Brexit and not very united kingdom politics II

[madd0ct0r]

Yougov poll of snap reaction to final boris/jezza debate tonight was 52/48 respectively. Dunno the error margin on that but its usually a few %.

A county divided, undecided and derided.

[The Romulan Republic]

Generally it seems that about 20-30% of the population in any country are committed fascists or similar, and another 20-30% are willing to go alone with fascism as long as they and the people close to them don't appear personally threatened by it.

[Zaune]

On a related note... Well, I'm not going to put up a direct link to anything by the S*n but this just happened.

The Sun has published a network map of "hard-left extremists" in the Labour Party, made by "former British intelligence officers". Its sources include the neo-Nazi website Aryan Unity (h/t @johnedenuk) and the antisemitic conspiracy site The Millennium Report.

This is a mainstream UK newspaper with circulation in the millions.

[madd0ct0r]

On a related note... Well, I'm not going to put up a direct link to anything by the S*n but this just happened.

The Sun has published a network map of "hard-left extremists" in the Labour Party, made by "former British intelligence officers". Its sources include the neo-Nazi website Aryan Unity (h/t @johnedenuk) and the antisemitic conspiracy site The Millennium Report.

This is a mainstream UK newspaper with circulation in the millions.

The same twitter source says that the Sun has now deleted the article. Former British intelligence officers sounds like an intern at GCHQ or someone who's ex army. Amusing they are now investing in the great leftie conspiracy theory, it must be that the polls are tracking the wrong way, and they need a unifying enemy to galvanise their troops.

This sort of network analysis is pretty old, and very easy to do now. I remember stumbling across a few far-right websites that took photos of counter protestors and captioned them with all the infomation they could find on each person, requesting people add info or links between them. I'd use the same appraoch on fascists. I HAVE used the same approach on an corruption chase through local councillers.

[His Divine Shadow]

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2019/1 ... orbyn.html

The othering of Jeremy Corbyn

By othering I mean treating Corbyn (or more generally the Labour left) as beyond the pale in terms of conventional politics. Othering implies that because of his past or current beliefs, associations and actions Corbyn should not be even considered as fit to be an MP, let alone a Prime Minister. Other politicians can be evaluated in conventional ways, but this does not apply to those who are othered. Othering has a number of distinctive, and potentially useful, features. Let me list two.

First, those who associate in any way with those othered are themselves regarded as questionable. I discovered this myself when I joined Labour’s short-lived Economic Advisory Committee, as I discuss here. This can be a potent threat. Second, those who are othered can be discussed in terms that would not normally be used to discuss politicians. After Johnson compared Corbyn to Stalin, Andrew Neill asked a Tory MP if he thought Corbyn would have the wealthy shot. “I do not know”, the MP replied.

Sometimes othering may be a valid position to take. I still remember the days when the far right was othered by the mainstream media, rather than being invited on Newsnight to discuss the latest bit of far right terrorism. I think that othering was helpful in ostracising racism, and its absence today is reflected in the rise of hate crime. But no such justification applies to the leader of the opposition, elected by hundreds of thousands of people, who is the only alternative to our current Prime Minister.

For othering to be justified those being othered have to have some attribute, or have done some things that are uniquely bad compared to their fellow citizens. The BNP were racist, and it is quite right that racism is ostracised. If we are talking about politicians, the same has to be applied to individuals. Is there something these politicians have done that is uniquely bad compared to other politicians.

Corbyn fails this test. There is nothing Corbyn has done that is uniquely bad compared to the obvious person to compare him with, his opponent Boris Johnson. Corbyn is not racist, which is not surprising as he has a lifelong history of fighting racism. Yet the media, almost without exception, has done its best to suggest otherwise.

The most obvious example of othering is the way the media have handled antisemitism within Labour. Labour has a real problem with antisemitism, but the media have acted as if Labour are the only party with a racism problem. In contrast Johnson is not constantly asked why he called Muslim women letterboxes and bankrobbers, and whether he will apologise for the increase in hate crime that followed that article.

As a result of this media othering of Corbyn, there are plenty of voters who say they cannot vote tactically because of Labour’s antisemitism, seemingly without any thought that they are therefore keeping in power someone who has actually made racist statements, and was part of a government that instituted some of the most discriminatory pieces of legislation of recent times that goes by the collective term hostile environment. Any outside observer would conclude that for UK society as a whole, including its media, Islamophobia is considered acceptable.

When I make these points some people accuse me of whataboutery, or in trying to minimise the problem of antisemitism in Labour. Both claims are false. The whole point about othering someone is that their alleged behaviour must be unusually bad compared to their comparators, so othering is all about whataboutery. And of course none of this is minimising Labour’s very real problem of antisemitism. Yes antisemitism exists in all parties, but there are reasons (like support for the Palestinians) why antisemitism may be worse in the Labour party, although the evidence is still that this is a problem among a very small proportion of Labour members. But equally there are also good reasons why Islamophobia and racist views will be relatively worse in the Tory party.

Then we come to terrorism. Corbyn is said to be too friendly towards terrorists, and therefore a unique threat to the UK as Prime Minister. I’m not going to defend Corbyn’s foreign policy views, some of which are dubious in my opinion, but are they uniquely bad? To say so is a hard position to defend when the UK participated with its closest ally in a pointless war in Iraq which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, a war which Corbyn opposed.

In terms of current threats, we recently had an act of terrorism in Salisbury committed by Russian agents. You would think, in response, that the Conservative party would be particularly keen to publish a select committee report on Russian interference in UK politics. Why Johnson has decided to delay the report we can only speculate on, but what we do know about is the links, sometimes financial, between the Tory party and Russians with close links to the Kremlin. Or maybe it is because Johnson does not want people to know about the extent of Russian interference in our elections.

Corbyn shares a left view of foreign policy which rarely gets much space in the media, but given the failures of past UK foreign policy and the very dubious situation of the Conservative party on Russia (again, just like their Republican counterparts in the US), there is no case for othering that view or a party leader who proposes it. The idea that a Corbyn minority government would somehow make the UK a less safe place is ludicrous when a former Tory Prime Minister is advocating people vote for just such an outcome.

Of course there is every reason for the Tory press to try and other Corbyn. Once you regard him as a perfectly normal and respectable politician, the arguments against voting for him are slim indeed. The Tory record on the economy is terrible. All they have to trumpet is employment growth, but that just reflects an appallingly (and unprecedentedly) bad record on productivity, and therefore living standards for workers. Labour’s policies for the next five years are mostly popular with the public, and even though it will cost a lot of money the cost is much less than the Brexit that will happen if Johnson sticks to his commitments.

On an individual level Corbyn seems far more preferable to Johnson as a Prime Minister, for the simple reason that Corbyn clearly cares about other people whereas Johnson cares only for himself. Corbyn shows real empathy for others, which we saw clearly after the Grenfell fire, whereas Johnson has the attitudes typical of the worst of his class. The way of hiding all that from people is to other Corbyn and his party, which virtually the entire mainstream media has done.

I understand why our current government and their supporters in the press would do that, and I have respect for those MPs (past and present) who have got out of that boat. I find it much more difficult to respect some of those in the centre, who normally pride themselves in taking a balanced and reasoned view, that are prepared to see the most right wing UK government in living memory continue to destroy the economy through Brexit, continue to cause misery for many decent people and threaten our constitution by proposing to give the executive complete control over parliament.

The othering of Corbyn will probably win the election for Johnson. But we should never give up hope, so please vote tactically on Thursday to keep Johnson out and allow a second referendum on Brexit.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I used to be a Tory voter long ago, yet it's becoming increasingly apparent that neither main party deserves to be in government, which is why I'll be voting Lib Dem as the only credible remain option available.

[His Divine Shadow]

That's a good joke.

[His Divine Shadow]

Warning twitter link, and its a video so I cannot inline it.

Massive moment from Gordon Brown.

Jeremy Corbyn is correct. We were wrong about the neoliberal consensus.

https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1203013711113392134

[madd0ct0r]

Came across an interesting argument today.

The variety of dirty tricks this election led by the tories - false accusations of assault, the fake websites ect - are not failed attempts.

They are intended to work, but probably fail and if so they encourage cynicism. Thats an emotional snap judgement position that harms the most idealistic candidates

[His Divine Shadow]

Another twitter video, and I am directing this at anyone not voting labour, this is what it is about for a lot of people. Life and Death. Not just remain or brexit.

https://twitter.com/BlogRedRobin/status ... 1899743232

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The problem I have with Labour is that they refuse to take a side when it comes to leave/remain. Right now a hung parliament is highly likely, and it could well be that the SNP or Lib Dems will wind up in a kingmaker position. As long as the Tories don't get back into power, the last thing the country needs is Boris having free reign to run the economy into the ground which Brexit in any form is sure to do.

[His Divine Shadow]

[The Romulan Republic]

Came across an interesting argument today.

The variety of dirty tricks this election led by the tories - false accusations of assault, the fake websites ect - are not failed attempts.

They are intended to work, but probably fail and if so they encourage cynicism. Thats an emotional snap judgement position that harms the most idealistic candidates

The deliberate engineering of cynicism (thus normalizing corruption and pushing people away from participation in democratic politics) is arguably one of the main goals of the "Both Sides" narrative and Whataboutism generally, and it was used with devastating effect by the Trumpers/Kremlin/faux progressive Bernie-or-Bust crowd in 2016 in the US. Not surprised the same tricks are being pulled in Britain.

This is a struggle against a GLOBAL campaign by neo-fascistic oligarchs.

[His Divine Shadow]

Oh no, Rose West endorsed the conservatives. How will Labour recover from such a celebrity endorsement?

[His Divine Shadow]

Laura K, the blatant BBC tory shill and Baghdad Bob of the UK, went too far
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-l ... ts-1338916

Laura Kuenssberg: Electoral Commission issues warning after BBC reporter reveals postal vote information

Politics Live has been removed from BBC iPlayer since the programme was broadcast live

The elections watchdog has issued a warning that it may be an offence to share information obtained at postal vote opening sessions after the BBC's political editor shared details on live television.

Laura Kuenssberg said she had been told that ballot papers which have already been counted painted a "grim" picture for Labour.

During the interview on Politics Live, she admitted that while parties are not supposed to look at voting papers when they are verified - but not counted - they do "get a hint" of how they are doing.

The BBC hit back at the claims saying it did not believe an offence had been committed. However the programme has been removed from BBC iPlayer and is no longer available to watch.



Kuenssberg made the comments after being asked about voter turnout in Thursday's election.

She said: "The forecast is that it's going to be wet and cold tomorrow, the postal votes, of course, have already arrived.

"The parties - they're not meant to look at it, but they do kind of get a hint - and on both sides people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the country.

"Of course postal voters tend to skew to elderly voters and people who vote early... but the kind of younger generation who we know skew much more to the Labour Party you might expect to turn out to the polls tomorrow. But in this winter election, turnout is just another one of these factors that we just can't predict."

What she really was doing and it's obvious is trying to depress voter turnout. It's incredible this person has her job still and only shows the depths of corruption in the BBC.

[LaCroix]

She could be right - there has been a lot of tactical vote coordination going on on the anti Tory side - Labour is definitely going to get fewer votes in some of the marginal constituencies, but those may go to the Lib Dems, just in order to prevent a Tory win.

[madd0ct0r]

Laura K, the blatant BBC tory shill and Baghdad Bob of the UK, went too far
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-l ... ts-1338916

What she really was doing and it's obvious is trying to depress voter turnout. It's incredible this person has her job still and only shows the depths of corruption in the BBC.

I've seen a big upswing in attack on her specifcially in the last week. General griping with the BBC anti-lab bias in the weeks before, General griping by Brexitieers against her in the years before that.
Certinaly the canary has had it in for her for years: https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/09/27/ ... onference/ (and got smacked down for exageration and lies too over it too).

I think maybe two things are going on?
1) is that labour supporters/activisits are getting tired and frustrated at the uphill battle against oligargh owned media, which slaughters them every time we're outside election balance periods.
2) True beleivers can't understand why people don't agree with them 100% and go into conspiracy theories about state manipualtion in favour of status quo. Truth is, Corybyn is not actually that different or exciting. He's just not corrupt.

[madd0ct0r]

early reports of a fake bomb scare intended to close voting place in Manchester. more to come out in days to come I think.

[ray245]

Voted today. I've heard a few people had trouble with finding themselves on the register, even though they have registered to vote.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Well the exit polls are not looking good, they indicate the Tories have somehow increased their majority...

[ray245]

Well the exit polls are not looking good, they indicate the Tories have somehow increased their majority...

The Brexit-supporting working class in the North had finally switched parties. I'm not surprised. They really do believe pushing for Brexit will make their lives better.

[Coop D'etat]

Well the exit polls are not looking good, they indicate the Tories have somehow increased their majority...

This was not that much of a surprise all things considered. They were leading in the polls, had consolidated the Brexit vote under Johnson and Corbyn is incredibly unpopular outside his base.

[madd0ct0r]

Well the exit polls are not looking good, they indicate the Tories have somehow increased their majority...

This was not that much of a surprise all things considered. They were leading in the polls, had consolidated the Brexit vote under Johnson and Corbyn is incredibly unpopular outside his base.

Blythe valley just flipped to con (just. 2% in it)
I think im going to go to bed.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Urgh. Pretty much every one of my UK friends on facebook has been yakking away about the election and voting Labour and so on all damn month. And now, less than two hours after polls closed and with only three seats declared, they're all wailing like it's the end of the fucking world.

People wanna be pissed they lost? By all means, but for fucks sake wait until you actually get a result before starting the pity party.

[Tribble]

Urgh. Pretty much every one of my UK friends on facebook has been yakking away about the election and voting Labour and so on all damn month. And now, less than two hours after polls closed and with only three seats declared, they're all wailing like it's the end of the fucking world.

People wanna be pissed they lost? By all means, but for fucks sake wait until you actually get a result before starting the pity party.

To be fair IIRC closing polls in the UK are usually pretty accurate... Johnson's lead was big enough that even if they are off a bit he'll probably get a majority.