Can anyone who voted to leave give me one good reason why the result should stand?!?
I have been saying for months that the result was achieved illegally. The phrase criminal conspiracy comes to mind.
Brexit referendum was corruptly won
Tactical choices
I agree with Tom Quinn’s analysis in The Conversation about the Independent Group, their “likely endpoint is another merger” with the other centrists party, the Liberal Democrats. In the same way as the SDP merged with the Liberal Party in the 1980’s, it’s the logical outcome of a binary political system.
I voted to remain, and Chuka Umunna is my MP, so theoretically I should vote for his pro European platform, and return him to Parliament at the next election. I’m not sure I will. For me the only way forward is the solution offered by the Labour Party. We leave the European Union but maintain a strong trading partnership, that includes free movement, and regulation parity.
Labour and Corbyn have been criticised for their stand, accused of propping up right-wing Tories. I don’t think that’s what is happening. I think Corby is using our exit of the European Union as a way to further the manifesto promises of the last election.
I still think leaving the European Union is an act of social and economic madness, playing Russian roulette with five rounds in the six shot cylinder. The chances of us emerging alive on the other side are slim, but I am equally disturbed by the neoliberalism of European Union.
Two things come to mind when I think neoliberalism. The first is Thatcherism, a system of “dog in a manger” economics, obsessed with the vagaries of the market and privatisation, and a property owning democracy that either revels in Boomtown, or sleeps rough when the economy hits the skids.
The second thing that comes to mind is something said by Ken Loach. The European Union is a club for bosses. It may offer workers rights, minimum safety standards for consumer goods, free movement of goods, services, and of course workers, but all of those benefits are designed as much to enrich the wealth of the bosses, as mollify its citizens
Given a choice between a revolver with five rounds in the chamber, and cheaper food, I’m going to choose cheaper food. But if our food is going to be more expensive, perhaps that can be offset by cheaper utility bills, and cheaper transportation, when those industries are nationalised under a Labour government.
Just a thought.
No Deal is a dangerous fantasy
The Brexiteers know the disasters we are facing, they just don’t care, and they don’t care because they have “faith”, faith that the grass is greener outside of the European Union, that we will prosper if only we have faith to stay the course.
There is one thing we should remember about people with faith, they’re unshakable in their convictions. You can not argue facts and figures with them until steam exhales from your ears, they have their “faith”, and their “faith” will see them through.
Brexiteers are fundamentalists, and like all fundamentalists, they would rather do something suicidal than admit what they believe is wrong. You can unpick the logic, offer mountains of evidence, but as soon as they say “I believe”, the argument is over. It’s over because evidence based thinking is heresy.
The problem from the start of this project, is that Remainers allowed the Brexiteers to frame the argument, and that argument was framed in the hyperbolic emotion of faith.
Labour must oppose Brexit
I agree with Paul Mason, “Brexit is a failed project”. Labour should “back a second referendum, and vote to remain”.
You can imagine the right-wing press’ response. Labour does a massive u-turn. Labour betrays the people. But the truth is, Labour has to step into the vacuum, and lead the country out of the mess caused by the Tories.
Brexit is cover for hard-right revolutionaries
I agree with Polly Toynbee’s assessment in The Guardian, and I find her conclusions deeply troubling.
Brexit is fast becoming (perhaps it has always been) a synonym for crisis capitalism. Anything that does not service the needs of the few will be ripped to shreds for profit. What is left is for the crows, and crows that will go hungry.
It is my opinion, this country will end up being a tax haven. Consequently anything funded by tax revenues will go. How long before we have favelas on Brixton Hill, a shanty towns in Hyde Park, or people dead because they can’t afford medicines?
Brexiteers only have themselves to blame for the UK’s disastrous fate
I agree with George Eaton in The New Statesman, Brexiteers only have themselves to blame for the UK’s disastrous fate.
The promises made my Leave were never deliverable, because their ambitions were never in the country’s interests. Leave’s ambition were entirely personal. They were motivated entirely by delusions, personal ambition, and greed. It’s what happens when you let the debating societies of public schools loose in the real world. They wreck the restaurant and get to walk away, what does it matter if someone else is paying?
Arron Banks’s firm and Leave.EU face £135k fines over data misuse
Please someone explain to me how, after this news, the “result” of the referendum can be allowed to stand?
It looks to me like the leave side cheated, enhancing their campaign like an athlete shooting steroids. An athletes caught cheating is stripped of their medal.
Why not the same for the leave campaign? At the very least there should be another referendum, another vote.
If you’re so sure you are right, and the people of this country really want to leave the European Union, have another vote. I dare you. I double-dare you.
You won’t because you know you’ll loose. You won by wilfully cheating. Where is your shame?
Workers’ rights at risk after Brexit
Another headline that says all you need to know about Brexit. Say it. Workers’ rights at risk. Workers’ rights at risk. Workers’ rights at risk. Now tell me how leaving the European Union is a good idea.
No future, and England’s dreaming
George Eaton’s assessment of our imminent crash out of the European Union its me in mind of a line from the Sex Pistols “God save the queen” that predicts “no future, And England’s dreaming”.
The rest of the John Lydon’s lyrics could’ve been about written for the occasion.
God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
A potential H bomb
God save the queen
She’s not a human being
and There’s no future
And England’s dreaming
Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future
No future
No future for you
God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves
God save the queen
‘Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid
Oh when there’s no future
How can there be sin
We’re the flowers
In the dustbin
We’re the poison
In your human machine
We’re the future
Your future
God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves
God save the queen
We mean it man
There’s no future
In England’s dreaming God save the queen
No future
No future
No future for you
No future
No future
No future for me
No future
No future
No future for you
Could Brexit shake neoliberalism
I broadly agree with Owen Jones’s piece in The Guardian, a centrist split could be a gift to hard-right strategists.
Both Labour and Conservative are mistakenly committed to honouring the result of the referendum. We keep being told we’re defiantly, absolutely, positively, leaving the European Union. The only difference is the way we exit.
The Labour leadership seems broadly in favour a soft exit. Maintain the benefits of the European Union, mainly frictionless trade and workers rights, without being a member.
Government Conservatives, under the Chequers plan want the same thing, maybe? It’s definitely softer than hard-right Conservatives. They want to drive us off a cliff-edge.
Within that context, the appeal of centrists would be their pro-remain stance. Presumably it would attract MP’s from both parties, and damage both extremes equally. Their remain stance would appeal to the growing number of voters, slowly beginning to realise, leaving the European Union is going to have some very damaging consequences.
For me, one of the most dangerous parts of the centrist stance is their enthusiasm for neoliberalism. It wants to return us to the pre-election, pre-crash, status quo, and there lies its weakness. True, crashing out of the European Union would be a mistake. The cost of living will climb, and climb, and climb, with no deal. So the centrist can argue, with conviction, remaining part of the European Union is the lesser of two evils.
The hard-right Conservative version of exit, promises crisis capitalism that would make all but the wealthiest poorer. Which makes the Labour leadership’s stance either incredibly astute or incredibly reckless.
Centrist are hoping threats of a split will drag the Labour leadership towards them. It won’t, because what I’ve realised, exiting the European Union isn’t just about leaving, it’s also about exiting neoliberalism.
For Labour exiting offers a chance to draw a line under the neoliberal project. I could be wrong, I probably am, but the psychological break with the European Union is a chance to move us towards a country run for the many not the few.
That’s the astute part. The reckless part is letting the hard-right crash us out. They will then ramp up the hostile nationalism, and allow the profiteers to thrive.
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