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Why does the Labour Party not support Brexit?

285 replies

FlatulentStarfish · 12/05/2016 22:57

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.

OP posts:
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parmalilac · 13/05/2016 10:07

Isn't it just because they simply want to do the opposite of whatever the goverment wants? That seems to be the usual case doesn't it? If it was Labour asking for Brexit then of course the Tories would want to stay in ...

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claig · 13/05/2016 10:09

'Isn't it just because they simply want to do the opposite of whatever the goverment wants?'

No, it is the opposite. The governemnt and the Establishment and the great and the good all want ti stay in the EU and that is why Labour ges along with them. It is only the people who want out.

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Winterbiscuit · 13/05/2016 10:09

I'm quite shocked at the number of people who think this is a vote between the Tories and the EU! It really isn't. We have the chance to vote the Tories out at any of our general elections, and this has of course happened many times in the past, but we can't vote out the EU.

I don't believe there will ever be a "reformed EU". It hasn't happened over the last decades or even when Cameron was negotiating more recently. There's far more possibility that we can reform our own country and its politics, if we concentrate on getting it right here, not relying on Nanny EU to make our decisions.

Additionally, if so many people don't trust Cameron an inch, why on earth are they heeding his exaggerated warnings and obediently following his instructions to stay in the EU?

Discontent and the far right are gathering pace in the EU, and of course the EU is constantly lobbied by big business who get the laws made to suit themselves, which discourages small businesses and entrepeneurs. That's a rather right-wing set-up controlled by those with money, and with quite a bit of closed-door decision making (trilogues). The elected MEPs can't even propose legislation themselves, it's done by the unelected Commission.

The UK has been a leader in human rights for centuries, including the Magna Carta and forwards. We certainly don't need the EU to tell this country how to make decent human rights laws.

The UK created a good deal of helpful legislation long before we joined the EU in 1992. For example, on the subject of women's rights, the Abortion Act 1967 and the Equal Pay Act 1970. The UK's own Equality Act of 2010 would continue if we leave the EU. The Domestic Violence Act and the Employment Protection Act were passed independently of the EU, and the Divorce Reform Act was passed before we joined the EU.

My income is low and I'm in favour of leaving the EU. It's rather patronising that although most working class people would like to see Brexit, some people are still arguing that they shouldn't do it because it "won't be good for them". Having a low income and/or being working class doesn't cancel someone's ability to weigh up the arguments and think for themselves!

The economy may or may not take a short-term hit, but I think will do well in the long term. This is a long term decision, and as the Rev. Giles Fraser said on Question Time "Democracy is not for sale".

Political reform is something that's being pushed for in the UK, such as House of Lords reform and a cross-party group campaigning for proportional representation.

The EU's plans are designed to remove power from ordinary people so that we don't bother the elite. The EU's plans are for privatising all our public services (money again), gradually and irreversibly superceding the laws of its members, and becoming a superstate. They have a flag, anthem, passport, currency, "Europe Day", and are planning an EU army. British armed forces which are top-quality may well be subsumed into this in order to quietly quell our nation's power.

Will it be another 41 years until the next referendum, when we'll be so entwined with the EU there's no chance of escape?

As Alan Sked, Emeritus Professor of International History at the LSE, said in his article yesterday, Why Britain really joined the EU and should now vote to leave it:

"We are not some supine, failed state. We lead the world in soft power. In the past we regularly saved European democracy by our example. We can do so again – in fact, that is what the EU is really most worried about."

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Popocatapetl1234 · 13/05/2016 10:10

@Claig: you know it really isn't.

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Mistigri · 13/05/2016 10:15

Let's look at Port Talbot: the Government could have intervened to try to save jobs but they are not allowed to offer State help under EU rules.
What numpty world are we in where our politicians are not allowed to help our workers because it might disadvantage people in another country?

Yes, let's look at it. You know you've gone through the looking glass and into wonderland when Tory and Ukip supporters start moaning that the EU prevents them nationalising go the steel industry.

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claig · 13/05/2016 10:20

UKIP were against the privatisation of the Royal Mail and the shutting down of our post offices etc. Some of our national institutions and ways of life are fantastic and valuable and UKIP are against discarding them on the altar of free market fundamentalism and EU hegemony as many Tories would wish to do.

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Mistigri · 13/05/2016 10:22

Ok so Nige is in favour of nationalising heavy industry now? Pull the other one.

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purits · 13/05/2016 10:34

Who mentioned nationalisation? There are other ways of helping.
We were not allowed to specify UK steel for Government projects, it had to be open to all. So we end up buying Chinese steel. How does that help Britain or the EU?

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claig · 13/05/2016 10:34

He was in favour of not privatising the Royal Mail. I am sure that he would also step in to aid and subsidise our strategic industries if he were in charge. He wouldn't allow the EU free market fundamentalism of "anti competitive business" regulations made by bureaucrats who have never spent a day in business, apart from the business of lining their pockets, risk the destruction of our industrial base.

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TheOldMonkey · 13/05/2016 13:13

As an onlooker, and I know I don't know these people in real life only through the media, it strikes me that Jeremy Corbyn is not genuine in his support to Bremain. He looks shifty and uncomfortable when speaking about it, and seems to want to avoid the issue altogether.

Even David Cameron does not really seem all that interested. His negotiations with the EU in February seemed to be half-hearted and his reforms next to useless. There does not seem to be any passion coming from him, it is almost as though he has no choice but to push the remain campaign but his heart is not in it.

I think the government should have just given the people the information they needed and not campaigned in either direction. Because the Remainers don't seem to be genuine and there is a feeling of insincerity, I think it may come back to bite them as people notice these things.

I feel there is a lot going on that I don't understand about the motivations of the politicians involved.

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Winterbiscuit · 13/05/2016 14:14

TheOldMonkey well said.

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FishWithABicycle · 13/05/2016 14:32

Renationalisation of the steel industry isn't what they were talking about. Manufacturers of steel in the UK have costs in terms of complying with environmental legislation, employment law and health and safety legislation which are all good things and beneficial to the country, but they have to sell their steel at the same price as a Chinese manufacturer who doesn't have these extra costs and who has a state subsidy for running their factories. So they lose £1m a day because it's not a level playing field.

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Mistigri · 13/05/2016 15:59

And that's exacty why the EU would permit anti-dumping tariffs against chinese steel producers - something that the UK government is against.

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ProfessorPreciseaBug · 14/05/2016 06:30

Yes that does make me wonder.. Dave campaigning to stop anti dumping tarrifs yet wanting to be part of Europe?

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FishWithABicycle · 14/05/2016 07:07

Yes sorry I discovered after posting the above that the EU did actually want to protect the British and other European steel industries in this way but the UK govt vetoed it because free market capitalism is more important than long term strategic thinking e.g. "where will our steel-using manufacturing industries be when we have no UK steel manufacturing and the prices therefore go up?" Bastards. Apologies for not doing my research properly before posting.

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claig · 14/05/2016 08:07

'Yes that does make me wonder.. Dave campaigning to stop anti dumping tarrifs yet wanting to be part of Europe?'

The whole reason the elite want us to be in the EU is so that we can argue for their policies i.e. globalisation, free trade treaties and the green agenda. It is we who were the first country to enshrine climate change policies in our law etc. If we leave the EU then we will have less influence in pushing a free trade agenda as opposed to a protectionist one which is often the one favoured by the French.

Of course, the real question is who does the policies of globalisation, free trade treaties, loss of sovereignty and the green agenda really benefit. Is it we the people or they the elite?

Who does sovereignty protect, we the people or the supranational elite?

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claig · 14/05/2016 08:09

It all fundamentally comes down to freedom. Who governs Britain? Is it we the people or a supranational elite via their unaccountable bureaucrats and servants in Brussels?

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ProfessorPreciseaBug · 14/05/2016 08:12

Stand in the corner with a silly hat on your head!!.... sorry couldn't resist..

Your comment about environmental protection and regulation is ansolutley valid. These all put up costs, yet we have to compete with people who ignore the environment.

I think the very worst culprit was Brown. Hie economic strategy seemed to be simply buying cheaper and cheaper Chinese imports to stave off inflation whilst putting thousands of UK workers on the scrapheap. Dave is not much better!

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WordGetsAround · 14/05/2016 08:12

Jeremy Corbyn is a hypocrite. Unfortunately so are William Hague and loads of other Tories who have always been sceptic. I'd love to know what half of them are going to vote in the privacy of the polling booth.

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claig · 14/05/2016 08:27

'Your comment about environmental protection and regulation is ansolutley valid. These all put up costs, yet we have to compete with people who ignore the environment. '

Yes, because environmental policy is really just a part of the overriding globalisation agenda. It makes our industries uncompetitive and the EU regulations, advocated for by the elite who want to be in the EU in order to get all of the 28 countries go along with it, create an uncompetitiveness which enables globalisation since countries like China, not yet subject to the same climate laws enshrined by our elite, become more competitive which leads to our impoverishment and a levelling of the world which is what globalisation is all about.

That is why Hillary Clinton can say we are going to put lots of miners out of work and the great and good clap. The great and good don't care if we have to compete with unfair competition, the great and good want to be in the EU so that they can make sure that the EU never introduces trade tariffs to prevent dumping and that the EU never puts restrictions on GM crops etc. The great and good want to be at the heart of the EU to steer it in their free trade, gloablisation, globalist, loss of sovereignty direction.

Of course, everything may be about to change if Trump wins in America, becuse then the great and the good will lose.

Here is what Senator Jeff Sessions, the first Senator to back Trump, said yesterday

For the first time in a long time, this November will give Americans a clear choice on perhaps the most important issue facing our country and our civilization: whether we remain a nation-state that serves its own people, or whether we slide irrevocably toward a soulless globalism that treats humans as interchangeable widgets in the world market.

In Donald Trump, we have a forceful advocate for America. Trump has said that our trade, immigration and foreign policies must be changed to protect the interests of American workers and our nation.

In Hillary Clinton, we have a committed globalist. Clinton was an ardent supporter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership — which surrenders American sovereignty to an international union of 12 countries — and has clearly left the door wide open to enacting the pact if elected.

There is only one sure way to defeat the TPP, and that is to defeat Hillary Clinton."

www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/12/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-jeff-sessions-editorials-debates/84298310/

This is a slap in the face of the great and the good, of the elite, of the globalists and of course eventually of the EU and the great and the good who are really behind it.

It is exactly what our referendum is all about

"the most important issue facing our country and our civilization: whether we remain a nation-state that serves its own people, or whether we slide irrevocably toward a soulless globalism that treats humans as interchangeable widgets in the world market."

That is what our referendum is really all about and it is what the American election is all about.

If we beat the great and the good and vote to get out of the EU, their entire edifice will begin to collapse and we will save the nation state and help other countries across the world regain their democracy and liberty too.

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claig · 14/05/2016 08:40

In the battle of minds to convince the people, our great and good are calling on all of their mates in the global great and good to come over to the UK and lecture us and release "reports" that tell us how bad it will get if we regain our freedom.

Yesterady, the IMF, a few weeks ago the US President, and yesterday, in a sure sign of utter desperation, the elite's final card, Gordon Brown. After all of that fails and after reports that portend gloom are laughed at by the British people, prepare for the Pope to step in and help the great and good, after the Dalai Lama has been asked by the great and the good to do everything he can to help them.

It is the Britsih people vs the great and the good, it is freedom versus loss of sovereignty, it is common sense versus nonsesne, it is truth versus deception.

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cdtaylornats · 14/05/2016 22:32

We were not allowed to specify UK steel for Government projects, it had to be open to all. So we end up buying Chinese steel.

It doesn't it has to be open to EU based companies

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FishWithABicycle · 15/05/2016 14:14

I can agree with not being able to specify UK steel per se but surely you could specify steel that has been manufactured according to strict standards of environmental and employee welfare which Chinese steel wouldn't meet but EU would?

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unexpsoc · 16/05/2016 10:39

Winterbiscuit - what human rights were contained within the Magna Carta? Have I not been paying attention closely enough?

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unexpsoc · 16/05/2016 10:46

There are some really obvious contrasts in the discussion so far. For example - the EU is a superstate that has all of the power and stops us from doing what we want.

Yet when they wanted to apply anti-dumping tariffs they were stopped by the British Government.

We would be much better off if we could make our own laws - and particularly the poor would be.

Yet the leave campaign (including the beloved UKIP) have been open about the fact that they want to make workers rights more flexible (ie remove them).

The EU is all about making sure that we give big business what they want.

But the proposals put forward by the brexiters make it clear that the UK would basically become a "human labour farm" where businesses can do whatever they want to people with no rights left.

May I humbly suggest that the rhetoric of the brexit campaign is, to use a technical term, made up bollocks?

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