Who else sees the parallels between "nasty right wing GC" slurs and "nasty right wing Brexiter" slurs?

[ConsiderTheLobster]

If you're GC, you know that a vocal majority within certain liberal left circles will denounce you as a right wing bigot. You know that you're actually GC because you've looked into this deeply and are trying to protect vulnerable people (women, non-conforming children, and trans people).

If you voted Brexit, you know that a vocal majority within certain liberal left circles will denounce you as a right wing bigot. You know that you're sceptical of the EU because it constitutes a corporate-favouring trading block, poses barriers to nationalisation of services such as railways, has deeply racist immigration policies (permitting free movement of predominantly white Europeans whilst restricting the movement of others), keeps people in many non-EU (e.g., African) countries locked into unfavourable trade deals, and reduces the influence of genuine democracy.

If you're GC and you work at a university, in the NHS or in left-leaning media, you're scared to say so. If you voted Brexit and you work at a university, in the NHS or in left-leaning media, you're scared to say so.

There are of course some genuine bigots who oppose self ID because they're transphobic. And there are genuine bigots who voted Brexit because they are racist. In each case, these are the narratives peddled by certain media about, respectively, all GCs, and all Brexit-supporters.

So - how many of us GCs still berate the nasty fascist Brexiters?

The new rules on importing goods don't come in until July. Why don't you see how that changes things? Companies not willing to import to the UK, increases in prices, increases in how long it takes to buy goods.

Fresh goods being affected because of how long everything takes.

And to the poster who said her family can't be racist because they're from Eastern Europe themselves. Plenty of immigrants voted for Brexit - from an "I'm alright Jack" perspective. Shutting the door behind them. It won't work though - we'll just get immigrants from outside of Europe.

And for those who don't like having foreign criminals in the UK - let's see how you enjoy all the additional crime we suffer because of a lack of full co-operation and data sharing between the UK police and those in the EU.

‘The fact that so many have died because vote leave’

Flashbac who has died because of Brexit?

@slitheringsnakes, why do you think (mainly white) Europeans should have more right to come to the UK than, say, Syrians? Why do you think our access to "goods" is more important than African countries' access to deals which allow fairer trading?

The assumptions made about the working class are unbelievable. All the people I knew when growing up were great debaters, in fact, that was the staple topic. These were people who knew the history of the labour movement inside out. They knew more about politics than all the people I've met since I've lived in the South and that's since 1980's.

I did note that the left behinds saw Brexit as a movement for social change - yes they bloody do understand. Just because someone doesn't agree with your argument does not mean they do not understand, it means they do not agree with your argument and if they are less eloquent than you are, it doesn't mean their argument must therefore be invalid

@highame

The assumptions made about the working class are unbelievable. All the people I knew when growing up were great debaters, in fact, that was the staple topic. These were people who knew the history of the labour movement inside out. They knew more about politics than all the people I've met since I've lived in the South and that's since 1980's.

I did note that the left behinds saw Brexit as a movement for social change - yes they bloody do understand. Just because someone doesn't agree with your argument does not mean they do not understand, it means they do not agree with your argument and if they are less eloquent than you are, it doesn't mean their argument must therefore be invalid

Agreed, @highame

Fair points Zinco and ChestnutStuffing. I certainly don't believe in trickle down economics or that GDP is all that matters. (FWIW, Corbyn did actually raise exactly some of these issues during the Brexit debate period, in which he was widely derided as "fence sitting" for trying to address both sides of the story.) But there's no question that it DOES matter (among other things) because even a government with the best will in the world towards its poorest is going to be affected in its actions by how much money it has to spend. All of this has to do with government policy on lots of things other than immigration. I think I agree with Aahotep that I can see the arguments for Brexit, I just can't see the argument for any kind of Brexit the Tories are likely to implement.

Put it this way: Economists across the board agree that the net effect of Brexit on GDP is going to be negative. Even most Brexiteers themselves seem to have come round to admitting that, and simply saying as you have above that it's not GDP that matters, it's how the working class fare within that.

So, let's suppose we have a scenario five, ten or twenty years down the line in which GDP has shrunk (or just hasn't increased by as much as it would have otherwise), but the incomes of the working class have risen because they're not competing for jobs with so many immigrants. This MUST mean, by definition, that the incomes of the middle class (such as retired and property-owning stalwart Tory voters) and/or the ruling class (ie the Tories themselves) will be lower. Substantially lower, because they will have to absorb both the hit to GDP as a whole and the fact that the workers now take a higher amount from it.

Do you really think that's the scenario the Tories have in mind, and would even tolerate let alone put this amount of effort and heartache into achieving?

Caveat to the above: I mean "income" in total effctive terms, including what people get indirectly from the value of state schooling, the NHS etc. It's conceivable (though unlikely) that the personal incomes of all classes could be protected by reducing government spending to almost nothing. Again it's the working class who will suffer disproportionately from that though.

Thanks highame some of the presumptuous statements about the working class have been downright rude. As usual no lessons have been learned from repeated defeat. Alan Johnson says it best at 03:50 "The working classes have always been a disappointment for John (from momentum) and his cult, Corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep everyone knew he couldn't lead the working-class out of a paper bag"
m.youtube.com/watch?v=R_C6wrSgqtA

Bellhathor - And yet Corbyn had more policies to benefit the working class than any Labour leader in recent history. He was also much more amenable to the argument for Leave than most within Labour, was widely criticised by the Labour right for not campaigning single-mindedly enough for Remain, confirmed immediately and unequivocally that the referendume result must be respected, and attempted to hold onto that position (only being forced into Labour's unconvincing 2019 policy by the combined weight of Remainers such as Starmer fighting against him).

This is that thing I mentioned earlier - the working class can't possibly be expected to vote for Blairite Labour because it didn't do enough for them. And they can't possibly be expected to vote for Corbynite Labour because it's "unelectable". So they might as well just give up, until Labour can get Santa Claus himself to lead the party?

Of well I suppose that's what they've done by voting for Johnson.

FifteenToes Definitely on paper and I know he was bullied relentlessly into positions he didn't support with Tony Blair always conveniently giving interviews to undermine him. He however allowed the activists to become the face of the party and the focus always looked like it was on identity politics. Like it or not there is a large contingent on the left who look down on certain people, it's a disdain that is hard to hide and once seen people just walk away.

Like it or not there is a large contingent on the left who look down on certain people, it's a disdain that is hard to hide and once seen people just walk away.

This is what I was saying earlier. It's elitist.

I can see that's an easy comparison to make. But I'm, dare I say it, not guided by feelings. Trans extremists give greater weight to feelz than to science and despise anyone who dares say "Hang on a minute, what about safeguarding/fairness in sport etc". A lot of Brexiteers make their arguments based on feelz and not real risk- ignoring N Ireland is the obvious example.

Feelz reinforced by aggression is not a good look.

The convener who just spoke there was excellent! Couldn’t see his name but he was measured, calm and precise with his language.

A lot of Brexiteers make their arguments based on feelz

I'd argue that this is true of people in general - both remainers and leavers. It's something each side could reasonably say of the other - but we're terrible at seeing it in our own "sides". Think about the rallies of middle class Londoners going around with EU flags on their faces and a bizarre devotion to a political organisation (the EU). Think of the people equating the EU with an emotional tie to "Europe", saying "we're citizens of Europe!" (sure, but 1) the EU is not Europe, and 2) why Europe rather than "the world"?). What about the people who feel really emotionally attached to their cosmopolitan identities and skiing holidays, all with nice short airport queues.

@BelleHathor

FifteenToes Definitely on paper and I know he was bullied relentlessly into positions he didn't support with Tony Blair always conveniently giving interviews to undermine him. He however allowed the activists to become the face of the party and the focus always looked like it was on identity politics. Like it or not there is a large contingent on the left who look down on certain people, it's a disdain that is hard to hide and once seen people just walk away.

I get that, I just don't see what this is supposed to achieve. It seems like it's supposed to be the working class "teaching us a lesson" by sticking two fingers up to us, but it isn't us that they're really hurting, it's themselves.

This thread was about Remainers looking down on Brexiters in comparison to the woke looking down on GC feminists, and a lot of people have made very interesting points on both sides of that. But now, supposedly in support of that, we have Alan Johnson who was one of the strongest campaigners for Remain and chair of the 'Labour In For Britain' campaign, slagging off Jeremy Corbyn who radically transformed Labour's agenda back towards its traditional aims, respected the referendum result and did everything he could to keep that as Labour policy.

And then you have the fact that Jeremy Corbyn, who has spent his life campaigning for trade unions, working conditions and disadvantaged groups, and spends his Christmases helping at food banks and homeless charities, supposedly "looks down on people", but apparently Eton-educated Boris Johnson who has spent his life serving the Conservative post-Thatcherite agenda, doesn't?

I'm not working class so I can't speak for those who are, but all I can tell you is that none of this makes any logical sense. I don't like identity politics either but is it really worth turning your entire sense of what's what upside down and committing this level of self-harm, to make a statement about?

BelleHathor

Interesting video. I like Alan Johnston, but he was wrong to say that was the worst Labour performance ever. In 2019, Corbyn got a higher percentage of the vote than Miliband in 2015 and Brown in 2010.
I think FPTP tends to skew the statistics somewhat. We have the ludicrous situation where the SNP gets 3.9% of the vote and 48 seats, and the LibDems 11.6% of the vote and just 11 seats.
I also liked the post by the OP, where they stated that we are still in Europe (as are Switzerland and Norway) but not in the political entity which is the EU.
I wonder if anyone remembers this from 2014, when all the major parties in the UK were against the election of Jean Claude Junckers as EC President? Everyone knew he was corrupt but when Cameron tried to force a vote against the selection of the Luxembourg politician, he was beaten 26 - 2.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28083829

Now here we're in agreement andyoldlabour. FPTP is a disaster and replacing it with some genuinely democratic form of PR is the best thing anyone, left or right, could do for our politics.

Sadly, as a pp said, we now effectively live in a one-party state and it ain't gonna happen. Boundary changes will skew the next result even more than the last one.

I'd probably be able to handle Brexit if it weren't for the fact that, the way it's played out, it will also condemn us to perpetual Torydom.

FifteenToes Yes the working class stuck 2 fingers up to Labour, One Nation Tories & Remainers.
respected the referendum result and did everything he could to keep that as Labour policy. Privately Corbyn likely wanted to leave, however when the Media, the Courts and Parliament repeatedly tried to turn over the Brexit result he didn't come out fighting for the leavers.
Corbyn is great on paper, but like Alan Johnson said it's a form of student politics that doesn't connect with the majority, I'm afraid that unfortunately "personality" these days count for more than policies.
Andy I think that was despite Corbyn, every other mechanism to overturn Brexit had failed so a lot of Tories and Lib Dems voted for Corbyn.

@slitheringsnakes

And to the poster who said her family can't be racist because they're from Eastern Europe themselves. Plenty of immigrants voted for Brexit - from an "I'm alright Jack" perspective. Shutting the door behind them. It won't work though - we'll just get immigrants from outside of Europe.

That was me. Or - and this might blow your tiny little mind - but maybe our votes had nothing to do with immigration at all? My parents managed to move to the UK well before FoM and in fact even before their homelands had managed to join the EU - so it wasn't "all right for us Jack" and it was irrelevant to how we voted.

People that accuse Brexiteers of "racism" (erm, against white people presumably, since the EU is made up of white-majority countries) apparently thinking the rest of the EU is some kind of racial utopia make me laugh my head off. You have no fucking clue.

On the other hand I can see how my parents' homeland has been utterly devastated since joining the EU - every bright, mobile young person picked up and left leaving behind the elderly and disabled. The young people became free borderline slave labour for Germany, France and the UK and their countries have been left to rot.

Gotta love that EU!

@FifteenToes

Caveat to the above: I mean "income" in total effctive terms, including what people get indirectly from the value of state schooling, the NHS etc. It's conceivable (though unlikely) that the personal incomes of all classes could be protected by reducing government spending to almost nothing. Again it's the working class who will suffer disproportionately from that though.

I actually don't think anyone can predict what the outcomes will be in 15 or 20 years time, and I think it's going to take 50 years or more to see the outcomes really start to take shape. If you think about it, it's taken that long to begin to see the real shape that the EU would take, and maybe it's not chance that this has happened at a bit of a crossroads where to continue to function, there will need to be some decisions made about some closer form of union.

In fact I would say that this is something I've noticed about remainers vs leavers overall - the former tend to be focused on (relatively) short term economic results, while the latter seem to be thinking more in terms of shaping a direction, not even just at a policy level but a kind of meta-direction. There are some Remainers who think similarly - it's about internationalism for them - but I would say that for many Brexiters, it's about a kind of localism or communitarianism, which is closely related to the social conservatism you noted earlier. For some reason this is interpreted as a rather gross kind of nationalism by some (unless you are Scottish, then it is ok.)

My personal inclination is to think the EU is either going to become much more integrated (which I think most people in the UK, and maybe in other places too, don't really want to be a part of) or it will break up or become smaller.

I also think there is a general reckoning coming throughout the West around the effects of globalism, as well as environmental issues, and both are likely to push things in the direction of less integration and less power to international trading cabals. Either that or it is going to really go to shit on the authoritarian oligarchy side. Not being in the EU may be better in that case and I doubt it will be worse. That's all speculation but the point is, it's difficult to make real predictions about outcomes because so many things can happen.

Corbyn did in some ways hark back to real leftism, but I think where he didn't speak to many of the traditional voters was the Big State stuff. People often don't make a distinction, but there is a kind of leftism that is more about grass roots empowerment and building stable self-sufficient communities, and one that is more about programs etc being imposed from the top down - even where they see some of the same problems the approach is very different. Stuff like parachuting Momentum candidates in - usually very woke ones - made it clear that it was the second, and those traditional voters aren't so keen on that. Either the woke, or the being told other people know what is better for them.

@ConspiracyOfOne, that's interesting. I have two friends who were born in the UK but whose parents are Greek. They both voted leave, having seen how the EU had treated the country where their extended families still lived.