Even though Johnson's party (like Trump's) advocates severe austerity, nonetheless, millions of voters in both countries endorse the mentality.

Britain's Lesson: If your leader has goofy hair, you-re in deep doo doo.
Hello, Donny.

Broth will regain their sel determination and supremacy of laws they enact by their parliament. Seems quite hopeful. Europe needs Britain. A trade deal will be made. The so called European Parliament can dabble in it's senseless debates. Eventually Italy and Germany will leave this synthetic organism. And then it will like Humpteu Dumpty, fall down. Hopefully France will shatter onto its natural constituencies. Let the Algerians have Paris. The place costs a fortune to run and the sewers need to be replaced. Vive Gascony!

What happened is pretty much what happened here in the US in 2016 -- the Left didn't listen to the voters.

In 2016, the Democrats could have run Sanders or even someone else. But no, they didn't listen. Instead, giving the base the finger, they coronated Madame Clinton. And what did the base do? Return the finger and vote for Trump. Between about 10% of Trump voters had voted for Obama in 2012.

In 2019, Labour didn't listen to the voters. As in the US, grubby Ma and Pa voters were ignored while every desire of the posh was catered to. Wealthy Londoners who were Labour voters didn't want Brexit, but the countryside did. Guess who they voted for? Exactly. They guy who at least pretended to listen to them.

And now we're up for 2020 in the US. What are the chances that the Democrats once again ignore the voters and run either Biden or Buttigieg? Pretty good, I'd say.

Well they have Kamela to run as Geriatric Joe',s running mate.

"Jeremy Corbyn and the British left just experienced a painful illustration of this cultural and demographic shift in action, and of how it nourishes a politics of rage and resentment that can undermine and endanger democracy."

Its interesting how this piece became a love song for Jeremy Corbyn, neglecting the other guy, you know the one that won... That being said, I wonder if the ongoing violence, and knife attacks against Brittons, had anything to do with the overwhelming defeat of the left....some would view the left as being the one who is undermining democracy, by its false ideology..By stating that those who won, did so by undermining democracy, that in itself is to undermine the legitimacy of the election, and Democracy. Just face it Britton's have had enough.

Knife crime in the UK is the same as in 2007, but it had been going down since then. Teenage knife crime blipped upwards in London in 2017, but the majority of knife killings in the UK are domestic crimes and have remained stable as a percentage of homicides going back to at least 1977.

The execrable British tabloid press make a big thing of knife crime, but - unless you are a black teenager/twenty-something involved in a street fighting gang in a rough part of London - the average UK resident has nothing to be concerned about.

Police numbers have very little to do with this, but even so it is not 'the left' that reduced police numbers in the UK. It was the Tories.

The vote process in the UK appears to have been a legit exercise of democracy. My read is that the complaint is that it is unfortunate that too often emotion rules over reason, prejudice and othering is a facile response too many people take, and the frustration and rage generated can be easily manipulated. You said: "Just face it Britton's have had enough." Enough what? Talk of Brexit? Lack of action on resolving it? Exasberation often leads to emotional voting - maybe one of the reasons people often vote against their own interests.- or at least their interests beyond immediate psychological relief.

Actually emotion can be much better than reason in determining things, often the most heinous acts are carefully reasoned decisions. Reason is often just a disguise, for underlying pathology. If you don't understand why they voted the way they did, you never will they have had enough.

"Reason is often just a disguise, for underlying pathology." Haaa! Just keeping digging, buddy!

Our fake leaders employ the tropes of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, bigotry and misogyny to channel the public’s growing rage and frustration away from the corporate elites at the helm, the top, the rule makers toward the vulnerable at the bottom. hedges

not a reply to the author (i took care of that on the original) as much as a comment on truthdig aggregating this in the first place: what the hell?

it's bad enough that it's from salon - and their movie review guy at that - but what's even worse is the sheer vapid, reality-defying stupidity of it. anyone to the left of pamela geller (mussolini, for example) knows the "antisemitism scandal" was screeching, delusional and slanderous nonsense. salon long ago decided "russiagate" was the hill they wanted to die on so that's hardly surprising. they're not exactly bastions of reason...but then that never really mattered to the lena dunham clones who make up their readership.

i do expect slightly better from truthdig, however.

There was and is no "burgeoning anti Semitism scandal" what there has been is systematic abuse of the Labour party rule book to remove anyone who dared to critcise Israel and the racist Zionist ideology.This was carried on by Israeli financed Zionist groups like JLM and Israeli financed MPs aided and abetted by various people for their own political purposes inside and outside the Labour Party.The corporate press has gleefully joined in the process whether through outright Zionist like Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian and Nick Cohen at the observer,to the three main Jewish newspapers in the UK.Even the Hitler supporting Daily Mail joined in the nonsense.

But where was the pushback from Labour? How is it that, throughout the English-speaking world, left/liberal/progressive politics are so wimpy? It's frustrating but also interesting. It's a phenomenon you see in Australia, the US, the UK. In every Anglo country, the right slanders the left enthusiastically, and the left just takes it with a glum look, like a kid who just lost his lunch money to the school bully.

I mean, we can blame the Republicans, the Tories, the corporations, the neoliberals, but we have to ask the question -- why is the Left so passive?

Well,I don't claim this as the definitive answer,but Rupert Murdoch's News International is very influential in all three countries you mention.

Why the ‘Left’ is Dead in the Water

“In most cases, the contemporary Left politician is a middle class university activist groomed through party politics activity. Instead of fighting for manufacturing and jobs, the Left has embraced the highly divisive identitarian battle. While the old Left tended to unite us by leading the fight against the horrid capitalists rather than worrying about whether you were a man or a woman, black or white, Jew or Muslim, gay or hetero, our present-day ‘Left’ actually promotes racial differences and divisions as it pushes people to identify with their biology (skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, Jewish maternal gene etc.) If the old Left united us against the capitalists, the contemporary ‘Left’ divides us and uses the funds it collects from capitalist foundations such as George Soros’ Open Society Institute.“

The Left offers nothing in the way of a vision of a better society for all. It is impossible to find the Left within the contemporary ‘Left.’

https://www.unz.com/gatzmon...

The left failed because there are no industrial jobs, no unions, and no “working class” left and they didn’t lift a finger to help them.

Thank you for the link. It really says it like it is. The biggest takeaway is this -- "The Left offers nothing in the way of a vision of a better society for all."

What happened is that the lefties who were in charge got rich and then looked at each other and said, "Why are we fighting capitalism when capitalism is fantastic?" This started in the late 1960s -- look up the Port Huron Statement -- but really got roaring in the 1980s. By 2000, it was over.

This wasn’t the fault of the left but of center right neoliberals

No ,the left was working with the neoliberal class and did nothing for working people and became anti working class.

There are millions of people who need unions and where is the left?

The left abandoned its base and left them with little choice but to vote against the neoliberal agenda to survive.

“allegations of anti-Semitism against Democratic members of Congress have done no lasting damage.”

Ya think so? I’ve written about this earlier & stumbled across this open letter.Read it & reconsider the D’s lowering favor among Jews.

"My open letter to @JerryNadler @RepJerryNadler.

Dear Congressman Jerry Nadler,

I’m a 67 year old Jewish man from Boro Park Brooklyn. I have always voted Democrat. In fact, it’s what I’ve done for the past 45 years. I’ve respected you since the first time you ran for office, and have donated to your campaign whenever I had the chance.

However, what you’re putting our country through is purely out of hate for our President.

I would like you to know that I will never vote Democrat again. This feeling is shared throughout my family and community. Our support for you and your party ends here.

Please do not step foot into our neighborhood and ask for our support again."

You should also send the same letter to Charles Schumer.

After the 2020 election. That will be a better time for him to learn.

"Corbyn also appeared indecisive, or somewhat worse than that, when it came to Labour’s burgeoning anti-Semitism scandal, in which some Jewish Labour MPs or candidates were targeted for abuse by pro-Palestinian leftists."

Huh? "Pro-Palestinian Leftists" (?) were at the core of that? The fact is, Corbyn personally was smeared for four years with vlle lies, and Labour was too, with crazed exaggerations about "ant-Semitism" and God knows any other slander that those freaks could think of. This smearing came from the Liberals and the Tories and their allies in the press, and of course Israel. That Corbyn didn't answer back strongly on these smears is true enough, another maddening lesson in political wavering that Bernie Sanders and anybody to the left of Nancy Pelosi might want to take into consideration. Sanders is about to get beaten soundly with the stick of Moderation, and he better be ready. This is not England, however, and things may take some more curious turns here.

How horrible--Corbyn, a lifelong activist! Like MLK and Gandhi--right? LOL

I know that many people don't read much anymore, but there's an extraordinary book out there that FULLY explains and provides detailed historical context for the results of this UK election. MUST READING for anyone on the left who prefers acting in the arena to whining and bitching about the outcome.

https://www.counterfire.org...

The lesson is don’t ignore the suffering working class.

The real lesson here?
Popular ideas still have to be SOLD to the voters.
They do not simply win based upon their inherent goodness.

The specific lesson for the Democrats?
Many of their ideas poll extremely well, far better than those who advocate these same ideas.

The takeaway?
People do not trust the Dems to keep their promises, so Dem support at the polls suffers.

Yes,ideas have to be sold, and right now Biden and his alter-ego Buttigeig are selling lies about Medicare for All. In addition, the entire Leadership of the Dem Party is flatly against it, in direct defiance of the overwhelming majority of Democratic Party faithful and a crucial majority of Repubicans, along with "Independents." Couple this with the Dems not standing for anything, and Trump has a clear shot at winning another term. The Dems and their Media sycophants and advisors will take the Corbyn wipeout as proof of their "strategy" to stand for nothing (except their phony anti-Trump stance) and move farther to the Right to get those Never-Trump Republicans and "Imdependents."

Anyway, what ideas do the Dems have (I'm not referring to Sanders) that "poll well?" Any fool can see that they don't stand for a Goddamn thing, not even attempting to stop the 'Cons from cheating them at the polls, or doing anything to abolish the Electoral College, their bane in two recent elections. They're in the House right now screeching about the "aggression" of the Russians, lining themselves up with right-wing elements in the CIA and the FBI, demanding war in Ukraine. The Dems "don't keep their promises" because they don't make promises. They'd rather wag their fingers at the Deplorables and anybody else and tell them about the things they can't have.

Who really trusts elections anywhere, anymore? Not me. But good luck to brexiteers and profiteers in their efforts to wall out the rest of the world; this from yet another western country that produces little and uses financial instruments & 'products' to prop up their paper economy. Is it a coincidence the western empires, recent and current, seem to be in a big hurry to throw up walls in recent years? I wonder how that will turn out.

What's wrong with a zero population growth policy to protect our workers and environment?

Most other nations do it.

Walls, to borrow a phrase, are a "two way street." They keep people in as well as out.

Agreed. Presently, plenty are being shoved outside the walls. One wonders where the shoving will stop as the paranoia and fear mounts in the face of new realities. The unvalued? the unpatriotic? the unproductive? those without ownership? resources? the correct favorite political economy?

Social control provided by work, civic and political participation—bonds that integrated us into our communities and gave us a sense of place, dignity and agency—has been handed over to a heavily militarized police, a massive prison system and a judicial system complicit in abolishing basic rights, including due process and privacy. Hedges

The lesson originated in America. If you don't listen we will vote for a nut.

IMO, this all started with the Boaty McBoatface thing.
Had they just named that damned ship what the people voted for, none of this would have happened...;-)

Had to look this up. Thanks! :)

There's a very good conversation on this here:

https://www.wsws.org/en/art...

Much of it speaks, some of it directly, to the parallels we see here with the phony "leftist" (but of course capitalist sympathizers) Sanders and the currents driving the US election spectacle.

Corbyn inevitably suffered the political footsie and mouth disease; namely, he had to play to his base - which was primarily the more "liberal" London crowd, the ones who did not care for Brexit. Whereas the Northern, more highly industrialized base (the "working class") wanted out of the EU; they're the ones who objected to immigration. And like Mr Trump's base, they could care less about ideas or policies or any nuance of governance: they wanted to Make Britain Great Again (as if that were even possible).

In 2017, Mr Corbyn and the Labor Party came very close to defeating the Tories - precisely because they took a strong stand for Brexit. But in 2019 they decided to try a more balanced approach - a fatal mistake where any hot button issue is concerned.

If Corbyn would have won, the left would have claimed it is a vindication of its assertion that the people are far more progressive than their representatives, and that adopting its candidates is the only viable way to stop the rise of right-wing fascism.

Why is it refusing to admit, upon a humiliating defeat of resounding historical proportions, the opposite? (the Labor party had not had such a wipe-out since 1935).

You haven't been paying attention. A whole bunch of rural working people are absolutely certain that their woes are caused by Brussels. Add in the fact that there are quite a few people both in the cities and (somewhat more so) outside the cities that really don't like the number of brown faces they see out on the High Street. They aren't going to like a whole bunch of the other things the Conservatives are going to ram through over the next few years. Not one little bit, but they weren't thinking about that.

The amount of genuine anti Semitism in the Labour party is and was vanishingly small,but there is rightly considerable criticism of Israel and the racist Zionist ideology that underpins their persecution and intent to displace all Palestinians.Any writer that tries to convince you otherwise is either liar or a fool.

What is it with political sociopaths and hair? Hitler had the slanting bangs thing, the Trump comb-over, and now Bojo still rebelling against mum for making him comb his hair every morning.

In all the fake democracies of the West what is not understood is that as long as there are political parties there can be no viable democracy that represents "people rule" but a factious political process than ensures oligarchical rule. Count on it!

I agree on the 'fake democracy' claim. So are you advocating direct democracy? Prayers for a benevolent king? Surely with all the wonderful instantaneous communications systems available to even the homeless, there could be an app for direct democracy. Given facial recognition, constant massive surveillance, AI that tailors ads from everything I say or do 24/7, god knows what else - surely we could vote regularly. That will not be allowed either. Why, It's almost as if we have to organize in other ways and give each other power and not expect anything from the twats in office.

What one simply needs to know is that just as the Roman Republic was a reaction to Greek democracy, which was overthrown by its oligarchy, democracy, as we presently know it in Western Culture, is an oligarchical construct designed to limit the true power of direct democracy in which an oligarchy would have NO place to exists!

The bottom line is that we should always question those things we are taught to hate!

Democracy is NOT a Man made template! And when left to its own devices- meaning "people power" by "people rule", the planet could be in a place that would be incomprehensible to our present understanding of human potential i.e. the oligarchy is actually suppressing human potential in order to maintain a stratified system which scientifically creates poverty and deprivation in order to artificially create a wealthy few.

https://truthout.org/articl...

To both you & DofG:

Heaven help us to avoid any direct democracy. The will of the masses is unstable, often influenced by charlatans to false & bad things. We can re-institute slavery, burn witches again, throw gays off roof tops or any horrible thing a madding crowd can be driven to. Many today would like to punish, shut up or even execute “climate deniers.” Just gain a “consensus” & do all the harm you wish to any minority.

You may or not realize it, but that is the reason our founders created a house with direct representation with re-elections every 2 years & a senate every 6 yrs to provide a more stable governance, i.e. to offset & level the often changing whims of people. Senators were also designed to be appointed by states & not elected by elections fraught with lies to gain votes. State appointed senators would be less likely to create laws in DC forcing states to do things their citizens did not want to do & pay for it themselves. The way DC gets around us being a republic is by taxing us all (constitutional) & then offering states some of their money back to do as they are told, & to do what DC is not constitutionally allowed to demand – i.e. If we can’t do it directly, we take you money & give you some back to comply. The change to direct election of senators moved power further from the states & people & DC pretty much does what it pleases. A study found us citizens have ZERO influence on DC policy.

A direct democracy is two wolves & a lamb voting on the dinner menu.

That's oligarchical propaganda that has been developed over two millennia to serve the maintenance of its illicit power! All one has to do is access why we have been conditioned to accept the idea that we should be "well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" as normalcy.

Direct democracy is no different than what California often does through referendums where people vote directly on major policy proposals. But in this fractious culture things that should be obvious are the hardest to learn i.e. that direct democracy is actually socialism!

"What luck rulers have that men don't think."- Adolph Hitler

There is something to what you say re CA. My point is how they are voting re housing. The majority vote to keep new, & much needed housing from being built & from being affordable. The majority gains. The minority loses.

"Propaganda" is irrelavent having nothing to do with what I wrote. It is whether or not direct democracy allows the majority to take advantage of a minority. Do you think it does not?

Decades ago during some black riots there was a black fem "bad person" doing or recommending very violent things. I think she was jailed & I'm not endorsing her & don't remember her name, Davis? Maybe, maybe not. In any case her problem was being a minority & one of her requests/demands/whatever, was blacks be given more votes/person to counter the majority white votes. This was all up North, not the segregated South, though much of the North was segregated, not by law, but by fact.

the only "grim news" is for progressives and their bankrupt ideas...