The Absolute State Of It - It's The UK Politics Thread!

[Achtung Englander]

Corbyn has not moved on from his student days of hard socialism. Even people who know him have said that. He is supported by Momentum who have hard left agenda and they want to hijack the Labour Party by kicking out all the Blairites (something Johnson has accomplished with the Tories with the wets) with making their MPs fight for their seats with a simple majority among the membership, which has garnered to the left.

Labour biggest mistake was when they voted against David Milliband. That was a Govt in waiting. If Ed Miliband could not get into power and Corbyn has tried once and failed, a resurgent Lib Dems is not want he needs. He dithered and dathered over Brexit for 2.5 years and when he came down on the Remain side, it is too late. We have the Lib Dems for that.

What does Labour stand for except for the redistribution of wealth ? The British are very industrious people and the idea of tax and spend and a wealth tax is not want people want to hear after working their bollocks off in making something of their lives. Sorry but that is human nature. How else can you explain that a disastrous Tory govt still looks like it could win a general election.

Labour drastically needs to reinvent itself which it will not do. At best we are looking at another hung parliament especially if Brexit Party suck Tory votes and the Lib Dems suck Labour votes.

What a mess.

[Mantis]

There is nothing about current Labour party policy that is "hard left" British politics has just moved so far to the right that even the slightest centre left stance is made out to he totally unpalatable by the media.

run a campaign as saviour of the people versus those nasty politicians

to pit the people against MPs

Isn't this what every party does in every election ever?

"Vote for us, we have your best interest at heart, unlike THAT party, who will only bring this country to ruin..."

I think it's pretty plain to see that this scenario is taking that to the extreme though. With the rise of right wing fringe groups it is very dangerous to use the rhetoric Johnson has, we aren't at war with the EU and nobody is a traitor or betraying the people in trying to stop a no deal exit.

This whole situation is slowly spiralling towards turning very nasty.

[Achtung Englander]

Also about Corbyn - the fact he is a pacifist is all well and good but not want you want from a leader. No one wants the PM to press the button, no one desires that scenario, but at the same time when thousands of missiles are pointed at you and you are in kill or be killed situation, no one wants a leader who is not willing to fight if it comes to that. Again human nature. When everyone has PhDs and Mankind has evolved into a better species, Corbyn would be an ideal choice.

[Stormbringer]

There is nothing about current Labour party policy that is "hard left" British politics has just moved so far to the right that even the slightest centre left stance is made out to he totally unpalatable by the media.

I think this is really about how you define "left" and "right". There is no absolute empirical scale, and it's pretty relative.

An American friend of mine, who was studying for a PhD here in Edinburgh until very recently, said that the Tories are very, very left compared with even the Democratic Party in the States.

[Mantis]

I'm talking about what is traditionally seen as right and left in the UK though, everyone knows that both political parties are far more to the right in the US than anything over here. There's little point in defining it any other way than how it has typically been here. You could argue that Thatcher redefined the centre ground and moved the whole country to the right, so by those standards Labour would currently be very left wing.

But semantics aside, it really isn't that extreme of a policy platform. The public actually regularly polls to say that they find a lot of those policies very attractive. It's not an extreme redistributive manifesto on the level of the Soviets seizing grain off the Kulaks like so many in the media and government benches make it out to be.

[Stormbringer]

The public actually regularly polls to say that they find a lot of those policies very attractive.

Yet, they don't seem to vote for them at general elections...

[Wrathbone]

Also about Corbyn - the fact he is a pacifist is all well and good but not want you want from a leader. No one wants the PM to press the button, no one desires that scenario, but at the same time when thousands of missiles are pointed at you and you are in kill or be killed situation, no one wants a leader who is not willing to fight if it comes to that.

When has he ever said he would not be willing to fight in a kill or be killed scenario? His stance, from everything I've heard him say on the subject, is that a diplomatic solution should always be the path taken until it no longer becomes viable. The fact that he seeks to avoid war does not mean he's unwilling to wage war as a last resort.

Would you rather have a leader like Warmonger Blair who preemptively invades a country after misleading parliament with fabricated evidence that they're a threat to us?

[Wrathbone]

The public actually regularly polls to say that they find a lot of those policies very attractive.

Yet, they don't seem to vote for them at general elections...

Because people sadly vote on parties and leaders rather than policies.

[Achtung Englander]

From 13 min in



Now tell me if he wants to fight to defend

[Mantis]

Honestly the fact that he would be reluctant to commit mass murder is something of a positive in my book. If we reach a point where the UK has already been attacked and he is required to decide on a retaliatory strike I would suggest that it would be somewhat irrelevant as most of us would be dead.

[Wrathbone]

Refusing to use nuclear weapons is not the same as refusing to engage in war.

I don't really want to get into a protracted Trident argument, except to say that Trident is a gigantic waste of money.

[Achtung Englander]

so if a bully comes to you, swinging, there is no point in trying to hit back because - well - he is bigger than me and I will lose anyway

yeah - makes sense.

Good thing you guys weren't around in 1939

[Mantis]

Conflating being attacked by a nuclear power with WMDs to a bully taking a swing at you is a metaphor which simply does not work. It's actually more likely the equivalent of a bully pushing you off a cliff from behind; not so much a choice of whether you fight back but more whether you want to grab him and take him down with you.

The UK policy is not to use nuclear weapons in the event of regular armed conflict, no leader would press the button if we faced that kind of military aggression. Not that anybody is going to invade us anyway. The role of WMDs is simply to ensure the world is collectively one step away from Mutually Assured Destruction and everyone hoping that a mad man doesn't end up with control of the launch codes.

Honestly, asking any politician whether they'd push the button is a ridiculous hypothetical question, not just because if that scenario occured it would mean the UK had already been hit by a nuclear weapon, but also because there can be a ridiculous number of mitigating circumstances impacting your decision. The simple question of "Yeah, but would you kill everyone in country x?" is frankly stupid.

Let me reiterate to be super clear. If we have already been nuked, we have already lost.

Should probably point out that I'm not a pacifist either.

[Wrathbone]

so if a bully comes to you, swinging, there is no point in trying to hit back because - well - he is bigger than me and I will lose anyway

yeah - makes sense.

Good thing you guys weren't around in 1939

What on earth are you on about?

If a belligerent attacks us militarily via conventional means then yes, we should fight back, and if you believe Corbyn wouldn't fight back then I don't know how to help you.

If a belligerent attacks us with nuclear weapons, ignoring any build up to that in which diplomatic and conventional military means have been expended, then on what planet do you believe our 200 or so nukes are going to make a difference? Any nuclear war against us automatically brings the US into play, which brings Russia into play, and at that point we're pissing in the wind. There is no actual strategic benefit to us having nuclear weapons. The only plausible scenario in which a nation would perform a first strike against us (and by plausible I mean a scenario in which things are far, far worse and more ridiculous than they are now) is if NK or Iran became capable of striking us and thought they'd somehow get away with it by passing it off as terrorism. Even if in that situation we managed to prove it was them, do you honestly believe that nuking them back is the way a civilised nation should act? Do you think the millions of people around Tehran or Pyongyang would be to blame for us being attacked and deserve to perish for it?

Corbyn is bang on the money with regards to nukes, and he should be applauded for his stance on it rather than going with the mainstream, outdated jingoism that other party leaders stick to.

[Strudel]

Conflating being attacked by a nuclear power with WMDs to a bully taking a swing at you is a metaphor which simply does not work. It's actually more likely the equivalent of a bully pushing you off a cliff from behind; not so much a choice of whether you fight back but more whether you want to grab him and take him down with you.

I think more accurately (and what seems to be completely missed by genocidal nutters who think you should push the button) it's not that you're grabbing him to pull down with you, but him and probably about 20 million innocent people who were just going about their daily lives working in shops and offices and were probably just as worried about their Crazy Leader nuking someone as we were.