The Left wing case for Brexit

[shinytorch2]

Lexit the Movie:

I watched this at the weekend. Terrible production values but good honest arguments. Explains how the EU is enforcing austerity and privatisation at all costs. NHS and unions beware.

Jeremy Corbyn is not in it but his brother is! And we hear from a very ancient but wise Tony Benn.

This is really good. Low budgets yes, but it focusses on what matters.

It shows how undemocratic the EU is and the extent to which it is guilty of soft despotism.

This was pretty good, I'm not on the left but to be honest I had slightly forgotten how awfully Greece was treated, I remember how shocked I was at the time that the EU could ride roughshod over the whole democratic process and basically blackmail an entire country.

Tony Benn's arguments resonate with me far more than any of the more recent rhetoric.

I agree with you about Tony Benn Alpaca.

Patrick Collinson and Larry Elliott - the Personal Money and Economics editors of the Guardian - always put the leftist case for Brexit too. Really good piece by Collinson on Saturday. I've never understood why the paper itself likes the EU.

and here is that piece by Patrick Collinson from the Guardian to enjoy over your lunch break!

www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/jun/18/eu-vote-brexit-working-people-rents-wages

There is a left wing case from a purely academic point of view but, in reality, leaving is a vote to damage the economy and encourage the far right both in the UK and in Europe.

There is a left wing case from a purely academic point of view but, in reality, leaving is a vote to damage the economy and encourage the far right both in the UK and in Europe.

I realise there is a genuine left wing case to be made, but does anyone know anyone actually making it in real life? I know a lot of geniune lifelong British "lefties", from academics to small business owners to arty types living on a shoestring, and not a single one of them is voting leave.

I know a lot of geniune lifelong British "lefties", from academics to small business owners to arty types living on a shoestring, and not a single one of them is voting leave.

I know lots and they are all are leave.

Whereas a lot of my more 'moderate' left friends etc are more of a mixture.

I know loads of lefty leavers.

There is a left wing case from a purely academic point of view but, in reality, leaving is a vote to damage the economy and encourage the far right both in the UK and in Europe.

This. There's plenty to criticise in the EU from a leftish perspective, but the problem is that the alternative is looking worse.

Agree the Larry Elliot & Patrick Collinson pieces are good. Other useful left wing commentary from Paul Mason and Jenny Jones.

I'm a lefty who'll either be voting out or spoiling my paper.

I'm a lefty and this is fantasy politics. Leaving would not take us to a new social democratic utopia. If it did, Boris/Gove/Murdoch would be on the other side of the argument.

There's lots wrong with EU policy from a leftwing perspective, but none of it gets fixed by Brexit.

Chalalala, I don' think the left wing case is purely academic. A friend of mine who I respect a lot put it this way:
"At the moment, things are really shit, and looking forwards if there isn't any drastic change all I can see in ten years time are them being even worse for my kids. If we leave, it's a risk, and it'll be worse in the short term, but there's a chance that longer term there could actually be real changes."
IMO, where we stand now, a change of a % or so in GDP growth is more or less academic compared to distributional factors - inequality has been rising since 1980, wages have fallen as a share of national income, median real wages have fallen 10% since 2008 (16% for under 25s), housing costs have gone up, etc etc.

I am now going to spoil my ballot paper as I cannot bear the thought of voting with Farage

Many of us on the Leave side aren't fans of UKIP.

But this referendum isn't about Farage. He has no connection to the official Leave campaign. UKIP only got 12.6 per cent of votes in the last general election, and they have just 1 MP (who isn't Farage). The media has put him forward disproportionately, where we should have been hearing mainstream debate, and he doesn't represent the moderate majority.

On Thursday, he gets only one vote, like everyone else.

I'm a Lefty leaver but I know no others personally.

I believe it is the Left's wilful refusal to acknowledge the negative effects of high immigration on poorer and relatively unskilled members of the working class in this country that is causing a resurgence of far right tendencies. If the left won't listen, people will turn to those who do.

Labour should be representing the working class, not insinuating that they are mistaken or xenophobic for caring that their wages are being depressed (as acknowledged by Stuart Rose of the Remain campaign) by a steady stream of workers from poorer EU countries for whom minimum wages here is double what they would earn at home.

I agree with Sadik about inequality, wages and housing costs.

I am disgusted with some of the well-off, want-for-nothing, upper middle class Labour supporters I live amongst, who are all compassion for foreigners in need but have nothing but an 'undeserving poor' attitude to the British working class, and racist epithets for anyone who thinks a Government has a responsibility to prioritise the needs of its own citizens above those from other countries.

Hear hear Hubris!

Many of us on the Leave side aren't fans of UKIP. Indeed. And the only sure way to get rid of UKIP is to vote leave.