Rayvin

I don't think it's an either/or scenario mate. I suspect both are unlikely. Though if I HAD to bet, I'd bet on racist stupidity. Every time.

I agree - I said Labour was finished as an electoral force as soon as the referendum result was in. Corbyn or no. This isn't about political parties anymore IMO, it's about the whole political ideology.

Just, why?

Also true. Unless Labour haemorrhage votes to them. I think this is less likely under Corbyn than under Smith and the PLP establishment but what the fuck do I know.

Actually think CT is right about this point; they could certainly reach out to those voters more effectively than they have been previously. The crux here though is the extent to which the voter base who voted for Brexit are racist idiots. And on that basis, we might be in trouble. UKIP have no vision or future for the country, but that won't stop people voting for them. As I say, the centreground is in trouble - caught between the 'hard' lefts and 'hard' rights.

I actually approve of that gesture - Ibrahimovic does have a big nose. It needed to be pointed out.

I think this is probably about right, but I think that group of centrist voters is going to be smaller than you might expect. The Tories are going to be the hegemonic party after this and I don't see much changing on that front until a few years down the line when they have no one but themselves to blame for the post-Brexit problems and widespread disillusionment that will follow. Labour needs to be in position for when that happens, and it needs to be a fucking alternative for the first time in decades. Hopefully it will be. The centre hasn't solved anything as far as I can see. It's delayed things, but the numbers of people left behind is getting too large now.

As I posted in the Politics thread...

... Sometimes I read CT's posts and just think that there's no point in democracy, we're all just fucked.

I wish I'd been on here when that happened.

It'll hopefully get us back on politics at least, rather than whatever the fuck it is that Labour think they've been doing this summer.

Why's that? And does he mean we'll get hard Brexit or just no Brexit?

The BBC has now rolled out Corbyn's ex-wife ffs She's voting Smith apparently. I mean, how desperate do you have to get to bring out his ex wife? In more measured and relevant news, it sounds as though his win isn't going to be as decisive as last time. Which surprises me to a degree because Smith is perhaps the only person in politics that Corbyn is more charismatic than. But I suppose this has nothing to do with the candidates and everything to do with the principle.

Sounds right to me.

What have UKIP got to offer these people beyond racism and leaving the EU? They're going to have to start coming up with some very 'Labour' like policies, quite quickly. I suspect they'll end up sounding quite a bit like Corbyn if they actually want to give the people voting for them any semblance of meaningful change. I suspect they'll fall short on this though, as they're a party full of quite dim people. Unless they go full Nazi of course, I suppose that's the other way it could develop. EDIT - although I basically agree that people won't turn to Labour, largely because I don't expect Labour to survive.

ewerk's arch-nemesis Dougle taking prime position

I'm genuinely not sure the Tories are going to have it all their own way. They are definitely going to have to start taking the concerns of the less well off into consideration, and that will hurt them. And I would add that this is largely because they don't want Corbyn to get anywhere, at all costs. Because if he did, the whole fucking gravy train would come crashing down. Granted we're unlikely to ever see his election, as people blindly follow establishment media platforms (Daily Heil and the Sun foremost among them), but he's there as a fucking big threat to those in power of what might replace them if they don't start taking the concerns of ordinary people seriously. There is a line, somewhere, where the lives of enough people will become so fraught with economic woe that they will choose Corbyn for better or worse. The 'death of the middle class' is already being quietly reported on. We have middle class, university graduates struggling to find jobs, working on minimum wage of zero hours contracts - half of them now being raised in rented accomodation. How long exactly does anyone think that this number can continue to grow without some actual fucking consequences? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/19/middle-income-families-poverty-ifs-report http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/half-of-middle-class-children-now-being-raised-in-rented-accomod/ If the IFS is finding that Middle income families are struggling, then they are. They just fucking are. The system is failing - it's not just the Tories although they're balls deep in it - it's the whole fucking thing. It's Neo-liberalism (see also the EU and the US). Something has to change or Corbyn, or whoever follows after him, will eventually win. It's inevitable unless SOMETHING changes by virtue of the fact that the disillusioned and left behind are increasing in number. New Labour, for all their successes in the past, were Neo-Liberalism personified - which I can only think is the reason they stood by and supported austerity. Brexit was the first warning shot IMO, although that was largely from the working class - but given that the working class and the left behind middle class are going to be occupying the same economic space soon, that's going to be a large number of people who the system just is not working for, many of whom will be educated enough to do something about it and cross the line between the two groups. So no, the Tories are not going to come out of this any better than Labour are, but their reckoning is further down the line. They simply do not have the power (or the will, I would argue) to improve all of these peoples lives in a post-Brexit UK. So they will be punished, eventually.

That's better. It had no capitals as an enduring tribute to Essembee.

After all this, watch Smith win

I thought something changed!!

Yep. But given that I believe it'd be the same under anyone as Labour is going to struggle post-Brexit, I don't see that I (or anyone who votes for him) have anything to lose.

Clearly not everyone, sadly. I think the root here is that as soon as I left uni and started work, the system failed around me. All parties closed ranks around protecting the rich and their wealth, and many people I studied with struggled to find work, struggled to move out of their parents place, literally had the rug pulled out from under them. None of the parties represented us when that happened. Why the fuck should any of us stick by those parties now? Why the fuck? Brexit proves the same is true at the other end of the spectrum as well. The system as it used to exist is dying a death. I was going to vote Green for shits and giggles before Corbyn. He put forward something I could believe in. I do not and cannot believe those that came before him. Yes he's useless in a lot of senses, but what he stands for is more important. The message his presence sends is important.

They were all the same post-financial crisis. On austerity.

Yes but all that literally IS the self fulfilling prophecy. You've stated that Smith, who has nearly identical policies, would stand a better chance. Why? Because he's been picked from the pool of establishment acceptable candidates? The whole 'Corbyn is too far left' argument died when Smith came along. The issue now is that the PLP just don't want to be beholden to the membership. They want the control.