Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[DexterTCN]

navy blue...the whole concept of britain in a colour

 

[brogdale]

navy blue...the whole concept of britain in a colour

Albion; white, surely?

 

[CRI]

Albion; white, surely?

So white the blue veins show through!

 

[redsquirrel]

So let's rip up our existing trade deals and start from a blank piece of paper - that'll definitely fix things

What relation does that have to what I posted? This is gash. You can perfectly well recognise the fact that trade deals are political, and that their recent impact has been socially harmful, while still supporting some type of trade agreement.

Personally I'd be very happy to "rip up our existing trade deals" (and lets note the our here) but that's not necessary to see that recent multi-national trade agreements, such as CETA, are designed to attack public services and increase worker exploitation.

Motorways won't even be needed if red gets his / her way

In my street, I'm the one with the EU flag in the window, while a neighbour 10 yards away is Labour Central - I'm pretty certain I'm not thought of as a Tory ...

Your positions are not just ahistorical gibberish, they are extremely right wing, the fact that you seem incapable of understanding this basic fact is a good indication of just how much neo-liberal tripe you've swallowed.
The apoliticalisation of trade, the ludicrous binary of the WTO/EU or barter economies, the opposition to the state subsidising businesses. It's not just socialists or social-democrats that would consider this stuff garbage, so would social-democrats, liberals, conservatives, pretty much the whole post-war consensus. Liberals like Smith or Keynes would look at the crap you've posted and roll their eyes.

 

[gentlegreen]

 

[Supine]

Yet when I asked for an alternative u was met with deathly silence. If you want to convince others of your very lefty views you need to sell an alternative instead of just moaning about the right.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yet when I asked for an alternative u was met with deathly silence. If you want to convince others of your very lefty views you need to sell an alternative instead of just moaning about the right.

To be a lefty in these halls all you have to do is tell other lefties why they're wrong.

 

[gentlegreen]

... and the eternal question.
Out (t)here, in the real world, Brexit is driven by the far right.
Is it neoliberalism-plus they're after ?

 

[redsquirrel]

Yet when I asked for an alternative u was met with deathly silence. If you want to convince others of your very lefty views you need to sell an alternative instead of just moaning about the right.

This just shows that either you're not reading what is being posted or you're incapable of understanding it. The idea that trade is political really isn't a very lefty view, as I said it's something that people from all over the political spectrum would reject. Keynes wasn't very lefty, Smith wasn't very lefty, hell much as she'd be pleased that she'd done a number on you even Thatcher would be laughing at your claims.

To be a lefty in these halls all you have to do is tell other lefties why they're wrong.

You think these jokers are "lefties", come on.

 

[gentlegreen]

We can never be pure enough for Citizen Smith - it probably requires us to throw our clogs in looms or somesuch...

 

[redsquirrel]

OK then, go on outline how you are a "leftie' (whatever that actually means).

This isn't some witch hunt, is is just basic political comprehension. Many of the positions you hold are not left-wing.

You've argued against government measures to keep workers in employment, you want to see a continuation of neo-liberal policies that we've had since the 70s, you've voted, and supported, the liberals/lib dems for most of your life. Those aren't left-wing positions, they really aren't.

Which is fine, but don't go on about how you "don't do politics" and then dismiss evidenced arguments with a stupid video. Try reading, thinking for a second and engaging with what people are saying.

You seem to think that because you hold some socially liberal positions and are anti-Tory that you're left wing. But that shows a complete disregard of the economic positions. where the differences between the classic left and right was equally, if not more, important than the differences on social questions.

 

[gentlegreen]

Nah I give up, from now on in the strange world of Urban75, I'm now officially a Tory (even though I wouldn't piss on most of 'em if they were on fire) -

.... or perhaps a turncoat one who crossed the floor in 2007.

 

[NoXion]

Yet when I asked for an alternative u was met with deathly silence. If you want to convince others of your very lefty views you need to sell an alternative instead of just moaning about the right.

I replied quoting you. Even if you regard that response as inadequate, to call that deathly silence is simply dishonest.

"Agreements" like CETA (the likes of you or I certainly never agreed to this shit) are another turn of the screw for which organisations such as the WTO have laid the groundwork. They include legislative mechanisms like investor-state dispute settlements, which allow private investors to sue governments for "discriminatory practices". Like preventing them from reaping profits at the expense of public health.

Those "raging lefties" at the Economist had this to say:

"If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half century have done, through a process known as 'investor-state dispute settlement', or ISDS."

I'm older than the WTO is, and I'm part of the youngest age group in this place. The WTO isn't some essential structure without which global capitalism would be brought to its knees. So what makes its abolishment so radical that you ask for a detailed plan for its replacement?

 

[gentlegreen]

Feck me he has a list (in his little red book ? )

 

[redsquirrel]

Nah I give up, from now on in the strange world of Urban75, I'm a Tory (even though I wouldn't piss on most of 'em if they were on fire) -

FFS pathetic shit. this is exactly what I'm taking about. I outline why (with evidence) your argument is incorrect and the best you can do it this crap.

"Oh I don't do politics" - here's a stupid video.

EDIT: I mean you are genuinely politically ignorant, which is fine, we're all ignorant about loads. I'm totally ignorant about cycling. But I don't wade in to cycle threads posting up shitty videos and telling everyone they're wrong.

I really, really am not attacking your politics here, I'm just trying to explain how the positions you hold are not consistent with social-democracy, let alone socialism. They are liberal positions. And the politics of liberalism has often been at odds (sometimes violently) with social-democracy and socialism.

 

[billy_bob]

I don't really want to get involved in a conversation about individuals' case histories. But the last few years have been eye-opening in terms of how woefully confused most people's understanding of what 'left wing' and 'liberal' mean, and how they do or don't intersect, is.

 

[SpineyNorman]

We can never be pure enough for Citizen Smith - it probably requires us to throw our clogs in looms or somesuch...

You're a fucking idiot. There's really nothing more to say.

Having a go at lists now too. What kind of wrong un doesn't have a list?

 

[gentlegreen]

 

[danny la rouge]

Echoing what billy_bob said, I’d add that it’s important to recognise there is a difference between party political distinctions, and different ideologies, philosophies, economic projects, and so on.

For example, neoliberalism transects the major parties in the UK. Recent Tory, Labour, and coalition governments have been economically neoliberal.

Additionally, the Tories have in some ways been socially liberal. The Cameron government introduced equal marriage laws, for example. Last time I brought this up I was accused of being disparaging of the benefits of that. I’m not. Not in the slightest. What I’m pointing out is that it is not inconsistent with neoliberal economic policy. As David Harvey puts it, it is as if the neoliberal project said to the social movements of the 60s. “OK, we hear your concerns. You can have these individual freedoms. But in return, you need to drop this idea of economic control, economic equality. We’ll redefine individual freedoms as equality. That will be equality”.

Modern Tories don’t need to be neoconservative. They might be a little neoconservative, a lot neoconservative, or even not at all neoconservative.

I’m not concerned with rescuing the term “lefty”. It’s beyond calls for precision. But it’s still possible to define socialism, despite it being a heterogenous range of systems. But at the core there’s a belief in social ownership, and there’s a desire for workers’ self management, and there’s a class analysis of society. You can go into a great deal more detail, and I used to read people like Vajada, Meszaros and Agnes Heller, who’d discuss at length what socialism is and what its relationship to the state is, and so on. But keeping it broad, that’s what I think we can boil it down to.

That isn’t a demand for purity from individuals, it’s just a plea for terminological accuracy. If I ask that you don’t call a sofa a table, it’s not because I demand all furniture be tables.

I’m personally a type of socialist that I’d call communist. And the type of communism I want is free communism, which is another way of saying anarchist communism. This is a position stemming from a core of values. People who don’t hold them can’t reasonably be called anarchist communist. Nor would they want to be, presumably.

I don’t require everyone I cooperate with politically to be an anarchist communist. There's a range of libertarian socialist views that I’m happy to call the extent of my political home. But I don’t think it’s necessary for people to take the huff if they don’t share views I see as fundamental. And I’m very happy to discuss the differences.

But I think there’s a trend (and I know this’ll rile some people) to see political belonging in primarily identarian ways. (And by that I’m meaning a particular use of the notion identity, rather than just knowing what name to give your views). And I think that’s where a lot of cross purpose misunderstanding stems from.

 

[gentlegreen]

But I don't wade in to cycle threads posting up shitty videos and telling everyone they're wrong.

You see me as "a cyclist"

 

[redsquirrel]

As usual danny you're bang on the money and have managed to make the point more clearly than I did.

I’m not concerned with rescuing the term “lefty”. It’s beyond calls for precision. But it’s still possible to define socialism, despite it being a heterogenous range of systems. But at the core there’s a belief in social ownership, and there’s a desire for workers’ self management, and there’s a class analysis of society. You can go into a great deal more detail, and I used to read people like Vajada, Meszaros and Agnes Heller, who’d discuss at length what socialism is and what its relationship to the state is, and so on. But keeping it broad, that’s what I think we can boil it down to.

That isn’t a demand for purity from individuals, it’s just a plea for terminological accuracy. If I ask that you don’t call a sofa a table, it’s not because I demand all furniture be tables.

I agree with all this, especially the bolded (my emphasis) part

 

[chilango]

danny la rouge spot on.

I think it might've been butchersapron who raised a similar point on another thread about the disconnect between political self-identity and actual political views.

I think that's a key thing at the moment in many of the debates we're seeing.

But it's not a new thing. I still remember a moment in my youth were I consciously stopped referring to my self as "a revolutionary" or "an anti-fascist" and started to place more emphasis on what I did and I what I thought rather than "what I was".

 

[Serge Forward]

Best song since the small faces' here comes the slice

Surely that song was about biscuits, wasn't it?

 

[Crispy]

You see me as "a cyclist"

I think the absence of any words ending in "-ist" in redsquirrel's post was quite deliberate.

 

[Badgers]

Another £33m gone due to the #FerryFarce I see

 

[sleaterkinney]

Leave this here for the Brexiteers:

 

[Wilf]

Leave this here for the Brexiteers:

Yes, it looks shit - but why are you 'leaving this here for the brexiteers'?

 

[sleaterkinney]

Yes, it looks shit - but why are you 'leaving this here for the brexiteers'?

So they can join her group?

 

[Wilf]

So they can join her group?

Righto.

 

[DexterTCN]

So they can join her group?

Birds of a feather