The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,931
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Dec 1, 2019 10:46:25 GMT
No, not at all, though it's obviously true that your party has tried desperately hard to achieve that link. Its a genuine suggestion on my part, to some degree based on observations IRL, I don't expect you to agree with it  |
|
|
|
Post by No Offence Alan on Dec 1, 2019 11:00:04 GMT
The Lib Dems, a party with many councillors and activists, was always a better option for people with such politics, even taking the toxicity created by the Coalition into account. Would you care to elaborate on how 2015-2019 has been an improvement on 2010-2015? |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2019 14:44:52 GMT
Let's suppose all the defectors to CHUK join the Lib Dems on day one.
The Lib Dems win the Euro elections.
Now on course for PM Swinson.
|
|
|
|
Post by curiousliberal on Dec 1, 2019 14:49:13 GMT
Let's suppose all the defectors to CHUK join the Lib Dems on day one. The Lib Dems win the Euro elections. Now on course for PM Swinson. Probably not even if all else held true. Where it would change everything is in terms of parliamentary arithmetic. If they'd voted in line with our whip (instead of the CHUK whip, which was to vote against everything except revoke and a second referendum) on the indicative votes (which for some options was a free vote, in which case it is safest to infer how they'd vote from their history), there would have probably been a majority for the Customs Union option in the Commons, and quite possibly one for CM2.0, as well. I don't think that would have been enough to persuade May to compromise on her deal by bringing in a customs union option, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely. If she had, who can say we'd still be a member of the EU by now, and would her replacement have taken over so soon? |
|
|
|
Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Dec 1, 2019 14:57:28 GMT
I'm reading this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. There were all sorts of legitimate grievances that Luciana Berger etc had with Labour; but apparently these should be ditched in favour of Brexit denial. Yes, the Funny Tinge should have avoided screwing up by focusing solely on their biggest screw-up of all!
|
|
|
|
Post by curiousliberal on Dec 1, 2019 15:12:21 GMT
I'm reading this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. There were all sorts of legitimate grievances that Luciana Berger etc had with Labour; but apparently these should be ditched in favour of Brexit denial. Yes, the Funny Tinge should have avoided screwing up by focusing solely on their biggest screw-up of all! CHUK came out for revoke when we rejected it. Stopping Brexit was at the front and centre of their agenda, which was otherwise relatively empty (besides combating racism). |
|
|
|
Post by Merseymike on Dec 1, 2019 15:33:03 GMT
I'm reading this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. There were all sorts of legitimate grievances that Luciana Berger etc had with Labour; but apparently these should be ditched in favour of Brexit denial. Yes, the Funny Tinge should have avoided screwing up by focusing solely on their biggest screw-up of all! CHUK came out for revoke when we rejected it. Stopping Brexit was at the front and centre of their agenda, which was otherwise relatively empty (besides combating racism). I think the problem was that they were a classic example of a group of people reacting against something they didn't like in their party. There certainly didn't seem to be any vision of why they were there and why they needed to exist in addition to the LibDems. Gapes and Leslie, for example - Gapes is a foreign policy Atlanticist hawk. Leslie is an economic neoliberal, but both of them aren't natural LibDems. Same with Soubry. Ummuna and Wollaston, on the other hand, appear to fit into the LibDems well, and I could never work out what Berger was doing in the Labour party in the first place, other than her strong family history - same with Emily Benn. Both of them appear far better suited to a centre party. |
|
|
|
Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Dec 1, 2019 16:12:02 GMT
I'm reading this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. There were all sorts of legitimate grievances that Luciana Berger etc had with Labour; but apparently these should be ditched in favour of Brexit denial. Yes, the Funny Tinge should have avoided screwing up by focusing solely on their biggest screw-up of all! CHUK came out for revoke when we rejected it. Stopping Brexit was at the front and centre of their agenda, which was otherwise relatively empty (besides combating racism). The racism should have been the big issue. They were creating an anti-racist centre-left force, who would seize the opportunities presented by Brexit to deliver improvements to workers' rights and free up money wasted on red tape to spend on the NHS. And so on. Instead they went for fighting yesterday's battle. |
|
|
|
Post by pragmaticidealist on Dec 1, 2019 16:14:11 GMT
The Lib Dems, a party with many councillors and activists, was always a better option for people with such politics, even taking the toxicity created by the Coalition into account. Would you care to elaborate on how 2015-2019 has been an improvement on 2010-2015? Actually gaining councillors in local elections rather than shedding hundreds and thousands, a bit more support in the opinion polls and even a few more MPs compared to 2015. |
|
Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742 
|
Post by Adrian on Dec 1, 2019 16:22:31 GMT
"Nothing has changed." T May, 2017
It's ridiculous, really, that Labour, Tories and the media are conducting the 2019 election as though those two parties are the ones that people want running the country. It was only 6 months ago that they mustered just 22.5% between them.
Surely the only reason for this state of affairs is the electoral system. I know that the Tiggers didn't break the mould at the Euro elections, but they did get more than half a million votes, and they'd be likely to get Westminster MPs on such a showing if we had PR. Also, the group would've been more likely to stick together, and given that Jo Swinson has proved to be a somewhat poor LD leader so far, the Tiggers might've eaten into the LD vote.
|
|
|
|
Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Dec 1, 2019 16:27:27 GMT
That is an excellent argument against PR. |
|
|
|
Post by pragmaticidealist on Dec 1, 2019 16:30:47 GMT
"Nothing has changed." T May, 2017 It's ridiculous, really, that Labour, Tories and the media are conducting the 2019 election as though those two parties are the ones that people want running the country. It was only 6 months ago that they mustered just 22.5% between them. Surely the only reason for this state of affairs is the electoral system. I know that the Tiggers didn't break the mould at the Euro elections, but they did get more than half a million votes, and they'd be likely to get Westminster MPs on such a showing if we had PR. Also, the group would've been more likely to stick together, and given that Jo Swinson has proved to be a somewhat poor LD leader so far, the Tiggers might've eaten into the LD vote. That they managed to get that much in elections for the Parliament of an organization that we're supposedly leaving, and which we only took part in due to not having left already at that point, and which are a magnet for protest votes at the best of times, perhaps suggests that they may right in that case. |
|
|
|
Post by moosalini on Dec 10, 2019 10:07:11 GMT
The Tig/Cuk was a dead duck from the start. When they formed in February 2019 there were certain political realities they didn't seem to think about. 1. There was a minority Conservative Government propped up by the DUP so there was a likelihood a General Election was in the offing. 2. There was also a good chance there would be Euro elections. 3. There were local elections in May. Time was not on their side and they wasted their time they had.
Any proper election campaigner knows elections are won and lost before the actual campaign starts. You need money, back room staff, on the ground workers, candidates and a plan. In essence you need an organisation behind you before you start a campaign.
The Peterborough by-election showed their political campaigning naivety where they backed a joint remain candidate without having a back up candidate in place.
The defection of Heidi Allen et al was a boost to the TIG and would have been good for them if the Tory 3 had taken a step back. Making Heidi interim leader was a big problem. Heidi was a Conservative MP from a safe seat where her profile was doing the good things like public meetings, fetes and shows rather than the hard task of knocking on doors. Heidi is not a good campaigner and what they needed was a good campaigner. My heart sank when Heidi was named leader as this party was going no-where.
As for further defections from either the Conservatives or Labour this was pretty moot after their launch. Any MP looking at the new group and the political situation at the time would be looking to commit political suicide by defecting. Without party resources to back them up they would be left whistling in the wind if there was an election.
CUK was always going to screw up because of timing. On the other hand if they had gone 2 years before, whilst May had a majority and the Liberal Democrats were still toxic I feel things could have been different and the party would have a longer run in. We may have not had the 2017 General Election and the CUK would have had time establish themselves as a party contesting local elections. They may have been able to encourage more defections from both major parties. I do feel there is a large enough slice of the electorate that CUK could have attracted with a longer lead in and CUK could have disrupted the other political parties.
|
|
The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,931
Member is Online
|
Post by The Bishop on Dec 10, 2019 11:24:06 GMT
But the point is, it *had* been not just talked about but actually planned well in advance. As long ago as autumn 2016 there was a tentative "grid" in place for the launch of a breakaway "moderate" party to coincide with that year's Labour conference. Even though those involved (a certain MP for Streatham being prominent) got cold feet.
So the reasons for their failure lie elsewhere, and I would suggest one was the seeming presumption that adulatory media coverage would on its own be enough.
|
|
|
|
Post by Merseymike on Dec 10, 2019 12:33:20 GMT
But the point is, it *had* been not just talked about but actually planned well in advance. As long ago as autumn 2016 there was a tentative "grid" in place for the launch of a breakaway "moderate" party to coincide with that year's Labour conference. Even though those involved (a certain MP for Streatham being prominent) got cold feet. So the reasons for their failure lie elsewhere, and I would suggest one was the seeming presumption that adulatory media coverage would on its own be enough. A lot of bruised egos. I mean, is there really any logical reason why we need a new strongly pro-EU , pro-market centre party, when we quite clearly already have one. The issue is more why that one appears to find it so hard to break through. I do think the electoral system is the main reason - but to be honest, I think its something more. The LD's have this pavement-dogshit-take-the-politics-out-of-politics appeal at local level, but that actually harms them at national level. CHUK was the opposite - no sense of anything other than a group of disaffected individuals who had threatened to leave before but only did so when deselection beckoned, and no grassroots at all |
|
|
|
Post by Devil Wincarnate on Dec 10, 2019 13:25:45 GMT
It was an ideological hollow shell.
|
|
Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,029
Member is Online
|
Post by Sibboleth on Dec 10, 2019 19:29:14 GMT
The fundamental problem with CUK-TIG is that it was (is) a symptom of a political and party system gone rancid, rather than any sort of cure or alternative. Right from the start there was a definite lack of coherence, and this only grew as the months rolled by. It was never clear, exactly, what they were about other than 'the main parties are sh it' (a position that most people would agree with, yes, but hardly distinctive) and 'Brexit is bad' (a position that other parties already held). So I don't know. It's easy to think of how a splinter group from either main party might be considerably more successful (it could still happen), but I don't know how this one could have been: at least, not without getting seriously lucky. Which was all they were left angling for in the end. Though I have realised one way in which they might have had better chance of getting lucky. If, maybe, they'd not launched the whole project at the point at which their most charismatic and telegenic figure was about to disappear for several months on maternity leave? Not everyone here likes Berger, of course, but she is a woman of considerable energy and drive and is able to project this well on screen. Whereas... |
|
mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
Posts: 4,961
|
Post by mondialito on Dec 10, 2019 19:52:04 GMT
The fundamental problem with CUK-TIG is that it was (is) a symptom of a political and party system gone rancid, rather than any sort of cure or alternative. Right from the start there was a definite lack of coherence, and this only grew as the months rolled by. It was never clear, exactly, what they were about other than 'the main parties are sh it' (a position that most people would agree with, yes, but hardly distinctive) and 'Brexit is bad' (a position that other parties already held). So I don't know. It's easy to think of how a splinter group from either main party might be considerably more successful (it could still happen), but I don't know how this one could have been: at least, not without getting seriously lucky. Which was all they were left angling for in the end. Though I have realised one way in which they might have had better chance of getting lucky. If, maybe, they'd not launched the whole project at the point at which their most charismatic and telegenic figure was about to disappear for several months on maternity leave? Not everyone here likes Berger, of course, but she is a woman of considerable energy and drive and is able to project this well on screen. Whereas... I still can't help but feel as if the rest of CUK wanted to piggyback on Berger's defection, which had very real reasons behind it unlike their collective strop. |
|
|
|
Post by minionofmidas on Dec 14, 2019 13:45:01 GMT
Did CHUK screw up? I still think they did about as well as could be realistically expected. They saved all but one of their deposits!
|
|
|
|
Post by Andrew_S on Dec 14, 2019 13:59:10 GMT
Did CHUK screw up? I still think they did about as well as could be realistically expected. They saved all but one of their deposits! Which one did they lose. |
|
