UK EU Referendum Thoughts

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droid

droid

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
I'd be interested to see a source for that. Unless it's just one of those "everyone knows" statistics.
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My point was that there are social, economic and demographic consequences to an annual population growth rate of 400,000 that have nothing at all to do with race or culture.
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Immigration is high, but you have just inflated it by 25%. Net immigration to the UK was 313,000 last year and that is not a year on year rise either, its been averaging about 250,000 for the last 10 years. Net immigration to germany last year was also unusually high at about 1.1 million. Britain needs at least 150,000 a year. http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc123/index.html

Why are you pushing inflated immigration figures?

People need houses to live in, jobs to do and schools for their kids whatever their religion, native language or skin colour. (Of course, there are issues associated with culture as well, but they're certainly secondary to the main issues of population to anyone who isn't tub-thumping for one side or the other.) The Right insists on seeing everything through the lens of culture (or, in the case of the far Right, race per se) and the Left is only too happy to oblige them by insisting that there is no non-racist reason to object to the orthodoxy that all immigration is good and more immigration is better.

And please, for heaven's sake, I did not say "it's all the Left's fault", I said the Left bears *some* of the blame.
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This is a panoply of straw men, distortion & fallacy. I never said you said that. I was simply wondering why you're using egregious examples of right wing racism and the actual fascist murder of a pro-immigration left wing politician to make a bizarre attack on the left.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm still pretty confused over which way to vote, but I think I'm going to go for remain because I distrust and, indeed, hate most of the prominent spokespeople for Brexit and I think that leaving the EU will empower the nationalist/free market agenda of Farage et al.

If anyone can convince me otherwise I'd be happy to hear it.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Show solidarity with Greece, vote remain:

greece.greekreporter.com/2016/05/24/new-polls-show-majority-of-greeks-against-brexit/
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Update: now veering towards abstaining, like a wanker.

This piece on why "Lexit" is a pipedream is pretty good and includes a bunch of other good looking links at the end:

 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
I'm still pretty confused over which way to vote, but I think I'm going to go for remain because I distrust and, indeed, hate most of the prominent spokespeople for Brexit
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i think that's as good a reason as any. and i'd completely agree with you.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
john eden said:
Update: now veering towards abstaining, like a wanker.

This piece on why "Lexit" is a pipedream is pretty good and includes a bunch of other good looking links at the end:

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This bit makes a lot of sense to me:

I’m more willing to gamble on a left-wing government winning left-wing reforms, or holding a left-wing referendum if that fails, than I am gambling that the Tories don’t do too much damage before they are replaced.
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Particularly given that history suggests that the British electorate tend to be fairly quick to buy the right-wing "tough medicine" line in hard times, and hard times are pretty much guaranteed to be what we'll be looking at on the back of leaving.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Re the Droid / Tea "right wing immigration dogwhistle campaigning tactics" controversy - surely the question of who's to blame is separate from the question of what if anything the left (or, to take a broader view, any people who aren't utterly despicable) could be doing better to fight those tactics? And once you've answered the first, the second is the one that gets stuff done.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Lefties this is for you:

If you abstain or vote leave you are actively mandating and participating in:

Taking money away from the poor.

www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/brexit-and-low-income-families#.V2j9V5MrIzb

Taking away workers rights

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2016/05/10-top-brexiteers-explain-theyre-danger-rights-work/


http://strongerunions.org/2016/02/25/10-workers-rights-brexit-would-risk/

Taking money out of the NHS and other public services.

www.ifs.org.uk/about/blog/346

Due to the sheer amount of legislation that will need to be passed after we leave, the Tory government will have powers to do so without going through parliament.

It was appalling how Greece was treated, yet the majority of Greeks still want us to remain. Moreover, what difference will it make if we leave.

greece.greekreporter.com/2016/05/24/new-polls-show-majority-of-greeks-against-brexit/

A brexit will provide a morale boost to the far right not only in the UK, but across Europe.

On the remain side you have Chomsky.

On the leave side you have Farage, Trump and Murdoch.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Plus I really think we need to stop all this teenage "a vote for Remain is a vote for Jo Fox, a vote for Leave is a vote for Thomas Mair" moralising.

Or at least admit that a vote for Remain is a vote for Cameron, etc.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
john eden said:
Plus I really think we need to stop all this teenage "a vote for Remain is a vote for Jo Fox, a vote for Leave is a vote for Thomas Mair" moralising.

Or at least admit that a vote for Remain is a vote for Cameron, etc.
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I was being tongue in cheek with that stuff.

The TUC back remain.

The more important point is that the people who the left try to protect will be worse off with a leave and the people the left oppose will be better off with a leave.

It's all well and good being an armchair revolutionary but there are real people whose lives will be worse if Britain leaves the EU.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
sadmanbarty said:
I was being tongue in cheek with that stuff.

The TUC back remain.

The more important point is that the people who the left try to protect will be worse off with a leave and the people the left oppose will be better off with a leave.

It's all well and good being an armchair revolutionary but there are real people whose lives will be worse if Britain leaves the EU.
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And they will be worse off if we stay in the EU, though perhaps not quite as much.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
The quandary for the left is that a leave victory is also a victory for the worst excesses of racism, the right and actual fascism, whereas a victory for remain is a victory for anti-democratic monolithic neoliberalism (though this is probably also true for leave).

I think if I was in the UK Id probably hold my nose and vote to stay.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
john eden said:
And they will be worse off if we stay in the EU, though perhaps not quite as much.
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There's the cuts in tax credits I posted above.

With the post-brexit economic downturn (which is almost guaranteed), the poor will be disproportionately effected, as they were from the recession and austerity.

Cuts in public services (the ifs thing i posted before) will likely lead to job losses and pay cuts (as well as those services being worse).

Then there's the workers rights being taken away or reduced as well.

The poor will be disproportionately effected by all these things.

All in all, with the choice between these two evils, I think leaving is significantly worse than remaining.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Nobody is able to offer an improved standard of living to ordinary people though, are they?

It is all about damage limitation.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
droid said:
The quandary for the left is that a leave victory is also a victory for the worst excesses of racism, the right and actual fascism, whereas a victory for remain is a victory for anti-democratic monolithic neoliberalism (though this is probably also true for leave).
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I'd see staying in the EU as having pros and cons - you just have to look at the reasons that right wingers complain about it to see that we're a long way ahead of where we would be without it in terms of environmental protection, labour law and human rights law - whereas leaving is all cons and no pro.

I don't see the argument that the EU is inherently anti-democratic and neoliberal, though. Just that it reflects the current neoliberal orthodoxy across it's main players (UK, France, Germany). Again, I'd like to see the UK develop a left-wing consensus and elect a government who'd actually try to change things here and abroad before complaining that the EU are forcing neoliberalism on us.
 
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