Why does the Labour Party not support Brexit?

[FlatulentStarfish]

Forgive me, I am not brilliantly knowledgeable about politics. But what I can't understand is why are the Labour Party not supporting Brexit? I always understood that Labour supported the British poor and working classes. Surely these are the very people who are being most hurt by remaining in the EU. One newspaper described the referendum as a battle between the Haves and the Have Nots. Why are Labour abandoning their people? The old Labour politicians such as Tony Benn were always anti EU.

[haddynuff]

Ha ha, reading this thread now with the benefit of hindsight.

My goodness, what did you lot all pontificating on how what the left wing needed was Brexit and you were all going to vote Leave - hope you're all happy!

Because what we have now is sooo much better than the status quo before!

[DrasticAction]

Typical I fear though is my DH who is just fixated on voting against Boris Johnson

shame people making it personal as if boris could really give a crap

[ThisCakeFilledIsle]

I thought Frank Field was good on QT last night. Typical I fear though is my DH who is just fixated on voting against Boris Johnson and cannot hear the likes of FF or Gisela Stewart

[claig]

There is no left and right, it's phony. Cameron is in with the Unions, with the Oxbridge Labour MPs who are in with the Etonian Tories, who are in with the union leaders, the luvvies, Goldman Sachs, the corporations, the charidees, the NGOs and the PPEs, the IMF, the EU political class and partakers of the publicly funded gravy train. It is theatre, they pretend they fight each other but they are all united against the people.

As the great American comedian, George Carlin, said "it's a big club and you ain't in it". It is the Establishment servants against the people.

Some fruity language from George Carlin.

[DrasticAction]

One of the roots of the history of human rights (in the west anyway) is generally traced from citizenship in the the Greek city states. Shared cultural history is yet another reason to Remain

We managed to share this before we got married to the EU didnt we , and I am sure after the divorce we will still by dint of Geography still stay close culturally! We are not shooting off into the Galaxy after all

[DrasticAction]

winter this Lexit film sounds extremely promising!

[DrasticAction]

Frank Field, Labour MP spoke on QT last night - for Labour Leave.


I think he was excellent and summed up whats happened and who needs to be represented by Labour. Its a shame he wasnt their Leader. He understands whats happened to the poor under this immigration crisis

[BreakingDad77]

As others have mentioned the EU brought in worker and other laws which appeal to labour, we have though right wing forces who think it great that they 'won' exemption from the working time directive.

These forces talk of cutting red tape - what red tape exactly ?! They wont be drawn on it which is worrying.

Whose going to be cutting the deal with the EU - is it going to be cross party or the elected government? I think the latter.

[Rainbunny]

Sorry if I'm repeating what others have already said but IMHO I think the Labour party looks favorably towards the EU these days because they view the EU as the only check and balance against our right wing government. Ultimately it appears that the Labour party has long since abandoned any hopes of winning a general election.

I'm so fed up, I'm a Labour supporter and want to vote to leave the EU. I had no prior opinion of Corbyn before he became Labour leader, now I'm seriously depressed about his leadership and priorities. Basically it looks like we're stuck with the Tories until 2020 at least... I don't know an awful lot about Sadiq Khan but I would vote for him as Labour leader today if they held a leadership election.

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Palehorse,
I am interested to know at Carney says about the effect of a Greek default on German banks and what that will do to us when we are not able to make our own decisions.

[Winterbiscuit]

I see that Lexit the Movie: The Left Wing Case for Brexit has nearly reached its funding target

It's organised by "Labour Leave" and I'm looking forward to watching the finished film!

"Lexit the Movie: there is a big lie we want to challenge, and we need your help to do it, and we need to do it fast.

Politicians and journalists up and down the country have a simple message for you: voting Leave is for eccentric Tories and nationalist UKIPers. Voting Remain is for decent, progressive, internationalist Labour folk.

This is a falsehood, a very big one. And we're going to make a film to explain why.

We are the Labour Leave campaign group, run by Labour MPs, campaigning to leave the EU on June 23rd."

[claig]

Palehorse, always remenber the Establishment. Serving members etc.

Remember Boris's words in general "it is the biggest stitchup since the Bayeux Tapestry" and they don't come any bigger than that apart from from on a Labour Party convention.

[Palehorse]

Claig, I'll see your former governor, and raise you one still serving

[claig]

"Eurozone is DOOMED: Euro will stumble from crisis to crisis and FALL, warns Mervyn King

THE EUROZONE is doomed to COLLAPSE in failure, a former governor of the Bank of England predicted yesterday.
...
In the book, Lord King expected an "economic political crisis" to be triggered by further euro-zone bail-outs and austerity measures.

Voters across Europe will increasingly turn against the single currency project in a backlash against the loss of sovereignty in the drive towards financial union.

He wrote: "It will lead to not only an economic but also a political crisis. "

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/648539/Eurozone-doomed-single-currency-crisis-Mervyn-King

[Winterbiscuit]

The economy could well be stronger in the longer term. This isn't a short-term decision.

If there's more money around then yes, we can better provide for the less fortunate. But while Brussels takes away British taxpayers money, then gives only some of it back and tells us how to spend it, we are less in control.

[user1463231665]

The economy will be a lot stronger with us in the EU - just about everyone agrees on that. If there is more money around we can provide for the less fortunate better. I know some brexiters think we will be richer outside the EU but that is simply not so.

[AnnaForbes]

For the left it's in part because the poor will be better off - why do you think this?

[user1463231665]

Labour supports remaining as do Tories like I am because it makes sense for Britain. For the left it's in part because the poor will be better off and because many many of our protections for the less well off have come from EU legislation we might never have pushed through but for having them forced on us by the Eu in all kinds of areas. On this topic I the Tory and my Corbynista adult child actually agree for once....

[Palehorse]

Eu commissioners are not permanent appointees. They serve 5 year terms. Those in Permanent positions are akin to our civil servants.
Commissioners propose legislation to the directly elected eu parliament, which cannot become law until voted and passed by the parliament. That legislation might originate with member states, meps, or from the commissioners themselves who are acting on behalf of (and with instruction from) member state governments.
So in effect the commissioners are answerable to their own national government, with the exception I suppose of the president, whose position is ratified by meps in the eu parliament.
No one is unaccountable.

In fact, I'd probably say that this system is more democratic than the UK system, where we have an unelected second chamber full of peers who are literally accountable to no one.

[OTheHugeManatee]

Only in the same way an mp/group of MPs/the government go cap in hand to parliament to get the rest of elected mp's to give their consent. I think it's called democracy?

The key difference here is that 'parliament' isn't an unelected group of permanent appointees - it is composed of elected representatives. By contrast, the power to propose legislation in the EU rests solely with people who are not accountable to any electorate.

I am not making the EU out to be a 'politburo'. I am simply pointing out that elected representatives - Parliament, in our case - have an incentive to listen to the wishes of ordinary people, in a way that unelected ones - such as the European Commission - do not. And that if sole power to propose legislation rests with an unelected group this is likely to have knock-on effects in terms of the kind of legislation proposed and its sensitivity to adjustment based on the views of the electorate. This is of fundamental importance if we want to live in a democracy. It's not enough just to say airily 'It should be more democratic, yes': democratic power is hard-won and history shows that it's not something readily handed back to the people, once given up.

[OTheHugeManatee]

'Politburo' and 'opus dei' are your words, not mine. Are you confusing me with someone else?

[Palehorse]

chili it's a fair point; so is it really a question of better education?

So elected MEPs have to go cap in hand to a bunch of unelected commissioners who then use their discretion to decide whether or not to act on that to propose legislation?

Only in the same way an mp/group of MPs/the government go cap in hand to parliament to get the rest of elected mp's to give their consent. I think it's called democracy?
You keep asserting that the commission is some kind of opus dei shadowy organisation. It's not. It's made up of member states! If you don't like your representative then vote out your government, it's them making the appointment.

Member states, meps, and possibly other organisations (though the rules are quite strict) can put forward legislation to the commission, but it can only become eu law when voted on by the parliament, which is directly elected.


Yes it should be more democratic, perhaps balanced by directly elected commissioners? But it's hardly the polit bureau you're painting it to be

[chilipepper20]

why do you think democracy and the nation state are intrinsically linked?

I don't. I just think practically most people in the UK couldn't tell you who their MEP is or what the EU structure is. But they could tell you about the equivalents in UK.

So, right now, it's undemocratic because people just don't know.

[OTheHugeManatee]

So elected MEPs have to go cap in hand to a bunch of unelected commissioners who then use their discretion to decide whether or not to act on that to propose legislation?

I don't know who else is asking the Commission to propose legislation along with MEPs, but neither do you, or anyone else. That's precisely part of the problem.

Do you really not see how this attenuates democratic representation of electorates? It's like having an elected House of Lords but a permanent House of Parliament, composed of appointees who you can't get rid of if they propose legislation you don't like.

The power to get rid of politicians if they piss off the electorate is a huge one, and we shouldn't take it for granted. Think of all those Tory U-turns lately. Tax credits. PIP cuts. Forced academisation in schools. All of which have come about because the politicians in question know they are voted in, and can be voted out again, so they just can't push changes through that piss too many people off.

Weaken that power, remove the fear of being voted out, and you start to see decisions forced through with total indifference to public outrage. After all, if the public can't vote the decision-makers out, who cares what they think? Think of what's been done to Greece, the forced privatisations and butchering of the welfare state there and you start to see what happens when unelected technocrats are in ultimate charge of political decision-making, with no fear of reprisals from an angry electorate.

This, fundamentally, is why we need to cling to UK parliamentary sovereignty and resist the attempts of bureaucrats to whittle it away under the guise of 'labour protections' or economic scaremongering. UK parliamentary sovereignty could be used to push through the right-wing will of the people, but also the left-wing will of the people. The key point is that it's the will of the people. Remove the accountability of politicians to the people, and they just do what they think is best - and if the people don't agree, tough.