This'll be our last chance for another forty years to give them all a good kick up the arse.
It is highly unlikely that we would actually leave the EU, even in the event of a largish majority for Brexit, that's not the point, is it?
The point is to shake them up a bit/a lot and give our pol's a stronger hand when they go back to Brussels to do some serious re-negotiation of how the EU is supposed to work, not just on behalf of the UK but on behalf of all those countries who are getting a far worse deal than we are, maybe they'd have the nerve to speak up this time.
Game Over
1 hour ago
14 comments:
Very shortly I shall be going to vote Mark, not to give Quisling Cameroon a kick up the backside, nor to strengthen any possible horse trading done behind closed doors in Bruxelles.
I'm going to vote to get my country back for my children and grand children's futures.
A future of hope, opportunities and one they can be proud to be a part of. One where they can look the rest of the world in the eye and say: "I'm proud to be British'.
Its highly dangerous to vote leave just to start some meaningful re-negotiations over the EU's terms of association when the negotiations will be led on our side by the usual Oxford Union megalomaniac riff-raff with no coherent mandate.
A sad shadow was cast yesterday by the publication of the demands of the Socialists outers who continue to plug away at the original objections to the stated aims of the grimly right-wing European project, :privatisation; the ban on state aid and renationalisation ;the EU's elimination of collective bargaining ; the deregulation of employment contracts including zero-hours contracts; anti strike and anti trade union policy; Austerity "a foundation stone of the EU": the policy of "fiscal responsibility"; TTIP.I wonder the Tories are not in love with the EU.
There is zero chance of the above socialist agenda appearing in any renegotiation-let alone Land Value Tax which is effectively non-partisan.
An Out vote will just strengthen the hand of Farage and the anti freedom of movement rabble: who are basically out of place in a free trade area and the modern world.
Dunno if anybody saw the TV documentary about Stockwell Bus garage: an incredible mix of cultures assembled on Adam Smith lines, which worked perfectly , though the Ashanti chieftain bus driver had to go when he crashed once too often!
Oh mr DBRC you do get yourself in logical confusions.
Para 1. There is no way of knowing today who will lead the renegotiation if we vote leave. And just because someone's been to Oxford does not automatically make them suspect. But I agree that Dave and George are not to be trusted. But they would be hamstrung by the mandate and the Cabinet.
Para 2. That isn't quite accurate but I understand the sentiment. The EU is crony corporatist central planning bureaucrat led rule making mess. Al those regulations stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of 'capitalism' (which they don't like anyway. I also agree that the left have an excellent objection to the EU as to its lack of democratic accountability. (Benn?) So why the merry fuck did Corbyn go with remain?
Para 3 Agreed and you know that is why I voted Out.
Para 4. That is just your prejudice. Farage is patently NOT anti freedom. Just the opposite in fact. BUt I know you won'y agree with his self professed classical liberal leanings.
Para 5. I didn't see it. It's not unique. My Grammar school had a complete mix of races and creeds, and we all go on fine. I worked in a design office with just as many different cultures and races (and spent a lot of my time keeping the two opposing credo Sri Lankan's from killing each other.)
@L
P1 If the vote is leave, any negotiations will be led by Cameron unless the fabulous bollock brothers get him out tout de suite.
P2 The EU is dyed-in-the-wool anti-union and anti state ownership.This is why I voted Out before and also for Bob Crowe's No2EU political party in a general election.(Can't remember any support for that party on here). I am voting remain because the leavers are so right-wing and anti immigrant.As footballer John Barnes wrote in the Guardian today, there would be no immigrant undercutting of wages if the minimum wage was high.
Para 3 Right. But support for LVT didn't feature in the Leave manifesto and will not suddenly appear in any negotiating mandate of theirs.
Para4 Anybody who tries to whip up anti immigrant feeling in a free trade area with mobility of labour is anti-freedom per se.
Para5 Yes we've all worked in harmonious mixed culture work places, environments we might rightly be a little proud of. We have seen a noxious concentration on immigration in this referendum all coming from the usual class warriors (in Britain): the right.
DBC Reed ,
It's not just about immigrants undercutting wages , it is about uncontrolled immigration consigning less able British workers to a lifetime of unemployment and the devastating effect it has on their families .
If you are an employer , say a hotelier , who are you going to choose , an old tired out less able Briton or a younger , fresher , vastly over qualified better educated person from elsewhere ?
This is not hypothetical . I've got family members who have been affected by this .
DBCR.
Para 1. Even if Cameron lead an out negotiations he would hamstrung by his cabinet and parliament.
Para 2. It doesn't state ownership. It uses regulationism as a proxy for nationalisation. Re immigration - it's not anti-immigrant per se, it's anti immigration control.
Para 3. Yes, but you and I have agreed that the EU has even less commitment to LVT and that getting back power and control makes it more likely. In passing I have noticed an uptick locally in understanding why business rates should be charged to landlords, not businesses).
Para 4. No. It's remain who have tried - successfully - to portray out as anti freedom and immigration. Outers are not anti immigrant per se and therefore not anti freedom per se.
Para 5. Nope, it's the left that have been mostly anti immigrant. Or rather the anti-immigrant left and right have the same philosophy.
@L
Well done.You have got the older lumpenproletariat to vote anti-immigration (in a free trade area) under the pressure of thumbscrew Austerity coming from the Tories. Straight out of the 1930's playbook.You and Mark ,who believes anti-immigration votes support his personal negotiating stance in Europe for economic reform (!!), should be ashamed of yourselves.
NB the older lumpens are core homeownerist: retired or about to retire and seeing their source wealth in house prices not work in profitable enterprises which all the young support.You should stop calling this blog the Young People's Party as the young are anxious to be part of a large free trade area.
DBC Reed,
'lumpenproletariat' mmmmmm, Gorden Brown type hatred of a detached and foolish Labour elite. These lumpen folks who have had a good look at the paties over the last 40 years have 4 or 5 elections left in them. If Labour cannot understand, the party will be long gone before these lumpens are. Or to put it another way: The electorate may well be lumpen longer tha Labour is politically solvent.I am sorry Corbyn got on the wrong side of this after years of accepting a Bennite democratic position. His first test in my eyes and his first blunder. Talking of blunders and how many of those you get in a battle.....
Message to Paul Mason, there you go history didn't wait for your prepared battle on the grounds of your choosing, it hardly ever does,but you have a principled exit nevertheless. Surely the whole lesson of Yanis Varoufakis was the most able man ever to sit at the EU high table, had no cards/mandate to play, as no party in Greece would get a leave vote in a referendum.Thank God it didn't come to that for us.
MW Yes I voted for a another referendum vote in a years time in your poll.
@L
"Outers are not anti -immigrant per se".This is precisely what they are. Look at some of the local votes: Fenland 70% plus leave . This is an area which has depended on migrant labour since they drained it and planted out crops that only had to be tended to/ picked by mass labour once a year.Cambridge(not far away) solid Remain: modern highly skilled industry with international connections.
Congratulations: you have fucked Britain's wartime reputation
for sacrificing itself that all might be free by roaring on a bunch of older Homeownerists who leave a free trade area because they don't like the free movement of labour; want a "points" system (while no doubt screaming about State bureaucracy.)
The EU could easily go for us on righteous grounds of our being anti economic freedom, anti productive industry and anti young who want to work in a free market.
You have tried to ride an anti- immigrant tiger.
An EU referendum called by a delusional party that wanted to discipline pro UKIP loonies in its ranks was never going to address the real issues.
DBC, you are making totally irrelevant diagonal comparisons.
Yes, a lot of Brexit voters were racists, NIMBYs and Home-Owner-Ists, so what? Many of them also support the England football team. Should I stop rooting for England because I know they are too?
The choice was not between Georgism and Home-Owner-Ism.
The choice was between EU and not-EU. The EU is itself fairly corporatist and anti-Georgist. Not-EU is not anything in particular.
If the choice had been "Remain in the EU and adopt Georgism vc Leave the EU and persist with Home-Owner-Ism" then obis I would have voted Remain.
BUT THAT WAS NOT THE CHOICE.
Please do not waste your time and ours with diagonal comparisons, so beloved of the Home-Owner-Ists, you should be above that sort of thing.
DBCR, beliefs are not responsible for the people who believe in them. If they were, no decent person could believe in anything, because there would always be some vile specimen of humanity that believed in the same thing. Why am I having to point this out to you?
MrReed,
You really need to look at Paul Mason, 'Britain is not a rainy, fascist island – here’s my plan for ProgExit'
He even mentions your Fenlands! This is my third and final invitation to discuss the substance from a sound left perspective with you.
ps I have seen the term, Lumpenprols three times this week, once from you and twice on Guardian threads. My understanding was that Marx meant criminals and thugs. And why invoke it anyway?
@MW
My original reply to MW has not appeared. In brief, I said that Mark started off this discussion with the announcement was that the task was to provide our pols, presumeably some Tory splinter group, with good arguments for the next stage of Brexit negotiations.I replied that brandishing the fact that the British electorate would not, under any circumstance allow the free movement of European labour was not a good argument.
I also made rude remarks about his former real politik statement that the lowest common denominators in the electorate could not understand our sophisticated economic arguments and may as well be herded into the polling stations fired up with anti-immigrant abuse.
@MW
Philip Hammond, of all people, came nearest talking sense when he said on Peston today, that our negotiators will have to do a trade- off between our wish to trade in the Single European market and how much freedom of movement they will allow. My feeling is that the EU side will say Fuck off: freedom of movement to find work is indivisible.
Some of the frankly fascist statements being made on here would indicate that such a trade-off is not going to be negotiable.
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