Leavers on the 'left' - Main arguments and analysis please...

[Treacle Toes]

Please?

I figure I can't moan that these things are being drowned out and not attempt to create a space to hear and understand them.

The reading loop is making people dizzy, saying because I said so, trust me isn't cutting it...the sneering on both sides is a distraction.

I would appreciate those who are definitely voting to remain or abstain giving way so that I and others can engage with/understand these arguments.

There are other threads you can troll, call people names on etc...

Bullet points, links, I don't mind.

 

[inva]

eu is anti working class, pro austerity, neo liberal, against my interests and what I believe in. look at Greece, look at the plight of refugees, I can't see any reason why I'd want to be a part of what the eu represents and aims for.

 

[DotCommunist]

it really is that the EU has empowered and produced conditions that are negative to democracy. As invita says more succinctly than I. I know the fear of a new right on the street is an issue. But they have been defeated before. Properly routed and made to fear. that can happen again. The real right to fear is the ones in power voting in the cuts devestating our communities. Those are who need disruption. And thats what this will be if it goes brexit. A disruption. It's my belief that an exit wil not happen. It'll go remain narrowly. If that keeps the tory party and the atlantacists/xenophobes/europhiles/euroskeptics at each others throats rather than than those of me and mine then good. And everyone elses mates and family obvs

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Fuck shit up.

The EU is shite, remain endorses that shiteness, plus will face the wrath of having dared to question it. Leave is the only thing that can effect any changes, probably won't, but really can't see it being worse than what we currently have.

Cameron is a cunt for calling it in the first place, just highlights what a piss-poor politician he really is, but we're here now so may as well stir things up if we can.

 

[steeplejack]

For Leave:

1. The first step towards taking back full democratic control, potentially, of our interests; an end to unelected central bureaucracies. Worthless though f further decentralisation of power from Westminster isn't pushed for
2. The EU is so broken that IMO it is probably impossible to fix
3. Endemic economic and political corruption in Brussels; failure to sign off any transparent accounts for decades; bunging 2 billion of EU taxpayers cash to a tinpot despot in Turkey;
4. related to the last point, catastrophic mishandling of refugee crisis;
5. TTIP: no thanks
6. regardless of Thursday's result, the EU is veering in a really concerning far-right direction; witness the bullying of the central bureaucrcy by the Visegrad group over refugees and the EU's tacit approval of razor wore fences and neo-fascist persecution of refugees in Bulgaria and Hungary;
7. The merciles bullying of and fiscal enslavement for generations to come, of Greece
8. The previous refusla to respect democratic referendum results in the Republic of Ireland
9. Staggering lack of competence; the appointment of an utter nonentity like Catherine Ashton on a huge salary to be the EU foreign minister; EU subsequently serially humiliated on the international stage by lack of ministerial capacity;
10. Enoromous growth of neoliberal /corporate influence at EU level since the turn of the century. Ten years ago it was possible to see the EU as some kind of social-democratic bulwark against loony right wing local interests. Not any more.
11. Slightly out there but; if we vote OUT, UKIP are finished; mission accomplished. Old Labour and other working class voters currently lending them their votes may decide to turn elsewhere.
12. having lived in the Balkans for quite a while, and seeing the EU from that perspective; any pretence that the EU is a generous and non-malign actor, from that persepctive, is laughable. In 2014 the EU High representative, Valentin Inzko, would have sent in EU tanks to restore the Dayton order in Bosnia, if the popular protests and democratic plenums looked like they would gain sufficient traction to sweep away the corrupt local vassals of the international community there.

These would be my main reasons to want out. As I said on another thread I am wavering a bit though. But probably will still vote to get out.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

The only left-wing argument for staying in is that the EU affords us workplace protections, yet this has been shown to be completely untrue with the example of Greece in particular, but everywhere really. Voting leave will not empower the right wing as some argue because the Tory majority will still be as small on Friday as it is today. Leaving will, however, somewhat dis-empower the technocrats of the commission. It will remove one of the many layers of resistance that would be faced by any potential fightback from labour.

 

[steeplejack]

The lack of planning on the "left" for a Brexit vote does concern me though.

In the event of Brexit, where next, to what plan, according to what tactics, and with what expected results?

Maybe I will start a new thread. Don't want to derail this one.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Maybe I will start a new thread. Don't want to derail this one.

I appreciate that.

 

[Treacle Toes]

ItWillNeverWork can you edit your post please to just the argument for 'exit'?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

ItWillNeverWork can you edit your post please to just the argument for 'exit'?

All of what I wrote is an argument for exit.

 

[Treacle Toes]

All of what I wrote is an argument for exit.

okay... because you used 'the only left argument for staying' ...I am simply trying to avoid people feeling affronted and arguing before we have a chance to hear 'exiter's' views is all.

 

[mk12]

 

[Azrael]

The current Junker Commission isn't the EU: if the center-right EPP hadn't done best outa the 2014 election to the European Parliament, a social democrat could've been elected instead.

Brexit won't do anything to help turn the EU around: only campaigning for more progressive groups will do that.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

The current Junker Commission isn't the EU: if the center-right EPP hadn't done best outa the 2014 election to the European Parliament, a social democrat could've been elected instead.

Brexit won't do anything to help turn the EU around: only campaigning for more progressive groups will do that.

How do you organise a European-wide left opposition though?

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I'll tick all of the above, some also come back with but uk isn't in the eurozone. But a) why would you vote to support/have the tories be complicit in what is going on in the eurozone and b) some stuff in Maastricht treaty still applies, with regards to the deficit they can't be fined or sanctioned but there's still pressure, being told to put pension age up as detailed here, but as I've no formal education and read the sun I'll be honest and say I'm not sure how much of this stuff is binding but surely a layer of shit we could lose- in fact that's my whole argument in a nutshell lose a layer of shit so we've only one layer to fight.

UK - European Commission

 

[dendrite]

It seems feasible that neoliberalism's current avatars in the UK could be defeated by developments of UK left forces.

How trans-european neoliberalism, elected by governments rather than people, could be defeated I've no idea. It's remoteness is already disempowering and baffling.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

The current Junker Commission isn't the EU: if the center-right EPP hadn't done best outa the 2014 election to the European Parliament, a social democrat could've been elected instead.

Brexit won't do anything to help turn the EU around: only campaigning for more progressive groups will do that.

Three big players, no one really likes the wine sodden one, so that leaves the lager twins and one of them does the Frank; EU is in trouble.

 

[brogdale]

How do you organise a European-wide left opposition though?

For the September 28th (1864) meet I believe they wrote letters.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Junker is fucking awesome; long time boss of a tax haven sat in the middle of the EU.

Beautiful.

 

[JimW]

For the September 28th (1864) meet I believe they wrote letters.

The Jura Mountains aren't quite the stronghold they used to be, though.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

For the September 28th (1864) meet I believe they wrote letters.

I'm sure that is an incredibly clever answer, but I can't say I know what you're referring to here.

 

[JimW]

I'm sure that is an incredibly clever answer, but I can't say I know what you're referring to here.

The First International

 

[redsquirrel]

Fucking hell, I don't want to be pogo but do we really need another bloody EU thread.

In addition, to two major current ones, Thora started another one only ten days ago, and then there's the aftermath, etc threads.

Anyway here's my reasons for voting Leave as posted on Thora's thread

There are (more than) two current threads on this. OK one of them is a bit of a marathon, but the Brexit or Bremain thread is only 34 pages. If you're looking for something shorter still then this one is 11 pages.

EDIT: If my postal vote had arrived I would have voted out because
- while not going to issue the socialist revolution it nevertheless damages capital (otherwise why capital is overwhelming backing Remain), and opens up new possibilities for labour
- despite the narrowing of the polls, my prediction is still for Remain to win, but the narrower that win the more divisions in the Tories and the more room it gives to attacks on liberals
- I want to make liberal wankers cry

 

[Azrael]

Redsquirrel, how d'you "damage capital" without also harming labour? If Leave hits the economy hard (as it's overwhelmingly likely to do), companies will fold, others will lay off workers, or cut wages. How is this responsible economics or social welfare?

As for organizing across Europe, thanks to how seats are allocated in the European Parliament, it's mainly down to individual countries, but more international coordination between social democratic parties is certainly needed.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Redsquirrel, how d'you "damage capital" without also harming labour? If Leave hits the economy hard (as it's overwhelmingly likely to do), companies will fold, others will lay off workers, or cut wages. How is this responsible economics or social welfare?

Isn't there an argument that if revolution is the goal, or workers' uprising, or whatever you might want to call it, then things would have to be truly awful to kick it off? As things are now, even though life is awful for many, as a whole there are more working class people getting by in such a way as they aren't so absolutely desperate that the will for uprising and revolution isn't there. The will was shattered, the people atomised, the structures that could potentially foster and sustain a movement crushed under the heel.

And so wouldn't it follow that in order to foster that anger, the sense of 'in it together' (not the Tory kind), the need to do something, then the environment needs to be dire. More dire than it is now (which sounds perverse, considering how dire it is for many - but clearly not dire enough for enough people).

Following that argument, then damaging capital and harming labour, and making people suffer as much as possible, is the path to revolutionary nirvana.

 

[TruXta]

There is such an argument but it's clearly insane.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Just for the record, I don't want a violent revolution, and even if i did, i don't believe making peoples' lives shitter than they are now would be an acceptable (or even succesful) way to achieve one. I dont know of any 'left-brexiter' that adopts that position either.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

The First International

Were they succesful?

 

[Azrael]

Yes, Vintage Paw, that ultra-utilitarian argument can be made: anyone making it surely forfeits any claim to care about the welfare of the people as such; rather, they want to forward their ideology at most any price.

 

[brogdale]

Were they succesful?

Are you suggesting we shouldn't trust this enterprise to hand-written communications?