Remember the Brexit as the moment when xenophobia won

[sufrommich]

Rarely does a single, arbitrary action instantly cause world history to shift in dramatic material ways that affect a large part of the world’s population. The June 28, 1914, gunshot in Sarajevo. The November 9, 1989, breaching of the Berlin Wall. We have now lived through another such moment: The June 23, 2016, referendum in the United Kingdom.

Even if the worst does not occur – even if the full consequences of Thursday’s vote do not extend to a collapse of the British union and further damage to the European Union – it marks a historic rupture of great significance.

It marks the end of the postwar consensus that held that democratic solidarity and free movement is the way to avoid military conflict and anti-democratic extremism. It marks the isolation of Europe’s second-largest economy from its main market. It marks a collapse of leadership in both major British political parties. It means that the only real issue in British politics for many years will be the struggle to reconstitute what once existed.

And, most significantly for the rest of the world, it marks the first time that the xenophobic politics of the far right have managed to win a majority national vote in a major Western country.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/remember-the-brexit-as-the-moment-when-xenophobia-won/article30609024/

[pipoman]

1. Or is it a vote for self preservation and a vote against the elites?

[Denzil_DC]

2. "vote against the elites?"

Who on earth do you imagine the UK's going to have negotiating the terms of the exit? Joe Bloggs from down the pub?

[pipoman]

4. I envision it like the elite scam on the populace that NAFTA and GATT are...

I may be wrong as I am no expert on EU....

[Denzil_DC]

9. Well, I don't want to start a pile-on,

but the UK practically invented "the elites" and pioneered neoliberalism's experiments in their modern form, including an ultra-enthusiastic doctrinaire embrace of austerity that's only gotten more urgent in the last few years and has nothing to do with the EU and a lot to do with the fact that pretty much all Thatcher left us as a major world industry was financial services.

This vote will do nothing to improve matters. It's likely to make it a lot worse as our elites flounder to figure out what the hell they're doing.

[uponit7771]

12. lol..+1

[Surya Gayatri]

27. ^^^This!^^^ And, why not Joe Bloggs? Bwaahaaaaa!

[Denzil_DC]

34. Well, actually, you have a point.

I mean, Gove?!!

I wouldn't trust him to negotiate a roundabout.

[Surya Gayatri]

37. Or, Farage, fer crissakes...he's got a mouth like a flap on a goose's butt.

[Denzil_DC]

48. Where do we stop?

Boris?!!

The negotiations would be like a scene from 'All 'Allo. His aides (poor bastards) would have to gag him to prevent him causing a major international incident.

[Surya Gayatri]

49. Gee, who does that remind me of? Hum...

Heaven guard the UK if Boris "the Trump" becomes Prime Minister.

[TubbersUK]

5. A vote against the elites ? Self Preservation?

The UK Conservatives (and some of the most rabid ones that Eton has produced ) are in charge of what happens next.

[sufrommich]

6. "vote for self preservation":yes,that's the dog whistle they used.

They "voted for self preservation" the same way southern whites did in the 60s. They also voted to replace "the elites" with a new,racist set of far right elites.

[pipoman]

8. If it is like NAFTA in the UK,

It would be voted down by the working class here.. perhaps couched as a repug thing by certain Dems, but infact the hatred of these agreements are blue collar and traditionally liberal....the labor party is dead in the US...

Again, perhaps I need to educate myself on the EU...I liken it to the fucked up NAFTA of Europe...it may be a wrong characterization...

[sufrommich]

11. The UK is a small island that relies on imports,already there

are signs that the price of clothing and food prices are going to rise dramatically.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/25/brexit-raise-cost-of-clothing-and-food-warns-next-boss



It's got nothing to do with trade as Britain benefits from open trade policies in the EU,it's a group of older,rural voters hoping Brexit stops foreigners from immigrating to the UK no matter how much damage they do to themselves to get it.

[pipoman]

15. I haven't followed it....I am vehemently opposed to our unfair trade agreements

I will try to read up on it...

[Odin2005]

69. Europeans nationalists seem to think that their cute little countries still rule the world.

They have a rude awakening in store.

[Winston.Smith]

73. You know what might happen. England might start having tariffs on imported items.

Because a shirt is now 10 pounds and it goes up to 20 pounds. I would think that some enterprising Brits might start making shirts themselves and selling them.

[sufrommich]

77. Does the UK grow cotton? If not you're talking about slapping tariffs

on the world's largest cotton exporters. Other than maybe wool,what material would come from within the UK? The second largest exporter in the world is the EU,you've just removed yourselves from that pool.

[PaulaFarrell]

28. It's nothing like NAFTA

Removal of trade barriers is only a part of it. Have a look at this to se what being part of the EU entails:

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/policy/conditions-membership/chapters-of-the-acquis/index_en.htm

[pipoman]

45. I will read this later...thx

[Surya Gayatri]

32. "Save Britian by fearing the 'ferriners'"...that was the high-pitched whistle heard

in England's housing estates and high streets.

Zenophobia has a long, shameful history in GB.

[pampango]

10. Rejecting the EU with worker and environmental protections for a Conservative government

that will protect neither hardly seem like an effective protest against the elites. The Leave campaign focused on immigration, not the elites, hence the success of xenophobia.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. LOL. No.

Have you any clue who was leading the "Leave" campaign? Privately educated former commodities broker (Nigel Farage) and Eton & Oxford educated journalist-cum-politician Boris Johnson, both of whom are "elites".

[yardwork]

20. Which elites?

[Stinky The Clown]

24. Wow, you might want to rethink that ignorant, uninformed, right wing crap.

That's part of the very argument the British HARD RIGHT used to sell this pile of shit.

Do a little research.

[leveymg]

36. A coopted revolt by a misguided and ill-informed public. All politics are misdirected by elites.

Even opposition politics in RW-controlled regimes accepts the basic premise of legitimacy of the choices provided. Your vote has already been commodified, and elections are trading floors. No mass movement is ever against elites, and no vote will ever overthrow the system.

Might as well believe a retail purchase is an act against corporations, banks and money.

[Odin2005]

65. "Self-preservation", nice racial dog-whistle there.

[TubbersUK]

3. Thanks for posting:

Here's an example of the RW propaganda that the author refers to:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants

[sufrommich]

7. Yep,anyone trying to paint this as a positive vote

is full of shit.

[sufrommich]

16. This is the exact same argument made by every racist in

the U.S. about every immigrant group that's ever settled here. The majority of voters who voted to leave the EU are from parts of the UK with the least amount of immigrants,how do you explain that? It's like Oklahoma passing laws to stop Sharia law from being practiced,it's pure,raw ethnic hysteria.

[Denzil_DC]

22. "Bursting at the seams"? LOL

Have you ever even been to the UK?

Jeez.

And forgive me, I'm not convinced you're here for rational discussion.

If I'm wrong and you last her more than the next thirty minutes, rather than leaving me looking like a lemon conversing with a Name Removed, I'll maybe revise that opinion.

[Denzil_DC]

31. Oh, you've visited, have you?

I've actually lived in the UK all my too long life, so I'm not about to take lectures from you about it or what's been happening here recently.

[Denzil_DC]

41. Oh, Christ. Are you a parody troll, or just a plain old hobby troll?

Either way, you're rubbish at it.

Listen real hard, you rude, patronizing little know-all git: You know absolutely nothing about me or my background or status in life, and you're making some pretty outlandish assumptions about me on no evidence at all. Not that you seem like someone who's acquainted with the idea of evidence. For somebody who squeaked above at somebody else for supposedly "deflecting", you seem to major in it.

That fucking majority is at least 48% of the population, bud. Suck it up. We're still here, and we're not buckling under.

I'll say bye bye now, to avoid talking to a Name Removed in a few minutes' time. That's happened a few times over past couple of days. It's like somebody opened to gates to Neocon Towers and unleashed a swarm of keyboard warriors.

[Denzil_DC]

43. "I'll say bye bye now, to avoid talking to a Name Removed in a few minutes' time."

Aw crap.

LOL.

[Denzil_DC]

19. Then it's just too fucking bad

that AFTER the votes were cast, the Leave leadership acknowledged that Brexit will not reduce immigration, isn't it?

The scapegoating of immigrants worked, smoke and mirrors and the worst sort of populism, promoted by a sozzled ex-public school-educated son of an alcoholic stockbroker who, having been identified as a plain old fascist while at school, made himself very wealthy as a commodity broker, then took up a lucrative hobby as a very well-paid demagogue pretending to have the interests of the common man at heart.

[Denzil_DC]

29. I'm being absolutely entirely serious.

And you're not going to get off on the right foot here by patronizing people like that, so I suggest you cut it out.

I didn't even get on to Boris Johnson or any of the other leading lights in Leave, I was clearly talking about Farage. Johnson has a few more strings to his bow than Farage. Johnson will only demagogue intermittently when it suits his purposes, then he'll do or say something really stupid to distract people and add to the myth that he's a harmless buffoon.

YOU be serious, and YOU stop trying to deflect.

I just pointed out that the Leave leadership acknowledges that Brexit won't address the immigration issue.

I too have eyes and can see what's going on around me.

At the moment I'm looking at some anonymous online entity who's popped up here having apparently swallowed the Leave propaganda wholesale and now wants to play a part in promoting it, and seemingly thinks it's condescending to report what I've witnessed only too fucking clearly when I say that Leave scapegoated the EU and immigrants for failings that are entirely the responsiblility of the UK government and the way the country's been run for the last forty years or so.

Leaving the EU won't cure that disaffection or the root causes for it once the initial euphoria's worn off. Then what?

Be sure and be serious, now.

[Surya Gayatri]

42. Thanks for calling out that codswallop for what it was.

8-post wonder.

[Denzil_DC]

44. I can barely type for laughing! n/t

[Surya Gayatri]

50. Yeah, "recently been to Lincoln"..."have family there"...yada, yada, yada.

[Denzil_DC]

52. Claimed to have "met people like me"

If true, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall!

[Her Sister]

14. Making Britain Great/White Again!

Hoooahhh!

..................................................s.a.r.c.a.s.m.............................

[Teamster Jeff]

18. Blame xenophobia or stupidity. It's fun and easy!

But plenty seemed to vote against a system that simply did not work for them.

Less jobs. Less pay. Lower living standards. Less Housing options. Longer hospital waiting lists.

You know, typical NeoLib results.

[sufrommich]

25. And yet working aged people ages 18 to 49 voted overwhelmingly to stay

in the EU because it benefited them e economically:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/Brexit_vote_put_young_people_against_geezers_and_the_geezers_won.html

The ability to freely move to jobs throughout Europe was a benefit to working aged people. The leave vote was lopsided with older people who named immigration as their main reason for voting. It has nothing to do with economics.

[Teamster Jeff]

40. How do you figure that the ability to move to jobs across the EU has nothing to do with economics?

They same reason people need to move to find jobs is the same reason many voted to leave. Lack of good jobs at home.

Lack of good jobs and lower living standards are what opened the door for the right wing racists to get anyone to listen to their message of blaming the EU for all the problems with the economy

[muriel_volestrangler]

82. The Leave votes only dominate in the over 50s group

Very few of them are the people either competing with people coming from elsewhere in the EU to Britain for jobs, or thinking of going elsewhere for jobs. A lot of them are already retired. It's the presence of foreigners they're objecting to, typically.

[Surya Gayatri]

47. And, you can hear interviews of the over-50 crowd proclaiming that

"WE'RE the ones who worked to build this country and get what we have."

"It was time to take OUR country back." (verbatim)

[DonCoquixote]

78. I am trying to ignore the devil on my shoulder

That whispers "Gee, it looks like the UK Baby Boomers did their best to screw the young again, pity they were the ones with the rock and roll and long hair who thought nothing of being conservative gits when they became the older generation To quote Pink Floyd, they went "I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack." Well that stack is going to shrink.

[Surya Gayatri]

79. This about sums it up:

To quote Pink Floyd, they went "I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack." Well that stack is going to shrink.

[DonCoquixote]

80. thank you

To be honest, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon might as well be the official soundtrack for this mess. "Us and Them", "Brain Damage", "Eclipse", "Money" all of them loaded with quotes that fit today like an English Leather glove.

"The lunatics are on the grass / got to keep the loonies on the path."

[Surya Gayatri]

81. Quintessentially British, the Pink Floyd. They knew their target audience all too well.

[Locrian]

39. beat me to it

Right or wrong - it's an indication of people fed up with the status quo. People are massively getting pissed off to the point of wanting to rock the boat regardless of, in spite of, or ignorant of the consequences.

Ignore them and belittle them - simplify it to xenophobia etc at your/our peril.

[LWolf]

33. No.

It's not that simple.

Xenophobia played a part, but there were other factors as well. Trying to dumb it down to a simplified "good vs evil" scenario simply isn't accurate. So I'll remember it for what it is: a tremor, and a crack, in business as usual and conventional wisdom, fueled by anger, frustration, and an unresponsive establishment.

[TubbersUK]

46. From what I saw on the ground

That anger and frustration was most/very frequently expressed in terms of immigration and its (perceived)negative impact on people's lives - an analysis which was pushed hard by the UKIP mouthpieces and their ilk.

[heaven05]

38. with the current

anti-brown people sentiment surging across this country and European countries I am saying white fear is palpable and only going to grow as POC assert our right to be treated as equals in the human family.

[PSPS]

51. That seems to be the "officially approved" interpretation, which is wrong, of course

DU is very cliquish and parrots what is said/promoted by whatever media is in favor at the moment. In this case, the "official DU-approved" interpretation of brexit is that it's xenophobia. While there's no doubt such feelings affected some people, the EU is/was doomed to failure because of what it is.

The UK has not been "part of the EU for 41 years," which the ill-informed media likes to say In fact, the EU hasn't existed for that long.

The predecessor to the EU was the EEU -- the European Economic Union. This was to integrate the economies of the member countries.

In 1993, this was morphed into what is now the EU which imposes a federal governing system on member countries. The problem with this is that the governing members in Brussels are not elected. This is a fatal flaw for any federal system. The real purpose of the EU is to adopt a race to the bottom which was quite in vogue in the 90's and still is within some circles.

Another silly thing people say is that the same "forces" behind brexit also drive the Trump movement. That's ridiculous. The Trump phenomenon is a product of the political right while the brexit motivation is a product of the political left. The motivations are polar opposites.

"Won't someone think of the banks?" This is probably one of the most hilarious canards you hear about the "terrible effects" of brexit. What's going to happen? Are "all the banks" going to close and move to France? Has London suddenly become useless as a financial center because it's out of the EU? Well, be sure to forward that memo to Hong Kong and Toronto and New York City. This will be news to them.

[cherokeeprogressive]

53. Excellent post.

Thank you. This should be its own OP.

[Denzil_DC]

59. Suggest Creative Speculation

It really is not an excellent post in the context of this thread or this forum.

[TubbersUK]

54. Brexit motivation- "a product of the political left"

Just no.

[Surya Gayatri]

56. Please make the effort to inform yourself. Making unfounded assertions is impolite to other DUers.

"The UK has not been "part of the EU for 41 years," which the ill-informed media likes to say In fact, the EU hasn't existed for that long."

Wrong. You need to read these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957.

In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community (EEC) and established a customs union. They also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958.

In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark (including Greenland, which later left the Community in 1985, following a dispute over fishing rights), Ireland, and the United Kingdom.[35] Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum. In 1979, the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held.

[sufrommich]

57. "the brexit motivation is a product of the political left"

That's just laughable. If "the political left" in the U.S. wants to embrace this steaming pile of shit,have at it.

[greatauntoftriplets]

61. And that's why Trump and Putin supported Brexit...or something.

I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading here. Great OP!

[Odin2005]

67. Come on, call us "sheeple", you know you want to!

[smirkymonkey]

74. +1000

[Zambero]

55. Indeed that's part of the picture

Proponents of "Leave" got to the polls in much larger numbers. Many of those in the "Remain" camp presumed a safe margin of victory and never bothered to vote. So the older voters who showed up in droves called Cameron's bluff big time. Much to be learned from this episode.

[iandhr]

58. Though no doubt xenophobia played a role in the Brexit campaign...

... it's important to note there is legitimate anger with the EU. I studied the EU for in Strasbourg. Most of the power is in the hands of people who are unelected.


It is a hard sell to a citizen of a democratic nation why unelected people should have that much power. The right successfully tapped into this frustration over a period of years. The left has to find a way to have answer for that kind of argument.

[GoneOffShore]

60. A relavant clip from Yes Minister

?t=1m47s

And the British Civil Service is unelected.

[iandhr]

62. I love Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minster.

Sir Humphrey is my favorite character.

[Denzil_DC]

63. "The left" in the UK lost the ability to counter that sort of missplaced blame

(the blame for the ills motivating most folks who would be subsceptible to leftist arguments) under New Labour and Blair.

I'm talking about blaming the EU (and immigration) for the most pressing ills that people are complaining about in their everyday lives, when it's the policies of successive UK governments, including Labour itself in more recent times, that are the primary causes.

They disrespected, ignored and effectively dismantled a local infrastructure in the Constituency Labour Parties that was embedded in communities, because they thought it was less troublesome to rely on more "modern" methods of communicating with and attracting voters on those rare occasions when they could be bothered even thinking about voters - every four or five years when they needed to mobilize to keep them in power. (CLP's could be a major thorn in the side of the New Labour leadership because they brought unwelcome resolutions to conference and tended to weed out non-local right-wingers from standing as candidates, which meant that the leadership couldn't reward loyal apparatchiks by parachuting them into safe seats without a serious fight.)

The old CLPs were indigenous. They tied in with long-established initiatives like the Workers' Educational Association that would be able to help people explore and identify the political reasons behind the ills their communities were experiencing, and local union branches that had earned people's trust by being there for them when they needed them.

Once they as a result had to rely on the media for their main form of outreach, they had to suck up to it - so Blair courted the likes of Murdoch, and it skewed Labour's priorities and meant that policy became hostage to other agendas and messaging that could turn on a hairpin if Labour, on increasingly rare occasions, looked like it might do anything to seriously challenge the status quo and big business interests. It also led to a greater emphasis on fundraising because there were advertising and costly photo ops to fund that didn't come cheap, which along with the denigration of union funding meant that they needed to rely increasingly on rich sponsors from the business community.

They lost touch. They've reaped the whirlwind of that most notably in Scotland, but it applies everywhere. There's no way to rebuild that from scratch nowadays. There might be a chance to recoup some of it in a smaller way with the groundswell of popular support for Corbyn, but the PLP is suspicious of that for the very reasons I outlined above for why they turned away from the CLPs in the first place, and seems keen to alienate that new blood at the earliest opportunity.

So these local communities have to find their own fragmented sources of information elsewhere. And that's generally the mainstream media and the conventional wisdom of the pub and modern workplace and what their neighbours think etc.

And so here we are.

[Odin2005]

64. Europeans have 2 choices, to unify politically or to be the plaything of the Great Powers.

Looks like the Brits have chosen to be playthings.

[sufrommich]

71. How are they being bullied? Are there special rules for

brits that don't apply to the rest of the EU?

[Rex]

66. It was non-binding, Parliament can simply decide not to enforce the vote.

Stupid people vote against their own self interests all the time, just look at republican voters. They have 2 years to figure out how to get out of what they just did.

[ismnotwasm]

68. K&R

[jalan48]

76. Ugly things can happen when people start fighting over the scraps.

What is the number, 62? That's the number of individuals that have the combined wealth of half the people on the planet combined. Doesn't sound sustainable or fair to me.