How not to move on from the Brexit vote

Labour shadow cabinet member Diane Abbott, a close ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has an interesting idea about how to win the votes of the seventeen million electors who voted Leave: according to the Daily Mail she has called them "stupid" and "racist"

And, I quote, "The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington went on to claim that voters' concerns over immigration were 'not rational'."

To me as someone who voted Remain that sounds arrogant and anti-Democratic. It is unlikely to go down better with those 17.4 million voters.

Comments

Jim said…
She is playing a clever game. She does not need to "win the votes of the seventeen million electors who voted Leave"

She actually only needs to win more votes than any other single candidate in the constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, where the vast majority of the voters voted to remain in the Brexit Referendum.

Its one of the many flaws of the current system of representative democracy.
1:16 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
If she wants to remain a SHADOW cabinet member it might be seen as a clever game.

If she wants to be a government minister then the same logic does not apply
9:03 pm
Jim said…
No, it does not, that is the point. People dont elect a "government" people elect a Representative, or an MP.

Now whom ever party has the majority of MPs can form a government, or they can even form a coalition government with anther party, but people cant stop their representative being part of that government, or not being part of it.

So no matter how much people in Copland voted for Jamie Reed for example, can that take away the point that David Cameron in the last election could form a government. It matters not how much they hated George Osbourne either.

You see, each MP has to appeal to their own constituents, and that is all they have to do, people dont go to polling station and not vote for Jamie because "diane abbot said", they just don't do that. Any that vote for an MP based on anysort of reasoned desision (rather than just Party loyalty, my mother would turn in her grave, kind of thing) would vote for Jamie on what Jamie has or has not said, not diane abbot.

the people of Hackney North and Stoke Newington may care about that, but the people of Copeland wont
9:45 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
What you say is true of some people but not everyone.

A proportion of voters - not by any means everyone, but - and this is they key thing - enough in each seat to make marginal seats change hands and thereby change the result of a general election - ARE open to change and those voters are often the ones who DO look at what prominent members of each political party say - particularly those who are party leader and therefore potential prime minister, but it also applies to those who would be likely to hold great offices of state if their party won.

Believe me, Jim, if someone in London says something dim, there are some voters in Copeland who will throw it at us on the doorstep. Not necessarily a huge number but it does not have to be.

10:13 pm
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