Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
- Start date
@Stanley Road
As a matter of interest I just looked up the 2015 GE result for the constituency I lived in before I left.
If I had voted for Cameron/Tories - the Tory majority would have increased by 1 vote to 24116
If I had voted for Labour - decreased to 24114
If I had voted for another party - same majority of 24115.
So whatever I would have done would not have made an iota of difference and highlights the democratic system that exists in the UK. Yeah right!
Edit: I also checked the last time Labour won that seat - surprise! It never has!
As a matter of interest I just looked up the 2015 GE result for the constituency I lived in before I left.
If I had voted for Cameron/Tories - the Tory majority would have increased by 1 vote to 24116
If I had voted for Labour - decreased to 24114
If I had voted for another party - same majority of 24115.
So whatever I would have done would not have made an iota of difference and highlights the democratic system that exists in the UK. Yeah right!
Edit: I also checked the last time Labour won that seat - surprise! It never has!
Last edited:
I don’t really buy that argument tbf. Any more than I buy the whole “Trump is all Hillary’s fault for failing to convince enough people to not be horrendously dumb and selfish”
Young people are always a hard demographic to snare, in any era. It’s not like teens in the 60s and 70s were any more politically active, vote wise. They were all about not doing that shit. And then they grew up and voted for Reagan and Thatcher.
Trouble is old people vote, and there are more old people than ever now. Basically what we really need to do is kill all the old people. Logan’s Run style.
2% makes a big difference. I'm in the last one 40-54 and voted remain. I honestly can't see the case to vote any other way.
More specifically, rich people living longer than poor people. So it should be it a means-tested kafkaesque version where rich old people have to go through a bureaucratic nightmare before they die, as poor people have to if they want to live.
No it doesn't. 2% in any age group doesn't make up for 2% nationwide, even if young people were a hivemind who cast the exact same vote, which they aren't/don't.
How old is old? I'm post 50 and will be free thinking until the day I die. I want a country made up of a mix of cultures. I want a country made up of a mix of genders. I want a country that celebrates life however it decides to manifests itself.
persons age x2-7
I will concede your point. I know some young people who brought into the idea of Brexit. It's not all about age but they do recon that people change their political opinion depending on age. Personally I knew what was right when I was 18 and I know what is right when I'm 52. My politics hasn't really changed.
feck I'm gone then that's my age. If it helps the future of society I will accept my fate.
Yeah right. Like feck I will.
I'm not sure our political systems are able to allow left leaning policies to last for any period of time. Barrack Obama seemed to have a nightmare enacting any policy and they seemed to be watered down by the time they got through. Its taken Trump a year or two to bury most of that. Cant help but suspect Trumps tax cuts and judges will take decades to remove if they ever are.
Old isn’t just an age, tbf. You can be an old younger, and a young oldie... I mean. the biggest modern progressive politicos in both the UK and US atm are two saggy old Baby boomer hippies.
The kind of “old people” I’d select for social euthanasia, are those with irrevocable conservative nostalgia blindness. In an ideal world, those who get angry at there being women in the new Star Wars films, for example. But that’s just me.
You have to time your battles though. I agree in principle, without a rebalancing the problems will just reoccur, but right now we’re facing a couple of cliff faces and we don’t have room to try and steer towards some bigger target.
Since the turn of the century the Democrats have only had a majority in the House a few times, it's difficult to get anything remotely progressive through a Republican dominated House.
Errr...you really believe that UK can have better deals alone tan inside the EU? ok
As will have no choice to accept EU regulation if he wants to sell in EU. Also read about the Brussels effect in worldwide trading regulation
EU will have to adapt to UK regulations. But again, read about the Brussels effect in worldwide trading regulations. Also, EU exports to UK are minimal compared to UK exports to EU.
Irrelevant. Whoever benefits (arguable) does not matter. Regulations will be there, like it or not
Allrighty so below this...
I guarantee that non-EU nationals immigrants are more, in average they work for less than EU nationals, lots of them don't pay taxes as they are illegal and more likely to stay forever in UK than EU nationals. Tell me then why non EU are not a problem but EU immigrants are the problem when they are less of a problem in your arguments than non EU immigrants.
See in it, still no real arguments but nice try
Or - and hear me out here - we put them all into a battle royal situation where everyone over 60 has to fight over a limited number of “spaces”.... meaning the lazy fat Trumpian rich would have to buck up, or risk losing their supremacy to anyone whose done anything more strenuous than milking a cow.
To be fair that was the approach used by the EU in response to the Greek Debt Crisis. So at least they will be familiar with our tactics.
The thing is, poorly articulated, jumbled attempt and outraged rant describes Brexit to a tee so it's quite fitting really.
Much as I largely agree with a lot of what you're saying, I think one of the major problems here is that ultimately economically we've remained in the same place as we were back the Thatcher/Reagan era. Cameron may have skewed his party to the left socially, but economically they were essentially just a friendlier version of peak Thatcherism. And Blairism can kind of be accused of being that as well. And yeah, if I'd have been in the US, I'd have voted for Hilary in an instant cause I think things like SCOTUS were too important to sacrifice, but at the same time I can understand why some people are frustrated with the idea of political changes without any genuine economic change. Because you can implement as much social change as you want, but economic change is often what ultimately changes things for the better in the long-term. But aye, don't necessarily disagree with you about Corbyn on Brexit.
Oh, right back at you. I agree that the increasing economic disparity of the latter 20th century is directly responsible for the mess we’re in. And that both Brexit and Trump are in some way the karmic consequence of 50+ years of neoliberal politics..... I just don’t think “let’s let the fascists burn it all down to prove a point” is the best way to combat it.
Even less so the whole “I’d rather let them, than do anything that doesn’t align 100% with my university drum circle mentality”
We’re 2 years in, and already at baby jails FFS.
Aye, of course. Would struggle to disagree with any of that. As I say, would've opted for Hilary in an instant had I been in the US, for all her flaws.
But I do think the problem is that for a lot of people, a Clinton presidency (and any UK equivalent) just didn't equal any sort of genuine economic improvement for them, because Hilary/Bill/Blair/Miliband/the Honey Monster were all basically arguing for watered down versions of what was already in place. Which would maybe placate the public without solving anything. Hence why so many people have ended up being disillusioned and disenfranchised. And yeah, I agree they'd have been better off voting for Hilary. But then I'm also saying that from the privileged position of a neutral observer who wouldn't really be impacted positively or negatively by her being in power. And if you're someone who's been a bit fecked economically either way, I can see why a politician saying the right stuff or being friendly diplomatically would mean feck all to you. Much as I agree it's important.
I mean yeah, of course, but I also can’t help but feel that phrasing the election as some zero sum game the poor working class had no option but to be suckered by, is not only super patronising, but ignores the fact that a sizeable amount of working class minorities somehow managed to not be suckered... meaning we’re basically making excuses just for the whites, on the basis that they’re not only solely representative, but also implicitly a lot dumber than the average working class voter... Whilst also tacitly trying to justify their racism as understandable, in a way that would never be afforded to economically similar non-whites. Desperate working class black guys get shot, more than they get a sympathetic contextualisation of their faults.
Last edited:
10/10. Would read again.
Last edited:
He's too busy making Jordan Peterson memes to stray into the Brexit thread.
Maybe we should go back in time to the 19th century when everyone was equal, there were no poor people and wealth was equally distributed amongst the population.
But by Jove, Britain ruled the waves!
At least no-one had a smart phone or a TV and life expectancy was much shorter.
But by Jove, Britain ruled the waves!
At least no-one had a smart phone or a TV and life expectancy was much shorter.
Is there any data for this ? Who are these people ? Have you got a annoying family member who's just got into lefty politics ? I honestly don't know who your are talking about here. Someone with trotsky as their twitter profile calling a journalist a twat for criticising Corbyn doesn't equally a large voting base, there just isn't millions and millions of leninists you seem to think there are.
If you actually listen to people on the Left( politicians, activists & writers) then there's isn't any shamming, talk of incoming utopia or waiting for the working class to rise up etc but actual constructive talk of how we've got here into this political mess, what are the best efforts to engage with people and how to get and keep together a workable coalition of voters to get out of this mess.
The thing that seems to be alienating people in this thread anyway is Corbyn position on Brexit but for the millionth time it's mostly out of political need. Does anyone actual think that if Corbyn being a bit more pro Remain would get him into power he wouldn't do it. But I will say if liberals find it alienating or off putting that Corbyn and the Left isn't more pro EU or that Corbyn doesn't turn up at Pro EU rallies, well tough shit. Yeah it might be nice that your trip to France is hassle free but that doesn't take away the fact the EU is a undemocratic and deeply massively racist institution(Shock horror but these 'liberal' europeans are no better than Trump when it comes to racism)
Of course it's not working out but so far the British Left(And little bits in the USA)is the best West can offer. Neoliberalism in terms of the political space is completely fecking done and over, which is actually really really fecking scary(To quote one of those vanilla hipsters - “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born”). But there isn't another answer, there isn't a simply policy or change of party leadership that suddenly gives this new left easy election wins. So people have got a choice to either pick between ethic nationalism or a new but very weak radical left social democracy. That of course doesn't mean be uncritical but it does mean realising that politics has actually change.
And yeah I'm very supportive of the policy of calling Graham linehan a cnut although that has more to do with my viewing experience of his 'comedy' show Count Arthur.
Last edited:
Can we all agree that Nigel Farage is a cnut?
Cue Oscie!
Don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the moonlight - blame it on the Blairites.
Oh come on, it's fecking hilarious that they spent months saying you shouldn't listen to Corbyn on anything, gave Alan Johnson the job of heading the remain campaign and are now crying that nobody listened to Corbyn at the referendum.
Almost as funny as insisting Brexit needs to be stopped because it might lead to austerity, whilst marching alongside the likes of Chris Leslie who backed austerity until about 3 weeks ago and Vince Cable/Anna Soubry who have revelled in it for years. Only missing Nick Clegg crowdsurfing.
I don't think history swings back that quickly. From what I understand in the UK, there was a commitment to proper safety nets from 1945-1978, while the fight was about union strength (the left lost). Then from 1978 there's been a period where you look more at cost-effectiveness or rationalising or privatising the same resources, and the fight shifted to social attitudes (liberals mostly won). A series of catastrophes beginning on 9/11 or 2008 (depending on how you want to count it) have changed the economic situation and eventually changed immigration (which will finish liberal social attitudes soon) but haven't (yet) produced new politics.
As I've explained, it's not winning the wrong way that is a problem. If Nick was around, he could give you details of financial deregulation, NHS privatisation under Blair, and every single person knows Iraq. In the US, bank deregulation, drastic welfare cuts, and increase in sentencing were legacies of Clinton - that is when "we won." You can draw a direct line from those decisions to where we are today. "Our win" created the conditions for this defeat.
More recently, the combined work of Socialist Hollande and Third-Way Macron has broken the back of French labour, and it is likely that the next fight will be between right and far-right. In Canada, woke bae Trudeau is likely to be beaten from the right.
As long as we operate under neoliberalism, the wins for nominally left-wing parties aren't wins - they're ways to stop the bleeding temporarily even as the monster on the other side grows.
Your next post, about the privilege of sitting out:
So that entire rant about Harambe and Stein and privilege - how d'you square that view of history with basic facts about voters?
What about looking at the policies of the Obama presidency, in handling the financial crisis: https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-wealth-inequality
Win!
Last edited:
If Momentum are starting to swing behind the idea of a 2nd referendum will the next battle ground for the Labour party be: 'are Momentum fawning enough towards Corbyn or should those Blairite cnuts be expelled?'?
Yeah. But I think any politician who at best says nothing and at worse nods and agrees when he's on his "it's the immigrants!" tirades isn't much better either. Whatever terminology you want to use; liberal, left - it's depressing just how missing in action they've been in this massive lurch to the right we've seen in politics in this country in the last couple of years. Labour have effectively left the stage when the country needed them most, leaving behind angry extreme sycophants who just shout at people who dare to notice the party isn't there any more.
'Livid' Michael Gove rips up EU customs partnership report
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44668572
Just can't imagine Gove being livid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44668572
Just can't imagine Gove being livid.
At least it saves the EU ripping it up.
Any stats to back that up?
Could be going off piste here but it pisses me off when politics has to be dumbed-down for young people. It's not that difficult to get a vague sense of the issues of the day, you don't really need Rick Edwards and June Sarpong hosting a patronising BBC Three discussion programme that might as well be called: "Young people are think as shit, so we're breaking down this election for you as if you were 11 and watching John Craven's Newsround"