EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Who said this, Farage or Corbyn?

https://digitallibdems.typeform.com/to/QiM9uh?fbclid=IwAR2XczEAFMDHrmUQJLfMK_ZvYYMEMS2dmsUMT_N9o3mHSjWd0G2m3pxbraI

Those tactical voting stats are depressing, I'll be kind of holding my noise and voting Lib Dem.

Gina Miller is again promoting tactical voting https://www.remainunited.org/be-tactical/

And yes, seems it has to be Lib Dem in England.

If only tge Labour leadership got off the fence. Everything would change

Neither, it was RPM.

I do hope that the Lib Dems show up Change UK to be the irrelevant chancers they are. But I'll still be voting Labour. If we do end up remaining in the EU, I'd rather have Labour politicians than anyone else representing us in the EP.

It's easy in London to cry about Labour not yet backing remain despite almost all of their middle-class urban support wanting them to do so. But it's also easy to forget that there's probably going to be a general election at some point and that a lot of Labour votes come from people who are ambivalent about or in favour of Brexit.

And I think I'd take a Labour government in a Britain outside the EU than a Tory government in it. The country's pretty fucked either way.

Governments change, but Brexit will take years to reverse if even possible.

And I think I'd take a Labour government in a Britain outside the EU than a Tory government in it.

The next tory government will be led by a hard brexiteer. Possibly Johnson. We need to keep the tories out at all costs.

show me the lie

1 Attachment

Brexit will dominate for years whether we leave or not.

Negotiators for the EU seem happy to accommodate a Labour Brexit. A ‘soft brexit’ could catch more votes in the UK parliament than May’s deal.

It would be nobody’s ideal ... but might actually let government move forward.

I think now we should leave, let them have their fucking red white and beige British Brexit, fucking retards

Is that the line Labour should be taking in Middlesbrough and Stoke on Trent?

"Eurocrats" "Progress"... what progress? Who are these Eurocrats?

It's as vague and polemic as Farage and his "traitors" narrative.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/18/opinium-poll-conservatives-trounced-by-brexit-party-remainers-abandon-labour

One poll obv. but with the poor result in the council elections it seems the lack of commitment on a confirmatory referendum from Labour isn't working.

Because in that poll commitment to it meant Labour shot up.

Well Greens for me, then independent, then Alliance (no Labour here) with the PR system in NI I can vote all the way down. So is Greens don't get it the 2nd votes transfer until there is a winner.

Looks like alliance (NI libdems) will take 3rd seat though in MEP elections, greens are too far behind.

You can’t parse Eurocrats?

People have legit concerns about the democratic deficit in the EU. The Commission is enormously powerful, but unelected. The Council is a concentrate of European executive power. Between them, the EU Commission and the ECB - with a little help from the IMF - ravaged the Greek economy, and rolled over a democratically elected socialist government whilst it was at it. What was their mandate to do so? Is it any wonder these institutions are regarded with suspicion?

Remainers would do better to engage with these arguments rather than to dismiss them out of hand.

Remainers would do better to engage with these arguments

You can't engage with them at the minute (or at least, it's a waste of effort to do so), because there's a more urgent European elephant in the room that needs dealing with first.

But you’re not going to win leavers over to your side if your response to their substantive concerns is ‘you’re making this up’.

My worry is that we have a 2nd referendum and no one learns the mistakes of the first: everyone just goes around pretending the EU is brilliant and generally patronising the fuck out of everyone who doesn’t agree with them.

Second ref would be an utter shit show

The Remain campaign was appalling first time round, and there haven't been a lot of cogent positive arguments for the EU made in the mean time. Another campaign based around "It's economically disastrous and you're stupid if you disagree" just isn't going to work with people who already aren't doing brilliantly.

One thing that really pissed me off recently was reading Peter Bradshaw's review of Ken Loach's new film, about a delivery driver struggling on a zero hours contract.

He complained that it didn't mention Brexit or the fact that the EU has protected workers' rights. Has he forgotten that we are still in the EU, and that workers' rights are already very poorly protected? It could get even worse if we left - but it could also get much better either way.

See that is complete sentence I can engage with.

EDIT the EU council (not commission) is not unelected, it contains heads of state that are elected. It is not -directly- elected like the EU parliament, that is correct.

The ECB has too much power, and abused it, the EU parliament voted to end debt repayments in 30 years, whatever happened.

"rolled over a democratically elected socialist government"? People voted to stay in the Eurozone.

So yes, there are definitely some problems that needs addressed and I don't trust the EU, or the UK government, or any large institution a 100%.

There is also a lot of good like the EU developing regions funds, the Good Friday agreement, freedom of movement (a good thing), Erasmus, Euratom, EU citizen initiatives, EU peace fund, being able to stand up to other trade blocks

EU standards are a minimum, member states can deal with their own benefits and working rights.

So, in the EU, the UK can already improve rights of 0 hour contract workers, and other member states like France have much better employee rights.

The EU Commission is not elected, because it comprises civil servants, although the heads of the different departments are chosen by the Parliament. This in itself isn't hugely problematic, as most UK law is drafted by civil servants too, and EU laws need approval from the EP.

The Council of the EU comprises the relevant ministers, who are elected, and the EU Council (who chose these names!?) is made up of the heads of state.

The trouble is, the process of passing EU legislation is so unwieldy and long-winded that there are numerous shortcuts which are not particularly transparent or democratic.

I think the main democratic deficit in the EU is that people just don't really care or find it interesting. This means that proper scrutiny isn't really done, because no one really reports on or cares about the majority of what happens.

Then when the "unelected, bureaucratic" lines are used, people will readily believe them, because they don't care enough to know any better. It's hard to disagree, because even people who are ardent supporters of the EU dob t actually know what all its institutions are or do.

That's what I wrote. The argument is completely nonsensical. You can't criticise a film about how badly protected workers' rights are in an EU member state by saying we need the EU's protection of workers' rights.

Hence why, if we were to stay in the EU, I'd much rather have Labour MEPs than any others, who could actually push a case for the EU's baseline to be improved. I wouldn't trust Lib Dems or Change UK to look after working people.

I sometimes don't know what they think, I know a few Lexiters and I know what they think and some Brexiters just thought it would help the economy. So that is thinking.

But then I see the hard unionist brexiters and kippers and others, and it is not about thinking but about identity politics and gut feelings. And just one big massive protest vote against the government.

So trying to engage rationally with that is near impossible, and a Remain campaign would have to use the language of a powerful UK in the EU, and even then...

I am reacting to this: "It could get even worse if we left - but it could also get much better either way" It can get better now, if the UK wants to, for the UK

Exactly. If it could be better but the EU provides a floor beneath which the UK isn't allowed to drop, how can anyone rationally think it is likely to get better outside the EU when that minimum requirement is lost?

You’re confusing the council and the commission. The council is the elected heads of state (like I say, concentrated executive power). The commission is unelected. Both bodies are massively more powerful than the parliament, which is the only directly elected entity. This imbalance has been apparent to everyone for decades, but the EU hasn’t seen fit to reform.