The Brexit Thread

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I'd throw academies in there, sticking to an absurdly low State share of the economy, allowing Income inequality to increase to near American levels, not building an enormous amount of public housing, and doing the square root of fuck all to reverse the effects of 18 years of Class and regional warfare under the tories. Instead throwing a bit more cash from the London Property Bubble and the City at assorted parts of the Uk to make them look a bit better without changing much.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here's the IFS on Labour's 2015 Manifesto.

Labour’s plans include some small net tax increases, and their commitments to increase certain areas of public spending are no bigger than the Conservatives. The big difference though is their much looser fiscal rule. If they can find £7½ billion of revenues from anti-avoidance measures, as they say they can, then they might need to find a mere £1 billion from further real cuts to unprotected departmental spending.

You know what would have cost more than £1bn? Holding a referendum in 2011 at peak Osborne, as supported by Corbyn. And leaving- as almost certainly supported by Corbyn too.

So there's more than one way of looking at this stuff.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Defined by whom? I'd like to see your working on this. Not that the term "centrist" is used as a badge of self-identification much anyway, mind. The people I think of as "centrist" are defined by a belief in the usefulness of the market as the main generator of most goods and services (outside of key public goods like health and edcuation as well as core state functions), combined with a commitment to a strong welfare state in terms of basic income, health and social care etc. The idea that those people would shift to the 1910s if lots of right wingers adopted the 1840s as the model is just a ludicrous slur.

Defined in terms of lots of politicians identified with the centre, then I can see where Berba's coming from.

But as you say, there's more than one "centre".

[Ginger Yellow]

Have you observed the trajectory of the Lib Dems over the last decade?

[Tubby Isaacs]

They were better in the last manifesto, in fairness. Shame the leader kept talking about sinful gay sex really.

[ursus arctos]

As EEG notes, the thing about “Centrist” is that it is rarely used by anyone to describe themselves politically.

There was a Centre Party in Germany before WWII, and there are a few small parties of that name in the Nordics, but it now tends to be a label sneeringly applied by people who disagree with whatever position is being discussed.

[Sporting]

Do you mean that there are few parties of any importance who use "centrist" or a variant of in their official name, or few parties who claim they occupy the centrist ground? I was thinking of Ciudadanos in Spain (who while claiming to be centrist, are actually PP-lite).

[Nefertiti2]

It's completely normal for the BBC's political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg to characterise the EU the democratic trade block (that the UK is still a member of) as an Empire.

The prime minister had a hint of warmth from some parts of the EU empire for the idea of drawing out the implementation period, to give more time to work out the long term fixes."

[Ginger Yellow]

As EEG notes, the thing about “Centrist” is that it is rarely used by anyone to describe themselves politically.

There was a Centre Party in Germany before WWII, and there are a few small parties of that name in the Nordics, but it now tends to be a label sneeringly applied by people who disagree with whatever position is being discussed.

ALDE may not explicitly call themselves the centrist group in the EP, but they're pretty smug about it anyway.

[ursus arctos]

I was focusing on parties’ official names and on how individuals tend to identify themselves politically.

I didn’t know that C’s do that, but perhaps there is another category where it is used to mislead.

[Diable Rouge]

Sure, those UK FTAs will be a doddle:

http://twitter.com/jurilaas/status/1053304705403764736

[Moonlight Shadow]

Interestingly, Switzerland main party is called 'The Swiss people party' in German but in French it is know as 'Centrist democratic union'....they are no centrists, rest assured, the German name says a bit more about their politics....

[Diable Rouge]

I was focusing on parties’ official names and on how individuals tend to identify themselves politically.

I didn’t know that C’s do that, but perhaps there is another category where it is used to mislead.

Similarly, Fianna Fáil are officially members of ALDE, but hard to classify them as liberal, either in the classic or social versions.

[ursus arctos]

Interestingly, Switzerland main party is called 'The Swiss people party' in German but in French it is know as 'Centrist democratic union'....they are no centrists, rest assured, the German name says a bit more about their politics....

This could well be a reflection of the fact that they don’t really consider le peuple to be part of das Volk.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

As EEG notes, the thing about “Centrist” is that it is rarely used by anyone to describe themselves politically.

There was a Centre Party in Germany before WWII, and there are a few small parties of that name in the Nordics, but it now tends to be a label sneeringly applied by people who disagree with whatever position is being discussed.

I use it to describe politicians who seek to seem reasonable and please everyone. Pathological people pleasers, who want to seem reasonable. Cunts like Tony Blair or Nick Clegg. People who cunt on about how you can have better public services, without increasing anyone's taxes, or doing anything to achieve particular aims. Cunts who try to please Rupert Murdoch even though he is set on destroying them. Cunts who think that they can combine being a party of the left, and a polite racist. The sort of left winger who is content to share out the crumbs of London being the global centre for tax evasion. People who get shafted from the left by people that can best be described as a befuddled part of the European centre right movement albeit in the grip of an identity crisis.

You know, disappointing Idiots.

[Nefertiti2]

It's completely normal for the BBC's political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg to characterise the EU the democratic trade block (that the UK is still a member of) as an Empire.

This got lost over the page- but I didn't want it to disappear entirely as we have a number of regular posters from parts of the EU Empire.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Cunts like Tony Blair or Nick Clegg. People who cunt on about how you can have better public services, without increasing anyone's taxes

Blair/Brown did raise taxes and spending though. They inherited tax at about 36% of GDP, and it went up to over 40% from 2005 onwards. Very different from the periods of growth under Thatcher and Major where that percentage plunged.

40% isn't all that high, but it was an achievement. The Tories were forced to promise the same level of spending.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Bild and their fellow travelers were definitely ready to go that route if Bruxelles hadn't "seen reason" over Greece and austerity.

Of the genuinely terrifying, yet unifying, aspects of the "populist wave" is realising that that noisy minority we were all aware of, but preferred to ignore, could assemble the support of 52% of the electorate (or, in our case, a somewhat larger majority of the Electoral College).

Terrifying but unsurprising. Move away from your Londons, Brightons, Oxbridges, Edinburghs, Bristols etc. and you quickly find that ignorance and indifference reign supreme (I suspect that goes for most countries if not all), ignorance about others, about immigration, about us EU migrants, why we came here and made our life here, about the EU economies etc.

I’ve lived and worked in "L’Angleterre profonde" for nearly three decades and, particularly in the last two, I (and people I know) have been hearing dubious or downright shocking comments on a regular basis, especially since Brexit. I knew it was going to be touch and go.

The cocktail was very potent: you had the Conservatives in England who’d been on ~40-45% since 2015, + a healthy Ukip vote (27% in the 2014 Europeans) + the Lexiters + youth apathy or depoliticised youth (call it what you will). I really had a bad feeling about the whole thing. In the months leading to the vote, my friends in London and the South kept telling me I was being overly pessimistic etc., I kept urging them to go out there in the regions and get a feel for the general mood. Unfortunately, I was right. I’m not even sure you need Farage and the Russians to get your 52% (although it helps to have them on board, with Banks & co), you just need tabloids to keep demonising the EU, foreigners and whip up nationalism (with the "three Is" mantra on a a loop – Identity, Islam, Immigration), + the sort of gimmicks below, and there you have it, your nice little Brexit delivered on a silver plate.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

It's not that the centre ground has disappeared in the UK. it's that a huge chunk of the UK media (Insert country name here) has gone full blown fascist and is churning out insane right wing propaganda. Take a look at the Telegraph website, and marvel at the lunacy. Try and be a remotely centre ground politician in a country where this sort of thing is the norm.

meanwhile this article by James Forsyth in the spectator is a tour de force of utter delusional nonsense.

Isn’t Farage a regular now in the DT? I think I’ve seen his gob in there online a couple of times this year.

The story of Britain and Ireland’s relationship has, all too often, been one of mutual incomprehension

That’s it, the DT journalist has nailed it there: it was all a big misunderstanding on both sides. Same for the French in Algeria & elsewhere and the British in India, the Caribbean etc. (Wednesday night on BBC4 – re-run of the Empire series) and the "Scramble for Africa" by the Europeans was also a very unfortunate misunderstanding. That’s one minor issue cleared up then. Next please.

To the astonishment of many, the Irish border has become the defining issue of Brexit.

Yep, that’s right, most Leavers were probably astonished by that. Certainly most Leavers I know or have come across would have been but then again they thought that Albania was in the EU and that Britain’s "massive net contribution" to the EU budget [in fact a measly 5%] is propping up many EU’s economies and the French farmers. But then again three quarters of people cannot even name their MP so it all makes perfect sense.

I stopped reading after that (line 3).

[Pérou Flaquettes]

The UK one wasn't binding either.

Quite, and that makes Brexit even more pathetic as this referendum has no legal value. It shouldn’t have been held in the first place of course (EU-related issues are obviously far too complex to be addressed via a binary ref) but if that ref was going to have a purpose at all, I don't know, the gvt could have used it for instance to have a national debate on immigration/EU27 migration to the UK as that's probably the main driver behind Brexit whatever Leavers now spout off about sovereignty and whatever else. Then, in order to placate the Tory UKippers and the 52%, the government may have come up with measures (pertaining to FoM, EU directive 2004/38) similar to the ones that Germany, Belgium, Denmark etc. have implemented.

This preposterously cavalier use of the referendary tool casts a big shadow on the much-vaunted solidity of the UK’s institutions if a Prime minister can do something like that on a whim, just because he has a few dissenters pissing him off in his ranks (I’m aware that he also cynically used that ref a year before for electoral purposes, GE 2015).

That’s the official reason anyhow, one which I’ve never really subscribed to, I see it more as the continuation of a natural ultra-neoliberal process – I’ve seen first hand what the Tories have done to Education since 2010, full-on deregulation and privatisation through the back door –, to me it was a great opportunity that the Conservatives to pursue their ultra-neoliberal agenda and one that they just couldn’t pass up (I’m also convinced that Cameron was ready to hand the baton to s.o else, 6 years at the top and 30 yrs in politics altogether probably had taken its toll on him and his trotters, far more lucrative and pissy for him too to go into consultancy and public speaking, Blair showed him how it’s done).

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Interesting speech by Ivan Rodgers. Warning it's 21 pages long, but it goes at a decent clip.[/url]

I'm not sure that he identifies the issues facing the EU very well. I think he's spent too long as the representative of the UK to be able to see it very clearly. But it's quite interesting.

[ad hoc]

Don't most people consider themselves centrist in the sense of feeling their own opinion is or ought to be right slap bang in the centre of reasonable opinions. I know I do (obviously I accept that I would be considered of the left by many other people, but I view everyone from Blair right as a frothing extremist with no grasp on reality or any sense of humanity or compassion)

[johnr]

Don't most people consider themselves centrist in the sense of feeling their own opinion is or ought to be right slap bang in the centre of reasonable opinions. I know I do (obviously I accept that I would be considered of the left by many other people, but I view everyone from Blair right as a frothing extremist with no grasp on reality or any sense of humanity or compassion)

I think that my opinions ought to be in the centre of reasonable opinions; from what I see of many 'centrists', they're convinced that theirs are.

[diggedy derek]

Off to the march today.

[Snake Plissken]

Work prevents but I would love to be there. Enjoy.