Snap General Election called - The new UK Politics thread

[Which Tyler]

Also Led by Donkeys
Two founders of Led By Donkeys to face trial after Labour HQ protest
Rushworth resistance — The art and activism crew hung a banner opposite the party’s Southwark headquarters, featuring an image of a bombed out Gaza street that read “Protesting this isn’t terrorism”.

Official crime of "crime of "disobeying a police order"

[Puja]

I'm expecting Farage et al to come out in protest for them any minute now, given how important free speech is.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

I wouldn't normally post a straight political speech, but I thought this was a bit inspirational. (ignore the problems with the mike in the first 30s).

[Puja]

Sultana and Corbyn fall out already

Reporting their own party to the ICO. That is an embarrassment.

Sultana comes off as a loose cannon, given her previous in announcing the party before anyone was ready and high-handedly making statements about the name, but her story about Corbyn arranging a boys-club of people that he's mates with to run everything doesn't exactly ring untrue either and it would explain her motivations to make unilateral public lunges to take back some control.

It comes down to the wooly-wafty lack of structure or hierarchy, and the "We'll sort it all out at committee" approach. They should've decided who was going to lead and what the plans were before anyone even suggested that there was going to be a new party and hammered out all the conflicts beforehand. Yes, it's not the epitome of locak democracy for things to be decided in closed rooms beforehand, but a car cannot have two drivers. If Corbyn et al and Sultana are genuinely not able to work with each other (as appears to be the case right now), then they shouldn't have tried in the first place.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Sultana and Corbyn fall out already

Reporting their own party to the ICO. That is an embarrassment.

Sultana comes off as a loose cannon, given her previous in announcing the party before anyone was ready and high-handedly making statements about the name, but her story about Corbyn arranging a boys-club of people that he's mates with to run everything doesn't exactly ring untrue either and it would explain her motivations to make unilateral public lunges to take back some control.

It comes down to the wooly-wafty lack of structure or hierarchy, and the "We'll sort it all out at committee" approach. They should've decided who was going to lead and what the plans were before anyone even suggested that there was going to be a new party and hammered out all the conflicts beforehand. Yes, it's not the epitome of locak democracy for things to be decided in closed rooms beforehand, but a car cannot have two drivers. If Corbyn et al and Sultana are genuinely not able to work with each other (as appears to be the case right now), then they shouldn't have tried in the first place.

Puja

Yes, this does look like a shambles. Very depressing.

I don't quite agree this is down to woolyness. Sure, if there had been only one highs profile figure running it, that would have made things much simpler and it would be unlikely we'd be seeing this now, but that wasn't the case (NB even with that, Farage has taken 3 decades and 3 parties to get where he is). As it was it had to be more loosely organised. My fear is this apparent rift is more down to differences between Sultana and Corbyn (or even more so, his people) which will be difficult to get over.

However, this can be resolved and if we get to the conference and the members get to choose then perhaps this can be left in the past.

From my POV it's quite weird : I signed up as interested when the thing was first launched but the only email I got this week was the general roadmap email on Wednesday, nothing about a portal being open etc. Maybe it's because I avoid X .

[Son of Mathonwy]

From the team looking after the Your Party money, who are "as exasperated as" I am with the situation, and have been trying to mediate between the two egos who seem to be sabotaging this brief opportunity:

https://x.com/andrewfeinstein/status/19 ... 7117571570

I did think that if only Corbyn and Sultana could get together and put out a join statement, preferably a joint video, to show they're on the same page on the important things, this could just about be saved (albeit with some big damage to credibility), but with the latest communication from Sultana talking about legal action, I can't say it looks good.

Surely something can be saved from this? Who the hell knows but I do know everyone else in UK politics are laughing their heads off, particularly Starmer. Polanski's Greens are looking like the big beneficiaries if Your Party doesn't fix this very, very quickly.

Tragic stuff. If Corbyn or Sultana had joined the Greens or just appeared competent (how can it be this hard??) things could have been so different. We need their appeal, but the egos and very different personalities that come with them seem to have exploded on contact.

[Stom]

Yeah, in Hungary, the opposition has been incompetent and fighting between each other for years.

Finally there’s someone who has just taken charge and said he doesn’t want anything to do with the failed “left”, and it looks like he’ll win.

A lesson for all, imo.

[Sandydragon]

Yeah, in Hungary, the opposition has been incompetent and fighting between each other for years.

Finally there’s someone who has just taken charge and said he doesn’t want anything to do with the failed “left”, and it looks like he’ll win.

A lesson for all, imo.

Voters won’t vote for a party that resembles a shambles. Any party is a collection of interests and views, with some compromise needed. It’s not unusual for parties that are new or which position themselves further to the right or left to struggle with compromise.

[Danno]

Yeah, in Hungary, the opposition has been incompetent and fighting between each other for years.

Finally there’s someone who has just taken charge and said he doesn’t want anything to do with the failed “left”, and it looks like he’ll win.

A lesson for all, imo.

Voters won’t vote for a party that resembles a shambles. Any party is a collection of interests and views, with some compromise needed. It’s not unusual for parties that are new or which position themselves further to the right or left to struggle with compromise.

Which is (to state the bleeding obvious) exactly why the tories do so well. All they care about is power and until recent years they kept the infighting out of public view as best they could.

[Which Tyler]

Farage vows to scrap indefinite leave to remain, placing thousands at risk of deportation

Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services

[Son of Mathonwy]

A welcome approximation of sanity at Your Party, with Sultana dropping the threat of legal action. Much discussion going on, hopefully behind closed doors this time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ified-line

[Son of Mathonwy]

Oh joy, New Labour dust down their wet dream of a compulsory ID scheme. This time digital. Bring on identity theft on steroids. You don't want to have a smartphone? Fuck you.

But they have united everyone against them, even Reform.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

[Son of Mathonwy]

Oh joy, New Labour dust down their wet dream of a compulsory ID scheme. This time digital. Bring on identity theft on steroids. You don't want to have a smartphone? Fuck you.

But they have united everyone against them, even Reform.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

The parliamentary petition is nearly at 2 million:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petition ... =ed_direct

A petition on 38Degrees:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ ... digital-id

[Son of Mathonwy]

A welcome approximation of sanity at Your Party, with Sultana dropping the threat of legal action. Much discussion going on, hopefully behind closed doors this time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ified-line

Now that Sultana has reposted Corbyn's membership video etc I've joined Your Party:

https://bsky.app/profile/thisisyourparty.bsky.social

It may not all be sweetness and light behind the scenes but I would guess that Sultana will be hoping (quite realistically IMO) that she can get elected by the membership to a (or the) leading position.

[Son of Mathonwy]

This policy says Farage is right . . . but please vote for us instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ion-rights

McSweeney and Starmer are visionless, animated purely by ambition. They are paving the way for the far right.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Support for ID cards has plummeted since Starmer introduced it, which is good in itself, but also says that Starmer has to go.

If he can destroy the popularity of a policy just by adopting it then he is poison for any party.

Hopefully it also means that digital ID cards will not happen (although I wouldn't put it past this clueless bunch to simply plough on).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

[Puja]

Support for ID cards has plummeted since Starmer introduced it, which is good in itself, but also says that Starmer has to go.

If he can destroy the popularity of a policy just by adopting it then he is poison for any party.

Hopefully it also means that digital ID cards will not happen (although I wouldn't put it past this clueless bunch to simply plough on).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

In mild fairness to Starmer, a chunk of that is going to be because some of the people who were vaguely in favour when it was theoretical and vague have changed their mind once a lot more information and commentary has come out, and a large chunk of people who like ID cards to keep forriners and imigants down have been told by Farage that they actually don't like them, and so have obediently updated their opinion. It's not all just his personal brand bringing it down.

That being said, it should be alarming to him (and everybody) at this latest demonstration of his inability to convince the British public that his ideas are good. For a career politician who has no principles but electability, he's astoundingly lacking in charisma.

Mind, if we get rid of him, who the hells else is there? Andy Burnham, in the greatest display of "I'm not saying that I should be in charge, I'm just saying that a lot of other people are saying that I should be in charge, and I think that's interesting," since Tom Wood volunteered himself for the England captaincy? Wes Streeting, the man who would make us wish for the socialist stylings of Starmer? I would've been in favour of Rayner, as someone who's actually lived a bit of real life and experienced poverty before becoming a politician, but she's politically toxic right now and has blotted her copybook by nodding along with Starmer's leadership. The only vaguely left-wing option is Miliband and it'd be a hell of a risky move to go back to someone who has failed once already.

Puja

[paddy no 11]

Support for ID cards has plummeted since Starmer introduced it, which is good in itself, but also says that Starmer has to go.

If he can destroy the popularity of a policy just by adopting it then he is poison for any party.

Hopefully it also means that digital ID cards will not happen (although I wouldn't put it past this clueless bunch to simply plough on).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

In mild fairness to Starmer, a chunk of that is going to be because some of the people who were vaguely in favour when it was theoretical and vague have changed their mind once a lot more information and commentary has come out, and a large chunk of people who like ID cards to keep forriners and imigants down have been told by Farage that they actually don't like them, and so have obediently updated their opinion. It's not all just his personal brand bringing it down.

That being said, it should be alarming to him (and everybody) at this latest demonstration of his inability to convince the British public that his ideas are good. For a career politician who has no principles but electability, he's astoundingly lacking in charisma.

Mind, if we get rid of him, who the hells else is there? Andy Burnham, in the greatest display of "I'm not saying that I should be in charge, I'm just saying that a lot of other people are saying that I should be in charge, and I think that's interesting," since Tom Wood volunteered himself for the England captaincy? Wes Streeting, the man who would make us wish for the socialist stylings of Starmer? I would've been in favour of Rayner, as someone who's actually lived a bit of real life and experienced poverty before becoming a politician, but she's politically toxic right now and has blotted her copybook by nodding along with Starmer's leadership. The only vaguely left-wing option is Miliband and it'd be a hell of a risky move to go back to someone who has failed once already.

Puja

Should always have been the other miliband............far more talented, articulate, just everything

[Stom]

I actually feel like Sit Keir has been so focused on killing the conservatives that now they’ve killed themselves, he’s lost.

[Puja]

I actually feel like Sit Keir has been so focused on killing the conservatives that now they’ve killed themselves, he’s lost.

Read an article the other day saying that he probably wants to start treating Kemi Badenoch and the Tories as HM Opposition a bit more and act like they deserve his respect and caution, rather than treating them as irrelevant. I mean, they absolutely don't, but if he continues playing through and just talking to Reform, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and they'll vanish. He desperately needs a viable Tory party to siphon off votes from right-wingers who want to cast a vaguely "sensible" right wing vote, especially if he's not planning on doing anything about the haemorrhaging of votes that he's losing from the left of his electoral bloc (aside from, of course, whining that voting Green/Lib Dem is a vote for Farage). If he leaves the fascists as the only credible right wing party and continues shitting the bed as he is currently doing, then the fascists will win.

Puja

[Stom]

I listened to an interesting retelling of the fabricated class war that’s going on and it made me think of Hungarian politics.

Basically that the “working working class” and the educated middle class actually want and need the exact same thing, but they’ve been fed migrants, trans, etc., to split these groups and ensure they don’t realize that they both want the same things.

It got me thinking about Hungary. The new opposition, Peter Magyar, has been incredibly consistent. He’s talked at length about government corruption, about falling living standards, about rising prices, failing schools and hospitals… and he’s avoided every single talk of trans, of pride, of the war in Ukraine, of the Palestinian genocide, of immigration.

And it’s looking increasingly likely he may even return a sizable majority.

Compare that to Sir Keir, who just talks these divisive issues and nothing else. And I thought… he’s nothing if he’s not a believer in the “rules”. And he’s been advised by the same advisers who got people like Blair, Cameron, et al. elected. Their play book is to instill this division, not to remove it. Starmer doesn’t know how to change tack.

But he needs to.

Or…and this is something else.

Magyar didn’t run for an existing party. He didn’t take over the equivalent of Labour, the greens or the lib dems. He took a tiny party hardly anyone had heard of.

Because all the others came with baggage.

We’re not going to get a green pm. Bit if someone with a bit of charisma set up a new party and positioned themselves correctly, and gained just £1m in funding… they could do something.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Tragic stuff - for once politicians use the work antisemitic correctly over this vicious attack:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... now-so-far

Turns out that one of the two killed was shot by the police. Not sure if that makes it any more tragic.

This is not going to help anyone except Farage and the far right.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Support for ID cards has plummeted since Starmer introduced it, which is good in itself, but also says that Starmer has to go.

If he can destroy the popularity of a policy just by adopting it then he is poison for any party.

Hopefully it also means that digital ID cards will not happen (although I wouldn't put it past this clueless bunch to simply plough on).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... l-id-cards

In mild fairness to Starmer, a chunk of that is going to be because some of the people who were vaguely in favour when it was theoretical and vague have changed their mind once a lot more information and commentary has come out, and a large chunk of people who like ID cards to keep forriners and imigants down have been told by Farage that they actually don't like them, and so have obediently updated their opinion. It's not all just his personal brand bringing it down.

That being said, it should be alarming to him (and everybody) at this latest demonstration of his inability to convince the British public that his ideas are good. For a career politician who has no principles but electability, he's astoundingly lacking in charisma.

Mind, if we get rid of him, who the hells else is there? Andy Burnham, in the greatest display of "I'm not saying that I should be in charge, I'm just saying that a lot of other people are saying that I should be in charge, and I think that's interesting," since Tom Wood volunteered himself for the England captaincy? Wes Streeting, the man who would make us wish for the socialist stylings of Starmer? I would've been in favour of Rayner, as someone who's actually lived a bit of real life and experienced poverty before becoming a politician, but she's politically toxic right now and has blotted her copybook by nodding along with Starmer's leadership. The only vaguely left-wing option is Miliband and it'd be a hell of a risky move to go back to someone who has failed once already.

Puja

No policy is launched into a vacuum. You can expect objections from the opposition. It's the job of a competent politician to justify their policy and knock down the arguments against (preferably in advance). In this Starmer has failed yet again. A party can't have a leader like that (as the Tory's will decide again, once Kemi's 12 months are up).

If we get rid of him we at least have a chance of something better. And we can at least expect to see he real PM, McSweeney to down with Starmer. Considering that he's been the main architect of everything Labour has become in the last 6 years, that would be a real positive.

Losing Rayner was tragic (which is why the right have been trying to get rid of her since she became deputy leader). There's no one else with the same profile who's vaguely on the left. Burnham is not on the left, no matter what he might say - he's New Labour through and through (and he will find it difficult to run at all). I accept that Streeting might be worse than Starmer but he's very unpopular - without a coronation I'm not sure he can win the leadership. The McSweeney/Starmer stitch-up with the leadership nominations has probably locked out anyone good from standing (but I'm staying in the party just in case). My vote would go to Clive Lewis but I doubt he'd get the 80 MP backing.

[Puja]

We’re not going to get a green pm. Bit if someone with a bit of charisma set up a new party and positioned themselves correctly, and gained just £1m in funding… they could do something.

I don't know we'll get a Green PM next election, but I think Polanski's really got something about him and, if Labour continue to shit out their traditional base, he could very quickly become a very viable political figure. He appears very skillful at dealing with a hostile press so far and presents himself very well. With the current political atmosphere (and Starmer doing his best to extinguish any kind of brand loyalty to Labour among voters), things are very elastic at present - just like Farage, if the momentum shifts, it could suddenly transition from "A vote for the Greens is a vote for Reform in FPtP" to "A vote for Labour is a wasted vote - only Polanski can save us from Reform".

Puja

[Stom]

We’re not going to get a green pm. Bit if someone with a bit of charisma set up a new party and positioned themselves correctly, and gained just £1m in funding… they could do something.

I don't know we'll get a Green PM next election, but I think Polanski's really got something about him and, if Labour continue to shit out their traditional base, he could very quickly become a very viable political figure. He appears very skillful at dealing with a hostile press so far and presents himself very well. With the current political atmosphere (and Starmer doing his best to extinguish any kind of brand loyalty to Labour among voters), things are very elastic at present - just like Farage, if the momentum shifts, it could suddenly transition from "A vote for the Greens is a vote for Reform in FPtP" to "A vote for Labour is a wasted vote - only Polanski can save us from Reform".

Puja

If the Greens do not run in every constituency, they're not going to win...so a vote for the Greens pretty much IS giving Reform the win.

We do not have PR.

It's no good Labour being wiped out if it just leads to Farage.

And that's why British politics is so frustrating. It's like Hungarian politics was 10 years ago, but without an actual fascist in charge.

The only hope if that the Tories actually ditch Badenoch and bring in an old school conservative to win. And they could. I could absolutely see the Tories winning my parent's constituency if their policies were old school Tory. The Lib Dems only win because the Tories are unpalatable.

And I would not be averse to a Tory party that has gone back to its pre-Thatcher roots. I would actually agree with that kind of party on a lot of things. But as things stand, who would replace her? Cleverly, Jenrick, or Boris...yeah, that's not going to fly.

It's a mess. And unless the election in Hungary isn't free next year, it'll mark the first time where I'll be glad, politically, to be here rather than there.