Tag: Brexit

Wow, I really didn’t think this would happen.

Quick thoughts:

1. I assume that Cameron is done and there will be a new Conservative leader. (Update: And he’s gone. This is just a thing, not a good thing or bad thing, until we know who replaces him.)
2. There may be a general election. I hope so.
3. This is going to be really bad for ordinary Brits IF the Conservatives remain in power because there are a lot of worker and environment protections and so on that the Conservatives want to scrap.
4. I expect the EU to try to be very vindictive. Bear in mind, however, that Britain buys more EU goods than the other way around. Still, Brussels can’t let this pass without punishing Britain severely, lest other nations get the same idea.
5. A lot of other nations will be in a better position if they leave: Greece, Italy, Spain, and Finland top the list, but even, say, France, might be better off. So, yes, this is an existential threat to Brussels.
6. Brussels should take this is as a rebuke of its anti-democratic ways and of its austerity policies, BUT current politicians won’t be able to. If they are replaced, however, there is some hope for serious democratic fixes to the EU. Hope is not the same thing as “I expect.”
7. Because the EU is a neoliberal organization, this could be to Britain’s benefit IF Corbyn winds up in charge. The best case scenario right now is if Cameron steps down, a new Conservative leader is elected, there is an election, and Labour wins.
8. But the same newspapers and media outlets who were pro-Remain will still be against Corbyn, because they actually like the idea of losing labor, environmental protections, and so on.
9. The leave campaign was run on a pretty racist and anti-immigrant basis. That creates a rather ugly mandate. It will be up to Labour and Corbyn to turn this into something hopeful and good, rather than something stupid and nasty.

I’ll be curious to see if attempts are made to keep Britain in the EU regardless, also.

Still, this is a big deal, and historic. It will be VERY interesting to see how it plays out.

Update: This graphic is interesting but completely unsurprising.

Basically, people who are doing well voted for the status quo, those who aren’t voted against. Scotland doesn’t trust London to run Scotland (which should be no surprise) and wants Brussels as a counter-weight. (Scotland should have left Britain and stayed in the EU, I’d judge).

So be it. If you don’t make your country work for at least the majority, I will hear no complaints when the majority pulls the rug out.

Some polls are now showing majorities for Britain exiting the EU.

That this is surprising to many is surprising to me. The status quo has been failing the majority of British for going on 40 years now.

The EU is part of the status quo. A lot of people will vote against it.

The jobs have rushed in London and London is unaffordable, because the government refuses to create and enforce laws against absentee owners who neither live in nor rent their property. The financial collapse saw the banks made whole and the people slaughtered. Good jobs have been gushing out of England for two generations now.

Once more: Repeated failure causes people to despise whoever they consider to have been in charge during the repeated failures. Britain has been part of the EU for a long time.

This same dynamic is working for Trump and it worked for Sanders. It is why Corbyn is now Labour leader and not some Blairite, “New Labour” sort.

These are the early spasms. If things keep getting worse (and they will), there will be spasms of real violence.

I have no sympathy left for all this. Too many people on all sides failed and failed and failed. Too many people wanted to believe in absolute bullshit: “We can all pay less taxes and be greedy bastards and get rid of regulation and send our industry overseas and it will all work out wonderfully because the market fairy will always ensure we live in the best of all worlds.”

You have exactly what you or someone else fought for you to have. Nothing more. Your lords and masters cut deals with proles only when they have no choice. Cameron and Blairite Labour types want you to live a life of complete misery, because they believe you are useless wastes of space who are lazy and are the reason why Britain is in decline.

It’s all on the proles; it certainly isn’t on the people who have led Britain for the past 40 years, because they know they are the bestest, and brightest, and the hardest working, so it sure as hell couldn’t be them.

You are walking meat-sacks with no intrinsic worth to your masters. They will give you as little as they can get away with, and your suffering, or your death, means nothing to them. To look at how pathetic and worthless you are simply reinforces their knowledge of how wonderful they are.

These people regard you as their meat, if they think of you at all. You should think of them in the same way. Any MP or CEO or executive who has repeatedly worked against you is your enemy. And that is almost all of them.

Most politicians aren’t your friends. Their job is to fleece you for corporate masters. There are rare exceptions, like Corbyn, but they are exceptions and you can tell them in part by the relentless hatred the rest of the master class has for them. Men like Corbyn (and FDR in the day) are traitors to their own people, and they are treated like traitors.

So Brits may well leave the EU. Doubtless they will be punished, because leaving neo-liberal organizations must be met with pain, or other people might do the same. International organizations like the EU, IMF, and WTO are how the elites make sure that neo-liberalism continues, because their rules make it impossible to run non-neo-liberal economies.

A lot of this is ugly, of course. Because the left won’t lead, the front men are right-wing nativists and racists, who at least have the guts to fight.

In a sense, this is hopeful. Almost the entire establishment is for staying in the EU and a lot of British have just tuned them out. Not listening to the master-class’s lies is the fist step in being free.

So, I am not running around scared of Brexit. I don’t much care whether Britain stays or leaves. That puts me on the outside of the cultural left’s consensus, but so be it. Leaving the EU will make things worse for Britain, but it will also free Corbyn to do what is necessary if he wins. We will see how it plays out.