Brexit party on 31 January in London is going ahead. And it will be shit.

[The39thStep]

just maybe if we could of shown them this 2 weeks ago

Cuts to council offices shake-up leave Bishop Auckland 'short-changed'


won't be the last time i've retorted to tory voters "and you trusted them"


or how about 100 billion to HS2 which is going to cost 200 billion or more


but got to keep business happy

Labour Council implementing the cuts and have done for decades.

 

[Ax^]

If looks

Labour Council implementing the cuts and have done for decades.

not 2 weeks after an election

I'd of posted a more recent link if i was not trying to make a point they lied to the people of the north

 

[The39thStep]

Politicians are supposed to unite and lead a country. This Brexit omnishambles has turned communities against each other, given a free pass for racist smegbubbles to rise to the surface, made non-British born people feel uncomfortable in the country they've contributed to, and all this division and hate will last a generation at least. Fuck Brexit, Fuck Farage, Fuck racists and Fuck that festering pile of toffjuice Cameron for trying to save his worthless career by launching us on this self destructive trajectory.

Well that’ll unite the country

 

[redsquirrel]

Politicians are supposed to unite and lead a country.

Bloody hell. Another proving of Proper Tidy's point.
Seriously you, as someone who views himself as a socialist, believe the above?
This is not just naive, it's utterly ahistorical.

 

[editor]

Bloody hell. Another proving of Proper Tidy's point.
Seriously you, as someone who views himself as a socialist, believe the above?
This is not just naive, it's utterly ahistorical.

It's what people think they're voting for and it's what politicians say they're going to do.

That's not the same as believing them.

 

[Yossarian]

Fuck Brexit, Fuck Farage, Fuck racists and Fuck that festering pile of toffjuice Cameron for trying to save his worthless career by launching us on this self destructive trajectory.

Cameron is probably feeling now reasonably pleased with how things turned out - the whole point of calling the referendum was to unite the Conservative Party and after a bumpy few years, it's been a success, though probably not in the way he expected. Britain's EU membership has now become an issue that splits the Labour Party, not the Tories, and we'll probably see a few more Conservative victories from it. Wouldn't surprise me if Labour got desperate enough to bring Tony fucking Blair back for the next election on the basis that he'll have been the only Labour leader to have actually won an election in the preceding 20 years.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm reading this thread at the same time as Wood's The Retreat from Class and you could hardly imagine a better case study of for Wood's arguments

It is, in the first place, self-evident that we cannot claim a direct empirical transposition of these conflicts from the economic to the party-political plane. The opposition between the Conservative and Labour parties, for example, does not neatly coincide with the conflicts between capitalist employers and their wage-earning employees, either in the sense that the personnel in the two cases are identical or in the sense that the political programmes of each party are entirely coextensive and commensurate with the needs and purposes of one of the protagonists in the ‘economic’ conflict to the exclusion of or at the expense of the other. This proposition is almost too trivial to be worth stating; but it is not altogether clear that, in the end, the fundamental theoretical tenet of the NTS amounts to much more than this.

 

[editor]

Wouldn't surprise me if Labour got desperate enough to bring Tony fucking Blair back for the next election on the basis that he'll have been the only Labour leader to have actually won an election in the preceding 20 years.

Pleasegodno.

 

[redsquirrel]

It's what people think they're voting for and it's what politicians say they're going to do.

Well the first I contest, the last two elections have been marked by sharper divisions than since the beginning of the 90s.
But regardless there is no need to except the claims of politicians, which judging them on their ability to "unite and lead a country" implicitly does.

EDIT: In fact to say that voters think that they are voting for someone who is "supposed to unite and lead a country" is particularly strange at this moment in time where, across much of the world, we are seeing voters clearly, and quite intentionally, turn towards politicians that sharpen divisions - Corbyn, Johnson, Trump, Macron, Sanders, Le Pen, Orban, Salvini, etc

 

[editor]

Here's an intelligent analysis of the Brexit lies and reality. And it's as depressing as fuck (it's from Nov 2018 but still seems relevant)

 

[TopCat]

I

A slice of time.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

^That is reason why people can't "move on" because the conflict is not between remain and leave (at least not on these boards) it is between competing political ideologies - one a socialism based on the power of labour, the other(s) a liberalism/social democracy/'true' socailism that at best is focused on party political power, at worst attainment of office.

That quote is entirely irrelevant to most of this. In terms of the material reality that is in the here and now, everything is getting shitter for a great many people, and thus far brexit has only made everything worse, including dividing people to such an extent that a shitcunt like Boris Johnson is able to seize power.

Which political forces have been made more powerful in this process? You appear to be posting from a different planet from the one I live on. I live in the world where homelessness is endemic, where people are dying every day for lack of proper social or health care, in which the rich continue to get richer and in which there has been a power grab by the populist right, for whom certain sections of the working class have just voted in significant numbers despite a full decade of vicious cuts from that very same political group. You talk as if a glorious revolution were around the corner. It's really not.

 

[scifisam]

^That is reason why people can't "move on" because the conflict is not between remain and leave (at least not on these boards) it is between competing political ideologies - one a socialism based on the power of labour, the other(s) a liberalism/social democracy/'true' socailism that at best is focused on party political power, at worst attainment of office.

That might well be true but the vast majority of voters wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not even sure who you're agreeing or disagreeing with.

 

[seeformiles]

Someone sent me this little ditty

 

[redsquirrel]

That quote is entirely irrelevant to most of this. In terms of the material reality that is in the here and now, everything is getting shitter for a great many people, and thus far brexit has only made everything worse, including dividing people to such an extent that a shitcunt like Boris Johnson is able to seize power.

Which political forces have been made more powerful in this process? You appear to be posting from a different planet from the one I live on. I live in the world where homelessness is endemic, where people are dying every day for lack of proper social or health care, in which the rich continue to get richer and in which there has been a power grab by the populist right, for whom certain sections of the working class have just voted in significant numbers despite a full decade of vicious cuts from that very same political group. You talk as if a glorious revolution were around the corner. It's really not.

You say that quote is irrelevant and then say we are posting from different planets - which only supports my argument.
Yet again you've not bothered reading what is actually being said. I talk about the focus of party politics over class politics and you reply that Johnson is in power. Like I said a division between interest politics and view politics. As for the last sentence I've never made any such claim.

 

[Supine]

I don't mind being labelled a remainer. Better than be labelled a leaver cunt. Brexit is the stupidest thing to happen in my lifetime.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You say that quote is irrelevant and then say we are posting from different planets - which rather supports my argument. As for the rest, well yet again you've not bothered reading what is actually being said. I talk about the focus of party politics over class politics and you reply that Johnson is in power. Like I said a division between interest politics and view politics. As for the last sentence I've never made any such claim.

Like I said, the quote is entirely irrelevant. You want to talk about something else. Fine. Talk about something else. But you ignore this planet, the one we're actually on, at your peril. Significant numbers of working class people have just voted in a populist r/w govt. That matters to your analysis, however disdainful of party politics you might be. What you speak of is a million miles from where we are now.

And I didn't say that you had made that claim. I said that you talk as if that were the case. Cos you do.

 

[redsquirrel]

That might well be true but the vast majority of voters wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not even sure who you're agreeing or disagreeing with.

I'm "agreeing" with those that construct their socialism based on class regardless of how they voted in the referendum, or since. I'm "agreeing" with those that want to organise around interests rather than views.
From another thread

Or to put it in crude terms - a worker who holds reactionary opinions about immigrants may be a dick but they are still a worker, their class interest are still aligned with mine (and presumably yours). A boss may be lovely and progressive, may be implementing all kinds of policies that tackle discrimination, inequality and even workplace democracy but at a fundamental level their interests are in opposition to those of their workers.

 

[pogofish]

One of the main benefits of Brexit is that we can bring back Spangles without any interference from the EU.

Spangles and indeed many other classic “English” sweets couldn’t exist without the interference of Berlin chemists...!

 

[redsquirrel]

Like I said, the quote is entirely irrelevant. You want to talk about something else. Fine. Talk about something else. But you ignore this planet, the one we're actually on, at your peril. Significant numbers of working class people have just voted in a populist r/w govt. That matters to your analysis, however disdainful of party politics you might be. What you speak of is a million miles from where we are now.

And I didn't say that you had made that claim. I said that you talk as if that were the case. Cos you do.

Amazing, you really could be lifted directly from the pages of the Retreat from Class.

In the Communist Manifesto, ‘true’ socialism is summed up thus: since socialism had ‘ceased to express the struggle of one class against another, … [the ‘true’ socialist] felt conscious of … representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy.

For academic interest do you even consider yourself a socialist anymore?

 

[tommers]

I was expecting a discussion about what a great time we're all going to have tomorrow.

 

[tommers]

Do you even lift bro?

 

[Supine]

I was expecting a discussion about what a great time we're all going to have tomorrow.

my bong is ready

 

[two sheds]

ready to chime 13?

 

[scifisam]

I'm "agreeing" with those that construct their socialism based on class regardless of how they voted in the referendum, or since. I'm "agreeing" with those that want to organise around interests rather than views.
From another thread

OK.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Brexit will fuck the tories again btw. There is no doubt about this. The greatest thing about the ref results was the toxic shit bomb that went off in the political class and it will keep on fucking them up for years

 

[Azrael]

[...] I would be really interested to hear someone who was pro-Leave actually offering some kind of factual basis for why it's better, and how life will be improved by it happening. In 3 years of Brexiting, it hasn't happened yet - at least that I've seen. And I am at least moderately capable of keeping an open mind some of the time.

My own reasons would be prioritizing sovereignty, but I recognize that argument means nothing to people who couldn't care less about the underlying principle, or who actively prefer supranationalism.

I can give tangible examples like the European arrest warrant, which allows a continental prosecutor to seize British citizens with only the most rudimentary domestic safeguards, but again, many wouldn't have a problem, or would view it as a reasonable trade-off to finally be able to get custody of suspects from countries that otherwise refuse to extradite their own citizens. They're not wrong, either: it does. We simply prioritize different things.

Regardless, as a pragmatist, I'd only have supported secession if I believed that the campaign was led by competent and decent people who'd actually deliver what they promised, which is why I ended up voting Remain, and have never regretted the decision.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Brexit will fuck the tories again btw. There is no doubt about this. The greatest thing about the ref results was the toxic shit bomb that went off in the political class and it will keep on fucking them up for years

Again? At what point did brexit fuck the tories the first time? It came close to fucking them, I'll grant you that, but they came through the other side with a big parliamentary majority that is extremely beholden to the leader, whose position is currently unassailable, and who has five years in power to look forward to. The only way brexit fucks the tories from this point is if brexit fucks Britain. And fuck knows what that will bring with it. It's unlikely to be good.

If anything, you could argue that brexit has finally solved Europe for the tories, for the time being at least.

 

[Supine]

Brexit will fuck the tories again btw. There is no doubt about this. The greatest thing about the ref results was the toxic shit bomb that went off in the political class and it will keep on fucking them up for years

You do realise they keep winning throughout this don't you?

 

[Anju]

Spangles and indeed many other classic “English” sweets couldn’t exist without the interference of Berlin chemists...!

So that's why my childhood was so much fun.