Sawdust and Empire by Attila the Stockbroker and Referendum Open Thread

Please vote, and vote Remain – I don’t want to be governed by Johnson, Gove and Farage without the safeguards the EU, like it or not, does provide. The current lot is bad enough, but at least they are somewhat rational.

@2 : It is a referendum, not a general election. You should vote on the basis of the question, not on who you think it might empower.

In fact, Johnson, Gove and Farage could well be strengthened by a Remain vote, just as the position of the SNP was strengthened in Scotland after a No vote. Their base may be increased, further radicalised, and have newfound unity of purpose while their opponents remain in complacent stasis.

Personally, I think there’s a lot to be said for apathy and spite as a reason to vote Remain. At the very least, I’ve been disgusted and depressed by the racism of the Leave campaign and many of its supporters, to the point that I feel a duty not to give them any encouragement or support.

Of course that is why the leave campaign want to change immigration controls, because too many white people are being allowed in.

I am an American by passport who has lived in the UK these 41 years so I speak as an interested, very interested, but also slightly detached party. Where to start? Maybe here: a friend who lives in a nearby poor ex-mining village filled me in on some of the advice going the rounds on Facebook there. One was to be sure to take a pen when you go to vote, because if you use the pencils at the polling station they will rub out your Leave vote and make it a Remain vote. Or here’s one: an anonymous page has been circulating which says that 70,000 Turks are just waiting for a successful Remain vote to swarm into the country. Above all, she tells me, people around her are talking to each other about being flooded by immigrants, for which read ‘Muslims’. They will force sharia law on us, and kill all the young men. Yep. My friend, who always protests that she has no education, thinks these and other similar alarms to be quite silly, but of course very persuasive to many.

It is fairly easy to find the sources of some of the bare-faced lies going around. There is in the first instance the yellow press, whose owners would wield even more power in a Britain divorced from the EU. So The Mail and The Sun, whose circulation figures depend on cultivating what is most excitable, fearful, and angry in people, are just pursuing their standard strategy. Then there are the highly visible leaders of the Leave campaign, who are so transparently interested in their own advancement at whatever price in fear and hatred.

The challenge for anyone not accepting the big lies on that side is to find much attractive in those on the other side, notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose political register is not much less overwrought. He’s the boy who cried ‘Wolf’ and ‘There Is No Alternative’ too many times, so the prophecies of doom are threadbare. And Remain campaigners are forced again and again to say ‘there is much wrong with the EU, but …’. It may be, though, that the murder of Jo Cox, such an admirable campaigner for the disadvantaged beyond any border, brought people to think of some of the larger values which have been little in the headlines and sound bites, but which are still available to many, such as world-openness and compassion for one’s fellow beings. These are also represented in the EU, alongside steely neoliberalism.

Many ironies. My own personal irony is that I had printed out the forms to apply to be a British, um, subject just before the referendum storm blew up. Those forms are still here, gathering dust at the back of the desk. I’ll see what I think about that tomorrow, 24 June 2016.

Dipper, I don’t disagree with any of your points at 9 but I just don’t see the UK having a more rational or fair immigration system if Brexit win. There is unfairness built into the current system which is a result of UK and not EU policy: the obstacles put in the way of spousal visas that have the worst affect on people from South Asia, obstacles for getting student visas, shortages of visas given to fill gaps in the NHS (combined with underinvestment in training in the UK), the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. To be honest I despair of both the main parties’ approach to immigration over recent years and don’t see things getting better whether the vote goes to remain or leave.

For Dipper @ 2 etc. It is difficult to see the UK as being much more democratic that the EU. If Farage et al. get in, you can vote them out? Not at all so straightforward. There are Cameron and Osborne, selected by the first-past-the-post and the Tory press, and they’re here for four more years. Unless of course Boris et al. succeed them after embarrassment at a Leave vote. At least there is some counterbalance to environmental rapaciousness and the exploitation or neglect of workers’ rights through EU influence at present, however weak that counterbalance may be.

One consolation in the face of a Leave vote is that it would take a hellish long time to unpick all the laws and regulations that bind the UK with other European nations, so some of the damage might take years to seep through. And some of the evidently simpler things that many Leavers (and some improbable Remainers) would like to demolish, such as the Human Rights Act, are themselves not so easy, because those provisions are there not only by legislative act, but also by treaty and other provisions.

Dipper @ 9

But the EU mandates the UK to have a blatantly racist immigration policy! Giving free access to millions of people because they are white europeans and relegating people of colour to secondary status.

But since 1998, 75% of net migration has been from non-EU countries. Granted these include US, Australia and NZ, but a significant proportion of the 75% would include people of colour.

RichieRich @13: net immigration of 300,000 per year? We might also want to ask whether these are largely the old, the sick, the disabled, the untalented and those without enterprise or energy, all of whom could become a burden on the public purse for the long run. Probably not. They’re probably more or less the self-selecting opposite. And anyway the public purse is shedding unpromising liabilities, whether native or immigrant.

@2 : It is a referendum, not a general election. You should vote on the basis of the question

I did vote on that basis – when I speak about “Johnson, Gove and Farage” I am not thinking about the short term political developments, but about what kind of country we want to be. And they along with their whole campaign represent everything I don’t want the UK to be: insularity, xenophobia, racism. And they are not the only ones across Europe who try to pull off this populist con-trick, so I am talking about the future of the EU as a whole.

I could also list 27 reasons why I think the EU, warts and all, is a great idea and nationalism is hopefully on its way out, but then I’ll be branded an apologist for neoliberalism again – or something like that – and that would bore everybody to tears.

Michael @ 18

In my view there are good arguments that 300,000 is too high. There are also perfectly reasonable arguments that it isn’t. My only point – and it’s really so obvious it shouldn’t need to be made – is that arguing that it’s too high or that the UK should have sovereignty over who and how many isn’t necessarily racist. Elements of the Remain camp have in my view been too eager to play the racist card. Likewise, elements of the Leave camp have been guilty of stoking unreasonable fear of immigrants. But then, apparently, negative campaigning works!

RichieRich@13 I’m sure you’d agree that concerns about immigration aren’t necessarily racist.

Leaving aside the fact that “concerns about immigration” is invariably code for “wanting fewer and less foreign immigrants”, you mean? If the concerns are that we’re not doing enough to facilitate immigration or that we’re failing in our duty to help refugees then I’m happy to approve. Otherwise, I’m afraid I consider “concerns about immigration” racist by default.

bc@24

Clearly I don’t find the context of the referendum or my estimate of its likely effects irrelevant, and I’m surprised anyone would. From my perspective this referendum is a proxy in a fight between two groups of people I despise, so why shouldn’t I base my decision of which group I despise more?

My daughter’s father in law, Welsh, said vote out, make Britain great again. I suggested, but not to him, that conquering India would be good first step

I should add, before I take a break, that the other component of the Leave campaign has been nationalism, which is basically a mug’s game. It’s OK to be a fan of a country if you like – or several countries – but “take back control” is just a large-scale version of “we’re the true fans, so the showrunners will surely listen to us”.

Dipper: “But the EU mandates the UK to have a blatantly racist immigration policy! Giving free access to millions of people because they are white europeans and relegating people of colour to secondary status.”

I don’t live in the UK or the EU, which probably explains why I’m shocked to discover that there are no non-white Europeans, or, alternatively, that the UK’s immigration policy permits white Europeans to enter while barring non-white Europeans. This shock is exacerbated by my acquaintance with several alleged non-white Europeans who reside, apparently legally, in the UK. I can only assume they’ve lied, either to me about their origin or their status, or to the authorities about their color.

(Does this dog of an argument actually hunt over there?!)

Dipper: “But the EU mandates the UK to have a blatantly racist immigration policy! Giving free access to millions of people because they are white europeans and relegating people of colour to secondary status.”

The concern about this kind of racist immigration policy only giving access to white europeans must be why I received a leaflet from vote leave warning about how Turkey is just about to join the EU ooga booga!

Sam Dodsworth: so if concerns about immigration from eastern Europe are racist, you must be arguing that Poles, etc, are a different race from western Europeans.

Good luck with arguing that in the USA.

While its nice you dropped the nonsense about how Brexit would allow us to fix racist migration policies it would have been nice if you hadn’t then moved onto long debunked talking points about hordes of migrants coming to claim benefits.

Its pretty well known that migrants on average contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

@Stephen

It’s interesting you should mention the States in the context of
race and immigration from Eastern Europe. A bit of history is always useful if you want to understand the ways race and racism are constructed.

A more local example might be the movement, recorded by Orwell, to send Polish refugees back from the UK after 1945. Very much the usual stuff: undercutting British workers, “sticking together” to eliminate competition, etc. Racialised in a different way from the pre-War eugenicists but still racist.

(In the long term I’d hope a common European identity could help with some of this, but there’s a obvious cost we can see right now with the “othering” of refugees from outside the EU. Still, if we have to have borders it’s probably best they be as wide and diffuse as possible.)

@Dipper

Yes, the world’s a better place if we all help each other and share what we have. That you think people from Turkey or Ukraine are somehow less deserving just makes my original point.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bulgaria-romania-flights-arrive-empty-2978847

Also I find all this worrying about how migrants are ripping off the benefit system even more ridiculous for other reasons.

Expert opinion is almost unanimous – its going to be bad news for the economy if we leave. That means we’re going to either borrow more, tax more or spend less on benefits and the NHS. This will far outweigh whatever meagre savings you imagine we might make from blocking migrants from entering and freeloading off the benefit system (ignoring the fact that migrants don’t tend to actually do that).

Also there seems to be a strand of Brexiteer who seems to advocate the Norwegian model. Under this we’d still have to follow many of the EU’s rules including those around free movement of people we just wouldn’t have any say in the EU’s institutions when the rules are drafted. Taking back control indeed!

As an American and Bernie Sanders supporter I hope the Remain side wins.

One, the Leave side is being driven by xenophobic rightwingers who are analogous to Trump and scapegoat immigrants and foreigners.

Yes there are many problems with EU institutions but they need to be reformed rather than just abandoned. (I’m in horror at the way Germany is treating Greece.)

Mostly I blame the establishment rightwing – whose solutions don’t work – and the complacent, lazy lesser-evilism of the center-left, like Hillary Clinton and the centrists opposed to Corbyn. Their small-bore solutions don’t work either, and so we get the scapegoating by Trump, Farange and Boris Johnson as a response to the shrinking, stagnating middle class.

Also there’s the corrupt corporate media.

@53

Sure, but the argument against the Leavers immigration concerns is EU immigrants contribute a net positive to the country’s finances on average. No one (well, probably not no one, but very few people) is arguing vote Remain because EU immigrants have a value as human beings and thus should be free to move to Britain regardless of the effect they have on public finances or social services.

Peter K

“As an American” – well some think that telling your neighbour how they should run their affairs is a little crass and uncalled for but personally I welcome it.

“Leave side is being driven by xenophobic rightwingers say Remainers. Brexiters speak equally highly of the qualities of Remainers.

“Yes there are many problems with EU institutions but they need to be reformed” well this is pretty much the key point of the entire referendum. That is the Remain case, and the Brexit case is basically to ask for just one example of that ever ever happening. Well I guess we shall soon know if the EU Leopard really can change its spots.

I had assumed a decent Remain win, but the areas most likely to vote Remain have suffered floods of biblical proportions whilst the sun has shone on the stronger Brexit areas. I don’t normally do God but in this case I sense the unseen hand guiding us to the exit.

YouGov poll, the markets, and Nigel Farage all predicting a win for remain, I hope they’re right.

Dipper: “the Brexit case is basically to ask for just one example of that ever ever happening. ”

The obvious example is the European Parliament which was initially unelected then became directly elected in the 1979. It has also accrued more power over time including an expansion of powers in 2009 when the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect.

The parts of the EU that most needs reform are those around the Euro. However since we aren’t in the Eurozone (and nor should we be) its hard to see that as a compelling reason to leave.

Stephen @36: you are right that legislation in the last generation has made ‘citizen’ the current terminology. Thanks for that. But in much of law ‘subject’ is still used. As a ‘USAian’ I do find the notion of being a ‘subject’ in any sort of discourse repellent. But I also find it repellent that the voting system here could give the Tory party such power with 35% of the vote. ‘More democracy’ is a perennial and perennially unfulfillable demand. But a bit more of it here wouldn’t go amiss.

What is more alarming about the referendum may be that this is the one chance many will have, given the present British electoral system, to feel that their vote counts. And if accumulated resentment, justified in itself but ill-targeted, takes hold then a Leave vote might be as much a protest against those in the London political bubble as for Leave.

Of course it is probably a stimulating question for some to consider whether voting for X, in the absence of actual information about X, can be considered in truth as a vote for X. I recall various fine philosophical arguments about analogous cases. Neither the Remain nor the Leave camp has done very well to show what their X actually involves. British sovereignty? There are thousands of treaties, apart from the EU, which constrain that. Economic prosperity vs economic downturn? Probably, but over what period and what the numbers might be are anyone’s guess. Immigration? Even the few comments here show how the very terminology of that is what Gallie called ‘essentially contested’. In the end it may be just that the X is a question of pre-reflective values or just of how far people stretch their broadest sense of the word ‘we’.

“I had assumed a decent Remain win, but the areas most likely to vote Remain have suffered floods of biblical proportions whilst the sun has shone on the stronger Brexit areas. I don’t normally do God but in this case I sense the unseen hand guiding us to the exit.”

Missed this earlier. Shorter Dipper: “the EU institutions aren’t democratic enough which is why its great that a referendum might go my way now that bad weather has depressed turnout among people who disagree with me!”

Look, dipper is just regurgitating talking points.

A narrow win for leave? Oh shit. I confess: I’ve been firmly in the ‘it couldn’t happen, could it?’ camp. Pray for stay.

Guardian Liveblog I hope

It looks like both Remain and Leave are outpolling predictions in their areas of strength –so far Leave has had some surprising results, but Remain’s stronghold of London might do the same when it reports.

rootlesscosmo @5

The tune and the title ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ predate the lyrics and the title ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ (although the title ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ has a wider reference than the tune of the song, which is an adaptation of a portion only of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1).

Question for people more knowledgeable than me: If as is seeming likely, Leave wins, does that maybe mean another referendum in Scotland in the near future? One that goes the other way?

“English votes for English laws”

Please file under, be careful what you wish for

BBC forecasts Britain to Leave the EU

http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

What an epic fucking disaster.

I hope the Clinton campaign pays close attention. I can’t believe this. Binary-choice elections now seem globally to be driven by pure negative emotion.

86@

I recommend more charges of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia against working-class voters to properly express our moral humility and willingness to listen to the concerns of those screwed by globalization and forgotten by the moblle educated and monied class.

Most of my British colleagues expressed complete confidence in Remain as recently as 12 hour ago. One predicted a very comfortable win and another by double-digits.

In Rome, now Britain, and perhaps America, it’s a less than optimal time to be carrying the flag of ‘more of the same.’ Brexit will have everyone’s attention for some time to come.

On the BBC World News channel Liam Fox has declared that Cameron has a “duty” to stay on. “As the prime minister who gave us the referendum, he is best placed to see us through.” Any thoughts on that from those who are on the scene?

90@ We’re here in large part because lazy-ass intellectuals like you figured accusations of ‘racism’ would suffice to frighten voters away from UKIP and the Leave campaign.

As a supporter of Remain, all I can say is: take a bow, asshole!

I see you can’t.

We’re here because lying pictures of Syrian refugees and lies about turkey motivated the class consciousness of the British Tory working class. They aren’t reacting viscerally to being called racist, they are racist. I grew up among the stalwarts of the leave campaign down south west and I don’t need an ear trumpet to hear the dog whistling – they holler their racism loud and clear, and if you doubt it I suggest you take a trip down there and ask around a bit …

Apologies for breaking the civil disagreement code. I retract the word ‘asshole.’

For what it’s worth, the tubes are positively ringing with Brexit means Brits stand closer to Trump than many are willing to acknowledge.

How long till HRC crowds start chanting: ‘build that wall’?

Could never happen, right? Besides she and Bill are the ‘champions’ of change and the working person.

True!

The left argument for Leave has nothing to do with sympathy for Farage or any racism. It’s the idea that restoring social democracy is more plausibly accomplished within a sovereign UK than within the EU system.

” I think Italy might be ready too – didn’t I see 5-stars winning in Rome and Turin (or Milan?) a few days ago?”

I don’t think this is going to happen. Eurozone countries will stay in, because they have the euro. Old people in the UK voted for Brexit. Old people in a eurozone country (except for Germany and the like) will not vote for leaving the eurozone or the E.U. because they will be worried about their savings.

The point is not whether Brexiters care about social democracy. It’s about whether social democracy is more plausibly accomplished in a sovereign UK. I’m not sure why so many fail to understand this difference.

Left-leaning EU? Since when did Merkel join the left? When did Hollande suddenly remember he’s in the Socialist Party? When did Polish and Hungarian racism qualify as left?

Brexit should have several economic effects beneficial to the lower and middle classes. Independent Britain has greater control over fiscal policy, enabling inflationary spending. Brexit will also weaken the City and perhaps the hold of financial interests over the state. It will weaken the pound and make exports more competitive. Cheaper sterling may reduce cost of foreign direct investment (cheaper asset prices) in the UK. Reduced immigration reduces the labor supply, possibly increasing wages.

All the noise about the UK suffering tariffs should they leave was simple fearmongering. Two years from now all parties will resort to their usual free trade line and establish something like the Norway arrangement.

kidneystones @100

‘I teach communication. You seem utterly impervious to negative feedback. At this point in the term all students are required to test and revise, and test and revise their messages in order to ensure that the intended message is being received.

‘Do you really, really, really want to tell those who hold opinions different to yours that they should shut-up and listen, goddam-it, kos after all “you’re just a bunch of racist, xenophobic bigots?”

‘Can you even see, now, standing in the ruins of another defeat that maybe it might just be time to listen?’

What would you tell your communication students about a message in which one paragraph used a rhetorical question to cast doubt on somebody else’s decision to exhort other people to listen and the immediately following paragraph used a rhetorical question to exhort that other person to listen?

Faustusnotes has not been telling the people ‘a grew up with that they are bigots; Faustusnotes has been informing us, here, that the people ‘a grew up with are bigots; it’s not the same thing.

If campaigners exhort people to vote one way because if they vote the other way they’re just showing themselves to be bigots, it’s reasonable to question the wisdom of their strategic choice. But if commentators suggest that people’s motives for voting in a particular way are the product of the voters’ bigotry, the appropriate question is not whether their strategic choice is wise, but whether their analysis is accurate: is it in fact the case that the voters are motivated by bigotry? I don’t know to what extent (if any) Leave voters (or Remain voters, for that matter) were motivated by bigotry, but it seems a fair question for an analyst to discuss.

This thread is just great!

Like it, or not, Remain lost, in part, because of the contempt so many here keenly display towards their intellectual and moral inferiors.

Yeah, contempt, like when you prefer the advice of a gazillion economists, bankers and business leaders to the “I have no clue what’s going to happen after Brexit, I just want to win, the experts are Nazis” Farage/Johnson/Gove clown show.

you seem to have a reading comprehension problem – it’s been a long night …

“Yeah, contempt, like when you prefer the advice of a gazillion economists, bankers and business leaders ”

Are these the same economists, bankers and business leaders who have insisted for decades that the rising GDP lifts all boats?

I agree that Brexit isn’t likely to be great. But I can understand why the middle class has stopped giving a shit what bankers and business leaders say. The elite have burned through enormous amounts of good will in the past decade.

But I can understand why the middle class has stopped giving a shit what bankers and business leaders say. The elite have burned through enormous amounts of good will in the past decade.

Fine, but AGAIN for the umpteenth time: the sorry state of UK society is due the policies of successive UK governments, so if one disagrees with them the GENERAL ELECTION would have been the right time to voice these concerns, not the EU REFERENDUM.

Ze K @113

‘It would make sense, imo, to ignore individuals and analyze the aggregate.’

I see no basis for concluding that bigotry cannot be a useful concept for analysing aggregates; rather the reverse.

‘In a society, unassimilated mass-immigration generates anti-immigration sentiment, leading to social tensions, leading (likely) to violence. That’s probably just a law of nature. ‘

It is much more probable that the pattern varies enormously with the characteristics of the society under discussion: for example, the more pre-existing bigotry there is in the society, the more anti-immigration sentiment is likely to be generated.

kidneystones @118

‘Lefty elites may actually have to find areas of agreement with their ‘nazi’ compatriots.’

I would be extremely interested to learn more about your own experiences seeking agreement with Nazis.

125@ You’re having a really bad Brexit, aren’t you.

I confess I actually have met one real nazi (already an old man at the time), one real Nation of Islam member, several IRA supporters, and any number of openly racist bigots. The great thing about being an intellectual is, imho, being able to suspend judgement long enough to listen to anyone.

There may be informed individuals who sincerely believe Trump=Hitler, Trump rallies=Klan rallies, Republicans are all sociopaths, Obama is a secret Muslim Manchurian candidate, and other assorted forms of nuttery. My own readings of history support none of these fictions. Asserting that Farage or Gove is a nazi is, imho, both insulting to all who suffered during WWII and extremely unhelpful in building bridges with those some here openly characterize as ‘nazis’.

Hope this helps. I doubt it will, but it will have to suffice.

Have a better Brexit!

Here in the North of England, in a constituency with a university but many ex-pit villages round about, active members of the Labour Party campaigning for Remain met with open arms in the city, but in the villages the tone was icy and the rumours and Facebook posts full of contagious fear and worrying conspiracy theories. I don’t think UKIP will soon take the seat here. Our MP works hard and commands a good deal of respect in herself. But Labour’s hold is loosening and the narrative of foreigners flooding in has evidently replaced that of the bosses screwing the workers. If you relish irony the rather wonderful thing about this is that this region has one of the lowest proportions of immigrants in the UK. Relatively recent research in Sunderland, a bastion of the Leave campaign, showed that those sections of the city with the fewest immigrants are the ones most fearful of immigration, and so (probably) the keenest on Leave.

On another note: one powerful factor strengthening reactionary forces in Weimar Germany was the press, much influenced, and largely owned, by people making hay out of people’s insecurities and anger after 1918. The analogy with the press in the UK today does spring to mind. I’m not suggesting that anything so catastrophic as what happened there will happen here. But it is a factor worth watching.

Ze K @126

‘I don’t see any need to analyze the entirely subjective ‘bigotry’ in a situation like that; just replace ‘bigotry’ with ‘my opponent’s campaign’. The meaning will not suffer.’

Not so: the expression ‘bigotry’ refers to something that actually exists, while the expression ‘my opponent’s campaign’ does not, because there is no such person as ‘my opponent’.

novakant: the UK is among the worst EU member states as far as social mobility and equality is concerned

and, then there’s Greece . . .

Philip @136. BBC news just treated us to a spot of vox populi in a few spots on the Durham / Sunderland axis. There was some immigrant bashing, and only a slight touch of EU bashing, but more talk about them in the south ignoring us, year after year it’s the same thing, they never listen, they get richer and we get nothing, etc etc. Not a systematic sample, except that some news editors do try to give something of a spread of opinion. In this case that spread gave many good reasons for voting against this government, which they did, and no good reason for voting to leave the EU, especially given the number of infrastructure projects here supported by EU money and the number of jobs dependent on EU access. It may seem a next step to blame the stupidity of such voters, but they have my sympathy. The stupidity lies rather with Cameron/Osborne and the irresponsibility of taking such a momentous risk to preserve Tory unity, as if that were the greater good. Sheesh.