Westminster: Brexit is the hard right's weapon of mass distraction

[BigChocFrenzy]

The fervour and divisions over Brexit have suspended normal party politics.

The staggering incompetence & unsuitability of Corbyn as a leader, together with the resulting impotence of Labour has removed the normal checks & balances in UK politics.
There is a vaccum where the Official Opposition should be, so Theresa May is under pressure only from her right.

I fear Thereas May and the Tory rightwing are taking advantage of Brexit to complete the destruction of the post-WW2 social contract and the welfare state.

Meanwhile, the constraints of civilised discourse have been loosened and those with racist or social Darwinist views now feel free to spout their poison openly.

Putin is pouring petrol on all the fires and Arron Banks is lurking < sinister emoticons required >

Zoe Williams:
"Behind a smokescreen of bogus patriotism, ideologically driven cuts to the NHS and all our public services are unpicking the bonds of nationhood"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/brexit-theresa-may-falklands-war-nhs-cuts

"We should be marching against the crisis in adult social care, the closure of care homes, the systematic exploitation of carers, the £4.6bn cut from social care budgets this decade.
We should be .... asking:

“What exactly is the plan, if we’ve decided we can no longer afford to care for the elderly and the disabled?
What do we do with them instead?”

"We should be marching against cuts in education funding"

"Every morning we wake up to someone on the radio explaining, despairingly, that you can’t fix the hospital bed crisis until social care is fixed, and you can’t fix that until council tax brings in more, and it can’t bring in more because wages are too low."

"But when everything breaks at the same time, that is not a coincidence: it is a plan.

As surely as Margaret Thatcher had an economic plan on employment, rights, industry and wages,
this century’s Conservatives have a plan on public services, which is to smash them beyond all recognition."

So, even if the Brexit amendment is overruled in HOC, it had a nearly 100 majority in HOL, with good speech by Hesseltine. The Dubs amendment was defeated by 287 votes to 267 on Tuesday, so that's very close.

Momentum is building. As those price rises bite, rejection of brexit will grow.

This is what I don't get. The amendment that has just passed in the Lords is a Labour amendment. Why don't the do the same in the Commons? They voted the opposite way on the same amendment in the Commons!

The HoL, even before the reduction of life peers, did a lot of good wrt getting involved when governments were tipping over too far. Its a strange dichotomy really, they can prove their worth yet aren't really representative.

Why don't the do the same in the Commons?
The Peers aren't worried about their jobs. Pure and simple.

The house of lords is very labour heavy.

You can sense the tide turning can't you?

There is only so much back slapping Brexiters can do. The negative news about the implications of Brexit are coming through on a daily basis. Project fear has been debunked. Zero positives in leaving the EU. Even the tone of the right wing press is changing. When they do talk up Brexit they just sound desperate and delusional.

Showing once again there is no hive mind on these threads - or for Remain ..
I disagree with guilt by association.
I'll treat Leavers as I find them, same as anyone else

One important point though:
I can certainly imagine circumstances in which I might share the same view on a particular issue as people I despise
e.g. I support a United Ireland, but despise the IRA
I support action against ISIS, but despise racism againt Muslims

So, I would make a particular effort in those circumstances to condemn those who might share this one view, e.g. unequivocably condemning the IRA and racism against Muslims whenever the subject arises, not excusing or minimising.

The referendum has increased hate crime and open racism, not intended by most Leave voters, but I must say as a consequence of the anti-immigrant hate deliberately incited by Farage, the Leave campaign funded by Arron Banks, the Fail, Express
Other factors were the racist campaign by Trump drifting over and - in London - the racist campaign by Goldsmith against Khan.
As typically happens, once racism increases, so do other types of hate crime

There are some Leavers, including on Mumsnet threads, who keep minimising and denying this rise in hate crime.
These Leavers I do assume are racist, or maybe so fanatically blind to facts that they are dangerous.
If I were a Leaver, I would state clearly this was never my intention and condemn the crimes without ifs or buts.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-hate-crime-eu-referendum-london-racist-religious-faith-victims-figures-statistics-a7615356.html

"The Metropolitan Police statistics reveal an increase in almost all forms of hate-related crime, including incidents linked to disability, racial and homophobic motives

Numbers of disability hate victims have increased by 216 per cent in the last year alone, up from 251 in 2015-16 to 794 in 2016-17.

The number of victims of religious and racist hate crime has risen almost 20 per cent, from 14,004 to 16,618, and victims of faith hate have seen an 18 per cent increase from 1,699 to 2,000 within the same time period, when the issue of Brexit dominated national debate.

The figures also show homophobic incidents have increased by 12 per cent, from 1,816 to 2,033"

There is quite a lot of talks about the fact that more MPs are ready to rebel now that they have the support from the HoL.
I think it will be a closer vote at the very least.

I have to say, it has been raised before but I'm wondering why TM has gone with the appeal with the Court case instead of getting in with things.
The (potential?) issues with Brexit are becoming more and more apparent. Cost of living is increasing. People are loosing their jobs. It's going to be harder and harder for TM to defend her position.

I think... Thought it was, need to double check.

bigchoc again showing why you're far better with words than me some.

On funding(some one mentioned it looks like it's been re instated), I'm guessing Banks is ready to roll as soon as the vote goes his way.
Claig on the US threads disappeared on November 9th.

I didn't realise Claig had gone - thought at one point s/he might just be a bored Essex housewife, but it became obvious that it was more than that. I stopped going on the U.S. politics threads because of the ridiculous shilling/ spamming/ whatever you want to call it - it's a very effective way of stopping discussion. A bit like SpringingIntoAction on the brexit threads, all over every single conversation like a rash, disappeared pretty much immediately after the vote.

Very tiresome. What's brought them back? It has to be the HoL, the amendment on a meaningful vote for brexit is an existential threat to the leave project, although only if brexit turns out to be a crock of shit. Of course, if the sunlight uplands are as inviting as we are told, there will be a huge majority in favour of the deal .

Bigchoc. I have followed these threads for a while and I appreciate your last post as it seems really reasonable.

Please can you give me examples of when leavers have minimised or denied hate crime. I have not seen this happen.

That is shocking and I would also condemn this.

Well, if the government decides to ignore the (very reasonable) amendments proposed by the Lords and demanded by a cross-section of the electorate, Gina Miller is willing to take them on again. Attagirl, Gina, make it a hat trick !

I wonder what is happening to Jolyon Maugham's case in Dublin which hopes to clarify that A50 is reversible - I looked for information on his blog and can't find anything very much.

There is quite a lot of talks about the fact that more MPs are ready to rebel now that they have the support from the HoL.

I think this is also a factor - quite apart from any amendments, the Lords seem to have allowed an opposition of sorts to find its voice.

May made a huge tactical error in pursuing the A50 appeal, she should have gone for it earlier, rather than giving the opposition a chance to pull itself together. She could probably have had A50 out of the way by now if she'd been less inflexible.

History will be unkind to the Brexit campaign.

It will record 40 years on anti EU headlines in the press. It will record a weak prime minister trying to silence the euro sceptics with a referendum to save his own hide and losing.

The referendum will be defined by the murder of Jo Cox, the breaking point poster and opportunist Tory MP's eyeing the leadership.

Post referendum will be recorded by rising hate crime, Farage gloating outside parliament "not a single bullet fired", gloating in EU parliament and posing with Trump in a gold lift. It will record attacks on citizens (Gina Miller), the rule of law and judges. It will record government putting party before people.

Brexit will be recorded as a dark period in UK's history.

Grufalo;

Nigel farage June 25th 2016

"We won without a shot being fired"

A week after jo coxs' murder.

Is that the sort of thing you mean?

I'm reminded of this tweet by David Schneider;

Brexiters:
Jun 2016
“Let’s take back control and make Parliament sovereign”
Mar 2017
“How dare the Lords vote to make Parliament sovereign"

Totally agree ghost

Tory Leave campaigner denies Brexit caused hate crime increase

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-brexiter-daniel-hannan-eu-referendum-campaign-caused-spike-hate-crime-racism-leave-campaign-a7237216.html

Showing once again there is no hive mind on these threads - or for Remain
I disagree with guilt by association.
I'll treat Leavers as I find them, same as anyone else

Yeah, I disagree too, especially in a referendum where people were forced to take sides alongside people they might profoundly disagree with. I have a lot of (Tory voting) colleagues who were strong remain but whose political ideals I very much do not share.

I don't think most leavers are racist, but the ones who are hugely invested in brexit very often are. You don't have to scratch very deep before they reveal themselves (on these threads and elsewhere). OTOH, I do think that leavers who don't say racist shit - and who do not defend racist shit from other leavers - deserve to be treated in good faith.

I've had no reply from either my MP or the baronesss I wrote to

Not surprised

Who was that poster yesterday?

"I'm not racist and anyway you're not even British!!"

As you say, you don't have to dig too deep....

ghost well I've never seen a pro NHS march that size before! The Times, North's blog, even the fail are twitching.
And bigchoc those are the ones reported, thanks for posting. Trump's election and May's collaboration have legitimised racism, as well as her policies.
RedAndYellowPeppers with labour in its current state, I'm afraid the vote will go through, hope it won't ! But all campaigns have to be in it for the long game, as things get obviously worse economically, the tide will turn, or be turned.

Daniel Hannan specialises in saying de

I think many people - including unfortunately some in the cabinet - totally understimated the complexity of Brexit.
This is because almost all were abysmally ignorant of the tremendously complex web of interactions that is mandatory for international trade & services.

Some still are in blissful ignorance, but others are beginning to realise that they can vote for the Uk Parliament to Brexit, but they can't vote to make the other 27 countries give a good Brexit for Britain.

They certainly can't vote to make the world a much simpler place, to enable this all to happen in 2 years

My goodness this thread is going all warm and fluffy compared to the others I have read...I have definately seen multiple times, posters told that they are racists as they voted brexit, even where they have not said anything racist! Glad to see that attitude has changed.

Keep up the good work.