UK Politics Thread

They are electoral wins and real disasters. How were they “achieved”? Through the creation of artificial threats, through naked and untrue demonisation.

In both cases immigrants were framed as an existential threat. The EU was framed as a Nazi-like organisation. Hillary Clinton was framed variously as being on her death bed, as an evil witch and a paedophile – and yes I know Hillary Clinton is not “left” but, like Biden is in 2020, was the only choice progressive politics had in the 2016 US election.

Corbyn was framed as an anti-Semite because he recognised the fundamental deep injustice at the heart of the Israel-Palestine situation.

All this was relentlessly pushed by the right-wing media bullsh*t machine.

Right-wing politics is successful electorally, but it fails society. What is good about denial of the climate crisis? What is good about dismissing the threat of COVID-19? What is good about massive and increasing wealth inequality? What is good about people having to bankrupt themselves to find a place to live? What is good about the destruction of labour rights? What is good about the heathcare situation in the US? What is good about the systematic running down of the NHS in Britain? What is good about constantly pushing racial and ethnic division? What is good about the rejection of science and rejection of reason? 

The Brexit mandate was assisted by support for and ambiguity towards it by elements on the Left.

I wouldn't disagree. I think the “Lexit” position was crazy and deluded and harks back a century to the "socialism in one country" delusion of the Soviets.

Somewhat mischievous to lump Sinn Fein in with such elements unless you subscribe to the revisionist narratives of the likes of Eoghan Harris.

Examine why people compare Sinn Fein's appeal to Trump and Brexit. They do so not because of the similarity of their policies – they are hugely different – but because of the following. 

Sinn Fein capitalised on anger. It has directed the same anger at the same real issues – ie. economic hardship – in a populist, nationalist direction, like Trump and Brexit did.

The difference between nationalism in the UK and US and nationalism in Ireland is our respective histories. The UK and US have a history of being so called “great powers”, ie. of imperialism. The belief that the UK and US have suffered a “lost glory” and have fallen victim to the “pernicious” influence of outsiders, the “great nation as victim” fantasy, is relentlessly pushed by right-wing nationalist imperialists in those countries. That's exactly what you see in Russia today. Putin's regime is nakedly far-right nationalist.

We don't really have that in Ireland. We were real victims for hundreds of years. Ireland's history is one of being a colony. UK and UK “nationalism” is essentially racist imperialism. Irish nationalism was essentially about taking its place as one small nation among the nations of the world. The words of the 1916 proclamation still have a major impact on what we are as a people, because they were essentially socialist. That's how in Ireland you can get a particular brand of nationalism which is mainly outward looking, welcoming and progressive. It's why, to put it in simple terms, we generally sympathise with the oppressed peoples of the world. Irish nationalism is broadly similar to Scottish nationalism and Catalan or Basque nationalism because of particular historical circumstances. I feel however that nationalism has been shown to be an extremely dangerous concept in the main.

Sinn Fein are populist. They have a propensity to say things they believe will be popular, without having any real plan to carry them through. They are essentially a low tax, high spending party. If you want a high spending, Scandinavian style welfare state, as there seems now be broad agreement in this state, you have to pay Scandinavian style high taxes. This is the fantasy that exists at the heart of Irish politics, that you can have Scandinavian style services with US style taxes. And I wouldn't single out Sinn Fein in this. Other parties, particularly Fianna Fail, have a history of using that exact style of populism. Taxing the rich is certainly a significant part of that, but it's not a panacea, you need a very broad tax base.

Re the UK, it is coping with the virus and has sufficient hospital capacity to do so despite a string of catastrophic mistakes.

Is the UK “coping” with this crisis? The narrative in the UK media was that Italy and Spain were suffering disasters. The UK is well on track to pass them out and they say they're "coping"?

The Tory government's response to the crisis has been borne of hubris and cack handed incompetence at every stage, but then it was always going to be that way, as it's a hubristic and wilfully incompetent regime when it comes to handling any real issue. Did you read the Sunday Times article last week or the Financial Times's projection that the real amount of deaths was well over double that of the published figures?

The USA is in a bad way which has been exacerbated by even worse leadership and the lack of any sort of welfare state.

The US has one party which is largely impotent and in the pockets of corporatism (the Democrats) and a ruling party (the Republicans) which is nakedly evil. It's not a great choice. Clearly the Democrats will always be better than the Republicans, same as any incarnation of the Labour party in the UK will always be a superior choice to the Tories, but real progressive politics doesn't have much of an outlet.

Re blaming the Right for divisions on the Left, the Left has never needed its opponents to do something that it excels at itself. Anyone familiar with the shrill control freakery and internecine destructiveness of fundamentalist Trotskyist sects in particular within the labour movement and trade unions will have seen at first hand the dogmatic imperatives of such groups to vilify anyone and everyone outside their orbit as the 'other' and caricature them as the 'Right.'

I wouldn't particularly disagree. I think you see what happened to Corbyn as Labour leader though that “shrill control freakery and internecine destructiveness of fundamentalists” is far from confined to Trotskyists – the bulk of the “centrist” Labour party MPs and their associated media commentariat waged war on Corbyn from before day 1. They were prepared to see the Tories continue in power rather than see Corbyn win. And there's a very similar dynamic at play in the “centrist” wing of the Democrats in the US as regards Bernie Sanders

The “unite the party” line is only pushed when somebody who doesn't genuinely challenge the system is leader – never in the opposite direction.

Re Trump, yes, a fair whack of the bombast and buffoonery may serve as dead cat distraction but he is floundering now and it's going to get a lot worse for him. He is a malignant narcissist, genuinely unhinged as the most recent comments have once again illustrated and inflicting so much damage on his own people that he is starting to lose his base-something once thought impossible by many-and increasingly viewed as a liability by the GOP with the November elections looming.

That he's a “malignant narcissist” is a given. It's a basic starting point. Trump is somebody who threatens democracy and threatens the world, because the US has such influence and many countries take their lead from it. Could Bolsonaro in Brazil have happpened wwithout Trump happening first? Debatable. Trump is an aspiring dictator who uses all the same propaganda techniques as Hitler did.He has completely taken over the Republican party. They do not see him as a "a liability", that party is a cult. There is no real opposition to him. Ironically that's one of the things the Republicans do well – they are immoral, and are only about power, and they brook no internal opposition, they are ruthless and united.

Personally I believe Trump will “win” in November. I don't believe he'll do it legitimately – I think Biden has considerably more real support. Obviously Biden is going to be painted as a senile, communist, corrupt, paedophile rapist and racist, becasue that's what Republicans do. They viciously attack and they project.

I expect the election to be rigged, because that's what aspiring dictators who care about money, power and immunity from prosecution do. The Republicans have a long history of voter suppression and gerrymandering. They openly welcome Russian interference. They refuse to enact even the most basic election security measures to protect against hacking and interference. They refuse the prospect of voting by mail in a situation where COVID-19 will affect people's movements in November, as it is likely to do. Why? Because Democrats would likely win - Trump admitted this a couple of weeks ago. All the signs are there that the election will be a fix. I desperately want to be wrong about this, because the world needs rid of Trump yesterday, but that's the way it strongly looks.

Anyhow-power to the people, brother. Whatever that means.

I don't know what that means. What does it mean?