to post a reminder that there are loads of left-leaning reasons to vote "out"?

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

I think it's very sad that the "out" camp has been largely commandeered by racism and xenophobia. This can leave a very bad taste in the mouth for the liberal left, and I think is making people go to "remain" by default. After all, who wants to vote with Nigel Farage?

But this is actually very strange. The EU is undemocratic and benefits the tax-dodging super-rich. It is developed to suit the needs of enormous corporations and banks. To vote "out" would be a very logical move for people with left-leaning politics.

IMHO we need to be very careful not to vote "in" simply because the other option has been taken over by right-wing shouty men obsessed with immigration.

I've posted a couple of links to reasonable arguments below (but there's loads of stuff out there if you look for it).

www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/left-case-brexit

www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-mp-kate-hoey-why-leaving-the-eu-is-a-left-wing-move-a6687936.html

^^ that was to Roonerspism

Because it is in everyone's interests to finalise, the agreements will certainly not take years to conclude.

We will be free to enter into agreements with the likes of Ireland with different terms.

I'm very cautious by nature and I work in the field of EU regulation.

It is being massively overstated to scare people. I simply don't believe in practice it will be that difficult. The agreements themselves are relatively brief. It is the substance that takes the negotiation.

There won't be a sudden exit but a gradual handover.

Long term gains? Huge. Control, economic control, turn outwards to the world rather than inwards to Europe, the ability to control who we let in (why should an unemployed Lithuanian take priority over an Indian, for example?), strengthened trade worldwide, less hamstrung by regulation, and whatever the number is - and there is a number - we will be better off as a national the EU exists to spread wealth.

Where do people get tbe idea that you can quickly and easily opt out of major International treaties? That took years and years to negotiate?

Because Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage say so.

It'll take 2 years minimum, 2 years of uncertainty and lack of investment. The threat of Brexit has caused the FTSE to lose £100 bn in 4 days, heaven knows what actual Brexit would do.

But I suppose this is just scaremongering, scaremongering taking on a new definition to mean ''saying truthful things that I don't like and don't reflect the world as I see it''.

Because it is in everyone's interests to finalise, the agreements will certainly not take years to conclude.

WTF?

It's in "everyone's interests" to finalise ALL treaties. And yet even bilateral treaties take years.

It took Canada a decade to negotiate their recent EU deal.

And there was no motivation for anyone to make an example of the Canadians, which there will be with the UK.

These will not be happy negotiations, to say the least.

We will be free to enter into agreements with the likes of Ireland with different terms.

What does that even mean?

Ireland would still be in the EU. Their freedom to enter into bilateral trade and border agreements with the UK would be massively constrained.

Maybe you are only cautious when you have a clue what you are talking about.

doin it too years to negotiate partly because it was mainly to benefit Canada.

A trade deal with the U.K. post Brexit had to happen quickly. The EU knows this and Cameron/Osbourne know this.

turn outwards to the world rather than inwards to Europe

Europe, as everyone knows, no longer being a part of the world.

Fuck though, they did manage to negotiate that pretty quickly.

doin it means that the UK could adopt an agreement with Ireland to grant extra dispensation for allowing movement of people.

Post Brexit, the EU will be buggered in its current state and will HAVE to change. Maybe we could then consider re-joining......

the UK could adopt an agreement with Ireland to grant extra dispensation for allowing movement of people.

Not withiut massive EU oversight it couldn't.

We would now have an external EU land border. That's going to be fun to police.

Post Brexit, the EU will be buggered in its current state and will HAVE to change. Maybe we could then consider re-joining...

We could consider apying to rejoin on far worse terms than we have now.

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons to vote out, but I can't see myself ideologically aligned to a single person who supports leave.

What doesn't make sense to me is how the same people who voted for the Conservatives in the GE for the good of our economy are prepared to now sacrifice that same economy for sovereignty.

Just to address a couple of (possibly rhetorical) questions asked up thread:

Why did electoral commission not appoint a leftist campaign as the official campaign for leave?

-Was a leftist campaign even in contention? Would such a campaign have ever been able to claim they best represented the views of those campaigning for leave? Of course not, completely absurd to suggest Electoral Commission is part of some kind of conspiracy to suppress the left's voice on leave.

-Why did Corbyn not stand up for his principles and back Leave?

Because he would have had to deal with a crisis in his party that would have completely engulfed him and the whole party.

Corbyn being elected at all was already a crisis for the party, as well as his choice of chancellor (say the embittered ex-Labour party member).

Economic control over what is a very small amount of money compared to the GDP of the UK. I don't know what ''turn outwards to the world'' means and it seems like a very subjective statement. Control over immigration will depend on the deal we strike with the EU, Cameron will push to remain part of the single market and if that happens nothing will change with regard to immigration. Strengthened trade worldwide, stronger than say being able to trade freely with 22 countries and having trade agreements with several others? The UK is one of the least regulated countries in Europe despite being in the EU and is on a par with the USA. Plus UK businesses would still have to conform to some EU regulation if they want to continue trading with the EU. The EU will not accept British goods if they do not meet EU standards. Evidence points to no big bonfire of regulations post Brexit, apart from with some workers protections.

One of the things that depresses me most about the entire EU referendum is the polarisation. We either have to be singing the Ode to Joy at the top of our lungs and draping ourselves in the European flag, or we have to be mindless xenophobes who hate everyone remotely different and who believe in some crazy isolationist universe. It has become a battle between neoliberal capitalism (remain) and proto-fascism (leave) with all of the nuance of alternative economic and cultural arguments stripped away.

In this context, I do not believe a vote for either side counts as anything more than an affirmation of the dominant position. Voting Remain will be seen as the affirmation of big business neoliberal capitalism. Voting Leave will be seen as support for proto-fascism.

Of the two, I am more worried about proto-fascism. I will be voting Remain because I see this rising hatred and xenophobia as SUCH a huge danger that it must be stopped, even at the cost of a vote for neoliberalism. However, I will be placing that vote through gritted teeth because I don't think the EU is democratic, I don't think it holds out hope for an alternative politics, and I think it's grinding southern Europe with austerity and working with the IMF and World Bank to spread capitalism into the developing world, with disastrous consequences for communities there.

I think those of us on the left need to look at the lack of any attention to alternative economic systems on either side of the debate - and take that on board. We are fighting for the very survival of some concept of equality and fairness that isn't delegated to markets now.

www.weareplanc.org/blog/damned-if-you-leave-damned-if-you-remain-the-europe-referendum-or-what-to-do-in-the-absence-of-a-left-option/

That article pretty much sums up my position. Leave or stay are two bad options in our current situation. Stay is the least bad option.

I think it's grinding southern Europe with austerity

Yup.

Just like the Tories are grinding the UK with austerity.

Either way you get neo-liberalism.

It's just whether you think the neo-liberalism on offer is more or less rapacious.

I choose the EU over the Tories. I've seen UK Labour governments try to avoid implementing laws to protect their workers.

doinitfine - I agree. Though I'm now thinking about my use of that word and wondering if it isn't too grossly simplistic. The EU isn't really neoliberal - it tries to balance capitalism and regulation, while externalising harms to other parts of the world. The Leave campaign isn't really neoliberal either - the whole anti-migrant rhetoric is based on a kind of old-fashioned protectionism that, in my view, conceals a corporatist agenda.

I think that in EITHER case, what bothers me a lot is that the debate is focused on what will be 'done to us' by the EU or by a post-Brexit government. It is utterly passive. Workers' rights have never been something we can take for granted - freedoms that are hard won have to be constantly defended. Alternative economic viewpoints also have to be aired and fought for, also by us. And we will need to do that whatever the result of Brexit. The level to which we are assenting in speech to a very undemocratic picture of power is really worrying.

YANBU. I am pro-Leave and on the left. I don't think the Tories are in with much of a chance at the next election, and the far right are rising around the EU.

The EU already seems to have its own future mapped out, to fulfil its ideals that were decided long ago. I'm not convinced that the EU would ever be willing to fundamentally change, or that we could make a difference to that if we remain. It appears to be unreformable. There may be a false sense of security in letting the EU make decisions for us, but I don't find it reassuring in the slightest. A democracy and its leaders should adapt and change, according to the wishes of the people who elected them and to whom they are accountable.

the same people who voted for the Conservatives in the GE for the good of our economy are prepared to now sacrifice that same economy for sovereignty.

I think in many cases it's sovereignty both times. Some people will have voted Tory as they were the only party offering a referendum on the EU. Voting Leave is again about sovereignty, as well as democracy.

It may well be that those who voted Tory "for the economy" are the same ones who are now following the Remain campaign which is all about money.

The person-based arguments are really fascinating, aren't they? There are so many pro-EU unsavoury characters at the very top of big business (Philip Green, anyone?) but because our most-publicised Leave politicians are so generally such prats that's what gets the focus.

toomuchtooold, sorry not to reply to you sooner. Interesting to hear what you took from the Dissent article. I agree that not all the arguments are water-tight, but it's basically an opinion piece and I think makes some really excellent points too.

Bubbins, TUSC was in contention for the leave campaign.

Although I will probably go for a leave vote myself, I've been very conflicted and have a lot of sympathy for remainers who see the EU as the lesser of two sets of evils. What I find most frustrating is that the argument is largely being played out at the level of "Not a racist? Then vote in!" which is clearly a load of bollocks.

YABU. There are no sane reasons to vote out. Not least because it is inevitable that it is the poor and disabled who will suffer most if we do.

Given what they will take as a mandate that unholy trio could do anything to destroy worker's rights, support big business, cut welfare benefits, further take away environmental protection

These are not written on the back of a piece of loo roll right?

They are enshrined deep in law. You cant just get rid of them.

Of course the natural default is out, we all bloody well know Corybn is out! Years of comments about the EU compared to being thrust leader of labour and forced to front this remain campaign - not even half halfheartedly!

Frank Field, vote leave for the poor - VOTE LEAVE FOR THE POOR. Mann - cant fight captilism in the EU etc etc. Most Labour supporters want out. The only ones that dont - are the brain washed socialists who cant see beyond the end of their nose, like Chuka, Ed, Yvette and so on. Ie the very people you could blame for the problems in the Labour part for moving away from the body of their actual voters...you know , the people who put them in and out of power .

YABU. There are no sane reasons to vote out. Not least because it is inevitable that it is the poor and disabled who will suffer most if we do

So this man is insane is he judy?

Frank Field vote leave for the poor

www.frankfield.co.uk/latest-news/articles/news.aspx?p=1021270

It is the poorest in our communities, those whose choices in life are already by far the most restricted, whose standard of living is most adversely affected by the arrival of a record number of newcomers

There is a school of belief which quite naturally draws upon compassion to justify the opportunities given to millions of people from the EU to start a new life here. But compassion demands that we consider as a priority the impact that so many new arrivals has on our poorest citizens’ chances of securing the ever scarcer necessities in life

@ the MC telling the WC what is good for them. How patronising and foolish to underestimate the intelligence of the WC. There are several types of intelligence not just logic and linguistic.

I want to vote left however as a disabled person with disabled DC it makes me very fearful.