A thank you to Brexiteers.

[Maggot]

Why must there be bonuses? This idea that material benefits must flow is very Thatcherite…

Yes, why should there? We didn't vote for Brexit to make things better!

 

[Raheem]

NI grace period extended indefinitely by the EU, Macron and Rutte deciding that the EU needs the U.K. as a global ally.
Imagine what we could have got had May not done her red line bollocks.

Not sure that's a correct reading of what has happened. It's the UK that's extended the grace period. The EU has agreed to suspend Its enforcement. But the effect looks like a massive climbdown by the UK. We're agreeing to regulatory alignment, ECJ jurisdiction, non-implementation of new trade deals indefinitely, with no idea of how to get out of it.

Probably a good result if you live in the UK, but not really a victory for HMG.

 

[NoXion]

A lot of people might vote for men to have babies. However a lot of people would know straight away it couldn't be done.
I suppose some people might vote for men to have babies, and then leave it to the boffins or somebody to implement it.
In that scenario anybody voting for men to have babies wouldn't get what they voted for.
A lot of other people would have worked out that men having babies wasn't feasible in the first place, and assume those with the capacity to think would realise that.

This is a stupid analogy. Transmen have given birth.

 

[philosophical]

This is a stupid analogy. Transmen have given birth.

I was talking about a proposal for all men to give birth.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Bit weird.

 

[Gramsci]

I've been following some of this thread.

I was a Remainer not because I thought the EU was great but because I worked with a lot of EU nationals from Eastern Europe. Plus my partner is Spanish.

I understand EU was and is a flawed institution.

Many of my East European workmates/friends were highly critical of aspects of EU, how their countries had gone post Eastern Bloc. Many of them saw the post Communist years in a way that was mixed blessing. Poland in particular had moved to hard right Catholic Nationalist governments. Hard right on social issues but better on welfare than the first post communist governments who bought neo Liberalism wholesale.

A lot of people I know from example Romania living here regarded their post communist governments as corrupt. The assets looted by those in power. But presenting to EU a semblance of democracy. ( This didn't apply to Roma)

On immigration.

Some of my East European friends were not pro non EU immigrants. Even if EU was democraticised ( which it isn't at this time. And was a legitimate reason to vote Brexit) I don't think EU would suddenly become some kind of pro asylum seeker/ non EU immigrant paradise.
It could be like in UK a lot of EU ordinary people who are voters have concerns about immigration. Just saying EU is undemocratic therefore its got racist immigration policy didn't cut it for me.

Imo a lot of issues in EU aren't all to do with way the EU works. There are hard right governments voted in some EU countries who are at loggerheads with EU bureaucracy.

What I'm saying is that my experience of EU people and seeing say for example Poland voting for Catholic Nationalist governments is that EU is not to blame for everything as some Brexiteers appear to argue.

As a Remainer ( on basis I didn't like the the anti immigrant side of campaign) I don't see how so far their have been plus points leaving. The hard right Tories have benefitted. UKIP succeeded in its aims.

A lot of issues like poor pay and conditions, lack of training etc didn't really have that much to do with EU.

The subtle and not so subtle suggestion I see in some media and here that reduction of EU migrants will bring benefits for UK nationals in terms of better pay and conditions has Imo pervaded the referendum and post referendum discourse. I for one find it offensive.

This country with Thatcher had steered its own course to Neo Liberalism.

 

[ska invita]

At some point someone on your side is going to need to produce a cogent analysis of where things are and what they think should be done about it;

The solution is clear: Rejoin the customs Union

right on cue

Boris Johnson’s biggest lie about Europe is finally coming home to roost | Simon Jenkins

From plummeting trade to drastic shortages of workers, needlessly leaving the single market has been disastrous, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com

"Brexit need never have so devastated the British economy. The damage has come from one decision, to depart the single market. The sensible path now would be for Johnson to eat humble pie and seek, as far and as fast as possible, readmission to that market. "

--rejoining the customs union / the single market (as opposed to the EU) will be the policy remainers will rally around...and so it will rumble on for years, an albatross around Labours neck, the way it was for the tories for decades

 

[krtek a houby]

You have got what you wanted if you define Britain as Scotland, Wales and England. However you referenced the ballot paper which was about the UK.
In terms of defining a political decision in relation to one border, isn't that the crux of the vote, for the UK to leave the EU and therefore there would be a border separating the two entities?

Don't be worrying about Ireland.

It's all coming together. One way or another.

It's by far the most important legacy of Brexit.

 

[krtek a houby]

eu told by the us not to fuck with the good friday agreement


not sure who is winning in that one

Hopefully the US will send troops into the Brexit heartlands to make it clear that not fucking with the GFA is enforced.

Of course, military occupation might irk some, but they'll be there for your own good.

 

[Ax^]

we should just stop talking about brexit,
as tory voting leaning people are hopeing that the end of the furlough scheme,
will give boris a few million people to exploit and if not we have prisoners

 

[xenon]

The border has been there for less than 100 years.
Incidentally, are you aware of the strife in Ireland as a result of the establishment of that border?

oh just fucking unite the place already. Anyone that don’t like it, kick them into the North Atlantic. Job done.

 

[xenon]

Re-join the customs union but also do trade deals with other parts of the world. what will the EU do, sue. Come on be bold. They are going to sue whatever happens.

 

[Gramsci]

This is excellent stuff, and the type of welcome reflection we need from Remainers. Bloodworth, who if I remember used to be in the Socialist Organiser before going on an identarian journey, voted Remain and, by any measure cannot be confused with a leave supporter:

Why Remainers shouldn’t mock Brexiteers over the lorry driver shortage

The inconvenient truth is that employers have used migrant labour to reduce wages and standards.

www.newstatesman.com

As it happens Ive always done working class jobs. When Poles were allowed to come here to work I found myself working besides a lot of Poles. Who became my friends. I'm didn't see them as competition. But as human beings from another country who I learnt a lot from.

So this article might express the views of some. But not me.

I was a Remainer as were most people in my area.

 

[extra dry]

Spoiler alert:
Are we nearly at the bit
when we run out of gravediggers with bodies piling up unburied

solent green anyone, as the country runs out of food from Europe and we can not feed ourselves

 

[brogdale]

i disagree with the whole framing of people as defined by how they voted in 2016, we all (well some of us) live here, so it's in all our interests to try to think of ways to make it not just shit.
Looks to me like the whole thing is a sort of experiment in reversing a small part of globalisation, which it is possible to see ways in which it could have upsides, but as always its not the Idea of brexit we are dealing with any more but this particular bungled version led by these particular arseholes that is actually happening.

Many of those behind the pressure groups and parties agitating for withdrawal did so with the aim of accelerating, rather than reversing, ‘globalisation ‘. They are the free-market fundamentalists who regarded the protectionism of the suprastate as a barrier to true globalisation of their means of production, capital and wealth.

The ‘choice’ put to the electorate was between 2 visions of how to consolidate and increase the gains of the last 50+ years made by globalised, financialised capital.

 

[brogdale]

But that’s not true though is it. There are massive questions: what will a post neo-liberal Britain look like, climate questions, the post Brexit economy and work etc etc. Much of Remain seems stuck, unable to move beyond its defeat and wanting to replay the game over and again. A cogent analysis doesn’t mean it ‘has to fix Brexit’. It means accepting the result and engaging with now rather than trying to shoehorn every issue in the lens of 2016

Just as “much of Leave seems stuck, unable to move beyond its victory”; a victory that came from a long-game of moaning especially following the result of the 1975 plebiscite vote to accept the U.K. state’s accession to the EEC.

The continued polarisation of electoral politics and the new long game of capital’s culture wars stem from the division and strong association with binary nature of 2016.

 

[brogdale]

For someone, who 'didn't engage' at the time, you've more than made up for it with your engagement since

Fully aware that the meme gang on here won't accept any of that, but they should.

You’re right, I should have written “vote”!

It’s all very well for a Brexit loyalist to say that those opposing should just accept the outcome, move on and forget their belief that the U.K. state was better off as a member, but that’s, obviously, not how it works for those with very deeply held convictions, is it?

Exactly the same could have been said of the “bastards” that decided not to accept UK membership and eventually won the 2016 plebiscite.

 

[NoXion]

A lot of issues like poor pay and conditions, lack of training etc didn't really have that much to do with EU.

Oh, come off it. The EU had nothing to do with the ability of bosses to exploit cheaper labour? Really?

 

[TopCat]

[QUOTE="Gramsci, post: 17296452, member: 1046 QUOTE]

The subtle and not so subtle suggestion I see in some media and here that reduction of EU migrants will bring benefits for UK nationals in terms of better pay and conditions has Imo pervaded the referendum and post referendum discourse. I for one find it offensive.

[/QUOTE]
It’s true though.

 

[brogdale]

[QUOTE="Gramsci, post: 17296452, member: 1046 QUOTE]

The subtle and not so subtle suggestion I see in some media and here that reduction of EU migrants will bring benefits for UK nationals in terms of better pay and conditions has Imo pervaded the referendum and post referendum discourse. I for one find it offensive.

It’s true though.
[/QUOTE]
It might work temporarily, for some sectors, but to justify that transitory ‘sticking plaster’, should the left really be cheerleading for the FoM of capital and wealth but not labour? Is the left really just about entrenching the crumbs to the workers behind nationalist labour protectionist walls?

 

[NoXion]

I've gotten along with some absolutely wonderful folks from Poland and other parts of Europe. That doesn't change the reality of what happens when a labour market is opened up on a continent-wide basis, including areas where workers are willing to travel and work for a lower wages and accept worse conditions.

 

[brogdale]

I've gotten along with some absolutely wonderful folks from Poland and other parts of Europe. That doesn't change the reality of what happens when a labour market is opened up on a continent-wide basis, including areas where workers are willing to travel and work for a lower wages and accept worse conditions.

Yet opening up on a global basis (minus the suprastate) will have what sort of impact on pay & conditions?

 

[bimble]

Many of those behind the pressure groups and parties agitating for withdrawal did so with the aim of accelerating, rather than reversing, ‘globalisation ‘. They are the free-market fundamentalists who regarded the protectionism of the suprastate as a barrier to true globalisation of their means of production, capital and wealth.

The ‘choice’ put to the electorate was between 2 visions of how to consolidate and increase the gains of the last 50+ years made by globalised, financialised capital.

Yep. I can't attempt a proper response this morning but i think that's an example of how the intentions of the Vote Leave politicians (& the current government) were and are very much at odds with the motivations of most of the people who actually voted leave and gave them the keys to the clown car.
I mean whilst the government talks about the glorious freedom of open market trade deals with the emerging economies of asia-pacific and all that, i do think that the act of voting leave & the idea of brexit was - for many - an 'anti globalization' choice.

 

[NoXion]

Yet opening up on a global basis (minus the suprastate) will have what sort of impact on pay & conditions?

You think UKGOV is planning to open up to the rest of the world on the same level as the EU is open within itself? Seems unlikely; I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[TopCat]

Globalisation pushed up company profits and share prices and depressed wages. What’s to like?

 

[philosophical]

Oh, come off it. The EU had nothing to do with the ability of bosses to exploit cheaper labour? Really?

The UK was front and centre of EU policy whilst a member.
Pre referendum there wasn’t the EU over there as some disassociated system. The UK was the EU, or a hugely significant part of it.

 

[NoXion]

The UK was front and centre of EU policy whilst a member.
Pre referendum there wasn’t the EU over there as some disassociated system. The UK was the EU, or a hugely significant part of it.

If you think only the UK wanted to exploit cheaper labour, then I'm afraid you're mistaken.

 

[brogdale]

You think UKGOV is planning to open up to the rest of the world on the same level as the EU is open within itself? Seems unlikely; I'll believe it when I see it.

In a "points based" system, who do you think determines the points?

 

[TopCat]

The UK was front and centre of EU policy whilst a member.
Pre referendum there wasn’t the EU over there as some disassociated system. The UK was the EU, or a hugely significant part of it.

Hilarious really that you assert this. The French and Germans run the EU for their own benefit. They never gave us the steam off of their piss let alone a policy driving seat.

 

[brogdale]

Globalisation pushed up company profits and share prices and depressed wages. What’s to like?

Nothing; makes the Lexit cheerleading look odd.