UKC

The two main teams are clearly off their rockers. The Lib Dems, the holders of the centre ground should be clearing up. Are they being drowned out by the shouty/colourful/controversial style of the two main extremist parties or are they just insipid and ineffectual?

Trouble is that they aren't holders of the centre ground. No one is. Because there isn't any ground there anymore.

As a party they keep kicking the ball away from any goal in sight.

I don't think this is their own fault, our party politics is hollowed out.

the Blues: Sell everything!

And the Reds: Buy everything!

Both of which is reckless, that leaves a massive area in which a more compromised and safe approach can be pursued.

Its complicated by Brexit, of course because it's Labour who hold the centre ground there.

The Lib Dems suffer in the new media world where confrontation is much more desirable than compromise. 

Having said that, I’m no fan of Swinson. I don’t think she has to be inspirational. Sturgeon and Merkel aren’t inspiring but they do exude far more competence than Swinson. I believe Ashdown, Kennedy or (early) Clegg would all be looking at 100+ seats and 25+% of the vote in the coming election. 

Who?

A decent manifesto marred by a tone deaf 'Loan to rent' scheme and an insane 'Permanent surplus' policy, plus a new leader who massively and jarringly overplayed her hand at the start of the campaign. However, doorstep campaigners still making confident noises about taking southern Tory seats. I hope they're right.

Like it or loath it, the majority voted to leave. Calling for another referendum is valid considering the addition information available now, saying you will unilaterally stop brexit, isn’t, as that makes them the Illiberal Autocrats.

The are the ones fronted by the lady that talks like an excited 12 year old with scary eyes and votes like a member of the ERG.

Nice one!!

It was clearly a very bad tactical decision, but within our electoral system, there is nothing undemocratic about putting a proposal into your manifesto, winning an outright majority (ahem) and doing everything you reasonably can to deliver your manifesto. 

If a party that hasn’t won more than 60 or so seats in the past 100 years, suddenly win 360, then they have a democratic mandate. 

If you see inability to recognise that an economic hole in the foot, particularly for poor UK regions, combined with cropped social and cultural opportunities, for little more than pseudo-patriotic jingoism, is centre ground, I suggest your 'centre' may have slipped massively to the right without you noticing.

I think the usual self-fulfilling chorus of ‘A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote wasted’ and it’s variations is not helping.

Yep, they lost my vote on that one move. 

I'm all for abandoning Brexit and would like nothing more. 

But to write off half the population, who through thick and thin are still wanting some kind of non-Remain option, is just crazy and more divisive than anything the Brexiteers are doing.  It shows the Lib Dems as being tone-deaf to anything that doesn't fit their world view and the illiberal side of liberalism (which I thought was the domain of Labour).  Rather than fixing the Brexit problem, it is only going to ensure it rumbles on for decades.

I think you mean 26% of the population?

https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-leave-remain-52-48-per-cent-voter-tu...

That is conjecture. 
 

PS. I do agree the Lib Dems revoke policy is a misstep. 

This old chestnut keeps cropping up. If you dont vote, you don't count- end of. Lumping in those poor souls who couldn't get themselves on the roll or drag themselves to a polling station as supportive of any argument is meaningless.

The only arguable exception to this is to take account perhaps of those who have reached voting age sonce the referendum.

IMHO of course....

Yes they should have stuck to another referendum, but at the same time making it clear that they support Remain.  That said though, the more pro-EU, revoke article 50 MP's they have in parliament, the more chance we have of getting a soft Brexit and/or an actual second referendum.

It’s not an attempt to invalidate the result of the referendum, it’s a basic question of factual accuracy. If the difference isn’t relevant then why are the pro-Leave side so keen to keep making the same error that happens to fall in favour of increasing the weight of their position?

Whatever way you want to word it, Brexit won the referendum.  Just like the Tories or Labour won elections despite only a small number of people voting.  Just as our elections aren't invalid, the referendum result isn't invalid, no matter how much you may dislike the result.

Playing these games does nothing to convince Brexiteers we aren't every bit as rabid and disdainful of democracy as we claim them to be.  There's no moral high ground to be won.

The great paradox of Jo Swinson is that she appears to have simultaneously too many teeth and not enough teeth. Also she's a fcking Tory.

It’s not a wording issue, you’re misrepresenting both the ratio and the number of people in favour of Brexit to the tune of about 16,000,000 people.

If you want to complain that ‘50% of the people who voted’ are being ignored then I have no quibble with that, but it categorically is nowhere near 50% of the population.

Yes, it seems a little pedantic to argue over wording but it is significant. If people are allowed to repeat the ‘50% of the population’ nonsense without challenge for long enough then that becomes the new truth.  

Playing games - is that how you see people who put a fundamental concern for the UK economy, jobs and prosperity ahead of an idealist fantasy such as Brexit?  Even if we ignore the Russian interference and countless lies told, the very slim margin in the result of the last referendum gives the current government ZERO mandate to pursue a hard Brexit.  Thank god there are still MP's and political parties fighting for the so far totally ignored 48%.

Warning. This post may be triggering to gammons.

On the basis that Brexit is, by consensus of virtually everyone, going to make life worse in the UK for a protracted period (was it 50 years Rees-Mogg suggested?) and is therefore only of potential value to future generations or ideologues I think you can reasonably claim that anyone working to oppose it is actually fighting for 74% of the population, or to put it another way 290% of the leave vote, as even those who couldn’t [be bothered to] vote are having their interests protected in addition to the remain voters. 

So Labour must be very happy with the Lib Dems since they split the right-wing vote leading to an easy victory for the left?

There indeed are.  They appear to be the majority of MPs even.  So the 48% (of what?) have hardly been ignored.  In fact, it's the 52% who can rightly argue they are the ones being ignored, given this many years on their wishes still haven't been acted on and especially given the Lib Dem pledge. 

The Lib Dems, more than anyone else, want to put the boot down on their faces and not even allow public sentiment to be tested by a followup referendum.  They could even emphasise more this time that it is non-binding by not sending leaflets out to everyone telling them the result would not be acted on.  But they won't even do that. 

Its as if they are saying "we know what most of you want and, because we are against it, we won't allow you a say it".  What you want is forbidden so shall not even be raised. 

F*ck me if that isn't the one thing, above all others, destined to doom us to years of ongoing division and pretty much vindicate everything Brexiteers have been saying about out-of-touch politicians.

Depends what you count as "worse".  Brexiteers clearly don't believe the economic projections and/or are not making their choice based on purely economic decisions.  They're open about that.  Weird people still refuse to listen.

You really are twisting figures to support your view.  A truly silent majority, who despite not voting, and still not polling in support of Remain, can all be claimed to support Remain?

I'm afraid parliament committing to A50 and the then-Prime Minister leafletting every home guaranteeing they would enact the outcome, throws in to question your "ZERO mandate" claim.

To bring it back to the Lib Dems, if there really is zero mandate, then why not put that to the people? 

Brexit yes, but a hard Brexit then no, not a chance - ZERO mandate for that.

How have they been ignored?  Article 50 has been implemented and Brexit seems to be going ahead as promised.  It's just that no Brexity people can seem to agree between themselves what sort of Brexit it is they want and put a credible plan in place (that the public or MP's will support) to deliver it.  Perhaps because the form of Brexit they have currently been negotiating is a terrible idea with significant downsides for UK unity and one that will shaft the working class the hardest.

Meanwhile the 48% have had to put up with this divisive and country wrecking B*llshit for more than 3 years now.  I know friends once profitable businesses that are currently going down the pan because of all the uncertainty.

Actually you’re making a position up and then claiming I’m making figures up to support it. I said nothing about the majority (of the population) supporting remain - although given that remain is ‘preserve the status quo’ it’s pretty likely that most people who can’t be arsed to express an opinion probably DO support remain - I said that anyone working to prevent Brexit was working in their interests. Those are two separate things. 

Given the likely outcome that Brexit will be significantly damaging to the economy, and given that voters’ and non-voters’ fortunes are equally tied to the country’s economy, anyone working to prevent Brexit is working in the interests of the non-voters, just not with their endorsement. 

Shifting the goalposts there, aren’t we? The enactment of A50 came after the referendum and with no further vote on the subject, so when was a public mandate for this unilateral action by the government given?

The Liberal Democrats are the principal UK proposers of a liberal-social-democratic governing regime that has been hugely successful across northern Europe in particular. 

Our neighbours and near-neighbours, from France to Finland, are consistently the safest, happiest and most prosperous countries in the world. France and the UK are the dunces of the group, being persistently dragged down by memories of imperial grandeur and pathetic dreams of a return to imagined good old days that never existed. In the UK, as in France, only the abandonment of their tainted history and fully embracing the liberal-social-democratic model will assure their future stability and prosperity. 

The Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the LibDems all occupy that political space. A certain kind of Conservative exists on the boundaries of it, as some of their centrist colleagues across Europe. The LibDems are the ones that do so in a broad-based way across the entire UK.

Well you can't be talking about Holland, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Finland unless you are confusing Social Democrats with Liberal Democrats.

Looks like they’ve had a change of heart on the revoke policy. 
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/liberal-democrats-candidate-layla-...

I’d like to think that will do them some good but I think it might be a little late. 
 

I will say the Lib Dems willingness to recognise that an outright win was not going to happen and adapt their plans, as they have done on a couple of issues, has been refreshing. I wish they were in closer contention for winning. 

The Brexit referendum isn't invalid *now*. But if in a GE we voted in government whose policy was to overturn it, it would have been democratically overturned. 

The two options for a remain party are both unappealing, for different reasons:

1. Offer a 2nd ref. This is a terrible policy because it means you've actually got to *hold* a 2nd referendum! I can't think of anything worse: now that the state of politics is so far into the gutter, a 2nd ref will undoubtedly be the final straw in it going down the drain. I shudder to think of the level of lies, insults, lies, lies and more lies that would be deployed. 

What then, if the 2nd referendum is lost? You've then got to have another General Election. The 2nd referendum policy is impractical. 

2. Revoke A50. This is perfectly logical if you're a remain party. You're asking for people's votes on whether they want to revoke A50, and if you win, then you revoke A50. The fact that people claim that this is "undemocratic" is totally baffling and relies on a mistaken belief that the 2016 referendum is somehow the trump card (npi) in British democracy, overruling the result of a subsequent GE. It isn't!

The problem with the revoke policy is purely emotional. It somehow feels like people are being ignored, even though they have every bit the same right to vote in the GE as people who want to remain. We know that people want to leave the EU, have been told that we will, and under a revoke policy, this would change and they would be upset. 

They're both bad options, but I think 'revoke and deal with it' is better than launching headlong into the depravity of another referendum. And I see no logic in saying "vote for remaining in the EU...and then you can vote again to confirm that you really meant it". It's a daft policy and the consequences will be dire. 

Reason is a slave to the passions. 

But, yeah, fair enough, people do hate the revoke policy!

I wonder how much this is due to most people (on the remain side of the spectrum) arguing for a second referendum as opposed to arguing for EU membership for the last three years.

I am indicating a spectrum of political activity that has been widely successful when it applies well-reasoned policy. If Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke were representative of the Conservative Party then it might inhabit the extreme right of that spectrum. Likewise, if Jeremy Corbyn was a remainer and Tony Blair wasn't a lying warmongering toerag then they too would be part of that spectrum.

But those things are not the case and the evidence is that worthless policy is now the normal mode of the traditional two major parties. If we could have the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the LibDems running the UK then I am confident that it would become a happier, fairer and more prosperous place. 

What? You mean the liberal-social-demiocratic regime doesn't exist and hasn't been hugely succesful across northern Europe?