Why Britain Voted for Brexit
August 11, 2018 9:47 AM   Subscribe

Britain’s Populist Revolt More than two years have passed since Britain voted for Brexit. Ever since that moment, the vote to leave the European Union has routinely been framed as an aberration; a radical departure from ‘normal’ life... Today, looking back, I see that most people never really had an interest in exploring what underpinned Brexit. To many on the liberal Left, Brexit is to be opposed, not understood.
A scholarly analysis of Why Britain Voted for Brexit, written by Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at the University of Kent. [research paper, 2017]
posted by Lanark (89 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
It has been 000 days since someone wrote the definitive piece on why Britain Brexited.

... resetting the counter.
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:14 AM on August 11, 2018 [16 favorites]


Those of us who follow Brexit on Twitter have been "exploring what led to this moment" every day since 23/6/16. We hear from the different types of Leaver that Goodwin describes every day, and all about their deep-rooted anxieties, usually with a side order of "you lost, get over it" and crying-laughing emojis.

So what? They're burning down the house out of stubbornness and spite. There'll be time for deeper understanding once (if) the crisis has passed. Maybe when government business isn't entirely taken up with this colossal act of self-harm, they'll turn their attention back to its root causes.

I saw this line from Goodwin's article cited approvingly on Twitter by some Brexiter:

Britain’s National Centre for Social Research recently pointed out that levels of British support for leaving the EU or radically reducing the EU’s power “have been consistently above 50 percent for a little over 20 years.”

That "or" is convenient.
posted by rory at 10:14 AM on August 11, 2018 [23 favorites]


I also like the “not” in To many on the liberal Left, Brexit is to be opposed, not understood. We understand just fine, mate.
posted by Artw at 10:19 AM on August 11, 2018 [46 favorites]


My main takeaways from this article:

1) Brexit was largely about (some) peoples' desire to "keep Britain British" by reducing immigration.

2) The author sounds very bitter about liberals.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 10:21 AM on August 11, 2018 [8 favorites]


Psst: the Anti-Tax-Avoidance directive comes into effect in the EU in 2019.

All of these post-hoc justifications are lovely and all, but they're obviously post-hoc justifications. Brexit is a tax-avoidance exercise by the ultra-rich.
posted by mhoye at 10:37 AM on August 11, 2018 [46 favorites]


What's there to understand? The political dialogue has changed in the west. The rentier class has succeeded in returning racists into a strong enough monolithic plurality (the hidden-in-plain-sight single issue voter who refuses to admit what their single issue is) that they are the lynchpin of any winning coalition. It's going like gangbusters in eastern Europe. It's eked out two world-shaking elections in the UK and the US.

Simply put, reactionary politics, populism, and fascism are winning. For now. I think in no small part because the last people who ground the faces of ethnonationalists into the dirt are all dead now. Their children have undertaken the ultimate generational rebellion, now that they're the single most powerful demographic.

It's no fucking mystery. We used to say "It's the economy, stupid."

Now: It's the racists, stupid.
posted by tclark at 10:39 AM on August 11, 2018 [99 favorites]


Perhaps I was woefully naïve, but in the days after the referendum I felt excited; anxious about the short-term fallout but excited about [accelerationism]

Goodwin, come on.
posted by Dysk at 10:39 AM on August 11, 2018 [11 favorites]


I’m pragmatic on Brexit; it’s happened and so we should work with it.

Yeah Goodwin mate, me too: I'm a poor EU citizen living in Britain. It has to be opposed in every possible way.
posted by Dysk at 10:57 AM on August 11, 2018 [11 favorites]


...reactionary politics, populism, and fascism are winning. For now.

The "for now" part is what concerns me. The last time the world had to band together to defeat fascism, there were two or three very capable industrialized, nations that could band together to defeat the fascists. Unfortunately, all three of those nations now appear to be embracing fascism themselves, leaving no viable coalition to defeat them, should that become necessary.

This time, it's going to require citizens themselves to turn the tide and squash fascism in their own nations. A much taller, potentially deadlier, order, I'm afraid.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:14 AM on August 11, 2018 [17 favorites]


The "for now" part is what concerns me. The last time the world had to band together to defeat fascism, there were two or three very capable industrialized, nations that could band together to defeat the fascists. Unfortunately, all three of those nations now appear to be embracing fascism themselves, leaving no viable coalition to defeat them, should that become necessary.


True, but remember that both the US and Britain had MANY fascist and outright Nazi sympathizers at all levels of government.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:19 AM on August 11, 2018 [17 favorites]


The author seems to be studiously avoiding the obvious implications of his earthshattering insights. From TFA Here are just a few findings from a literature that tells a remarkably consistent story: people who felt unhappy with how democracy works in the EU and who felt that immigration was having negative effects on Britain’s economy, culture, and welfare state were significantly more likely to back Brexit; people who felt that being in the EU had undermined national independence and identity and who felt that on balance immigration had been bad for Britain were more likely to back Leave;

We also know that the Leave-voting areas map extremely well to economically disadvantaged areas. Further, there is a large body of research that indicates that, contrary to leavers beliefs, immigration actually contributes to the economy and immigrants perform a vital role in welfare provision.

So, faced with these facts, we might ask ourselves why such a large part of the electorate holds and votes for racist beliefs that are damaging to their own interests? Might it be a rabid right wing press that cheerleader for austerity and fraudulently blames inequality on immigrants ? Could it be a government comprising senior members who strategise with white supremacists and cultivate a self-proclaimed hostile environment for immigrants? Perhaps it's a broadcast media that insists on giving a disproportionate platform to any group of right-wing cranks that can scrape together enough cash to print a sub-Randian screed on who's deserving and who's not, disguised as research.

Obviously not, according to this geezer. Apparently it's all the fault of the liberal elites.
posted by Jakey at 12:18 PM on August 11, 2018 [35 favorites]


All this recent talk about a new brexit referendum is slightly frustrating, but I guess it makes sense. There's probably not enough time left for the more sensible plan of holding a referendum on whether or not to hold another referendum.
posted by sfenders at 12:19 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


Boy, he sure took a lot of words to write "white economic anxiety."
posted by JackFlash at 12:24 PM on August 11, 2018 [13 favorites]


Very good article, thanks for posting.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:36 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


My deeply held view is that Brexit won't happen. I am frequently wrong but I plan to link to this comment in the future to say 'I told you so'.
posted by night_train at 12:43 PM on August 11, 2018 [13 favorites]


I keep waiting for the day the travel desk gets the reporter assignments mixed up and we get a piece about chip shop customers in Swindon and why they won't abandon Trump while customers in a small town diner in Ohio are asked to help us understand Brexit.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:10 PM on August 11, 2018 [26 favorites]


Usually I value comments here at least equally or higher than the discussed piece. This is not one of those cases.

"It's the racists, stupid". So all non-white people who voted for Brexit were misled?
posted by hat_eater at 2:46 PM on August 11, 2018 [5 favorites]


Pulling up the ladder behind you is a thing sadly.
posted by pharm at 2:51 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


Senior member of European far-right group quits over neo-Nazi link.
Briton Tom Dupré leaves Generation Identity camp in France after being told by Observer of member linked to racist attacks.
posted by adamvasco at 2:52 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


I thought that was an informative article. I think it's actually pretty important to understand Brexit voters, particularly if we get a second referendum. One, in order to win. Two, because it's actually pretty undemocratic to overturn a referendum, even an advisory one, and we should do it with lots and lots of conscious thought and evidence. Three, I agree with most people on here that many people voted Leave for racist reasons, but we do everyone a disservice when we say "because they're racist, duh". Say you voted Leave because you're "worried about immigration": you have a right to worry! You're entitled to your own feelings! Also, being called racist will not change your mind, but it might change your allegiance.

The current thing isn't just a rash of derangement causing paranoia in fading post-industrial towns. It's systematic mismanagement of immigration and politically-expedient scapegoating of both the EU and immigrants over decades. We need to undo that damage systematically, too.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:02 PM on August 11, 2018 [5 favorites]


"It's the racists, stupid". So all non-white people who voted for Brexit were misled?

It's racism's close cousin, nationalism.
posted by Dysk at 3:04 PM on August 11, 2018 [11 favorites]


If I have to hear Theresa May say "Brexit is Brexit" one more time, I'm gonna have to hit something with a wiffle ball bat.
posted by Sphinx at 3:19 PM on August 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


In 1991, the Maastricht Treaty was agreed among the European nations, and in some countries, like Denmark, it required a referendum in order to be ratified. In Denmark, that referendum led to a clear no, which was at least as catastrophic as the Brexit, and in 1993 there was a new referendum, based on the Edinburgh amendments, which ended in a narrow yea.
The night of that second referendum, I was at a birthday party where we argued about the EEC. Most of us were in relationships where one partner was from a different European country, but at the time, if you were a leftist (as we all were), the EEC was evil. My then (German) husband and I were the only defenders of the coming EU. We tried to point out how the freedom of movement would improve all of our lives, and how more power to the EU-parliament could lead to more worker protections. We had socialist friends working in Bruxelles who we knew were on our side. On the way home, we rode our bikes through the most violent and frightening riots in Danish history. The police shot at the rioters (we don't that here). The riots were mainly about the absurdity of a second referendum and the lack of substance of the Edinburgh amendments, and IMO even then, those were legitimate criticisms. Even though I was pro-EU, I felt the government had manipulated that second vote and it was un-democratic.
In retrospect, the second referendum was the only possible solution to a problem the politicians had created entirely on their own. If they had been truthful about the reality during the first referendum, even my leftist friends would've been pro-EU. If they had been truthful about their lying and manipulation the second time round, they could have avoided the riots.
posted by mumimor at 4:03 PM on August 11, 2018 [22 favorites]


It's systematic mismanagement of immigration and politically-expedient scapegoating of both the EU and immigrants over decades. We need to undo that damage systematically, too.

Which somehow impacts much more heavily on places which have very little immigration.

I had a particularly depressing chat with my father last week. He lives in the town I was brought up in, a mid-sized, post-industrial town in NW England, >95% white. I was aware he had voted leave. Anyway we were talking about it generally and how neither of us were convinced it would go differently if there was a second referendum. He agreed with me that the Government has no idea what it was doing and the whole thing was a shambles. He agreed that it will likely be an economic disaster. Would he vote leave again? Yup. Why? Because someone should have done something about immigration. European or non-European? Vague, probably both but more so non-European. I.e. not really that much to do with the EU. How many people across working class towns will hold similar views? None that I ever speak to. Plenty I don't I would guess. How do you walk back that thinking on immigration, based not on any personal experience of immigrants taking jobs (he could literally only think of one non-white person in his area and he liked him) - there didn't seem to be any real logic at work with my father so how do you logic people out of years of propaganda saying immigration is bad?
posted by biffa at 4:10 PM on August 11, 2018 [22 favorites]


So much sympathy for white idiots, so little for the people their idiocy is going to harm.

However did we get here.
posted by PMdixon at 4:39 PM on August 11, 2018 [21 favorites]


The biggest mistake the Remain campaign made was to focus pretty much entirely on the economic damage argument. I mean, they weren't wrong about the potential risks - and as we stagger closer to a crash-out brexit, they become horrifyingly clearer by the day - but people weren't swung to Leave by facts and figures, it was about an emotional reaction to the EU.

I'm English, and married to my lovely French wife of 9 years. She doesn't have citizenship because you have to go through a ludicrously complex process to get permanent residency first since the rules changed in 2015, and being married is no protection. I'm terrified about what impact Brexit will have on our family, particularly given we seem destined to leave with no agreement at all due to the Tory civil war and Labour Lexiteers that makes compromise impossible.

There was one clear divider on how people voted; age. If you were under 45, you are more likely to have voted for Remain, the younger the more likely; if you were over 45, you were more likely to vote Leave, the older more so.

The warnings of dire consequences didn't have the desired effect, for a few reasons. First, people simply don't believe politicians any more. Many of those on private pensions don't think it'll affect them anyway. And those at the bottom of the pile didn't think it could get any worse. Any everybody assumes there'll be some last minute deal, like there always is - they just don't believe that this time could be different.

I know of one colleague who I consider a friend, who voted Leave. He assumed there would be some sort of deal, and not much would change financially, it might even get better! And he was fed-up with 'Brussels telling us what to do'. He couldn't point to any laws he didn't like, or anything specific he'd like done differently, but his family were strongly anti-EU, as have been the newspapers for decades. So it was his reaction to perceived EU distant bureaucracy and things such as the Irish and Danish referendum votes against further integration treaties that were basically papered over and told to vote again. That's why 'take back control' was such a powerful slogan. It was vague enough that you didn't have to spell anything out, but tapped into the underlying sentiment that as part of the EU we no longer govern ourselves. It's largely Daily Mail claptrap (thanks, Boris) but that feeling that everything is crap and getting worse is easy to blame on distant politicians, particularly when domestic politicians blame their failures on the EU and the papers back them up.

I'm certain my Dad voted for Brexit, as we basically argue about how Brexit's going every time we meet. He blames the EU for 'punishing us', that they're 'cutting off their nose to spite their face'. That we'll be better off out. And of course it won't impact me and my wife, everything will be fine because we're married and have children. I've come close to screaming at him that thats fuck all difference under the law, that without an agreement even long-term residents will have no legal right to stay and it'll be entirely up to the Tories to sort it out. 'It'll be fine, stop worrying about it'. Like this government could organise a piss up in a brewery without half of them trying to set the place on fire instead.

And yes, anti-immigration did play a substantial part. There's this longing, in many parts of the country for some sort of idealized ( yes, mostly white) 50's Britain, when people knew their neighbours, and had jobs for life, and played cricket on the village green and decent pensions and could afford a house on one salary and didn't have to wait 3 weeks to see a Doctor. And it's not like that any more; "because we're all full from people coming here, not that I've anything against them personally, but there's no more room in our schools, nobody goes to church any more, and the waiting lists are huge, and they drive up house prices, it's shocking the deposit kids today need from their parents, and everywhere you look the Poles have taken all the jobs". The fact that more people cited immigration as their top concern the fewer immigrants they had in the area is just one of those ironies.

Obviously racists and fascists voted for Brexit, and I'm sure some closet ones were swung by the Breaking Point poster by Farage etc. That's not going to change. And there's definitely a hefty amount of xenophobia going on, not just at EU residents but this feeling that the country is "full to bursting" of immigrants from everywhere, including plenty of white people. But to blame it all on just idiots and racism is simplistic, judgmental and damages our chances of winning a second referendum, if we're lucky enough to get one. Don't forget the outrage over how the Windrush generation were treated, and they were not white.

We live in a world now where emotion Trumps fact. And those of who want to Remain against the odds need to start winning the emotional arguments, instead of dismissing them as just wrong and idiots, that wins nobody over.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 5:02 PM on August 11, 2018 [21 favorites]


biffa:how do you logic people out of years of propaganda saying immigration is bad?

Not necessarily with logic? But we have to convince them, or, as you say, the next referendum would confirm the last. It's a thorny issue, because the last thing we want is a competition between political parties over who can be tougher on immigrants.

How do we make an honest argument that immigration is not harmful, that will win over people who voted leave over immigration? That will involve engaging with people that voted to hurt our families in many cases, but I don't see a good alternative.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 5:10 PM on August 11, 2018


How do we make an honest argument that immigration is not harmful, that will win over people who voted leave over immigration?

You went straight back to logic there I think?

It's not just making an argument,it's making it powerful enough as a message to overcome decades of anti-immigration propaganda that will continue throughout and in a format that millions willingly consume on a daily basis.
posted by biffa at 5:17 PM on August 11, 2018


I disagree! I think that it's possible to make an emotional argument that's still fundamentally honest. I don't think we can win with economic arguments, not because they're invalid, but because merely being right isn't enough to convince anyone. For that matter, there's the negative emotional side, that the posh boys that pushed Brexit will still be millionaires when the economy tanks, but their marks won't, and the marks don't even have bank accounts with CHF and EUR to ward against the evil day. That's true, even if it isn't strictly a logical argument against Brexit.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 5:35 PM on August 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


there's the negative emotional side, that the posh boys that pushed Brexit will still be millionaires when the economy tanks

Assumes the consequent. The people who understood that the economy was and is going to tank by and large don't need persuasion.
posted by PMdixon at 5:51 PM on August 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'll tell you why [a narrow majority of] "Britain" voted for [some form of] Brexit:

"They're all the same" (perennial cynicism with politics)
"It can't make anything any worse" (because 8 years of austerity )

Neither of which are actually solved by exiting the EU.

There was also the context of the Bus Of Lies and a load of shit in the papers about how every single Turkish person would come to steal all our jobs and benefits if we didn't vote "Leave", but those two were the only ones I heard from people's mouths.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 8:01 PM on August 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


If all the arguments about the EU restricting Britain are nonsense, because it's all up to what Britain wants anyway, then what does it matter if you're in the EU or not. Y'all could choose to work with Lexiteers for an anti-racist, socialist Britain, but I don't see Remainers doing so. I'd love to be wrong about that.

I was told it'd be easier to drag the EU left than Britain, which to me indicates people would rather use a supranational organisation to force compliance than actually have the political campaigns that are needed to change hearts and minds.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 12:43 AM on August 12, 2018


Brexit was predicated on reducing immigration, and anti immigrant sentiment. That is not a basis on which you can build anything inclusive or antiracist. Especially not if you are or have EU citizens in your life, whose rights will be shrinking significantly. You might as well be asking why the American left aren't working with the Trumpers to build an antiracist leftist utopia.
posted by Dysk at 12:47 AM on August 12, 2018 [20 favorites]


what does it matter if you're in the EU or not.

It matters a lot! Like, a heck of of a lot to the economy, and to everybody's rights. Not in the EU, your world just got smaller. You can no longer easily live and work in the rest of the EU. And those if it's from the rest of the EU can no longer easily live or work here. It makes no difference to the things people commonly cite as reasons for leaving the EU but it matters a shedload to a bunch of rights and opportunities. The EU is not irrelevant. That it doesn't dictate the limits of domestic economic politics to the extent that accelerationism lexiters would have you believe does not mean the EU does nothing meaningful. If you're a nationalist lefty, maybe you don't care. If you're antinationalist, it becomes difficult to overstate how disastrous this is.

And yeah, I guess it is selfish of me to want my rights to live and work in the country I've spent my entire adult life in, whose colony and then former colony I grew up in, meaningfully guaranteed rather than contingent on the opinions of an uninformed and antagonistic electorate. How awfully elitist.
posted by Dysk at 1:03 AM on August 12, 2018 [19 favorites]


I am increasingly frustrated by these sort of "understand the racists" pieces, especially because no one ever seems to write the much more important "understand the immigrant" companion piece.
posted by basalganglia at 1:09 AM on August 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


I think of that as working with the Brexiteers.

It's Jakey's argument I'm thinking of
we might ask ourselves why such a large part of the electorate holds and votes for racist beliefs that are damaging to their own interests? Might it be a rabid right wing press that cheerleader for austerity and fraudulently blames inequality on immigrants ? Could it be a government comprising senior members who strategise with white supremacists and cultivate a self-proclaimed hostile environment for immigrants? Perhaps it's a broadcast media that insists on giving a disproportionate platform to any group of right-wing cranks that can scrape together enough cash to print a sub-Randian screed on who's deserving and who's not, disguised as research.

That all rings true to me, and it's why people's real economic concerns about the direction of Britain and the EU both, the prevalence of neoliberalism and deadly austerity politics that are constantly pushed, were transformed into deep-seated racism and attacks on migrants and refugees. This is one of the oldest strategies in the right's handbook, and I think we're all familiar with that.

So you campaign against all of that, you provide real answers as to why people are suffering - not migrants, but ruling class hegemony and their interests. You say, Brexit or not, because I'm sympathetic to a second referendum, your issues are real, and we're going to change things, just not by adopting white supremacy and nationalism. Lexiteers, at least the ones I'm familiar with and support, are trying to do just that. Unfortunately, instead of supporting such campaigns, the narrative is that it was purely motivated by racism, that the EU is fine and great.

When people treat "economic anxiety" as a punchline, rather than recognising the way racism is built on economic anxiety, I don't tend to trust that they're actually interested in improving things.

I guess it is selfish of me to want my rights to live and work in the country. Not once have I made that argument. It's not selfish, it's fair and reasonable, which is why it's devastating to see actual anti-racist and pro-migrant activism lain aside in favour of supporting a neoliberal EU. Of course I'm not a fan of nationalism, but the EU is in no way truly internationalist, because real internationalism is socialist, or you're just expanding the reach and power of the ruling class.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 1:11 AM on August 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


Lexiteers, at least the ones I'm familiar with and support, are trying to do just that.

Lexiters are participating in the racism. You can see people's concerns as real but misplaced and bit support a course if action that will fuck up the lives of countless immigrants. That is not what lexit is. Lexit is brexit. It is an attack on a huge swathe of immigrants in the UK.

actual anti-racist and pro-migrant activism lain aside in favour of supporting a neoliberal EU.

Christ alive, this old saw-horse. The EU is no more or less neoliberal than its member states. It is significant less neoliberal than Britain, than any mainstream party in Britain (and I am taking an extremely broad view of what constitutes mainstream). What you are doing is trading actual protections and rights for the largest immigrant group in Britain (and rights to emigrate elsewhere from Britons) for an empty ideal that is irrelevant with respect to the EU. You want to do real internationalist leftist work? Great! You can! Even within the EU! Leaving will make it harder to achieve any of those aims, not easier! You don't build an antiracist movement by starting with going for the fucking immigrants.
posted by Dysk at 1:24 AM on August 12, 2018 [24 favorites]


What you're doing is analogous to saying foodstamps are evil because they're not available to all, and aren't proper welfare, so let's all get on board with the campaign to abolish foodstamps. That'll make things better for the poor! Great first step. After all, if you're pro foodstamps you're just pro neoliberal status quo, because real welfare is generous and universal.

Meanwhile, the only existing (if inadequate) safety net has been removed, but hey, it wasn't the perfect safety net so it's better to have none.

If you, in a British context, care about immigrants and antiracism, you are at best inadvertently hurting the largest group of the constituency you profess to care about, in service of an ideal you're no closer to achieving, to which your actions harming EU immigrants are irrelevant.

And that's before we consider how the economic effects are going to impact the poor.
posted by Dysk at 1:30 AM on August 12, 2018 [21 favorites]


That is not what lexit is. Lexit is brexit. It is an attack on a huge swathe of immigrants in the UK
Spot on! Socialism is a lie, we're all just fascists really. There's no way people could have actual goals of improving things, I'm sorry, liberals know best in everything. They're definitely not part of the problem.

It's all us socialists, if we didn't demand an egalitarian future, none of this mess would have happened. I should have known campaigning for a Brexit that respected migrants, freedom of movement and the like was exactly the same as printing racist screeds.

Britain was perfect before all this brexit nonsense, the "less neoliberal EU" was leading the march towards a truly egalitarian society by imposing austerity and turning back boats full of refugees.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 1:56 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


I was told it'd be easier to drag the EU left than Britain, which to me indicates people would rather use a supranational organisation to force compliance than actually have the political campaigns that are needed to change hearts and minds.

If by 'supranational organisation to force compliance' you mean 'working with other people like us, our fellow human beings- in other countries to face our common problems including climate change, gross inequality and runaway capitalism' then yes that is true.

What I and many others find baffling is why one of the most neoliberal countries in Europe - the UK - suddenly thinks its the EU that is holding it back.

If as you say, the EU is a non-entity, then why throw it out? Why not work on your political campaigns to change hearts and minds? Why aren't they working? Does the EU have anything to do with that? If so, explain how?
You can always leave the EU later, when you aren't introducing economic disruption on top of your political campaigns. Or, do you want the economic disruption? Do you think the path to socialist paradise involves first years of chaos and forced misery. If so, come out with it. Be honest with the people.
posted by vacapinta at 2:05 AM on August 12, 2018 [13 favorites]


I was at a social meetup yesterday when (as it inevitably does these days) the topic of Brexit came up and an Asian friend commented about his frustration at the way many of his family here in the UK West Midlands voted Leave.

Their reasoning, so it seems, was that if EU migrant workers were kept out, then the UK would be forced to allow more immigration from Pakistan in order to bring in migrants to do the jobs that Poles are currently doing.

We were incredulous about this. He explained that he is incredulous too, but this belief is so widespread that he argues in vain to his family that many of those white British who voted Leave are not going to welcome large amounts of non-white immigration.
posted by Major Clanger at 2:18 AM on August 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


There's no way people could have actual goals of improving things, I'm sorry, liberals know best in everything. They're definitely not part of the problem.

Goals is one thing, reality is another. A vote for "lexit" was literally a vote for brexit. Like, there was no proposal other than brexit. "Lexit" is a contraction of "left brexit" meaning that yes, it literally is brexit. You might have been voting for it for some other reason, but you were literally voting to have a shedload of rights stripped from people, in the form of free movement.

the "less neoliberal EU" was leading the march towards a truly egalitarian society by imposing austerity and turning back boats full of refugees.

You know that these are both things that the UK has been doing as well, in fact to a much greater degree than much of the rest of the EU. Like, if those are your complaints about the EU, then wow does it not make sense to give more power to Westminster, which is far more dedicated to austerity, inequality, and not letting poor foreigners in than most of the rest of the EU.
posted by Dysk at 2:31 AM on August 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


We also know that the Leave-voting areas map extremely well to economically disadvantaged areas.

In England it does.

Scotland: look at the Scottish Index Of Multiple Deprivation (click on most deprived 20%), and then the BBC vote maps - there's no apparent relationship.

Northern Ireland: look at the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measures Map and again back at the BBC vote map - you could even argue that the more deprived areas were slightly more likely to vote remain.

Both Scotland and NI are most emphatically not areas of magic cuddly tolerance when compared to the rest of the UK. A genuinely insightful article would ask why the pattern in these places were different - there should have been the same "Blue-Collar Pensioners" and "Left Behind Leavers" in the areas of NI and Scotland that have had the same pattern of economic problems as England. But as far as this guy is concerned, "Britain" is equal to "England" - I think a very telling sentence in his article is:

We talk a lot about London but little about coastal, northern, or rural Britain, where in the end the Brexit vote was strongest.

The entirety of Britain north of the Tweed was majority Remain. What he means is "northern England". As an English person living in Scotland, not just the Brexit vote but the ongoing discussions around it has really brought home how much the average English person is ready to throw Scotland (and Northern Ireland) under the bus for... pretty much anything.
posted by Vortisaur at 2:33 AM on August 12, 2018 [27 favorites]


Socialism definitely doesn't have to involve years of chaos and misery. It does require that you're not in the EU. I don't think the EU is a non-entity, which is why I advocate leaving it. It is a big and powerful institution.
I feel like everyone is throwing up their hands and saying "Britain cannot be improved outside of the EU, it's too hard" but if I say the EU needs improving, that's a simple task that's basically handled just as long as you don't leave. Considering other nations have a say in the EU, that maths seems suspect to me.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 2:34 AM on August 12, 2018


So yes, you're advocating throwing people like me under the bus in service of maybe one day having a glorious revolution.
posted by Dysk at 2:36 AM on August 12, 2018 [14 favorites]


If improving Britain is so easy, then why has it been pulling ever further rightward, to the point of being the largest force in enacting the right wing policies the EU does have? Why is it going to get any easier now? Why is it acceptable to scrap all the rights the EU gives us in service of the idea that Britain can be made socialist more easily outside of the influence of a force acting to mediate the worst abuses of the British right?
posted by Dysk at 2:39 AM on August 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


At no point have I recommended any course of action so far other than campaigning for people like you Dysk to be able to stay.
So yes, right under the bus.
Improving Britain isn't easy, but is easier than improving the EU. Scrap none of the rights, I keep saying. Double-down and make them more extensive and secure.
Clearly you view the EU as "a force acting to mediate the worst abuses of the British right?. I can see that, what surprises me is that you don't think there's more to the EU than that. If those abuses cant be curbed outside of the EU, then I definitely don't believe that Britain can reform the EU and make it better.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 2:51 AM on August 12, 2018


If you've been campaigning for Brexit, you've been campaigning against the only legal right to stay in the UK I have. Not just had, at the time, but have, still.
posted by Dysk at 3:19 AM on August 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


If those abuses cant be curbed outside of the EU, then I definitely don't believe that Britain can reform the EU and make it better.

No, Britain can't reform the EU. That's why it's a good thing it's bigger than Britain.
posted by Dysk at 3:20 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is like having a Trumpist show up on the Trump thread and tell families affected by ICE how great it is and how family separation is necessary to make America great again. Dysk is someone who's actually going to personally suffer from the xenophobia of Brexit, and isn't the only person here whose life is seriously affected. If you don't live in the UK, please leave off with telling us poor sods who do how the biggest racist project since the Empire is going to bring about 'True Socialism'. It won't but a lot of people here will have their lives ruined.
posted by Flitcraft at 3:21 AM on August 12, 2018 [26 favorites]


It's also a bit rich to crow about the glorious socialist future the U.K. could have under Brexit when Brexit is in fact being run by a bunch of incompetent right-wing crypto-fascists who don't give two hoots about the functioning of the U.K. economy so long as they get their precious hard Brexit. They're practically salivating over the prospect of a hard Brexit which will result in pain and suffering for real people on the ground: it's obscene.

Even if a glorious socialist future was possible, which it isn't.
posted by pharm at 3:47 AM on August 12, 2018 [20 favorites]


Britain was perfect before all this brexit nonsense, the "less neoliberal EU" was leading the march towards a truly egalitarian society by imposing austerity and turning back boats full of refugees.
I admit I'm looking at this from basically the other side of the planet, but is it really the "EU" that's doing these things? Or - to put it another way - would these things be any better without the EU?

My understanding of the austerity thing is that it's the result of the madness of the euro, and that the EU has no way to impose austerity on the UK even if it wanted to (and no reason for wanting to). My understanding of the refugee situation is that the EU isn't doing anything that its members wouldn't be doing anyway. Am I wrong?
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 3:58 AM on August 12, 2018


Ignore him. It's just Trot bloviating.
posted by Grangousier at 4:06 AM on August 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


One of the things reading pro-Brexit people pontificate has made me realise is that a lot of them so Brexit as the route to achieving their personal utopian future. Go read Dominic Cummings blog for instance - it's full of claims about how only in a post-EU future can Britain survive in the harsh world of the future by radically changing the way it goes about doing things (technology in his case - he's referencing Yudkowsky in his latest outpouring of guff which is a sure tell that he doesn't know what he's talking about in any way & is therefor incapable of spotting the false prophets taking advantage of the gullible in the field who’s future he is so confident in predicting.)

It's accelerationalist thinking - that the only way to achieve utopia is to bring about a crisis in the here and now so that your perfect & obviously better way of doing things can be adopted as the polity becomes open to your new ideas in some post-crisis future. The idea that if you bring about a crisis the people who take power will have no interest in your better way of doing things whatsoever never seems to occur to these twerps, whether they come from the right or the left.

Combine this with the fact that the detailed path from where we are now to this utopian future is somehow never actually spelt out, nor how the glorious new way of doing things is going to avoid falling foul of exactly the same political infighting that has prevented it being adopted in the here and now & you get exactly the situation we have here - where utopians of the left and the right are hailing Brexit as their great opportunity to make the world a better place, only both of them can't be right & the possibility that power in a post-crisis world falls to whichever politician is the most psychopathic never seems to occur to any of them.

Witness Dominic Cummings endless bleatings about how badly run Brexit is: He spends the entire Brexit campaign railing internally against the incompetence of these people and it never seems to occur to him that they're the ones who are going to end up implementing it & and that /just/ maybe that isn't the greatest of ideas.
posted by pharm at 4:22 AM on August 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


Lexit is politically, ideologically and practically incoherent - and I say that as someone whose revulsion for the right wing in the centre of my being is like unto the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. If Lexit has a logic, it's that you can starve a desperate people into revolution - which is true, only you always get a practical fascism out of that, no matter what colour the flag.

Most - I think overwhelmingly - Labour supporters know that, and if you look at Scotland, where the primary English separatist drivers for Brexit are absent, you'll see that realisation effectualised. Even in England, Brexit-voting Labour constituencies are switching sides in droves - not the actions of a ideologically driven electorate, more that of one becoming aware of consequences.

The enemy isn't the EU, it's austerity. It's propaganda. It's powerful people on the edges of democracy using money and influence to break apart the practical, socially-aware mechanisms that were put in place after WWII to damp down fascism - and why would anyone want to do that, if they don't want fascism back? Brexit is a child of that - and how anyone on the left with a working knowledge of recent European history can support it is utterly beyond me. That's like saying the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a Good Thing because it led to the ultimate defeat of the Nazis. As pharm says above - accelerationism. Which has a very bad track record.

I mean, look at Ireland, where 400 years of abusive imperialism are finally being laid to rest - or were, before Brexit. How is breaking the Good Friday Agreement - itself the product of two referendums - and reintroducing a border with the inevitable conflicts, helping the people? How does it advance socialism to hand power back to the gangster? How can Lexiters say 'it is undemocratic to have a second referendum that may overturn the first' at the same time as saying 'The GFA referendums are now null and void, because there's been another referendum'? And it's no good saying 'hard Brexit but no Irish border', because that's an actual impossibility. As is a hard Brexit run by Tories where the rights of EU citizens in the UK are safeguarded. The next Tory leader will most likely be a Trumpist, and Trumpism means treating immigrants like scum. Prison camps for children. Camps where they suffer and die.

You can say that such things will speed the revolution. They won't, but the suffering will be immense. You want to protect the vulnerable? You want respect for people regardless of their paperwork? You see such things as intrinsic to socialism? You fight the right-wing bastards, you do not - do NOT - make common cause with them.
posted by Devonian at 4:37 AM on August 12, 2018 [33 favorites]


Mod note: A couple deleted. AnhydrousLove, please give this thread a break.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:54 AM on August 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


If David Cameron really wanted Britain to remain in the EU maybe he shouldn't have called the referendum in the first place.
posted by dng at 4:59 AM on August 12, 2018


Major Clanger -- that's a really fascinating anecdote about Pakistanis voting Leave!

My anecdotal space on the Brexit vote is pretty much that it came down to whether one felt the loss to them of a distinctive England was worth the economic benefit to them of a European Britain.

I know right-wing/libertarian Tory-voting Englishmen who voted remain because they felt that Brexit would screw up their cushy jobs in the City or Canary Wharf and lower the value of their vacation homes in Spain.

I know -- more second-hand, from City and Canary Wharf folk of all political sympathies -- of their lifelong Labour-left voting (and sometimes even organizing/campaigning) cousins and uncles voting "Leave" because they saw the benefit of European Britain going to London and the Southeast but the costs and social changes being imposed at least equally upon them.
posted by MattD at 5:24 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


rather than recognising the way racism is built on economic anxiety

This is privileged, racist nonsense and it’s embarrassing and enraging whenever I see it pop up in service of one idiocy or another because it is also just so fucking dumb. That racism (or any other ism) can be and is used in furtherance of fantastically selfish and evil goals, like establishment of oligarchy or whatever, does not mean that it is caused by the bad actors behind such campaigns. I mean this is like...very very basic stuff.

Racism, and all the other flavors of hateful evil, exists on its own. It is its own goddamn demon walking the earth, and some people embrace it not because they are suffering, but because they like it. Denying that fact is a neat little way of denying the agency of the people who choose to be terrible, because then you don’t actually have to reckon with this actual evil that exists in the world. How convenient for you. Not so much for everyone else, though.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:33 AM on August 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


Hair-splitting Q: is there a generally understood distinction between saying someone is following an accelerationst strategy and saying that they're attempting to "heighten the contradictions"?
posted by PMdixon at 5:49 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Here's the thing about Cameron and Brexit: good bets don't become bad bets when you lose against the odds.

His Brexit strategy did and still does make perfect political sense. He won his 2015 majority because the promise of the referendum knee-capped UKIP. The Scottish independence referendum demonstrated that a half-way competent campaign would result in a "Remain" result. That the campaign turned out to be only a quarter-way competent, and big business failed to reign in the tabloid press and Tory Brexiter politicians on such a critical issue, could not have been predicted. Had "Remain" won as Cameron reasonably expected, the silencing of Tory Brexiters would have removed one of the last arguments for big business to hedge their bets with any support of Labour -- a legacy-making change in political alignment.
posted by MattD at 5:57 AM on August 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Here's the thing about Cameron and Brexit: good bets don't become bad bets when you lose against the odds

Even if his odds of losing had been 1 in a billion, it would still have been a terrible thing to risk the lives and livelihoods of millions of actual real people for personal political ambition.

It’s a moral abomination no matter the odds.

As I am an American I’m gonna try to bow out now. But for those of you living with this...

I know I asked this question last time, but for Christ’s sake, is there any movement on an attempt to stop the train before the cliff?
posted by schadenfrau at 6:14 AM on August 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


David Cameron made a series of "good bets" (coalition with the liberal democrats, the PR referendum, austerity, the scottish referendum, the threat of the referendum, the referendum). You can't keep winning, though, and as every single thing he ever did was short-termist politicking, it was inevitable eventually it would end with a loss that complete fucked everything.

And here we are.
posted by dng at 6:16 AM on August 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


I've been following the brexit threads with great interest and trepidation, but just wanted to chime in, to add to what Major Clanger said: it's not just the Pakistanis. I swear, the non-white Commonwealthers are fucking insane, judging by the Malaysians and Singaporeans I know and I know about. Part of it is maybe the economic profile? Thanks to govt scholarships and whatnot, they do settle and fare better in Britain compared to the Eastern Europeans, so it's very easy for them to borrow that racism, plus a bit of that Anglophonic chip.
posted by cendawanita at 6:25 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


PMDixon: Hair-splitting Q: is there a generally understood distinction between saying someone is following an accelerationst strategy and saying that they're attempting to "heighten the contradictions"?

If you use that phrase unironically then you've bought into an accelerationist agenda IMO. It's usually associated with particular Marxist subgroups though — right accelerationists tend to use different language.
posted by pharm at 7:22 AM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


it's very easy for them to borrow that racism

Steady there. Isn’t the EU an organisation dedicated to the principle that European nations should primarily trade with each other, erecting barriers to trade with Africa and Asia?

Yet Pakistanis, Malaysians and Singaporeans who hope (however optimistically) that Britain will open up to the wider world - it’s them we call racists?
posted by Segundus at 7:41 AM on August 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


The enemy isn't the EU, it's austerity.

Austerity is the one thing Brexit doesn't change. The UK already has its own currency. The terrible austerity in the UK was entirely self-inflicted.
posted by JackFlash at 7:51 AM on August 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


Steady there. Isn’t the EU an organisation dedicated to the principle that European nations should primarily trade with each other, erecting barriers to trade with Africa and Asia?

No, not really. The EU is an organisation that consists of 28 member states that must agree on everything before they move ahead. Till Brexit, it has been an expanding organisation, not an exclusive one, and it is in the nature of the organisation to want trade deals with as many outside countries as possible. The politicians who lead the EU are very well aware that better trade deals with Africa and Asia are essential for future welfare. BUT, it is difficult for the 28 countries to find an agreement on how these trade deals should be put together because the different countries have different interests. Eventually, they will figure it out, because that it how the EU works, very slowly but always in the direction of more free trade and more exchange of people, knowledge and goods. The EU also works slowly and consistently in the direction of more protections for workers and more protections for consumers. So hindrances for free trade can both be protectionist agriculture policies and demands for decent work conditions. Both neoliberalism and socialism. Both conservative and progressive. Because the EU is the constantly negotiated direction of all the countries, not a central government.
posted by mumimor at 7:58 AM on August 12, 2018 [12 favorites]


rather than recognising the way racism is built on economic anxiety

This is privileged, racist nonsense and it’s embarrassing and enraging


I interpreted the ‘built’ there to mean ‘deliberately constructed on the back of, using economic anxiety as a legitimising foundation’, which absolutely is part of the Brexit cultural currents.

People were handed “because immigration” as a prepackaged answer to all sorts of economic issues that are not in and of themselves racist: why are my children’s school class sizes huge now, why don’t I have a house, why can’t I get a GP appointment, why can’t I get a good job. “Because of the immigrants” is not actually an answer to any of these, but there has been a heavy and relentless campaign to sell it as such since long before 2016. Racism is nurtured and cultivated.

And yeah, there are definitely times when those on the pro-Remain side have said stupid things here. Things like “if you’re worried about an unskilled illegal immigrant taking your job, you can’t be that great yourself!”, like the destruction of Britain’s manufacturing industry and creation of a shitty insecure low-skill economy by successive governments is somehow a personal failing. Does not help.

But a bigger problem, surely, is the shortage of mainstream politicians and parties* who are prepared to challenge the poisonous narrative of immigration as an inherent problem at all. There is this weird assumption that somehow this and this alone is the Authentic Voice of the People, that we just have to go along with immigration as the cause of any given economic problem even when we know it’s absolute bollocks. Miliband-era Labour could have fought this rhetoric in opposition - instead they went “oh well” and started producing mugs about their tough stance on immigration. It is shameful.

(*on a UK level, that is; the SNP are much more pro-immigration and do fine with that stance politically. Sigh.)
posted by Catseye at 7:59 AM on August 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


Yet Pakistanis, Malaysians and Singaporeans who hope (however optimistically) that Britain will open up to the wider world - it’s them we call racists?

I wish to also understand the ways of my own people, but all I can offer is: being colonised left a hell of a hangover.
posted by cendawanita at 8:21 AM on August 12, 2018 [7 favorites]




There’s a poisonous thread that links Boris Johnson, UKIP and fascists, and we ignore it at our peril.
posted by adamvasco at 1:45 PM on August 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


New polling data from The Observer shows that 53% of Britain would now back Remain. Broken down by region, that’s enough to flip 112 Parliamentary constituencies.
posted by Pallas Athena at 9:39 PM on August 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


Here's a poll showing remain likely to get 55% of votes. It's from June 22nd, 2016.
posted by biffa at 11:53 PM on August 12, 2018 [8 favorites]


Honestly, I've always been against the idea of a second referendum. The foremost reason is ideological. That is, I believe the first one was advisory, was won by a slim margin and now seems to have been compromised. So there's plenty of room there for brave politicians to simply declare it null and void. And that is what should happen. As I said, my reasons are ideological, not practical.

The secondary reason is that I don't think Remain would necessarily win, as they believe they will. If anything, positions have hardened. The public doesn't seem any more educated to me. Those of us here in this thread are a pretty skewed sample, in that we are at least digesting news and also considering new, emerging facts and events. I believe the majority still don't really care and with so much ongoing spin from both sides, find it is easier to disengage than to disentangle truth from lies.

There's a crisis point coming up soon and it is impossible to predict what will happen next. Certainly, Article 50 can be extended and that might happen. But that only delays the crisis, it does not resolve it. T. May seems desperate to forge some deal and perhaps she will relent and agree to a border on the Irish sea. Then, DUP drops its support. A new election is called and then...?

Corbyn supporters don't seem to ask themselves why he is still behind in the polls against May. If their line is that people are tired of austerity and anti-austerity is what he indeed preaches then - why isn't he more popular? The biggest problem in Britain right now is that there is no leader in politics that I think is capable of resolving the current situation. I mean I admire the principles of people like Carolyn Lucas and David Lammy (full disclosure: I've gone door-to-door for the Greens) but nobody who enjoys a decent amount of popular support. Not helping is the fact that people are disenchanted with politics at a critical moment when they should be engaging with it the most.
posted by vacapinta at 3:23 AM on August 13, 2018 [6 favorites]


If anything, positions have hardened. The public doesn't seem any more educated to me.

The polls have moved, though, consistently and significantly - with a particular emphasis on Labour leave voters changing their minds. And while 'the public' may not have taken on the task of educating themselves in the facts of the situation, they have noticed that two years have passed and nothing has happened except a continued enshittening.

Against that, I hear that Labour party activists who were remain are nore more Brexity, because they've bought into the Cult of Jezza and if he says it, it must be true.

The Labour leadership's main policy on Brexit currently seems to be preventing any discussion of it at conference...
posted by Devonian at 5:50 AM on August 13, 2018 [2 favorites]




The polls have moved, though, consistently and significantly

No they havent, if you dig below the misleading headlines in the press the percentage of people supporting Leave has held very steady since 2016 - within the margins of poll accuracy. See the links a few comments above.

A second referendum now would have a very good chance of just confirming the first result and bolstering the case for a hard Brexit. I don't see any politician taking that chance until remain has at least a 15% or 20% lead and that doesnt look like it's happening any time soon.
posted by Lanark at 12:49 PM on August 13, 2018 [5 favorites]


No they havent, if you dig below the misleading headlines in the press the percentage of people supporting Leave has held very steady since 2016 - within the margins of poll accuracy. See the links a few comments above.

My impression from basically the beginning of this year. and backed by some (not all) polls, is that while Leave may have remained steady (which I find a bit suspicious, as the most heavily pro-Leave demographic is also the one which is dying off the fastest), Remain has grown as people who didn't or couldn't vote the first time have either come off the fence or had their 18th birthday. There certainly seems to be solid support for a second referendum, which you'd absolutely expect from those excluded from the first and would strongly expect from those who had bought into the 'it's going to be easy and fun' Leave narrative but have noticed now that it's neither.

The demographic shift, btw, is that every day some 2000 people die, most of them elderly, and 2000 people reach 18. Which given the referendum voting percentages, means every day Leave loses around a thousand voters and Remain gains 400 odd. (Or so I've read. On the Internet, y'know.)
posted by Devonian at 6:42 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


Devonian is absolutely correct. Also a “second” referendum (really a third because there was a first referendum in 1975 which is what I always point leavers to when they start up with the “you lost; get over it” nonsense) would in fact be a different question: do you want *this* Brexit or do you prefer to remain? If an actual plan was put on the ballot alongside the status quo, it’s difficult to see how any individual worked-out Brexit could garner enough votes to beat Remain.
posted by tractorfeed at 7:04 AM on August 14, 2018


John Curtice today - 'The latest @YouGov Eurotrack survey appears to confirm the slight swing to Remain that was recorded by June's Eurotrack. No previous reading since #euref had more than a 4 point lead - now we've had a 5 and a 6.'

If there was a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, how would you vote? (Eurotrack)
Field work dates: 13 February 2012 - 26 July 2018

posted by Flitcraft at 7:07 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


Stating the obvious here, but "people supporting Leave" were never a majority of Britain in the first place. Those who voted Leave were only about 37% of the eligible voters-- which, of course, excluded UK citizens residing abroad and citizens of other EU countries residing in the UK.

Some of it is a demographic shift, as Devonian notes. Some Leave voters have genuinely come to see things differently: parents are listening to their children; people have seen the consequences for their EU-national friends, neighbours and coworkers. Other Leavers have seen clearly that this government is incapable of delivering the result they wanted; they've seen the government's own studies and figures saying what every projected form of Brexit would mean.

Rather like Trump supporters, they voted for a possibility, and are now faced with a reality.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:08 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


If you haven't seen the Brexit Means Titanic video yet... well.
posted by Devonian at 6:10 AM on August 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


ConservativeHome: Gove is setting himself up as Brexit's Michael Collins.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:05 AM on August 16, 2018


A group of the founders of the Anti-Nazi League has called for a new national campaign, not long after McDonnell's calls for just some such thing.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:38 AM on August 16, 2018 [1 favorite]






Also, Alastair Campbell (yes, I know, but) has read a book by William Rees Mogg and suggests it gives a slightly scary insight into JRM's mindset - 1 2.
posted by Grangousier at 11:49 AM on August 23, 2018


“a joint report signed by May and Michel Barnier last December promised that there would be no diminution of human rights and equality protections in Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit. But when the EU negotiators tried to put this in binding legal language last March, the UK rejected it.
If the Troubles return after Brexit, it won't just be because of the Irish border issue
The British government is removing essential building blocks of the Good Friday Agreement such as human rights and a non-partisan position between unionists and nationalists
.
posted by adamvasco at 6:37 AM on September 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


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