** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'

[meic]

How does that fit with the fact that they had the numbers to win the referendum?
You describe a present culture which they are rejecting but if that was the present culture then surely it would have the numbers in the populace to have won the referendum.

Possibly you are not looking at the culture of the whole of the UK, so much as in a selective area, the vote was varied regionally.
Or maybe people didnt vote leave for the reasons that you imagine.

[Mick F]

Yep.

It's the same as the audience figures for the World Cup.
They ask people who watched, and extrapolate the numbers to the whole population.
I say the figures are hopelessly wrong because the circle I live in, aren't interested in the WC at all.

We have knots of people. Birds of a feather flock together?

Same as Brexit.
If you live in a knot of Brixit voters, you can't understand how the Remain voters got as many votes as they did!
Vice versa of course, and never the twain will meet or even agree.

[Mistik-ka]

If you live in a knot of Brixit voters, you can't understand how the Remain voters got as many votes as they did!
Vice versa of course, and never the twain will meet or even agree.

You never know, however it all shakes down, armed with 20/20 hindsight and 20 years down the road there may be a meeting of the minds.

Or 30 years.

Or not.

[661-Pete]

You never know, however it all shakes down, armed with 20/20 hindsight and 20 years down the road there may be a meeting of the minds.

It pains me to say this, but I seriously doubt it. Realistic thinking has been in somewhat short supply in recent years. Of course I like to think of myself - and those who share my opinions - as the realistic ones. Who wouldn't?

There is certainly a chance that a second (or should that be "third") referendum might go the same way as the last. Such an outcome would be a calamity from my point of view - but I try not to think about it. Just as I don't think about air crashes when boarding a plane...

Instead I think of it as a last-ditch gamble which I hope will pay off. Just like the compulsive gambler who, having lost nearly everything on the machines, or at the casino, or on the gee-gees, or whatever, decides "let's have one more punt, my luck may turn". Ironic - because I detest gambling - but of course I didn't choose to be in this position.

Leave me that hope.

[meic]

We have no way of knowing what would have happened if we had taken the road which we didnt take.

In an alternative world there may be a relatively wealthy Greece bemoaning the fact that they missed out by not joining the EU.

[pwa]

How much you value the status quo rather depends on where you fall on the hierarchy of benefiting from it. Which is an alternative answer to why leave voters were predominantly from the lower social economic classes contrasting the commonly given one that such people are less able to reach a sound conclusion.

The EU wasnt entirely a status quo though, was it? It was forever morphing into something else and there was a stated intention that it should morph into an ever closer Europe.

Leave was probably seen by its voters as being the more Conservative option retaining the nation status rather than morphing into the New European Order.

There's a lot of confusion in the minds (and consequently the actions) of those who nowadays call themselves "conservative". In practice, most are anything but conservative since they're intent on destroying just about everything of the current status quo in favour of a wholly imaginary myth about Little England. This myth seems to be connected with a dislike or even hatred of multi-cultural actuality in Britain, especially those more obvious strands defined by unpale skin, non-Christian religion or non-standard sexuality. The desire isn't to conserve anything but rather to destroy a great deal of the current status quo.

Their messiah is Mrs Thatcher, who can be accurately described as both a revolutionary and radical - whilst at the same time giving off that reactionary-bigot attitude that seems to be the only shred of "conservatism" remaining in such folk: a desire to preserve their privileges in the form of a lack of rights for those who are "not one of us", to use one of Thatcher's favourite phrases.

****
No doubt there are many conditions and activities of both the EU and the British nation that can be examined and discussed in relation to their good or bad effects on one's actual personal interests and well-being. These seem rarely discussed, with most Brexit-related stuff just a hodge-podge of emotive slogans, yah-boos and bogeymen tales. But even a more rational and reasoned discussion is hardly likely to predict the future in terms of all possible effects of staying or leaving the EU. It's too complex to predict the many consequences of the myriad arrangements and relationships.

Personally I take the view of MickF's friend: preservation of what is currently working is far better than scrapping everything in favour of some mythical national utopia that is, in any case, merely an obvious cover for proto-fascist nationalists and/or rabid neoliberal fatcats & their tame politicians, to build the second laissez-faire Victorian style society that they hope will keep them in their positions of power and privilege whilst allowing them to persecute those "who begin at Calais". The British Aristocracy may have morphed into a gang of "businessmen" but they have the same unpleasant desires as aristocrats everywhere.

Sad that those who are already the victims of this new aristocracy are too bamboozled by the mass media to discern who it is that's actually degrading their lives - and will do so at an increasing rate if & when EU reins are let loose from the nationalist and fatcat halters.

Cugel

I was in favour of Leave, and would be in a future re-run referendum, but none of your imagined Leave voter picture applies to me. I hated Maggie, have long supported equality for gays and racial minorities and despise the days of Empire. But I despise the EU too.

[pete75]

I was in favour of Leave, and would be in a future re-run referendum, but none of your imagined Leave voter picture applies to me. I hated Maggie, have long supported equality for gays and racial minorities and despise the days of Empire. But I despise the EU too.

Yeah but you don't don't want immigrants here do you? You've repeatedly stated that's the reason you voted leave.

[reohn2]

How much you value the status quo rather depends on where you fall on the hierarchy of benefiting from it. Which is an alternative answer to why leave voters were predominantly from the lower social economic classes contrasting the commonly given one that such people are less able to reach a sound conclusion.

The EU wasnt entirely a status quo though, was it? It was forever morphing into something else and there was a stated intention that it should morph into an ever closer Europe.

Leave was probably seen by its voters as being the more Conservative option retaining the nation status rather than morphing into the New European Order.

There's a lot of confusion in the minds (and consequently the actions) of those who nowadays call themselves "conservative". In practice, most are anything but conservative since they're intent on destroying just about everything of the current status quo in favour of a wholly imaginary myth about Little England. This myth seems to be connected with a dislike or even hatred of multi-cultural actuality in Britain, especially those more obvious strands defined by unpale skin, non-Christian religion or non-standard sexuality. The desire isn't to conserve anything but rather to destroy a great deal of the current status quo.

Their messiah is Mrs Thatcher, who can be accurately described as both a revolutionary and radical - whilst at the same time giving off that reactionary-bigot attitude that seems to be the only shred of "conservatism" remaining in such folk: a desire to preserve their privileges in the form of a lack of rights for those who are "not one of us", to use one of Thatcher's favourite phrases.

****
No doubt there are many conditions and activities of both the EU and the British nation that can be examined and discussed in relation to their good or bad effects on one's actual personal interests and well-being. These seem rarely discussed, with most Brexit-related stuff just a hodge-podge of emotive slogans, yah-boos and bogeymen tales. But even a more rational and reasoned discussion is hardly likely to predict the future in terms of all possible effects of staying or leaving the EU. It's too complex to predict the many consequences of the myriad arrangements and relationships.

Personally I take the view of MickF's friend: preservation of what is currently working is far better than scrapping everything in favour of some mythical national utopia that is, in any case, merely an obvious cover for proto-fascist nationalists and/or rabid neoliberal fatcats & their tame politicians, to build the second laissez-faire Victorian style society that they hope will keep them in their positions of power and privilege whilst allowing them to persecute those "who begin at Calais". The British Aristocracy may have morphed into a gang of "businessmen" but they have the same unpleasant desires as aristocrats everywhere.

Sad that those who are already the victims of this new aristocracy are too bamboozled by the mass media to discern who it is that's actually degrading their lives - and will do so at an increasing rate if & when EU reins are let loose from the nationalist and fatcat halters.

Cugel

Thanks for that Cugel,my thoughts exactly on the subject.

[reohn2]

How does that fit with the fact that they had the numbers to win the referendum?
You describe a present culture which they are rejecting but if that was the present culture then surely it would have the numbers in the populace to have won the referendum.

Possibly you are not looking at the culture of the whole of the UK, so much as in a selective area, the vote was varied regionally.
Or maybe people didnt vote leave for the reasons that you imagine.

The present culture has been caused by the very people Cugel mentions,big business and it's tamed politrickians who've pointed the finger at minorities for those failings,one only has to looked at the rightwing neoliberal stance of successive governments after and including the Thatcher government.
Neolibralism has done a very good job of the state the country is presently in,with an ever growning resentment of "foreigners" and an ever widening gap between rich and poor.
As for the EU,better the system you known and have a say in how that system works than be on the outside looking in with no control at all over what laws and rules it makes.But let's not forget the good the EU has done for the whole of Europe as more than a common market.
The bunkum espoused about taking back control and immigration is just that ,bunkum,we need immigration and it's only poor government that allows immigrants to be mistreated by a system they have allowed to prosper,you cannot have a fair labour system by cutting back to the bone police,health and safety,and immigration and border control expenditure.
As for taking back control,the present government hasn't got control,but it's not the EU that's stolen it,but their paymasters who dictate the the terms on which they run the show.
Divide and conquer is a term that springs readily to mind and the country is presently very divided and utterly conquered by multi national pay no taxes neolibralism,whilst the people in support think they've taken back control,dream on......

[PDQ Mobile]

Sad that those who are already the victims of this new aristocracy are too bamboozled by the mass media to discern who it is that's actually degrading their lives - and will do so at an increasing rate if & when EU reins are let loose from the nationalist and fatcat halters.

Cugel

""Thanks for that Cugel,my thoughts exactly on the subject.

""

Me too.+1 and for your above post too.

And as for pwa's, "I despise the EU", well that sounds (unusually) rather simplistic, straight out of the Daily Mail. Though a moment of unguarded frankness maybe?

That the EU has done no good whatsoever is clearly and demonstrably false.

I feel thrown to the rabid leaving dogs politically now. There is little constructive debate just a polarizing of positions.
Yet still I await to hear something definitely positive and encouraging about an independent UK.
Something not couched in nationalistic or anti immigrant terms.

I personally don't accept MickF's earlier "fishing and farming" either. For reasons too long to go into (again) we are better off in than out in both those areas, IMV.
I am talking about fish stocks and soil health not farmer's and fisherman's incomes!!

[djnotts]

"Yet still I await to hear something definitely pisitive and encouraging about an independent UK.
Something not couched in nationalistic or anti immigrant terms."


You'll wait a long time for the former - and a whole lot longer for it to meet the latter proviso!

As for what the EU has achieved - being born just post-war I have not - unusually in the history of "Europe" - had to go to/be subjected to war nor have my children. Boris and Mogg et al really don't like this - so much profit to be made out of sacrificing cannon fodder.

[Cugel]

"Yet still I await to hear something definitely pisitive and encouraging about an independent UK.
Something not couched in nationalistic or anti immigrant terms."


You'll wait a long time for the former - and a whole lot longer for it to meet the latter proviso!

As for what the EU has achieved - being born just post-war I have not - unusually in the history of "Europe" - had to go to/be subjected to war nor have my children. Boris and Mogg et al really don't like this - so much profit to be made out of sacrificing cannon fodder.

For me this is also one virtue of the EU that it seems foolish to reject. The first half of the C20th in Europe was a terrible time to be alive (if you could stay alive) with death & degradation from poverty, exploitation & war a norm for most - courtesy of nationalists, empire builders and profit-crazed financiers or other unfettered capitalists. The post war settlement has provided we citizens of a certain age with the alternative: opportunities to be healthy, wealthy and wise courtesy of a far more inclusive nationalism that had come to recognise the corresponding value and advantages of internationalism.

The Brexit-begun fragmentation of Europe, beginning with an isolated and degraded Britain, is a gift to the madmen of the world - the Putins, Trumps and Jinpings, to mention the obvious candidates. Already Putin & Trump are busy undermining the European power bloc in the hope of giving themselves more opportunity to plunder and empire-build as they wish. Whilst I too greatly dislike many aspects of the EU (particularly that faction beholden to the neoliberal hegemony with their subordination of all national interests to those of Big Business) I feel it is immature to reject the whole EU - baby, bathwater and bath - because it isn't perfect.

And the EU looks far less imperfect than a prospective Tory Britain, by a long way. I for one am grateful that some elements of the EU have provided socially-responsible rules & regs that rein-in the evil desires of the Little English New Aristocracy, who will otherwise increase their already widespread degradation of the nation's fabric as well as their utter exploitation of the vast majority of the population.

I fear not a few EU bureaucrats with a few uncomfortable non-Blighty rules but an invasion (in one form or another) by the likes of Trump or Putin. We already feel, culturally, like the 51st State of USA Inc. and personally I find this far more egregious than the effects of a few European rules & regs.

Will my grandchildren be cannon-fodder in a newly enflamed Europe and perhaps the world as a whole? Such inter-human strife is the norm of all human history except that of the last few decades (and even those have been polluted by various minor or proxy wars). We seem intent on returning to the norm of general strife and the various new nationalisms are perhaps the smoke before one gawdawful conflagration.

Cugel

[Mick F]

We should sue the EU.
For once, I agree with Trump.

[reohn2]

We should sue the EU.
For once, I agree with Trump.

What are we're to sue the EU for?

[Mick F]

Euro and all the hassle.