shelves and no chicken in KFC, but when it does, the sound of cognitive dissonance exploding heads around the UK will probably be heard in outer space. And then will come the fury and that will be directed mainly at the Tories. I don't expect Labour to get off lightly either, but they will be able to do a Pontius Pilate and say it wasn't their brexit.

So you are now supporting the labour position? Corbyn is a political genius. He’ll let the Tories implode and then switch to remain and clean up?

Sam Russell

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So you are now supporting the labour position? Corbyn is a political genius. He’ll let the Tories implode and then switch to remain and clean up?

No-one said it will be Corbyn reaping the benefits of a Tory implosion.

Could be, but it might not be.

Professor Moriarty

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So you are now supporting the labour position? Corbyn is a political genius. He’ll let the Tories implode and then switch to remain and clean up?

How can you switch to remain after a hard Brexit? Do you think the EU will roll out the welcome mat?

prawnsambo

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So people who support Brexit are going to change to remain after a recession? I doubt it. Nationalism triumphs over economics. This country is proof of that.

If things don’t work out the brexiters will blame the EU for unfair terms, adopt a Battle of Britain mentality, cheer any deal with any foreign country no matter how small, and a high percentage of the remainers will likely emigrate if they can. The politics and the population itself will change, as it did here post 1921.

No. They'll blame May for being a remainer and thus the architect of the failure. That narrative is already warmed up and being trotted out every time somebody talks about a delay. Or any setback really.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So you are now supporting the labour position? Corbyn is a political genius. He’ll let the Tories implode and then switch to remain and clean up?

Good Lord no. He's an idealogue. There's no revolution without bloodshed. And it's not exactly genius. A blind man could see it a mile out. So the faithful will stay the course even if it's at the expense of jobs and economic armageddon. But the duopoly suggests he gets in, even if it's as a minority. But it's no prize. There'll be as much political instability as economic.

markodaly

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

He got 65% of the vote from under 40s. This is not in fact normal - although some people move to the right as they age the Labour Party has never had that level of support, and nor is 39 that young.

I see you keep dodging my question about Corbyns position on Brexit and the youth vote, so I will ask again.

Why would the younger electorate, who are pro Remain and pro a Peoples vote, vote for Corbyn when he is a Brexiter at heart and refuses to back a Peoples vote?

markodaly

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I don't know how you resell globalisation to those left behind, but telling them they're stupid certainly isn't the way to go about it.

I never called them stupid, I said they were wrong and deluded.
Telling the people what they want to hear is populism ala Trump or Farage. Corbyn is a populist, pure and simple.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

9th Labour MP gone, Ian Austin

citing anti-antisemitism and a "broken" Labour Party

Harry Palmr

He isn't joining the non party though.

There is talk of a confidence and supply proposition from the "11", presumably to seek to undermine the DUP

Water John

The IG are already having influence as both TM and JC are now having to weigh the real risk of further defections to the centre. So JC was talking about 2nd Ref, for the first time, also Cabinet Ministers and others pushing for No Deal to be off the table.

Gbear

Harry Palmr wrote: »

He isn't joining the non party though.

There is talk of a confidence and supply proposition from the "11", presumably to seek to undermine the DUP

An extension and a referendum on May's Deal or Remain would surely be the conditions they would offer her.

Although just because the DUP are undermined, doesn't mean her bill would get through.

Still, with another referendum being ignored, we don't really know how the commons would vote for it.

The ERG would presumably all oppose it, so you'd have to get others to make up the numbers.

is_that_so

TIG might help with that, especially if it grows in size.

murphaph

I would like to see many more defections to a centrist party, not just because of Brexit but because the UK's entire political system needs a reboot with a dumping of FPTP coming very high on the list of priorities. I believe the only way this will ever happen is if a large centrist party is formed.

FPTP prevents this happening through the electoral process as a vote for the existing centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, is seen was wasted in so many constituencies. You vote Labour to keep the Tories out and vice versa, voting for who you hate less of the two main parties. Awful system.

Mass defections of elected centrist MPs however allows such a party to be started and have an effect without relying on voters. It's the only way the UK will break away from FPTP I think. The IG could (if it could attract say 50 MPs) be seen as a very real alternative come the next election, purely because they would already be a "large party".

I would have hoped for some more courage from those centrist MPs, but not sure we are going to see it. I must say the women are the ones with the balls in all this, shamefully low percentage of defecting male MPs given they outnumber women in the HoC at large.

ilkhanid

prawnsambo wrote: »

No. They'll blame May for being a remainer and thus the architect of the failure. That narrative is already warmed up and being trotted out every time somebody talks about a delay. Or any setback really.

its an old story with nationalism. After the enemy without is blamed, then ire turns on the enemy within. Remember that Germany would have won the First World War were it not for the Stab in the Back. Trump runs with this all the time:the enemies and false friends outside;the traitors and waverers within,

prawnsambo wrote: »

Good Lord no. He's an idealogue. There's no revolution without bloodshed. And it's not exactly genius. A blind man could see it a mile out. So the faithful will stay the course even if it's at the expense of jobs and economic armageddon.

The Left Wing version of Disaster Capitalism. Economic disaster is seen not as a catastrophe, but as an opportunity to be cultivated.

hill16bhoy

murphaph wrote: »

I would like to see many more defections to a centrist party, not just because of Brexit but because the UK's entire political system needs a reboot with a dumping of FPTP coming very high on the list of priorities. I believe the only way this will ever happen is if a large centrist party is formed.

FPTP prevents this happening through the electoral process as a vote for the existing centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, is seen was wasted in so many constituencies. You vote Labour to keep the Tories out and vice versa, voting for who you hate less of the two main parties. Awful system.

Mass defections of elected centrist MPs however allows such a party to be started and have an effect without relying on voters. It's the only way the UK will break away from FPTP I think. The IG could (if it could attract say 50 MPs) be seen as a very real alternative come the next election, purely because they would already be a "large party".

I would have hoped for some more courage from those centrist MPs, but not sure we are going to see it. I must say the women are the ones with the balls in all this, shamefully low percentage of defecting male MPs given they outnumber women in the HoC at large.

First past the post is indeed an appalling system.

But I don't see how The Independent Group are going to change things in this regard.

The Liberal Democrats went into the 2010 General Election with 62 seats and for a short time during that campaign looked to have huge momentum, and looked to be a genuine alternative to the two main parties.

But it dissipated very quickly and they ended up actually losing seats, and then when they went into coalition had their AV referendum soundly defeated and were wiped out at the next election.

The institutional barriers to change that FPTP creates are massive, and if the Liberal Democrats couldn't overcome them and change things, with an established party grass roots machine, then I don't see how a pop up party such as The Indepedent Group, who have none of that, has a hope of doing it.

murphaph

hill16bhoy wrote: »

First past the post is indeed an appalling system.

But I don't see how The Independent Group are going to change things in this regard.

The Liberal Democrats went into the 2010 General Election with 62 seats and for a short time during that campaign looked to have huge momentum, and looked to be a genuine alternative to the two main parties.

But it dissipated very quickly and they ended up actually losing seats, and then when they went into coalition had their AV referendum soundly defeated and were wiped out at the next election.

The institutional barriers to change that FPTP creates are massive, and if the Liberal Democrats couldn't overcome them and change things, with an established party grass roots machine, then I don't see how a pop up party such as The Indepedent Group, who have none of that, has a hope of doing it.

Fair points, perhaps I'm being overly optimistic.

However IF the Lib Dems did offer up their (arguably tainted) brand and merge into the IG, the grass roots organisation could be taken advantage of, one would hope.

I despair for the UK if it is not capable of banishing FPTP to where it belongs. If they can't another Brexit-like fiasco is waiting around the corner.

Leroy42

hill16bhoy wrote: »

First past the post is indeed an appalling system.

But I don't see how The Independent Group are going to change things in this regard.

The Liberal Democrats went into the 2010 General Election with 62 seats and for a short time during that campaign looked to have huge momentum, and looked to be a genuine alternative to the two main parties.

But it dissipated very quickly and they ended up actually losing seats, and then when they went into coalition had their AV referendum soundly defeated and were wiped out at the next election.

The institutional barriers to change that FPTP creates are massive, and if the Liberal Democrats couldn't overcome them and change things, with an established party grass roots machine, then I don't see how a pop up party such as The Indepedent Group, who have none of that, has a hope of doing it.

You have answered your own point. The Lob Dems came close to achieving it, but ran into problems of their own making and some outside issues.

Learn from the mistakes. They were soundly beaten by the Tories in terms of the coalition. The next junior party to enter into a coalition needs to be far better prepared and more prepared to walk away. I got the feeling that Clegg would do almost anything rather than walk away and as such the Tories simply walked all over them.

When, for example, the Tories failed to stand up for the change to voting, the LibDems should have walked. Hindsight is easy of course but any future party needs to learn from those mistakes.

hill16bhoy

Leroy42 wrote: »

You have answered your own point. The Lob Dems came close to achieving it, but ran into problems of their own making and some outside issues.

Learn from the mistakes. They were soundly beaten by the Tories in terms of the coalition. The next junior party to enter into a coalition needs to be far better prepared and more prepared to walk away. I got the feeling that Clegg would do almost anything rather than walk away and as such the Tories simply walked all over them.

When, for example, the Tories failed to stand up for the change to voting, the LibDems should have walked. Hindsight is easy of course but any future party needs to learn from those mistakes.

The Tories are a separate party though and of course the Tories weren't going to support the abolition of FPTP, because it benefits them more than anybody else.

The Tories have always been up front that they support FPTP. The Lib Dems knew that when they entered talks with them.

When should the Lib Dems have walked? Before the referendum when it was clear the Tories wouldn't support it or afterwards when AV had been defeated?

The Lib Dems would have been ridiculed for walking away because their bigger coalition partner didn't agree with them on a referendum issue, a referendum that was only held because the Lib Dems were in coalition in the first place.

Tuition fees more than anything is what destroyed them though.

Leroy42

Of course we can argue all day about what the LibDems should have done, but the fact that they came out of it far worse off than the Tories is all you need to know.

The moment of their biggest strength was at the negotiation, once they formed the government the Tories knew they would need something big to pull out. The DUP are seeing the exact same. So they should have got the Tories to agree to a proper defined ref as part of any coalition plan.

They seemed to think that are gentlemans agreement was enough and then were not strong enough to walk away, and I accept you point about them being blamed if they had.

But the overall point is that small parties are not doomed to failure, look at what UKIP achieved. But they need to learn the lessons and be ready to be hard nosed about their principles.

hill16bhoy

Leroy42 wrote: »

Of course we can argue all day about what the LibDems should have done, but the fact that they came out of it far worse off than the Tories is all you need to know.

The moment of their biggest strength was at the negotiation, once they formed the government the Tories knew they would need something big to pull out. The DUP are seeing the exact same. So they should have got the Tories to agree to a proper defined ref as part of any coalition plan.

They seemed to think that are gentlemans agreement was enough and then were not strong enough to walk away, and I accept you point about them being blamed if they had.

But the overall point is that small parties are not doomed to failure, look at what UKIP achieved. But they need to learn the lessons and be ready to be hard nosed about their principles.

I think small parties that pride themselves on having principles are doomed to failure from coalition governments, because their supporters tend to be younger, more idealistic and "pure" in their views and have more expectations. Their supporters tend to be idealistic about improving society.

This has consistently happened to Labour in this country and a similar thing was at play with the Lib Dems.

A junior party in a coalition government, especially with a right-wing party, is almost always going to come off worse because the nature of coalition governments is that the larger party will get to implement more of their policies than the junior one.

Mitigation of right-wing policies is always seen as capitulation.

Whereas for small right-wing parties, any sort of pulling of politics in that direction, any sort of moving of the Overton window to include harsher populist language, is seen as success.

UKIP have never been in a coalition government, but in the hypothetical event they were, I could see them doing pretty well out of it - because their support is almost cult-like and nihilistic rather than being driven by idealistic principles.

Similarly, I don't see the DUP suffering at all from their involvement in this government, nor the Lega Nord in Italy.

Maybe it's the difference between parties who are based on ideals and parties who are based on identity.

Once a party based on ideals is seen to compromise, people no longer see them as a party based on ideals.

Harry Palmr

Chatter in the proper media and social media suggests that there could be a deluge of Labour defectors. If so I'd expect it to actually stop Anti-Brexit Tories leaving lest they feel they were simply joining Labour Lite rather than a genuine er third way (!).

Danzy

ilkhanid wrote: »

its an old story with nationalism. After the enemy without is blamed, then ire turns on the enemy within. Remember that Germany would have won the First World War were it not for the Stab in the Back. Trump runs with this all the time:the enemies and false friends outside;the traitors and waverers within,



The Left Wing version of Disaster Capitalism. Economic disaster is seen not as a catastrophe, but as an opportunity to be cultivated.

Germany would have won the 2nd World War but for nationalism.

Britain would still have an Empire but for nationalism.

Nationalism is the only thing that kills imperialism.

James Brown

The Blarites want slick Tory style Labour. Has there been any examples of the antisemitism? Some pass off a dislike of the Israeli's as antisemitism, which is an insult to the Jewish faith IMO.

blanch152

Matt Barrett wrote: »

The Blarites want slick Tory style Labour. Has there been any examples of the antisemitism? Some pass off a dislike of the Israeli's as antisemitism, which is an insult to the Jewish faith IMO.

Equally, many hide their antisemitism behind an avowed dislike of the Israelis and claim it is a different thing when it is not.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

Equally, many hide their antisemitism behind an avowed dislike of the Israelis and claim it is a different thing when it is not.

And many aren't antisemitic but don't support Israel and pro-Israeli's tar them as antisemitic to damage them. We could go on.
Just looking for examples. There may be some.