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"Sit 10 random Scots around a table & four will be Remain voters, three will be Leave voters, and three will have stayed home." Valuable reminder from @robfordmancs & @philipjcowley that every constituency in the UK contains both Leave & Remain voters. unherd.com/2019/11/how-mu…
@robfordmancs @philipjcowley There are "elderly Remainers, graduate Leavers, BME Leavers, working-class Remainers, middle-class Leavers". Most constituencies divided only 60:40 for Leave/Remain (only 9% had a 70:30 split). Outside Gibraltar, there's no such thing as a “Leave constituency” or a “Remain city”.
@robfordmancs @philipjcowley All this reminds us that those who voted the other way on Brexit are not an alien species. They live in the same places & come from the same backgrounds as us. And if Tory Remainers & Labour Leavers are burned out of Parlt, our politics will become less representative, not more.
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
In 1912, Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law told Tory free-traders they had to choose: "between tariffs, which they dislike, & Lloyd Georgism, which they detest". Most, reluctantly, opted for tariffs. #GE2019 may depend on whether Tory Remainers make the same choice on Brexit.
The analogies with 1910-14 are striking (& alarming). A public spending crisis; hung Parliaments; two increasingly radical parties; rising violence against MPs; a Tory leader declaring war on Parliament; a global trade project to recover lost greatness; danger in Ireland...
I wrote about the constitutional crisis of 1912-14, and its parallels with the present, here: newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
Read 3 tweets
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
So much of our public debate now focuses, not on our opponents' arguments, but on the noxious motives that allegedly underpin them. It's a comforting fiction (why engage with ideas held in bad faith?) but it's lazy, narcissistic & is destroying our capacity for argument. [THREAD]
2. The problem infects the very language of public debate. The grim rhetoric of "bigots", "phobes", "terfs", "gammons", "boomers", "Remoaners" & "elites" classes arguments by the kind of people who make them, not by the content of what they are saying - which is largely ignored.
3. Trashing people's motives becomes a substitute for engaging with their arguments: whether on anti-Semitism ("a Tory smear"); the UCU strike ("they don't care about their students/colleagues"), or Brexit ("they don't believe in democracy"/"they just want the empire back").
Read 10 tweets
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Corbyn's position, Harold Wilson was *not* neutral in the 1975 referendum. Here he is in Cardiff, campaigning to "Keep Britain in Europe".
Wilson never pretended to be "dappy" about Europe - as he once put it, "I don't stand on the South Coast, look towards the Continent, and say 'there's a new Jerusalem'" - but his support for the Yes campaign in 1975 was one of its strongest assets. From my book, "Yes to Europe":
The key task for the Yes campaign in 1975 was to give sceptical Labour voters, who saw EEC membership as a Tory policy, a reason to change their minds. Wilson was better placed to do that than a Euro-enthusiast like Roy Jenkins. So the Yes vote was very much Wilson's achievement.
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Related threads

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Chris 🤬 Gray 🇮🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🕷️
@chriostoir_g
#Brexit #Remain
THREAD/
You shouldn't really tweet when you're angry, so I'm going to have to be careful how I phrase this tweet, because at the moment I am very, very angry.

The Remain movement has within it the drive, imagination & purpose to come together & defeat Brexit.
Yet it seems incapable of doing so, for reasons I can't fully fathom. All Remainers are agreed on one thing - that Brexit is bad and should be stopped. For reasons known only to themselves, they can't agree on the best method of achieving this goal.
Everybody agrees on the destination - no fucker can agree on the route to be taken.
Do we dress up? Do we take a more sober approach? Do we sing songs? Do we put banners and advertising hoardings up in strategic places? Do we stand on College Green with a megaphone?
Read 8 tweets
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KidTempo⭐
@KidTempo
Welcome back to the popular series of "Misinterpreting survey results" (though this time I think without an attempt to deceive).

Again, a cautionary tale of how misreading survey results can lead to very misleading conclusions...

Previous thread:
Survation has just published the results of a survey showing preferences of whether people wish to a) Remain in the EU, b) Leave with a Deal, or c) Crash out of the EU with no deal.
In addition to which choice voters would prefer, the survey also asked which would be the second preferred outcome i.e. the second preference - which is a good question to ask BUT its results must be treated with care.
Read 26 tweets
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Adam Sykes
@AdamSykesWirral
Important result that Tories lost twice as many seats to #Remain parties than #BrexitParty. BXP swapped for 23 UKIP and gained extra 5 to get 28. Tories lost 15 seats - 5 to BXP and 10 to Remain.
#EUelections2019 #EP2019
Conservative MPs must be aware that it's too late for new members to join & vote in #ToryLeadershipContest. However, if a general election is coming, there will probably be time to take part in selections/deselections of MP. This may be by #Remain voters.
#EUelections2019
6M plus signed a petition to revoke Article 50. If 2.5% of them joined the Conservatives, then they would be likely bigger than the current membership. Won't be enough time for #ToryLeadership in the #ToryLeadershipContest but possibly enough time before any General Election.
Read 3 tweets
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Andrew Lewin
@Alewin7
Thread 1/6
To #Labour voters who back a #PeoplesVote and are campaigning to #Remain in the EU, please ignore this angry article. It does not speak for the majority.
The worst thing Labour supporters like Owen can do at the #EUElections2019 is lecture and patronise Remain voters.
2/6
 Instead, let's be honest about the progress made in moving #Labour policy on #Brexit forward, while recognising we are not where we need to be.
The good news:
-203 Labour MPs voted for a #PeoplesVote in parliament
-34 Labour candidates have signed the @Remain_Labour pledge.
3/6
 Less good news:
- The NEC decision confirms that backing a #PeoplesVote is an 'option', but did not commit to it unambiguously.

#Remain campaigners have every reason to be frustrated. But instead of attacking them (as Owen does), we need to convince them to stick with Labour
Read 6 tweets
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KT #Ode2Joy Parker🐬
@lunaperla
@Politics_Oxford @BBCRadio4 Did Prof Tilley have full editorial control of this programme? The reason I ask is that there is an extraordinary lack of balance in the way he presents Leave & Remain voters, and so one could be forgiven for perceiving a bias against Remain voters.

/1.
@Politics_Oxford @BBCRadio4 For example, prior to the #EURef, and persisting today, was the belief amongst #Leave voters (encouraged by Leave politicians) that the UK would be forced to join an #EUarmy.

In fact, it's constitutionally impossible for this to occur. UK has a double protection.

/2.
@Politics_Oxford @BBCRadio4 This double protection against the formation of an EU Army (let alone being forced to join one) is that
(a) the decision must be unanimous per Art. 42(2) of the European Union Treaty and
(b) any move to downgrade "unanimous" to QMV must be approved unanimously!

/3.
Read 26 tweets
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Sandra
@SarnjeC
A (not so pleasant) Europhile on Twitter suggested I read the Fact Sheet of the Treaty of Lisbon. Me being me found another document of "adopted texts" for the Treaty which made interesting if not dull reading. My next few tweets will mention what I found.
EUs adopted texts suggests the creation of;
European Treasury for tax coordination
European Defence Union for common defence policy
Common asylum & immigration policy
Energy Union
European Energy Agency
European Bureau of Investigation & Counter terrorism
On energy... integrate energy markets combining national reserves..."EU policy constraint on State's right to determine conditions for exploiting its energy resources, choice of different sources and
Read 7 tweets

Trending hashtags

#housing #Islwyn #EUarmy #Remain #Eccles #opposites #freemasonry #Leave #Kingston #Carmarthen #BrexitBritain #households #red #home #ToryLeave #CitizensOfNowhere #PeoplesVote #WomenArchitectsForum #BrexitShambles #moon #elevens #relations #water #legality #peoplesvote
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