Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[8ball]

This prick for one.

The truth is not decided by plebiscite.

 

[8ball]

I tend to think the chances of voting competence tests actually been introduced are pretty low tbh .... and I still don't think A380 was serious ....

The idea of such tests makes me shudder- it will obviously be used in the service of power and the status quo.

 

[DotCommunist]

How would you like to see people vote?

in a system where a vote was meaningful. Outside of key marginal swing seats (or those pesky reff's eh!), it isn't. As for the rest, well give me your detailed and thoroughly explained roadmap of the parliamentary route to socialism and I'll tell you if I agree or do not agree. You want me to produce the new world, lets see you do it.

No reason not to be keen to try it.

well yes, why the fuck not? the debate has shifted from deficit fetishism on both sides to a lurching realisation that shit has gone well and truly south. As I say, if it can improve material conditions here and now, let me not stand in the way. I do reserve the right to say it isn't what I want, and I don't think it sustainable. its not . And nobody is measuring my head.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The truth is not decided by plebiscite.

It's a false distinction he's making there, though, perhaps unconsciously, between 'the people' and, well, who? people like him? Politicians? If politicians, that's circular, because they're only politicians because people voted for them.

He's right about it being bollocks about politicians 'trusting the people'. They go to great lengths to influence people with knowingly dishonest propaganda. But even then, there's an unconscious division being made.

 

[8ball]

Can’t argue with any of that

 

[A380]

ETA, fucked up my quote.

 

[A380]

But I tend to think the chances of voting competence tests actually been introduced are pretty low tbh .... and I still don't think A380 was serious ....

What are you saying .

Actually I was just lobbing a second hand, slightly idealistic SF idea in here to see what people thought.

I had no idea of the staw man monster I would create. I must post in this section more often.

 

[redsquirrel]

But I tend to think the chances of voting competence tests actually been introduced are pretty low tbh ....

Actual tests may be, but further attempts to push back any democratic control of society are happening at this moment. Look at how it has become an orthodoxy that national banks must be 'independent' of government. So orthodox that the current supposedly social democratic Labour leadership don't challenge it, despite the BoE only becoming independent within the last 20 years. Look at the imposition of technocratic ministers/advisors by governments, the removal of any traces of workplace democracy, the removal of more and more areas of government to the control of independent experts.

Liberalism has always been anti-democratic, the methods by which it opposes democracy change but it's hatred and fear of the masses is constant.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Actual tests may be, but further attempts to push back any democratic control of society are happening at this moment. Look at how it has become an orthodoxy that national banks must be 'independent' of government. So orthodox that the current supposedly social democratic Labour leadership don't challenge it, despite the BoE only becoming independent within the last 20 years. Look at the imposition of technocratic ministers/advisors by governments, the removal of any traces of workplace democracy, the removal of more and more areas of government to the control of independent experts.

Liberalism has always been anti-democratic, the methods by which it opposes democracy change but it's hatred and fear of the masses is constant.

I agree with this and you make a very good point about the national bank. Corbyn/McDonnell is a very different beast from Blair/Brown, though - the fuckers who made the bank 'independent' (it isn't really, of course, but you're right that a measure of democratic accountability has been removed from it). It is depressing when you put it like that how much just needs to be clawed back, let alone making progress, but we are where we are. From here, Corbyn is more than I would have hoped for a couple of years ago.

ETA:

With my deluded optimist head on, Corbyn is the closest the UK has to Melenchon in France. Just as UKIP and the FN are part of the same thing, I do think there is overlap between the kinds of things Corbyn wants and the likes of Melenchon. That he could be elected is cause for some optimism, no? At least some.

 

[8ball]

I like Corbyn -seems like a lovely bloke. Not sure whether he has the ideas we need to negotiate the future, though.

Then again, I think he’s more likely than most to be willing to listen to those who might.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I like Corbyn -seems like a lovely bloke. Not sure whether he has the ideas we need to negotiate the future, though.

Then again, I think he’s more likely than most to be willing to listen to those who might.

We're left with narrow margins. Sanders could have been US Pres. Melenchon wasn't that far from sneaking into the last two in France, from where he would probably have won. Corbyn could be PM here still. With just little tweaks in reality all of these things could happen. They're not impossible. However, in reality, we have Trump, Macron and May.

On the optimistic side, such things can and do happen in Latin America.

 

[8ball]

I think things will shift a little in the next few years. I see people in work saying things that would have been seen as barkingly left-wing just a couple of years ago.

 

[MrSpikey]

I'm not denying he's a twit, but I can watch him and not want to kill myself.

I can watch Hannan and not want to kill myself. I don't think that's unusual.

Watching Hannan and not wanting to kill him, however...

 

[teuchter]

in a system where a vote was meaningful. Outside of key marginal swing seats (or those pesky reff's eh!), it isn't. As for the rest, well give me your detailed and thoroughly explained roadmap of the parliamentary route to socialism and I'll tell you if I agree or do not agree.

You're dodging the question by throwing it back to me.

Is it fair to say that you don't have a roadmap to socialism, using a parliamentary route or anything else?

I don't claim to have one. But if people think that voting for corbyn is the best option at present, I'm not going to sneer at them for doing so, unless I've got a better alternative to propose.

 

[DotCommunist]

You're dodging the question by throwing it back to me.

you dodge the question it seems, as you cannot defend the status quo nor can you describe a socialism done through parliament. Thats fine, I didn't expect you to, in fact I'm heartened to find that the end goal of socialism is shared here. How reticent you have been on this subject in the past.

s it fair to say that you don't have a roadmap to socialism, using a parliamentary route or anything else?

oh all sorts of ideas gleaned from various reading and lived experience, but mid term pragmatism? Well thats a different question isn't it? I'd discuss it but you and saskyia are both doing the fresh convert to labour thing of 'if not us, what?' so y'know. My patience for that is limited. Particularly as I'm afraid I don't think you argue in good faith. Yes I know, water off a ducks back to you etc etc but you'll have to live with the fact that I don't think you have any interest in discussing what could be, just what is pragmatic. As you define it.

I don't claim to have one. But if people think that voting for corbyn is the best option at present, I'm not going to sneer at them for doing so

nor will I. Oh no I will take the piss a bit and at turns laud C-byn as a hip-hop legend, allotment ghoul and the second coming of christ. Because it amuses me to do so.

however none of this actually stems from the subject that has driven this tangent does it? This is you just saying 'well what do you imagine will happen without a monarch?'


however if your new found interest about non parliamentary routes to socialism is genuine then why not start a thread? I think you'll get the same raised eyebrow you are getting from me but who knows, maybe the conversation might bear fruit. Don't let me hold you back

 

[Winot]

You do write beautifully DC.

 

[teuchter]

That's an impressively long-winded way of saying you've got nothing to offer, except maybe in secret to a selected audience. It's the same answer as pickmans'.

 

[DotCommunist]

That's an impressively long-winded way of saying you've got nothing to offer, except maybe in secret to a selected audience. It's the same answer as pickmans'.

its not really is it? I make no secret of the fact that I think only a revolution is capable of bringing about real change. Nor do I imagine such a thing is just around the corner, nor do I have every answer. I'm reminded suddenly that we are but two months and a hundred years away from something that was impossible until it happened. In the meantime by all means, you vote for left labour. Have at it my son. Let the dice fall as they may. But lets not have any of this demanding of answers when your own are less than forthcoming.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

I don’t think this argument about people not being qualified/educated enough to vote is a serious one. Democracy is everybody voting. The “Guardianista” type articles on the subject come across as the hysterical whingings of Blairite journos for whom the brexit vote was like a bereavement. I think their love of all things EU comes from their lifestyles of flitting around Europe for work & spare time spent at French holiday homes rather than any belief that EU membership benefits the UK. Most working people cannot travel freely in Europe because of lack of money & lack of spare time off work.

I am absolutely happy to go with a Corbyn lead government & see how it goes. Cheers teuchter for those excellent posts.

 

[redsquirrel]

But if people think that voting for corbyn is the best option at present, I'm not going to sneer at them for doing so.

And who's been doing that then?

Democracy is everybody voting.

No it's not, it's about people having real control over their communities. To reduce democracy to simply voting is as mistaken to make "the economy" something meaningful. The legal requirement for unions to ballot members before striking hasn't increased democracy it's reduced it.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

No it's not, it's about people having real control over their communities. To reduce democracy to simply voting is as mistaken to make "the economy" something meaningful. The legal requirement for unions to ballot members before striking hasn't increased democracy it's reduced it.

I’ve read some of your link & it is heavy going. Fact is nobody who should be reading this stuff will be reading it. Political campaigning has to be kept much more simple than that because people have other stuff to do work/leisure/family. Hence “soundbite politics” stuff that can be consumed on the go when people have a few moments of spare time. Politicians have to come to the people. They cannot expect the people to come to them.

The left’s job is to condense reams of difficult to read text into easy to understand soundbites to get their message across. Democracy is everybody voting if they choose to vote or even if they can be arsed to vote. For that to happen they have to believe there is anything worth voting for & that their vote might make a difference.

So back to the art of the possible. It is possible for an incoming Labour government to strengthen employment law so people know their income from week to week & generally get their employers to treat them like human beings. It is possible for them to begin a large council house building program. I watched about 2 square miles of green fields on the edge of Colchester change into Greenstead Estate in the 60s/70s so it is possible because it has been done before by UK governments. In the meantime it is possible for them to introduce rent controls on private lets. It is also possible for them to take railways back into public ownership as the franchises run out.

I follow politics all the time. Tbf I do stick to UK & UK related politics simply because It gets too time consuming if I try to get a handle rest of world politics as well. I like well written current stuff. Stuff that is easy to read & understand. Stuff that entertains & makes current politics interesting. If you want people to vote you need to make them interested enough to vote.

 

[redsquirrel]

I’ve read some of your link & it is heavy going. Fact is nobody who should be reading this stuff will be reading it
......
Politicians have to come to the people. They cannot expect the people to come to them.
......
The left’s job is to condense reams of difficult to read text into easy to understand soundbites to get their message across. Democracy is everybody voting if they choose to vote or even if they can be arsed to vote. For that to happen they have to believe there is anything worth voting for & that their vote might make a difference.

This sums up the entirety of our political differences. You believe that the gospel has to be spread to the heathen, that the working class are some passive body who have to be instructed by 'the left' before change can be effected. I utterly reject that view, for me the working class are the only actor capable about of bringing changes that will improve society, if socialists have any 'job' it's recognising that and acting in the way that advances the power of labour.

People do not need to read Marx to bring about change, they don't need a in depth knowledge of the history of socialism. The Russian revolution, the Spanish revolution, the Paris Commune, etc, etc didn't come about because 'politicians went to the people', they came about because workers stood up to fight for a better society for themselves and their comrades.

 

[DexterTCN]

This sums up the entirety of our political differences. You believe that the gospel has to be spread to the heathen, that the working class are some passive body who have to be instructed by 'the left' before change can be effected. I utterly reject that view, for me the working class are the only actor capable about of bringing changes that will improve society, if socialists have any 'job' it's recognising that and acting in the way that advances the power of labour....

How's that working out?

 

[SaskiaJayne]

This sums up the entirety of our political differences. You believe that the gospel has to be spread to the heathen, that the working class are some passive body who have to be instructed by 'the left' before change can be effected. I utterly reject that view, for me the working class are the only actor capable about of bringing changes that will improve society, if socialists have any 'job' it's recognising that and acting in the way that advances the power of labour.

I take it by heathen you mean those that do not believe in or have no faith in politics & politicians? So yes it is up to politicians to bang on doors & stand on stumps to spread their gospel but that gospel has got to be believable enough to make people believe change is possible. Otherwise the people will go & do stuff that bores them less.

Your post contradicts itself. Why do I believe that the working class are “passive”? I pointed out in an earlier post that this definition of class does not quite fit the UK anyway. The w/c(for want of a better term)do not need “instruction” they need information condensed down from the hard & boring to read political articles to stuff that they have time to read that still puts the message across. Social media seems to be the way forward in UK these days. The left need to do this. If Labour get in one would hope that they live up to expectations & indeed act in the way that advances the power of labour(with small l). If they do then they will be voted back in in subsequent GEs.

I actually think we are singing from the same hymn sheet. The argument is your very complicated & detailed way of putting the message across compared with my seeing the need to take that message & condense it down into something that can be put across quickly & briefly in the modern way.

 

[redsquirrel]

I actually think we are singing from the same hymn sheet. The argument is your very complicated & detailed way of putting the message across compared with my seeing the need to take that message & condense it down into something that can be put across quickly & briefly in the modern way.

No we are not. I don't believe any 'message' needs to be put across. I don't believe that politicians going out doorstepping is what causes change, you make the Labour Party the actor of change not the working class, I don't believe people need 'information condensed down' before they can bring about change.

As for the working class, I'm not talking about speaking with an accent or being in the C2-E census catagories, I mean it in the Marxist sense and it's as applicable as it ever was.

 

[danny la rouge]

That's the impression I get, yes.

OK, leaving aside whether that's true of him individually, you're suggesting it's also true of a wider group of posters here. I don't recognise that. I recognise that there are people who see a parliamentary road to socialism and some who don't, but I don't think it's fair to say the latter are "dismissive" and the former not; you yourself were pretty dismissive about a "commitment to grass-roots activism". And fair enough: you don't have to see it as a way forward, but why is that not "dismissive"?

In the example I linked to, he refused to give any positive suggestions himself. He seems pretty sure of his position, yet I've never seen him actually state clearly what he wants to see happen and how. It's always about dismissing what others suggest.

That's your view of Pickman's model. I'll leave him to respond to that, but you haven't established it's symptomatic of anything but your assessment of one person's posting style.

 

[mauvais]

This sums up the entirety of our political differences. You believe that the gospel has to be spread to the heathen, that the working class are some passive body who have to be instructed by 'the left' before change can be effected. I utterly reject that view, for me the working class are the only actor capable about of bringing changes that will improve society, if socialists have any 'job' it's recognising that and acting in the way that advances the power of labour.

I have a lot of sympathy for your position, although I also think you're wilfully turning common ground into argument a little too often. But one of the principle problems with this view is, if you like, whether there is fertile ground to plant any seeds. Historically the working class had a lot more physical commonality - e.g. they literally worked together in the same fields, factories, etcetera. There were far stronger community institutions providing the basis for the sort of natural action that I think you're talking about.

The great success of Thatcherism is obviously that so much of this was destroyed, and now the WC is massively fractured, atomised even, and individualism is strong. So whilst parliamentary politics may not offer anything new, the entire landscape has changed to our detriment, raising the question of whether this worsened position makes PP any better a route. Either that or there needs to be a means of overcoming this disadvantage, e.g. establishing tangible organisation, which I think goes to the core of what people are asking when they ask, 'well what do you propose instead?'

 

[Pickman's model]

That's the impression I get, yes.

yes, because there are none so blind they will not see

Over about ten years of posting on urban.

but not, i note, reading

No, that's not what I mean.

In the example I linked to, he refused to give any positive suggestions himself. He seems pretty sure of his position, yet I've never seen him actually state clearly what he wants to see happen and how. It's always about dismissing what others suggest.

in the example you gave i was asked about plans i might have. there is nothing incumbent on me to share with the entire english-speaking world plans which it would be a breach of confidence, not to mention security, to share.

so i have been so unpragmatic over the years as to not sign petitions, to not suggest people join unions, not to suggest people go on demonstrations, to not suggest people in unions ask their branches to donate to for example the orgreave justice campaign, i'm fairly certain i've advised people to contact councillors and mps to get things changed.

you're full of shit, teuchter.

 

[redsquirrel]

I have a lot of sympathy for your position, although I also think you're wilfully turning common ground into argument a little too often. But one of the principle problems with this view is, if you like, whether there is fertile ground to plant any seeds. Historically the working class had a lot more physical commonality - e.g. they literally worked together in the same fields, factories, etcetera. There were far stronger community institutions providing the basis for the sort of natural action that I think you're talking about.

I certainly would not disagree that in many many ways society is more atomised than in has been in the past. But how did those previous community institutions come about? Through working class self-organisation. History abounds with examples of community institutions becoming atrophied or even barriers to change and them being replaced by the working class creating new institutions that better suit their current demands. That will happen again and again.

The great success of Thatcherism is obviously that so much of this was destroyed, and now the WC is massively fractured, atomised even, and individualism is strong. So whilst parliamentary politics may not offer anything new, the entire landscape has changed to our detriment, raising the question of whether this worsened position makes PP any better a route. Either that or there needs to be a means of overcoming this disadvantage, e.g. establishing tangible organisation, which I think goes to the core of what people are asking when they ask, 'well what do you propose instead?'

You're combining two different, although admittedly related, questions - what is the agent of change in society with what is the best means of advancing such change. As I said in a previous post my criticism is directed mostly at the first not at the second. Do I think people are better off fighting outside the LP than in it, yes I do. But whether they want to centre their activities around the LP or not it's vital to recognise that the only agent of bringing about change is the working class. You may think that the LP may be the best lever to assist that change but it is still only a tool not the real actor.

 

[mauvais]

I certainly would not disagree that in many many ways society is more atomised than in has been in the past. But how did those previous community institutions come about? Through working class self-organisation. History abounds with examples of community institutions becoming atrophied or even barriers to change and them being replaced by the working class creating new institutions that better suit their current demands. That will happen again and again.

This is the bit that I think is weakest. Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic. Common physicality, common fabric and stark clarity of the issues made it comparatively easy in the past. As an example of each: monolithic lifetime employment, pubs, being killed at work. Where we are now, these kind of institutions are unlikely to naturally re-form at significant scale without an impetus, the clearest of which is the self-defeating case of everything becoming significantly worse.

It's not an absolute, they do exist - near me, plenty of local Facebook groups are organising local action like cleaning up their streets, for example, and we see the gig economy crowd organising - but they are still fragmented and not in a good position to tackle resistance to whatever they want to do. I think holistically the direction of travel is not good. This invokes the question of how WC organisation can be helped or even whether outside help is required. Because of my pessimistic view of the whole environment, rather than I hope something altogether more patronising, I do think help is urgently required, and I see some manifestation of the Labour Party - not necessarily the current one - as potentially one of the better means to provide it. I have no great allegiance to it though so I'm quite prepared to revise this opinion & admit that I'm wrong, but ideally after being presented with some alternative.