2019 UK election

First-time voters hold key in 56 marginals, analysis shows

First-time voters could unseat their MP in 56 marginal seats across the country, according to an exclusive analysis of the 1.2m new electors who have come of age in England and Wales since the 2017 general election.

Thirty of these seats are held by the Conservative party, 20 are held by Labour, four by the Liberal Democrats (almost a quarter of their seats) and two by Plaid Cymru.

Of the 20 seats where the number of new voters exceeds the incumbent MP’s majority by the biggest margin, nine belong to the Conservatives, nine to Labour, and two to Plaid Cymru, according to the statistical analysis by the Intergenerational Foundation (IF).

“Under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system some votes really are much more important than others; in any given election only a small minority of the most marginal constituencies actually change hands,” said Angus Hanton, the co-founder of the IF. “Winning British elections is about winning marginals.”

quote:

With the registration deadline only two days away, the Electoral Commission has made a final plea, telling people the process can be done while “waiting for the kettle to boil”.

“It only takes five minutes to register online,” said Craig Westwood, the director of communication, policy and research at the Electoral Commission. “If you want to make sure your voice is heard, and you’re not already registered, go online and register now.”

Online registration closes on midnight on Tuesday. Applications for post, postal proxy applications and for changes to existing postal or proxy votes need to be made by 5pm the same day.

There are still up to 9.4 million people missing from the electoral roll. Without a huge final push, warned Willie Sullivan, the senior director (campaigns) at the Electoral Reform Society, many young people will be left out of the decision.

“These new figures show just how tight this election could be and the importance of voters, particularly young people and other hard-to-reach groups, getting registered to vote,” he said.

Power firms move ownership offshore to 'protect against Labour renationalisation'

Two of the UK’s largest power companies have quietly moved the ownership of their British operations to offshore companies to protect themselves against Labour’s plan to renationalise them.

National Grid and SSE, which together own Britain’s gas and electricity transmission networks, confirmed on Sunday that they had created overseas holding companies following Labour’s pledge to restore them to state ownership.

SSE has put its UK business into a new Swiss holding company while National Grid has shifted its gas and electricity businesses into subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Hong Kong.

The decisions, which follows a similar move by two water companies, are designed to protect their shareholders against any move to buy the firms back without paying what they would see as the full market value......

(self-delete.  dupe post).

The idea that Labour is not able to do what they are currently doing is just another lie made up by the Leave side.

..i totally agree with this. that doesn't mean that labour won't meet any resistance but in the end the manifesto will happen..imo. 

https://www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbynMP/videos/504520716941387/

The Full Brexit: A Second Referendum Is No Route To Socialism

https://t.co/MJAsjwP6ki

As predicted previously on The Full Brexit, in the present general election campaign, Leave-supporting socialists are under huge political and moralistic pressure to support the Labour Party, despite its anti-democratic drift into the Remain camp. If the price of a 'Left transforming government' is a second referendum, we wager that we will not actually get such a government. As explained previously on The Full Brexit, Labour's shift to Remain is likely to be electorally disastrous, alienating four million of its own voters plus many other Leave supporters it needs to win over to capture seats currently held by the Tories.

Even if Labour can somehow form a government its transformative potential will be scuppered by a second referendum. Labour's policy is to negotiate a Brexit In Name Only deal, which most party elites have already committed themselves to campaign against. This is pure chicanery, designed to negate the biggest electoral revolt against the status quo in Britain for forty years, while hoping no one notices what is actually happening.

But British citizens are not stupid. This move will only compound the sense of betrayal already felt by many working-class people towards Labour and fuel populist reaction. How can a Labour government possibly hope to transform society, which would require enormous popular mobilisation, when it has effectively demobilised and alienated vast swathes of the electorate? How can working people be empowered by a Labour government that has disempowered them and gifted their class enemies a proven method to block the implementation of any vote they dislike in the future? And how could a Labour government hope to transform society having kept Britain inside the EU, or - in a best-case scenario - so tightly bound to it that we may well be members? As many articles on The Full Brexit have pointed out, EU membership, or the 'regulatory alignment' ostensibly sought in Labour's 'credible leave option', effectively outlaw socialist policies.

All serious left Leavers know how damaging a second referendum would be to our democracy, and to working-class support for Labour. The problem with the argument that a second referendum is a reasonable trade-off to install a 'left transforming' regime under Jeremy Corbyn is that, in truth, it involves sacrificing both of these things. As once article accepting a second referendum points out, Labour's drift to Remain involves 'a sort of Popular Front with forces to its right,' which 'never...furthers the interests of the left.' By extension, anyone who accepts this move is being coopted by the right wing of the Labour Party and forces to its right. It is their project to thwart Brexit...This deserves not pragmatic acceptance but resolute opposition."

WATCH Corbyn 'Make it Clear'...

http://rabble.ca/comment/5661151#comment-5661151

"You Could Not Make This Up. A LABOUR candidate is not just a millionaire who pays his staff 3.87/hr - but also gets his aunt to stuff her socks with wads of cash and smuggle it abroad to avoid tax! For The Many?"

https://twitter.com/msjenniferjames/status/1198576380948160512

epaulo13 wrote:

Musicians backing Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour

We are musicians, artists, rappers and grime MCs, and we will be voting for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party this election. We’re not voting Labour in the naive hope that they will solve all the problems our communities face. We vote because they offer an urgent alternative to the destructive policies of the Conservatives.

Ending austerity will, for the first time in many of our lifetimes, use the taxes we all already pay into, to reinvest in the housing, youth clubs, community groups and cultural centres being destroyed by the current government. These spaces made many of us who we are today, and while we don’t rely on them like we used to, we know how important they will be for the next generation. It is only by restoring them that our communities can take charge of our own destinies, and build our own solutions to the problems we face.

We are under no illusions about Labour’s own imperial history, and we don’t think the British establishment is fundamentally going to change. But we are sick of our taxes being spent on fighting more wars and building more jails. Jeremy Corbyn has been one of the few people who has fought against injustice all his political life, from apartheid South Africa to the bombing of Libya.

To deny from our own, now quite comfortable places, that a Labour government would improve the lives of millions would betray the communities we come from. The opportunity for people-led change can be made possible under a Jeremy Corbyn Labour government. End austerity, rebuild our communities and take back the means to change our lives for the better......

I only recognized four names. I'm old (53).

"UK Labour preferred this man as a parliamentary candidate over Chris Williamson. Just think about that..."

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1199033799822196736

epaulo13 wrote:

I only recognized four names. I'm old (53).

..i only recognized lowkey. i'm older than you. :) 

Lowkey - Iraq2Chile

Martyn Ware back in the day (1981):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV5dbcOmw6I

Economists and academics back Labour spending plans

The Labour party received a boost on Tuesday when 163 economists signed a public letter offering broad support for its proposals for higher public investment to kick start growth and raise productivity.

The letter published in the Financial Times lamented Britain’s poor economic performance of the past decade, called for “a serious injection of public investment” and said Britain would benefit from greater state involvement in national economic management.

Although most of the signatories are left-leaning academics, their support for the proposals for radical measures will come as a boost for Labour at a time when the Conservatives, who have led the government since 2010, are attacking the party’s manifesto as likely to cause an economic crisis within months.

“It seems clear to us that the Labour party has not only understood the deep problems we face, but has devised serious proposals for dealing with them. We believe it deserves to form the next government,” the letter said.....

..also from the stats for lefties site.

quote:

The Labour Party's Brexit policy - which is to hold a referendum after renegotiating Brexit - is the most popular Brexit policy of all the parties.

Corbyn's Brexit policy is the best policy, the most popular policy, and the only policy that will allow us to move on.

Labour's Manifesto Promises: What Are They Worth? (and vid)

https://twitter.com/JamesHeartfield/status/1198634182412587008

"Thinking that this was a viable or desirable alternative shows the utter paucity of thinking on the liberal left in the UK [Not Just there!]. If there is substance in the polls and Labour loses this election, it will be because the Party has been manoeuvered into its diastrous soft-Remain stance."

https://twitter.com/pmpoc/status/1198573384919134211

"Can anyone tell me how Corbyn plans to renationalise everything if we remain in the EU? Asking for a friend."

https://twitter.com/2010LeeHurst/status/1199015946763014149

After the 1945 election, there were some in the Labour Party- all of whom were part the party's far right wing- who were still trying to dump Attlee as leader-even when they knew he had led the party to a landslide victory.

Treachery for treachery's sake can be a mental addiction.  

Thus Spake the Chief Rabbi

https://off-guardian.org/2019/11/26/thus-spake-the-chief-rabbi/

"Corbyn not fit for high office says Chief Rabbi Mirvis...Zero evidence offered."

Nor obviously is the Chief Rabbi for his. Shouldn't he be talking to his god or preaching to his relatively small and declining congregation instead of meddling in a national election, or is it more common than we know now for rabbis to agitate in the interest of Apartheid Israel, as this one most certainly is?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/voters-2017-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-boris-johnson

Since the campaign began, I have been visiting constituencies, trailing candidates and phoning activists to get some sense (away from opinion polls) of what is going on. The reports contain shades of familiarity from the last race, but also vital differences. With the obvious proviso that my accrued anecdotes are unscientific, I detect two significant shifts.

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First, suspicion of Corbyn has crystallised into something harder for Labour to crack. His candidacy was once seen as eccentric, with the redeeming qualities of mildness and candour. Now canvassers encounter a more visceral aversion to the Labour leader. Some people cite specific objections to Corbyn’s policy positions and record of past association with extremists, but for others it is a generalised cultural recoil. The word “dangerous” comes up a lot, as does “weak”.

A second change is that leavers did not think Brexit was in serious peril at the last election. May looked set to do the business. Besides, Corbyn pledged to honour the referendum mandate. Now he wants a second vote, and seems shifty on the whole subject. In 2017, pro-Brexit voters who hated the idea of switching to the Tories could find reasons to stick with Labour. This time they might not take any chances.

It is dishonest to depict Brexit as a chore when it is closer to a revolution, but that frame artfully positions the Tories as the less extreme option on the ballot paper. Committed remainers won’t be persuaded, but they aren’t the target audience. Johnson is speaking to undecided voters who are predisposed to see Corbyn as a crackpot, Labour as a party that loves splashing other people’s cash, and socialism as something that went wrong in the last century.

Agreed. There is no way Labour should lose this election except for one reason. Hint : it starts with "C" and ends in "n."

No epaulo, Labour

 cd run on exactly the same platform with virtually any other leader and win.

Corbyn is Johnson's trump card , essential to imposing a Trumpian regime on Britain.

Meanwhile, here is an interesting new poll with a sample of 40,000.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-tactical-voting-poll-boris-johnson-corbyn-marginal-seats-a9219956.html

 cd run on exactly the same platform with virtually any other leader and win.

..no nicky. corbyn is an old man and will be gone in the near future. it's the movements that brought him to the power he holds today. he did provide the impetus (policy) but it is the movements, the activists inside and outside the party who have protected him and do so today in the avalanche of attacks against corbyn. but really they are attacks against the manifesto. while corbyn will be gone the manifesto will not. your position for all your justifications rings hollow. your personalising it, your one focus convinced me of this a long ways back.     

If you are an immigrant-bashing racist like Boris, the connection is obvious.

epaulo13 wrote:

 cd run on exactly the same platform with virtually any other leader and win.

..no nicky. corbyn is an old man and will be gone in the near future. it's the movements that brought him to the power he holds today. he did provide the impetus (policy) but it is the movements, the activists inside and outside the party who have protected him and do so today in the avalanche of attacks against corbyn. but really they are attacks against the manifesto. while corbyn will be gone the manifesto will not. your position for all your justifications rings hollow. your personalising it, your one focus convinced me of this a long ways back.     

It was obvious to the vast majority of us, nicky.  What this is really about is that you hate the fact that the party is no longer the sole property of the PLP, the last group within Labour who still wants Blairism back.

If that were not the case, you would not be, for all practical purposes, campaigning for the Tories in this thread by continually attacking Labour's leader, and you would not have carried on those vicious and unfounded attacks-you even kept the AS smear going when as an intelligent person you've known it was bollocks all along-on that leader after you conceded that it was not possible for Labour to change leaders during an election campaign.

We are all onto you.

You have no reason to be this venomously anti-Corbyn.  He's done nothing to deserve your hatred.  And he represents what the overwhelming majority of the party wants.  There is no good reason, when you know that attacking Corbyn does nothing but help the Tories, for you to continue to vilify the man.

Repeated proof has been posted in this thread that he was never soft on AS and that there's been no significant increase in AS under his leadership, and that Corbyn's supporters are no more likely to express antisemitic sentiment than anybody else in the party. 

All there has been is more open condemnation of what the Israeli government does to Palestinians.  Since it's never AS to support the creation of a Palestinian state and it isn't even AS to be non-Zionist, as the existence of the State of Israel does nothing whatsoever either to combat AS or to protect anyone against it, what was the point of pushing Corbyn and the party to accept those parts of the IHRA "guidelines and examples" which related strictly to comments about Israel and Zionism, not to comments about Jewish people and Judaism as a set of religious, ethnic and cultural traditions? 

It goes without saying that Corbyn has fought AS all of his career-that he has never been weak on that in the slightest. And it's absurd to act, as some of Corbyn's critics do, as if AS has somehow suddenly become the most prevalent form of bigotry in all of the UK as a result of Corbyn being leader.  In truth, where AS has grown, it has grown among the far right, among Tory/UKIP/Brexit Party supporters, not socialists and young activists for justice and equality.

And there is no justification for the implication that, if Corbyn became prime minister, the entire Jewish community of the UK would somehow be at physical risk.  It isn't and there's nothing Corbyn has said or done that would cause it to be.   Corbyn has legitimate grounds for any number of libel suits on the people-most of them gentiles and Tories or Blairites-who have perpetuated this despicable smear.  The only reason he hasn't filed such actions is that he apparently doesn't believe in using the British judicial system to settle scores.

And he has nothing to apologize for on this issue, so there was no excuse for the barbaric, abusive treatment he was given by the BBC's Andrew Neil yesterday, with Neil repeatedly cutting off Corbyn when he tried to answer Neil's loaded questions-questions for which Neil demanded "yes or no" answers even though they couldn't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".  An interviewer, during an election, is simply supposed to ask candidates what they stand for and what they will do if they are elected-it is never appropriate for an interviewer to be part of an orchestrated effort to destroy a particular political figure.  

Do you sleep well knowing you've taken part in a four-year long vendetta against a man who did nothing to deserve the treatment he has received?  A man whose only real crime is fighting for the many, not the few?