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Saturday 16 February 2019

All change!

For an inspired series of graphics of the Brexit alignments and realignments in Parliament, visit the Guardian - one of the captures below.

Like an amoeba undergoing mitosis, our Parliament is resolving into four distinct factions. Brexit has split both Labour and Conservative parties, and the papers are just beginning to pick up on the fallout.

The Guardian reports on talks to form a new Lab/Con centrist party, a sort of Son of Blair I suppose whilst the Telegraph reports on 25 Remainer MPs including Dominic Grieve who face deselection by the end of March. Further 'Party Split' pieces by John Longworth and Tobias Ellwood, for the sake of balance I guess, feature in the Telegraph, whilst the Express gives us a 'JRM for new ERG Party' piece.

None of which is at all surprising for a system that has a Leave party led by a Remainer pretending to believe in Leave and a Remain party led by a Leaver pretending to believe in Remain.

All of which makes me cheerful. I loathe the privileged complacency and sense of entitlement of our politics more than anything - it's time to give the bag a shake.

39 comments:

DeeDee99 said...

The current two-party system, supposedly based on Left v Right political inclinations no longer works in the UK. The new divide is between those who believe in Democratic National Sovereignty and those who believe the future is Oligarchic Supra-nationalism.

The current set-up of "broad church" Labour and Conservative Parties cannot effectively represent both views, since they are completely incompatible.

Brexit may be the straw that breaks the two-party system and the FPTP voting system.



Anonymous said...

This is not the all-consuming issue with the seventeen million Leave voters that it is with you, Raed.

For many of them it was simply a balance-of-preference matter.

There will be no "fury" with them, even if there is with you, when you do not get exactly what your fixated mind wants.

Raedwald said...

Anon - do stop projecting. Go out for a walk in the sunshine and chill.

Anonymous said...

We all project to some extent Raed, and I am a convinced European. I'm extremely disappointed by what has happened to my country of late, but I accept that the UK is leaving the EU.

There has been no threat of violence from the Remain side, even though it is largely the young and fit who comprise it.

However, ironically, there has been just that from all over the Leave one, despite the fact that the Leave voters are largely elderly. Yes, you might get the BNP-ukip football hooligans to kick off about a customs unions, say, but that would be about it.

Billy Marlene said...



A wholesale evacuation of the Blairite metro elite will leave a funny old residue in the pan.

It is a shame we won’t see a Labour Government in action for it would certainly rattle the likes of Chukkup, Shameless and ET.

A PM refusing to use our nuclear deterrent, a Marxist Chancellor, a racist Home Secretary, An incongruesly titled Foreign Secretary, an ex pawn shop and call centre operator as Business Secretary and a barely literate 15 year old pregnant school leaver as Education Secretary.

A shame also as the above would seriously tempt me to return to Portugal; and I would rather like that.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that party members are usually more fundamentalist in their views than the constituency members of the general public voters are.

Leaving selection entirely in the members' hands - for whatever party - is unlikely to improve their electability, therefore.

It's good to see, that whatever you think of its editorialising, the dear old Guardian isn't too bad on facts though, is it, Raed?

Stephen J said...

Whether we leave the EU now or when it collapses in a few years time is not really what will lead to a better system of democracy. The real EU issue, is whether or not in the meantime, we succumb to the globalist oligarchic system as DeeDee99 points out.

What we really need is a more meaningful reflection of citizens' concerns, and you don't get that under the current two party system of tendencies.

The best way to get the above is by replacing representative democracy with citizen initiated issue based binding votes as in Switzerland.

The difficulty with arriving at this happy state, is that those that have their hands on the controls would rather keep their sticky hands there, it's like being in possession of the golden egg laying goose.

We can see this, following the most groundbreaking experiment in democracy that has led to every kind of abuse by this cabal that one can think of. They know that we will get real meaningful power under a DD system, and whether the recent vote was based on a combination of emotion and logic rather than live data or statistics (and you know what they say about them), and that will break their hold forever.

It is therefore a VERY left/right thing, the socialist is forever wanting to interfere and impose its will on others, whereas the classical liberal/conservative is happy to be left alone and to leave others alone.

God help us if a true socialist/communitarian zealot gets its fingers in the pie.

Anonymous said...

Ah, my comment containing a question was removed.

That'll be "yes", then.

Raedwald said...

No. I know you're incapable of posting anything that isn't petty, nasty, spiteful, slanderous, petulant, simplistic or puerile but sometimes your absurd lies just need slapping down.

Why don't you try to make a human friend in the real world instead of attention-seeking here?

Anonymous said...

I only asked a simple question, for goodness sake, man, and a fairly reasonable one.

John Dub said...

Anon. Go play in traffic you loser.

jack ketch said...

dear old Guardian isn't too bad on facts though, is it, Raed?-Anon

As much as I despise that northern tabloid and its apparent readership, it has proven rather more trustworthy than others this last couple of years when quoting FACTS and its 'live' politics blog/ticker tends to be on the money. The opinion pieces tend to suck donkey cock ...or are campaigning for the freedom to do so.

Budgie said...

Jack Ketch, I would trust the Mail before the Guardian/BBC nexus. And I don't trust the Mail one jot. A paper that uses the term "europhobe" as the Guardian does is just a propaganda rag and, if it believes its own propaganda, entirely misses the point.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I didn't doubt for one moment that you would, Budgie.

What is worse about "europhobe" than "europhile", as also used by the Guardian? Both can be claimed to carry unpleasant overtones.

I'd prefer "eurocynic" or "eurohostile", perhaps.

Incidentally, I think that the term "homosceptic" would have some validity.

Ravenscar. said...

"All of which makes me cheerful. I loathe the privileged complacency and sense of entitlement of our politics more than anything - it's time to give the bag a shake."


Agreed!

And how right you are R.

TPTB, the great and the good, the 'experts', the chatterati, the meejah and KLAN leftwing think tanks, quangoes have played the Left versus right game for long enough! Ah but people have, are, beginning to see through the game and its smoke and mirrors.

The toryboys or lavs - what's the bloody difference?

Where and, more EUrope is always their answer. Indeed the only distinction that can be discerned between red and red lite rosettes is one of speed of travel, the lavs will get us all to Venezuela first but know it, the crony corporate statists are also running the country into the ground.
Running Britain into perdition, because fundamentally both political parties are so designed to maintain the status quo ante (in the clutches of the EU) and it relentless, egregious end, the deconstruction of the nation state.

Deconstruction tactics.

To wit; keep the borders wide open while enabling welfare free at the point of access - no questions asked and that way only leads to bankruptcy and the logical extension towards ensuing anarchy. Plus and not least tory and lav adhered to, gold plating EU regulation, excessive taxation the green agenda, PC, multcult, wimin running the shop, a law and order service given over to making a largely law abiding public - enemy No 1.

This cannot go on, we need to 'readjust' Parliament and then we'll come for the media and the UK administration.

Anonymous said...

Who are "we" Ravenscar?

How many are you, would you guess?

Don't try to claim that seventeen million, who range from genteel elderly ladies making jam to illegal dog breeders are all like you, there's a good chap eh?

Dave_G said...


The 17 million are people who want to be free.

The 'others' are simply bending over and asking for it.

Can you touch your toes Anan?

Ravenscar. said...

"we" just need to stop paying AND GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT NEEDS CONSENT DOES IT NOT?

civil disobedience, no collaboration, if people withdraw their consent and its public covenant it is enough, they can't arrest 'we' all of us, there are lots of good chaps and grannies too - and incontestibly, money talks, eh?

Ravenscar. said...

hmm, corrigendum - apols, incontestably too.

jack ketch said...


The 17 million are people who want to be free.
-Dave G

I assume you meant "free of the EU" and not as in 'a free people' because however Brexshite goes down, we will be as 'enslaved' as we ever were. Old master meet the new master. Morpheus might disagree, but whether we take the blue pill or the red pill, it kinda comes out the same.

Or did you mean 'free' as in 'FREE with every box of Shreddies' -a subtle pun perhaps on the national economy after brexit with business 'fucked' and the pound doing 'what it wants'?

Anonymous said...

Civil disobedience? What exactly is the speed limit for a mobility scooter, Ravenscar?

Anonymous said...

making you choke on your quinoa?

oooh dear, still if you ain't choking on your unearned grub, you'll be tripping up over your self delusion and personally, singly anointed genius.

Anonymous said...

The total Guardian readership is just over a million average.

So if every one of those voted Remain, then that leaves over fifteen million more by 2016 figures. That's some "metropolitan elite", isn't it?

But, if you try to pretend that reality is a cartoon caricature, then yes, you'll make a fool of yourself all the time.

Raedwald said...

Perhaps only a million Remainers can read, and the rest just do what Sky and the BBC tell them?

jack ketch said...


Perhaps only a million Remainers can read, and the rest just do what Sky and the BBC tell them?
Raed

Claws away dear, or do all Brexiteers just look at da pwetty pshures an da Big WORD fings inda Daily Excess?

Yes some Remainers follow the 'party' line, hell believe the party line from the Ministry Of Truth (or BBC as some still call it), just as some Leavers think that Breitbart is not a spoof and that some politicians, such as JRM, are telling the truth.

Dioclese said...

I look at it very simply :

The Eu is an anti-democratic heap of shite
Anyone who believes otherwise is deluded
Any MP wanting to defy the referendum has ulterior motives
Anyone who believes Project Fear is a moron

The public will moan and complain but ultimately just do fuck all...

Anonymous said...

Sorry Jack, that won't do at all.

There are seventeen million coiled springs, ready to organise into crack paramilitary units, unless the check list of fifty-odd demands - for which they imagine that they voted on 23/06/16 - is met, don't you know?

Raedwald said...

Well, I'm always here to offer words of care and comfort to the losers, bitter as they are, in denial as they are, and many suffering from Brexit Derangement Syndrome, who still just can't admit that a clear majority of 17.4m voters, the biggest exercise of democracy in British history, mandated withdrawal from the crooked, corrupt cabal of twisted morality, injustice, perversion and anti-democracy that is the EU.

Suck it up.

jack ketch said...

crooked, corrupt cabal of twisted morality, injustice, perversion and anti-democracy that is the EU.

You say that like it is a bad thing.

Raedwald said...

lol I just spat ;))

jack ketch said...

lol I just spat ;)) -raed

:) then my work here for the evening is done and I shall go conjugate....some verbs.

Stephen J said...

Should we be lucky enough to escape the EU, I wonder whether the BBC (Pravda) will be showing the Europe Day EC parade live?

They used to do a fine job in Moskow on May Day.

That waxen headed Politburo sitting proudly looking down on the people watching that massive display of destructive power....

Ah... The good old days.

Anonymous said...

Most of 450 million people now say that Tory UK should PUFO ASAP.

I'm with them.

terence patrick hewett said...

Political re-alignment is happening in the Republic of Ireland as well: but because government controls most of the media you do not hear much about it. The response columns of the Irish Independent are very different from those of the Irish Times/RTÉ.

This has to be taken in the context of history - if there is a chance to stick one on the Brits - then support for the EU is manifest: but abstract that and support for the EU is shallow and changeable - and can turn on a sixpence given the right conditions.

Continentals always fall into the mistake of believing that just because many people in Ireland/Scotland/Wales don't like the English very much - that they like them the more - they don't - no matter what they say to rile the English.




Anonymous said...

I trust your personal observations Terence, but whatever the Irish think of the Continent, polls say that they are resolutely in favour of their country's remaining in the EU.

Budgie said...

Dave G said: "The 17 million are people who want to be free".

Jack Ketch said: "I assume you meant "free of the EU" and not as in 'a free people' because however Brexshite goes down, we will be as 'enslaved' as we ever were".

Dave G you are correct, and Jack Ketch is just being a pretentious Salacious Crumb. Liberty, liberalism, responsibility, patriotism and democracy are vital components of the individual freedom that is the best we know how to run our societies. Best for us, and best for the rest of the world. Anyone can mock what is good, though Jack ketch has had more practice than most.

The EU is merely an ideology with no roots and no principles. It serves only those who currently hold power; and they answer to no one but themselves. Ideologies appeal to the rootless, cynical, bitter and gullible. There is very little practical difference between Walther Funk's EU and Martin Selmayr's.

Whether Anon and Jack Ketch like it or not, the government provided the people of the UK the opportunity to choose between Remain (under Cameron's renegotiation) or Leave. The government and both campaigns were clear that Leave meant the UK leaving (abrogating) the EU treaties. Anything less is a betrayal which results in new laws being made in Brussels, and is therefore Remain.

m davies said...

... Raedwald said...
No. I know you're incapable of posting anything that isn't petty, nasty, spiteful, slanderous, petulant, simplistic or puerile but sometimes your absurd lies just need slapping down. …

Then why don't you just ban the ******* he us spoiling your blog! You will loose your 'locals' otherwise!

jack ketch said...


Then why don't you just ban the ******* he us spoiling your blog! You will loose your 'locals' otherwise!
MD

Perhaps because Raed knows that effectively banning anyone is a pretty futile exercise (as Dicky 12 Toes has proven on many occasions on other blogs). I think we should be grateful that Raed is slow to swing the ban hammer , lot of us here have said things which would have gotten us banned elsewhere. What floors me is how nasty some of the comments directed to Raed himself can be, other blog owners would not put up with it.

Anonymous said...

Dear Budgie - Where's the bit about abrogating international treaties like the GFA?