In the news

This kind of sums that up:

The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting since the one in February at Parkland, Florida.

EDIT: I carried on reading, WTF

Shortly after the shooting began in the town of about 13,000
residents, a man carrying an American flag, wearing a Trump hat, and
carrying a pistol on his hip approached news cameras.

The man, who did not give his name, said his goal was to "get to the
school. Make America great again."

Another man then told reporters "we need prayers".

"This idiot is walking down the street with a damned pistol on his
side where we just had kids get shot," he said referring to the other
man.

"I'm a guns rights person. I have guns. But this idiot is walking down
here and saying he needs to make America great again. That's not what
America needs."

https://twitter.com/KPRC2Jake/status/997485656409559042

Cougar shot dead after killing US cyclist and mauling another http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44186998

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/theresa-may/news/95328/tory-mps-preparing-another-snap

Another 'snap' . Will half the Tories dissolve into dust?

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Part of me hopes they do call an election, mainly so Labour have to get off the fucking fence and commit to a Brexit policy.

They have a brexit policy - it’s called dithering as to which way to fall because their crotch is caught on the barbed wire fence.

Totally agree
Corbyn is fading because of his continued fence sitting

I think one of the reasons for Labour's success in the last election was by taking the focus away from Brexit back towards people's daily lives.

I know there's a huge amount that's still up in the air and likely to go to shit, but I also think a lot of people's attitudes is just "fucking get on with it."

On the other hand, I think that being in government at the minute is a poisoned chalice and whoever is in government will be held accountable for the outcome of Brexit, despite it being impossible to carry out in a way which will please everyone.

The 2017 GE was timed, at least partly, to head off the investigation into illegal campaign funding for a/the previous election. Is there something similar brewing in the background that we don't know about, or is it clear from the Referendum funding investigations that the fines for overspending/blurring of local with National funding must be increased far beyond the current 'cost of doing business' that a snap election might be the last where the Tories can spend Oligarch donations like water?

everyone

The smallest number to ignore would the 60-odd members of the oddly named European Research Group, the ERG currently chaired by lovable* Toff throwback Rees-Mogg.

• pronounced dangerous/unscrupulous/unhinged depending upon viewpoint.
  

Labour's position on Brexit has been absolutely correct. It's the Tories mess to struggle with, and the occasional grenade tossed into the process has been helpful at preventing a cakewalk into hard Brexit territory. As Tommmmmmm put it, it's the government's (whoever that may be) poisoned chalice. It's not the opposition's job to take the heat for an obviously fucked up situation. Andy's also right that an election would would force Labour to take a clear position (hopefully one I'd agree with). But that doesn't mean they've not done everything right in the mean time.

(I would hope that two elections since the referendum would be enough for, something like, a 'second referendum' to be palatable).

Unfortunately that small group of MPs has the support of most of the biggest newspapers, and a significant proportion of the population, e.g. the boiled hams on Question Time (Carnt even call them gammons ne more its political correctness gone mad !)

So it might be easy to dismiss them as fringe hardliners but I think there genuinely are a lot of people out there who 1) do still want to leave the EU 2) believe, quite reasonably, that there are a lot of people who don't, and who want to stop that process.

Thanks to the arrogance of the pigfucker, just deciding not to leave the EU is an option no government can take and survive.

John Redwood, a 'just leave' brexitter represents a Remain constituency. Johnson & ids both haemorrhaged votes between '17 and '15.
Seen
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/20/theresa-may-brexit-realists-jacob-rees-mogg

If Labour don't have a strong remain policy in the Autumn GE they'll get slaughtered, most especially if whoever has replaced May does.

Labour told labour lords to abstain from voting yes on staying in the single market.

Corbyn said he doesn't want in. He whipped people to vote for article 50 thereby not opposing Mays brexit plan which was even worse at the time.

I can only conclude that ATM they support a custom union and no more. That won't be enough for most remainers.

https://twitter.com/sam_linnett/status/998623594472230913

What would be enough for most remainers?

Good question.

From my limited sample of Facebook forums anything that does not include freedom of movement is out.

I also don't see how the Irish border issue can be solved without huge economic costs with no fom and customs union.

Now let's see if there are surveys: not really... So im guessing. It could depend on how "hard" remainers are, moderate onesy be happy with a fom/customs union model where the UK is not in the EU.

I think that's a waste of time but if Labour can sell that to the majority it's a helluva lot better than what we get now.

The freedom of movement is a red line for a lot of people though (including a lot of labour voters).

The difficulty with resolving Labour's Brexit woes is that the left will always reject the core principles of the single market, including freedom of movement of labour.

It's no wonder Corbyn is being so cautious given the irreconcilable ideological differences within the party. Doing right by the traditional working class Labour base will inevitably alienate the liberal metropolitan lot. At least everyone's finally stopped harping on about another referendum, though.

Without freedom of movement of labour this country is going to be fucked, as we don’t have enough natives with the skills and motivation to be, for e.g. doctors, nurses, engineers, builders and so forth.

So it may be a redline, but it’s a redline built on prejudice rather than anything rational- so rather than be pandered to it needs to be resolved, although that’s likely impossible given the press and narrative from all political parties.

Given that every single free trade deal we’ve made inquiries about includes (essentially) FOM for that countries citizens to the UK we’ll end up there anyway.

So- what is enough for remainders? Remaining. All other options are shit.

How shit? Best case scenario (government figures) is equivalent to a 13% increase in tax on the lowest income workers, which they can’t pay, so mega-austerity would be required. Corbyn might well get in, but he’d have £0 to pay for anything, re-nationalising railways, the NHS, infrastructure etc.

13% more tax or an increase from 20% to 33%?

Austerity appears to be a conveniently ‘common sense’ lie rather than a valid financial tactic, when applied to a country in control of its own currency.

I don’t think nationalisation even needs to be accounted for in terms of expenditure, as you’re essentially buying a business which generates money, using money you’ve loaned to yourself.

Edit: Everything else I agree on, just interested in the theoretical numbers there.

The lowest impact/softest Brexit available is £615m a week, equal to £88 per household per month, a 13% tax rise if you're on average income.

The hard socialist left is actually not against freedom of movement aka easy immigration systems. The NI socialists are not.

The left was also internationalist mostly at least some time ago.

The unions are now also supporting staying in the single market.

Most labour members are remain, from research it looks that non labour voters caused a leave vote in most leave areas.

Corbyn just doesn't seem to want it. Momentum also made a lot of anti single market noise.

I like the return to social democraty of labour, but I think they are horrible wrong on brexit (economy / NI border) and their anti immigrantion stance with no support (research doesn't bear it out and it panders to nativism and prejudice) disappoints me.

The hard socialist left is actually not against freedom of movement aka easy immigration systems.

Can you really say that?

I've heard plenty of politicians over the years make statements that are totally at odds with FOM or protectionist anti-EU in nature.

I don't think I've heard them make any arguments based on maintaining a cohesive "British" society. But it seems a stretch to claim there is a set hard left view on immigration.

I like the return to social democraty of labour

#centristdad

(in before someone else)

The hard socialist left is actually not against freedom of movement aka easy immigration systems.

I'm really not sure how you came to this conclusion.

We need to move away from the assumption that xenophobic immigration hysteria is the only reason to object to freedom of movement of labour. Remain supporters clinging onto this nonsense is a large part of the reason for the poor standard of debate between the left and the Labour "moderates".

I won't get into my position because I don't think it would go down very well here, but it's clear that Corbyn doubts the possibility of delivering a "progressive" policy platform whilst maintaining our current relationship to the single market. I think his statements on the topic have been uniquely (by the standard of parliamentary politics at the moment) nuanced and realistic but for some reason it's more important to most that he takes a "clear stance" in whatever direction.