Worse than feared': Brexit to blame for 33bn loss to UK economy, study shows

[Emrys]

22. A lot of people on DU point the finger at Putin very readily.

Brexit was brewing for many years, and a lot of the propaganda was initially UK home-grown. You can trace it back to Boris Johnson, who as a "journalist", discovered that he could please his RW bosses and readership by making up ridiculous stories about EU legislation, or twist how that legislation was presented.

Another important factor was US interference from the Mercers and their allies.

Putin and the Mercers were pushing at an open door by the time the crunch came.

As someone who's been very active in the peace movement in my past and who's moved in lefty circles in the UK, I'm afraid a lot of the more vocal "pacifist", "left-wing" world view tends to be (over-)critical of US and NATO influence in world affairs and blind, sometimes wilfully so, to the conduct and motivations of other state actors, like Russia. Back in the 1980s, we used to be accused of being useful idiots for the Soviet Union and in its pay, when for most of us, that was far from true. So I'm reluctant to buy wholesale into focusing on those influences and motivations nowadays. Our problems in these respects are homegrown. If we solely blame other outside parties for them, we have less scope for countering them.