TheHoneyBadger
"i don't necessarily hold out much hope that that will lead to huge change in the conditions but it does give me a glimmer of hope to be honest that we are not totally cowed and people are able to think outside the box of what breakfast tv tells them to think. all the tantruming in the world has not changed the outcome of the vote."
You only need look at the NHS too see how things are already getting worse thanks to Brexit. The Tories have been given carte blanche to impose deeper cuts across the board on the basis of the economy potentially tanking. Pro-Brexit think tank Change Britain today claimed a huge amount of money could be saved by cutting back on regulations, which I expect will include all sorts of regulations that protect consumers, workers, the environment etc. This is chaired by Gisela Stuart (Vote Leave LABOUR MP).
My main argument against leaving the EU was always that it would empower the right wing of politics. My feeling is this - there are two groups of people who voted Brexit; those who want a political revolution and those who want more of the same. At the moment, it looks like those who want more of the same are getting their way. More privatisation, more deregulation, more money for the rich at the expense of the poor, more hatred of immigrants etc. Those who wanted a political revolution were, in my opinion, very naïve and will be very disappointed. Same goes for Trump, as far as I can see.
There has been an awful lot of criticism of the "liberal urban elite", and they are treated as a single group. They are not. The truth is that the very angry, anti-Brexit left-of-centre members of this group don't actually hold much real political power. It is the neoliberal members of this "elite" who have caused all the problems as they have been in charge ever since Thatcher's era (despite what David Davis says, the "levers of the economy" have been in the hands of the CEOs and major shareholders of giant corporations for decades now, irrespective of EU membership). Of this group of neoliberals, many will be disappointed that globalisation is being threatened. But, and this is key, Brexit has not stopped the neoliberals being the leaders of The City or of the global corporations upon which we rely. These people are not going to experience a road to Damascus conversion and suddenly realise the errors of their ways. They will continue business as usual as much as possible, and indiscriminately pass any extra costs onto the "normal" people who voted both Leave and Remain.
The cold, hard truth is that there is no political appetite in the UK for genuine reform. Brexit was not a clarion-call for the revolutionaries and was not a signal that "the people" have had enough. It is to the advantage of certain political groups to claim either or both of these things, but the Opinion Polls show such an overwhelming lead for the Tories that even a General Election upset along the lines of Brexit and Trump wouldn't stop a Tory win. Too many people want what the Tories are offering, which is essentially rebranded neoliberalism.
I think a big part of the negative fallout from Brexit, and the inability of the various groups to reconcile the reality with the false positions presented by both campaigns, comes from the fact that the Remainers treat the Leavers as a single group with a certain set of stereotypical traits and the Leavers treat the Remainers with exactly the same level of contempt. Actually, there are sub-groups within each opposing Brexit camp that have more in common with their opposite number than they do with other sub-groups in their own camp. That is why some people voted Leave to protect the NHS whilst others voted Remain to protect the NHS, and some voted Leave to get out of TTIP whilst some voted Remain to avoid a UK version of TTIP that would be even worse for the citizens. Conversely, Cameron led the campaign for Remain from a position of being TTIP's biggest supporter and Boris campaigned for Leave from a position of being a supporter of all the ideas contained within TTIP. May has hardly been a friend of immigration over the years and has campaigned hard against the European Human Rights Act, but was a Remainer. Or so it is said!
Ultimately, everything comes down to two failures. Firstly, the "liberal urban elite" has failed to do what it promised and create a fair society through market forces. The neoliberals started it and the left-of-centre Blairites failed to address the failure when they had the chance. That is why many working class people are justifiably angry. Secondly, the working class abandoned left-of-centre politics just when it needed it most. Unfortunately, there are just too many working-class voters who would rather vote Tory / UKIP or abstain or support Corbyn than vote for a moderate left-of-centre option. That is why many of the (left-of-centre) "liberal urban elite" are justifiably angry. The only groups throwing tantrums are the wealthy neoliberals, as their lives may become slightly less luxurious, and those on the hard right, who are upset that the Remainers have the temerity to challenge their bigoted political agenda.
Where will all this anger lead us? Nowhere good. The current political direction is to the right, and the country voting Brexit has not changed that direction. In my mind, the Brexit result is neither the cause of, nor the solution to, our country's problems, but rather a symptom of them.