Discover and Read the Best of Twitter Threads by @tony_nog

1) Thread - why do #FBPE peeps attack Corbyn so much?
Many Labour supporters ask, perhaps with some justification, "why do FBPEers go after Labour? This is a Tory problem!"

Here's my personal reasons. I'm guessing however they probably resonate with others

2) firstly, practical, and this is unfair but just how it is.
There is little traction to be gained by attacking the Tory #Brexit position because a majority of Tory voters will simply not care, they support Brexit blindly and won't change their minds easily

3) Labour support however has always been & is increasingly pro remain. Therefore in terms of changing a major party's position on #Brexit (vital to softening or stopping it) it was always going to be far easier attacking Labour Leadership prevarication on #Brexit than Tories

1) Core Labour #Brexit irony:
Corbyn is a (not so) secret brexiter

The largely remain Labour PLP tried to dislodge him after the referendum

He was saved by a wave of new Labour members

These new members are also overwhelmingly remainers

By saving him, they kept Brexit alive

2) these new members attack parts of the PLP for "plotting" & "undermining" Corbyn, whilst Corbyn tries to torpedo any Soft #Brexit Labour position

Only overwhelming support will force a debate on a #PeoplesVote at conference, against Corbyn's wishes

theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

3) this will be one of the great questions for future historians, how did so many people keep a Leader in power even though he was on the wrong side of an issue (#Brexit) that they passionately opposed and was directly against their interests?

1) This cannot be repeated enough

The Tory ERG are the "Guardians of proper #Brexit"

They've been complaining for months from the sidelines that Brexit isn't being don't properly

But after all this time, they have *no* alternative "proper Brexit plan"

thetimes.co.uk/article/eurosc…

2) the *only* question for Mogg, IDS, Davis, Johnson and the other Knights of #Brexit when they are paraded on Question time & BBC news to snipe at "sabotaging Remoaners" & "Brexit betrayal" should be:
"Ok, why don't you have an alternative Brexit plan?"

thetimes.co.uk/article/eurosc…

3) if Brexit is being betrayed, if the Irish border issue is being overblown, if the SM & CU are just fripperies then fine, it should be easy to put a proper, pragmatic #Brexit plan together

So where is it?

1) Message for @OwenJones84
Immediately after the ref you stood in front of the pro EU marchers and said "we'll fight this, like we fight any election"
Then you were given the party line

Since then you've supported #Brexit

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

@OwenJones84 2) you've deliberately used language like "overthrow the referendum" to make opposing #Brexit seem undemocratic, ignored the corruption of the Leave Campaign and aligned yourself, in effect with brexiter
Well here's the newsflash
The Labour movement wants to "overthrow Brexit"

@OwenJones84 3) support is growing, we will get a people's vote, and we will get a remain option and we *may* turn this right wing nightmare around.

And when we do, what will you have contributed to that fight, other than an early doors rousing speech before you switched sides?

1) Thread - the great Student accommodation Ponzi scheme
(This thread won't end with what you might think)
There's a torrent of "Student accommodation" blocks, 25 stories high, being put up in my current and home town centre, I assume it's happening all over
Scam in plain sight?

2) now happy to be corrected however these blocks are reasonably luxurious (en suite, gym in the basement etc) and are a world away from the ragged student housing I had back in the day.

The prices are too, upwards of £125 per week!

3) When I was a student we shared the cheapest accommodation available, perhaps £700 pm between 5 people in today's money, the going rate for a 4 bedroom house where I live now, or maybe 1/3rd of what students are paying today after bills

1) Thread - appeasement
If history has taught us anything it's that you cannot appease extremists. They will not be placated, it's just seen as weakness. May has tried it with the ERG, but it's been tried throughout history.

theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

2) #Brexit was an oversold idea, based on lies. It's foundations are in division, fear & extreme nationalism. Any possible positives are trivial in comparison. Even for those who say "it's not about immigration" well, it's mostly about immigration.

So there's no good Brexit

3) worse however is the #Brexit we're going to get, anything from a flaccid compromise to a damaging no deal. And the "mob" that McDonnell & others appear to be frightened of will not be satisfied in any event.

1) Corbyn, #Brexit & facing reality - thread
Since this was posted there's been several variations from his supporters on why his responses were "reasonable", which in turn illustrate how far they are happy to put party before country, and Corbyn before party

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1031943630590763010

2) the question, as a reminder, was very simple "do you (personally) believe we'll be better or worse off after #Brexit?"
One response is "he answered this"
He absolutely didn't, he waffled & none of his 6 answers can be interpreted as "yes" or "no"

3) "but Labour are pushing for the best deal/2nd ref/it's a negotiating position"

These may or may not be true, but they are irrelevant as to why Corbyn didn't answer the question - he was asked about his personal position

1) Thread - Corbyn & Cemetery gate
Firstly, this account & others give a realistic & highly probable account of what Corbyn did with that wreath.

It doesn't look good and at best shows him as a gullible stooge. Not PM material (though admittedly that's currently a low bar)

https://twitter.com/njstone9/status/1029235068336726016

2) beyond that we currently have 3 competing positions from Corbyn supporters
- he didn't lay a wreath
- laying a wreath never killed anyone (@owenjones84)
- the Munich terrorists are not buried there (the perpetrators are not, but it's likely the architects of the attack are)

@OwenJones84 3) then we have Corbyn's changing & conflicting accounts, including the ridiculous "I was there but I wasn't involved" & "there's lots of different people buried in cemeteries"

(As shown below, the cemetery in question is very small, perhaps 40 x 10m, size of a large garden)

1) Corbyn & #Brexit
Corbyn wants out of the EU
He's always wanted out of the EU
He wanted out when he "campaigned for Remain"
If he'd been honest and stepped aside to campaign on the leave side (leaving the way free for a "proper" Remainer we wouldn't be in this mess

https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1021547925313413130

2) the "Blairites" (or remain supporting MPs if you prefer) knew it,which is why they all resigned following the ref
Non Corbyn supporting Remainers knew it, which is why we've been so hostile to him
Gradually Corbyn supporters have realised it as well

3) some of those Corbyn supporters are no longer supporters as they realised his true #Brexit position

Some have decided that Corbyn is more important than Brexit

But most believed the "long game" theory

Brexit is bad, Corbyn is good
Ergo Corbyn must hate Brexit
He doesn't

1) #Brexit challenge - Leaver belief system
Spoke to 3 colleagues who I discovered were leave voters on a work trip.
All good people, all intelligent, all professionals
They did however illustrate some common (and fairly depressing) characteristics which show we have a challenge

2) to two of them I said "Remainers deal in facts & probabilities, Leavers deal in faith"
They enthusiastically agreed with this and seemed to think it was a compliment.

The same 2 said "I'm an optimist, everything will work out for the best"

3) 2 of them repeated the simple soundbites from the Leave campaign - for example one cited the EU army until he was shown proof that it couldn't happen without a UK referendum - but it was interesting hearing arguments long since discredited

1) #Brexit, alt right & Labour positioning
One for the @OwenJones84 @mattzarb and @jeremycorbyn 's of the world

The seems to be a weird disconnect in Labour & it's commentators

They'll protest about a certain recent visit & about far right supporters of Robinson

But not Brexit

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1017922938513879040

2) this is plain bizarre. Brexit, nationalism, alt right, authoritarian gov. - it's all connected, it's all part of the same fascist beast.
Protesting about bits of it is like saying "I don't like the look of that Lion's paws but I'm perfectly happy with my head in its mouth"

3) as successive Tory PMs have learned over & over, you can't placate far righters - populists & zealots don't do compromise, any olive branch is a sign of weakness.

Labour party position on #Brexit is exactly that kind of appeasement

1) Betrayal of the #Brexit voters - thread
Melanie Philips in usual form talking about the betrayal of Brexit voters. And it's true, they were betrayed - by Brexit leaders

Look at her position today, compared to what was promised by Vote Leave & it's leaders, they're poles apart

2) Back then Vote Leave promised "exact same benefits", £350 M & "German car makers will force a deal".
It was a consequence free, risk free, cost free #Brexit
It was also a massive, cynical, stupid lie which people like Philips bought into

3) Compare those sunlit uplands to Philips, Mogg, Davis today - "we should be prepared to walk away and go WTO, and take any consequent pain, that's what we voted for"
*Who* voted for this? When was WTO even discussed by Vote Leave?
What happened to "exact same benefits"?

1) Brexiters say FoM is Racist because it only applies to Europeans
Lexiters say it's exploitive because EU migrants are underpaid

They both have the same answer,end FoM

However, Brexiters don't really care about non EU migrants, nor do Lexiters about the "exploited" EU workers

2) it's just rank hypocrisy. You don't help non EU migrants by stopping FoM & if someone is abused you don't help them by locking them in their own country

It's similar to the "EU repressed Greece, so we'll support the Greeks by leaving the EU" that we heard from both sides

3) it's been one of the most depressing aspects of #Brexit, brexiters on both sides will go through any logical loop the loop, even betraying their underlying principles, to justify a divisionist, small minded #Brexit

1) Thread - Corbynites FFS wake up!
I did resolve (again) to stop attacking Corbyn & to focus on the government in fighting #Brexit
But the last few days have given me a reality check again
Yesterday's #PeoplesVoteMarch was a triumph, over 100k people all over the news
Then this

2) so really I have 2 questions for Corbyn supporters
Firstly, yesterday's march was undoubtedly a progressive march against something a majority of Labour party supporters agree would be damaging for the majority

A #PeoplesVote may not be everyone's ideal, but ...

3) ...at least the march raises the profile of the anti #Brexit movement and shows people it's not settled.

So how did the Labour movement, which is supposed to be about exactly this kind of action, find it's Leadership officially against this and standing with the government?

1) "Parliament follows" - a #Brexit story
Been engaged in a long thread with @0Calamity and others with the common Corbynite theme:
"But what can Corbyn do? He's not in power"
For a "popular movement" there seems to be a lack of awareness of how they work.
So, what *can* he do?

2) well firstly we need to recognize two fairly obvious things.
a) unfortunately, 80% of our current MPs are, well, sheep. They follow, especially public opinion, they don't lead
b) the prerequisite for stopping Brexit is public opinion. This *must* be shifted or it won't stick

3) this is when Corbynistas chime in & say "look at the polls,enough people haven't shifted, if Corbyn opposed Brexit it would be political suicide"

Putting to one side the "party before country" bias which is obvious to any non Labour supporter, isn't this what Labour is about?

1) What Dominic did
There may be solid behind the scenes reasons for Grieve voting against his own amendment, but what he did today is very symbolic
Other votes were important but this was the big one, the meaningful vote, and Grieve has made a grave error for a number of reasons

2) Firstly the entire Labour "soft #Brexit" strategy was built around the meaningful vote. It may have been real, it may have been fluff, but it was one potential line of defence that Grieve has now weakened.

Labour were clear and the 6 tests were being mentioned again

3) Secondly the meaningful vote amendment was something everyone could get behind & was hard to criticize.

EEA amendments had pros & cons and didn't satisfy all anti brexiters but this was easy to defend and support across the spectrum

1) So...
Corbyn was facing a #Brexit crisis -whipping MPs on EEA amendment would expose him once & for all as a Leaver

So his current plan is to create a smokescreen - abstain on EEA amendment to guarantee its failure
then submit a similar one which is guaranteed to fail as well

2) Corbyn kills the chance to stay in EEA via abstention, then promotes a similar (but deliberately vague) amendment - who's purpose is *not* to succeed, but to publicly fail in order to provide fake "soft #Brexit" optics to Labour Remainers

"We tried to stay in SM but...."

3) Problem solved. Very public abstention on EEA kills SM, for benefit of Corbyn's beliefs and Labour leavers

Very public failure on "internal market" amendment for benefit of Labour Remainer wishful thinkers

Not sure I've ever seen anything more cynical

1) The #Brexit Telly Analogy
a Leaver described Brexit as a Sky subscription-we can opt in or out of packages (sky sports/free movement of people)

But Brexit isn't like Sky, it's like Virgin Cable, you are in or out of TV/phone/ADSL

Pull up a chair...

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by @CommonSense6543 view original on Twitter

2) I'm a Virgin media user who had TV, Broadband & Landline phone (which I have never used)

I want a bespoke #Brexit Telly package of just TV & Broadband. But Virgin don't do one. I can have Telly on its own & Broadband on its own, but that's actually more expensive

3) it turns out that whether I like it or not the whole Virgin package makes more sense and is better value than the individual bits. And I can't really pick the bits I want without paying a lot more.

Just like the Single Market & Customs union

1) #Brexit (and Brexiters) in microcosm
People like @iainmartin1 didn't forsee the issues with Galileo satellite system (just as they didn't forsee Euratom, or the 20 other brexit related issues they missed)

Instead of showing humility, he blithely says "we'll build our own"

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by @iainmartin1 view original on Twitter

2) Iain has absolutely no idea of the complexities involved in launching a UK only GPS environment - or the wit to realise how ridiculous our justification for obtaining the appropriate bandwidth
("We brexited, and didn't realize this would be a consequence")

3) You would hope that at some point, as issue after issue arises with #Brexit, people of integrity would say "ok, hands up, we got this terribly wrong, we drastically underestimated the issues & we need to rethink this whole thing"

1) thread on the "missing anti-brexit surge"
It's fair to say that there is only a small (though significant) movement towards "remain" & against #Brexit, leading some to say that a #PeoplesVote might lead to the same result
But let's look at where we are

prospectmagazine.co.uk//blogs/peter-k…

2) the press is still largely pro #Brexit. The BBC has, in the name of balance, been at best hopeless in holding brexiters to account for previous statements and more importantly, both major parties are still pretending their Brexit will be OK
There's no major voice against it

3) and yet, despite the lack of any major voice exposing the reality of #Brexit, the message is still getting through about what a screw up Brexit really is.

There's consistent polls showing a majority who think Brexit is going badly, and a lack of faith in government handling

1) Sir Ivan Rogers speech, a sobering & devastating speech from our former leading EU diplomat on #Brexit, its history and the UK position.

Should be read by *everyone* however I'll pull out a few key points in this thread

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache…

2) the UK already had the best deal of all EU member states. We may not have believed it but the other 27 nations did.
Anyone who thinks about this for more than 5 minutes would realise this
Cameron in fact managed to improve it further, but the press torpedoed his deal

3) the 4 freedoms are seen as indivisible by the EU27. Trucks & money having more rights to move than people is absolutely unacceptable to them. That's just a fact.
Anyone, Labour or Tory, who tells you we can get a great deal without free movement of people is lying to you

1) #Brexit dirty secret
There's a worrying little issue at the heart of brexit which is keeping the Brexiters awake at night. They want out of CU, but don't really care about SM, but their supporters are largely the opposite. This helps finish Brexit
Why? Pull up a chair

2) although Brexiters such as Johnson & co make blustering noises about the SM, it's likely they couldn't care less, at least not initially.

If you read between the lines in the Ref campaign, you could argue they were pitching for the Norway model

3) in the Ref brexit leaders never mentioned reducing immigration at all, in fact Hannan was actually campaigning for EFTA beforehand.
Let's face it, free marketers don't care about FoM or the £10B payment, it was the swashbuckling Free Trade Deals outside of CU they were after

1) let's talk about @BarryGardiner & @Emmabarnett #Brexit "car crash" interview on #marr, and the lessons for Labour.

In summary, when you are confident of your ground, and believe in what you're saying, then a hostile interviewer, as Michael Hayden demonstrated, can't touch you

2) the real story of #marr was the follow on interview with Michael Hayden (ex CIA). Barnett hit him over and over with "hasn't Trump achieved a lot", "you prejudged him", all of which he easily deflected.

He knew his ground, believed in his position, and was thus unshakeable

3) in contrast, @BarryGardiner and @uklabour position on #brexit is weak & inconsistent. Gardiner has made comments on brexit which are doubtless true but not party policy, thus he's left defending the indefensible, hence the car crash

1) no honour amongst Brexiters?
Last night's "This Week" on BBC had an exchange between Neil & Portillo where the latter said (essentially) "My analysis 12 months ago was the EU would have issues with Italy, the Baltic states & elsewhere, which would lead them to fold on #Brexit"

2) (Portillo then went on to blame the government for not exploiting this eU weakness & of course Remainer Civil Servants for hindering Leave).

This idea of EU weakness was common amongst Brexit leaders.

Let's put it in context.

Say you have 3 friends Gerry, Euan & Una

3) Gerry, Euan & Una have all been in reasonably friendly Business partnership for 40 odd years.
However, Euan is going through a messy divorce & Una's mother is very ill. Euan & Una are therefore a bit distracted.
Gerry knows all this