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A thank you to Brexiteers.

Smokeandsteam said:
Dreadful times. The beginning of two awful decades where the wages and living standards of working class people rose faster than at any time in recorded history, there was an unprecedented expansion of free healthcare and education and council house building. Inequality began to drop and would reach the lowest levels measured by the Gini co-efficient. It was also the era of legislation to open up education resulting in an explosion of working class cultural production in music, plays and film and arts. There would be legislation promoting the rights of women, anti racism and gay rights. Trade unions were embedded in every key part of the economy.

The thing about some Remainers is that they dismiss or sneer at interpretive nostalgia and seemingly overlook that their own meta narrative is soaked in a particular form of it (without the interpretive bit).
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That first paragraph is spot on and is an observation that has been made a number of times in Brexit related threads. Where we may disagree is over the contention that a significant element of the Leave 'offer' rested upon a nostalgia for 'happier times' that emphasised the correlation with our, then, non-membership of the supra state with the implied causal relationship between membership and socio-economic decline for working people. This cute device, of course, overlooked the neoliberal turn that affected the interests of all working people whether resident within the trading bloc or not.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
Dreadful times. The beginning of two awful decades where the wages and living standards of working class people rose faster than at any time in recorded history, there was an unprecedented expansion of free healthcare and education and council house building. Inequality began to drop and would reach the lowest levels measured by the Gini co-efficient. It was also the era of legislation to open up education resulting in an explosion of working class cultural production in music, plays and film and arts. There would be legislation promoting the rights of women, anti racism and gay rights. Trade unions were embedded in every key part of the economy.

The thing about some Remainers is that they dismiss or sneer at interpretive nostalgia and seemingly overlook that their own meta narrative is soaked in a particular form of it (without the interpretive bit).
Click to expand...
It's not something I've ever said, for precisely the reasons you give in the first para.

But it's a stretch to blame the reversal of these trends on EU membership. If anything, I'd put the causal effect the other way around - through the 80s and 90s, the EU was shaped in some important ways in the Thatcherite image under the influence of the UK.

Also, it says nothing about the effect this Tory-led Brexit, the Brexit that has actually happened, is having and is likely to have in the future. And let's not kid ourselves here. A tory-led Brexit was the only Brexit ever on the table. So far, it's turned out even worse than I anticipated in 2016, but the direction of travel is entirely unsurprising and it will take some effort just to get back to where we were whenever this period of tory rule comes to an end.
 
brogdale said:
That first paragraph is spot on and is an observation that has been made a number of times in Brexit related threads. Where we may disagree is over the contention that a significant element of the Leave 'offer' rested upon a nostalgia for 'happier times' that emphasised the correlation with our, then, non-membership of the supra state with the implied causal relationship between membership and socio-economic decline for working people. This cute device, of course, overlooked the neoliberal turn that affected the interests of all working people whether resident within the trading bloc or not.
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1660308770398.png
 
Ax^ said:
odd the 1950s were a start a 13 year Tory lead government..

:hmm:
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Didn't really matter whether it was the right or left parties of capital managing the, then, welfare state. What mattered is that capital still had the fear that drove the concessions to labour that characterised during Les Trente Glorieuses.
 
brogdale said:
That first paragraph is spot on and is an observation that has been made a number of times in Brexit related threads. Where we may disagree is over the contention that a significant element of the Leave 'offer' rested upon a nostalgia for 'happier times' that emphasised the correlation with our, then, non-membership of the supra state with the implied causal relationship between membership and socio-economic decline for working people. This cute device, of course, overlooked the neoliberal turn that affected the interests of all working people whether resident within the trading bloc or not.
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Yes, you erm cunt, I think that’s an important question. My view is that far more research and work needs to be done on it. I’ve told you before about the views of my dad and his pals.
But I accept that the experience - and conclusions (legitimately) drawn - by redundant steelworkers isn’t necessarily universal. As you say we probably won’t agree on the extent to which lived experience and the collective memory of previously industrial and organised working class communities motivated the vote without proper ethnographic research of which there is currently little.

But, I also think it’s inarguable that the EU from the outset, and in a quite pronounced way by the time the UK joined, was explicitly a free trade economic project. Entry did, as we can see with the steelworkers, undermine sections of a distinct British national economy (a significantly nationalised economy). Entry also marked the point at which Britain’s history as a net exporter producer economy, first in extractive industries and then as manufacturers, was overwhelmed.
 
Ax^ said:
odd the 1950s were the start a 13 year period of a Tory lead government.. sure it just a consequence

:hmm:
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Every time you post on this you further reveal your ignorance. Firstly, Labour was in power at the start of the two decade period mentioned. Secondly, Labour was in power for the last half of the second decade. Third, during the period there was a consensus about the need for a national economy based on production and growth, there was consensus about self sufficiency and there was even - some - consensus on the need for the state to own, direct and control large sections of the most important parts of the economy. As such wage growth, improved standards of living, improvement in healthcare, education and housing were planned by the state through the period. To join the EU, and accept it’s free trade rules, directly impacted on the approach of the last two decades.

ETA: I bet you had to Google to find out who was in government….ya cunt
 
Smokeandsteam said:
Yes, you erm cunt, I think that’s an important question. My view is that far more research and work needs to be done on it. I’ve told you before about the views of my dad and his pals.
But I accept that the experience - and conclusions (legitimately) drawn - by redundant steelworkers isn’t necessarily universal. As you say we probably won’t agree on the extent to which lived experience and the collective memory of previously industrial and organised working class communities motivated the vote without proper ethnographic research of which there is currently little.

But, I also think it’s inarguable that the EU from the outset, and in a quite pronounced way by the time the UK joined, was explicitly a free trade economic project. Entry did, as we can see with the steelworkers, undermine sections of a distinct British national economy (a significantly nationalised economy). Entry also marked the point at which Britain’s history as a net exporter producer economy, first in extractive industries and then as manufacturers, was overwhelmed.
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I think you're right to say that it's an area ripe for much research, but as I've said before, I can recall many convos at the time in which predominantly older family/friends were articulating that "things" were better before we joined. Now, to what extent those comments reflected Leave campigning and/or their own views is, of course debatable and I'm very conscious, as a non-Facebook person, that I may have significant gaps in my knowledge here. That said, my gut reaction is that Leave were very happy to see correlation and causation conflated and probably helped that where they could.
 
brogdale said:
I think you're right to say that it's an area ripe for much research, but as I've said before, I can recall many convos at the time in which predominantly older family/friends were articulating that "things" were better before we joined. Now, to what extent those comments reflected Leave campigning and/or their own views is, of course debatable and I'm very conscious, as a non-Facebook person, that I may have significant gaps in my knowledge here. That said, my gut reaction is that Leave were very happy to see correlation and causation conflated and probably helped that where they could.
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I think you need to think about it without the lens of the leave campaign. The view that things were better before we joined the EU was widespread long long before the referendum campaign.

As you rightly say we can debate to what extent the EU was actually responsible (and we won’t agree on that) but there is absolutely no doubt that the popular link between the two existed before the referendum.
 
Smokeandsteam said:
Every time you post on this you further reveal your ignorance. Firstly, Labour was in power at the start of the two decade period mentioned. Secondly, Labour was in power for the last half of the second decade. Third, during the period there was a consensus about the need for a national economy based on production and growth, there was consensus about self sufficiency and there was even - some - consensus on the need for the state to own, direct and control large sections of the most important parts of the economy. As such wage growth, improved standards of living, improvement in healthcare, education and housing were planned by the state through the period. To join the EU, and accept it’s free trade rules, directly impacted on the approach of the last two decades.

ETA: I bet you had to Google to find out who was in government….ya cunt
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I only mentioned the 1950's , they were in power till 1951 general election :p

and I only mentioned it whilst buzzing off 39 for his waffling on about swearing.

come on you really are Jeff ress mogg and I claim my 5 fiver, both of you waffle on about brexit opportunities with fuck all tangible to show for it
 
littlebabyjesus said:
But it's a stretch to blame the reversal of these trends on EU membership. If anything, I'd put the causal effect the other way around - through the 80s and 90s, the EU was shaped in some important ways in the Thatcherite image under the influence of the UK.
Click to expand...

I’m not arguing that joining the EU alone ‘reversed these trends’ - the 1973 oil crisis, the loss of colonial markets and the generalised capitalist slump were also factors. But to deny that joining a free trade bloc, which saw import controls withdrawn, had no effect is not credible in my view. But, the debate here is about popular perception. My point is that the sense that joining the EU was ‘responsible’ for the collapse of working class communities was widespread. More widespread than other factors. And it was a view long held before the referendum or the campaign
 
brogdale said:
I think you're right to say that it's an area ripe for much research, but as I've said before, I can recall many convos at the time in which predominantly older family/friends were articulating that "things" were better before we joined. Now, to what extent those comments reflected Leave campigning and/or their own views is, of course debatable and I'm very conscious, as a non-Facebook person, that I may have significant gaps in my knowledge here. That said, my gut reaction is that Leave were very happy to see correlation and causation conflated and probably helped that where they could.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it's not the prevalence of such views amongst certain demographics that we're arguing about, is it? Of course older folk were prone to reflect on 'better times' before 1973/5 way before Jimmy Goldsmith's party was a glint in the eye of the swivel-eyed, right-wing fraternity. What, I think, we disagree upon, is the extent to which that (justified) nostalgia was weaponised by the Leave campaign and embedded within their appeals to the affective domain, conflating correlation with causation.
 
Ax^ said:
I only mentioned the 1950's , they were in power till 1951 general election :p
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You do know what came after the 1950’s though right? And what came before it?
Ax^ said:
and I only mentioned it whilst buzzing off 39 for his waffling on about swearing.
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Do not understand the sentence
Ax^ said:
come on you really are Jeff ress mogg and I claim my 5 fiver, both of you waffle on about brexit opportunities with fuck all tangible to show for it
Click to expand...

So what does that make you? Blair? Cameron? Paul Mason? Andrew Adonis? Ed Davey? The Head of the CBI? Maybe, Alistair Campbell: consumed by a - normally incoherent - rage and condemned to a lonely future refighting the remain campaign over and over and over again? A fight where this time the flaccid middle class liberal offer wins in his head?
Whoever it is I claim my 10 tenner.
 
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Smokeandsteam said:
I’m not arguing that joining the EU alone ‘reversed these trends’ - the 1973 oil crisis, the loss of colonial markets and the generalised capitalist slump were also factors. But to deny that joining a free trade bloc, which saw import controls withdrawn, had no effect is not credible in my view. But, the debate here is about popular perception. My point is that the sense that joining the EU was ‘responsible’ for the collapse of working class communities was widespread. More widespread than other factors. And it was a view long held before the referendum or the campaign
Click to expand...

Plus there are UK-specific factors, no.1 among them Thatcher. You only have to look at the current difference in asset size between the UK and French states (French state approx three times larger iirc) to see the difference Thatcher made.

As for the sense that joining the EU was responsible and how widespread it was, whatever the truth in that, all it does is explain why certain people voted Leave. It doesn't explain how leaving the EU helps those people. I would argue that it doesn't, that it has given the tories the opportunity to rip those communities apart even more.

At the time of the campaign, I was with Yannis Varoufakis on this point. He acknowledged the anger and he acknowledged the faults within the EU, but he pleaded with people not to vote leave because of this anger - because, however much you might want it to be the answer, it isn't; it just makes everything even worse.
 
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