This is very easy to resolve. When push comes to shove, Labour voters aren’t going to go somewhere else and miss the change they’re looking for simply because it is upholding a democratic vote.
Maybe I’m wrong. Is your vote going elsewhere because Labour won’t commit to a Brussels government?
I fear this is one of those unhelpful bon mots (if you’ll excuse the French 
) that get used that I don’t really understand.
Because I wasn’t advocating Labour committing to a “Brussels government”. I said that Labour needs to…
Not sure how that gets construed as me expecting Labour to commit to a Brussels government.
But I’ll answer the question that I think I you want asking.
Yes.
If Labour were to come out as advocating hard Brexit or similar then my vote would be on the market or at least withheld.
For many of us @pap, Brexit transcends old-school ideologies.
For many, it transcends the hatred/love and all shades in between of the EU.
For many, it’s simply the potential* chaos we would be thrown into and the decades of potential* poverty.
For many, it would be the knowledge that one term of Labour in a post-hard-Brexit world would not be enough to stop the exploitative Tory bastards that would follow them - free to turn us into a low-tax, no regulation haven for businesses to thrive off the back of their zero-houred, non-unionised, no-sick-payed, overworked, lowly paid workers.
And if it surprises you that my vote is fluid due to Brexit, then it shouldn’t because surely when you made this statement.
You surely envisaged Labour voters, perhaps yourself, placing their X elsewhere?
But remember 12.8M people voted Labour in '17. Only 4.5M Labour supporters voted for Brexit.
I feel I’m not alone.
So how about you papster? I’ve played the fantasy electioneering game. Your turn.
If Labour were to advocate Remaining, reversing the Article 50 invocation or a second referendum, would you still vote with them?
Not trying to trick you or trap you, just want to see how important Brexit is for you and whether for you, like me, it transcends traditional party lines.
* I recognise I’m guessing when I say I fear Brexit would have negative consequences - as is anyone that says the consequences would be positive.
I’m voting Labour unless the New Labour lot get back in.
Brexit has been decided. I am amazed that anyone that says they’re on the left would enable a Tory government because they didn’t get their way in a contest fought two years ago.
And that’s the way I see that stance. Anti-democratic, rather self-indulgent and misguided.
So if Labour(with Corbyn as leader) say we’re in and our relationship with the EU stays exactly the same, you’ll vote Labour.
But if the Blairites take over and say “no deal” we’re out, you’ll vote tory/lib/ukip/Green(delete as appropriate)?
As a position, that makes more sense than:-
Fuck you. I didn’t get my own way so the poor can suffer.
Which is strange, because stopping the poor suffering was one of the big reasons people said they voted Remain.
So you would vote a Corbyn Labour remain plan, but not a Blair leave plan?
It has indeed. Or has it?
It’s been decided that we’re leaving and like me you’re bowing to the will of the people.
On that, we’re the same. Exactly the same.
Brexit has been decided and it’s been decided that it will look like this.
You’re supporting that because “Brexit has been decided”. And I’m challenging it but begrudgingly acknowledging the will of the people.
One of us is supporting the Tories’ position and one is challenging it.
I’m the one challenging it.
I think I’ve been pretty clear here. Perhaps others can pull me up if I haven’t.
But my fantasy election position of withdrawing support for Labour was predicated upon Labour coming out and advocating a hard-Brexit, no-deal position.
We got to that fantasy position by me suggesting that Labour needs to communicate more clearly what it stands for.
And so, yes, if Labour took a hard-Brexit/no-deal policy into the next election, my vote would be fluid.
And, as I suggested, a number of other Remain-voting Labour supporters, at least enough to theoretically deny Labour a majority* would have a similar ideological crisis to reconcile.
So if all of that fantasy came to pass, I wouldn’t have enabled a Tory government.
The Labour party would have.
And that’s why Keir Starmer has said what he said, and that’s why you’re left to speculate** about Corbyn and McDonald’s position on Brexit.
Becuase they’ve done the maths and they need to have their cake and eat it.
I believe that is dangerous.
* 12.8M votes for Labour in '17 - 4.5M Labour supporting voters voted for Brexit.
** I’m not disputing that Corbyn and McDonald are likely pro-Brexit, my point is simply that we are allowed to speculate in the absence of clear communication.
If Labour go for this, Farage will hoover up the mill towns and Labour will never get in, they will have lost the vote up here forever and Labour will be reduced to a patronising Catherine Tate sketch.
They already have taken that position, if you think about it.
Corbyn’s position isn’t that hard to eke out, if you think about it.
Pre-poll, he was remain and reform.
Post-poll, he wants a customs union in which the UK will have equal say on externally applied tariffs.
Intersect those things with the reality of a completely inflexible EU negotiating position, and you’re left with a de facto Hard Brexit position.
You personally will never elect a Labour MP anyway, as long as you continue to reside in Beastleigh, which interestingly enough, went blue in 2015 and failed to go back to yellow in 2017, after the Lib Dems went all out for reversing Brexit.
What is dangerous is the apparent lack of respect for the democratic process.
So, still not willing to answer?
Two scenarios, not a difficult choice(however unlikely).
Go on, pick one.
I’ve already given you my answer.
There seems little point in responding to each of your new fantasies.
Correct. People seem to have forgotten that governments are decided on the basis of seats.
A majority of seats voted Brexit. It would be electoral suicide for Labour to adopt a position, as many have here, that we know better than you, me old fucking chinas.
True. It’s a source of massive frustration for me.
I’d suggest that the Lib Dems got their arses handed to them in Eastleigh because a) you’re right it’s a pro-Brexit town (53%/47%) AND b) they’d just been in bed with the Tories and supported austerity, tuition fees, the murder of your first-born, etc.
The only thing that can breath new life into the Lib Dems in places like Eastleigh would be to campaign on a Remain / Reverse ticket and hope to pick up disenfranchised voters from the other two parties. But, as those votes are split too, it’s difficult to predict what might happen.
No, you’ve avoided answering.
It’s been the same two choices, nothing new and nothing more fantastical than a dream of the 70’s that can’t be repeated because we no longer have the only ingredient that made it possible.
Don’t be scared, pick one.
Naughty… I am intrigued by the 5mil … now 4.5 mill labour voters who voted Brexit… out of how many total labour voters? What percentage is this of their core ‘always vote labour support’ and what is it if you include the more centrist ‘Blairlite TM’ labour voters and the transient//flippers that actually decide the general election… there is SO much wrong with using that claim from a statistical perspective its actually meaningless…
For example what is the total number of remainers Left wing Jezza is likely to need to win the next election… say compared to a more centrist Labour leader who was in favour of remain, and thus attracted votes from a broader church and also the swing voting tory/labour remainers… all gets a bit complicated does it not?
The Tories will win the next General election and we will have a complete cunt in number 10… Most likely Boris or one of his right wing pig fuckers… because fed up with ‘ineffective’ leadership, and a blame game that it was May’s soft approach to leadership, the country will go all Thatcherite as once again it believes only serious firm hand will deliver us from the poverty and misery of post Brexit Britain… as they kept doing through all the shit form 79-97…
Because basically we live in a ‘Conservative’ country - where self is seen as good. Torification of the working classes started by Thatcher who 'gave them more money in their pocket, pay less tax (but reclaimed through duties and VAT) was her biggest con… Its no surprise that the only Labour wins in the last 30 years were when they were led by a toryboy…
Tony Benn’s ideology is all well and good but is not going to deliver prosperity for all in a global capitalist society which we are part of like it or not. Social justice is now about how we use the profits of capitalism for services and to enhance folks lives. It can work if we finally move away from party political doctrine and recognise these things are NOT political catering rams… Sadly too many are stuck in traditional political pigeon holes and are too stubborn to move on…
In a parallel universe, Labour win on a remain/re-entre ticket led by a more moderate and centrist leader…
I’ve already told you I would vote for Corbyn if he was committed to Remaining in a general election.
Your other scenario is utter nonsense, given the noise we’ve had from the right of the party and the rumblings about a new party taking on that position.
I’m not responding to your fantasy. That makes you a ignored fantasist, not someone with a point.
(rhet.) Am I about to do this?
I don’t know if you’re right but I can certainly see the logic. It makes sense.
But play it the other way, in the knowledge that 12.8M people voted Labour in '17 and only 4.5M Labour supporters voted for Brexit*, surely the risk is just as significant (perhaps even more so) the other way round.
If Labour ignores Remain-sympathisers, it will likely lose the election too.
But @pap is right, those numbers mean little as it is the first-past-the-post situation in each constituency that will determine whether Labour wins or loses seats.
But assuming* the delta of 12.8M-4.5M is spread somewhere across those constituencies, not being able to rely on the Remain voters would surely see Labour out of power.
\ * Once again, I’ll acknowledge that I don’t know that these are different cohorts and it’s dangerous to infer anything across two different election periods.
So would you have voted Remain if Corbyn had been committed to campaigning for Remain on the basis of a stringer UK voice in the EU?
