baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
this was a vote from the *white* working classes (majority of BME voters, most of whom are still working class, did not vote the same, not cos they love how things are, or its any better, but because to vote leave would be tantamount to a vote for UKIP, if not in name, than in ideology) to the rest of the country. nothing to do with the EU. and i dont really blame them.

I can agree with all of that (the working class has certainly been painted as monolithic this week across the media, as though non-white working class people were just an illusion), except the last part. This was a protest vote that will only end up hurt working class communities, and which shows a tacit acceptance of racist right-wing ideologies. I think that is something for which people absolutely can and should be held responsible, especially as there are obviously many, many white working class people who didn't vote to screw their own communities yet further, or to bolster racism and xenophobia.

Which is not to say that I don't understand the protest vote, because it's obviously understandable. It's just self-defeating and catering to fascism.
 
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vimothy

yurp
Dismissing and deriding the concerns of ordinary people is what led to the outcome of the referendum - and similar dynamics are still at play in most major European countries. The plebs may be uneducated, but many of them figured out how their betters regard them, and how they could be hurt. The "secret people" have proved willing and able to take Britain out of the EU to make their voices heard; perhaps, instead of this wishful thinking, it's time to start listening.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
I can agree with all of that (the working class has certainly been painted as monolithic this week across the media, as though non-white working class people were just an illusion), except the last part. This was a protest vote that will only end up hurt working class communities, and which shows a tacit acceptance of racist right-wing ideologies. I think that is something for which people absolutely can and should be held responsible, especially as there are obviously many, many white working class people who didn't vote to screw their own communities yet further, or to bolster racism and xenophobia.

Which is not to say that I don't understand the protest vote, because it's obviously understandable. It's just self-defeating and catering to fascism.

agreed.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
@ Vimothy - I don't know if that's aimed at my comment, but I agree with you anyways on the practical necessity of offering something better to those people who feel completely disenfranchised and that they have nothing left to lose (again, I don't see any mainstream figures other than Corbyn offering anything different in UK politics at present, hence my interest in seeing him stay). Absolutely, otherwise it's blatantly clear what will happen.

But it doesn't mean that I don't reserve the right to deride those who chose to align themselves with fascists, as well as with those who will rip apart their communities even further.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the referendum was basically a chance for people to be heard.
the problem was it only offered two options.
neither really expressed what people were angry about.
but they were options nonetheless.
and farrage, boris, gove, etc managed to exploit peoples base fears and instincts, and shoehorned them into what was going.

its basically like a more civilised addition to the london riots.

only problem is that now all that stuff is out in the open.

its a bit like ghostbusters, where all the evil spirits are let out of their vault.
except we have no political bil murray, dan ackroyd or harold ramis to get them back.

Can you explain exactly what you mean by 'bourgeois fantasist' here - I'm interested, as just throwing around vague insults that sound nice is no use to anyone. Especially at the moment.

the ilxor thread is better than this one and less about trying to sound clever lol.
about to make my dissexit.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Part of the problem is that people's suspicion of slick, professional Westminster politicians - as understandable and healthy as that suspicion is, in itself - has become so extreme as to become pathological. It's taken as a given that all politicians lie, about everything, all the time, to everyone. At least, all politicians in the slick, smooth, Blair/Cameron mould. In contrast to this, you have Farage and Johnson, all bluff and bluster and pints and fags and infidelity. Many people have been fooled into thinking that this guarantees some sort of integrity, or at least a bit more honesty than is found in the faceless Westminster clones.

And while Corbyn, with his beard and his charity shop suits, might look equally far removed, I think sadly it's probably true that many people outside London and a few other southern cities don't see him as sufficiently distinguished from his Tory opponents. For a lot of working-class people there's not really a meaningful distinction between middle-class and upper-class anyway. They're all just different flavours of posh. So if you're going to put your faith in one bunch of toffs rather than another, you might as well go with the guys who at least appear to share your concerns, or at any rate make a show of listening to them, and look like they might be fun to go to the pub with.

Comparisons to the Trump phenomenon are becoming a cliché at this point, but are warranted nonetheless.
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Rubberdingy,

To be honest, I’m totally in the 'cant they just see the error of their ways?!' mind frame.

I’d imagine there are loads of remainers who were ignorant of the issues, but the kind of vehement anti-intellectualism we’re seeing is coming overwhelmingly from the leavers:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck_v2uuWEAAxH3g.jpg

Hopefully the idea that ‘they’re all just as bad as each other’ will come under scrutiny given what’s happened in the past couple of days. Multiple promises are being broken by Leave, while the warnings of ‘project fear’ are coming to fruition.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Can you explain exactly what you mean by 'bourgeois fantasist' here - I'm interested

he's a very principled chap but, as is clearly in evidence, he and his party are not in touch with what should be their electorate. the british labour party was always more about methodism than marxism - and corbyn's socialist fantasies are (in the words of andy burnham) more to do with with hampstead than hull.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
he's a very principled chap but, as is clearly in evidence, he and his party are not in touch with what should be their electorate. the british labour party was always more about methodism than marxism - and corbyn's socialist fantasies are (in the words of andy burnham) more to do with with hampstead than hull.

But then what's to be done? Clearly, overwhelmingly many white working-class people in England and Wales, outside of London and a handful of university cities, are bitterly Euroskeptic, if not outright xenophobic. How can Labour 'connect with' this huge part of the electorate without simply becoming a notionally left-wing version of UKIP?

And how can it attempt to change the way people think about nationality and community without reinforcing the very privileged-Hampstead-intellectuals-lecturing-to-ignorant-lumpenproletariat-from-on-high narrative that's caused this alienation in the first place?

Edit: I realize that if you think Labour is finished as a useful force in British politics then I'm probably asking the wrong person, but hey.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
A deep chasm has opened up between Labour and their traditional working class base because of the failures of nationalised industries, the shock de-nationalisation of the Thatcher administrations, and globalisation. The main failure of New Labour was to both bow to this and try to embrace it, remodelling British society on service industries, the financial sector, niche industries like IT, and the progessive mores of the Labour movement. Meanwhile the de-industrialisated areas of the UK rotted and festered. The wave of EU migration exacerbated this, which was the fault of Labour governments (they did not put the same restrictions on EU migration that other wealthy EU states did) and the EU itself (the CAP destroyed Polish agriculture and the rationalisation of core industries badly damaged Polish industry, hence the huge unemployment problem Poland suddenly had).

Labour has never got to grips with this. It was never a question of indulging working class bigotry, which has always existed (nobody should fear pointing out the wave of trashy working class racism that Enoch Powell cultivated and then exploited; it is not patronising middle class preciousness to say it is there). But they have absolutely failed to address the reasons why this has become such a large tendency in working class communities, including many, many people who are not racist, and rightly object to being labelled so because they think EU migration should be controlled in some way (and even *if* they get that confused with rest of the world immigration).

It has got really toxic, and no Labour administration since the Big Bang accessencions has ever attempted to rationalise or even de-toxify it. And they abandoned industry in the UK, because they invested too much in niche industries that could never plug the hole in, say, Ebbw Vale, and because they paid too much heed to EU restrictions and laws that Germany, say, sidestepped or even ignored.

Edit: there was also a perfect storm of central incompetence within the parliamentary parties that led to this result. But, really, there is no question of denying the democratic mandate here. The petition for a second referendum is petulant folly.
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
lol. Yeah, thats clearly the most dangerous divide, not the divide between multicultural minorities and racist neo-fascist murdering thugs

yeah, deffo, dont know where anyone got that idea from.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...gland-and-wales?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Messages

this is the best article ive seen on immigration. the left have allowed the immigration debate to be run by the right, i.e let it run rampant, and let it become toxic.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/15/honest-debate-immigration
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
(and even *if* they get that confused with rest of the world immigration).

This is a particularly perverse aspect of the whole thing. Much of UKIP's appeal has been as a sort-of respectable alternative to the BNP and EDL, whose stock in trade is anti-Muslim bigotry. You only have to look at their disgraceful ads from the last few months. And you surely don't have to be a quinoa-munching Islingtonite to realize that Muslims are not, in appreciable numbers, coming to the UK from Poland.

And the fact that it would make good economic sense to limit immigration from outside the EU, and that any government, Labour, Tory or Coalition, could have done this at any time, EU or no EU.

Edit: When you say the UK did not put the same restrictions on EU immigration that other wealthy EU states did, what do you mean exactly? I thought anyone with citizenship of an EU country had the right to study, work and live in any other, and that for a government to prevent that would be illegal?
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Most of the EU states refused to allow rights of establishment for seven years; the UK and Ireland didn't. Which is why all the unemployed Poles came to Britain and Ireland. Most came to work, though, and contributed greatly; you rarely see a Pole come to Citizens Advice with a JSA appeal, it's usually an employment issue. But there is no doubt this stoked huge resentment in working class communities, whether rational, or justified, or not.

And the whole insane aspect of this debate is that rest of the world immigration to the UK is controlled; most of the issues with that have been down to the old UKBA and current Home Office incompetence and chaos, as well as punitive decisions. This had nothing to do with the EU and is common to most states on earth that don't have closed borders, aren't tyrannies or involved in wars. Sufi could explain all this better than anybody here.

The confusion of categories, and the inability of politicians who knew what they were talking about (including, despite her best efforts, Jo Cox) to effectively communicate this has been one of the great tragedies of this whole debacle.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
In 1980 there were 12 million people unionised and the working age population was 35 million.

Now there are 6 million workers unionised with a working-age population of 40 million.

I presume unions act as a kind of conduit between the 'intelligentsia' component of labour and the working class base. These declining numbers might explain the current discord between these two groups.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Absolutely. I'm the Unison rep at my job, and I can attest to the fact that the union leadership is fundamentally divorced from the workplace. Not mine, obviously, coz I'm a great rep, but in other places. And wider. Sure, they still do the basic stuff, but the main interest of Union leaders is their political importance. This is why you get crap like NUT spending massive amounts of time crafting statements on Palestine and holding teachers to ransome with fear of undefended abuse cases, rather than focusing on improving teachers' wages or protecting restrictions on working days or holidays.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Break the unions. Privatise public assets & housing. Deregulate financial and banking sectors. Impose varying forms of austerity. Allow media concentration & shift overton ever rightwards. Tear the post-war social democratic balance to pieces then demonise immigrants & blame foreigners for resulting drop in living standards.

Repeat until fascism or collapse - whichever comes first.
 
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