What will they do if Corbyn wins?

[jobotic]

Given that John McDonnell has gone from wanting to sell off all private schools to being interviewed sat at home "not feeling very well, heart problems and stating Labour should have a female leader next" indicates someone might have "had a word"

How do you go from one to the other? What are you talking about?

Is the female leader you want called Jess?

[Absorb the anus burn]

They'll fucking well put up with it, like we had to put up with Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron etc.

[phantom_power]

Isn't it just more likely that all of Labour's good policies will be fucked by government bureaucracy and the Lords?

[Buelligan]

I don't know.  All I know is that this must be won, then we can worry about how to change the world and what's stopping us.

It's like all the previous hurdles put in our way, we will overcome, regroup and face the next challenge.

[phantom_power]

I agree. At the very least there won't be some Jewish cull that some people seem to fear and people will see Corbyn actually trying to carry out the policies that he has promised, which will be a refreshing change

[bgmnts]

They'll fucking well put up with it, like we had to put up with Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron etc.

Behave, they'll devote their entire resources to scuppering any attempt at positive change and they will sow massive division.

[Buelligan]

Division, eh?  Gosh, that would be awful if they sowed division in Britain.

[Ambient Sheep]

Ha.  Can't wait to see the disappointment on you peoples' faces when he only goes and wins...

Oh come on, that's unfair!  You should know me well enough by now to know I'd be fucking delighted!  Very surprised, admittedly, but delighted all the same.

I really hope he does, after all it's not impossible.  If a landslide is big enough (e.g. Blair in 1997) then virtually no amount of electoral fiddling can fix it.  But anything short of that can easily be manipulated and that's what worries me, that's all.

[Buelligan]

Of course I understand that you'd love to see a Labour win!  I wasn't chiding you or anyone, merely reminding that we should never give up and definitely not before the vote!

[Ambient Sheep]

Oh totally not, and I wasn't saying that anyone should.  Just warning people what to keep an eye out for... the more people that know about these abuses, the better.

[SteveDave]

I agree. At the very least there won't be some Jewish cull that some people seem to fear and people will see Corbyn actually trying to carry out the policies that he has promised, which will be a refreshing change

And all remaining tapes of "So Haunt Me" will be burnt.

[BritishHobo]

What's it even like to have a government you support? I've never known. My whole political life has been under the Tories. I don't even have the initial-hope-turned-disappointment that must have come with Blair's Labour government. What's it like? What do you do?

[chveik]

What's it even like to have a government you support? I've never known. My whole political life has been under the Tories. I don't even have the initial-hope-turned-disappointment that must have come with Blair's Labour government. What's it like? What do you do?

laqer and a wank

[NoSleep]

What's it even like to have a government you support? I've never known. My whole political life has been under the Tories. I don't even have the initial-hope-turned-disappointment that must have come with Blair's Labour government. What's it like? What do you do?

Felt great for 5 seconds (even though we knew Blair had been going around assuring various business interests "something"), then New Labour didn't release the figures of how the Tories had been fudging the number of unemployed for years and carried on the fudging and I knew nothing was going to change. And then Iraq/WMDs.

[Zetetic]

I, for one, can't wait for Jeremy Corbyn's unconvincing suicide on a long country walk.

Still betting on "died while resisting arrest by enraged villagers", followed by a request for US assistance in restoring order.

[olliebean]

More to the point, WTF will we do if Johnson wins?

[thenoise]

Isn't it just more likely that all of Labour's good policies will be fucked by government bureaucracy and the Lords?

At least it will stop the Tories making things considerably worse.

[Paul Calf]

Given that he's one of the architects behind the boldest manifesto produced since the war, it would suggest no such thing.

He was in Nottingham yesterday, on top form.

[peanutbutter]

If Corbyn wins the US media will go into crisis mode over Sanders, I imagine every major outlet has a huge piece already prepared to compare Sanders to Corbyn if Corbyn loses and the freak out over that all being for nought would be absolutely huge. Corbyn will hardly be mentioned until they're sure they've buried Sanders.

[Urinal Cake]

If Corbyn wins the US media will go into crisis mode over Sanders, I imagine every major outlet has a huge piece already prepared to compare Sanders to Corbyn if Corbyn loses and the freak out over that all being for nought would be absolutely huge. Corbyn will hardly be mentioned until they're sure they've buried Sanders.

The US mainstream doesn't care. If they're pushed for a reason why Corbyn won it'll be because of Brexit, the NHS (in vague terms) and racism. And the last two aligns well with current Democrat talking points without linking it to Sanders specifically.

[peanutbutter]

The US mainstream doesn't care. If they're pushed for a reason why Corbyn won it'll be because of Brexit, the NHS (in vague terms) and racism. And the last two aligns well with current Democrat talking points without linking it to Sanders specifically.

If Johnson gets a majority they'll absolutely use Corbyn as an argument against Bernie.

[chveik]

If Johnson gets a majority they'll absolutely use Corbyn as an argument against Bernie.

thankfully most americans don't care that much about the outside world

[Urinal Cake]

If Johnson gets a majority they'll absolutely use Corbyn as an argument against Bernie.

The timing is off. By the time primaries roll around and the media is forced to acknowledge Sanders because he actually wins a couple of these things the UK election will be a distant memory.
Now it's possible if Sanders ascends that the media will remind everybody that Sanders and Corbyn shared fans and policies but I think Sanders will do the political thing and say that election was about Brexit. Because to be fair that's the biggest thing Americans have heard about UK politics.

[JifMoose]

Oh for heaven's sake, get a grip.

I would be delighted at any outcome which removes Johnson, including a Labour "landslide". It's one thing to keep hope alive to avoid becoming despondent. But the prospect of a Labour victory - any sort of majority, or even plurality of seats, or proportion of vote, or any other reasonable definition of "victory" - is so remote as to be negligible at this point.

It would be amazing if I am wrong. I will personally, individually apologise to everyone in this thread if Labour gets any sort of majority. Given the circumstances, will be delighted to do so, in fact. What has become an often obsessive search for data gives me no reason to think will ever come to pass.

The best - the very best - we can realistically hope for on Friday is a hung parliament and some kind of confidence-and-supply arrangement based on a new EU referendum. This will not be a strong, durable government which can make deep-seated economic changes - however desirable those might be.

The chances of even this outcome are now slim: despite an shameful campaign, there is no evidence of a collapse in Tory support, and the ground gained by Labour in the last two weeks has not been enough to close the gap far beyond ten points. We need, in combination, a frankly unprecedented rate of tactical voting (30-40%) and high turnout in newly-registered young people to achieve even this. Both of these scenarios are not impossible - but neither are they overwhelmingly likely. A real optimist might give 50% chance for each: the 25% product probably slightly overestimates the remaining chances of avoiding a Conservative majority.

To fail to engage with this is to live in a fantasy world of sentimental comfort. The history of disregarding all that external evidence of the Labour leadership's unpopularity - anything that doesn't originate from a warm-and-fuzzy feeling or a gratifying sense of persecution - has driven the failure of the Labour campaign to capitalise on the string of own goals, disgraceful behaviour and profound mismanagement which the Tories have virtually served up for the taking. This is solipsism, and is qualitatively no different to the Trump supporter's insistence that the crowd at his inauguration was the biggest in history.

It is depressing to see posters whose humour and good taste I have often admired sink to the most banal conspiracy-mongering. It is plain - often embarrassingly so - to everyone but those in the midst of these mindsets that they originate from impotence and a flight to a sentimental world. It is giving up an engagement with the outside world, standards of evidence, or a common ground of persuasive rhetoric and turning out your innards instead: the rest of us not in the club squeamishly grimace, and know your cause is finished. Corbyn can't be the most unpopular opposition leader of all time; the polls are always wrong, and run by vested interests; the "mainstream media" simply has it in for him; all talk of anti-Semitism is invented, and even if it isn't, it's from a minority anyway, and even if not that, we're not as bad as the Tories; if he wins, there will be some conspiracy to claim the vote was manipulated; if he doesn't, it's because "they" are already doing the manipulating.

It makes reflection - hard to do at the best of times - impossible. That it might be because Corbyn isn't a particularly good speaker or debater; that the party has run a lacklustre campaign; that his unpopularity is at least partly due to some serious errors in judgement and not because the party's (generally pretty modest) reforms are just too radical for the squares (business, at least, is far more worried about a cliff-edge Brexit). There will be time, I fear, to reflect at leisure as we watch Johnson attempt to lie his way through a complex free-trade agreement and wonder: what went wrong in 2019 with the opposition in a campaign that opened with the leader of the house suggesting those that died in the Grenfell tower fire were stupid enough to deserve it?

[NoSleep]

The chances of even this outcome are now slim: despite an shameful campaign, there is no evidence of a collapse in Tory support, and the ground gained by Labour in the last two weeks has not been enough to close the gap far beyond ten points.

As long as it suffices to get that 2nd referendum. The Tories are riding steadily on the Brexit vote; I think that 42-43% covers most of what would be the leave vote in a 2nd referendum (swings and roundabouts with a few loyal Labour/Tory voters who would vote otherwise. After that the Tory support will collapse unless they essentially continue to be the party of brexit (and they won't want to do that, so the BXP/UKIP lobby will probably make a comeback).

2nd referendum here we come.

[gib]

As long as it suffices to get that 2nd referendum. The Tories are riding steadily on the Brexit vote; I think that 42-43% covers most of what would be the leave vote in a 2nd referendum (swings and roundabouts with a few loyal Labour/Tory voters who would vote otherwise. After that the Tory support will collapse unless they essentially continue to be the party of brexit (and they won't want to do that, so the BXP/UKIP lobby will probably make a comeback).

2nd referendum here we come.

Can you expand on the emboldened text please.

[NoSleep]

My thought is that the 2nd referendum will take the wind out of that sail, it will no longer be the "will of the people". Also bear in mind that Johnson, for example, was pro-remain until he realised that leave was a wave he could ride to the top. Once the "will of the people" has been shown to be otherwise, the Tories will have no other choice but to accept that and move on. I don't think they could push for a 3rd referendum.

Labour will have to get their brexit bill through parliament, though (or be sucked into the brexit hell that has consumed May and likely Johnson). That will depend on who allies with Labour (and how many heads that amounts to) post-election.

[Jollity]

More to the point, WTF will we do if Johnson wins?

Violent uprising? I think that'd cheer everyone right up.

[pancreas]

many wow

Rhetoric has overtaken truth here. You are merely repeating received wisdom in florid terms with no evidence of independent thought.

Look at it this way: Corbyn is a proxy in all this for a reaction against neoliberal doctrine. He is the beginning of a realisation that we have minus many years to solve the climate crisis. He is a burst of hope that the vested interests that are driving us towards doom are not so invested. This is why his has been *made* to be unpopular. The evidence for the establishment reaction against him is all over the place—just look at the BBC bias thread. After all, there is nothing intrinsically unlikeable about him—so what is it that is making people hate him? If it isn't the establishment, then perhaps you can provide a better explanation.

He has already been successful insofar as he has positioned the Labour party as a solution rather than a further compounding of error. Your estimate of our chances of a majority are probably about right. But a second ref is now in the offing, which it was not while Theresa May had a majority. And a subsequent renewed Labour party under a new leader could be in power in a more substantial way in the near future.

All to play for.

[olliebean]

Violent uprising? I think that'd cheer everyone right up.

My worry is before long it'll be the only viable option left to us.