A thank you to Brexiteers.

[Badgers]

There was nothing remotely "bottom up" about the Brexit campaign. Nothing. It was run by bourgeois moneyed types like Banks, Farage, Rees Mogg et al.

Massive tax dodge at the nations expense

 

[nino_savatte]

Agree. Both formal campaigns were the preserve of the elites. But who was talking about that?

So, what's your point? You were the one crapping on about how the Brexit campaign was "bottom up" when, in fact, it wasn't. There was nothing "grassroots" about it. You offered that dichotomy in your post and now, you're trying to back away from it. Take some responsibility ffs.

 

[brogdale]

Don't be afraid. Write more on how this nexus between 'formal' conservative pressure groups and deindustrialised areas took shape, quote the empirical research, set the Remain stall out

I've got no stall to set out wrt to the binary alternative to the superstructural tinkering of the UK's constitutional/trading status offered to the electorate. Nor do I have or see the need to provide empirical evidence. What i do have is lived experience of being working class, living in a working class community and remembering just how neglibible was the impact of the EU on the consciousness of this on those around me. Until the pressure groups became parties and the parties secured support from elements of the billionaire press and media, no-one I knew cared a fig about the supra-state. If your lived experiences differed and the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills, then fair play.

 

[brogdale]

Massive tax dodge at the nations expense

Certainly a massive shorting/hedging opportunity. A few years ago I spoke with a, now retired, Forex trader who remembered the economic turmoil of the 1970s with great affection saying that it was in those times of greatest 'uncertainty' that the speculators and traders made the billions for their corps and their own bonus pots.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

So, what's your point? You were the one crapping on about how the Brexit campaign was "bottom up" when, in fact, it wasn't. There was nothing "grassroots" about it. You offered that dichotomy in your post and now, you're trying to back away from it. Take some responsibility ffs.

No I wasn't. I was talking about the Brexit vote in working class areas.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I've got no stall to set out wrt to the binary alternative to the superstructural tinkering of the UK's constitutional/trading status offered to the electorate. Nor do I have or see the need to provide empirical evidence. What i do have is lived experience of being working class, living in a working class community and remembering just how neglibible was the impact of the EU on the consciousness of this on those around me. Until the pressure groups became parties and the parties secured support from elements of the billionaire press and media, no-one I knew cared a fig about the supra-state. If your lived experiences differed and the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills, then fair play.

I have made the point that the working class vote was independent in its aims and in intent to the formal campaigns. It's aim was, at root, to take a rare opportunity to boot back those who had been booting it for years. I have argued that it wasn't perceived as a vote to improve their conditions (although people certainly thought that as things couldn't get any worse that voting Brexit would not worsen them). I have not suggested - at any point - that "the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills". Bizarre to claim I have.

 

[brogdale]

I have made the point that the working class vote was independent in its aims and in intent to the formal campaigns. It's aim was, at root, to take a rare opportunity to boot back those who had been booting it for years. I have argued that it wasn't perceived as a vote to improve their conditions (although people certainly thought that as things couldn't get any worse that voting Brexit would not worsen them). I have not suggested - at any point - that "the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills". Bizarre to claim I have.

Nah, mate that was no claim...that was an invitation to say if your lived experience (and that of those around you) differed to mine. I'm old enough to remember when the Labour movement was engaged with debate about the merits of the 'common market', but as to actual working class folk...after 1975 I can recall pretty much zero interest expressed in it by those around me and, until the notion became a pet topic of the billionaire press, anyone saying that ever heard actually living working class people say....hey, let's "kick in the bollocks for the establishment" by calling for a withdrawal from the supra-state and our trading arrangements determined by membership! Well....

You're sounding more and more like a deluded zealot.

 

[Serene]

I bought a Banana yesterday at the shops and they had gone off, gone black, by the time I got them home 20 minutes later. This isnt the first time this has happened, it has been recurring over the last 5 months. Thanks Brexiteers.

 

[Yossarian]

I bought a Banana yesterday at the shops and they had gone off, gone black, by the time I got them home 20 minutes later. This isnt the first time this has happened, it has been recurring over the last 5 months. Thanks Brexiteers.

But was it bendy?

 

[nino_savatte]

No I wasn't. I was talking about the Brexit vote in working class areas.

Don't talk such rot. The words in bold are yours. Own them.

You'll need to do better than that. The Brexit vote and the subsequent Lexit campaign are entirely separate things. The former was organic, bottom up and one of the most punishing blows to a section of the ruling/narrating class in living memory. The latter was work by some on the left to produce a set of ideas and demands that synthesised those impulses and attempted to take advantage of the loss of shackles from the neo-liberal surpa state. And guess what - as wages rise, labour becomes more valuable and as the Labour Party begin to adopt large chunks of that work - loads of it was bang on the money…

 

[nino_savatte]

I have made the point that the working class vote was independent in its aims and in intent to the formal campaigns. It's aim was, at root, to take a rare opportunity to boot back those who had been booting it for years. I have argued that it wasn't perceived as a vote to improve their conditions (although people certainly thought that as things couldn't get any worse that voting Brexit would not worsen them). I have not suggested - at any point - that "the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills". Bizarre to claim I have.

Really? Let's have some evidence, then.

 

[ska invita]

And guess what - as wages rise,

Average wages are falling - posted the graph from the FT just yesterday IIRC

link

 

[Serene]

But was it bendy?

Im not going in my bin to investigate.

 

[ska invita]

I have made the point that the working class vote was independent in its aims and in intent to the formal campaigns. It's aim was, at root, to take a rare opportunity to boot back those who had been booting it for years.

For some, and others for other reasons. What were all the millions of wealthy home county boomers whose vote was so crucial in winning the referendum booting against?
Ive said it before: there's so much projection on all parts of Brexit, and from all sides, people see what they want to see. its the most incredible example of mass confirmation bias

 

[The39thStep]

I've got no stall to set out wrt to the binary alternative to the superstructural tinkering of the UK's constitutional/trading status offered to the electorate. Nor do I have or see the need to provide empirical evidence. What i do have is lived experience of being working class, living in a working class community and remembering just how neglibible was the impact of the EU on the consciousness of this on those around me. Until the pressure groups became parties and the parties secured support from elements of the billionaire press and media, no-one I knew cared a fig about the supra-state. If your lived experiences differed and the folk around you were always blaming the supra-state for their ills, then fair play.

Never heard the term supra-state until I saw a post by you tbh .

 

[seeformiles]

I am not good on knowing the prices of food, but I have been noticing prices that look quite a bit more expensive than I think they were in pre-Brexit.

As someone who’s always had to keep a close eye on the pennies, I reckon food as % of income has never been cheaper - especially things like chicken which was far more expensive 30 years ago. I put it down partly to supermarkets’ aggressive bargaining with farmers and suppliers and partly the rise of budget stores like Aldi and Lidl that initially forced the likes of Sainsbury’s to drop their prices - although they’ve been creeping up again as, from a marketing POV they like to see themselves in the same bracket as Waitrose and M&S (who were always prohibitively expensive).

 

[brogdale]

Never heard the term supra-state until I saw a post by you tbh .

Every day's a school day, eh?

 

[ska invita]

Never heard the term supra-state until I saw a post by you tbh .

a totally common term in politics of the EU literature (way pre-Brexit) tbf

 

[The39thStep]

a totally common term in politics of the EU literature (way pre-Brexit) tbf

I did not know that . Any citations

 

[The39thStep]

Every day's a school day, eh?

Especially when your mum reminds you

 

[ska invita]

I did not know that . Any citations

yes loads , in books about the EU

(suprastate or superstate)

 

[editor]

I have made the point that the working class vote was independent in its aims and in intent to the formal campaigns.

What evidence do you have to support such a remarkable claim?

 

[Elpenor]

As someone who’s always had to keep a close eye on the pennies, I reckon food as % of income has never been cheaper - especially things like chicken which was far more expensive 30 years ago. I put it down partly to supermarkets’ aggressive bargaining with farmers and suppliers and partly the rise of budget stores like Aldi and Lidl that initially forced the likes of Sainsbury’s to drop their prices - although they’ve been creeping up again as, from a marketing POV they like to see themselves in the same bracket as Waitrose and M&S (who were always prohibitively expensive).

Sainsbury’s are still making a big thing about a lot of their standard lines being the same price as Aldi

 

[seeformiles]

Sainsbury’s are still making a big thing about a lot of their standard lines being the same price as Aldi

As do Waitrose (although I think they use Tesco as their point of comparison) but there’s still a major difference if you do your entire weekly shop there.

 

[brogdale]

I did not know that . Any citations

Jesus, what is it with you Brexit loyalists and demands for citations, today?

 

[The39thStep]

yes loads , in books about the EU

(suprastate or superstate)

Ah thanks for the edit . Superstate yes I agree.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

What evidence do you have to support such a remarkable claim?

Seeing as you always approach these matters empirically:

Koch: What's in a Vote? Brexit beyond culture wars
McKenzie The Class Politics of Prejudice: Brexit and the Land of no-Hope and Glory
Telford & Wistow Brexit and the Working Class on Teeside: Moving beyond Reductionism
Short: The Geography of Brexit: What the vote reveals about the Disunited Kingdom
Dawson: Hating immigration and loving immigrants: Nationalism, electoral politics, and the post industrial white working class in Britain
Hall, Treadwell and Winlow: The Rise of the Right
Mahoney & Kearon: Social Quality and Brexit in Stoke-on-Trent, England
Willett, Tidy & others: Why did Cornwall vote for Brexit? Assessing the implications for EU structural funding programmes
McKenzie: ‘It’s not ideal’: Reconsidering ‘anger’ and ‘apathy’ in the Brexit vote among an invisible working class

Abstract from article 1:

The result of the United Kingdom's EU referendum has been interpreted as evidence of a “culture war” between proponents of liberal cosmopolitanism and defenders of socially conservative values. According to this interpretation, voters on both sides are seen as driven by identity-based politics. But on a council estate (social-housing project) in England, what made the EU referendum different from an ordinary election was that citizens perceived it as an opportunity to reject government as they know it. Citizens’ engagements with the referendum constitute attempts to insert everyday moralities into electoral processes. They provide an opening into alternative, if yet unknown, futures that go beyond any singular narratives that divide the electorate into camps of so-called Leavers and Remainers.

Summary from article 3:


(a) The effects of neoliberalism on working-class life over the last 40 years provide an important explanatory framework for the vote;
(b) The Labour Party’s abandonment of the working class appears to be a principal reason why these people voted to leave;
(c) The EU referendum offered a unique opportunity for working-class people to voice their dissatisfaction with the dominant social, cultural and political hegemon in contemporary England

You should be able to read all of these online - or at least the abstract.

​

 

[editor]

Seeing as you always approach these matters empirically:

Koch: What's in a Vote? Brexit beyond culture wars
McKenzie The Class Politics of Prejudice: Brexit and the Land of no-Hope and Glory
Telford & Wistow Brexit and the Working Class on Teeside: Moving beyond Reductionism
Short: The Geography of Brexit: What the vote reveals about the Disunited Kingdom
Dawson: Hating immigration and loving immigrants: Nationalism, electoral politics, and the post industrial white working class in Britain
Hall, Treadwell and Winlow: The Rise of the Right
Mahoney & Kearon: Social Quality and Brexit in Stoke-on-Trent, England
Willett, Tidy & others: Why did Cornwall vote for Brexit? Assessing the implications for EU structural funding programmes
McKenzie: ‘It’s not ideal’: Reconsidering ‘anger’ and ‘apathy’ in the Brexit vote among an invisible working class

Abstract from article 1:

The result of the United Kingdom's EU referendum has been interpreted as evidence of a “culture war” between proponents of liberal cosmopolitanism and defenders of socially conservative values. According to this interpretation, voters on both sides are seen as driven by identity-based politics. But on a council estate (social-housing project) in England, what made the EU referendum different from an ordinary election was that citizens perceived it as an opportunity to reject government as they know it. Citizens’ engagements with the referendum constitute attempts to insert everyday moralities into electoral processes. They provide an opening into alternative, if yet unknown, futures that go beyond any singular narratives that divide the electorate into camps of so-called Leavers and Remainers.

Summary from article 3:


(a) The effects of neoliberalism on working-class life over the last 40 years provide an important explanatory framework for the vote;
(b) The Labour Party’s abandonment of the working class appears to be a principal reason why these people voted to leave;
(c) The EU referendum offered a unique opportunity for working-class people to voice their dissatisfaction with the dominant social, cultural and political hegemon in contemporary England

You should be able to read all of these online - or at least the abstract.

​

There as no such thing as a unified 'working class' vote and to suggest there was is utter bollocks. It's not the 1950s any more.

 

[brogdale]

There as no such thing as a unified 'working class' vote and to suggest there was is utter bollocks. It's not the 1950s any more.

tbf, though I may not share Smokeandsteam 's analysis, you did ask them for evidence and they have offered some.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

tbf, though I may not share Smokeandsteam 's analysis, you did ask them for evidence and they have offered some.

Thanks Brogdale, even as I typed it out I knew I'd get some dismissive shit like that from editor. Lesson learnt for the future.