British Politics Guide

[Linguoboy]

Thank you. Still less extreme than Sal's 83/14 ratio though. Perhaps he got his numbers from a more current source, which already shows the effects of the recent crisis?

Looks like it's from a survey of voting intentions that predates it. See: https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Poll-Onl ... bor-494366.

But note the last two paragraphs:

Prof. Geoffrey Alderman, a historian who has extensively covered British Jews’ involvement in politics for decades and who polled the community from the 1970s to early ’90s, told the Post that “The reservoir of rock-solid Jewish Labour voters that one was once accustomed to in the half century following the Second World War has gone – it’s been breached.”

Asked why only 20 years ago Labour had once electorally excelled in seats with high Jewish populations, whereas it now finds itself lagging behind, Alderman noted that “Tony Blair was regarded as a friend of the Jewish people and a friend of Israel. That pedigree is not enjoyed by the present leadership of the Labour Party.”

I find the UK situation fascinating because it's pretty much the reverse of the USA, where two-thirds of Jews lean Democratic and only about a quarter supported the GOP pre-Trump. The differences are largely sectarian, with most of the Republican support coming from Orthodox communities white Reform and Conservative Jews are heavily Democratic.

[Salmoneus]

...

I'm not going to get into a sentence-by-sentence fight, but to point out a few things:

- I didn't say Labour weren't bigoted; of course not caring about Jews doesn't preclude having negative opinions of them. The point was the lopsidedness of the effect: one side are much smaller but much more passionate than the other. Labour's problem hasn't been so much fighting with the Jewish community, it's been trying to ignore the dispute altogether.

- all that "evil Tory", "St Jeremy" bollocks is your own projection. While it's true I don't like the Conservative party, I also don't particularly like Jeremy Corbyn, and I actively dislike the most vocal chunk of his supporters. As a general point here, I think it's useful to try to practice seeing political disputes as political disputes, rather than automatically latching on to one side as absolutely good or absolutely evil, and assuming anyone disagreeing with you believes the direct opposite.

- likewise "those stupid minority people complaining about bigotry against them are all hysterical" - I didn't say even a word of that. I think there clearly is a hysterical aspect to some of the moral panic, sure, as there almost always is about moral panics (witness, for example, your post), but I don't think that's true of the great majority of people alienated by Labour over this. However, anyone who thinks that the concerted attacks on Corbyn from outside the Jewish community, from the Labour right, from the press and from rival parties are all motivated by pure, altruistic outrage on behalf of the Jewish community is deeply naive about British politics and, I'd suggest, about politics in general. Notably, there's been no attempt to broaden this into a discussion of antisemitism in other parties - antisemitism being much more prevalent in most other parties, after all (other than the lib dems) - or even to look at antisemitism among supporters of the blairite faction. Instead, it's directly aimed at Corbyn and Momentum.

Politics is complicated.

[mèþru]

I never got the impression that the Parliamentary Conservatives, besides a tiny faction, are antisemitic. The other Conservatives are another story.

The Parliamentary Labour party also doesn't give that vibe, except for a somewhat less negligible minority that now have more access to the top positions under Corbyn.

[mèþru]

Does the investigation into Boris Johnson mean it's already decided that he'll be kicked out? If not, why isn't the process public?
Context: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45130532

[alice]

Does the investigation into Boris Johnson mean it's already decided that he'll be kicked out? If not, why isn't the process public?
Context: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45130532

Boris is too popular, and thus too valuable to the Conservatives, to actually be kicked out. Expect a slap on the wrist.

[Salmoneus]

Does the investigation into Boris Johnson mean it's already decided that he'll be kicked out? If not, why isn't the process public?
Context: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45130532

Boris is too popular, and thus too valuable to the Conservatives, to actually be kicked out. Expect a slap on the wrist.

Indeed. The party needed to be seen to do something, to distance itself from Boris - and a lot of hierarchs want to kick Boris around a bit anyway. But actually kicking out one of the politicians who is most popular with the party as a whole, in response to an insensitive joke taken out of context (note: Boris was actually opposing the burka ban), which the plurality of the public actually support, would be cutting their own foot off. Not only would it mobilise the grassroots of their own party against the leadership, but "liberals execute a fellow liberal because he made a slightly non-PC joke while defending a liberal policy that's already more liberal than a lot of the people would like" would be an open invitation for anyone right of centre (ie 90% of the party) to go join UKIP again.

The point of inquiries in Britain is for things to be dragged out long enough to no longer be in the headlines, and then deliver a strongly-worded statement of mild recommendation that people think carefully about the complexities of the context of the situation and maybe, perhaps, contemplate acting differently in future.



To be clear, I think the joke was insensitive and inflammatory - probably intentionally so (everything Boris rights is a career move; attacking a right-wing policy suggestion while appealing to right-wing voters by adopting their language and tastes is classic Boris fence-sitting). A politician should not have been telling that joke, particularly in the current context. I think he should apologise. But if you can't be in the Tory party if you make that joke, then most of the Tory party will have to leave the party. It would also seem bizarre to say that Boris needs to leave the party for saying that, hee hee, the slot in the niqab look like the slot in a letterbox, ha ha, when apparently he didn't need to leave the party for, for example, describing black people as "flag-waving picaninnies" who would stop "hacking flesh" and "break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief". Or, indeed, for, for example, attacking the city of Liverpool for "wallowing in grief" over the mere matter of a Liverpudlian being decapitated by terrorists. Or for getting a British citizen a dramatically lengthened prison sentence in Iran by not giving enough of a shit about his job to read his briefing papers and then refusing to apologise for it.

Withdrawing the whip is a rarely-used tactic, in part because it can easily backfire. If they take the whip from Boris, he'll not only win re-election as an independent but he'll take his local association with him. And then instead of an annoying backbencher, they'll have an even more annoying independent who doesn't even pretend to have to support the party line, and who will have nothing left to lose.

[Bryan]

<snip>

An amusing and accurate summary. Ah, Theresa May, the woman that nobody wants as PM. Ah, Chequers, the plan that nobody, pro-Remain or pro-Leave or the EU, wants. Ah, Mother of Parliaments, Home of Democracy, Land of Hope and Glory...

[Salmoneus]

Not really part of a guide, per se, but an update...

The last two years of Brexit negotiations can essentially be summarised:

Phase 1:
UK: Give us what we want, or else!
EU: What do you want?
UK: Urh... we don't know! Anything! Look, just agree to it now, and we'll work out what you agreed to later.
EU:... no.

Phase 2:
UK: Give us what we want, or else!
Eu: What do you want?
UK: Everything! All these things, but also NOT these things, and all those things, but also not those things. Look, we just want to have nothing to do with you, while also having a close relationship with you, in which you give us everything we want, but nothing we don't want, OK?
EU: ...no.

It seems unavoidable that we will now have No Deal. May has moved from 'this is our position' through to 'there will be no compromises, and even asking for compromise is a sign of Disrespect that justifies us refusing to negotiate further'. It's really hard to see how she can back down now, having pinned her premiership so decisively to the mast. But it's also hard to see how her party could realistically assassinate her and replace her before time runs out, given that whoever gets the job next will be following her into unemployment soon after. Which leaves the EU... but, after some polite "we can talk about things" niceties, the 27 just came down like a long ton of bricks on her proposals. They've said all along that we have to be either in or out, and while I can imagine them politely agreeing to continue 'negotiation' for another month or two, it's hard to see them reversing their position at this point.

Soo... doomsday appropinquateth...

[Linguoboy]

So how much longer before the premiership devolves to Posh Trump?

[mèþru]

You mean Rees-Mogg?

[Linguoboy]

You mean Rees-Mogg?

I was thinking BoJo Horseman, actually.

[mèþru]

I am pretty sure he's out of consideration by now.

[Salmoneus]

On current form, BoJo will be PM when hell freezes over. That said, there is a strange inevitability about him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he comes back to prominence again at some point in the future.

Boris has failed in four ways.

First, he hasn't been a great Foreign Secretary. He hasn't, honestly, been as awful as some people feared - but it's a job that you have to either excel at, or be seen as a failure at - it's too important for mediocrity. In particular, the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case - where he was incompetent, callous and narcissistic with a woman's life on the line - badly damaged the hopes of anyone who thought he might rise to the challenge of the job.

Second, he hasn't been loyal. He's repeatedly stabbed the prime minister in the back, which offends Tory honour - and he hasn't been able to rally disciples around him, or find a patron. There are no Johnsonians, at least in parliament, just Johnson - nobody trusts him. By contrast, back at the last leadership election, Michael Gove was even more hated than Johnson - but by strategically keeping his powder dry, Gove has gradually wormed his way back, while Johnson's alienated more and more people.

Third, he hasn't been effectively disloyal. He's had his chances to try to bring down the government, but he hasn't taken them. It's one thing to be known to be plotting something - but to be known to be plotting, and to be seen to fail to act on it, indicates not just venality but, more importantly, weakness. He's allied himself with the hard-brexit right (even though we all know he doesn't believe it), but his freshness has worn off, his attacks are mistimed and always with one, vacillating eye over his shoulder, and he's been upstaged by Rees-Mogg as the figurehead of that side of the party. Now he's flailing around trying to position himself, without really committing himself, and it's just not working.

Fourth, his private life is notoriously a mess - constant affairs and rumours of illegitimate children, and not in an old-fashioned Tory delicate 'arrangements' way where the wife and mistresses organise things harmoniously and nobody hears about it, but in a 'one step ahead of the tabloids' way.* After his latest attack on the PM, she retaliated by pointing out her 'dossier' on his private life and the papers went after him for a few days as his marriage collapsed. Now, if everything else were OK in Borisland, that wouldn't be a problem - it's always been part of his brand, and you don't elect a charismatic, rule-breaking journalist-turned-politico if you're looking for probity and slumber. But with everything else going wrong, pictures of his dishevelled and distraught as his wife leaves him and takes the kids with her don't exactly convey the image of a strong, disciplined, intelligent man of principle.


As I've mentioned before, there's a general principle in the conservative party: "he who wields the knife, never wears the crown". Tories react to people trying to be party leader much the same way the roman senate reacted when Julius Caesar tried to become king: that sort of ambition puts a giant target on your back, and nobody (other than Thatcher) who removes a Tory leader gets to replace them. Johnson has been running all over Westminster and Fleet Street** with a pollaxe. Now, superstition's only superstition, and with the wind at his back he could have become leader. But he doesn't have the support anymore. The MPs mostly contemn him, and while he still has a big power base in the grassroots party it's probably not strong enough to intimade the MPs into letting him have a chance. The leadership system sees candidates whittled down to two by MPs before the membership get a vote; Johnson MIGHT have enough popular backing to win the final vote against some candidates, particularly someone seen as a remainer - but MPs aren't going to give him that chance.


That said... if he stops throwing away his career by being too blatently ambitious, and if he serves well on the back-benches, I wouldn't be shocked by a comeback in 5 or 10 years as an 'elder statesman'...


----------

I would note, though: BJ isn't like Trump at all. Trump is a reactionary buffoon. BJ is very intelligent and very cunning - he was President of the Oxford Union. [his biggest weakness isn't his intellect, or his buffoonish disguise, but his laziness, and his arrogance, and allegedly his cocaine.] He's also not a populist or a nationalist - he may have Bannon fooled, but that's because he's smarter than Bannon and good at fooling people. He's actually a socially-liberal, economically-moderate centrist, and a cosmopolitan (as befits an American of Turkish and Swiss ancestry, like him) - his affection for tradition and institution and the trappings of empire are genuine, but only window-dressing. His newfound flirtation with Farage and Bannon and Rees-Mogg supporters and so on is only a political manoeuvre.

---------------------



*he impregnated his second wife while still married to his first. He was sacked as Tory vice-chairman in 2004 when, as editor of the Spectator, one of the journalists working for him was found to have had at least two abortions as a result of their friendship, which provoked his own theatre critics to write a west-end play satirising his sex-life; then there was another scandal in 2006 when he was believed to have been sleeping with another of his employees; then in 2010 one of his mistresses was believed to have had a child by him. In the latest instance, there's believed to be a "close friendship" with one of his aides (a little over half his age). The PM's office have been unofficially boasting that they can release not just "lurid details" of his sex-life, but also remarks he's made about his cocaine habit. None of that would be inherently career-ending, but it's probably more headwind than he has the sails to cope with right now.


**Fleet Street: street in the City, near Temple. (Temple Church is actually on Fleet Street). Named after the River Fleet (no longer visible), Fleet Street was for centuries a haunt of middle-class merchants and writers, as well as taverns and brothels (Chaucer once assaulted a friar there; Milton, Drydon, Johnson, Dickens and many others lived or worked there) and naturally evolved to become the headquarters of the British newspaper industry. The papers mostly moved out in the 1980s, when Rupert Murdoch broke the power of the printing unions by moving his business to Wapping, but 'Fleet Street' remains an informal name for the industry as a whole.
(the street is still home to many of the original taverns, if no longer the brothels - though most had to be rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

[mèþru]

Yes, Trump and Boris are two very different kinds of monsters to watch out for. Knowing the difference helps in fighting them.

[dewrad]

I’m intrigued, Sal. What’s your prediction on the likelihood of a second referendum/"People’s Vote" (a term I have not a little distaste for)? Obviously as a lefty-liberal remainer who would rather all this Brexit nonsense just fuck off back to the Tory hell it came from, I’m very much in favour. But, given Jonathan Freedland’s article in the Guardian (I know...) today, I’m not full of hope even if it does take place.

[KathTheDragon]

As another lefty-liberal remainer, I'd love if we could stick it to the fearmongering politicians and somehow show that we never actually wanted this mess... but a) I've always doubted we'd get another referendum, why would they risk their slim majority like that? And b) I doubt another referendum would actually change the result significantly enough.

[mèþru]

I think we can assume everyone commenting is lefty (liberal or not) unless if they say otherwise, given the political slant of those who generally participate in these discussions .

I don't think one can legally "undo" the article 50, regardless of a second referendum.

(fixed typo article 60)

[KathTheDragon]

There's that, too (though it's article 50)

[Salmoneus]

I don't think a second referendum is possible, unfortunately.

It makes sense - Cameron should have set it up as two-stage in the first place. [first: should we negotiate a withdrawal? If yes, then second: are these the terms we withdraw under?]

But the timeline makes it impossible.

We've got until March. Is Theresa May going to call a referendum? No. If she "wins" (brexit) she's no better off than she is now (it's not like anyone's actually trying to STOP brexit). If she "loses" (no brexit), it undermines both her own and her party's legitimacy. Is a May replacement going to call a referendum? Not if they're hardline - they'd be risking their favourite policy. If they're Dominic Grieve? Sure. But May isn't going to be replaced in the next six months, and if she is, it will NOT be by Dominic Grieve.

So a second referendum would have to be held by the opposition parties. If there's a really shocking deal made, the DUP could side with the other parties to have a second referendum - but they wouldn't have time. Because that would be a last resort (they'd bring down the government and lose their cushy deal), so they'll negotiate out to the end of the rope and then have no time for a huge bureaucratic process like a referendum.

So it's only likely to happen if Labour take power in a new election. And that IS possible... but only just. We'd need to have the Tories implode spectacularly, May be jettisoned, the DUP refuse to prop them up, fresh elections be called (and that alone takes a month and a half at minimum), Labour to win, Labour to decide to actually have a policy, decide that policy should be a second referendum, and then HAVE that referendum, all before March. "Theresa May caught snorting cocaine with the Pope, the Taoiseach and Hilary Clinton" might be enough to get the DUP to withdraw their support, but not much less than that.


And then if there were a second referendum, it couldn't legally halt the Brexit process. What it could do is force politicians to adopt a super-soft last-minute Brexit deal in preparation for rejoining... but there probably wouldn't be time for that now.


No, we're heading out. Best chance: disastrous No Deal, government collapses, replaced by Labour, Corbyn removed by some sort of scandal and replaced by pro-EU leader; everyone blames Brexit for everything, five years from now we start reaccession talks.

More likely: disastrous No Deal, Tories tell us "oh, we had a BRILLIANT brexit plan that would have been fantastic for EVERYONE, but the sadistic, brit-hating EU refused to negotiate! so everything's their fault" and everyone believes them and we never rejoin.

[mèþru]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45616308