On A Provisional Vision of the Future - Post the EU Referendum

[danieldwilliam]

This isn't a prediction but more of a prior or a baseline.

As you sow, so shall ye reap and sometimes you are not the harvester but the harvest.

If Scotland is to become independent and pick up any benefit of businesses wanting to keep an Angolphone office inside the EU it will need to become independent within the EU pretty fast. I'd be disappointed if Sturgeon wasn't on a plane to Brussels and Bonn today.

Indyref Part 2 within a year. Yes wins by a narrow margin. Scotland opens popcorn but realises it actually has some work to do so sells the popcorn. Watch the predatory corporation tax rate and the subtlely lax banking regulation. (Let's hope we have the sense to keep some of the tax revenue back for the next crash.)

Chaos in the Tory Party. They either need to back off the central plank of their economic policy of reducing the deficit through spending cuts or they need to magically make the economy not be affected by the referendum result or admit that their economic credibilty is worth about as much as the pound. So, the emergency budget will be devisive - for them - and brutal for the working classes in the North of England and the Midlands. I'd expect May to emerge at Tory leader and the next PM.

Chaos in the Labour Party. Corbyn is utterly pish. Essentially backed Leave.  I thought he'd manage to communicate with people and shift the Overton Window a bit but it feels like he's sitting at his desk writing strident blog posts, filing his paperclips and gazing at the pin-ups in the Morning Star. However, the Labour right hasn't re-organised in to a coherent post-Blarite grouping and, to be honest, doesn't have much in the way of quality to offer either.

I think we probably avoid a snap general election. Jeez, that would be messy.

Plan A - we (they) end up having a second EU referendum post exit negotiations on the question "Do you want to stay in the EU or take the actual deal on offer?"

Plan B - Britain (aka England) gets left to dangle for a year or more and ends up in the European Economic Area but on pretty strict terms, probably including Schengen. (I personally won't be sorry about this. I like the EU, I like free movement, I like every closer union and being forced to join the EEA will be a much needed punch to the nuts of post-imperialist little Englanders. Also, I'll be living in a post-independence Scotland.)

Those are not our Plans A and B but the German's Plans A & B.

Ten or twenty years after England joins the EEA it votes to rejoin the EU finally shorn of its illustions that the rest of the world owes it any favours.

The working class of the North of England and the Midlands continues to be slowly evicerated by the Conservative Party. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a hand-made Italian brogue stamping on a face, forever.

But not I think in my country.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I think you're being a bit hard on Corbyn. I've seen several speeches of his reported - but not generally in the big newspapers. Frankly, he could have set himself on fire and the mass media wouldn't have reported it. I'm not sure what he could have done when the media were just not interested in reporting what he was saying.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

His job is either to do better or to go home and admit that he can't do the job and is using up run time that someone else could put to some good.

[andrewducker]

Was it possible for him to do a better job? Was it possible for any left-leaning Labour leader to do a better job?

I don't actually have an answer, to be honest - I don't know whether it was possible for anyone to make an impact there, given a media determined not to report positive views.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it was possible, although I can think of left-wingers of the past who could have done it. Hey, even John Major managed to get some traction in 1992 with his soapbox and his mega-phone.

I'm certainly not saying its fair. It's not.

But, to quote Yoda, either do or do not, there is no try.

[andrewducker]

If swapping him out for someone else wouldn't do any good then why do you want to swap him out for someone else?

Seems a bit silly to sack someone for something they have no control over, and replace them with someone who wouldn't have done any better.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think swapping him out for Tom Harris or Chuka Umuna or even Ed Miliband would work. They speak the right language.

Or if the left could find someone who looked and sounded like Chuka Umuna but who had the policies of Bevan...

[andrewducker]

I do wonder about that. Whether the problem is Corbyn's beliefs or the way he comes across.

I guess I could always actually watch one of his speeches and see what kind of speaker he is.

(I should point out that I'm not a fan of his policies, in general. I appreciate where he's coming from, but have cringed on multiple occasions when reading something he's come out with.)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

His main failing is that he has not succeeded in motivating the many, many Labour members who voted for him to do much.

The media would have a harder time ignoring him if whenever he turned up in a constituency a thousand eager party voluteers came too, knocked on every door and each put £20 in the party funding hat.

[andrewducker]

Possibly.

And he could possibly have used the party apparatus better. But I don't know details there.

This is the kind of thing I was meaning:
http://steepholm.livejournal.com/475891.html

[andrewducker]

Ok, looks like you're right. See final paragraph here:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/senior-figures-in-remain-campaign-say-they-were-hobbled-by-number-10

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Tom Harris or Chuka Umuna or even Ed Miliband would work. They speak the right language.

You really think so? The same Ed Miliband who lost the election all of one year ago?

But what would the right language be in this case? Corbyn is currently being criticised both for not acknowledging that immigration is a problem, and for not speaking up strongly enough for remain, which would of course involve refusing to set any limit on EU immigration. Bizarrely, it's the same people criticising him for both. So, how would Chuka Umuna (or any of those you've mentioned) have handled that contradiction, and made a populist appeal to anti-immigration sentiment while simultanously defending open borders?

[matgb]

Was it possible for him to do a better job? Was it possible for any left-leaning Labour leader to do a better job?

Yes.

Sack Milne and appoint a press secretary who's a) competent, b) respected by the rest of the media and c) not an unreconstructed Stalinist.

Corbyn's not a great leader or communicator, he appointed a press secretary who's actively worse than him at it.

[andrewducker]

Gotcha, that makes sense.

That really is a terrible shame.

[matgb]

And as I receive this notification LordBonkers tweets this
Liberal England: How Seumas Milne undermined the Labour Remain campaign

My opinion on Milne goes from "not up to the job and weird views" to "actively destabilising idiot who needs to be drummed out of politics".

In more cheery news, D Miliband is being talked about having a return planned. If he goes anywhere near the Baltey and Spen selection I will picket every fucking meeting with leaflets about his incompetence.

[andrewducker]

At that point it really does look like either they did want us out of Europe, or they were willing to risk that if it meant that they could avoid getting their hands dirty. Either way, despicable.