Brexit Negotiations

[BillyStubbsTears]

Donny
Here’s another funny thing.

Immigration was seen as a key factor in the minds of Leave voters. But in poll after poll over the past few years, a clear trend has been present. Those who have the strongest feelings on immigration live in the areas of Britain with the fewest immigrants. The correlation is astonishing. The more immigrants in your immediate locality, the less you are likely to see immigration as an important issue.

Raises all sorts of questions, that does.

[Donnywolf]

Apart from Boston where (without looking it up) I am sure they had the largest "Leave" vote. They are perceived to be over run there

Wisbech may be another as last time I went there it was hard to hear any English spoken.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Apart from Boston where (without looking it up) I am sure they had the largest "Leave" vote. They are perceived to be over run there

Wisbech may be another as last time I went there it was hard to hear any English spoken.

That's because Holland and Kesteven have a very high concentration of the agricultural jobs that they come over for that the locals don't want to do but moan about when foreigners 'steal their jobs'.

[tommy toes]

Funny thing is the places where people voted Leave probably did best with the funding. Even Doncaster. Just look at the news over the last few months they're more interested in London transport links than the Norths links.

Spot on that. Most of the regeneration in Donny has been funded by the EU.
Can you imagine a Tory Government funding it when they've got to spend trillions on that theer London.

[auckleyflyer]

Bst, I know its not going to fall apart because of us, its never far away from a crisis and the feeling is that no one dare have a referendum like ours because the result would be too close to call.
As a financial union its on the edge every month (but does seam to have weathered the worst)
Since the result we've moved from Donny to Cornwall and you know what its so poor down here there's abject poverty, theres lots of European funding too but again it was a strong leave county. The crux seams to be that any amount of eu money wouldn't fix decades of neglect. Think central government got the kicking they deserved and most I talk too enjoy seeing the members of parliament struggling to make sense of it, lile they struggle to make sense of daily life!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nail on head Auckley.

Many folk voted Leave because it was an opportunity to lash out at “The Elite”.

The crying shame is, it’s precisely those voters and their kids who will suffer most from Brexit.

If we do lose this £300bn+ wealth over the next 6 years, where do you think the cuts will bite? Folk who think that things couldn’t be worse than they are now have got a very, very nasty shock coming. 

[MachoMadness]

The major problem with the Remain campaign was that it was never really allowed to address any of the bullshit, because Cameron didn't want Tory MPs calling other Tory MPs liars. So we never got a proper debate, we never had any proper fact checking, and when anyone tried, we got told we were "fed up of experts". But Cameron would rather have that than his Tory party looking weak or divided. This was a Tory slap fight that ended up hijacking the whole country. The whole thing is a f**king shame.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Macho

So. No failings from Corbyn then? Excellent, clear, passionate campaigning from him?

[MachoMadness]

Macho

So. No failings from Corbyn then? Excellent, clear, passionate campaigning from him?

I'm really not sure what he could have done. The opposing forces of Cameron and Boris controlled the narrative and the way Cameron chose to frame the "debates" shaped the entire campaign. I'm not sure that Corbyn answering 10 out of 10 instead of 7.5 out of 10 would have changed very much with the people who voted Brexit.

From memory around 2/3rds of Labour voters voted Remain anyway, which was, I believe, comparable to the SNP support at the higher end of the Remain voting spectrum. What should that number have been?

Maybe Corbyn could've made more speeches, or been more enthusiastic when he gave them, but he still wouldn't have been able to force himself into the narrative in a meaningful way, because Cameron didn't want to be seen allying himself to the Opposition, nor did he want to give the Opposition leader the chance to have a pop at prominent Tory MPs. Cameron was fully expecting to win the vote and have business as usual the day after, without realising that his Austerity measures had created a perfect storm where Brexit was almost inevitable, in hindsight. If you spend years telling people there's f**k all money, and you can't do owt about it because of Labour, because of foreigners, because of the EU and the EEC, then members of your own party - who you refuse to ever directly challenge - say you can just vote Leave and change all that, of course they're going to vote Leave. Corbyn could have tattooed "VOTE REMAIN" on his knackers. It would've made no difference, not really.

None of this takes into account the possibility of dodgy election spending, Russian interference and the rise of fake news. But in the middle of that maelstrom, it's Corbyn's fault? If you want to make an argument that Corbyn is part of Labour's inconsistent position on leaving since the vote, I might actually agree with you. But to blame him for the result in the first place doesn't make sense to me.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Macho.

You’re not sure what more he could have done? ‘

Honestly?

This is the Corbyn who exploded into the 2017 election campaign as a passionate and persuasive speaker. One who persuaded several million people who hadn’t voted Labour in 2010 or 2015 that they should vote for Labour.

One who toured the country speaking to massed crowds and filling them with zeal?

Couldn’t he have found a fraction of that the previous year? Enough to convince another 1/2million working class people that they were going to have their economic prospects blighted by Brexit?

No. No he couldn’t could he. On the eve of the poll, hours before voting started, whilst Boris was on the national news bashing a table and shouting “Let’s take back control”, this is what Corbyn was doing. If you really want to engage on this topic, you need to watch this and think hard about it.

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/21/jeremy_corbyn_why_i_am_voting

PS. I know that Momentum were quick to secure that SNP example in people’s heads. I heard it from 7 Momentum friends of mine within 3 days of the vote.

But it’s bullshit. Of course a lot of SNP supporters voted for Brexit. I would have done too had I been an SNP member. It’s bloody obvious why if you stop and think about it. Any SNP member who DIDN’T vote for Brexit was actively acting in a manner which was in conflict with the first Aim in the Party’s constitution. I’d be amazed if Sturgeon, Salmond and the like voted Remain. Brexit was the one and only chance left in their lifetimes to secure another independence vote. And there is nothing more important to the SNP.

What the SNP wanted above all was for Scotland to vote Remain but the UK as a whole to vote Leave. Poll after poll showed a massive majority in Scotland wanting Remain. Labour voters, LD voters, some Tories, the majority of SNP voters. So that meant that any zealot SNP supporters (and God knows there are plenty) could vote Leave, hoping to tip the UK balance whilst safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t tip the Scottish balance.

So comparing Labour supporters’ votes with those of the SNP is meaningless. There were entirely different dynamics at work.  You make tvatcimparison only if you’ve either not thought deeply about the issue, or you are trying to spin a political line. And since Momentum leaders do think very deeply about politics, you can draw your own conclusion. They knew that Corbyn was vulnerable after his performance in the referendum campaign. They’d expected Remain to just win, in which case Corbyn’s performance[1] wouldn’t have mattered. After the result it was all hands to the pump writing the political narrative.

[1] And come on. You’re a smart lad. I’m a smart lad. Let’s call a spade a spade. Everyone who thinks about this knows that Corbyn has spent his life wanting us out of the EU. No way on earth did his views change into support for the EU by the time of the referendum. He knew that he couldn’t openly campaign for Leave as leader of the party. But Leave was what he’s wanted his whole political life. He was up at sparrowfart on 24/6/16 in his first public interview after the vote saying that we should invoke Article 50 “now”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmuIHfFWdM

And if you watch the whole of that video, it sums up why he inspired no-one to Support Remain. He consistently implies that the EU is responsible for Austerity and inequality in Britain. Call it incompetence. Call it mendacity. Whatever you call it, you cannot possibly say that he couldn’t have done better.

PPS.
You’re right that about 67% of people who voted Labour in 2015 voted Remain. If that number had been 73%, Remain would have won. It was that close. A firm and unequivocal lead from the Leader would have made that difference.

[Akinfenwa]

Was that ever realistic though given that even the Lib Dems, who have been the most committed pro-EU party in the country for decades, only managed to get ~70% of their voters for remain?

[hoolahoop]

Ffs your embarrassing! I voted remain for me it was to maintain the status quo because I feared for my children's futures. The remain campaign was based on fear? Nothing positive about staying just the catastrophe if we dared to leave. A very bad tactic as they didn't understand that in every city, town, and village the general public thought how much worse can it get?! The leave campaign had the job of convincing people of change (always harder) so did embellish and run a positive campaign thats why we ended up with the result. Remain lost what should have been an easy victory because they were basically out of touch. Just like subsequently with the election campaign. Their more savvy now and this result wouldn't happen again.
We will be ok there wont be u boats in the channel and dig for victory campaigns.
Its a shit state of affairs but the best option is the one being taken ; stall stall stall and hope the eu disassembles in the meantime or they offer what we they want (as we are dressed up in another name)
For every leave exaggeration there was a leader from another nation telling us to stay. You can't pontificate about the state of mindof the leave voters its divisive, elitist and as helpful as 2nd anus.
Analyse,understand and add. Get better not bitter!!.

I'm not quite sure whether you are attacking me directly with your use of " Ffs your embarrassing " Auckleyflyer or is it a  more general attack on those that are attacking the reasoning of those that voted to Leave and more importantly their generals ?

Your post makes it unclear as to whether I should do you the courtesy of a long and detailed reply as to my reasoning on the matter and what I as a poster have drawn from your interesting post. How for interests sake do you suggest I , or others for that matter go about getting  " better rather than bitter " ?

[BillyStubbsTears]

The LDs were down to a rump party by 2015-16. In the 2015 election, they had the lowest support that a centre party had received since we’d had decimal coinage. And many of the ones who left them in 2015 were the centre-left types who had mistakenly believed that the LDs were a kind of cuddly Blairite party without the nasty bits. So it’s difficult to compare the 2015 LD supporters with the “recently traditional” view of the party supporters.

By the way, I was wrong about 67% of 2015 Labour voters supporting Remain in 2016.



It was 63%. If it had been 69%, we’d still be in.

[hoolahoop]

Was that ever realistic though given that even the Lib Dems, who have been the most committed pro-EU party in the country for decades, only managed to get ~70% of their voters for remain?

Would that have had any relevance had there been proper safeguards put on the referendum in the 1st place . Giving an easy win to those that voted for less than 40% either way was utter madness . Those parameters should have been properly  set by  Parliament in the first place and there shouldn't have been this arguable " advisory " nature to the referendum. Other interesting omissions were the rights of ' longstanding ' European tax - paying immigrants being denied the rights of a say over their futures living in this country and of course our own people living abroad but of course travelling to and from the UK , having family here, affected by exchange rate drops in the £ and possible future health and pension arrangements. Perhaps there was also an argument for 16/17 year. olds to be also given a vote as they had  in the Scottish Referendum for Independence. Arguable I know granted that the Scottish Parliament had granted them it not Westminster .
Both would have effects on the future of the UK as a a whole but why the disparity ?

[MachoMadness]

Fair points BST, and I do think it's fair to say Corbyn's enthusiasm for the Remain campaign was significantly less than the 2017 GE, no prizes for guessing why that was the case. However, the thrust of my post was based on the argument that the entire referendum was a Tory garden party that no one else was invited to, with Cameron controlling the way the debates were held. This inadvertently created a vacuum where bullshit flourished. Corbyn could jump up and down outside the party all he liked, he wouldn't have gotten in even if he wanted to. Why is Corbyn the key to all this?

I phrased that opening sentence poorly, but what I meant was that it didn't matter what Corbyn did. He had f**k all to campaign with besides a Labour Party divided, many wanting out because that's what their constituents were saying, and many wanting in but rubbing their hands waiting to knife Corbyn. He certainly wasn't going to get any time on the substantive issues from the real Remain campaign, for reasons outlined in my last post. So, I'll phrase it better now - given the above mitigating circumstances, plus the shitstorm of Russian interference, illicit spending and fake news seeking to tip the balance - what more could he have done? How could a man in that position get another few hundred thousand votes, bearing in mind the average age of the Brexit voter, and the average age of the voter who still thinks Labour wrecked the economy in 2009 and should never be trusted again? Comparing his GE performance isn't relevant as he campaigned in an entirely different set of circumstances on a completely different platform - in THAT situation, in 2016, how could he have done it? By saying he was 10 out of 10 Remain a few times? I'm not convinced.

Also: you mention the Labour/SNP stat is Momentum spin. But the facts are there. The Lib Dems, who as a party campaigned fervently and as a united front for campaign, only managed to get 70% of their supporters to vote in. They presumably only had about 5 voters to reach out to as well. So is it really fair to expect 73% of Labour voters to vote Remain, bearing in mind the party was not united, and why does all this fall solely on Corbyn? Surely the bulk of the blame lies with Cameron, who orchestrated the whole shitshow to begin with and still only managed to pull 42% of Tory voter support for Remain. Would it be fair to say that your argument could be turned on its head, and that it was the PLP chomping at the bit to remove Corbyn who spun 2/3 Labour voters voting with Corbyn as "not good enough"?

There were so many factors in the referendum result that to peg Corbyn as the deciding one seems a little odd.

[hoolahoop]

The LDs were down to a rump party by 2015-16. In the 2015 election, they had the lowest support that a centre party had received since we’d had decimal coinage. And many of the ones who left them in 2015 were the centre-left types who had mistakenly believed that the LDs were a kind of cuddly Blairite party without the nasty bits. So it’s difficult to compare the 2015 LD supporters with the “recently traditional” view of the party supporters.

By the way, I was wrong about 67% of 2015 Labour voters supporting Remain in 2016.



It was 63%. If it had been 69%, we’d still be in.

So basically a Tory/ Brexit .

[Akinfenwa]

I'd like to meet these 4% of UKIPs who voted remain. Maybe they didn't get the memo or something.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Macho

I’m not saying Corbyn was entirely to blame. That would be daft. Of course it was a Cameron-inspired catastrophe.

But I’m simply not buying the pass that has been given to Corbyn. I don’t accept this”he couldn’t get heard”  line. He showed in 2017 that he could electrify people on the stump. When he wanted to.

Regardless of Cameron’s shortcomings, had Corbyn wanted to, he could have found the passion to turn a few hundred thousand votes.

Did you watch that Democracy Now! video?

If so, what were your thoughts on it?

[RedJ]

I just think it's hilarious that 4% of UKIP supporters voted Remain.

I mean I know they're not the most intelligent among us but what the f**k was that all about?

[SydneyRover]

I just think it's hilarious that 4% of UKIP supporters voted Remain.

I mean I know they're not the most intelligent among us but what the f**k was that all about?

You got it with your last line.

[SydneyRover]

Lord Blue Righty Right Right Heseltine says "the best thing the UK could do to boost growth and productivity would be to stop brexit"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/nov/27/heseltine-says-best-industrial-stragegy-would-be-to-stop-brexit-politics-live

Lord Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister and a lifelong champion of the need for industrial policy (an original Heathite, not like May), was on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night and he had no qualms about answering this question. The best thing the UK could do to boost growth and productivity would be to stop Brexit, he told the programme. Asked what he would do to tackle failing growth, he said:

There is no simple solution to that but the first and most obvious one is to stop the Brexit initiative. Our country is facing years of stagnation, and what is a principal cause of that? It’s that anyone who has got to take an investment decision today is saying, ‘Well how do I know what to invest in? What’s going to happen about Britain and its biggest market of Europe?’ and so they’re hesitating. Whether they’re British companies or overseas companies investing here, they’re hesitating. And as long as we have this Brexit shadow going over us, that will remain. And what do we get in the Budget? A £3bn bill in order to prepare for this Brexit disaster.

[idler]

I just think it's hilarious that 4% of UKIP supporters voted Remain.

I mean I know they're not the most intelligent among us but what the f**k was that all about?

Why is it hilarious?
Maybe they listened to debates or read articles and then decided Brexit was not in their best interests. Possibly some UKIP voters only voted for the party tactically to keep someone else out in their constituency.
Just my opinion obviously but voters regularly change their minds when push comes to shove.

[RedJ]

I just think it's hilarious that 4% of UKIP supporters voted Remain.

I mean I know they're not the most intelligent among us but what the f**k was that all about?

Why is it hilarious?
Maybe they listened to debates or read articles and then decided Brexit was not in their best interests.

Well considering it's a single issue party...

[MachoMadness]

I did watch the video and read the transcript. He looks and sounds knackered, presumably because he's been traipsing round the country for quite some time. I seem to remember him popping up in DTC around then. I imagine a few hours stood outside The Works in town would suck the life out of most people. Anyway, the contents of what he said were largely what he stuck to during the campaign, which was remain and reform. No, it wasn't an emotional argument for staying, but then no one was really making that emotional argument. Naively, we all thought that facts would edge emotion. With hindsight, of course that was wrong, and a big red bus of bullshit would of course resonate more than nebulous plans about tax avoidance and environmental protection. Maybe Corbyn should have had the foresight to know that, maybe he didn't care. But those were arguments that weren't made by many on the Remain side.

I see the point you're making though. Why drag yourself to an obscure American blog nobody's heard of on the eve of the vote? It ties into the point I've been making really, which is that Corbyn was an irrelevance during the Brexit campaign, and I'm not seeing how the guy could swing several hundred thousand votes from the position that he and the other party leaders were very deliberately put in by Cameron. Of course Boris was on the news. He was the face of the Leave campaign. Corbyn, and the other party leaders for that matter, were never going to be in an equivalent position. Are you implying Corbyn would've been able to get a prime spot on BBC and Sky news on the eve of the vote, but decided not to in favour of exclusively talking to this obscure blog from across the Atlantic? Again, I'm not seeing the logic there. Surely being able to put the boot in to the Tory Brexit on the Beeb would be something Corbyn would relish, even if it meant making a case for Remain that he wasn't convinced by?

I'm not saying you think Corbyn is the ONLY reason for the result, but I'm not seeing the argument that he's a deciding factor of any importance. If you want to put the boot in about Corbyn's stances on Brexit after the result, I might join in with you. But the result itself was Cameron's mess. A mess that he helpfully f**ked off from the first chance he got.

[tommy toes]

The point is Corbyn himself is and always has been anti EU.
If he had been a commited remainer and put his weight behind it then his influence MAY have swung the balance the other way.

[wilts rover]

You mean if he driven around in a bus with 'Don't believe that other bus with £350m to the NHS and lies about Turkey' written on it everything would have been alright?

It's a fantasy and shows more about people's wishes to knock Corbyn than it does an understanding over why people voted Leave. People were looking for an excuse to vote Leave - they weren't looking for one to vote Remain.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Macho

Yes, that was the point I was making. I do find it incomprehensible that on the eve of the most important vote in our lifetimes, the Leader of the Opposition wasn’t spending every waking hour campaigning for the result that his party wanted.

Because I did and I do believe that with a clear message and a bit of zeal, enough Labour voters could have been persuaded. Yes it was Cameron’s primary responsibility but Corbyn did nothing of substance to tip the balance. If he had done, even given Cameron’s performance, we might not be facing the calamity that’s coming.

And I understand your point about Corbyn being irrelevant in the campaign. But I think it came from a different angle. He made himself irrelevant because he had nothing to say on the subject. He was in a (personal) nightmare of a position, being expected to campaign for something he fundamentally disagreed with. So he umm-ed and ahh-ed and ignored the really big issues (immigration and the economy) and concentrated on ones where he could give grudging support to the EU (tax havens and the environment). But no one gave a shite about tax havens and the environment in the referendum campaign. What people wanted to talk about was:
- sovereignty
-  money.
 
Corbyn showed 12 months later that he was a consummate campaigner and could demand attention. He could have done so in 2016 if he’d really wanted to.

Which brings us to Tommy Toes. I agree with you that Corbyn was, is and probably always will be anti-EU. The logical conclusion of that is that he was hypocritical in the referendum campaign. Strange then that he’s lauded as some kind of new politician who never compromises and it’s always truthful. Paul Mason, for example, said later that summer “I’m voting for Corbyn because the man is incapable of lying.”

Wilts. You’re better than that mate. Try a bit harder.

[tommy toes]

Wilts
You may recall that I am a firm Corbyn supporter and have travelled to see him speak.
I was perhaps the only one on here who predicted a Labour surge at the last election and was ridiculed at the time by BST and others.

Ps
I agree with BST however that his non participation in the Referendum was disappointing as Labour policy was to Remain

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tommy

Agreed. I was wrong. I was basing my assumptions on the way Corbyn had campaigned in the Brexit vote and I didn’t expect May to be incapable of finding the connection between brain and mouth when asked a question.

Trouble is, despite his excellent campaign last year, we’ve still got a Tory Govt and a Hard Brexit on the way.

You might also remember me saying, regularly that I agreed with most of Corbyn’s policies, but I doubted that he’d win over enough people to put Labour in power. Well, even faced with the worst PM in getting on for 100 years, who presides over a party in which discipline seems to mean only slapping your assistants’ arses, Corbyn is still seen as the best PM by fewer people than May.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/t7a4lpcsdh/TimesResults_171108_VI_Trackers.pdf

Inconvenient fact, I know, but a fact nevertheless.

[tommy toes]

BST.
No I clearly recall you basing your assumptions on what happened to Labour in the 1980's when they lurched to the left.
Anyway as you say Corbyn didn't win so very little has changed.
I just wish that stupid tw*t Cameron had had the sense not to offer a referendum and then let the Brexiteers have free rein in the debate.