Brexit: Now What? Part III

[McHrozni]

The campaign happened before the referendum, so it irrelevant to your point that stuff has happened since then.

Do you realize it is possible to make more than a single point on one topic?

This childishness isn't productive. Cheerio.

I agree, you should quit it.

McHrozni

 

[jimbob]

As I said upthread, it was a right wing campaign insofar as:

• The group which provided the catalyst (UKIP) are a right wing party
• Many of the most prominent supporters of Brexit were right wingers
• The newspapers who for decades carried the stories that sowed the seeds for Brexit (bendy banana bans and the like) were right wing papers
• The right wing parties (Conservatives, DUP, UKIP) had a majority of their supporters voting Brexit (as opposed to the centreist and left-wing parties for whom an overwhelming majority voted remain)
• The Brexit campaign was largely funded by right wing donors
• The most prominent leaders of the Brexit campaign were right wingers

Hard to disagree with this.


The hard left might also be against the EU, but in the UK, the campaign was fronted by right wingers.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Hard to disagree with this.


The hard left might also be against the EU, but in the UK, the campaign was fronted by right wingers.

While the above is all correct it shouldn't be forgotten that Labour and Corbyn are now fully behind a hard Brexit (something which seems to be slipping people's minds lately I think) to the point where apparently Corbyn is now sacking those who voted in favour of the amendment to stay in the customs union.

 

[MikeG]

Hard to disagree with this.........

What that post quoted in yours misses is that 37% of Labour voters voted Leave, as did 30% of Lib Dem voters, 25% of Greens, and 36% of SNP voters. "Overwhelming" isn't how I would describe that, nor would I say it supports the premise that this was a right wing movement if a quarter of greens can vote for it.

From here.

 

[jimbob]

While the above is all correct it shouldn't be forgotten that Labour and Corbyn are now fully behind a hard Brexit (something which seems to be slipping people's minds lately I think) to the point where apparently Corbyn is now sacking those who voted in favour of the amendment to stay in the customs union.

Yes

Corbyn wants utterly impractical amendments, whilst instructing his party to vote against practical amendments that would have made Brexit less bad.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

What that post quoted in yours misses is that 37% of Labour voters voted Leave, as did 30% of Lib Dem voters, 25% of Greens, and 36% of SNP voters. "Overwhelming" isn't how I would describe that, nor would I say it supports the premise that this was a right wing movement if a quarter of greens can vote for it.

From here.

I dunno.

Might be my perspective from the states, but anything past 55-45 strikes me as significant. 60-40 (1.5:1) seems like a rather strong indicator of preference. Getting into the mid 60s (approaching 2:1) and 25% (3:1) are certainly "overwhelming" policy preferences.

Yes, it can be said "you can find supporters of leaving the EU on the left" I don't think you can credibly claim, based on those numbers, that both left and right support it (in total and with seemingly equal enthusiasm).

If some politically acceptable mechanism existed to halt the process, one end of the spectrum would be agitating for it at every available opportunity.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk

 

[MikeG]

I dunno.

Might be my perspective from the states, but anything past 55-45 strikes me as significant. 60-40 (1.5:1) seems like a rather strong indicator of preference. Getting into the mid 60s (approaching 2:1) and 25% (3:1) are certainly "overwhelming" policy preferences.

Yes, it can be said "you can find supporters of leaving the EU on the left" I don't think you can credibly claim, based on those numbers, that both left and right support it (in total and with seemingly equal enthusiasm).

If some politically acceptable mechanism existed to halt the process, one end of the spectrum would be agitating for it at every available opportunity.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk

No-one has claimed that this wasn't a project more popular on the right than the left. What was being claimed, though, was that this was a right wing project, and I contend this to be simplistic, and wrong. These figures show that at least a quarter of those on the furthest reaches of the left in the UK through to nearly 40% of those on the centre left voted for Brexit, which looks like a fairly broad cross section of the political spectrum supported it. It's lazy agenda-driven stereotyping to call this a right wing project.

 

[dudalb]

No-one has claimed that this wasn't a project more popular on the right than the left. What was being claimed, though, was that this was a right wing project, and I contend this to be simplistic, and wrong. These figures show that at least a quarter of those on the furthest reaches of the left in the UK through to nearly 40% of those on the centre left voted for Brexit, which looks like a fairly broad cross section of the political spectrum supported it. It's lazy agenda-driven stereotyping to call this a right wing project.

It's called "Let's put all the blame on the other side of the political spectrum since my side is pure,holy, and blameless".
It is a little surprising how and skeptics page, so many people wear huge Ideological blinders.

 

[MikeG]

It's called "Let's put all the blame on the other side of the political spectrum since my side is pure,holy, and blameless".
It is a little surprising how and skeptics page, so many people wear huge Ideological blinders.

Time to turn auto-correct off!

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's called "Let's put all the blame on the other side of the political spectrum since my side is pure,holy, and blameless".
It is a little surprising how and skeptics page, so many people wear huge Ideological blinders.

Its a little surprising the amount of utter ***** talked by people in defending Brexit.

Even using the numbers above you get less than 5m voters for Leave from the 'left' (and that's giving credit to all voters of those parties to being on the left).

So out of 17 and a half million leavers, 4 and a half million were from the nominal left.

Almost 3:1. 75% from the right.

Ideological blinders indeed.

 

[Belgian thought]

Its a little surprising the amount of utter ***** talked by people in defending Brexit.

Even using the numbers above you get less than 5m voters for Leave from the 'left' (and that's giving credit to all voters of those parties to being on the left).

So out of 17 and a half million leavers, 4 and a half million were from the nominal left.

Almost 3:1. 75% from the right.

Ideological blinders indeed.

And not all socialists are internationalists - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07zzr8r

This is a fascinating podcast that can also refer to the question posed in this thread
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=321019

 

[dudalb]

Yes

Corbyn wants utterly impractical amendments, whilst instructing his party to vote against practical amendments that would have made Brexit less bad.

So much for the "New, More Reasonable Corbyn".....

 

[angrysoba]

So much for the "New, More Reasonable Corbyn".....

I don't think anyone claimed he was a new, more reasonable Corbyn, least of all himself. I think some of the claims were that he wasn't as barking mad as he was being portrayed by the Daily Mail, Sun and Torygraph. Or that his ideas had more appeal than among voters than was believed at the time of May calling the election.

The suspicion has always been that he is now and has always been a pro-hard Brexiteer. Certainly his sacking of the frontbenchers who wanted to remain in the single market gives credence to that.

 

[The Don]

Its a little surprising the amount of utter ***** talked by people in defending Brexit.

Even using the numbers above you get less than 5m voters for Leave from the 'left' (and that's giving credit to all voters of those parties to being on the left).

So out of 17 and a half million leavers, 4 and a half million were from the nominal left.

Almost 3:1. 75% from the right.

Ideological blinders indeed.

Yep, and remember also that the momentum, propaganda, funding and leadership overwhelmingly came from right-wing sources.

It was a right wing campaign, the fact that a minority of left wingers were also pro-Brexit (but for a completely different set of reasons and with a different post-Brexit outcome in mind does not change that IMO.

 

[Craig B]

Sure.

Because it straddled all political parties, and all strands of political opinion from the hard left to the hard right.

Leading question. It's not what it would have had to include, but what it would have to have excluded. If it had excluded voices from all of the leading national parties other than those of the right wing, then that would have been a start. If it wasn't a campaign that simply reflected the will of the majority of the population, many of whom were traditional left-wing voters, then you'd have more of a case ...

The problem is that you are lazily trying to pigeon-hole Brexit. You are of the left. You disagree with the result. So, automatically, you assign it to your political enemies: the right. This is weak thinking, if it is thinking at all.

It seems to be beyond your understanding that Euroscepticism ran deep and strong throughout Britain, through all walks of life.

"Throughout Britain"? What about Scotland, where every region voted Remain, and where the overall Remain majority was 68 to 32%. What is this? You can say "most of the voters in the UK", but you can't say "throughout Britain"? You can say "I don't give a toss what the Jocks and Ulster Catholics think", but you can't say the majority of them voted Brexit. But I am inured to this dismissiveness, so I will attend to another point.

The argument is that Brexit is a right wing project. That is essentially correct. Once the project had been initiated, it attracted some non-rightwing votes, for example from left wingers who consider it desirable always to say No to capitalism when given the chance, and who correctly noted that the EU is a capitalist enterprise. But although some of them opportunistically voted that way Brexit was not their project. The political movements that inspired it are right wing. The single main motive for voting yes in that referendum was xenophobia. That is a right wing preoccupation which can be presented as fulfilling an instinctive human predisposition, and whenever right wingers decide to bamboozle the population in general, xenophobia is their implement of choice. The best historical example of that is excluded from my post by Godwin's Law^WP.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yep, and remember also that the momentum, propaganda, funding and leadership overwhelmingly came from right-wing sources.

It was a right wing campaign, the fact that a minority of left wingers were also pro-Brexit (but for a completely different set of reasons and with a different post-Brexit outcome in mind does not change that IMO.

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence but that might just be about definitions. I don't think the Labour voters who voted for Brexit necessarily did it for different reasons than the UKIP or Tory voters did but then maybe those people aren't actually 'left-wingers'?

There of course was and is an actual left-wing Brexit argument but it is just as ridiculous as the right wing one to me but I don't think you can say that all those on the nominal left who voted to Leave were buying into it.

Recent events and the interchangability of Tory/UKIP/Labour votes to me suggests there isn't as much daylight between those groups as some might believe.

 

[The Don]

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence but that might just be about definitions. I don't think the Labour voters who voted for Brexit necessarily did it for different reasons than the UKIP or Tory voters did but then maybe those people aren't actually 'left-wingers'?

There of course was and is an actual left-wing Brexit argument but it is just as ridiculous as the right wing one to me but I don't think you can say that all those on the nominal left who voted to Leave were buying into it.

Recent events and the interchangability of Tory/UKIP/Labour votes to me suggests there isn't as much daylight between those groups as some might believe.

At the risk of employing the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, perhaps there's some truth to it. In many parts of the country voting for a particular party is simply ingrained. A proportion of people in the Welsh valleys or the former coal-fields of the North East of England vote Labour, not necessarily because they agree with Labour Party policy even particularly align to the ethos of the party but because that's just what you do.

In those parts of the country there was a significant swing from Labour to UKIP (and back again) which to me indicates that either they have had a pair of Damascene moments in opposite directions or that they don't want to vote Conservative (because that simply is not done) and a right wing populist message was appealing (which it would not be to a "true left-winger).

 

[MikeG]

"Throughout Britain"? What about Scotland, where every region voted Remain.........

To counter my claim, you'd have to say that there was no Euroscepticism in Scotland. Not even you could claim that, surely.

you can't say the majority of them voted Brexit........

I never made anything like that claim. Try to refute what I actually say, rather than what you wanted me to say. It keeps thing much neater.

 

[katy_did]

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence but that might just be about definitions. I don't think the Labour voters who voted for Brexit necessarily did it for different reasons than the UKIP or Tory voters did but then maybe those people aren't actually 'left-wingers'?

There of course was and is an actual left-wing Brexit argument but it is just as ridiculous as the right wing one to me but I don't think you can say that all those on the nominal left who voted to Leave were buying into it.

Recent events and the interchangability of Tory/UKIP/Labour votes to me suggests there isn't as much daylight between those groups as some might believe.

I just logged on to make this exact point - many of those MikeG referred to as "traditional left-wing voters" are also likely to be socially conservative. I'd argue this (in particular a dislike of social change and immigration) is a far more likely reason that these voters voted Leave than because they bought into any of the far left's arguments for Brexit.

My guess is that the number of voters who voted Leave for the sort of genuinely left-wing reasons favoured by Corbyn is tiny.

 

[Craig B]

To counter my claim, you'd have to say that there was no Euroscepticism in Scotland. Not even you could claim that, surel

I never made anything like that claim. Try to refute what I actually say, rather than what you wanted me to say. It keeps thing much neater.

I always refute what you say, and what you say is never what I want you to say, because it is silly.

It was

Euroscepticism ran deep and strong throughout Britain, through all walks of life.​

You are saying that refuting that (which I did by citing the Scottish referendum data) is the same thing as trying to assert that there is no Euroscepticism in Scotland. I would be happy to regard that as a joke, but I don't think it is. It's a well-honed tactic, but not a very effective one. You said "deep and strong throughout Britain". No. if you claim that on grounds of the referendum vote, you must equally admit the absence of depth and strength in areas where the vote recorded a Remain majority. These prominently included Scotland (all parts) and N Ireland (nationalist parts).

If you think that's not significant, fair enough; but it is a fact, and it has already had constitutional consequences.