UKIP's moment of truth?
February 23, 2017 1:13 AM   Subscribe

Voting gets underway in the Stoke-on-Trent and Copeland by-elections today.

The Copeland election has featured controversy over the future of maternity services and Corbyn's view on nuclear power, whilst the UKIP candidate claims that "Hitler was a socialist".

Meanwhile, in Stoke, UKIP leader Paul Nuttall faces claims of lying over Hillsborough and his address, which may constitute electoral fraud. His website remains offline. The Labour candidate has apologised for misogynistic comments.
posted by threetwentytwo (70 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here's hoping the bad Bootle meff continues Farage's legacy of losing every attempt on parliament.
posted by mushhushshu at 1:22 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Here's a list of the candidates in Stoke and their personal statements to a local newspaper. This one stands out:


BARBARA FIELDING Independent

People should vote for me because I'm an honest person. I'm really far right and I will stand up for British nationals. I want to take Britain back to how things were before the last war, before we had thalidomide, which I think has had a bad effect on our people.
posted by biffa at 2:18 AM on February 23, 2017 [12 favorites]


That Guardian article on Paul Nuttall's lies is fantastic:
Nuttall’s predecessor, Nigel Farage, is a master of the grift, leveraging cigarettes, pints of beer and opposition to the metric system into an apparently unassailable cloak of authenticity draped over his privately educated stockbroker carcass.
[...]
Interestingly, old lefties such as John McDonnell are never talked about in terms of their authentic working-class credentials. The purpose of the scam is to prove “real” working-class people are all tiny, angry authoritarians such as Kelvin MacKenzie and Richard Littlejohn. In this carefully cultivated narrative, it is only the out-of-touch middle classes, who don’t live in the real world, who are able to indulge in the luxurious fripperies of socialism. Drawing too much attention to Labour MPs born in postwar slum conditions would add unhelpful ambiguity and is therefore to be avoided.
posted by Catseye at 2:32 AM on February 23, 2017 [15 favorites]


Here's a list of the candidates in Stoke and their personal statements to a local newspaper.

MetaFilter: the only true fakir of fake news.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:42 AM on February 23, 2017


And, of course, today happens to be Doris Day, which may have the effect of (even further) depressing turnout.

Nice out there it isn't.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:54 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


BARBARA FIELDING Independent

From The Guardian:

Barbara Fielding, 78, who is standing as an independent, was arrested after a complaint about her website, which calls for all immigrants to be repatriated and warns of a “seeping tide of Islamic warriors”. Police seized her mobile phone and computer and later released her on bail until next month.


Her manifesto is one hell of a ultra right-wing read.
posted by Wordshore at 4:06 AM on February 23, 2017 [7 favorites]


That's quite a manifesto. I like that she wants to charge both Churchill and Marx with treason - Churchill 'for causing the deaths of thousands of little German School Children when he bombed Dresden', Marx (aka 'the Israeli terrorist Karl Marx') for 'causing the Paris Revolution and the end of the French Monarchy'.
posted by Mocata at 4:34 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Psychiatrists and Mental Health workers will have a higher IQ than the patients they pretend to be superior to.

I think this line from Fielding's manifesto confirmed my fears this is more of a 'person in desperate need of psychiatric care' than 'risible racist' – though I suspect the overlap is significant.
posted by mushhushshu at 4:41 AM on February 23, 2017 [7 favorites]


Her manifesto is one hell of a ultra right-wing read.

Some of it seems fairly lefty also. No nuclear power. No selling arms outside the UK. UK to stay out of other people's wars. Its a mixed bag. Though I grant you, on the whole it suggests she is fully out there.
posted by biffa at 4:43 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think this line from Fielding's manifesto confirmed my fears this is more of a 'person in desperate need of psychiatric care' than 'risible racist' – though I suspect the overlap is significant.

I think you're right. I've only just noticed point 35: 'The Death Penalty for anyone using a Radio Signal to kill or control another human being or animal, except in warfare.'
posted by Mocata at 4:46 AM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ms Fielding-Morriss has some previous, starting in 1993 against Signal Radio...
In her particulars of claim Mrs Morriss complained, among other things, of invasion of her privacy, alteration of her heartbeat and, as she put it, loss of her entire life as a result of the alleged interference by Signal Radio by means of the airwaives. The particulars of claim in that case are fairly typical of the allegations made in the succeeding actions. I read a few of the paragraphs just to illustrate the nature of her concerns:
Vexatious Litigant
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:20 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Perhaps she means Signal Radio.

I find myself in sudden agreement with her.
posted by mushhushshu at 5:25 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


On this election day, Doris Day (Grauniad Live) reports include...
Trampolines have been trying to escape from gardens all over the country.
A day for by-elections like no other.
posted by Mister Bijou at 5:39 AM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Truly a sign of the end times. And verily it shall come to pass that a family of four in Eltham shall be unable to find their trampoline, which hath blown onto the roundabout at the end of the A211, in accordance with thy mercy.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:49 AM on February 23, 2017 [14 favorites]


Trampolines have been trying to escape from gardens all over the country.
A storm is a great time to steal a trampoline from a garden.
They'll assume it blew away.
But they won't look in case it killed someone.
posted by kersplunk at 5:54 AM on February 23, 2017 [10 favorites]


I'd have to vote for The Incredible Flying Brick, since his promises include:
* Abolish Gravity with immediate effect.
* Make fishing a spectator sport by introducing piranha to the Trent.
* Develop Stoke-on-Trent Civic Centre into an intergalactic space port. with Trent Vale and Hanley being respectively arrival and departure lounges. This will massively increase tourism.
* I will promote Pottermus Hippo to leader of Stoke City Council.
* Have a good breakfast of oatcakes and a delicious lunch of lobby.
* Royal Stoke hospital needs more specialist departments. The Loonys would add good old-fashioned medical wards including: Mercury potions, Electrolysis, Leeching and Lobotomy. The Loony’s will balance the humors.
* If the Liberal candidate fails to be elected we will still send him to the House of Commons to perform exploraTory thoracotomies, this will reveal whether any governing MP’s have a heart.
* I will ensure that all European trains will be fuelled by Gravy.
* We will encourage international free trade with America by knighting the President during his state visit, with the ‘Order of the Coiffure’ and he will be known as Sir Comb-Over.
posted by delfin at 5:55 AM on February 23, 2017 [18 favorites]


I see American Mefites are understandably finding it hard to get their minds round a country where candidates like this have no actual chance of being elected President.
posted by Segundus at 6:04 AM on February 23, 2017 [47 favorites]


Have a good breakfast of oatcakes

+1, would get my vote. Would get me to join the party if combined with other innovate, disruptive solutions focused on local issues, inc. harnessing the energy of the perpetually freezing Hanley bus station to counter climate change and reopening Valentino's.
posted by Catseye at 6:05 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I actually reached out to see if Americans can join the OMRLP once, checking on the legalities of supporting a foreign political party. The answer I got was that it should be okay but the respondent would have to look up what the postal rates would be for the membership gift package, and I never heard back.
posted by delfin at 6:08 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Goddamn I love the Monster Raving Loony Party. (This is only very slightly inspired by my complete disgust with Labour.)
posted by kalimac at 6:44 AM on February 23, 2017


With the greatest of apologies to my UK friends, the first thing that came to my mind was this.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:58 AM on February 23, 2017


Didn't Henry V also try to end the French Monarchy? What a horrible socialist!
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:21 AM on February 23, 2017


I've had a question at the back of my mind for years about that Monty Python election special. I loved the "Whitehouse has taken Umbrage, no surprise there..." lines and all, but there's a moment where they make a joke about (and I quote) "darkie power".

Was there an actual joke to that, beyond the racist slur? Was it a play on words for something I won't know because I wasn't quite born yet when the piece aired?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:24 AM on February 23, 2017


Whitehouse has taken Umbrage

Mary Whitehouse: Self-appointed campaigner against the permissive society on television
posted by Mister Bijou at 7:32 AM on February 23, 2017


With the greatest of apologies to my UK friends, the first thing that came to my mind was this.

Not "Historically Taunton is part of North Minehead being already!"?

I doubt your commitment to SparkleMotion.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:38 AM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


rum-soaked space hobo: I've had a question at the back of my mind for years about that Monty Python election special. I loved the "Whitehouse has taken Umbrage, no surprise there..." lines and all, but there's a moment where they make a joke about (and I quote) "darkie power".

Was there an actual joke to that, beyond the racist slur? Was it a play on words for something I won't know because I wasn't quite born yet when the piece aired?


As I understand it, yes. The "darkie power" line appears in one of the live versions of the sketch, and the full line is "Rastas Odinga-Odinga has taken Wolverhampton Southwest. That's Enoch Powell's old constituency; an important gain for Darkie Power". Enoch Powell, I gather, was an anti-immigration Conservative politician who gained notoriety in 1968 for delivering what came to be known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, about the unintended consequences of open borders.

So the Pythons, while using language that's a little insensitive to our modern ears, are actually making an anti-racist joke rather than a racist joke.

And, serendipitously, this tangent about the "rivers of blood" that will flow if immigration is left unchecked feeds right into the original point about UKIP. Good luck, folks.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:44 AM on February 23, 2017 [12 favorites]


"Historically Taunton is part of North Minehead being already!"


He's right- do you know that?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:46 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Develop Stoke-on-Trent Civic Centre into an intergalactic space port.

Somewhat depressingly, Cornwall currently has development of a space port as an official goal for investment.
posted by biffa at 7:47 AM on February 23, 2017


Somewhat depressingly, Cornwall currently has development of a space port as an official goal for investment.

Why the hell would someone want to launch a spacecraft from Cornwall? Fifty bloody degrees north? Do these people understand how the laws of physics work?
posted by Talez at 7:58 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Do these people understand how the laws of physics work?

Given all the climate change deniers and vaccination skeptics? No.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:59 AM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Why the hell would someone want to launch a spacecraft from Cornwall?

Polar or molniya orbits?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:10 AM on February 23, 2017


Polar or molniya orbits?

Molniya orbits are pretty obsolete and polar wouldn't you want to launch from, say, Aberdeen?
posted by Talez at 8:27 AM on February 23, 2017


I've had a question at the back of my mind for years about that Monty Python election special.

85% of what I know about the British electoral process comes from that sketch. I wish I could say I was joking.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:30 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Molniya orbits are pretty obsolete and polar wouldn't you want to launch from, say, Aberdeen?

Polar orbits it doesn't matter where you launch from - and Molniya orbits are at 63.4 degrees inclination, so Iceland or Norway would be a better bet.
posted by BigCalm at 8:35 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Polar orbits it doesn't matter where you launch from - and Molniya orbits are at 63.4 degrees inclination, so Iceland or Norway would be a better bet.

Yeah but in this case we're theorizing the UK mainland.
posted by Talez at 8:45 AM on February 23, 2017


85% of what I know about the British electoral process comes from that sketch. I wish I could say I was joking.

I would supplement this with some Clangers.
posted by mushhushshu at 8:55 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


What Stoke Central does have is a lot of urban professionals and public sector workers, a lot of ethnic minority voters and a big university.

Aaron Banks, UKIP and Leave campaign funder and born rich guy, has made several tweets in the past few days about what Stoke voters think. They don't care about orchestras. They aren't Guardian readers. Etc etc. It reminded me of this stupid class quiz the BBC had years ago where checking the box for appreciating classical music bumped you up two entire classes regardless of any other answer.

Which brings me to Paul Nuttall, who seems to have working class automatically appended to any article about him. Unlike say, Clive Lewis, Dianne Abbott, Lucy Powell, Jo Cox, Andy Burnham and so on. It's an interesting publicity trick. Certainly, his only job pre politics seems to have been university lecturer, which would fall under most UKippers definition of cushy middle class public sector job.
posted by threetwentytwo at 9:29 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Good, good, I see that the Hilter and Election Night sketches have been referenced.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:30 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah but in this case we're theorizing the UK mainland.

As it happens: Scotland leading race to host UK’s first spaceport
posted by Buntix at 11:30 AM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Here's hoping the bad Bootle meff continues Farage's legacy

With all due respect (and emphasis mine), as an American... what? Who hopes what with the whole kit and kaboodle?
posted by maryr at 12:25 PM on February 23, 2017


control + f "lib dems"

Uhh you guys know there's a party which isn't labour right?

Also, there should be a game of guess-the-party from the first line of their self-description.
posted by Braeburn at 12:49 PM on February 23, 2017


control + f "lib dems"

Uhh you guys know there's a party which isn't labour right?


If you want a conservative government, sure, vote for the lib dems.
posted by Talez at 12:52 PM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


With all due respect (and emphasis mine), as an American... what? Who hopes what with the whole kit and kaboodle?

This article explains it. I think. I still don't fully understand, but it's something.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:02 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you want a conservative government, sure, vote for the lib dems.

Hey, at least they have a coherent position on the defining issue in British politics today. Unlike Labour.
posted by Urtylug at 1:53 PM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


winterhill: but I can't see UKIP doing it on a wet, windy Thursday in Stoke.

This deserved more favourites. Well-played. (Especially as it's usually furriners who apocryphally can't do it on such a night). [edit to add link]
posted by Pink Frost at 2:14 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hey, at least they have a coherent position on the defining issue in British politics today. Unlike Labour.

Then they get a sniff of the PM's chair when she's on vacation and that goes all out the window.

The Lib Dems will never be trusted again but weren't those five years where you got to sit on daddy Tory's lap and pretend to change gears ever so much fun!
posted by Talez at 2:14 PM on February 23, 2017 [9 favorites]


Polls closed. The Twitter buzz I've seen this far says Labour likely to hold Stoke, Tories likely to win Copeland, but that might just be people repeating the latest betting odds. Actual results expected in 5 hours or so.
posted by effbot at 2:16 PM on February 23, 2017


If I offered you 5 years of Cameron/Clegg in one hand and 5 years of Theresa May in the other, which would you take?
posted by Urtylug at 2:27 PM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


He's just using Stoke as a UKIP megaphone, he doesn't care about Stoke one bit

I worked for 2 years in The Potteries (Newcastle rather than Stoke), and I've never seen a part of the UK with a local identity that strong (Liverpool is probably stronger, I think, but I don't know it that well). I'm going to hope that Nuttall's going to get the kicking he well deserves.
posted by ambrosen at 2:28 PM on February 23, 2017


If Nuttall loses, it'll be interesting to see how long he holds onto UKIP leadership.

Mind you, with my track record of predicting elections he'll probably be an MP tomorrow morning!
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:58 PM on February 23, 2017


If I offered you 5 years of Cameron/Clegg in one hand and 5 years of Theresa May in the other, which would you take?

That depends. Is a gun an option?
posted by Talez at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


That depends. Is a gun an option?

Heh.

Angela Merkel, talking about coalitions: "The little party always gets smashed!"

Look, I get why the coalition wasn't popular. Austerity was a self-defeating policy that inflicted great pain for very little benefit. The tuition fees vote was a massive error on the Liberals' part. Plus nobody likes to see a party they viewed as allies standing on the other side.

But... we also got a Tory-led government implementing marriage equality and a progressive tax cut for low-income people (by raising the income tax threshold). Do you think either of those things would have happened with a Tory majority government? What's the point of being a political party if you aren't going to try to get something done?
posted by Urtylug at 3:34 PM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


But... we also got a Tory-led government implementing marriage equality and a progressive tax cut for low-income people (by raising the income tax threshold). Do you think either of those things would have happened with a Tory majority government? What's the point of being a political party if you aren't going to try to get something done?

Well there's also the whole disabled people and sick pensioners killing themselves over the bedroom tax. That one really didn't have to happen. Fuck the Tories until the end of days and fuck the people who ally with them.
posted by Talez at 3:47 PM on February 23, 2017 [13 favorites]


What's the point of being a political party if you aren't going to try to get something done?

THEY COULD HAVE FORMED A GOVERNMENT WITH LABOUR and IRE/SCOT mix! GRRRR
posted by lalochezia at 5:18 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Gareth Snell is in. Torys got Copeland by the same margin of votes for the Lib Dems which only proves that yes,
If you want a conservative government, sure, vote for the lib dems.
It's a good thing for the Torys that Cameron stabbed Clegg in the back on the AV referendum.
posted by Talez at 7:02 PM on February 23, 2017


I guess quite a few people in Copeland have already had children.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 9:04 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Stoke

Gareth Snell (Lab) 7,853 (37.09%, -2.22%)
Paul Nuttall (Ukip) 5,233 (24.72%, +2.07%)
Jack Brereton (C) 5,154 (24.35%, +1.80%)
Zulfiqar Ali (LD) 2,083 (9.84%, +5.67%)
Adam Colclough (Green) 294 (1.39%, -2.22%)
Barbara Fielding (Ind) 137 (0.65%)
The Incredible Flying Brick (Loony) 127 (0.60%)
David Furness (BNP) 124 (0.59%)
Godfrey Davies (CPA) 109 (0.51%)
Mohammed Akram (Ind) 56 (0.26%)

Lab maj 2,620 (12.38%)
2.14% swing Lab to Ukip

Electorate 57,701; Turnout 21,170 (36.69%, -13.24%)

Copeland

Trudy Harrison (C) 13,748 (44.25%, +8.46%)
Gillian Troughton (Lab) 11,601 (37.34%, -4.92%)
Rebecca Hanson (LD) 2,252 (7.25%, +3.80%)
Fiona Mills (UKIP) 2,025 (6.52%, -9.00%)
Michael Guest (Ind) 811 (2.61%)
Jack Lenox (Green) 515 (1.66%, -1.32%)
Roy Ivinson (Ind) 116 (0.37%)

C maj 2,147 (6.91%)
6.69% swing Lab to C

Electorate 60,602; Turnout 31,068 (51.27%, -12.53%)
posted by Segundus at 9:05 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


You'll note with pleasure that both Barbara Fielding and The Incredible Flying Brick beat the BNP.

Overall, though, this leaves Theresa May stronger than ever while the opposition stands on the verge of yet another round of damaging leadership battles.
posted by Segundus at 11:49 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Are we going to re-litigate the whole coalition argument *again*? No, they could not have formed a stable coalition with Labour + rag tag bunch of other parties. A Lib/Lab coalition would have had a wafer thin majority (1 without support from the SNP, 7 with.) & would have been unable to form a stable government. Whatever options were on the cards, going into coalition with Labour really wasn’t a viable option.

(It really, *really* didn’t help that Labour had made absolutely no plans for the possibility of coalition whatsoever & were clearly very surprised that the Libs had policy ideas of their own & weren’t simply going to roll over and be Labour’s poodles.)
posted by pharm at 11:56 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


This from the Guardian:

Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, has given an interview to Piers Morgan for a Piers Morgan’s Life Stories programme being broadcast on ITV this evening. In it Farage says he is living like a “virtual prisoner” and is “frightened” to leave his home because of the way the media has “demonised” Ukip.

Referring to Ukip members with extremist or racist views whose comments have been highlighted by the media, Farage says:

"It is because of these irrelevant people, who held no position, they happened to join an organisation, and because of these irrelevant people being demonised by liberal media, I’ve had to live years, frankly, of being frightened of walking out into the street all because the media picked out these people. And because of these people, attempted to demonise me and give me a bad name.

And you’re surprised three years on, when I have to live like a virtual prisoner, that I’m not happy about it? Will I ever forgive the British media for what they’ve done to me? No."


Remember, folks, Nigel is the true victim here.
posted by mushhushshu at 2:02 AM on February 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


Something that always mildly amuses me about Farage is that he's a terrible advert for his lifestyle. In his early fifties but looks twenty years older.
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:36 AM on February 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


So, 137 people voted for the Abolish Magna Carta Reinstate Monarchy Party?
posted by Myeral at 2:42 AM on February 24, 2017


So, 137 people voted for the Abolish Magna Carta Reinstate Monarchy Party?

Glad to see the people of Stoke took a principled stand against the values and policy stances of The Incredible Flying Brick (Loony) Party.
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:21 AM on February 24, 2017




Yes, those were the days when we had good old fashioned democracy, before the 3rd Reform Act came along and ruined everything.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 3:36 AM on February 24, 2017


New Statesman: If Labour loses the Stoke and Copeland by-elections, what next?
The reality is that defeat in Copeland or Stoke would belong to the whole Labour Party. The contests were brought about by resignations of centrist MPs who left to take high-flying jobs. The candidates in both seats are not from the left, despite that side of the party doing much of the heavy lifting on the campaign trail. The deeper fissures and crises – on Brexit, immigration, and so on – are not problems of the left but of every wing of the party. Deep down and in private, Labour centrists are pessimistic about electoral victory under any leader of any political stripe. But if the ship goes down with the left at the helm, these facts will seem a long way away.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:43 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Something that always mildly amuses me about Farage is that he's a terrible advert for his lifestyle. In his early fifties but looks twenty years older.

I've seen him in the street a few times, and he always seems to be smoking. Never had the chance to punch him in the face, unfortunately
posted by Myeral at 3:51 AM on February 24, 2017


UK Polling Report:
Looking at the two results, Copeland is a marginal seat between Labour and the Conservatives… albeit, one that had been in Labour hands for eighty years. The national polls tend to show the Conservatives about 14 points ahead of Labour, the equivalent of a 3.5% swing from Labour to Conservative since the general election. Therefore if Copeland had behaved exactly in line with the national polls it should have been on a knife edge between Conservative and Labour. In the event the Tories gained it comfortably. We cannot be certain why the Tories did better than the national picture would have predicted, thought the most obvious hypothesis is the unusual nature of the seat: Whitehaven is a town wholly dominated by and dependent on one industry – nuclear power – and the Labour party were perceived as being hostile towards it...

Copeland will be a body blow to Labour simply because of how incredibly unusual it is. Governments do not normally gain seats at by-elections. Lots of people will be writing about past examples today – 1982 in Micham and Morden (Lab vote split because of SDP defection, and the government got a surge of support during campaign because of the Falklands); 1961 Bristol South East (Tory gain only because the candidate with the most votes – Tony Benn – was disqualified for being a peer), 1960 Brighouse and Spenborough (ultra marginal to begin with). The fact that one has to go back that far to scrape a few examples that generally have extremely unusual circumstances underlines how freakish this is.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:59 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's not quite an exact fit, but I'm reminded of some of the analysis in Luke Savage's latest in Jacobin:
For all its pretensions of transcending the schism between left and right, the Third Way shift amounted to a hostile takeover of the center-left by a new generation of center-right technocrats whose main achievement was welding a refurbished lexicon of liberal progressivism to the processes already initiated by the likes of Thatcher and Reagan.

To this end, the political grammar of figures like Clinton and Blair synthesized and dulled many of the traditional idioms of liberalism, conservatism, and social democracy, redeploying them in the service of manifestly neoliberal causes. A sweeping, pro-corporate agenda of labor outsourcing, privatization, financial deregulation, welfare reform, and means-testing was implemented on the back of antiseptic management-speak incessantly declaring itself loyal to no ideology at all ... what qualified as “ideological” being anything out of sync with the professional managerial class and its various political, cultural, or economic outlooks.
This elite-dominated Third Way is (we hear) no longer politically viable in the UK, though to a large extent it still dominates the PLP. The problem is that the group that has taken advantage of the Third Way's electoral decline is also disproportionately comprised of members of Britain's social and cultural elite (call them the 10%), just a different segment. While the Third Way's champions were "business friendly," upwardly mobile professionals and senior managers and executives, Corbyn's core support seems to draw upon older, relatively well-off, university-educated public sector workers for whom moral and international issues loom large. I like these people a great deal in real life, but they kind of remind me of my public sector union, which has extraordinarily detailed policies on Palestinian solidarity, but, when called upon to deal with actual employment issues involving its actual members, tends to be disorganized and ineffectual (though completely without malice).

The problem is that these two schismatic fragments of the 10% don't have much in common in terms of class issues (or even shared life experience) anymore with Labour's supposed "base" among the working class, and, indeed, sometimes appear to be rather terrified of them. And there's also a specifically historically grounded, class-based stigma that clings to Corbyn and his core supporters that seems to turn a lot of people off, on both the left and the right. It's the stigma of '70s-style social activism; decades-old memories of student politics; beards and socks and sandals; Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal in The Good Life. These are stereotypes, sure, but they're also genuine impediments to this group being taken at all seriously. And then there's the disorganization and ineffectuality (while having the best possible intentions, of course), which is an undeniable part of the equation too.
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:56 AM on February 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


26 Facts That Prove The By-Elections Were Actually A Huge Victory For Labour
24. “Copeland by-election” is an anagram for “A Bicycle Tendon Pole”, so clearly the whole election was rigged against Jeremy Corbyn from the start. Not that you’ll ever hear about it on the biased BBC.
posted by effbot at 6:17 AM on February 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


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