EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Compared to...?

Reality.

This was the situation in late 2015. Red is leftwing.

And Hollande was on 13% approvability last time I looked, so France is likely to head right. Greece is left, but has to implement right wing policies under the auspices of the EU. And the right wing in Sweden is gaining a lot. Hardly a socialist paradise.

edit: source of map - http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2015/10/why-are-right-wing-parties-thriving-across-europe

That map has part of Russia marked as being in the EU.

Tony's spoken

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That map depends where you define the 'centre' though. A lot of the moderately conservative European parties/policies today would be looked at as left-wing even as little as 20 years ago.

I agree that the EU is not a socialist paradise. And it varies a lot per area, Portugal for example despite poverty still seems to have decent healthcare. Right wing by itself can mean several things. It's neolib that's very damaging.

But if the EU is, on average, less right wing than the UK it will still have a tampering effect.

I'm not sure what socialist paradise the UK can join with. Canada has a nasty deal cooking that is in parts as bad as TTIP despite the current left wing government...

Oh blast, I meant to take that out.

.

ha!

That's the point. Just because Germany is deemed to be Right Wing as per that diagram above, when it comes to worker's rights, levels of pay and so forth, it's not Right Wing in the way we understand it.
It depends how you define left and right: is it defined economically or culturally. Personally, I'm only concerned as far as economics are concerned.

Tony Blair or Bojo? FFS

That's the point. Just because Germany is deemed to be Right Wing as per that diagram above, when it comes to worker's rights, levels of pay and so forth, it's not Right Wing in the way we understand it.
It depends how you define left and right: is it defined economically or culturally. Personally, I'm only concerned as far as economics are concerned.

How have German right-wing policies had an effect on the economies of the Eurozone?

Austerity, or not austerity? Tricky one.

A conversation I often have with friends - would you hand over the keys to the country to Google rather than leave them with out of touch/self-interested politicians? Clearly Google have plenty of their own self-interest, but at least they'd grasp the challenges facing the world in the next 30 years. I'd love to know what a Google-state would look like... I'm not sure I'd vote for it, but I'd rather Google than 10+ more years of Tory ideological austerity.

searching 'pencil' on twitter is probably the funniest part of today

Aye, the stream of pillocks broken up by satire, lols and brutal satire is highly entertaining

Worse, it's not showing Turkey as being part of the EU.

searching 'pencil' on twitter is probably the funniest part of today

First time votes. Bless 'em.

Leave one of these in the booth and watch pandemonium ensue.

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I always vote using my German Lamy pen.

I always vote using my German Lamy pen.

Staedtler and Faber-Castell pencils are perfectly adequate.

All foreign brands, innit?

support the UK pencil industry! ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYdhvNUy5A0

I have to say, trolling pen wankers on twitter has eased my referendum stress no end.

It's strange in Germany at the moment; it feels as if there's been a lurch rightwards from media reporting, although I think most of that is a protest vote, just like 'Leave', because of decades of appallingly bad economic policy, especially towards the east of Germany, which has led to greatly increased inequality (by German standards). It's somewhat similar to the imbalance between South and North in this country. However, the current distribution of seats in the Bundestag is actually that the 'left' parties (SPD, Greens, and Die Linkspartei) have more seats than the conservative CDU. That there is a grand coalition is only the case because the SPD (and possibly the Greens, I don't know) have previously refused to form a coalition with the Left Party, thinking that it would be electoral poison if they did. Regardless of all that, as there is a grand coalition, it's not really right to mark Germany as 'right', even though Merkel is the federal chancellor.

Germany is always right.

I feel that Germany was fairly socially liberal and economically socialist where I lived, (Leipzig ten years ago) but educated people would still say things like, "women should be careful walking round the city at night in case you run into a load of Turks."

You may well be right that more people will vote Leave in Leeds, but don't think that only seeing Leave posters means in itself you're in a minority: the nationalists made that mistake in Scotland because all they could see were pro-Independence posters. A silent majority is just that.