Westministenders: Teetering on the edge

[RedToothBrush]

12 weeks to go.

There is rising confidence in the Extreme Brexiteer camp as well as open comments about how they can deliberately force through No Deal. Remember No Deal is the default. Every political crisis that takes up time makes no deal more likely and the ERG can just be obstructive to facilitate a political crisis. Parliament DO NOT have the ultimate power to stop Brexit - unless the government effectively allow an option to do so. And there is no sign May will let this ever happen. No Deal takes us back to pre-industrial revolution Britain in many social and economic ways. Which will please Jacob Rees-Mogg no end.

No Deal prep is now costing us a fortune - and is no where near sufficient in its scope. Won't someone think of all the extra that could have been put into the NHS.

Parliament returns next week. I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas break. What will happen in 2019 no one knows; the only certainity is turbulance and lurching from crisis to crisis. If we don't get hit by Brexit, maybe it will be the US shutdown crisis or the collaspe in the Chinese economy that will get us. Economists are nervous and thats generally not a good thing for the average person on the street.

Time to get in the euros, stock up on the tomatoes, invest in books and otherwise batten down the hatches financially whilst we await the coming storm in the hope that the forecasters are as good as Michael Fish in 1987.

My Dad is really scared about the crisis of democracy in the USA
Trump breaks the law and gets away with it
the message that sends is SO damaging

In fact, it's strange that Tories still keep talking about the 1978 / 79 Winter of DIscontent, when my memory of the 1970s is that the earlier Tory govt 1970-1974 had much more serious disruption !

My memory too. The early seventies disruption was national, the supposed 'Winter of Discontent' was very regional. I don't recall it affecting us much in Oxfordshire.

Trump is genuinely a fascist & racist,
grossly over-used words, but coreect in his case

He's only the tip of the GOP fascist iceberg

I remember when Republicans were mostly nice folk, when I lived briefly there in 1968
then watching from afar as Tricky Dicky Nixon lit the racist fuse and then the Nasty Party really set off from Reagan onwards

Surely you realise that people would be starving now in this country if it were not for the foodbanks?
For some children, their only meal of the day is the free one they get at school.
People are already losing their homes and freezing to death on the streets.
I believe it’s going to get worse but do you really not see why some people felt they had nothing left to lose and wanted something better?
They were very vulnerable to the unicorn, milk-and-honey promises of the Leave campaign.

I think believing in the Leave campaign promises (then and now) occupies the same kind of magical hope as buying a lottery ticket does when you are really poor and stuck. I have a chronic condition, which stopped me being able to work for several years and I was completely reliant on benefits with no realistic hope of anything changing. At that time I bought a lottery ticket every week and religiously checked the numbers. Of course I understood the odds of winning were insanely low and got teased by family and friends but it really meant something to me and its hard to convey that to people who have never had that experience of being poor, stuck, left behind. I don't think that Leavers want others to suffer like they have (as has been suggested on one of the other threads) - I just think that its the same sort of magical thinking as buying lottery tickets and that is about inequality of opportunity and a kind of life stagnancy which is difficult to imagine if you haven't experienced it.

Let's debunk this idea that all Leavers are poor and need something to cling on to. Gove, Johnson, Fox, Davis, Farage, Redwood, IDS? If you try to tell me they knew poverty I will say "pull the other one". And then all those comfortably off Tories in the South East?

Agree with Peregrina
The VAST majority of the Leavers I know are pull up the drawbridge Tories of the old, white, rich variety
many of them are elected councillors and many think folks like Chris Chope are "a good egg"

- I just think that its the same sort of magical thinking as buying lottery tickets and that is about inequality of opportunity and a kind of life stagnancy

This makes complete sense in so far as magical thinking can. But why on earth was a referendum on EU membership such a focus for magical thinking, rather than a general election. At least with a change in the domestic government a real change to inequality is then more feasible, rather than a ref on international memberships and trade.

I don't think all Leavers are poor and need something to cling on to - but I am listening to people and trying to understand what they are saying and this is one of the ways I can relate to what I am hearing - on here, on the radio, IRL. There are of course other voices as well.

But why on earth was a referendum on EU membership such a focus for magical thinking, rather than a general election.

Misdirection ...

If David Cameron had still been in power now, do you think he would have brought about a second referendum by now or would have revoked article 50?

I don't think all Leavers are poor and need something to cling on to

This is, of course, part of the PR for Leave - those who vote Remain are a comfortably off elite. This despite the fact that people should be able to see with their own eyes that most of the leaders of Leave belong to the wealthy elite themselves.

lonelyplanetmum its a good question. I was listening to the radio today and there was an interesting programme on Brexit which included interviews from a range of people. It was marked that a couple of the Leavers who spoke to the interviewer were speaking passionately about Brexit and the hope that it represented for them - but then went onto say that they did not vote in general or local elections.

Girls
He'd have never invoked A50

peregina of course people can see that. I am just interested in trying to unpick what I'm hearing from other Leavers and to understand what is happening for them.

Yes, I know a Leaver who never bothers to vote in General or Local Elections. It's a mystery why he voted in the Referendum. Even he can't explain why he voted Leave, and I doubt whether he has ever bothered to think about the EU either before or since. He has his own business and if it goes down the pan as a result of Brexit, I will feel sorry for him on a personal level, but it will be what he voted for.

I am not sure that people can see that with Farage - he pulls off this stunt of being one of the blokes with his pint and his fags.

Quite a few people don't vote in local or general elections because they don't see the point of them: politicians will carry on lying regardless. Even at its best, Britain's democracy is only minimal. MPs vote down every suggestion that they should be subject to standards or recall.

It was marked that a couple of the Leavers who spoke to the interviewer were speaking passionately about Brexit and the hope that it represented for them - but then went onto say that they did not vote in general or local elections.

Yes- I'm more than a little pissed off with the undercurrent from some friends on FB, and from posters on other threads on here. Especially with those who don't bother to vote in GE's.

The rationale I've heard many times. goes something like " you don't understand,we had no choice but to vote Leave, our life is so hard and unfair, it was our only chance for change .."

One actually said to me, "up the revolution."

Well actually no, this wasn't your only chance, it was the wrong chance and you did have a choice. The choice was to have voted, or have voted differently in successive general elections.What you voted for in 2016 was absolutely not the revolution you purport to want. You handed carte blanche to people like Ian Duncan Smith, JRM, DD, BoJo, Redwood and their successors to trash the economy for their own short term gain and ultimately justify another half a century of disproportionate acute austerity.

GEs happen often and the results are hardly ever different, let alone magical. A Referendum is a “once in a generation” event (ignoring the alternative vote referendum, which was too technical to enthuse anyone) and therefore has magical unicorn potential.
I heard that R4 report - was it Adrian Chiles? He sounded surprisingly good. So much unfulfilled hope. It was very sad.

Yes it was Adrian Chiles - Brexit, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Radio 4.

It annoys me that the EU referendum was basically fought on terms of internal social politics. Annoys the hell out of me tbh.

A Referendum is a “once in a generation” event...and therefore has magical unicorn potential.

Yes Born (** hello!)^^ you are right, as always. If only it had been s referendum about something else, like tax brackets or the NHS for example.

Sorry for the typos.

Dangermouse but lots of ordinary leavers are saying that this is the only way that they felt heard. Over and over again, they are saying this on forums, on the radio, tv, IRL. I am trying to understand and to listen. There was a thread on here started by a leaver the other day, who talked about being a single mum with limited opportunities and so many people were saying 'whats this got to do with the EU' in increasingly exasperated posts - which is obvs a reasonable question - but she was trying to articulate something which was important and this question kept getting in the way.