EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Corbyn, on the other hand, I think is a true believer - he'd go through with Brexit.

I think you're right left to his own devices. However, if he's elected I feel like a lot his support will have been really volatile, and he'll have benefited enourmously from an electorate turned away from the Torys by their insanity; not from voters wanting him specifically.
Plus a lot of the people who do genuinely support him (young voters significantly) are not in the least bit Brexity.

I'm not sure he'd be able to go through with it; or at least unless he's willing to have the same civil war the Tories currently have.

I think it's Leftie idealism mostly...the EU has neoliberal aspects and some unsavoury (refugee deal with Turkey) aspects.

It of course also has good aspects and isn't the dictatorship others make it out to be either.

The front page of today's Evening Standard (as edited by Gideon 'Austerity' Osborne)

Who is to say that Corbyn hasn't realised that the EU is like the Hotel California and there is just no way out? Or not one where the price is worth paying.

Him, but of course keeping his mouth shut at this point is a strategic win whilst the Tories tear themselves apart.

Oh man. Not the fucking eagles.

Such a lovely place

Well, I just didn't find Fleetwood Mac's position on Brexit to be very convincing.

lol

Corbyn, on the other hand, I think is a true believer - he'd go through with Brexit.

....

keeping his mouth shut

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-remain-vote-second-referendum-eu-negotiations-theresa-may-a7996996.html

I think it's interesting how someone who has tried to show integrity throughout their time as a politician (whether you agree with him or not), and really isn't know for lying, still can't shake the "he's secretly lying" stigma in spite his views (to me) being quite clear.

The position of the Labour party is in flux, of course, but that's a different situation.

Yet Labour (ostensibly) are more coherent and committed to Brexit than the Tories?

I really have to dispute that. If anything, the Labour view is that if UK has to leave EU, it isn't in a fit state to do it now.

^^ Huh?

Have you had a bump on the head?

Labour has stated that the referendum will be respected, and has come up with some policies that might assemble into a functional exit and transition - albeit some of the statements are contradictory those can probably be cleared up. It looks do-able, and unless I've missed it no-one within a senior labour position is calling for a second referendum on remaining part of the EU.

The Tories, on the other hand, are literally chaos incarnate, the entire cabinet taking contradictory positions and the whole thing is as possible, now, as posting a ball of snakes through a key-hole.

Given that, that one party can actually deliver Brexit and the other can't, which is more likely to do so?

Respecting the referendum is actually a pretty broad thing to say and doesn't actually mean leaving the EU.

Respecting the referendum and not actually leaving the EU...it's maybe possible as Starmer's tests will fail. But not sure it works... yet?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41672097

May offers assurances on EU nationals. Except she does not as UK settled status is NOT what we have now, rights wise.

EDIT: https://medium.com/@nicolas.hatton/what-future-for-pierre-sophia-and-their-two-children-under-settled-status-bbc450fe2cad so this is what settled status means... Which also shows how 3rd country nationals get screwed. I fear this happens in many EU countries too, immigration laws implementation is often quite frankly death by bureacracy :/

Whenever I have paid attention to the little that Corbyn says about Brexit it feels very much to me like he is hinting that the UK is not ready to leave now and that needs to solve its own problems first. I.e The only responsible way to Brexit is to invest in the regions, address the skills gap, have a proper conversation about immigration, stimulate business and manufacturing, reduce debt etc etc etc. Of course, in reality, by the time we are on the way to addressing these there would be much less support for Brexit.

Serious question. If the UK was in great shape to go it alone and did hold all the cards, would we be be so furious about Brexit? I get the feeling that whichever government takes this to the next stage is going to be dealing with hypotheticals like this.

That May email is such a cynical PR move. Made even more obvious by the fact that it was sent to the press first. It’s full of lies and is obviously an attempt to win favour ahead of the EU meeting today.

The way this shower of wankers has treated the rights of EU citizens as a bargaining chip is shameful.

It's all true, but it was true before Brexit and people still voted for it...so Corbyn has to deal with all that. There's also a "will of the peeeeeeeeeeeeoppppppppplee!!" element in the left.

I would still be furious about Brexit due to the lies and anti immigration sentiment whipped up by it. Mass dishonesty and populism because it could not be won on honesty. And being used as a bargaining chip, come on... of course the UK gov could have told the xenophobic leavers that the UK is so NOT what they are, but it did not.

IF the UK was in a good place, the economic damage would of course be a lot less, though there'd still be a lot of reputation damage. Some "strongly worded letters" from Japan for example would not go away.

Ideal world, Brexit completely stops, Labour goes into power, they finally reform the FPTP voting system...

I think it's interesting how someone who has tried to show integrity throughout their time as a politician (whether you agree with him or not), and really isn't know for lying, still can't shake the "he's secretly lying" stigma in spite his views (to me) being quite clear.

What Mrak said. I fully believe that Corbyn answered the recent question truthfully, and that he has moved on from his youthful view of being anti-EU and now wishes to influence it into reforming itself.

Once again, the problem with the EU isn't the EU. It's problems such as that Germany wants to disguise its immense internal economic problems (e.g., depressed demand owing to deeply unjust social policies over decades) by export, export, export, and therefore wanted a rushed introduction of the €uro. Or take Juncker turning Luxembourg into a tax haven (he denies any knowledge of this, of course, not hugely convincingly considering he was finance minister and prime minister). I'm pretty sure that if the Euro hadn't been introduced when it was, perception of the EU wouldn't be so skewed, especially in its treatment of the smaller countries less able to benefit from export markets. Schäuble's bullying of Greece was extremely stupid and a huge mistake (not that everything was rosy in Greece, and the reported corruption there certainly can't be allowed to continue, but that could have been addressed in a different way). And so on.

The problem with larger markets is that you tend to get fewer large influences dominating the market, e.g. large European corporations. While a single market is not a bad thing in itself, the way people use it is usually concerning. It's a twisted thing; on the one hand, many people want to work less, so improving productivity is a good thing. On the other hand, social integration, positioning, respect, and economic well-being are all somehow linked to work, so merely improving productivity, with its usual consequence of centralising economic power, doesn't work. You also need a clear understanding that, for instance, someone caring for a disabled elderly relative is doing important work and ought to be rewarded well for that (always difficult to relate work within the family, e.g. housework, to pay, but I think it's just a question of normalising it). If you don't take such steps, greater efficiency will just cause more social cruelty and cause such problems that public funding can't cope, e.g. if ever greater levels of unhappiness and illness are caused.

I'm absolutely certain that the European single market has had similar social consequences to the existing large market in the US, i.e. high levels of poverty, from the Paris banlieue to the North of England, but this depends to a large extent on the fact that it was pushed and promoted very much by right-wing governments in the larger European countries, e.g. Thatcher's, and when the political pendulum had swung back to require corrections, you got Blair and the hapless Blairites like Schröder and Jospin, who for whatever reason (misconceptions or having been co-opted before they ever reached office) didn't push hard enough to restore confidence in the economic system.

Anyway, blah, blah, tl;dr, reforming the EU is undoubtedly the best way of going about it.

Also, so far I think Labour have successfully navigated a minefield.

^ this

A succinct breakdown of May's letter

http://www.owen.org/blog/8753