An 'economic policy not tied to a set of free market rules' would require something a lot further from the centre than a Corbyn government. Fwiw, I'd agree with Jim that it would require a Brexit, and a hard one at that, but thinking that Brexit can make it even vaguely likely (in a leftward direction,certainly) would be backwards logic.
It requires Brexit but brexit won’t make it more likely?
Yes. For me to be Harry Potter would require me to own a wand, but the fact that I own a wand does not make it more likely that I am Harry Potter.
I get that it's far from given and slim hopes at best, just genuinely see remaining as continuing the slow slide into a post-democratic technocracy where people far more clever than you and I set policy to help spreadsheets look better. read a bit by whatsisface ex-greek minister and their campaign for a better Eu but that seems even more unlikely as the forces that would push any change would be too scattered.JimW just has.
I'm not conflating anything. FFS you're so bound up by fucking Brexit that it is literally inconceivable to you that there is a politics beyond it. The points I'm making apply every socialist whether they voted leave, remain or abstained.
Strikes me as quite naive to think domestic policy over governments of successive stripes over the past decades and EU membership aren't related, insofar at least as it helped enable the neoliberal turn.
The Tories also increased their share of the vote and remained in power.
I understand what you said, but moving away from Harry Potter is it necessary to repeat a statement (again) that no one has made aaaaah
The UK was at the vanguard of that neoliberal turn. Right from Thatcher onwards (some would no doubt argue from Callaghan onwards). This is the bit I still don't really see an explanation of - how does brexit change that? At the moment, the real danger is that it will merely accelerate it.
Who said these things though? Pretty sure I didn't. Corbyn won a landslide election as labour leader long before the brexit referendum - these forces were already in play, not somehow magicked into existence by brexit.
True and why she was keen on being in a free trade entity. Mostly I think it removes one of the enabling props and brings politics back closer to home. As a nation we certainly helped shape the way it is but you look at the imposed governments in Italy etc and you can see where it's headed IMO.
The brexit wet dream of most leave-supporting tories is to be allowed to strip away social and environmental protections, to asset-strip even more, and to move the UK towards a US-style hire-and-fire economy. For them the EU isn't neoliberal enough.
Well, yes, we know the right wingers are right wingers. Point is surely to defeat them here not rely on a veneer of social and environmental legislation from the same institution that is enabling the sort of free market that will never really be controlled by social demands in that framework.
do you think these same forces have any bearing on the brexit vote? At all?
But this is where I see confusion. Mysterious talk of the EU 'cabal' and the like. They're negotiating with the Tories. We are not no the tories' side here. This isn't us, Britain, battling against them, the EU. Not accusing you particularly here, but I see some comments that seem to forget this.
Those forces can also be taken advantage of by the populist right. Disaffection with a failing system can and does take many forms, not all of them positive.
Yeah, I don't think it's some cabal so much as an institution with a set dynamic that is technocratic and pro-market and won't be turned from by us. We will leave under a shambolic but dangerous Tory government but that situation is more amenable to change.
And the dream of Cable, Cameron, Merkel, Verhofstadt, Carney, Selmayr, etc is also for increasing exploitation, technocracy the imposition of free trade. Shits want shit stuff.
If you're so contemptuous of my vision of socialism how about you outline yours. Are Labour councils in coalition with Tories socialism? Were the attacks on the working class by New Labour socialism? Is it ideological purity to see shits like Mandelson as the enemy? What is socialism to you? Is it about jobs, and if so how? Do you see yourself as a socialist?
As it was insisted they would certainly be in the event of a brexit vote. Yet that proved otherwise at snap election. Circular arguing lbj.
Are you feeling OK?
Nasty forces were emboldened by the brexit vote. We are still yet to see where that will lead. As for the snap election, I didn't see that coming - I assumed May would limp on to 2020. I was one of those positive voices saying it might not all be lost in the lead up to that election, btw. But it was an election that Labour lost. And another of my predictions - that there would be another election within six months - was wrong. As a general rule, we must never forget the depths to which the tories will debase themselves in order to cling to power.
