The big Brexit thread - news, updates and discussion

[Pickman's model]

Certainly some will sneer at ordinary people living ordinary lives but I have only ever led an ordinary life. I

but in what ways has it been average?

 

[philosophical]

So for the land border in Ireland that brexit voters voted for by dint of the word 'leave', what has happened to their proposed assured 'technological' solution with cameras, checks away from the border, trusted trader schemes, smart number plate recognition and all that previously suggested malarkey?
I know that supposedly the (rapidly failing) border in the Irish sea is supposed to do the trick, but what is the fall back option when that finally fails?
No differentiation between the UK and the dreadful migrant drowning big business capitalist celebrating EU?
There was a time when the brexit bastards were all about the technological solution.
It's gone a bit quiet, when mankind can put a vehicle on Mars with all that technological demand, but brexit voters can't follow through with their technological solution to the land border between the UK and the EU.

 

[discokermit]

but in what ways has it been average?

he didnt say average, he said ordinary.

 

[Pickman's model]

he didnt say average, he said ordinary.

Well spotted.

He and I were discussing average earlier and it never got any further than his mayism average means average and I hope to tease out a bit more what he means when he talks about eg the average brexit voter.

 

[BobDavis]

but in what ways has it been average?

My guitar playing skills were only average so I never became the rock star I could have been. So I became an average truck driver. Back in the day my mate got a job with Edwin Shirley Trucking touring all over Europe with bands transporting their gear between gigs. In truck driving world that was regarded as above average.

 

[discokermit]

Nobody said that, did they? One of the saddest aspects of this is the way that people's lived experiences were linked by the anti-immigrants to immigration - the lived experiences of struggles to get housing or a job or a pay rise being blamed on immigrants. I think it's naive to pretend this wasn't a significant factor both in the referendum and in Boris Johnson's victory last year. He wasn't just randomly touring the North East of England spouting anti-Pole rhetoric.

my lived experience was being on fifteen quid an hour, then the company owner decided to buy some houses near the works then recruit in hungary and house them himself, so he could pay less, take some back as rent and excercise control over them. then he shut down the works, made everyone redundant, then started up again with new people on less money.
this sort of thing started happening everywhere. i got a job in a big place on eight pound forty an hour, a few people who had been there decades were on twelve pound an hour but they had been reducing the wages of new starters since they had opened a recruitment agency in poland.
nobody blamed the immigrants, they were our friends and workmates, we all blamed our bosses, but voting brexit is the only way we could do anything about it. still, we're just brainwashed thickos.

 

[BobDavis]

Well spotted.

He and I were discussing average earlier and it never got any further than his mayism average means average and I hope to tease out a bit more what he means when he talks about eg the average brexit voter.

My neighbour. Outside this morning washing his car. Retired. Enjoys foreign holidays except now of course. Absolutely on board with brexit. Smiles, says philosophically “well of course they were always going to punish us. Fuck’ em“. An average & an ordinary brexit voter around where I live.

You do make me laugh pickers. You don’t need to tease anything out. By ordinary & average I mean like my neighbour, me & of course you. It’s I how I see it. Others may see it differently but I am not them or you.

 

[Pickman's model]

My guitar playing skills were only average so I never became the rock star I could have been. So I became an average truck driver. Back in the day my mate got a job with Edwin Shirley Trucking touring all over Europe with bands transporting their gear between gigs. In truck driving world that was regarded as above average.

Have you had the average number of accidents and points on your licence? If you were average on the guitar you were by definition better than half of all guitarists - so better than many in bands, better than most rock stars. Perhaps what held you back wasn't your skill on the guitar.

 

[Pickman's model]

My neighbour. Outside this morning washing his car. Retired. Enjoys foreign holidays except now of course. Absolutely on board with brexit. Smiles, says philosophically “well of course they were always going to punish us. Fuck’ em“. An average & an ordinary brexit voter around where I live.

You do make me laugh pickers. You don’t need to tease anything out. By ordinary & average I mean like my neighbour, me & of course you. It’s I how I see it. Others may see it differently but I am not them or you.

I may make you laugh but I am not Pickers

 

[two sheds]

So for the land border in Ireland that brexit voters voted for by dint of the word 'leave', what has happened to their proposed assured 'technological' solution with cameras, checks away from the border, trusted trader schemes, smart number plate recognition and all that previously suggested malarkey?

There just wasn't time to do it. They've only had five years ffs

 

[BobDavis]

Have you had the average number of accidents and points on your licence? If you were average on the guitar you were by definition better than half of all guitarists - so better than many in bands, better than most rock stars. Perhaps what held you back wasn't your skill on the guitar.

Depends on your era. I was up against Page & Clapton not so much Steve Jones. I did not want to be an average guitarist I wanted to be Eric Clapton. I had the tee shirt. “Clapton is God” Eric once shouted from the stage “I‘m not God I’m just a bleedin’ musician”. I begged to differ though. I would think yes I have had the average amount accidents & points on my licence.

Anyway Pickers. Enough about me. Tell us about your life. Do you think it is special ? How old are you. What job do you do ?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Neither Andorra nor San Marino has any form of border control. They are both tiny towns.

Andorra does, it also has a VAT rate of just 4% which upsets the EU who insist that stuff sold by Andorran companies to the EU must be sold from the EU (France mostly).

 

[belboid]

If you were average on the guitar you were by definition better than half of all guitarists

I don’t think you mean that but maybe it’s just the mode I’m in.

 

[kabbes]

If people are genuinely interested in how newspapers represented immigrants over the time period, this is part of a post I made on December 10 that includes a detailed statistical study in exactly that thing.

This is a study of 50,000 articles about immigration from 2011-2016 in The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Sun. Long story short, it definitely shows a few important points: firstly, all newspapers increasingly concentrated on EU immigrants over their previous focus, which was "illegal" immigrants. Secondly, they transferred their stigmas of "illegal" immigrants over to EU immigrants and Eastern European immigrants in particular, calling on orientalist stereotypes to do so. They also managed to tie EU membership and the Calais crisis together. There are lots of other things in that paper that I could discuss, but for this purpose, that's the meat.

However, evidence that newspapers did this is not quite the same as evidence that this was the critical point in people's minds. This is a study that looks at how people understood the relationship between Britain and Europe during the critical period. It also found "Eastern vs Western Europe" as a theme, which indicates to me that some of that newspaper work stuck. However, just as importantly, it found three completely different representations in peoples' minds of what constituted the relationship. These representations were strongly linked to geography and social status, meaning that it isn't as straightforward as "immigration=bad". There were even two very different leaver representations: one of "global Britain vs little Europe" that had an internationist bent, and one of "Europe as cultural threat" that was a more nationist concern of having Britishness overwhelmed by Europe.

 

[discokermit]

just to add, when i say we were all mates, there was some friction at the one place where the hungarian lads kept saying things like "whats up my n******!" to black workmates which ended after threats of south london yardie gangs and people on both sides and neither, getting tooled up with machetes.
also the only people i have ever heard describe themselves at work as white supremacist and anti semitic quite openly, apart from wayne the murderer from west brom, were polish and hungarian.

 

[Pickman's model]

Depends on your era. I was up against Page & Clapton not so much Steve Jones. I did not want to be an average guitarist I wanted to be Eric Clapton. I had the tee shirt. “Clapton is God” Eric once shouted from the stage “I‘m not God I’m just a bleedin’ musician”. I begged to differ though. I would think yes I have had the average amount accidents & points on my licence.

Anyway Pickers. Enough about me. Tell us about your life. Do you think it is special ? How old are you. What job do you do ?

you should ask pickers about their life. of course my life's special - to me. i doubt it is to many other people. i've no interest in your age - and i've never said mine here either. i work part-time in a medical library, nothing that special.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Depends on your era. I was up against Page & Clapton not so much Steve Jones. I did not want to be an average guitarist I wanted to be Eric Clapton. I had the tee shirt. “Clapton is God” Eric once shouted from the stage “I‘m not God I’m just a bleedin’ musician”. I begged to differ though.

Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands … So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country … I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white … The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man … This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck’s sake? … Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!

 

[discokermit]

my lived experience was being on fifteen quid an hour, then the company owner decided to buy some houses near the works then recruit in hungary and house them himself, so he could pay less, take some back as rent and excercise control over them. then he shut down the works, made everyone redundant, then started up again with new people on less money.
this sort of thing started happening everywhere. i got a job in a big place on eight pound forty an hour, a few people who had been there decades were on twelve pound an hour but they had been reducing the wages of new starters since they had opened a recruitment agency in poland.
nobody blamed the immigrants, they were our friends and workmates, we all blamed our bosses, but voting brexit is the only way we could do anything about it. still, we're just brainwashed thickos.

the place where i was on fifteen quid an hour, i tried unionising. we had a meeting with a fulltimer from gmb, management monitored the meeting and some of them followed people home to dissuade and/or threaten them. the next day at work the owner treatened us all with the sack and closure of the place. everyone shit themselves and that was the end of that.
a couple of weeks later i had a row with the works director, called him and the owner lying cunts, which ended with me being physically restrained while he ran off into the offices. i left and only went back months later, after it had shut down anyway, to get my tools and was monitored by the new hungarian foreman/recruitng agent so i didnt steal anything.
ah well, bosmeg.

 

[Raheem]

I don’t think you mean that but maybe it’s just the mode I’m in.

Where do you fit in if you play a mean guitar?

 

[BobDavis]

Just on a bit of observation Holland for example does seem to be better at preventing migrant workers from Eastern Europe being exploited by enforcing a level playing field with local workers. An example was a Dutch construction company charged Romanian workers for accommodation straight out of their wages. Illegal apparently in Holland & the firm was ordered to refund the workers. Also roadside car washes would not be allowed to exist in Holland or France either.

It has always been in the remit of a UK government both Labour & Tory to prevent the exploitation of EU migrant workers but they have not only failed to do that but allowed UK companies to build entire business models around employing only migrant Labour.

 

[BobDavis]

Yes Bahnhof Strasse I did become aware later that Clapton was a right wing racist git. He enjoyed hunting I think & drove Ferraris around the M25 while out of his tree. But as a teenager I just listened to Disraeli Gears & wanted to be a rock star.

 

[Supine]

Index of jobs lost. Death by a thousand cuts.

The Digby Jones Index

Lord Digby Jones famously said not one a single job would be lost due to Brexit

yorkshirebylines.co.uk

 

[editor]

Index of jobs lost. Death by a thousand cuts.

The Digby Jones Index

Lord Digby Jones famously said not one a single job would be lost due to Brexit

yorkshirebylines.co.uk

What a depressing read.

 

[editor]

Interesting opinion piece:

Brexit has dismantled the institutional platform on which that drama used to be played, but it does not change the economic and strategic dynamics. The UK still needs things from Brussels, but it has lost the leverage it had from a seat at the EU summit table. This makes it harder for Boris Johnson to play the old double game of public belligerence and private compromise. (On that score, EU membership was the way previous prime ministers used to have their cake and eat it.)

Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly | Rafael Behr

The story of plucky Britain standing up to bullying Brussels spares leavers the discomfort of admitting they voted for a con, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

www.theguardian.com

 

[The39thStep]

Interesting opinion piece:

Brexit is a machine to generate perpetual grievance. It's doing its job perfectly | Rafael Behr

The story of plucky Britain standing up to bullying Brussels spares leavers the discomfort of admitting they voted for a con, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

www.theguardian.com

Ironic coming from a paper that thrives on indignation and grievances but never, in reality, either fights its corner or gets a result

 

[editor]

Ironic coming from a paper that thrives on indignation and grievances but never, in reality, either fights its corner or gets a result

And that is pretty much a text book example of the ad hominem fallacy being employed.

 

[BobDavis]

Ironic coming from a paper that thrives on indignation and grievances but never, in reality, either fights its corner or gets a result

Yes I liked that article. I think Rafael Behr is one of their better writers. It suggests the UK right wing plan to stay in power involves pushing the narrative of the plucky little underdog UK permanently at war with the big bully EU. If Labour then try to push the line that closer ties with the EU maybe rejoining the customs union/single market will bring jobs & better opportunities the right can then counter that as unpatriotic.

It does show what Labour is up against here. To me it is pointless them pushing any sort of pro EU agenda. They need to concentrate on showing how they will improve social & public services & provide affordable housing. It will be helped along if by the next ge the Tories have completely failed to deliver on any of their promises.

 

[The39thStep]

Yes I liked that article. I think Rafael Behr is one of their better writers. It suggests the UK right wing plan to stay in power involves pushing the narrative of the plucky little underdog UK permanently at war with the big bully EU. If Labour then try to push the line that closer ties with the EU maybe rejoining the customs union/single market will bring jobs & better opportunities the right can then counter that as unpatriotic.

It does show what Labour is up against here. To me it is pointless them pushing any sort of pro EU agenda. They need to concentrate on showing how they will improve social & public services & provide affordable housing. It will be helped along if by the next ge the Tories have completely failed to deliver on any of their promises.

I agree, that's what some of the article's narrative is. Johnson and the Tories will want to push the getting Brexit done against all odds not just the EU but the attempts by Labour and the Liberals to stop Brexit. I imagine they will also push getting the vaccine done. The more rigid the EU is the more they are portrayed as the problem rather than the deal or Brexit itself. On the ultra remain side, the narrative of life outside the EU won't be worth living, and I told you so won't cut it. As you say the debate has to shift to what sort of post Brexit Britain is possible and to hold the Tories to account over the economy.The Guardian might possibly have some comments on the latter but will contribute absolutely nothing to the former.

 

[philosophical]

I agree, that's what some of the article's narrative is. Johnson and the Tories will want to push the getting Brexit done against all odds not just the EU but the attempts by Labour and the Liberals to stop Brexit. I imagine they will also push getting the vaccine done. The more rigid the EU is the more they are portrayed as the problem rather than the deal or Brexit itself. On the ultra remain side, the narrative of life outside the EU won't be worth living, and I told you so won't cut it. As you say the debate has to shift to what sort of post Brexit Britain is possible and to hold the Tories to account over the economy.The Guardian might possibly have some comments on the latter but will contribute absolutely nothing to the former.

Brexit as voted for is a long way from getting done.
Because it does not treat all parts of the UK equally, and no differentiation was suggested on the ballot paper.
Something has happened, but not brexit in terms of the whole country, nor 'leave' in terms of the land border between the UK and the EU.
You can presumably only have a post brexit Britain (do you mean the United Kingdom?) if you have brexit first.

 

[editor]

Looks like the Isle Of Man is off!

The Isle of Man's opt-out from UK's disastrous fishing agreement with EU

The London Economic - In 2019 Boris Johnson used Isle of Man kippers to claim the EU was behind 'pointless and damaging' red tape - News

www.thelondoneconomic.com