Liberal Democrats

@bobbybobbyrees
·
17m
Jo Swinson has just stated in her own interview, on Sky News,
Swinson and the LibDems will vote and accept, ANY DEAL, Johnson brings back, no matter, how damaging, as long as, there's a referendum attached!

Reckless, rash and unacceptable!

POGS I totally agree with you and the Lib DEMOCRATS are anything but diplomatic

We can stop Brexit and build a brighter future." @joswinson speaking at the People's Vote rally after the Government defeat today.

twitter.com/i/status/1185591460009304066

Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson said: "This is not a done deal, and I won’t stop fighting for our place in the European Union. Liberal Democrat MPs will always fight to keep the best deal we have as members of the European Union.

"Boris Johnson tried to ram his Brexit deal through Parliament tonight, because he knows it’s a bad deal.

"But he was thrown a lifeline by Labour MPs who voted for his deal, despite all the damage it will do to our economy, our NHS and our environment.

"Now parliament has rejected his timetable, it is clear that the prime minister needs to get an extension so that we can have a People’s Vote and offer people the chance to remain in the European Union."

Urmstongran, you do know a lot about politicians.

2h
Tonight Labour proposed an amendment to protect the NHS from trade deals allowing private companies to put profit before public health. The amendment lost

When the vote was announced someone shouted 'where were the Lib Dems?"

Every Lib Dem MP abstained from protecting our NHS.

twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1187079080430182400?s=20

I really need to understand better what happened there. But if true, I find this very shocking and disappointing.

Tonight’s vote on the NHS finished it for me. I will never ever vote for the LibDems.

This was a vote on accepting the Queen's Speech, which is just a manifesto of what the government of the day intend to do (or claims they intend to do) during the next Parliament. It is not a vote to actually do anything, or to make anything into a law. Nothing has changed about the status of the NHS. The Lib Dems could have gained some useful kudos by being publicly seen to be defending the NHS against a theoretical threat, but perhaps they were saving their ammunition for a vote where it counts?

Voting against the amendment would not have made any difference to how the NHS is treated, only in how it appears to some posters and many others as if the LDs would treat it. The LDs could have improved their image by making a big thing of defending the NHS, but it was not under threat here, the voting was on accepting the Queen's speech, not on accepting actual legislation or even policy.

Look a bit closer. They abstained for Pete's sake, they didn't vote against it, in ^favour of selling it off, they chose not to interfere with the Tory statement of what their plans were.

Tory plans will stay much the same with or without that amendment - they are a manifesto, not a solid promise. After an election there may not even be a Tory government to try to make the plans into reality.

Save our NHS

Tom Pride
@ThomasPride
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2m
Dear fellow Remainers,
If one reason you're against Brexit is because you don't want to see our NHS sold off to Trump, then you need to think twice before voting
@LibDem
, who have just refused to support a
@LabourParty
motion protecting the NHS from privatisation.
Regards,
Tom

Remember these names at the election. They refused to vote to stop our NHS being sold off.

This was not a vote to sell it off or not. This was a vote to accept that the Queen's speech was an accurate representaion of what the current government would do if they were in power . If you don't want it sold off piecemeal, the ones NOT to vote for are obvious. It needs a majority from ALL other parties to change the balance of power, so keeping out a whole party would be counter-productive.

There is a lot of emotional pressurising and tactical smearing going on in advance of the next election. Subtle (and not so subtle) persuasion is a highly sophisticated field, with some powerful players. Be aware of it and don't be influenced by them into passionate decisions that don't achieve the end that you are ultimately hoping for.

elegran whatever the reason, it is not a very clever tactic is it? Not a good look.

Although I suspect Swinson was more worried about giving a Corbyn a winning vote.

As I’ve previously said she is too politically immature to be a leader at present, and this sort of decision shows her immaturity.

I'm failing to understand why Swinson is not supporting (or being) the Opposition. The Lib Dems are never going to be the party of government. If there is a hung parliament after the next GE she surely can't be stupid enough to even contemplate keeping the tories in power, so why antagonise the LP and left of centre voters now?

Perhaps varian might have an answer.

I agree with Elegran. This was a meaningless vote on part of the Queens Speech which will be voted down. It is nothing to do with keeping the Tories in power. The LibDems are not against working with other parties but will not go into coalition with a Johnson led Tory Party of a Corbyn led Labour Party.

As we are clearly on the run up to a GE, we can expect to see parties attacking each other at every opportunity and as the LibDems are set to make gains, they will be particularly targetted.

Meaningless vote or not, varian, it was not a good look for the LibDems. It's given Labour supporters another thing to hate and alienated some LibDem supporters. I don't see why they had to abstain, and neither do lots of other people.

Swanson's lack of political nowse was demonstrated in that abstention in the run-up to a GE.

The best chances for the Lib-Dems is with tactical voting. It seems to me that the Tory voters can split 3 ways: Brexit-Tory-Lib but on the other hand Labour votes are only likely to split 2 ways, Lib-Lab. This implies that the Lib-Dems have more to gain by supporting LP's supporters favoured policies than making life easier for the Tory voters.

I accept that a popular view is that the Brexit Party is a real alternative for Labour voters however I don't subscribe to that view as most Labour voters are firstly anti Tory, even before being pro-labour, yes it's a cultural thing, and the Brexit Party is, was and will be seen to be a Tory party splinter group.

Will the ex-miners or steel workers of Yorkshire or the ex-ship builders of Sunderland or the Boilermakers of Sellifield vote in massive numbers for a Tory government , it is unlikely, but they may well vote for Lib-Dems hoping to produce a hung Parliament to get rid of Corbyn and Johnson together with their cliques.

Fact Check on the Labour amendment yesterday: It was repealing 500 pages of legislation and putting nothing in its place. The Health and Social care act has a lot wrong with it, but just scrapping it and putting nothing in its place leaves an untenable legislative void.
This was from facebook; I don't know how true it is. I am trying to find out more.

Lib Dem’s will never vote with Labour on anything.

Labour won’t vote with the SNP.

The LibDems certainly would vote with Labour if they tried to stop brexit but that seems unlikely as long as the brexiter Corbyn is LP leader.

Jeremy voted remain and campaigned vigorously for remaining in the 2016 referendum as has been documented.
Labour want to get a deal with the EU and put it before the people with the option to remain can't say fairer than that, as the vote was fairly evenly split between leave and remain.

The Health and Social Care Act should never have been passed. It stops the health secretary being responsible paves the way for private companies to be awarded NHS contracts. So needs to be gotten rid of ASAP.

The government documents Five Year Forward View, their so-called Sustainability and Tranformation Plans and the Ten Year Plan are nearly the last pieces in the jigsaw of their privatisation polices.

Professor Hawking. They didn't call him a genius for noting. It wasn't his field but he was spot on. He summed it up on a sentence. The NHS is being replaced by forty-four US-style insurance-based private organisations. No question.

Why would Jo Swinson back Labour's Health and Social Care Act vote she voted for it so did the Tories the Tories and Lib Dems in her party.

According to the independent factchecker Fullfact , "It’s misleading to claim the Lib Dems refused to support an end to NHS privatisation"

fullfact.org/health/liberal-democrat-nhs-privatisation/