UK Election Outcome and Aftermath

[Fintan]

UK SET FOR HISTORIC DECEMBER 12TH ELECTION

MPs back pre-Christmas general election

Boris Johnson’s wish for a general election on 12 December looks set to be
granted after MPs voted in favour of it by 438 to 20; a majority of 418.

The prime minister had already defeated an attempt to change the date to
9 December – the only serious opposition remaining to his proposal – and
the bill that seeks to implement a 12 December general election will now
pass to the Lords, who are expected to wave it through.

With the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party preparing to support a one-line bill tabled by Boris Johnson’s government, triggering an early poll, Corbyn said his party would also vote for it.

The Labour leader told the shadow cabinet: “I have consistently said that we are ready for an election and our support is subject to a no-deal Brexit being off the table.





“This election is a once-in-a-generation chance to transform our country and take on the vested interests holding people back.

The choice at this election could not be clearer: A Labour government will be on your side; while Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, who think they’re born to rule, will only look after the privileged few.

“We will now launch the most ambitious and radical campaign for real change our country has ever seen.”

I suppose you'd have to figure that this is Jeremy Corbyn's opportunity.

He will say Conservatives turned a simple exit deal into a long soap opera.

He will offer a customs union deal to safeguard jobs and he will outline
Labour plans to reform the excesses of two decades of neoliberal policies.

Half of voters are mobile and capable of shifting allegiance.

This is a defining election.

[James D]

Nigel’s Nightmare
https://wingsoverscotland.com/nigels-nightmare/

As we steel ourselves for the wretched purgatorial misery of (at least) the next six weeks, we’ve been sitting up late trying to think of a positive aspect of the coming election campaign, and the best we’ve come up with is this: if it’s awful for most human beings in the country, just imagine how terrible it is for Nigel Farage.

Because as has been increasingly obvious from the Brexit Party leader’s comments this month, Farage knows only too well the truth that the rest of the country is going to realise quite soon, if it hasn’t already: he’s now the only thing that might stop the UK leaving the European Union.

The Tories’ average opinion poll lead at the moment is around 12 points, which would normally be enough to secure a crushing victory under Britain’s antiquated electoral system, especially as Labour and the Lib Dems hate each other too much to form any sort of meaningful tactical Remain alliance.

Jeremy Corbyn wants Brexit to happen so that he can pick up the pieces – he just doesn’t want to be responsible for it, hence the extraordinary reluctance with which the official Opposition had to be bounced into having an election. It knows there isn’t a hope in hell of anyone with Corbyn’s personal ratings ever being elected Prime Minister with a majority unless there’s been some sort of apocalypse first.

(Corbyn himself is so hopelessly deluded we suspect he still thinks he can get through this campaign talking about austerity and stuff, rather than Brexit.)

Labour’s official policy is a shambles of months more negotiating and voting, somehow leading to a magically “good” Brexit. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, keep flapping around between a People’s Vote and instant revocation of Article 50, but also have no chance of winning the election so it doesn’t really matter what they want – the only significance of their position is that it’s so far from Labour’s it’s almost impossible for voters to vote tactically, because it won’t be at all clear what they’re voting tactically for.

The SNP, on the other hand, are such a hot mess they abstained on their own vote last night, and having voted to block a 12 December election on Monday they crowed that it was their intervention that had, um, brought about a 12 December election on Tuesday. Even though they left it to the MPs of other parties to actually do it.

But they have the advantage of the clearest position of any party in the next six weeks (faint praise indeed). For supporters of independence, it’s an absolute no-brainer to vote SNP in this election. No other vote can bring a Yes vote closer in an FPTP election, and even for the many voters alienated by aspects of the party’s domestic agenda there’s no real downside to electing SNP MPs at Westminster, where they can do very little harm in terms of giving rapists access to vulnerable women and whatnot.
...

The Brexit Party, however, are in the trickiest position of all, and they know it. It’s all but a given that the Tories are going to lose seats to the Lib Dems and SNP, and it’s not easy to see where they’ll pick up many from elsewhere to compensate.

If those losses are exacerbated by Farage’s team splitting the Brexit vote in Tory/Lib Dem marginals, there’s a (slim) chance that a coalition between two or all three of the other parties might be able to form a viable government that would stop Brexit altogether, either directly or via (God have mercy on us all) another referendum.

From a Brexit point of view, there are two obvious solutions. One is a pact where TBP only stands in northern Leave seats that might shy away from voting Tory but would be willing to go for someone else to get Brexit done, and that the Tories give them a clear run, while the Brexit Party leaves the Tories to fight the Con/LD marginals. Farage has repeatedly suggested this idea but been unequivocably rebuffed.

The other option is that TBP simply stands aside. Johnson still has the confidence of Brexiters, who overwhelmingly feel that he’s doing everything possible to deliver Brexit but being frustrated by Parliament. He’s achieved the unlikely feat of getting the EU to sort-of renegotiate the deal, albeit only by caving in on nearly everything and going back to the deal the EU wanted in the first place.

In the absence of a pact,the Brexit Party can now only harm the prospects of Brexit. Farage is staring at the possibility of having won a referendum on his life’s ambition, only to then see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by his own ego. You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh, frankly, except that his failure would also be ours.( https://wingsoverscotland.com/narrow-windows/ ) - [OUTCOME: NO INDYREF.]
...

.... For most of us, they might as well have the election tomorrow and get it over with. The only person with a difficult dilemma to wrestle with over the coming weeks is Mr Farage. And for that, and so many other reasons, we don’t envy him.

[MichaelC]

I always thought that more or less the same usury banking criminals that own the B of E also own the ECB. Some say that Brexit is because they believe that Europe is going down. Others say that there are different factions among the usury banking criminals who own the central banks and there may be a battle for dominance now, e.g., Trump stooging for one side (the Rothschild faction) with
soros, clintons, etc, all Trump haters representing the other (Rockefeller) faction.
It just gets curioser and curioser! Would be wonderful if they were to fight to the death.

[James D]

Where's Nigel?

The Incredible Disappearing Farage, and Other Electoral Oddities
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... -oddities/

For a decade Nigel Farage has been flung into our living rooms continually by the BBC. Even when UKIP barely registered a blip in the opinion polls, he was a regular on Question Time and the other news, current affairs and politics programme. Farage’s celebrity was a BBC creation. He served an important purpose. At a time when the wealth gap was growing exponentially, and working conditions and real incomes of ordinary people were deteriorating sharply, Farage helped amplify the Establishment message that the cause of these problems was not the burgeoning class of billionaires sucking up the world’s resources, but rather the poor immigrants also scratching to make a living.

Having undermined the prospects of a left wing reaction to massively increasing inequality, Farage has now served his purpose. The exigencies of fighting an election under first past the post are such that Farage has become a potentially serious problem for the wealthy elite. The Brexit Party is a fundamental threat to Boris Johnson’s strategy of moving the Tory Party decisively to the hard right and attempting to win seats on the back of working class anti-immigrant votes in the Midlands and North of England. More liberal Scottish, London and South Western Tory voters have been deliberately abandoned, and consituencies sacrificed, in order to chase hard racist votes. Those indoctrinated to hate their fellow man if he has a Polish accent, are now required by the elite to vote Tory, not to vote for the Brexit Party.

The remarkable result of this is that, at precisely the point where Farage’s influence will be most crucial in determining the future of politics in the UK, he has been dropped by the media. I am extremely confident in my perception that he has appeared less in the last month than at any period in the preceding decade. Having been boosted into prominence by the BBC when they were insignificant, the BBC will do everything it possibly can to dampen down Farage and his Brexit Party now they legitimately deserve coverage as a critical factor.

I am happy to state with confidence that this election will backfire on the Tories. The strong evidence from both the 2017 election and the Scottish referendum campaign, is that once broadcasting rules on equal time come into play, the impact on voters is profound of hearing direct from normally derided people and their normally ridiculed arguments.
...

The Brexit Party may have more appeal than the Tories in traditional Labour consituencies, but neither they nor the Tories will win any significant number of them. It is in the marginals of the Midlands and Lancashire where the Brexit Party may damage the Tories’ chances, not in Sunderland and Hartlepool which will stay Labour. The SNP is going to sweep Scotland, the Liberal Democrats make substantive gains in London and the South West and the Labour Party will do much better in London and the North than anybody now expects. The Midlands, both East and West, are hard to predict and the key battleground, but the number of possible Tory gains is not enough to compensate for their losses elsewhere. The Tories could end up with the largest share of the vote, perhaps 36%, but less seats than the Labour Party. That is what I expect to happen.

The fly in this alluring ointment is that the Liberal Democrats have shifted so decisively to the right on economic policy. In general I advise everyone in England to vote tactically to defeat the Tories in their constituency, but obviously both Lib Dems and Labour have individual right wing horror candidates I could never ask anyone to vote for.

Here in Scotland, Independence remains the overriding priority. We must escape from Tory domination and the right wing jingoism that so infects English politics; but also it is simply normal for a nation to be Independent. So we all have to vote and campaign for the SNP in what could be a decisive moment in our history.
Incidentally, there is not a single constituency in Scotland where there is a plausible argument that to vote SNP risks letting a Tory in. I am hopeful that we will sweep the Tories out of Scotland completely this time. I am also quite keen about the SNP helping Corbyn pass the basis of a radical left wing reform agenda through Westminster, whilst briefly on a swift route to Independence.

Now that would be a good Christmas present.

https://gregmoodie.com/the-brexit-bar/

[Fintan]

Well Ol' Nigel has deployed the big gun

Trump thinks Nigel, Boris and Trump should be on the same team.

He's right: Team Vulture Capitalism.



Trump disavows any US Corporate takeover of the UK Health Service.
A hollow claim. The NHS is ALREADY a vulture capital feeding ground.

I hope Corbyn eats their lunch.

To look suitably tough, Ol' Nigel has an untimatum:

Either Bumbling Boris delivers a real Brexit or else
the Brexit Party will run against Conservatives.

There is no similar ultimatum to Corbyn.
Brexit Party is running against Labour.

Is Nigel the Elite's Gatekeeper on the Brexit issue?

[Fintan]

FREE FAST BROADBAND
FOR BRITISH PEASANTS ??!

Civilization is under threat following Jeremy Corbyn's pledge of free broadband
for all in Britain. His plan would mean that actual peasants would get something
for free - a harbinger of total social collapse.

We need to stick with a trusted policy of bleeding peasants dry, otherwise our
elite classes may well have to cut back on ski holidays, villas, ponies, Range
Rovers and even designer dresses. That would damage our way of life beyond
repair. Or their way of life, anyway.

Corbyn's broadband proposal documents are littered with swear words
like '"nationalization" and "public ownership" -the kind of foul language
which fortunately dropped out of public use after the triumphant reign
of the former Queen of the UK, the Blessed Margaret Thatcher.

Jeremy Corbyn has formally launched Labour’s ambitious plan to provide free broadband across the UK, arguing it would guarantee what is now a basic utility, encourage social cohesion, bolster the economy and help the environment.

In a lengthy event during which two of his senior ministers presented the plan – which has prompted accusations it is unrealistic and could hamper the market – Corbyn said the service would become “our treasured public institution for the 21st century”.

“What was once a luxury is now an essential utility,” the Labour leader told an audience at Lancaster University. “I think it’s too important to be left to the corporations. Only the government has the planning ability, economies of scale and ambition to take this on.”

The plan would involve nationalising elements of BT connected to broadband provision, forming a new company called British Broadband. Labour says it would cost about £20bn to roll out universal full-fibre broadband by 2030.

Corbyn portrayed the idea as a central element of “the most radical and exciting plan for real change the British public has ever seen”, in the Labour manifesto, being launched next week, saying: “It’s going to knock your socks off – you’re going to love it.”

He added: “I don’t want anyone to be able to say, a few years into a Labour government, that nothing ever changes or that politicians are all the same.”

[Fintan]

CORBYN'S ELECTION MANIFESTO BINS
THIRTY YEARS OF NEOLIBERAL POLICIES

Jeremy Corbyn launches most radical Labour manifesto in decades
‘Investment blitz’ funded by wealthy and tax on energy firms


Thu 21 Nov 2019 13.02 GMTFirst published on Thu 21 Nov 2019 11.01 GMT

Jeremy Corbyn has launched the most radical Labour manifesto in decades, promising an “investment blitz” that would leave no corner of the UK untouched and welcoming the hostility of billionaires, big business and dodgy landlords.

Speaking at an upbeat event at Birmingham City University, where students and activists leaned over balconies adorned with banners setting out Labour’s policies, Corbyn urged the public to vote for “hope” at the general election in three weeks’ time.

At the centre of the manifesto, called It’s Time for Real Change, is a large increase in public investment, funded by taxes on corporations and top earners.


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIMYEwCfMow[/youtube]


The Labour leader called it “a manifesto full of popular policies that the political establishment has blocked for a generation”, and it appeared significantly more radical than the party’s 2017 programme.

Corbyn insisted that, as Labour has promised in 2017, there would be no tax rises for 95% of earners, with only those on incomes of more than £80,000 being affected.

“You can have this plan for real change, because you don’t need money to buy it: you just need a vote,” he said.

A Labour government would also give public sector workers a 5% pay rise next year, helping to offset the impact of the 1% pay cap that has been in place for several years, the manifesto says.


One key revenue-raiser is an £11bn windfall tax on oil and gas companies which would create a “just transition fund” to help shift the UK towards a green economy without causing mass job losses.

The one-off tax would be calculated according to an assessment of each firm’s past contribution to the climate crisis, Labour said, and could be paid over a number of years.

The total is 10 times the £1.1bn the Treasury expects to raise from the oil and gas sector this year.

Corbyn said: “We can no longer deny the climate emergency. We can see it all around us, as the recent floods in Yorkshire and the east Midlands have shown. We have no time to waste. The crisis demands swift action, but it isn’t right to load the costs of the climate emergency on to the nurse, the builder or the energy worker.

“So a Labour government will ensure the big oil and gas corporations that profit from heating up our planet will shoulder and pay their fair share of the burden with a just transition tax.”

The windfall tax is one of the most striking policies in Labour’s manifesto, and follows a string of significant announcements during the general election campaign, including:

- Free broadband for all, paid for by taxing tech multinationals and part-nationalising BT.
- A pledge to build 150,000 council and social homes a year by the end of the parliament.
- Six years of free training for adults and 1,000 new Sure Start centres.

With Boris Johnson pressing home the Tories’ message that he will “get Brexit done”, Labour has been keen to shift the election debate to domestic policies – including its determination to tackle the climate crisis.

Corbyn has also repeatedly underlined his determination to take on big business, deliberately putting himself on the side of “the many”, against “the most powerful people in Britain”.

The proceeds of the new tax would go towards adapting the economy to tackle the climate crisis, including retraining workers from the oil and gas industries and investing in green technologies.

As expected, Labour’s migration policy is significantly less liberal than the open borders motion passed at its conference in Brighton.

The relevant passage says: “If we remain in the EU, freedom of movement will continue. If we leave, it will be subject to negotiations, but we recognise the social and economic benefits that free movement has brought both in terms of EU citizens here and UK citizens abroad – and we will seek to protect those rights.”

Labour is also publishing a separate “grey book” alongside its manifesto, to show how it will fund its promises.

It detailed tax increases worth £82bn a year. These would include a £9bn a year tax on financial transactions – the buying and selling of shares.

Higher earners would also face tax increases, with those paid more than £80,000 subject to a 45p rate, and a new “super-rich” rate of 50p for those earning more than £125,000.

Many of the new costs will fall on business, with income from dividends and capital gains being taxed at the same rate of income, for example.

Labour’s trade union supporters have insisted that its ambition of making progress towards net zero carbon emissions by 2030 must be backed by strong protection for workers – including the creation of 1 million jobs in green industries.

The windfall tax may prove controversial in Scotland, where Labour faces a tough battle against the Scottish National party, and where many voters have long felt they never benefited sufficiently from the country’s natural resources.

The decision to focus the “just transition fund” partly on retraining oil and gas workers appears to be aimed at assuaging some of those concerns. Corbyn said: “North Sea oil and gas workers have powered this country for decades, often working under dangerous conditions. We won’t hang them out to dry.”

In 1997, the New Labour government imposed a windfall tax on utilities companies, which were perceived to have made excess profits in the years after privatisation. The proceeds were used to fund welfare-to-work policies.

Labour said £11bn was an estimate and the final figure would be based on an assessment of the cost of the retraining and investments in green technologies.

Output from the North Sea peaked in 1999, but the industry is likely to argue that the tax would accelerate its decline.

[Fintan]

UK JUZE LIVE IN QUAKING TERROR
OF POTENTIAL CORBYN VICTORY

Juze all over the UK are today hiding in bunkers, garden sheds and
even mountaintop retreats in fear of the threat of a Corbyn victory.

"As Prime Minister, Corbyn could unleash a second holocaust," said
one spokesperson for juze -who denied he was a Conservative Party
operative dressed up with a funny round cap on his head.

Mr Corbyn is a former leading light in the PLO who also served with
the Waffen SS and was a prominent menber of the Hitler Youth.

He has consistently denied ever saying: "Juze are nice
-with some fava beans on the side, lol".

Chief rabbi's attack on Corbyn over antisemitism
'unjustified and unfair', says Lord Dubs

Lord Dubs is speaking now at the Labour event.

He says he is “bitterly disappointed” at what the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis,
said about Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism. He does not accept a lot of what
Mirvis said, although Dubs says he thinks Labour should have addressed the
problem more quickly. But the chief rabbi’s comments were “unjustified and
unfair”, he says.

[Fintan]

The Conservative Party launched an election initiative today.

Well, it worked in the last election. And they need the votes.

Now, for an election with armed anti-terror police on the streets.

But first, campaigning is suspended for 24 to 48hrs.

Labour leadership knew well that the wave of similar attacks
at the last UK election were a psychological operation.

They won't be talking about it this time either.

No point. This is the way these psychopaths do elections.

Just get on with it.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

The terror suspect was already both disarmed and subdued
You could have walked up and cuffed him with ease.
And then gain valuable intelligence.
But.......







#LondonBridge: Reports now claiming 2 people were killed in the #London Bridge attack.
#UK police have also said that the explosive device strapped to the body of the suspect was fake.

#British PM #BorisJohnson has promised that all involved will be brought to justice.
6:32 PM · Nov 29, 2019

Met Police are treating the incident as terror-related

A person is believed to have attacked people with a knife

A man has been detained by police, he was shot

There are up to five casualties, according to police, with 2 confirmed dead as of 1:30 pm ET.

Officers have cordoned off the bridge

London Bridge Station is closed

An explosion was heard at the south end of the bridge, near Borough Market

Suspect shot dead at scene

Police declare incident an 'act of terror'

* * *

[MichaelC]

MI5 military Intel op,,,,but why?

|Repeated in Holland.

[Fintan]

Cops on streets makes people vote conservative.
An air of threat makes people vote conservative.

Police and security are traditional Conservative election agendas.

The establishment prefers to divert from the election now until voting day.
In a shorter campaign people don't think too deeply.
Longer campaigns tend to favor Labour.

Of course, it's a total concidence that a terror attack has happened.

Concidence that last election a huge series of terror attacks happened.

They don't need that scale of slaughter this election, figuring they're ahead.

This was just insurance. A down payment.

They'll be back if they need to tweak the popular psyche some more.

The killing will continue -until morale improves.

[James D]