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Why are LibDems doing SO badly?

Obviously Swinson isn’t credible as a Prime Minister.  And revoke was a totally unnecessarily extreme gesture compared to bring the champion for another referendum.

But even so. To be on track to get less votes than UKIP in 2015 seems bizarre given the opposition 

Without fail they concentrate on bizarre policies that no one really gives a fvck about. It’s usually legalisation of cannabis and electoral reform. It is this form of anti nous that convinced them selling out on tuition fees was a good deal to get an AV referendum. 
 

if they focused on left of centre vote winning policies like slightly increased taxes to fund hospitals, schools and social care then they would clean up imho. 

it’s a question of expectation and degree

by any normal measure, having at least a 50% improvement in vote share (and possibly close to a 100%) on your last two electoral performances would be an enormous success

however, they’re flogging the waves. they’ve never stood a chance this election: people think this is the brexit election, but it’s not. this is the corbyn election (again).

there was an article last week that showed that parties picking extremists galvanised their bases. but it also galvanises waverers, apathetics etc who tend towards the other side.

ultimately, this election will be won by the tozzas because of fear of corbyn- despite bodge having an even lower approval rating than tm at the point of the 2017 ge. 
that’s a damning indictment of our political choices, but it also means, in an election where the deb7 mostly boils down to whether u r pro or anti corbyn (and how much that makes u rage), that the lib dems and their brexit bollox r an irrelevance

Running to the centre-right to try and win over Tory remainers. Doing completely tone deaf things like defending austerity. They could have run this election as basically New Labour but for some insane reason decided to run as Cameron’s Conservative party. 

Their support for trans rights is mostly in line with the prevailing view and hardly a major issue for them. It’s bizarre how some people’s obsession with promoting transphobic hate  allows them to imagine it’s some sort of lib dem problem. They must be in some sort of echo chamber or just love stirring or both.

Many see it as an erosion of female rights, in some cases quite rightly.

I am able to vote for them because they won’t have a chance at majority so that isn’t going to be a relevant issue IMO and therefore nothing will get implemented.

I was half way tempted to vote for them but it has become clear that its pointless, so its Cons again.

At least a big majority will clear all the parliamentary logjams and chaos over recent years. Maybe the sensible Tories will re-emerge.

Corbyn absolutely not.

 

this is total horseshit bradders

we know that, because they did both those things

there haven’t really been any massive strategic errors by the lib dems (the gender issue aside, but as others suggest not sure that has a massive sway - a battle for another time)

their issue is they are irrelevant in a corbyn dominated political scene

the strategic errors have been made by labour. the libdems have just flapped pointlessly (and will probably increase their vote share significantly so claiming a result)

re above, this is horseshit:

???28 Nov 19 09:17 Reply| Report | DM

Their biggest strategic errors were 1) going after the tories instead of labour on Brexit, and 2) not having a revoke light option in the event they were coalition partners in a hung parliament.

then you are happily voting for a No Deal Brexit Chambers

as for the Lib Dems, I am still pissed off that they are still resolutely claiming 'no deals' when everyone knows it's bollocks and they would settle for a second ref as the price of getting into bed with Johnson. Although the language is quite careful lately - they say they will not work with Johnson or Corbyn which implies they would do a deal if either of those were removed. 

If they were just more upfront about their intentions they would do better. It's not 2015 anymore, too much has happened since then.

 

but what ??? said is utter bollox zg 

they’ve literally done exactly what he’s suggesting they should have done, which means what he’s saying is nonce-sense

Polarised countries tend to split themselves between poles. 

Pro Brexit? Vote Tory. Anti Brexit? Vote for the only non Tory party that has a serious chance of denying them a majority. Oh but Labour aren’t really Remain blah blah blah. That’s not the point. The point is they’re not promising to implement brexit immediately in January.

Polarisation delivers votes to the poles. As Lech Walesa might have said.

if the polls are correct then the Lib Dem poor performance is explicable only by a majority of voters having decided that Bozza is the man to get Brexit done

we'll see how that works out

According to their canvassers telling the public that they know better and are going to ignore the referendum result without a further vote is going down like a bucket of cold sick.

lib dem gain in Richmond.

 

lib dem bod on election night:  "look at our gain in Richmond, it's a platform we can build on and clearly sends a message that the country (eh ed?) doesn't want a hard brexit..."

 

"if you look at our result in Richmond, well we won really...."

The Lib Dems are a joke party, they only time they had any power at all they showed they have no ability to govern. 

The only possible hope they had was a one policy - overturn Brexit one, but, despite everything the London centric remaintards on here think, people want Brexit. 

The fact that they can't even capitalise on the remain vote shows that no one wants them to govern, quite rightly too. 

 

There won't be a no deal Queenie. The bare bones of a deal are there and agreed. We don't want no deal and neither do the EU. There will be a solution, particularly if we we can finally ditch the DUP.

Corbyn is not going to do one on the back of a beer mat from a standing start in a few weeks.

Chambers if you believe that you probably believe Johnson about the 50,000 nurses and 40 new hospitals and all the other bollocks which is proven to be bollocks

I hate brexit and I hate everyone who voted for Brexit and I’m voting labour hard, fast and as many times as I’m allowed to in the hope of hanging parliament and bogging the whole process down again. I would rather ten centuries of the current stand off than actually seeing Brexit implemented and “moving on” to existing as autarchic Mad Gammon Island for evermore. 

Nick Clegg rendered the LibDems an irrelevance by abandoning their left leaning centrist credentials. They had a short window to revive themselves by backing a referendum of leave/stay/if leave deal or no deal and putting out Labour's 1997 manifesto rebadged, but Swinson stupidly went for cancel Brexit which is as auntish as leave means leave with no deal. 

In my constituency the only candidates running are Tory, Lib Dem and Labour. I've previously voted for the Lib Dems and other smaller parties but I've never voted Tory or Labour.

I'm genuinely quite torn this time. I will probably vote Lib Dem because it is an unambiguously "remain" choice and because I think the first past the post system is a travesty which needs to be abolished as soon as possible, and you don't help the case for abolishing it by voting for one of the two main parties. I also don't like or respect Corbyn. And the Lib Dems will do better in my constituency than Labour, so if there is even the smallest change of getting the Tories out (spoiler: there isn't), it's better to vote Lib Dem.

That said, they have been fooking useless, this gender crap pisses me off no end, and their Brexit strategy is stupid and incoherent. As is saying they refuse to do deals. If you can't win a majority under the current system then you need to be ready to do deals otherwise you are a political irrelevance. 

I actually think that only Labour has a decent Brexit strategy at the moment.

HEHEHEH

Seriously.

They would drop the pointless red lines, negotiate a less Brexity Brexit and then put that to a referendum against remain.

It's the only sensible thing to do.

I hate Brexit too, but if it can be somehow moderated that's the best bet we have now.

I don't believe any of the electioneering stuff either Johnson or Corbyn say now Queenie.

labour brexit isn’t going to happen

what might well happen is a hung parliament, rendering the entire process untenable, the only way out being a straight Ref2 on a Remain vs No Deal basis, resulting in a remain victory and all the gammons having to eat shit.

Im voting for that 

Also, I think Corbyn as PM would be ace. Not just because of how much it would piss people on here off - but that factor on its own is enough.

falump28 Nov 19 10:08 Reply| Report | DM

if the polls are correct then the Lib Dem poor performance is explicable only by a majority of voters having decided that Bozza is the man to get Brexit done

we'll see how that works out

total bollox

very few people care about brexit

people are supporting the tozzas out of fear of corbyn 

corbyn would be grwat

I agree with literally every word of the labour manifesto, especially the bit about making Artoo illegal and requiring him to move to Gelsenkirchen

Why are the Lib Dems doing badly?

1. The outright revoke position. This has alienated and offended a lot of remainers, who while they want to remain, feel that a referendum result cannot be reversed without a 2nd referendum.

2. The stupid decision to pretend that Jo Swinson could be prime minister.

3. Jo Swinson.

4. Not going further with liberal policies, e.g. an assisted dying policy. Many countries have assisted dying laws. There is widespread popular support for reform. Neither of the main parties want to touch it with a bargepole but that makes it precisely the sort of policy that would give the Lib Dems a distinct position.

5. Not making enough of the marijuana reform policy. There is widespread popular support for this as a policy. They could also have tied it into racial fairness (because BAME kids get busted for weed far more often than white kids) as US reformers have done.

6. Not having an electoral reform policy.

7. The stupid "1p on income tax to spend on mental health" as opposed to, you know, other stuff that might need fixing and might actually be capable of fixing with money.

Imagine being so shit that Bo Jo is beating you in the polls. 

Tbh it's got more to do with the total fooking stupidity of the electorate than Corbyn's shitness or otherwise.

he's right about (2) tbf

where are all these remainers that are upset by the revoke policy?

everyone's upset that they're just a bit shit

I will still vote for them if it made a difference in my constituency though

The remainers who like the idea of not bankrupting the country and don't wish to endorse institutional racism are voting Tory.

fooking HEH @ this.

You do realise that it is the Tories who intend to bankrupt the country by going for a catastrophically stupid hard Brexit, yeh?

And the Tories which are led by a man who described black people as "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" and Muslim women as "bank robbers" and "letter boxes"?

But no, definitely no racists in the Tory party.

fooking lol.

And the Tories which are led by a man who described black people as "piccaninnies with watermelon smiles" and Muslim women as "bank robbers" and "letter boxes"?

But no, definitely no racists in the Tory party.

fooking lol.

That isn't an answer as you well know.

they've traditionally had very mixed messages - appealing to disaffected labour types and disaffected tory types (see also the sorts of things their recent MP recruits believed in)

but because they've adopted such a binary approach on something I think that's brought it home to people it's not just a protest vote

 

It is an answer to your frankly ludicrous suggestion that voting Tory is a logical decision for someone who opposes racism and doesn't want to bankrupt the country.

voting Tory is a logical decision for someone who opposes racism and doesn't want to bankrupt the country.

 

because 1. Labour are racist and 2. Labour always break the economy. 

hth

That said I will be voting Labour for tactical reasons. 

 

because 1. Labour are racist and 2. Labour always break the economy. 

1. So are the Tories.

2. The Tories' main policy right now is "break the economy in a way that can't be fixed by a more responsible administration later".

Voting for them is batshit.

That isn't an answer as you well know.

I mean it is an answer though isn't it. It's an answer you don't like as it indicates your "concerns" over racism are transparently political bollocks, but it definitely is an answer. 

"That isn't an answer as you well know.

I mean it is an answer though isn't it. It's an answer you don't like as it indicates your "concerns" over racism are transparently political bollocks, but it definitely is an answer. "

*Sighs*

No, it isn't an answer for the very reasons that Maajid Nawaz so eloquently explains:

"People of any political persuasion must always acknowledge three basic things:

1) That every party will have some policies you don’t like.
2) Every party will also have rogue members, or leaders, who have said nasty things.
3) Usually, if a party has policies you disagree with, you simply don’t vote for them.

For Britain’s Jews and their allies and friends, however, the issue with the Labour Party is none of the above. Some smart people out there don’t see this because they have been hoodwinked by dishonest political hacks, or are simply too tribal to accept that something abnormal is going on with one of our major parties.

But, and I repeat, the problem with Labour is none of the above and Corbyn’s supporters need to stop obfuscating, strawmanning and deflecting. The issue is that the Labour Party stands accused of being institutionally anti-Semitic — and racist.

This is very different from finding individual policies you hate, or representatives who utter bigotry. For a body to be institutionally racist (ironically, a phrase coined by a Labour government inquiry in the Nineties) not every member is necessarily a racist, nor even necessarily is the leader. Intention and individual behaviour aren’t the primary issue, but rather outcomes are also considered. If the totality of this body’s procedures, institutions and structure lead to racist outcomes, then sincerity and individual intent is no defence.

This is why the Labour government’s 1999 McPherson Inquiry (rightly) deemed the Metropolitan police to be “institutionally racist” after the unpunished racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. They were not calling all police officers racist. Nor did it mean that other UK organisations didn’t suffer racism too.

 

Today, British Jews and their allies are accusing this Labour Party under Corbyn of being “institutionally anti-Semitic”. This means precisely that the party’s mechanisms, procedures and institutions lead to racist outcomes against its Jewish members.

This does not mean that every Labour member is racist. It also does not necessarily imply that even Corbyn is (although he might be). Rather, it points to the failure of Corbyn’s ship, with him as captain, to steer away from anti-Semitism; sincere individual intent is not a condition here.

What British Jews are (correctly) alleging is that the Labour Party discriminates against them, as a party machine, and that the outcomes in that party no longer protect them against racism. This is an institutional failure.

Any instinctive defence, any “Whataboutery” response or or even allegations of hypocrisy — like “why aren’t you doing more to address racism in your own party?” — all entirely miss the nature and seriousness of what is accurately alleged.

British Jews and their allies are not in a state of alarm because Labour has individual racists in it (which is bad enough as it is). No. The Tories, Lib Dem’s, Brexit party others all have bad apples.

The issue very precisely and seriously is that, under Corbyn, Labour seems not only to have ignored the problem, or denied it, but in many cases doubled down on it and — worse still — even blamed the victims for reporting it. In other words: the Labour Party machine has been co-opted by racism.

If one understands the nature and seriousness of the allegations, then one would never reply by saying, by way of example: “but what about Johnson and niqabi Muslim letterboxes?” It was a bad thing to say, but not evidence that the Tory party machine discriminates against Muslim members.

 

 

It’s also very important to recognise that criticising ultra-conservative Muslim dress is a political right, because the “choice” to adopt fundamentalist dress is a valid societal choice that must equally be subjected to scrutiny — like any religious conservativism must be.

No. Racism is not the same as criticising my religious choices, or lack thereof. You can (politely) criticise my religion, because it’s an idea, and all ideas must be scrutinised. But one cannot insult another’s race, without being rightly deemed a racist.

Jews are both a people and a religion. European anti-Semitic tropes against Jews concern their supposed habits as a “people”, not their religion. It is indeed racism to suggest that all Jews are secret greedy capitalists, for example, as several party members have been found saying.

On the Israel issue, no serious Jewish voice or organisation has ever said it’s racist to criticise the country. This is a complete strawman. I criticise Netanyahu’s policies regularly and know many Jews and Israelis who do so too.

The issue is about four things.

1) Traditional European antisemitism flooding back into Labour, illustrated by the east London “Freedom for Humanity” mural that Corbyn defended, and which perpetuated ideas about Jewish world domination.

2) Holding Israel’s Jews to a higher standard than the rest of the world.

3) An obsessive focus on Israel for errors that are far worse elsewhere.

4) Supporting or otherwise praising genocidal, Jew-murdering terrorist groups.

There are numerous examples of all four of these, and plenty of evidence to be found.

People like Baroness Warsi totally miss the point. The Tory peer seems to have made a career of late deflecting the anti-Semitism issue in Labour by attacking her own party instead over “Islamophobia” (sic).

 

 

Yet Boris Johnson, or any rogue Tory MP or member, can and do say racist or borderline racist things, but does the party with a Muslim-origin Chancellor really discriminate against Muslims institutionally? Does it then double down and deny its racism?

This Muslim believes not, and I have never voted Tory in my life, and will not do so this time either. There are problems in the Conservative Party, yes. I disagree with them, yes. But they are yet to meet the test of being institutionally anti-Muslim.

The comparison of Tory anti-Muslim bigotry would only be appropriate if Boris Johnson had called the Neo-Nazi Christchurch killer his “friend” and had taken money, personally, from a state that funded that killer.

If Johnson, Jo Swinson, or anyone other party leader, let alone individual MPs, had shared a panel in Parliament with members of the now banned terrorist group National Action, almost all of us would be disgusted by now.

Yet Corbyn not only shared platforms with Jew-killing Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists, he not only called them friends, but took anything up to £20,000 from their sponsor, the Holocaust-denying theocratic dictatorship of Iran. Now…imagine you’re Jewish, and then imagine Corbyn in No.10 as PM. Precisely

Until the day that Boris Johnson flirts with actual Muslim-killing terrorists it’s disgusting to draw such analogies, because they are deeply insensitive to our Jewish friends. What’s also disgustingly insensitive is to compare any policy of the Israeli state with a terror group

Truth is, there is only one major political party right now that has had senior former cabinet members resign over this alleged institutional racism. There is only one party that is being investigated by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission over said racism. That party is Labour.

After the Holocaust, we vowed in Europe Never Again — then Bosnia happened. Europe is not immune to repeat offending. We must never be too arrogant to think we are. Brexit or Remain, we do have choices other than Labour. We must not betray our Jewish cousins over a tribal vote

After all this, if we still choose Labour, at least let’s stop pretending we are “progressives”, or that we care about racism and minorities or that we “listen to victims when they tell us we’re hurting them”. It’s all BS.

Just admit that you really don’t give a damn about Jews."

ibble Reply| Report | DM

voting Tory is a logical decision for someone who opposes racism and doesn't want to bankrupt the country.

no, it’s totally illogical, given that the tozzas r also ridden with massive racists and also plan to bankrupt the country, albeit over a longer and more painful period

the logical reason to vote tozza right now, and literally the only logical reason, is if u have a pathological fear of corbynistas

i would actually, but u r famously a retard and need korrekting.

u surpass hotblack, dawnhandbags and hanners in ur damage to the world by being so fooking retarded

if u were to stop being wrong and retarded, i would consider shutting up

deal?

ibble28 Nov 19 13:11

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its okay, he projects when he gets upset. 

???

ur best retort is “u know u r u said u r but wot am i?”

to which the only logical answer is : about 12yo on posting quality

good god ur bad at this game ibble m7

Hotblack, you might disagree with the Labour Party's views on Israel, for example (and that is your right), but I am interested in what policies you think a Labour government have or might introduce which would actually be harmful to Jewish people or increase anti-Semitism in the UK.

Because otherwise, you're essentially saying that nothing the Tories might do could possibly be morally worse than Corbyn having a position on Israel that you disagree with, or associating with anti-Semitic groups. I don't agree. 

You don't have to like Corbyn or agree with him about very many things to believe that the Tories are worse. Jewish people naturally feel threatened at the first hint of anti-Semitism, particularly among those who might conceivably be in a position of power.

But do I believe that the fact that Jews have been horribly persecuted in Europe within living memory means they should be entitled to a higher level of protection than any other group, and that the (many) other groups of people who would be put at risk by a Tory government should be thrown under a bus because Jewish people matter more than everyone else? 

No.

And do I believe that people like you and others who go on and on and on about Corbyn and anti-Semitism (and accuse people like me of anti-Semitism when we want concrete examples of anti-Semitic policies that the Labour party might implement) genuinely care about the Jewish community?

Also no.

In answer to the OP - in short, 1) because the absolute promise to revoke was a step too far for many former Libbo supporters - some of those who would've supported them/ have supported them so far feel that it's anti-democratic just to bin the Ref result and 2) now that they've widely been reported as being "out of the race", people who are fiercely anti-Tory don't see them as a credible vote any more. Simple.

Anyway, back to the anti-Semitic debate..

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