Brexit got Britain done

[katmeouws]

Thats it really.

There was a good Vice documentary on canvassing the whole spectrum of voters in the UK at the time, and it did a better job of conveying the underlying sentiment than the Beeb or ITV did, or even Channel 4 half the time.

This was, of course, when Vice was actually good. LBC also had a lot of soul searching post-Brexit vote to figure out just how they got it so wrong.

I genuinely don't think a lot of people on my side of the vote put any more thought into it outside of I like things how they are and everyone else can do one.

Meanwhile, got guys in Blackpool being told they've never had it so good being part of the world's largest trading bloc, so they better not rock the boat.

And yes, this all became a shitshow, but nothing pisses me off more than people unobjectively going with the status quo and thinking any opposing view is purely Active Measures from the other side.

This is how you get Le Pen almost being voted in in France, or Five Star, Trump or any number of other movements that are railing against the establishment by utilising populist anger at the very well off making out like crooks on a system that, actually, isn't as great as many would have you think.

It will be painful to break up the system as it is, but when you've got nothing to lose, who gives a shit?

The death throes of neoliberalism are pretty apparent now. Hell, look at how much Biden's lot are trying to instigate hostilities with China. Guessing the military industrial complex sees dollar signs after Ukraine and wouldn't mind a little branching out.

Or our leaders are just that fucking stupid. I mean...

I think this past week has shown that the manifestos are soundly in the hands of those who ally themselves with bond vigilantes and other finance and corporate overlords.

No one I've seen so far has the balls to actually address these things, because no after Corbyn crashed and burned is going to have the vision to look past the current paradigm and imagine better.

Might as well temper expectations, hence, Labour get in and more or less follow the muted "growth" plan that Trussonomics shat out and Hunt moulded into being Turbo Austerity instead.

And when that fails, hoo boy, if you think the Tories were a little populist and fash then I can't wait to see what comes after people become fully disillusioned with the two main parties after two decades of no prosperity growth (which, by the way, no one can change regardless).

When we’re at the point when even The Telegraph are publishing articles about how “Project Fear” was right (and if anything, did not go far enough) surely there can’t be that many Brexit-believers left?

@Liebig do provide sources, please - I haven’t seen anything about Germany’s heavy industry being ruined? Or riots in the last 24h?

I think an awful lot of people who thought they had nothing to lose are realising they still had plenty more to lose. And nobody liked things as they were. Some people recognised, though, that the destabilising effect of Brexit for Europe was a lose-lose for everyone. At a time when the world has never needed unity and co-operation more, the UK chose to accelerate the growth of discord. Brexit was never going to advantage anyone except hedge fund managers and disaster capitalists, and Putin and Trump thought it was an excellent idea - there’s nothing like weakening your competitors for leaders like that. You only had to look at who around the world was most welcoming of the Brexit vision to know it was not people or countries with kindly intent towards the UK.

The problems facing the UK are not "caused by BREXIT" for the most part (the whole world is a bit of a shit-tip right now), but BREXIT is certainly exacerbating pretty much all of them and making them a lot worse.

I think we're going to have to commit to rejoining, humiliating through it will be. It will take a long time though.

Can't wait for a Labour govt. I'm not naive enough to imaging the problems will go away, but just unfreezing relations with the EU would feel like a step forward.

At least we saw off that Jeremy Corbyn, at least we haven't been transported to the early 1970s.

Ummmmmmmmm........

Brexit. Britain got Done Over. Thanks leavers.

Right now people are putting a lot by Labour and depressingly if it is this stark realisation we are in trouble.

Although I’m hoping an end to war in Ukraine would help either party and us. And them

Nothing "started with Brexit".
Brexit was a result of a very large amount of people being dissatisfied with how things were. If the government (successive governments) had not ignored the wishes of a large part of the electorate for decades, Brexit wouldn't have happened.

You can't write it off as a few ignorant, poorly educated people voting for something they didn't understand when 17 and a half million people voted for it.

Even the Torygraph are starting to acknowledge Brexit was a mistake.

We have no option other than to start with rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 oh this cheered me up!

Yes, Brexit was a terrible move that has hurt us a lot. The EU is far from a perfect organisation but leaving the single market was shooting ourselves in the foot on a massive scale.

No, Brexit was the result of people being dissatisfied and then lied to that it was all the EU/EU's immigrants' faults. These opportunists seized on Cameron's lazy and arrogant assumption that he could shut up those he viewed as 'swivel-eyed' lunatics in his own party and, well, here we are...

It doesn't matter how many people voted for it. They were lied to. No matter how many voted for it they were lied to and that's a fact. I agree that many felt left behind for years but the inevitable outcome of that was not Brexit. Those concerns could have been addressed within the EU easily.

And now we are all left behind, unless part of the right-wing cabal that wanted this shit in the first place.

Don't forget that Cameron, a so-called competent leader, actually allowed a referendum to take place.

The stupidity of Brexit had nothing whatsoever to do with IQ. That’s like claiming Nazi Germany only happened because Germans were all stupid, or Trump only happened because Americans are stupid, or all Russians are stupid because they have Putin. That not everyone who votes for or supports a situation is stupid doesn’t mean that some choices made in history aren’t fucking stupid. Anyone who voted for Brexit anticipating it would result in any improvements in their life rather than just accelerating an already inevitable decline (caused by precious short termism and self-centredness) made a stupid choice - doesn’t at all mean they have a low IQ. It does mean they removed yet more obstacles to the actual cause of the country’s decline, though. Kwasi Kwarteng doesn’t have a low IQ. He has certainly made some ludicrous choices..

No point bickering over which leader was the most incompetent - it’s really silly to vote for massive change when you think the people who will be carrying it out are incompetent (or fantasists).

I don't know if anyone can separate the effect of Brexit from COVID and now Ukraine. Is Europe generally in a better place ? I' d genuinely like to know.

Blimey one poster obviously has too much time on their hands- almost half the thread is them! Reminds me of a certain other pro Brexit poster…

Brexit always was a shit idea, it’s just most people realise that now, and not just some people.

Where are the trade deals promised? Oh, turns out they don’t actually exist in reality. Well unless you count the really shit ones we signed with Aus/Nz.

@NicolaSixSix

do provide sources, please - I haven’t seen anything about Germany’s heavy industry being ruined? Or riots in the last 24h?

I suspect the "riots" in Paris line comes from events in Paris yesterday where members of the so called Black Bloc got up to their old tricks of attaching themselves to a Trade Union demo and then causing trouble (as they do).

The reason for the march itself isn't austerity, though inflation has recently become an issue in the debate, the dispute that triggered the march has roots in a long standing argument over pay for tanker drivers and the Governments wish to force them to go back to work.

A little bit. My home country has also suffered; I see reports of things running out in supermarkets, everyone has been told to save as much energy as they can, the government is worried about a winter Covid wave. But there were things that were easier because the country is part of the EU. For example, people could still travel relatively freely and visit other EU countries during Covid when the UK’s borders were closed. The petrol stations never ran out of petrol. And there seems to be some optimism that with gas storage nearly full, they will be ok over the winter.

France is going into general strike mode. Many loathe Macron’s administration.

List of companies insolvent this week.

Just BASF reducing output is a major issue. Anything energy intensive is cutting back or shuttering to keep the lights on.

The problem is, and as Vice and others picked up at the time or not long after, the messaging over this was completely fucked. Telling the masses reckoning on doing a rebel vote against the system that they’re racist or just stupid does not endear them to your cause.

It’s well known in psychology that people will spite themselves if they feel preyed upon or taken advantage of. The UK upper echelons and, even myself as a middle class professional, got a good taste of crab mentality because we didn’t effectively show the good side of being in the EU, only the Armageddon of leaving.

What happened after may or may not give one floating rights, but keep in mind those same people going “told you so” probably also post about the thousands going to suffer poverty or die because the economy is in tatters. So which is it? Fuck those that “knew what they were voting for” or do we have compassion?

Hopefully one of the political parties will have the balls to build closer trading ties with Europe, not reversing Brexit that will not happen for a generation unfortunately.

Yes it is at the moment . At no stage we saw empty supermarkets , the energy crisis is there too but not to the extend of the U.K. either and above all none of the EU countries I visited or have family in have this gut wrenching feeding of going backwards with power cuts and having no money for basics as heating up the house .