Leavers - how do you stomach Farage and co. / association with racism, fascism, xenophobia?

[SevenTimesSix]

Please no name-calling and abuse either way. I'm genuinely curious and normally don't post in the Brexit area - I'm not a super tough person and hate getting caught in the crossfire.

People may well have all kinds of reasons for wanting the UK to leave the EU. Some I can understand if not agree with. Others are baffling to me given information which is widely publicly available. I appreciate that we see the world differently and that many on both sides live in their own bubbles. There's plenty of other threads to take these things apart.

If I accept that not all, or even most, Leavers are racists or xenophobes, there's still no getting away from the fact that key figures in the Leave movement are outright racists or xenophobes (and some are proven liars on a grand destructive scale, although that's another story). They are not minority figures on the fringes. They are leaders and figureheads.

How can reasonable, civilised Leave supporters bear to be associated with these people? As well as personal behaviour and values, we as human beings do tend to judge others by the company they keep.

There seems to be such a big jump from worrying about the protection of UK borders or feeling that preservation of national sovereignty is under threat, to being prepared to stand up and be counted alongside a bunch of fascists.

I cannot imagine a single political issue which would make me prepared to do this.

If you're a regular person who just happens to want Brexit, how are you getting your head around this?

I think if the EU hadnt refused David Cameron's requests regarding immigration or labour had refused to implement complete freedon of movement we'd have no UKIP.

Extremism generally only takes over when the mainstream parties and unable or unwilling to tackle difficult problems head on.

I worry that the inability of parliament to manage an ordered response to a democratic vote will result in tge rise of extremism on all sides

Peregrina I'm not wrong. Coaches leave from all points to go on Marches - plenty left Devon and Cornwall to go and March to keep Hunting. Of course people go on marches, but the majority don't.

But, it's like a hunt on here - whoosh there's a Leaver, set the hounds, sound the bugles, tear her every word apart, shred her when we pin her down.

Like a wily fox, nighty night people, see you again.....for the next Hunt The Leaver.

When you have mps that are elected on one promise and do the complete opposite it is deeply undemocratic.

It's not. Legally it's accepted that the Manifestos are more of a sales pitch than a binding commitment. It can hardly be otherwise, in the course of a Parliament which runs to its full term there will be circumstances arising which were unforeseen and will need to be dealt with. I don't recall Leavers complaining when the Tories went back on their promise in 2015 to support the Single Market, even though it was a Manifesto commitment.

May has tried to deliver a form of Brexit, even though she has come up with a solution that no one wants.

No MP could and should have agreed a plan that locked the UK into an agreement they had no means of ending. No PM should have ever agreed to put that before parliment. Had the EU budged on that, it would have gone through. The fact they didn't solidified in many peoples mind exactly why they were voting leave.

Peregrina who treated those Syrian refugees poorly- it was Eastern Europe, an extremely racist, homophonic part of the world and you want to be further aligned with these people.
Perhaps if the UK hadn’t had such an open door policy to white, unskilled Eastern Europe migrants we could have fulfilled our duty to help persecuted Syrians!

Or commenting that people have a right to be concerned if Romanians move in next door. last time I checked Romanians weren’t a race.

All those bashing farage- any of you support Corbyn by chance?

No, every party did not stand on a Leave manifesto. The two major parties which did

My apologies you are a correct

have Leave in their manifestos failed to win.

However the two parties with leave in their manifesto did win the highest proportion of the vote. Conservatives were able to form a government and they came in on a leave agenda.

Legally it's accepted that the Manifestos are more of a sales pitch than a binding commitment.

Tell that to the lib dems. Actually dont. It still stings.

My point being we should all be worried if you vote in MPs that promise to do one then do the exact opposite

You went on a Leave March

WTF? How did you get the impression that I was on a Leave March watching Tommy Fucking Robinson? It was on the news. Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage addressing the same crowd.

Vladimir Putin backs Brexit and warns second referendum would 'undermine faith in Democracy'.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/vladimir-putin-backs-brexit-warns-13759603

That champion of democracy Vladimir Putin will be the real winner if brexit is not stopped.

appeal to the humanity that remain supporters purport to have the monopoly on

If people dont like being lumped together as ‘leavers’ perhaps it might be an idea not to lump every fucker who voted remain together either

Its happened constantly on these threads for three years...I reckon if more people used the word ‘some’ it would stop a good portion of the antagonism

But, it's like a hunt on here - whoosh there's a Leaver, set the hounds, sound the bugles, tear her every word apart, shred her when we pin her down

Missed this when i posted

{I think if the EU hadn't refused David Cameron's requests regarding immigration or labour had refused to implement complete freedom of movement we'd have no UKIP.}

Wrong, EU rules have ways of dealing with immigration if any country sees it as a significant problem. The mechanism is there, Cameron (and Labour before him) failed to use it.

If anyone does not think that Farage is a xenophobe and racist then talk to people who knew him at school or in the 80s when he was washed up by the Big Bang ( www.ft.com/content/02cad03a-844f-11e4-bae9-00144feabdc0 ) with all the neanderthal old school city boys in a pub in Ludgate Market and used to spout his bigotry (and misogyny ) as he got more and more pissed from 11am onwards. I though he was just a sad obnoxious loser then but to his credit the sociopath has cleverly traded on his ability to present himself as an acceptable face for those seeking facism, and has lined his pockets accordingly. But be under no illusions, he might be clever enough to sail close enough to the wind to not be called out for it in court, but he is still dogwhistling his inner bigotry - including on women's issues........

I just feel sad, and scared, that so many are naively being exploited by strategies that are straight out of the Populist playbook.

"Populists separate campaigning from governance. Their leaders are selected not for any governing skills but strictly for their ability to drive engagement. That’s why many of them — Beppe Grillo, Boris Johnson, Trump — come from entertainment industries. A quick route to engagement is arousing anger. In Finkelstein’s words, “The guy who says, ‘I have a seven-point plan for fixing the pensions system’” will lose to “the guy who says, ‘Throw them out! Get rid of those people’”.

For Finkelstein, more important than choosing one’s own candidate was selecting the right enemy. The ideal enemy is a person or group who can be presented as the embodiment of assorted evils. The populist script says: no matter how placid and safe your country might seem, this enemy intends to destroy your way of life or even kill you."

www.ft.com/content/5bd32460-4521-11e9-b168-96a37d002cd3

I do not think in any area or demographic the split is higher than 60/40 in most cases it was much closer to 50/50

40% is a significant minority not a rarity so however you look at it

over 40% of the old voted remain though more voted leave
over 40 % of graduates voted leave though more voted remain
over 40% of London voted leave " " " " "
over 40% of Yorkshire. west midlands etc voted remain though more voted leave

even in Scotland leave was well over 30%

in no place or demographic regarding age, place, job, education was there a tiny minority for any position

But, it's like a hunt on here - whoosh there's a Leaver, set the hounds, sound the bugles, tear her every word apart, shred her when we pin her down.
Do give over with the 'poor Leavers' rhetoric, Hate. You have plenty of form for attacking posters and for goadiness.

{But, it's like a hunt on here}

2 and a half years and we still haven't heard what the plan is from the Leave corner. Just as well the UK didn't crash out on 29 March as they would all be running around in their underwear.

I do not think in any area or demographic the split is higher than 60/40 in most cases it was much closer to 50/50

over 40% of London voted leave

In many London boroughs the Remain vote was much higher - 75% in mine.

last time I checked Romanians weren’t a race.

Romance/Italic ethnic group.

Oh you mean they’re not black. Well that’s ok then.

“last time I checked Romanians weren’t a race”

I think his views about Romanians comes under “xenophobia”........

And xenophobia is so much better than racism.

{Eastern Europe, an extremely racist, homophonic part of the world and you want to be further aligned with these people }

I would say that is also xenophobic.

This Guardian article about UKIP founder Alan Sked is also illuminating:

But those changes alone don't make 2014 Ukip racist, do they? "The de facto leader of Ukip since 1999 has been a racist political failure," Sked counters. He means, of course, Nigel Farage. But even if Farage's recent statements about not wanting to live next door to Romanians suggest he is xenophobic, is there any proof he was racist when he and Sked worked together in the mid-1990s? Sked laughs at the question and recalls an incident from 1997 when the two men were arguing over the kind of candidates that Ukip should have standing at the looming general election. "He wanted ex-National Front candidates to run and I said, 'I'm not sure about that,' and he said, 'There's no need to worry about the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us.'"

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjw557g4rTiAhWFalAKHapiByIQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2014%2Fmay%2F26%2Fukip-founder-alan-sked-party-become-frankensteins-monster&psig=AOvVaw00FguMKoWHvEg7Gww8bBc5&ust=1558808079841532

I worry that if we don’t deliver Brexit, the far right will only gain momentum, and then you only have to look to America to see what happens if you ignore what the people want. The EU shot itself in the foot and should’ve embraced change and sorted itself out. It should not be run by unelectable bureaucrats and can’t get its accounts sorted out. They come across as arrogant, why could they not foresee that you have to adapt to survive.

I don’t think we can remain now and expect all those Brexit supporters to just accept it. It’s going to be a worse situation than Brexit.

A lose/lose situation all round. Deliver Brexit and steal the thunder away from Farage. And fgs can someone who doesn’t support terrorists or turn a blind eye to anti-semitism take over as Labour Leader. What is the official labour position on Brexit? I always thought JC was pro-Brexit like many Old-school socialists, like Skinner.

The whole lot of the political parties are corrupt, or have issues with certain parts of the population, either their ethnicity, religion or sex.

The official Labour position on Brexit is whatever you want it to be, leave or remain (but it’s really leave, just don’t tell the remainers).