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."

As an aside

When dh and I were watching the events of 9/11 unfold with utter horror I turned to him and said
"Well there goes the IRAs American funding!"
And I was proved right.

Sure got troubles now:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-northern-ireland-2017-39187077
Wonder how big SF's majority will be after another election.

I am not as let wing as many here but believe strongly in free health care at the point of need.

I don't need it, mine is private, but I'd hate to see someone need it and not have it.

Gruffalow The problems in Ireland really do stem from 800 years of English interference,.

Funny with NI being part of the UK, kids aren't taught about Cromwell's massacres in Ireland, Wexford & Drogheda, 1649 ? Irish POWs being sold into indentures and sent to colonies

Or the Irish famine 1845-1852, 1 million dead, 1 million emigrated, the population reduced 20-25%
Or the miserable conditions for Irish people under British rule ?
Wiki:
"It would be impossible adequately to describe the privations which they [the Irish labourer and his family] habitually and silently endure ... in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water ... their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather ... a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury ... and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property"

The Irish diaspora took their history with them. The famine is taught in some USA schools as a genocide, remembered by Australian Irish too.

I fear that many others in the Uk are also ignorant of the crimes that Britain, especially England, have committed over the centuries against Ireland.

Well close your eyes then
Because it's happening

Many of us aren't left wingers. The overton window has massively shifted.

I think it would on the whole be very naive to believe that troubles between ireland and england originated in 1969...

the troubles refers to conflict in NI that began in the late 60's.

Yes there was plenty of violence on the island of ireland prior to the formation of the 6 counties.

We'll just have to hope that people see past the "couldn't negotiate with the British" script. I thin people in NI will see stright through it.

Not just Ireland though is it bigchoc?
I can't see many commonwealth countries rushing to make trade deals with their old colonial overlords without the promise of FOM....

This seems the appropriate time to post this up. A little out of date but still relevant if you're going to talk about benefit bills

Haven't refound the one which shows what a high proportion of the "Benefits" bill pensions are

I think you are wrong
We shall see

as proven with May's trip to India...

Thanks prettybird

Several here, including me, considered ourselves centrists, not left.
However, the referendum, whatever Leavers intended, has swung the political dial to the hard right and it is stuck there for the forseeable future.
So we react against this

The rise in racism has maybe distracted attention from the fact that another social restraint has also gone:
People used to at least pay lip service to wanting a strong welfare state.
That was the post-WW2 social contract

Now, it seems politically mainstream to cut services to provide more tax cuts for the better off, e.g. IHT

I would describe myself centrist too
Although I'm more left leaning than I was last June!

It just goes to show that history teaching (and/or current affairs knowledge) in the UK (can't be sure about Scotland, so on this occasion I will lump the constituent countries together) is sadly lacking if there are posters who don't know that the Troubles refer to the events in NI from the late 60s up to the GFA

And not have known about the "No Blacks, No Irish and No Dogs" signs that preceded it.

Naivety is the kind word for it. Ignorance is the more accurate one.

As far as the famine goes it was a natural disaster, which could have been handled better by the english. It was not inflicted on Irish people, but very badly managed.

"Speak for yourself, I have never had anything back- That's speaking as a business owner, employer and long time higher than ever tax payer. I have no inclination whatsoever that I should 'pay more and take less than I put in' -getting something at all would be a start."

So you're a business owner. You therefore benefit from a great many institutions and infrastructure that are paid out of general taxation. For instance, the BoE ensures macro-economic stability, the government negotiates trade and other agreements, subsidises transport and telecommunications infrastructure. You say you have employees. Who takes care of them when they are ill, ensuring that you retain their skills and productivity (hint: the NHS, paid out of general taxation)? Who pays for their maternity costs, their emergency appointments, vaccinations? Who paid for their schooling (and yours), which now ensures high productivity and therefore higher profits for you? Not to mention: courts, legal framework, regulatory framework, policing? All of which come out of general taxation, which includes taxes paid for by the working poor, so that you can run your business successfully and make profits? The working poor subsidise the rich in so many ways, by paying for higher education (and mostly not using it), as well as advanced regulatory environments and infrastructure, most of which they don't use.

Just to add an obvious point, you never know what the future may bring, you may end up with a debilitating chronic health condition that isn't covered by your (no doubt) gold-plated health insurance, which we would then all have to pay towards out of our taxes.

We need to learn our colonial history, bad and good.

Not directly related but I remember being told by some older members of my family that it was a disgrace that workers couldn't refuse to serve negros anymore. I was aghast that it even happened, but it did and not long before I was born.

A famine which killed over 1 million people "could have been managed better..."?

Big of you...

😮😱

Naivety is the kind word for it. Ignorance is the more accurate one.

you can't use language like that in Brexit Britain! Everyone is highly informed on everything. As the history lesson on ireland shows!

Being better off, of course I don't expect anything from the state ...
except police, fire, ambulance, all the public services and infrastructure essential to any developed country.

Now, I pay more tax in Germany than I did in the UK (pay is higher too).
That's fair: Efficient public services, better welfare, healthcare.

The Uk & the US have chosen a different direction to W Europe, low tax & low welfare. Maybe hence Brexit.

Missmoon...staggering isn't it? These hard working business owners must not drive on public roads or drink clean water, or go to school.....

It was a complete disaster, and could and should have been handled better.

The cause was natural, not inflicted.