Brexit

Brexit is...

The best
3
25%
A good thing
1
8%
A bad thing
2
17%
Shithouse
6
50%
 
Total votes: 12

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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:44 am

skalpel wrote:
Speedo wrote:
This is based on the assumption that there isn't a large amount of buyers' remorse on the part of voters following the referendum... It's my hope hat the Labour party splits between the Corbynista left and the pro-Europe centre party, which would form an electoral pact with the Lib Dems and stand on a pro-Europe ticket.
Which has no guarantee of winning and a good chance of motivating a UKIP-Tory coalition.
It has no guarantee of winning. I think the risk of UKIP in parliamentary elections is still overblown given that their key issue was leaving Europe, and now we are doing that. There's no consistency within UKIP, let alone between UKIP and the Tories, about how to do that, so I think their ability to fight as a unified force is limited.
skalpel wrote:
Speedo wrote:With regards to "Brexiters who voted based on immigration control and general political control end up seeing either of those promises broken"... those promises have already been broken. Boris, Gove, and Farage lied about the control we would gain, and it's already apparent. This is why this is such a f***ed up situation - the entire Brexit campaign was based on lies, and now the Government has a mandate to implement something that is literally impossible to implement - namely, continued economic prosperity, including access to the single market, without any of the concessions about immigration etc.
To the Brexiters we're talking about - those capable of causing a huge swing to UKIP - the principle of leaving and all the autonomy and sense of people power that comes with that is more important than the details. They wanted three things: 1. Less immigration, 2. No continental suits making decisions for their country that they feel unable to influence, and 3. To finally stick it to the establishment, and stick it to them hard. So, for them, what promises have been broken here so far? They won the vote, and the establishment is shitting its trousers.
I would argue that actually, the overwhelming thing people wanted was your third point, sticking it to the establishment. It's my opinion that this result is more of a rejection of the Westminster elite than it is a rejection of Europe. People wanted to roll the dice and change things, whether it was Europe or something else. That, in turn, is the result of a decade of economic pain and inequitable growth, with those on middle- to lower incomes outside of London feeling the worst of the pain. Immigration fears and a dislike of Europe is only the product of people looking around and seeing a system that is getting better for other people and not themselves.

Fundamentally, I don't think people care about Europe. They care about immigration - because they see that as the reason for their poor deal. But if there were more jobs and prosperity in those areas, would the hostility be such? I don't believe so. Fundamentally, this is a rejection of a status quo that is resolutely unfavourable to a lot of people.
The entire Brexit campaign wasn't based on lies, it involved lies and was based on untold truths and the puffing of the importance of principle over practice. This is a distinction worth making. Anybody who relied solely on the campaign for their information wasn't told it was going to be a huge gamble with the country's economy, and that it would mean a huge upheaval of how the country works without a guarantee that the new way would work out any better. Nor were they told that in the event that they succeeded there would be desperate twists and turns to renege on as many promises as possible because of the risk. But even then, the sort of voter who relied solely on the campaigns for information strikes me as the sort of voter who feels he don't have a dog in the economic race anyway and so doesn't give a s*** about "The Economy"; the sort of person who thinks like Ken Walker from Sunderland, who is quoted in the NYT as having said: "I don't have any money in the stock market, so what's it to me?" Any impact that filters down to him can be easily blamed on something else by UKIP. It won't stop their rise.
I think the campaigns - including the Remain side - failed to talk enough about the practicality of Brexit. Which might not have had any impact on how people voted, but was an important issue that was totally ignored throughout. I do believe the principles the Leave campaign was based on were shaky at best, but that's beside the point - those principles were sold in a way that was fundamentally untrue. The campaign was built on lies, even if those lies came from some principled position. That principled position disappeared the second Boris Johnson started fronting the campaign.
The problems goes way deeper and further back in time than the Brexit campaign. It almost doesn't even matter what they said. The fact that there was a campaign and the option to vote Brexit provided an outlet for years of bubbling frustration and anti-establishment sentiment.
This I totally agree with.
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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:51 am

In other news: Corbyn compares Israel to the Islamic State

[tweet][/tweet]

This guy is such a mong
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Re: Brexit

Post by Colback's Orange Tufts » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:52 am

Speedo wrote:In other news: Corbyn compares Israel to the Islamic State

[tweet][/tweet]

This guy is such a mong
FFS <grr>
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Re: Brexit

Post by skalpel » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:59 am

Speedo wrote:Things.
Good post, and we don't actually disagree on much for a change <roll>.

Regarding this though:
Speedo wrote:They care about immigration - because they see that as the reason for their poor deal. But if there were more jobs and prosperity in those areas, would the hostility be such? I don't believe so. Fundamentally, this is a rejection of a status quo that is resolutely unfavourable to a lot of people.
I think the issue of cultural change is too often underplayed. It's seen as the sidekick to the jobs issue but it really does matter to people, especially in the provinces (I don't like that word but I can't be arsed replacing it). I posted on this a few pages back:
skalpel wrote:They mean that they're not happy with multiculturalism because it seems to be causing a sort of ghettoisation of the cities, where some peoples stick together based on language, religion and life values which differ from one part of town to the next. They're starting to see neighbourhoods as cultural divisions, where once their cities could not be split up in that way. Different groups are split apart and it seems to sow distrust and streets that they knew as a kid are now inhabited by people who are as cautious about saying a friendly hello as they are. And the rising population of the country seems likely to be further exacerbating this general slide towards a kind of schizoid society where it is normal to live alongside swathes of people with very different values and languages without ever seeing a proper integration into the national culture. And they see that they didn't ask for any of this, and that they were never even told it would happen. The principle of this infuriates a lot of people and they saw the EU referendum as a way to let out the brewing steam and, by seizing control of immigration in principle, some semblance of control over the very fast changes happening around them.
So would the hostility be such? I don't know, it's a hard question to answer because the immigrants moving into poor areas are poor themselves, and thus bring their own social baggage that remains unseen in the multicultural affluent parts of the country.

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Re: Brexit

Post by PFT » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:59 am

Cisse's Overheating Torso wrote:
Speedo wrote:In other news: Corbyn compares Israel to the Islamic State

[tweet][/tweet]

This guy is such a mong
FFS <grr>
I'm confused by this , so he's saying that Jews are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli govt just as all Muslims are not responsible for ISIS? <scratch>
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Re: Brexit

Post by overseasTOON » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:01 am

I see Boris is a fan of the Popes method.

He's f***ed us and pulled out.

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Re: Brexit

Post by Ol' Dirty Bas Dost » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:02 am

BoJo's out of the Tory race!

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Re: Brexit

Post by PFT » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:03 am

Skalps in reference to the "ghettoisation" of our cities , and I don't doubt for one moment that it's going on , but hasn't it always been going on? Whether it was Irish , Chinese , African , Indian , Pakistani or various other communities? Usually when there is a high influx of one particular ethnic group there will be a centralised , high populated area of them? It's just the fact currently we are living through a period where that group is Eastern European.
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Re: Brexit

Post by PFT » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:03 am

overseasTOON wrote:I see Boris is a fan of the Popes method.

He's f***ed us and pulled out.
Methinks Murdoch and Dacre have told him they are backing Gove.
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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:05 am

Dumm & Doumbia wrote:
Cisse's Overheating Torso wrote:
FFS <grr>
I'm confused by this , so he's saying that Jews are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli govt just as all Muslims are not responsible for ISIS? <scratch>
He's saying that, yes. But the fact the he's comparing Israel and the Islamic State is totally not OK - he's comparing a legitimate state (albeit one with a fuckton of issues and some seriously ethically questionable behaviour behind it) with a terrorist organisation that regularly murders people of other ethnicities, stones rape victims and adulterers, etc.
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Re: Brexit

Post by PFT » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:07 am

Speedo wrote:
Dumm & Doumbia wrote:
I'm confused by this , so he's saying that Jews are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli govt just as all Muslims are not responsible for ISIS? <scratch>
He's saying that, yes. But the fact the he's comparing Israel and the Islamic State is totally not OK - he's comparing a legitimate state (albeit one with a fuckton of issues and some seriously ethically questionable behaviour behind it) with a terrorist organisation that regularly murders people of other ethnicities, stones rape victims and adulterers, etc.
It's an extremely poor comparison yes. <urgh>
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Re: Brexit

Post by skalpel » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:08 am

Dumm & Doumbia wrote:Skalps in reference to the "ghettoisation" of our cities , and I don't doubt for one moment that it's going on , but hasn't it always been going on? Whether it was Irish , Chinese , African , Indian , Pakistani or various other communities? Usually when there is a high influx of one particular ethnic group there will be a centralised , high populated area of them? It's just the fact currently we are living through a period where that group is Eastern European.
Yeah it has always happened, but never before at such a pace and scale. The level of immigration over the last few decades genuinely is at a new unprecedented level for this country. The Ugandan Asian immigration of the 70s which caused a social stir was about 30k people in total, which equals about 6 weeks' worth of immigration by the late 90s.

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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:11 am

skalpel wrote:
Speedo wrote:Things.
Good post, and we don't actually disagree on much for a change <roll>.

Regarding this though:
Speedo wrote:They care about immigration - because they see that as the reason for their poor deal. But if there were more jobs and prosperity in those areas, would the hostility be such? I don't believe so. Fundamentally, this is a rejection of a status quo that is resolutely unfavourable to a lot of people.
I think the issue of cultural change is too often underplayed. It's seen as the sidekick to the jobs issue but it really does matter to people, especially in the provinces (I don't like that word but I can't be arsed replacing it). I posted on this a few pages back:
skalpel wrote:They mean that they're not happy with multiculturalism because it seems to be causing a sort of ghettoisation of the cities, where some peoples stick together based on language, religion and life values which differ from one part of town to the next. They're starting to see neighbourhoods as cultural divisions, where once their cities could not be split up in that way. Different groups are split apart and it seems to sow distrust and streets that they knew as a kid are now inhabited by people who are as cautious about saying a friendly hello as they are. And the rising population of the country seems likely to be further exacerbating this general slide towards a kind of schizoid society where it is normal to live alongside swathes of people with very different values and languages without ever seeing a proper integration into the national culture. And they see that they didn't ask for any of this, and that they were never even told it would happen. The principle of this infuriates a lot of people and they saw the EU referendum as a way to let out the brewing steam and, by seizing control of immigration in principle, some semblance of control over the very fast changes happening around them.
So would the hostility be such? I don't know, it's a hard question to answer because the immigrants moving into poor areas are poor themselves, and thus bring their own social baggage that remains unseen in the multicultural affluent parts of the country.
I think that the "ghettoisation of the cities" is overblown really. Demographies change, and first generation immigrants tend to be more insular with regards to their communities, but this was just as true 50 years ago as it is today. Cultural change happens, and it inevitably causes some issues, but it has happened for hundreds of years. But people are only really concerned when they see cultural change and they don't see progress - for example, they see crime rates going up, they see their shops and pubs closing down. That fundamentally doesn't happen in a prosperous society. But places like Sunderland, Carlisle, etc. - they never recovered from the recession of a decade ago, and so that hostility is going to build up.

I don't believe immigration is causing any greater changes today than it did a decade, or two decades ago. Unequal growth, however, causes problems throughout any economy. It was clear in the depressions/recessions/stagnant periods in the 1930s, the 1970s, and it is clear now.
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Re: Brexit

Post by PFT » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:12 am

skalpel wrote:
Dumm & Doumbia wrote:Skalps in reference to the "ghettoisation" of our cities , and I don't doubt for one moment that it's going on , but hasn't it always been going on? Whether it was Irish , Chinese , African , Indian , Pakistani or various other communities? Usually when there is a high influx of one particular ethnic group there will be a centralised , high populated area of them? It's just the fact currently we are living through a period where that group is Eastern European.
Yeah it has always happened, but never before at such a pace and scale. The level of immigration over the last few decades genuinely is at a new unprecedented level for this country. The Ugandan Asian immigration of the 70s which caused a social stir was about 30k people in total, which equals about 6 weeks' worth of immigration by the late 90s.
Very true. The thing I find most galling is that the majority of the people that come to this country are coming here to find a better life for their families and contribute. A lot of them will probably want to integrate and they've been used as an excuse for a lot of peoples ills by the powers that be to deflect attention away from the fact that is them (the govt) that is causing them, and people have eaten that up with the help of the right wing media.
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Re: Brexit

Post by skalpel » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:25 am

Speedo wrote:
skalpel wrote:
Good post, and we don't actually disagree on much for a change <roll>.

Regarding this though:



I think the issue of cultural change is too often underplayed. It's seen as the sidekick to the jobs issue but it really does matter to people, especially in the provinces (I don't like that word but I can't be arsed replacing it). I posted on this a few pages back:



So would the hostility be such? I don't know, it's a hard question to answer because the immigrants moving into poor areas are poor themselves, and thus bring their own social baggage that remains unseen in the multicultural affluent parts of the country.
I think that the "ghettoisation of the cities" is overblown really. Demographies change, and first generation immigrants tend to be more insular with regards to their communities, but this was just as true 50 years ago as it is today. Cultural change happens, and it inevitably causes some issues, but it has happened for hundreds of years. But people are only really concerned when they see cultural change and they don't see progress - for example, they see crime rates going up, they see their shops and pubs closing down. That fundamentally doesn't happen in a prosperous society. But places like Sunderland, Carlisle, etc. - they never recovered from the recession of a decade ago, and so that hostility is going to build up.

I don't believe immigration is causing any greater changes today than it did a decade, or two decades ago. Unequal growth, however, causes problems throughout any economy. It was clear in the depressions/recessions/stagnant periods in the 1930s, the 1970s, and it is clear now.
As I say, it's the pace of change here that makes the difference. It's one thing to see a change from your childhood, but another to see it over the course of a few years. You hit the nail on the head when you say first generation immigrants tend to be more insular, and that its just as true as it was fifty years ago, but the scale of immigration is such that there is a constant large flow of first generation immigrants which wasn't the case fifty years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a more important issue than the economic factors, but that it is an equal part of the same issue. If there is this flow of immigrants from poor backgrounds in their homeland coming into the UK, then what use is it for the UK to improve the economic status of its current citizens if it continues to import more poverty into its ever-growing towns and cities?

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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:36 am

skalpel wrote:As I say, it's the pace of change here that makes the difference. It's one thing to see a change from your childhood, but another to see it over the course of a few years. You hit the nail on the head when you say first generation immigrants tend to be more insular, and that its just as true as it was fifty years ago, but the scale of immigration is such that there is a constant large flow of first generation immigrants which wasn't the case fifty years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a more important issue than the economic factors, but that it is an equal part of the same issue. If there is this flow of immigrants from poor backgrounds in their homeland coming into the UK, then what use is it for the UK to improve the economic status of its current citizens if it continues to import more poverty into its ever-growing towns and cities?
Your pace of change point is a reasonable one, it certainly exacerbates whatever issues do exist. Fundamentally though, I don't believe it is equal to the economic factors - when the economy is growing, immigration is so much less of a concern. Not to mention, immigrants move where the jobs are. The poorest parts of the country are mostly all white (the North East & South Wales, for example), and there is no evidence that immigrants drive down salaries when they do move here. And given that immigrants mostly come to work, the UK is hardly importing poverty.

The value for the UK looking to improve the economic status of its current citizens is to stop Brexit (and similar) things happening.
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Re: Brexit

Post by Sir Bobby » Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:07 pm

I think the cultural issues with immigration are very much underplayed. It was clear in the referendum voting that those with less education were more likely to vote leave which it felt like some people were pointing out in an "only idiots would vote leave" way but I saw it also as confirmation of cultural integration issues since most immigrants will tend to move to the less affluent areas when they first arrive. As skalpel touched on I imagine it would be hard for you to be living in an area where you have culturally lots in common with your neighbours to suddenly in the space of 10-15 years be in an area where you're actually not even able to talk to many of your neighbour's for language barriers. When immigration is done at a steady rate it allows those coming to assimilate better which works out better for everyone. When it is done at this current rate it actually encourages ghettoisation.

Personally I'm a fan of lots of immigration but even I think there should be some safeguards to encourage assimilation into the culture, otherwise you get block areas of different cultures which sounds fun but isn't the most ideal type of multiculturialism whereby people actually live together and share cultures. In fact if you look at cultures where you have areas of different cultures living in the same general vicinity, they generally have troubles getting along.

Btw I remember watching a video of Thomas Sowell (I think) where he mentions that immigrants in America tend to do a lot better than non-first generation citizens of the same nationality; I'd like to see the change that's occurred in the UK regarding this.

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Re: Brexit

Post by Mifune » Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:13 pm

Speedo wrote:
Dumm & Doumbia wrote:
I'm confused by this , so he's saying that Jews are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli govt just as all Muslims are not responsible for ISIS? <scratch>
He's saying that, yes. But the fact the he's comparing Israel and the Islamic State is totally not OK - he's comparing a legitimate state (albeit one with a fuckton of issues and some seriously ethically questionable behaviour behind it) with a terrorist organisation that regularly murders people of other ethnicities, stones rape victims and adulterers, etc.
Except he didn't compare Israel to ISIS at all. Pathetic from the media to try and spin that <laugh>.

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Re: Brexit

Post by Speedo » Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:23 pm

Mifune wrote:
Speedo wrote:
He's saying that, yes. But the fact the he's comparing Israel and the Islamic State is totally not OK - he's comparing a legitimate state (albeit one with a fuckton of issues and some seriously ethically questionable behaviour behind it) with a terrorist organisation that regularly murders people of other ethnicities, stones rape victims and adulterers, etc.
Except he didn't compare Israel to ISIS at all. Pathetic from the media to try and spin that <laugh>.
He's drawing an extremely uncomfortable parallel, don't you think? Not the kind of parallel that the Labour leader should be drawing. Israel is a legitimate state - albeit with big questions surrounding its actions, but none more so than China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc. which we're all pally with - and he is comparing to IS! Simply put, anybody who is associated with IS is essentially endorsing terrorism; endorsing Israel - or even the idea of Israel - is a million miles away from supporting what's going on in Palestine.
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Re: Brexit

Post by Colback's Orange Tufts » Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:33 pm

Mifune wrote:
Speedo wrote:
He's saying that, yes. But the fact the he's comparing Israel and the Islamic State is totally not OK - he's comparing a legitimate state (albeit one with a fuckton of issues and some seriously ethically questionable behaviour behind it) with a terrorist organisation that regularly murders people of other ethnicities, stones rape victims and adulterers, etc.
Except he didn't compare Israel to ISIS at all. Pathetic from the media to try and spin that <laugh>.
To be fair, saying the words 'Islamic States' is a very easy way of confusing with the* 'Islamic State'. Surely his team should have seen that misinterpretation coming.

* 'so called' if you wish
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