UK General Election announced for 8th June

The Sun is a paper for the illiterate right wing voters.
The Mail is for people who can read but are so right wing they almost fall off the edge.

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Media already hijacking this election saying its a vote on Brexit and who is best to lead us.
Turning it into a scare vote. Well fuck that in isolation because to me its about much more.
People being treated in corridors in hospitals, foodbanks, zero hour contracts and attacks on workers rights and pensions to name a few.
Just despicable of the media selling it on one vague issue imo. Sadly the apathy in this country will swallow it up. The really leagacy of the leave vote about to come into fruition now before Brexit as even happened yet.

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Canā€™t wait for Boris Nonsense to Fckn rear his ugly mug - whatever happened to the Ā£350 million the NHS was promised :joy::joy:

So it turns out that the turkeys voted for Christmas. First use of the Fixed Term Paliaments Act and itā€™s already clear that itā€™s redundant.

This is a post by Robert Peston on the matter. I pretty much agree with everything he says in the following:

Itā€™s done. This parliament is over. 522 votes to 13.
More with a whimper than a bang. The hopes and fears of the 2015 general election in the dustbin of history.
David Cameronā€™s 84-page manifesto, not even half implemented, now a historic curiosity, utterly irrelevant to the future of this country.
How trivial and unimportant now that unexpected Tory victory two years ago seems.
Except in one respect.
It brought us the Brexit vote, which gave us T May as PM, who today secured MPsā€™ permission to dissolve parliament three years early.
My goodness she has won - and how.
Better than the icing on the cake, for her, is George Osborneā€™s decision to quit parliament to concentrate on his new job editing Londonā€™s Evening Standard newspaper.
The former Chancellor, who can take much credit for that 2015 Conservative win, was the only dangerous focal point of opposition to her within her party.
With him gone, she is formidably strong and secure (till like all prime ministers, her career ends in failure).
I am not however certain that the reputation of parliament has been enhanced by todayā€™s events.
A 90 minute debate, characterised by tired largely predictable speeches, saw the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which was supposed to take narrow self-interested politics out of decisions about timings of elections, casually brushed aside.
And a decision taken by the British people in 2015 to elect a government to carry out a large and ambitious programme of policies over five years just swept away, with barely a protest.
The whole point of leaving the EU, I heard, was to strengthen and make more lustrous the British version of democracy.
I am not wholly certain that is what we have just witnessed in this slightly pathetic denouement to the Cameron/Osborne years.

Politics these days is just a tug of war of power. They hardly have the publics interest at heart.

Really underlines how shit Labour is as an opposition imo.

Your man, Angus Robertson, has been de facto opposition since 2015. Fair play to him for trying to represent us down south aswell :grinning:

I assume that will change with the Lib Dems probably getting 20 + (?) MPs and Labour with a new, and hopefully competent, leader.

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Pat on the back for all the Corbynistas out there who refused to listen when the country said he is completely unelectable.

I hope this isnā€™t a bloodbath. An unopposed hard Brexit and 5 further years of Tory rule is our reward if so. Fucks sake.

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He has hasnā€™t he? Very proud of what the SNP contingent have done since elected, hopefully they have shown themselves in a good light for English Social Democrats also.

They want out the UK, but while in there will work for the best of it. I hope that came across.

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100%. That definitely how I, and Iā€™m sure many others, see him and his members.

Not only does he have some sting to what he says, unlike Corbyn, but he also comes across as a likeable guy.

I suppose thatā€™s the good thing about this upcoming election for Labour.

They can clean house of Corbyn a lot quicker.

Before they had to wait until 2020 to start the fightback. No longer the case.

Yet another reason he probably should have voted against the Gov here, but alasā€¦ :facepalm: :arteta:

Not sure about that comment tbh. Something like Brexit was always going to skew the traditional way of doing things. Many remainers questioned if the government even had a mandate to carry out the brexit process, after all the Referendum wasnā€™t a question of what type of Bexit we should pursue rather if we should leave or not.

This GE is a vote on what kind of Brexit the people want and will grant the next government a clear mandate to carry their version Brexit out. If you want to oppose a hard Brexit the time is now.

No matter how many times labour say GE17 isnā€™t about Brexit, it obviously is and the leadership hasnā€™t positioned themselves in a place where Remainers have confidence in the party hence the the increase in Lib Dem support. The party lacks a sense of ruthless pragmatism when it comes to politics and you wonder why the Tories run a muck

About Labour MPs voting in favour of that the fixed term Parliaments act should be scrapped?

I perfectly see why May has pursued an election. She still has time before the real naegotiations with the EU begin, plus itā€™s unlikely that she will ever get these sort of poll numbers again. I also agree that she needs a mandate of her own, especailly on the issue of Brexit in which there were no previous provisions to it in their manfiesto for 2015 (Besides remaining in the single market, which is clearly political impossible).

I find it odd how Labour can be so enthusiatic about a general election though. Itā€™s clear that they are heading to something close to oblivion. They potentially should have at least voted against it, and then forced May to push through a vote of no confidence. Okay the outcome is the same, but it takes the terms away from her somewhat.

Regardless, and I think Jacob Rees-Mogg said something similar in Parliament, itā€™s clear that the Act still allows for the executive to push through an election on a whim. I guess weā€™ll need to see it used in different circumstances (a government with its own mandate and manifesto attempting to push through an early election), but to me it seems like a lousy check on the executive.

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I donā€™t know what more Corbyn could do. He really is between a rock and a hard place - support remain and be undemocratic and lose the Labour core vote, or go full on Brexit and lose London and much of the South. Heā€™s opted for the only viable way: a fudge. Brexit has really done Labour in. If the Brexit vote had been a few percent the other way, it would be Corbyn against someone else, although still possibly May, in a totally different game, with the election about other things, like NHS and schools.

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I donā€™t follow UK politics that closely but it seems clear to me that opposing Brexit is the smart move if weā€™re taking the long view. Brexit will eventually fuck the country in all sorts of ways and the ability to hang that completely around the necks of the Tories for the next decade or two represents a golden opportunity for Labour to eventually become relevant again.

When your opponent shoots themselves in the foot politically, you donā€™t ask to borrow the pistol so that you can fire one into your own foot too.

This is a good way to see who you agree with most of the major parties, Iā€™d be interested to see some of your results.

Pretty much exactly what I expected

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29% UKIP and 23% BNP thereā€¦ Whatā€™s happened? :wink:

Pretty much what I expected, maybe a bit more Lib Dem and less Tory but there you go. Iā€™ve always considered myself very centrist.

And the fucking issue that apparently links me and UKIP is fucking immigration! :grimacing:

@Cristo you couldnā€™t be more centrist if you tried :laughing: Youā€™ve got six parties there that are all really closely grouped looking at those percentages.

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