Parris on the Brexiteers

by Harry on July 12, 2016

Here.

The day of the referendum result, I was waiting outside the tent where CNN were filming on College Green near Parliament. In front of the camera I saw two people shouting at each other and sensed the argument was out of control. Next up for interview, I sat down to watch. The interviewer was Christiane Amanpour, her interviewee the MEP Daniel Hannan.

I have never seen so violent an argument on TV. Nobody won but both lost their tempers. Amanpour indirectly* accused Hannan of trying to win the Leave campaign by inciting hatred of immigrants; Hannan insisted he had never done so, had never even argued against immigration, but simply for Britain to ‘take back control’. Shouting, he challenged Amanpour to cite any example of anti-immigrant language he had ever used.

I’m sure the record will bear Daniel out. I doubt he’s a racist or wants sharp reductions in immigration. He will have been fastidious in his language. But his rage was instructive. Beneath the furious denials and the angry demands for chapter and verse was the rage of a man in acute personal discomfort about the company he has kept and the currents in society whose cause it has become his lifetime’s work to champion, while carefully disavowing what drives them. Amanpour hardly landed a blow on Hannan because she did not put the most wounding charge: that he has ridden a tiger, and knows the tiger he rides. He — and I use him only as an eloquent example — raises his hands in repudiation of the destination he hears his followers bawl for, yet offers to take them halfway there.

and

I once asked Enoch Powell whether, no racist himself, he ever felt squeamish about some who cheered his speeches. He replied — to laughter from our audience — that in politics you take support from wherever it comes. The reply diminished him.

{ 196 comments }

1

map maker 07.12.16 at 1:27 pm

What a strange world we’ve moved into where advocating the libertarian ideal of unrestricted movement of capital and labor is now the litmus test to prove whether one is “racist” or not.

2

BenK 07.12.16 at 1:43 pm

Busy trying to reduce the Overton window, to shut out any opposition. Now nobody should be allowed to say anything that the ‘wrong people’ might cheer.

3

Thomas 07.12.16 at 1:44 pm

Whether or not Hannan is a racist, his belief in the Anglosphere – in his account something like a community of the racially like-minded – and his bizarre fetishization of Runnymede and the Magna Carta as some kind of a racial founding myth – reminds me of nothing so much as Dugin’s Eurasianism. I’m not sure if racist is the right word, but it’s pretty damn unsavoury.

4

Layman 07.12.16 at 1:51 pm

@BenK, I disapprove of your nonsense, but I don’t disallow your nonsense. Can you grasp the difference?

5

Sam Dodsworth 07.12.16 at 2:07 pm

I think it takes a particular kind of wilful blindness not to notice that English nationalism has been synonymous with racism for a good many decades now; but good for Parris for finally spotting it, I suppose. And of course the consequences of this nasty side to our national character were never going to fall on him or his sane, nice, reasonable friends.

6

bruce wilder 07.12.16 at 2:12 pm

You did not Mr Parris’s title: For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be British

If that was the first time, he is not a very sensitive moral instrument.

7

Collin Street 07.12.16 at 2:16 pm

Hannan insisted he had never done so, had never even argued against immigration, but simply for Britain to ‘take back control’.

But of course. One of the distinctive problems we keep running into from certain quarters is a dogmatic faith that the only meaning and information a person’s words can legitimately be regarded as conveying is the meaning that the speaker consciously intended them to convey; any additional implications or details — even syllogistic deductions — get met with cries of “I never said those words” and “do you think you’re a mindreader”.

Like we see here, all the time.

8

Harry 07.12.16 at 2:52 pm

I assumed that, like a lot of journalists, Parris is exaggerating (‘first time in my life’) for effect.

He is not saying you should never say anything the wrong people will cheer. He is accusing Hannan (and his ilk, including Powell) of knowingly and deliberately seeking and exploiting the support of those people while being ‘fastidious’ with their own language and not saying anything strictly and literally racist or xenophobic. After all, Powell never called for rivers of blood — he merely predicted that there would be rivers of blood. Hannan insists that there must be free movement of people across. But he knows that upholding the free movement of people across borders was not a motivating theme in the exit campaign.

I have to say, in response to Collin Street, that I am in my own discussions about politics, online or off, extremely averse to reading into people’s words anything they have not strictly and literally said (I don’t always mind people doing it to me, but I don’t like it happening). I’ve been following Parris, whom I admire, for years (33??) and he tends to take people at their word, maybe not in his heart, but for purposes of discussion. Which is why this was so striking to me.

9

Sam Dodsworth 07.12.16 at 3:02 pm

And I came across this a few minutes ago, from a much longer piece by Sara Ahmed, which seems very relevant:

Right now in the UK, post Brexit; there is more attention to racism than we have been used to. We know that racism is not new. We know we are talking about the old when we are talking about racism. We have been here before; and there will be more. That attention is teaching us how much was not noticed before, the ordinary and everyday racism that allows brown and black bodies to be stopped in the streets, here, to be asked where they are from, to be told they are not from here. We have evidence of how racism was not evident to those to whom it was not directed. The evidence might not have amounted to much because of the nerve it touched: a social space can be created by turning away from what (and who) gets in the way.

10

someguy88 07.12.16 at 3:04 pm

Vile and debasing. Not them you and yours. The blatant double standard is infuriating.

If you hold any political position there is going to be a good deal of scumbags riding along with you.

I mean maybe Israel should not exist as a state. But when you adopt that position you are going to be associated with some true scum. Does that diminish the good and honest people who hold that view? No it doesn’t and the outrage and scorn that would be turned on any one who suggested other wise would be staggering.

But as noted up stream that charity is reserved for the right sort of people and they go tut tut tut when people are outraged by it.

11

bruce wilder 07.12.16 at 3:12 pm

He is accusing Hannan (and his ilk, including Powell) of knowingly and deliberately seeking and exploiting the support of those people . . .

Yes, “those people”. Hmmm.

I admit I am getting a bit confused about whose prejudices and motivations I ought disapprove.

12

RNB 07.12.16 at 3:18 pm

I think there was a BBC piece on and interview with Hannan before the interview he did with Amanpour, and she may have been making implicit reference to it. He came across a lot worse in the BBC piece if I remember correctly because the BBC played clips of false things the Leave campaign had clearly promised and perhaps he Hannan had himself promised as well.

13

novakant 07.12.16 at 3:28 pm

I recommend this analysis by James Meek (most of the others are interesting as well):

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n14/on-brexit/where-are-we-now#meek

14

Daragh 07.12.16 at 3:55 pm

Thomas @2

THANK YOU! I’ve been searching for a point of comparison to Hannan’s ‘Anglosphere’ fetish and I think you’ve hit it. The driving impulses and methodology are broadly similar – for a certain type of post-imperialist who can’t accept the break-up of the empire, but also recognises that ‘subjugate the heathens by force’ just doesn’t fly in the 21st century, theories and narratives that present the empire as something ‘natural’ and ‘just’ are very attractive (though Dugin is, admittedly, more honest in his motivations from time to time).

This the basis of Dugin’s conception of a common ‘Eurasian’ civilisation (with the Russians as it’s main binding force) despite the huge diversities of people, customs, languages etc. To give Dugin his due, he actually puts more theoretical legwork into advancing this claim than Hannan, whose ‘Anglosphere’ is basically based around ignoring the Francophone bits of Canada, forgetting that the US is not a parliamentary democracy, and pretending Israel and India are ‘anglophone.’ The impulse is the same – Hannan would rather be the viceroy in an Anglophone Imperium, rather than be one amongst equals.

What’s more interesting is how both of these men present their respective worldviews. What they’re saying is, at heart, base and primitive chauvinism. Dugin spends a lot of time saying ‘metaphysics’ to flatter his ideas with the veneer of philosophy. Hannan is very articulate, deploys lots of three-syllable words and has a cut-glass accent. And thus ‘intellectuals’ are made out of talented propagandists, who nevertheless remain third-rate thinkers (if we’re being generous).

15

Barry 07.12.16 at 4:10 pm

Note : ’88’ stands for ‘Heil Hitler’.

16

Salem 07.12.16 at 4:20 pm

There were lots of people who voted Remain for terrible reasons. Should Parris be ashamed to have been on their side? Or does this guilt-by-not-even-association run in one direction only?

Daniel Hannan has been campaigning consistently against the EU for more than two decades. Why should he have to abandon that cause, just because vile people like Nigel Farage show up to muddy the waters? Hannan’s position has consistently been that Britain should be far more internationalist than the EU allows. It’s true that some people want to Leave for diametrically opposed reasons, but that’s no blow against Hannan, any more than Hezbollah discredits Isaac Herzog. I, at least, have enough confidence in the rightness of the Remain cause that I’m not reduced to the desperate claim that we have to Remain just because UKIP is for Leave.

You know who was on Parris’s side in the referendum? Nicola Sturgeon. I’m sure he’d be mightily offended to hear that he was wishing for the destruction of our country just because he campaigned the same way as her, but by his own logic…

17

Daragh 07.12.16 at 4:33 pm

Hannan was a member of the Vote Leave campaign committee. He may claim to be an internationalist, but he helped steer a campaign that a) was quite dishonest in it’s claims about the NHS, Turkey and the like b) unquestionably anti-immigrant. It’s not ‘guilt-by-not-even-association’ – it’s ‘guilt-because-within-a-position-of-responsibility-in-the-organisation-that-did-the-objectionable-things’.

18

RNB 07.12.16 at 4:49 pm

Yes, this is what Amanpour may have had in mind. Hannan does not come across as well.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36628894

19

cassander 07.12.16 at 5:08 pm

>But his rage was instructive. Beneath the furious denials and the angry demands for chapter and verse was the rage of a man in acute personal discomfort about the company he has kept and the currents in society whose cause it has become his lifetime’s work to champion, while carefully disavowing what drives them.

Or it’s the rage of a man fed up with being labeled a racist for saying things that have nothing to do with race, tired of having to refute the same lazy accusation flung, entirely without evidence, again and again, year after year, by anyone who disagrees with him.

20

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 5:24 pm

bruce wilder:

I admit I am getting a bit confused about whose prejudices and motivations I ought disapprove.

I think you are supposed to disapprove of accountants and private music lessons . . . no, that was the other thread.

I watched about 10 minutes of the video but turned it off during the prurient exploitation of not especially educated people for entertainment value.

21

novakant 07.12.16 at 5:27 pm

Vote Leave ran a racist campaign.
Hannan was a campaign committee member of Vote Leave.
Hannan is a racist.

QED

22

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 5:33 pm

novakant @ 23

Very logical. :) I didn’t see any evidence in the video that the campaign was racist. I saw anecdotal evidence that racists were willing to be interviewed for television in support of Leave (and one of those was an unreconciled WWII dead-ender, which isn’t quite the same thing). I admit that I haven’t been following this, except that (1) I had been unaware that the EU was the most important thing since nuclear non-proliferation and knew only that many American experts thought the euro was a bad idea, and (2) what Bruce said. (The linked statement that most people don’t really care about democracy, and that “theorists'” ideas about self-government being important for democracy are just a trick to get racists on their side, was clever, though.)

23

Layman 07.12.16 at 5:36 pm

@ Ze K, odd isn’t it, that the object of control, the thing of which we’re going to take back control, is invariably left unsaid. I wonder why that might be?

@ Salem, I’ll bite: What were the terrible reasons – ‘terrible’ in the sense of things like racism – that ‘lots of people’ had for voting remain?

24

Salem 07.12.16 at 5:53 pm

novokant – Leave.EU ran a racist campaign. I don’t see that Vote Leave did. They’re not the same thing.

Layman – I won’t bite. Did I write ‘terrible in the sense of things like racism’ or did you just make that up out of whole cloth? When you pre-emptively announce your intention to mutilate what I write, it makes it so much easier for me to ignore you.

25

Layman 07.12.16 at 6:01 pm

@ Salem, absent the ‘terrible-as-in-the-sense-of-racism’ framing, your comment was offered in bad faith, an exercise in false equivalence. I think you see that now, and that was the entire point of making the necessary framing clear for you.

26

Salem 07.12.16 at 6:08 pm

No Layman, because supporting immigration restrictions, although unwise, is not racist. My comment specifically mentioned the vilest thug in the land as being one of the most prominent supporters of the Remain campaign. Restricting immigration is a far less terrible policy than destroying our country.

27

Patrick 07.12.16 at 6:09 pm

@23 There were two leave campaigns. Vote Leave and Leave.eu. Ostensibly, the break was because Vote Leave folks wanted to campaign for leaving without being associated with or supporting extremist & racist rhetoric. For the purposes of your syllogism, I think you’re conflating them.

28

Keith 07.12.16 at 6:11 pm

It is quite clear the Brexit Campaign used deliberate lies. The campaign also involved contradictory policy goals that cannot be applied in practice. The people involved must have known all this unless they are implausibly stupid. What we are not told yet but will discover is which goals will be implemented. Whichever goals are implemented the ones that are not applied will have been rejected without any consultation with the voters who may have been motivated by those goals. I cannot see what taking back control means unless it means some serious xenophobic shit. You take control to do something you feel needs doing. All this pandering to prejudice is unlikely to produce good policy for the UK.

29

Keith 07.12.16 at 6:18 pm

Patrick at 29, the voters certainly conflated them which is the problem with referenda.

It is common for inconsistent ideas to coalesce on one side of a simplistic question. Which makes the result a poor guide to what should happen after the vote. The vote is not democratic as the side which decides policy in the negotiation phase will be able to interpret it how they like to justify what ever they want to do. Ex post the Government and far right will do what ever they like. So some one will have taken control but it will not be the people who have!

30

PatinIowa 07.12.16 at 6:27 pm

I don’t know anything about Hannan.

I do know in the States, people in the Republican Party repeatedly do things like stand on the ground where civil rights workers from the sixties were murdered and say, “I believe in states rights.”

When called on this, they point out their African American friend(s) and demand someone to produce a statement that reads something like, “While I know there’s no empirical basis for doing so, I believe that black people are inferior, and they should be dominated by whites.” If you can’t produce that, they say, you have no right to charge them with racism.

So, how about this: we stop calling people “racist,” and ask these questions:

1. Will their cause continue or increase the disadvantages faced by non-whites in our society? (Or other relevant categories. This works for “sexist” too.)
2. Does their case depend on harnessing energies of people who overtly oppose equal treatment for all?
3. Do they or should they understand that the answers to 1 & 2 are yes?

I don’t think all “leave” voters were racists. But I think the answer to 1 & 2 is very likely “yes,” so the better positioned someone is, the more I think he/she deserves critique.

31

Jim Harrison 07.12.16 at 6:32 pm

In the U.S., at least, the controlling syllogism is:

Racists are bad people.
I am not a bad person.
Ergo I am not a racist.

32

Patrick 07.12.16 at 6:44 pm

@31 Referenda have their problems, but they serve as a last resort for frustrated voters when excessive Clintonian Triangulation leads to two parties that have a consensus on many issues that is at odds with a large plurality or majority of voters. To my eye, this is the situation in the UK.

33

Sebastian_H 07.12.16 at 7:02 pm

“Referenda have their problems, but they serve as a last resort for frustrated voters when excessive Clintonian Triangulation leads to two parties that have a consensus on many issues that is at odds with a large plurality or majority of voters. ”

Exactly. The problem is that the EU has been marginalizing more and more people, more and more often. At some point that becomes unsustainable in any country that is at least semi-democratic.

Can someone distinguish the argument here with: causes which claim to be against the policies of the Israeli government often attract lots of anti-Semites. Therefore such causes should be properly labeled as anti-Semitic.

I would say that ignoring a large section of the public for a long time tends to promote lashing out. An environment for lashing out attracts all sorts of undesirable stuff. So smart elites shouldn’t promote environments for lashing out. EU elites have failed miserably in that.

34

Yan 07.12.16 at 7:08 pm

Jim @33

Yes, that’s a common line of reasoning in the US, but i think this one ‘she becoming the more common:

I am a good person.
You hold a view I find incredible and false.
Ergo you are a racist (or a sexist, etc.)

Both syllogisms are egregiously stupid and dangerous, and they have a complimentary, mutually reinforcing effect. These days I think the only safe line of reasoning is: every side is disastrously wrong. Or in its (Groucho) Marxist form: whatever it is, I’m against it.

35

Stephen 07.12.16 at 7:10 pm

Try old Shakespeare for advice:
“No king, be his cause never so spotless, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers.”

On either side in the referendum debate there were a number of fools, scoundrels and liars. That’s part of the human condition. If you asked me, I would agree that Farage is repulsive, Boris Johnson untrustworthy, and so forth. On the other hand, the Remain cause was supported by Cameron whom I do not trust, Blair whom I will never forgive, Gerry Adams who I think qualifies for Salem’s description as “the vilest thug in the land” … not to mention the ghosts of Ted Heath and Sir Oswald Moseley.

Surely we have a responsibility to make up our minds according to the facts as we see them, not the nature of other people who may or may not agree with us.

Otherwise you end up with the argument “Hitler was a passionate non-smoker and vegetarian, therefore no decent person can be either of those”.

36

novakant 07.12.16 at 7:16 pm

Vote Leave ran a racist campaign.

37

Alex K--- 07.12.16 at 7:33 pm

Dugin has never been much of a thinker — a postmodern performance artist rather. He has not put any “theoretical legwork” into “his Eurasianism” — it’s a mixed salad of bits and pieces from authors long dead and unable to defend themselves against bowdlerization.

The original Eurasianist line of thought can be traced more or less from Konstantin Leontiev and Nikolai Danilevsky in the late 19th century to the Eurasianists of the 1920s and 1930s, Nikolai Trubetskoy most importantly, and to Lev Gumilev in the 1960s and 70s.

The central insight of the 1920s Eurasianism was the leading role of the Golden Horde and the Mongol invasion in the genesis of Muscovite Russia. While some liberal Russian historians (Georgy Fedotov) agreed that the Moscow state was in essence a successor to the Horde (not to Kiev and Novgorod or the Byzantian Empire), the idea that the Mongol institutions made pre-Petrine (and, for some, post-1917) Russia both special AND great was uniquely Eurasianist.

Hannan says the Magna Carta is the “secular miracle of the English-speaking peoples.” I’m not sure about Runnymede in particular, but the fact that the “Anglosphere” still has trial by jury with all the protections for defendants it entails is pretty close to miraculous (even though the UK has been dismantling these precious protections lately, in the name of good intentions: double jeopardy, anonymous verdicts, the exclusion of hearsay, the right to silence are gone).

As for the Eurasianists’ beloved Mongol institutions, the less said the better. Ironically, Russia had an unbelievably progressive system of jury trials in 1864-1917, when provincial juries were mostly composed of peasants and the lower urban classes. They sat in judgment over gentle landowners and rich merchants. Children of serfs would sometimes decide the guilt or innocence of their former masters’ offspring.

38

Collin Street 07.12.16 at 7:49 pm

> The people involved must have known all this unless they are implausibly stupid.

We know, thanks to Chilcott, that implausibly stupid people are a real thing: we know that the US government was actively opposed to post-war planning and as near as anyone can figure thought that their will and desire for the outcome they desired was sufficient to guarantee that outcome. We have no reason to believe that this is a US-specific phenomenon.

Again: there’s a consistent pattern of right-wing activists denying the reality that others have legitimate agency and leading themselves into trouble. Which shares a potential common cause with the “how dare you work out what what I said will mean” response I mentioned earlier.

39

novakant 07.12.16 at 7:50 pm

The problem is that the EU has been marginalizing more and more people, more and more often. At some point that becomes unsustainable in any country that is at least semi-democratic.

If you replace “EU” with “British governments since Thatcher” you have a point.

40

Sebastian_H 07.12.16 at 7:53 pm

Why can’t it be both the EU and British governments?

41

Layman 07.12.16 at 8:15 pm

Salem: “No Layman, because supporting immigration restrictions, although unwise, is not racist.”

Oh, I see. You didn’t understand the OP.

42

Thomas 07.12.16 at 8:24 pm

Daragh @15
Thanks to you for fleshing out an aside.

What’s so annoying about his Anglosphere nonsense is it’s oblivious to how poorly Britain is regarded in most of its former colonies. The hard-right American lawyers who share Hannan’s Runnymede fetish are probably better disposed towards us, but if they want an Anglosphere, it’s definitely not one set up on Hannan’s terms.

And you’re quite right about the intellectual posing. Being English, he achieves that with ham oratory and plummed up tones, as in this video from about 1:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rFHDYSFbf0

Alex K @40
But the “secular miracle” is a medieval charter like so many others from that era. There’s nothing intrinsically Anglo-Saxon about it, still less English. He’s turning popular history into folk mystery. Why, if not for propaganda? Opinions differ on jury trials, but Britain has a higher incarceration rate than other European countries, despite the jury system.

43

Collin Street 07.12.16 at 8:37 pm

What’s so annoying about his Anglosphere nonsense is it’s oblivious to how poorly Britain is regarded in most of its former colonies.

It’s just another manifestation of this general weakness in understanding that different people think different things.

44

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 8:54 pm

To Sebastian’s “marginalizing,” or at least as part of it, from this side of the pond it looks like the elites have just thrown their hands up in the air “oh the public is so ignorant about the EU, what it is and what it does,” as if it weren’t part of their portfolio to educate people about it, . . . but only to make sure they don’t vote? Even propaganda has some informational value, at least more than silence, and it’s a delicate question whether propaganda or “nothing to see here, move along” distraction (or “they are discredited by being angry enough to someday lash out”) would be felt more disrespectful.

45

hix 07.12.16 at 9:12 pm

Morduchs media empire was rather telling anti EU lies than doing nothing and giving up on educating the public yes ? Thats easily enough of a one ugly elite men factor to decide a vote as close as that one.

46

novakant 07.12.16 at 9:43 pm

If you want to divide up the responsibility for the socio-economic malaise of the UK you will find that the EU has very little to do with it – it is almost entirely homegrown. Maybe it becomes easier to understand for non-Europeans if you consider how vastly different the situation is in other EU member states like e.g. Sweden, Denmark or Finland. Or why go so far afield: just look at Scotland.

47

Patrick 07.12.16 at 9:53 pm

Harry at 8- And that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Because “the wrong people support you, so you should be ashamed, and be silent” with nothing more is the sort of message that we should respond to be turning on the people who use it and driving them from our midst as unworthy of our company. But “you willfully goaded awful people with coded messages that encoded awful things and you knew it the whole time” is entirely valid.

And right now the former is taking shelter under the latter.

48

harry b 07.12.16 at 10:07 pm

I don’t really see how the EU has marginalized people. And I’m not sure it is the responsibility of ‘elites’ in Brussels to sell the EU to people — their job is manage it effectively. I also think that EU officials and elites are supremely ill-positioned to campaign for the EU in countries of which they are not nationals. Many poorer parts of the UK have massive signs, btw, advertising the large sums that the EU invests in those areas. For what good that did:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale

But pro-EU politicians (with notable exceptions — most of the LibDems, Ken Clarke, hard to think of many others) have done little — and certainly not enough — to counter the corrosive drip drip drip of anti-EU propaganda over 2 1/2 decades — and that many Tory politicians who, eventually, ‘campaigned’ for Remain had actually contributed to that drip drip drip over that period.

Parris’s point is not that Hannan is racist or xenophobic (he thinks he isn’t), but that the campaign knowingly and deliberately harnessed racism and xenophobia in service of the cause.

The points people have made about the remain campaign and its own deceptions etc, are right (and I made them in my previous EU post). I don’t believe that most people who voted for exit are racists or xenophobes, and I don’t believe that anyone has an obligation to change their view because it is shared by racists and xenophobes. I do think that Hannan and his like should, though, feel deeply uncomfortable if they believe that their side won as a result of a combination of lies, false promises, racism and xenophobia, and it is hard to see how they could reasonably believe otherwise, given the character of the campaign and the small margin of victory.

49

Collin Street 07.12.16 at 10:25 pm

If you want to divide up the responsibility for the socio-economic malaise of the UK you will find that the EU has very little to do with it – it is almost entirely homegrown.

Sure. But the EU’s involved in malaised areas, like how I’ll probably need a tooth — or two! — extracted over the next soon “even though” I’m spending like a sailor at the dentist.

50

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 10:44 pm

And I’m not sure it is the responsibility of ‘elites’ in Brussels to sell the EU to people

Possibly it doesn’t affect your position, but I meant elites in the UK, those who chose to affiliate with the EU as they did, and I meant in the years after 1974, not just in this campaign. The U.K. government still has responsibility for its population, and presumably has some stake in their knowing about/buying into the situation, especially if it’s changed. Perhaps you disagree, but it doesn’t seem a situation where most people aren’t informed about government is sustainable so long as they can vote.

51

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 10:53 pm

A number of people have said that “Leave voters are racist” citing data that show a more racist mean among Leave voters. It shouldn’t need to be said that if all the racists are on one side in a two-sided dispute, it doesn’t follow that all of the people on that side are racists. It seems unfortunate that the UK has chosen to time the vote when the most publicized question is immigration, for all concerned.

52

Faustusnotes 07.12.16 at 11:21 pm

How exactly does the eu marginalized people? Is it through the human rights act? The ability to elect representatives to its legislative assembly? The subsidies to economically struggling areas? The ability of unskilled workers to move freely across all of Europe to work in growing economic zones? The ability of pensioners to live in Spain on their English pensions without any visa worries?

Or is it the rules on bendy bananas that Boris Johnson made up out of whole cloth?

53

bianca steele 07.12.16 at 11:40 pm

@55

Technocracy?

It’s mildly amusing to me that support for the EU on this blog depends on which policy has been temporarily brought to the fore, but it doesn’t seem my business. A few years ago, as far as I knew, the EU had little power to effect real legislation; now apparently it’s the only thing standing between Britain and savagery.

54

harry b 07.12.16 at 11:58 pm

bianca @53 — yes, completely agree with you about that. And yes, too, about 54. Thing is, the reason they voted was because the Tory party had an internal dispute, and was afraid of UKIP. The vote came, when it did, because a bunch of toffs were concerned about their own hold on power. It had nothing to do with popular will or democracy.

55

Patrick 07.13.16 at 12:38 am

@55 “How exactly does the eu marginalized people?”

#1 The EU legislature is non-functional. It lacks the power to initiate or amend legislation. Making it only a rubber stamp legislature.

#2 The European Commission(the EU executive) lacks any practical sort of Democratic accountability. If you live in the UK and don’t like Juncker(more or less the EU analog for a president), you can vote for a different MP, who can vote for a different PM, who can attend the european council and lobby for a different commission who can appoint a different President of the Commission. The process is so far removed from the voter that they lack any effective check.

#3 The EU has the sole power to negotiate trade deals. (like TTIP) They’ve earned a lot of ire by even restricting access of MEPs to view TTIP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozj0qwnMGZ0

#4 The EU has control over monetary policy and they’ve shown a willingness to use it for leverage. For example, when they gently strangled the Greek economy by restricting money flows until the government capitulated.

56

Peter T 07.13.16 at 1:40 am

It sounds very Japanese (rather than Anglo or Eurasian?) to take the position that sincerity is all.

Perhaps the issue is less about intentions or attitudes, and more about failure to think what the character of one’s allies implies about outcomes. In an analogous situation, Brad deLong defends financial deregulation thusly:

“Financial globalization was intended to take down barriers to capital inflows erected by rent-seekers in developing countries, and so speed growth in economies that had been starved of capital while also equalizing incomes. Financial deregulation was supposed to break up the cozy investment banking and other oligarchies of Wall Street and diminish their private-sector tax on the American economy. Financial deregulation was supposed to provide the poorer half of America with the access to fairly priced credit that it lacked and with the opportunity to invest in assets that would yield equity-class returns, which it also lacked.”

Brad was, of course, part of the administration that pushed deregulation. None of these intentions materialised – rather the reverse. Did Brad and his fellows never look around and think “If Wall St oligarchs and rent-seekers are all for these changes, is it likely that they will benefit the poorest or equalize incomes?” Is not their failure to do so culpable? Is their conviction that, in their cleverness, they could put one over the oligarchs, not to be judged as hubris?

If some undesirable fringe shows up uninvited, like Trotskyites at a peace demonstration, that’s one thing. But if the Trotskyites are half the attendees, surely one ought to think about where this is going?

57

magistra 07.13.16 at 5:07 am

As Novakant pointed out @23: Vote Leave (on which Hannan was a committee member) ran a racist campaign. Specifically, they produced a campaign poster/leaflet with the slogan “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU. Vote Leave, take back control.” That is a blatant lie and intended to scare people about large numbers of Muslims coming to the country. Can those who support Brexit explain how that part of the campaign is not racist?

58

Gareth Wilson 07.13.16 at 6:27 am

Racist, but not a lie.

59

JohnT 07.13.16 at 7:10 am

‘Turkey is joining the EU’ is misleading and plays off xenophobic fears. Turkish accession talks are a diplomatic sop. Anyone who knows anything about this subject knows that Turkey will not join the EU for decades. If it maintains anything like its present government and/or levels of rural poverty it will never join at all since any one of the 28 members could veto it. Including Greece and Cyprus. And the U.K., if it had stayed.

60

novakant 07.13.16 at 7:15 am

It’s a lie and racist.

61

novakant 07.13.16 at 7:25 am

62

Thomas 07.13.16 at 7:55 am

Ze K @67: Stretching semantics to breaking point in order to plant a false belief in voters’ minds isn’t lying? What a noble vision of politics.

63

novakant 07.13.16 at 8:43 am

abb1 is a racist idiot

64

Pete 07.13.16 at 9:36 am

What I think this has shown is that “racist” is now a conversational nuclear option. Once you’ve labelled someone as a racist discussion with them and their supporters is at an end. You might as well have slapped them across the face and invited them to duel.

I think that the bystanding public is also getting tired of this and starting to tune out accusations of racism. Because there’s no way to convincingly disprove it and guilt by association to the Nth degree is used to justify the allegation, everyone ends up with an accusation levelled against them by someone. If you’re on the left, “anti-semitism” plays the same role (qv recent Labour party fiascoes).

Why is this important for Brexit? To me it goes back to Gillian Duffy and the “crap towns” pro-Brexit vote. People experiencing change, feeling the usual antipathy and uncertainty about it, discuss it publicly .. and get slapped down and insulted. And now they’re retaliating.

The EU and globalisation has brought about a lot of change, and the “change management” in the UK has been terrible, focused on sweeping things under the FPTP rug and keeping the Overton window as narrow as possible.

We’d have been much better off with UKIP as a minor PR party with the Euroskeptic wing of the Tory party defecting to them. Then this would never have happened.

(I also can’t work out who Salem is labelling as a “thug” – Farage?)

65

J-D 07.13.16 at 9:47 am

Pete 07.13.16 at 9:36 am
What I think this has shown is that “racist” is now a conversational nuclear option. Once you’ve labelled someone as a racist discussion with them and their supporters is at an end. You might as well have slapped them across the face and invited them to duel.

I think that the bystanding public is also getting tired of this and starting to tune out accusations of racism.

I was just looking at another blog, where the purpose of the most recent post was decrying the racism of a specific identified individual.

One commenter objected that So-and-so was not a racist, but most of the commenters were happy with the post and agreed that So-and-so was a racist. The effect was not to bring conversation to an end. It probably did minimise any chance there might have been of dialogue between the blogger and So-and-so, but so what? Maybe the blogger never wanted to have a dialogue with So-and-so, and what’s wrong with that?

66

reason 07.13.16 at 9:52 am

Isn’t the real problem that the referendum was too imprecise. I know referendums have no legal context in the UK, but I would think that a tool such as a referendum is too explosive not to be properly regulated. People didn’t really know what they were voting for or against, and my guess is they still don’t. And in such a context a simple majority is surely not enough, there must be an underlying – if in doubt for the status quo (like the LBW rule).

67

novakant 07.13.16 at 10:07 am

Remainers certainly knew what they were voting for – the status quo – but Leavers definitely did not and just made a completely irresponsible gut decision. The scary thing is that the referendum, which was advertised as this big decision of the people, has not resolved or decided anything at all:

The strange thing about the EU referendum, which has engendered such heartache, and was supposed to be so definitive, is that it hasn’t settled anything. Will Britain continue to have high levels of immigration or not? We don’t know. Will house prices fall, rise or stay the same? Don’t know. Will Britain continue to be part of the European free trade zone? No idea. Will there be a bonfire of EU environmental regulations? Might be. Might not. Find out some day. Will Scotland stay in the UK, will Ulster, will the British fishing fleet grow or shrink, will foreign investment in Britain collapse or boom, will the City dwindle or thrive, will we ever actually even leave the EU? We don’t know.

Will the referendum help, hinder or make no difference to solving Britain’s problems – the underfunded NHS, tax evasion, the ageing population, the subsistence economy, the privatisation and chainification of the universal networks? We don’t know. The country has been shown to be split down the middle – but didn’t we know that already, and might there not have been a better way to work through it? Like, you know, an election, with policies?

A referendum that settles nothing may still have consequences. While we do not know what plan will eventually be concocted in response to the result, we can be sure now that it will be an enormous waste of time and money.

Another consequence is the endorsement of racism by the Leave campaign.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n14/on-brexit/where-are-we-now#meek

68

reason 07.13.16 at 10:10 am

There is an underlying problem in politics with complexity (the paradox of voting) that the sum of underlying votes does not add up to a coherent whole. I’m of the view that the history of the EU has illustrated the whole point very clearly. Constitutional reform is very, very difficult, particularly if you try to do it piecemeal. It seems odd but true, that if you had a massive constitutional assembly with all sides represented and come up with a compromise document that has the support of all the main players, it will be supported overwhelmingly come a confirmation reformation (because all sides will recommend it). But make an individual change which will inevitably hurt some vested interests a lot, and be of only slight advantage to the rest may well end up being defeated, no matter sensible it is. I think in some ways having constitutions come with an expiry date and giving each generation once in their lifetime the job of coming up with a replacement would be a better way to handle the issue of needed evolution. Criticising is easy, coming up with constructive solutions much harder.

69

Walt 07.13.16 at 10:14 am

Sebastian, the problem with your argument is that the EU doesn’t ignore the UK. They have consistently compromised to keep the UK happy. There is a limit to how far they can go, because the members of the EU have their own interests and there has to be something in it for them. (For example, Eastern European countries aren’t going to compromise on free movement unless there’s something in it for them.)

Leave sold the voters on the idea that the UK is so vital to the EU that they could dictate terms. If they really could dictate terms, then maybe Brexit would be a pretty good deal. But the only reason they were able to negotiate so many special terms is because the EU wanted to keep Britain in. If Britain goes out, then they lose that incentive. The voters are not going to be any less marginalized once Britain is out, because what they want, what they were promised, is unobtainable.

70

Faustusnotes 07.13.16 at 10:39 am

Patrick at 58, that’s disenfranchisement not marginalization and it happens in all political systems. My god, British people can’t just not choose the head of the eu commission – they don’t get to choose their own prime minister! And as a direct result of “taking back control” they have been given a new pm without anyone voting anywhere. And they don’t get to vote her out for 4 years. They don’t get to select their own upper house either! Perhaps they should vote to leave the uk? It’s more marginalizing than the eu!!
Meanwhile I see today that a European court has ruled a woman can’t be sacked for wearing a hijab. Do you think she is feeling marginalized by the Eu now?

I would like to hear from the leavers on this thread what the leave campaign would have to do to be considered racist. Because it seems that nazi posters and dog whistles don’t cut it. Am I basically only racist if I openly declare blacks are inferior?

71

J-D 07.13.16 at 10:57 am

Ze K 07.12.16 at 3:13 pm
One can be for ‘Britain to take back control’ and deliberately seek the support of everyone else who is for ‘Britain to take back control’.

It’s intriguing that you write

One can be for ‘Britain to take back control’

and not

One can be for Britain to take back control

There’s a significant difference, although it’s possible that you haven’t reflected on it, and added the quotation marks unreflectively.

One can be for ‘Britain to take back control’ to the same extent, and only to the same extent, that one can be for any piece of emotive but vacuous sloganeering. One cannot be for Britain to take back control, because as a literal description of a program (rather than a slogan) it is effectively empty.

72

Igor Belanov 07.13.16 at 11:08 am

Faustusnotes @ 77 has it.

No matter how good/bad the EU is, the fact is that the UK was in it voluntarily and there were a myriad of things that the British people could have done to ‘take control’ over their lives without leaving the EU.

The EU had become a scapegoat for so many problems originating in the British political system that many politicians in the Leave camp will be rueing their decision in the years to come when there is no-one else to blame.

73

J-D 07.13.16 at 12:03 pm

Ze K 07.13.16 at 11:24 am
“Britain to take back control” is a slogan. But it’s not an empty slogan. Or is it now controversial to say that entering international treaties (especially huge, complex, and multifaceted ones, like the EU) is detrimental to national sovereignty? Is it racist, perhaps? Wouldn’t surprise me. There’s a new slur every day, from self-professed devotees of pluralism…

I have no idea whether the statement ‘entering international treaties is detrimental to national sovereignty’ is a controversial one, but I do know that it is an inaccurate one. In any case, that’s a different point; even if the statement ‘entering international treaties is detrimental to national sovereignty’ were somehow accurate, ‘Britain to take back control’, if interpreted as a literal description of a program, would still be effectively empty. I’m more than happy to provide a more detailed analytical justification of this position if anybody is genuinely interested in the way that I know you’re not.

74

Alex K--- 07.13.16 at 12:23 pm

@Thomas (45): “But the “secular miracle” is a medieval charter like so many others from that era.”

No arguing with that. Take the Magdeburg rights for example, which predated Runnimede and eventually spread as far out East as Polotsk and Vinnitsa. But Runnymede has endured to this day, unlike Magdeburg. Not just in the “rights of Englishmen” mindset but the institutions of – my apologies – the Anglosphere.

The rate of incarceration is largely a matter of policy, although a society confident that its justice system is fair and transparent may be inclined to impose harsher sentences. At any rate, Britain did not have to abolish its legal system when it liberalized its penal laws around 1830-70. Also, the fact that England and Wales executed over 2,000 people in 1801-25 while Russia only executed 84 does not tell us that Russia had the “better” justice system during the reign of Alexander I.

75

Alex K--- 07.13.16 at 12:30 pm

@Peter (59): But the poorer part of America did enjoy access to cheap credit for a while – it proved unsustainable later but it was good while it lasted. In a sense, the deregulators delivered. And no one has taken away Americans’ access to the stock and bond markets.

76

kidneystones 07.13.16 at 12:47 pm

Here’s the actual interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivOOM0PbNps

Sanders endorses HRC disenfranchising his own supporters and allowing the coronation of the Clown Princess to proceed on schedule. Trump pulls even, or ahead in key states to the shock and dismay of the folks who’ve got everything already all figured out.

The Remain campaign created the Leave victory by hurling abuse at those screwed by regional inequalities and globalization rather than listen to any of their concerns.

Daniel comes off as the far more reasonable of the two. The rebellion against globalization is underway. Those committed to upending the status quo in America now have just one candidate as a champion. People are fed-up and that’s as good a reason as any to explain Brexit and the rise of Trump, who is now running equal, or ahead, in key states.

I watched Mike Pence give a barn-burner of an introduction. Trump goes into the convention even, gets to the first debate close. Wins the debate, leads the polls, and wins it while the best and brightest figure that charges of ‘racist’ will carry the day.

77

Layman 07.13.16 at 1:03 pm

“Trump pulls even, or ahead in key states to the shock and dismay of the folks who’ve got everything already all figured out.”

Which key states?

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

78

casmilus 07.13.16 at 1:05 pm

In the days after the referendum result, I saw Hannan getting comments on his Twitter account from Vote Leave supporters who were very insistent that they had voted for an end to mass immigration, and they wanted it ASAP, and they weren’t impressed by anything Daniel had to say by way of denying he’d ever suggested such a thing.

79

casmilus 07.13.16 at 1:09 pm

@18

“Daniel Hannan has been campaigning consistently against the EU for more than two decades.”

Soon he’ll have to get his first real job.

80

kidneystones 07.13.16 at 1:21 pm

@85 I really had no idea how incredibly lazy you are. You pontificate on Brexit without learning the basics of the dynamics – all easily accessible. Now, you manage to go to the reliably unreliable Nate Silver to ensure you come up short again.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/state/

Ohio, PA, Florida, Iowa.

Just look in the mirror and say – this can’t be true. Get your non-facts from a safe-space.

That’s the Leave victory in a nutshell.

81

Layman 07.13.16 at 1:34 pm

“Now, you manage to go to the reliably unreliable Nate Silver to ensure you come up short again.”

Wow, kidneystones, is there anything you don’t know?

82

Yama 07.13.16 at 2:11 pm

“It’s the working classes against the smirking classes.”

Pithy, but useful.

83

T 07.13.16 at 3:53 pm

@55 “I don’t really see how the EU has marginalized people.”

You’ve got to be kidding. The EU has marginalized whole frickin’ countries.

84

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 4:05 pm

“Sebastian, the problem with your argument is that the EU doesn’t ignore the UK. They have consistently compromised to keep the UK happy. ”

We shouldn’t erase all the differences between those who voted Leave and Remain by talking about “the UK” in that sense. After all nearly all of London and over 45% of the country as a whole voted to Remain.

The stylized skeleton of the argument is something along these lines:

1. Global elites have been arranging through all sorts of international treaties and financial manipulations to make sure that they get nearly all of the surplus wealth and income growth.

2. They have arranged things such that they get the globalized benefits, but that poorer people have to pay all the localized costs.

3. This was extra-doubly true in the recent Great Recession where the financiers get to blow up the world and still make money doing it.

4. Many of the people who have been asked to bear the costs think it might not be worth it to do so SINCE they don’t get to share in the many of the benefits.

5. This sets up huge distrust of elite and ‘expert’ opinions because they demonstrably been acting in their own interests, not in the common interest.

So when you say things like “the EU doesn’t ignore the UK. They have consistently compromised to keep the UK happy.” what it translates to for Leave voters is: the EU is an enormous part of the power structure whereby the global elites screw us over. London elites have access to that, but use it only for their own benefit, not the common benefit of the UK.

Now there are all sorts of nuanced details about the stylized argument above that don’t translate well into an up/down vote on Brexit. Is freedom of movement an elite plot? Kind of, but it sure benefits the Eastern European working poor quite a bit so that is good. But the elite love it because it means they can pay a lot less to whomever they hire. (Minor sidenote, it is interesting that exactly the same people who demonize/valorize ‘scabs’ who are willing to work for less than the union in a labor dispute are often on the other side with ‘freedom of movement’ importing labor for exactly the same reasons. The situations are very similar but people rarely want to analyze them similarly–in a truly both sides do it kind of way).

Part of the problem is that the entire UK parliament can be seen to be a part of that global elite. It is difficult to see where these voters who are clearly marginalized by the structure are supposed to vote to get heard. So when they finally get their first chance to get heard, in a binary way, they choose the only side that is even close to what they want.

This leads to harry’s comment “I don’t really see how the EU has marginalized people. And I’m not sure it is the responsibility of ‘elites’ in Brussels to sell the EU to people — their job is manage it effectively. ”

First, isn’t it pretty clear that the elite of the EU have NOT managed it effectively?

Second, isn’t selling the EU to people a huge part of managing it effectively? In business if you fall behind on your output and are constantly driving your workers away, you aren’t managing effectively. Keeping people happy enough to stay with your company is part of effective management. A very large subset of people think that they are being fucked over by globalization and by choices made very far from their ability to make changes. They also think that they are being asked to make all sorts of sacrifices “for the good of the nation” and don’t get to share in the good of the nation even when it comes. For the most part they are right about that. They are wrong about exactly how it plays out, but they haven’t been given many options so when once a decade or so they get close to a chance, they seize it.

The argument I’ve seen is that they ‘ought’ to vote a different parliament instead. But they can’t if nearly all of the ‘legitimate’ options are pro-global-elite. Further, more and more of the parliamentary options are cut off by the EU. So they are drawn to either not vote at all, or to vote for the illegitimate options.

85

bruce wilder 07.13.16 at 4:16 pm

Well, it is not you could vote for, say, party leader.

86

Patrick 07.13.16 at 5:14 pm

@77 #1 disenfranchisement is a form of marginalization. At any rate, regardless of how you define it, it is a reason to reject the EU.

#2 Each layer of representation reduces accountability. Pretending any representational system is equally good is myopia in service of argumentation. Can you imagine defending a US system where we elected mayors who selected governors who selected electors who selected a president? The outcry against such a selection process would rightly be enormous, but somehow Europeans are expected to accept this as their lot.

87

The Temporary Name 07.13.16 at 5:29 pm

It’d be a political science wet-dream to see candidates try to appeal to the pan-European electorate.

88

novakant 07.13.16 at 5:49 pm

Sebastian, I think most of us in the UK know enough about the psychology of the Brexiters by now – I can understand where many of these people are coming from, but that doesn’t make the decision to leave any less irrational and the stupidity, small-mindedness and downright hatred behind much of it any less revolting.

89

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 6:15 pm

” I can understand where many of these people are coming from, but that doesn’t make the decision to leave any less irrational and the stupidity, small-mindedness and downright hatred behind much of it any less revolting.”

Yikes, you sound like a conservative in the US talking about the Black Lives Matter movement. You’re talking about around 50% of the population of the UK. You might want to figure out how to live them a little better.

Do you think that the EU has contributed to intense financial and monetary problems? Do you think the EU spends a lot of its political capital entrenching the elite? Do you think there have been many chances for the common voter to stop that from happening? Can you identify say five major votes in the past 10 years where a typical voter could have cast a vote which might effectively have been understood as “the elite are going too far and I’m getting screwed, please do something about it”.

[Plausibly a vote for Corbyn might qualify, and we all saw that the elite in his own party started plotting against him on day one after that, right?]

90

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 6:16 pm

live with them a little better that is.

I’m guessing ignoring their very real problems and telling them to eat shit isn’t going to work any better than it did the last 10 years.

91

RNB 07.13.16 at 6:27 pm

kidneystones,
Do enjoy in today’s NYT For Whites Sensing Decline, Donald Trump Unleashes Words of Resistance By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE JULY 13, 2016

Good evidence for thesis that I have articulated here for half a year that many Americans don’t have in Christina Bicchieri’s language moral norms against nativism and racism (that is, they believe them to be wrong regardless of whether others also think so) but had been respecting the social norms against them until Trump broke things open for them.

92

novakant 07.13.16 at 6:36 pm

Look Sebastian, the other thing is: you really haven’t got the faintest idea what you are talking about.

93

PatinIowa 07.13.16 at 6:43 pm

Whether we (some of us, anyway, including me) think Donald Trump is racist is less important than whether or not Latinos and African Americans do and if they do, how much it angers them. My guess is that they do, by and large and they’ll come out, but it’s just a guess. (In one poll I saw, 41% of Trump supporters, including Paul Ryan, think his remarks about Judge Curiel were racist. The mind boggles.)

And there’s his problem. Brexit won narrowly in a context that was far whiter than the US, and Republican problems with minorities are well documented. If minorities turn out for someone other than Obama, and Trump does not do better with them than Romney did, that’s pretty much it.

Allegations of racism may be a conversational nuclear bomb, and they may be unfair. But perceived racism may also be a reason to go to the polls in Florida, Ohio, Virginia and so on.

94

RNB 07.13.16 at 6:51 pm

Christine Rampell had a good column in the WP a few weeks ago that many of Trump’s supporters knew quite well that there was no way that they could directly benefit from his anti-trade proposals but endorsed them for the way they strengthened the White America first message and bolstered whites’ chances to regain the relative racial status at home that they wrongly think is threatened. So anti-immigrant and anti-trade positions are not necessarily about keeping people or goods out but about reasserting white supremacy at home.

95

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 6:52 pm

“Look Sebastian, the other thing is: you really haven’t got the faintest idea what you are talking about.”

And that is precisely the kind of elitist dismissal that has gotten you in trouble. Even presuming you’re right about things, you have to be able to convince people that you are right about things. The EU elite are losing the ability to convince people that they are right and in any case there is huge amounts of evidence that they have been repeatedly wrong, failed to correct themselves, failed to fix the things they’ve hurt, and enriched themselves while pushing the costs on to others.

Is that the part I’m wrong about or is it some other part?

96

Igor Belanov 07.13.16 at 6:59 pm

@ Sebastian H

‘The EU elite are losing the ability to convince people that they are right and in any case there is huge amounts of evidence that they have been repeatedly wrong, failed to correct themselves, failed to fix the things they’ve hurt, and enriched themselves while pushing the costs on to others.’

The problem is that this statement could read equally correctly, and with more force, against the UK elite. That was one of my problems with this kind of argument from the Leave campaign- almost all of them were focusing on the EU and letting the UK elite off scot-free. If you’re taking that attitude then you’re being rather deluded, and you’ll soon discover that leaving the EU will have changed little.

97

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 7:03 pm

And to be clear, I’m not holding you personally responsible for the actions of the London elite and the EU elite. I’m saying that [to the extent that we trust the elite to do things for the common good] it is part of the governing elite’s job to make sure that enough people share in the common bounty such that there aren’t deep lakes of resentment about it. If you let that go on too long, the people who are being ignored will tend to lash out. There are always some people who want to lash out, but if you are getting to the point where even 10-20% of the people want to lash out you are seriously misgoverning. And if 30-40% of the people want to lash out you’ve completely gone off the rails.

Lashing out is definitionally not perfectly rational, which is why we set up governance systems to avoid it. Both the EU and the UK have let their elites get so far out of touch, and have let their elites exploit the system in so many obvious ways, while repeatedly asking for sacrifices, that lashing out is very likely. That is poor governance. These people didn’t become suddenly racist in the last 5 years. To the extent that they are seriously racist now, they were likely very much as racist 20 years ago and 30 years ago. Yet they were fine with all sorts of cosmopolitan changes then. But now they aren’t. So even if you posit that 50% or so of the UK is deeply racist, you have to deal with the fact that they did better with it before.

98

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 7:08 pm

“The problem is that this statement could read equally correctly, and with more force, against the UK elite. That was one of my problems with this kind of argument from the Leave campaign- almost all of them were focusing on the EU and letting the UK elite off scot-free. If you’re taking that attitude then you’re being rather deluded, and you’ll soon discover that leaving the EU will have changed little.”

Sure, and I expect that if they ever get a clear vote against the UK elite, the UK elite are going to be in trouble too. But the system is carefully set up to make sure that most of the time they never get to vote against the ruling UK elite, so they take what they can.

Also, the whole cosmopolitan London thing makes sharply separating the two difficult and potentially less useful.

99

bianca steele 07.13.16 at 7:46 pm

The problem is that this statement could read equally correctly, and with more force, against the UK any group that can be called an elite.

FTFY.

So: structural problems can’t be fixed through scapegoating. (It doesn’t follow that structural problems with one institution are unfixable, because fixing one thing doesn’t simultaneously fix all the others.)

Another problem with Sebastian’s statement is that it equates “marginalization” with “not having enough money.”

100

bruce wilder 07.13.16 at 7:47 pm

Truth to power: “The people are revolting.”

Power: “They certain are. Yuck!”

It is an old joke, just repeated here without humor.

101

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 7:58 pm

I’m not arguing for Exit. I’m arguing that it is foolish to dismiss the whole thing as racist. The problem is that the EU is failing a huge percentage of the population, and the power elite are essentially ok with that–at least enough not to bother making changes that help such people.

“Another problem with Sebastian’s statement is that it equates “marginalization” with “not having enough money.””

Oh really? That reduction seems to ignore at least half of what I’m saying.

102

bruce wilder 07.13.16 at 8:03 pm

There is certainly a point of view that argued for Remain and Reform, but they lacked credibility, because the EU structures present as a rigid package deal.

Fixing one thing isn’t an option, as EU leaders keep emphasizing: nothing can be negotiated — you’re out, you’re out.

The Conservative Party has completed a transition to a new PM, without a vote of the membership or a general election. And, in the Labour Party, a leader with popular support is being forced out rather heavy-handedly. “marginalization” is the order of the day.

103

Walt 07.13.16 at 8:09 pm

Sebastian: But nothing you’re talking about applies to the UK. The financial elites that crashed the world aren’t in Brussels. They’re in London. They’re in London because the UK deregulated its banking industry.

The EU has contributed to financial and monetary problems because of the euro. The UK isn’t in the euro. The EU made an example of Greece, because it’s a small country. The EU won’t do the same to the UK while it’s in the EU, because it’s a big important country.

The only actual problem that people have that Brexit might solve is ending free movement. So if you want to defend Brexit, everything else about the EU is irrelevant to the UK. The only question that matters is whether people will be better off if they kick out the immigrants.

104

Patrick 07.13.16 at 8:20 pm

@Walt
“The only actual problem that people have that Brexit might solve is ending free movement.”

The UK lacks the power to negotiate trade agreements while a member of the EU. A lot of Brexit supporters are extremely opposed to treaties like TTIP, which was being treated as inevitable for EU members.

105

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 8:29 pm

“So if you want to defend Brexit, everything else about the EU is irrelevant to the UK. The only question that matters is whether people will be better off if they kick out the immigrants.”

You’re arguing policy. Politics isn’t about policy. But you’re wrong about even the policy.

“The financial elites that crashed the world aren’t in Brussels.”

The ones who committed to near deflation across the EU are in Brussels.

“The EU made an example of Greece, because it’s a small country. The EU won’t do the same to the UK while it’s in the EU, because it’s a big important country.”

They won’t do the same to LONDON because it is important. The problem with Greece is that the EU strongly showed that it was willing to fuck over a large number of people so long as they weren’t important. The Remain voters know they aren’t important to the global elite, and therefore sense (correctly) that they are at risk.

“So if you want to defend Brexit, everything else about the EU is irrelevant to the UK.”

No. They believe that most of the decisions will be made with the EU elite power controlling the outcome unless they do something. They have no idea what to do and then were presented with the option to leave the influence of the EU elite. They thought it might be a good idea to try it.

That probably wasn’t a good decision. But it isn’t some super-racism decision either. Again, this isn’t strictly about policy. The EU elite have repeatedly made clear that they don’t consider themselves of the same tribe as the commoners. Those same people are suggesting that they don’t need to make more sacrifices so that the EU winners can have more money/power/visa-access. If you want to make certain ‘efficient’ decisions, you have to be willing to either help out the losers of such decisions, or stamp them down. At the moment we seem to be in the demonizing stage before stamp them down.

106

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 8:30 pm

“The Remain voters know they aren’t important to the global elite, and therefore sense (correctly) that they are at risk.”

Sorry I meant the Leave voters.

107

hix 07.13.16 at 8:42 pm

Its rather hard to argue for reforming away problems that are entirely made up. ()()

(my hunch would be that the things e.g. Bruce Wilder doesnt like about the EU are the ones Brexit supporters by large want to do more off, not less)

108

bianca steele 07.13.16 at 9:04 pm

Your @106 is entirely about economics (“sharing in the bounty,” etc.). It’s true that your @93 could be read to imply that other issues (being able to have input into decision making based on knowledge about the situation) might be relevant, but could equally be read to imply something different (being able to have input into decision making based on knowledge of one’s own material interests).

Another problem is that you frame the problem entirely in terms of “people who don’t have a say might get mad and lash out,” not of, say, “people who decide how things are based on how they believe things should be might be unable to cope when situations go bad.”

109

bianca steele 07.13.16 at 9:04 pm

That was to Sebastian H @ 110: Oh really? That reduction seems to ignore at least half of what I’m saying.

110

Walt 07.13.16 at 9:19 pm

Sebastian, your argument doesn’t make any sense. The UK is not in the euro. The UK’s currency problems and banking problems are entirely self-inflicted. None of them are going away with Brexit. You want to see the EU elite punished, so you’ve talked yourself into the idea that the British voter is punishing them for the reasons you want them to be punished for.

111

kidneystones 07.13.16 at 9:19 pm

Boris for the Foreign Office!

A large percentage of people posting on Brexit appear to have skipped the actual interview and largely avoided listening to the repulsive Leave supporters speak for themselves during the run-up to the vote. The point for this subset is the usual affirmation of moral superiority, and their timeworn justification for intellectual laziness bound up in the charge of ‘racism.’ As in, I don’t actually read or listen to the arguments of those from non-us because all non-us are racists. Why should I read the arguments of racists?

It seems to me, on the other hand, that we cannot understand even our own arguments unless we understand those who oppose us. Someone famous wrote this once, I think.

The charges of racism failed to sway the general population outside London – failed spectacularly, I might add. The same is likely to be the case across Europe and the US.

In the case of Trump, for example, Trump’s long-documented career as a Democratic-leaning reformer presents a number of factual inconveniences for those hoping to paint Trump as a sexist and a racist/anti-semite. In much the same way as Trump played a key role in breaking the glass ceiling for women in the construction industry, Trump also insisted early on that folks of color and Jewish folks be admitted to ordinarily all-white country clubs. Indeed, former Gov. Rendell praises Trump and Trump’s long-standing opposition to China in his book: https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/democratic-convention-chair-ed-rendell-trump-is-right-on-tra?utm_term=.mk9eVVn1N#.pgKwyykq6

Brexit was decades in the making and built largely out of policies supported by the elites of both parties in the UK, just as the TPP is beloved by both HRC and the Kochs in the US.

Brexit was regarded by those screwed for decades as the tipping point – a last chance to do something/anything to reverse this decades-long screwing. The same mountain of resistance is building in the US.

Dems had a singular opportunity to elect their own change-agent to shape the direction of this development. Instead, the corporations won. “Let them eat confetti,” the neo-con who happens to wear a skirt, otherwise known as the Goldman-Sachs candidate is now the Dems’ ‘best hope.’

Here’s what Trump had to say about the wall this week. Yes, it’s going to be built. Yes, it will be easy to build. Yes, Mexico will pay for it. And in the middle of the wall is going to be a big, beautiful gate so lots and lots and lots of people can enter America. Because we want people to come to ‘our’ country. But these people are going to enter legally.

People are fed-up. They’re fed-up with EU mismanagement, bullying, and bloated salaries. They are mad as hell, and they’re pretty clearly not going to take it anymore.

For real.

112

Sebastian H 07.13.16 at 9:52 pm

“Another problem is that you frame the problem entirely in terms of “people who don’t have a say might get mad and lash out,” not of, say, “people who decide how things are based on how they believe things should be might be unable to cope when situations go bad.””

Ok, but are you criticizing Remain or Leave there?

” You want to see the EU elite punished, so you’ve talked yourself into the idea that the British voter is punishing them for the reasons you want them to be punished for.”

I don’t want to see the EU elite punished. I don’t care about them. I’m not even arguing for Brexit. It seems ill considered.

I’m arguing against stupidity in politics, especially from people who claim to be good technocrats. I’m arguing that letting ~50% of the people feel like they are being left behind is BAD TECHNOCRATIC GOVERNANCE.

Yes the Leavers are behaving stupidly. But the EU and UK elites have been mis-managing governance as is exhibited by the fact that so many people seem to be willing to say screw it all. Good technocratic governance shouldn’t be letting things get that alienated.

You want to make sharp distinctions between the UK elite and the EU elite that I don’t believe non-elites tend to make. The UK elite have set themselves up as this citizens of the world type, so a vote against the EU seems like a vote against the UK elite too. They are broadly in bed with each other and line each other’s pockets and sneer at their silly country-mates together.

You want to say that the EU would never screw with the UK the way they did Greece. But that isn’t the point. The EU signaled that they would screw with you if you were weak. So all the people who feel weak are worried. You can’t focus laser-like on the particular policy. That isn’t how politics works. You focus on the message. The message was “if you fall behind we WON’T help you”. So the people who feel like they are falling behind heard the message just fine.

Now would it be better if people focused on the policy? In lots of cases, yes. Though the message signaled by policy is still independently important. I agree, poor people in the UK can’t be screwed over directly by the euro currency squeeze. But they can be screwed over by every other EU policy. So they figure that they will be.

It is a question of institutional trust. You want to focus on how the UK isn’t like Greece. But the institutional trust message was: we can screw things up, make money off of it, and make the losers pay for it–and even kicking out the whole parliament and replacing it with a new one won’t change anything so long as you are in the EU. That is a scary message if you don’t think the EU has your best interests in mind or if you fear that you are one of the losers who is going to stuck with all the costs.

113

bexley 07.13.16 at 9:53 pm

Thanks kidneystones for putting the facts out there about Trump. Finally a counterpoint to those people who say that Trump is racist just because:

1. He fought a DOJ complaint against the Trump organisation after 4 Trump employees confirmed that applicants for rental apartments were screened by race while complaining in the press about “reverse discrimination”.

2. He claimed in the 80s that “A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market”.

3. He was quoted as saying “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys wearing yarmulkes… Those are the only kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else…Besides that, I tell you something else. I think that’s guy’s lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks.”

Quite why people continue to paint Trump as a racist despite his many good deeds just because of the above is a mystery for the ages.

114

bruce wilder 07.13.16 at 10:15 pm

hix: Its rather hard to argue for reforming away problems that are entirely made up.

(my hunch would be that the things e.g. Bruce Wilder doesnt like about the EU are the ones Brexit supporters by large want to do more off, not less)

I don’t think my personal preferences enter into it, and though I cannot even begin to fathom what is referred to here, I am pretty sure the idea that problems with EU governance are imaginary is a non-starter.

115

Faustusnotes 07.13.16 at 11:03 pm

I see a few people here conflating the euro and the eurozone’s treatment of Greece with the eu’s treatment of the U.K. That’s exactly the kind of dishonesty people are complaining about in the leave campaign. You talk about “taking back the power” from “elites” but when pressed you seem to think you’re taking back power that never applied to the uk, and your definition of an “elite” seems to be the people who benefit personally from the Eu – poor Eastern Europeans and early career professionals. Is this seriously your definition of an elite?

Here’s an elite: Eton-educated journalist basher Boris Johnson, and the Eton-educated pig fucker general. Do you think either of these people or their class will be harmed by a decision either way on the eu? The people who will be affected most will be poor Eastern Europeans (the poor bastards have to teach themselves French now! I hope you leave supporters feel appropriately apologetic for that crime) and early career professionals who were looking for work in a European market – a lot of whom are British. The leave voters won’t benefit at all, since they were mostly retired or living in areas with very few migrants.

Patrick, in the uk you vote for a lab member who votes for a pm who selects your upper house. The system you “took back” control of is no more democratic, and has no more layers, than Europe. So why do you complain about one and not the other? Because of nationalism, not common sense.

116

Patrick 07.13.16 at 11:40 pm

It is the difference between one layer of indirection (MPs select PM) and 3 layers(MP selects PM selects EU council selects EU President)

What is the advantage of the three layers of indirection? What theory of government predicts that this is a good idea? The case for one representative at least has some favorable arguments(they can adapt to changing circumstances, engage in game theoretic and negotiation tactics), but hierarchical layers of representations? The only effect I can see is to make the system unaccountable to the voters.

I guess I’m looking at this from the perspective of an American where even unbound delegates or superdelegates in party primaries are denounced as unacceptably undemocratic. I can’t see any plausible arguments to defend the EU system.

117

bruce wilder 07.14.16 at 12:01 am

bianca steele @ 117: “people who decide how things are based on how they believe things should be might be unable to cope when situations go bad.”

interesting, but like Sebastian H I am wondering to whom you wish to apply this complaint: it seems to me that it could be a description of the neo(ordo)liberal masters of the EU architecture of free trade, free capital and free movement, with no means of managing the consequences. It all sounds so idealistic and well-intentioned, but then out of the crooked timber of humanity, as they say.

118

bruce wilder 07.14.16 at 12:03 am

no means of managing the consequences is an unwarranted exaggeration, of course. It might be more precise to say that the means of meliorating the consequences are inadequate in ways that profit some and leave others helpless.

119

Faustusnotes 07.14.16 at 12:12 am

Patrick, the unelected lords directly affects British legislation. 92 of them are hereditary. How is it that the issue the British people got worked up about was a far more democratic legislature than their own, which only indirectly affects British laws? Why is ukip focused on a democratically elected legislature only passingly relevant to the uk but has always missed the lack of representation in its own land? Can you answer that rather than repeating ukip talking points?

The answer of course is freedom of movement. And in particular all the scary non-European migrants featured in leave campaign adverts.

120

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 12:20 am

@121

I’m criticizing those who think approving of the EU is a no-brainer, if it works as it’s sounding like it does. I wouldn’t think voting for it was a good idea, if one were starting from scratch. (Those who said, let’s have a vote that isn’t a referendum so we can ignore it if we don’t like the result, or can implement it “some day”, deserve criticism, too. They weren’t on the Leave side, though, I think?)

I imagine there are some people who think that’s the way government should work. I hope there aren’t many.

The idea seems to be that “technocracy” works by having people far away make top-down, detailed decisions based on information that does not have to be made available to those involved at lower levels. Therefore, it becomes important that the intermediate levels be well schooled in explaining that lower level opinions don’t matter, and they do seem to spend quite a lot of time doing this. It may well be that their preoccupation with this is a niche they select by way of compensation for not being able to learn what the lower levels actually do know, rather than a defense against losing authority or influence, but in any case it’s irrelevant.

121

faustusnotes 07.14.16 at 12:28 am

Amusing Brexit outcomes #167: PM Theresa May decides to exercise democracy, and puts a bill to invoke article 50 to the parliament, in order to “take back control” and legitimize the action through the will of the people. The unelected house of lords rejects the bill “for the good of the nation.”

It’s worth noting that UKIP have fairer treatment in the EU parliament than they do in the UK. Not only does the FPTP system disenfranchise their voters, but they don’t have fair representation in the house of Lords and their application to have a number of members consistent with their vote was rejected. Yet strangely, electoral reform is not in their platform. Why is that?

122

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 12:29 am

Bruce, that was only an example (though did you read back before Sebastian’s comment where you see I was defending Leave as at least not necessarily racist, or did you assume his claiming not to know my position was a truthful statement). There are any number of things that could go wrong. Sebastian, for some reason, is concerned only that the poors won’t get enough bread and circuses and will have tantrums. He isn’t concerned that wrong policies will be implemented. He isn’t concerned that EU functionaries will perform badly due to lack of cultural competence. He isn’t concerned that creating economic losers is unjust. He’s only willing to express concern that they might become irrational, or rather that they might express their irrationality by voting incorrectly.

Europe, of course, is at the same time a community for managing international business cooperation, and a social-democratic cultural ideal.

123

Patrick 07.14.16 at 12:32 am

@128
I think the House of Lords is a fairly minor issue since the Parliament Acts severely restricted their power about a hundred years ago.

The big difference between the issues with the English parliament and those with the European council is that it is actually feasible that voters concerns will be addressed(and are being addressed by MPs, directly accountable to voters) If the European Parliament had the power to introduce legislation, I’d have hope that the EU could enact similar reforms.(perhaps something similar to the way we bind electors in the US) Unfortunately, they cannot.

124

faustusnotes 07.14.16 at 12:54 am

Patrick, the BBC has a list of key EU regulations from 2009. A regulation is legally binding across the EU. Note that the UK has negotiated an opt-out from the best ones.

Do you think those regulations “marginalize” people? Do you think the EU parliament’s role in forming them was irrelevant? Do you think the UK would be a better place without these rules?

125

Patrick 07.14.16 at 1:13 am

I think that is a woefully short list for a 5 years of parliament. Even your article says that the power to draft legislation rests with the commission. It is kinda cute that the commission allows the EU parliament an advisory role once a year or so but that is *not* democratic accountability. These checks matter most when the branches of government are in dispute, not when in agreement. In my opinion, it isn’t really even correct to call them a legislature if they lack the power to draft or initiate legislation.

For example, under EU style rules, legislation like the War Powers Act or the Clean Water Act would have been impossible.

126

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 1:37 am

faustusnotes,

The first regulation at that link seems to prohibit member nations from doing their own testing of commercially offered chemical products at state expense (requiring it to be done only by corporations), and moreover would require overturning the bans on using animals for testing.

127

faustusnotes 07.14.16 at 2:00 am

Patrick, in 2000 the EU passed the Water Framework Directive. In 2003, the UK parliament passed the Water Act 2003 which interpreted the directive and implemented it in UK law. This act included provision for groundwater protection and river basin management.

Bianca, the first regulation in the link requires companies to test products that were previously untested, and does not require overturning bans on animal testing – the increased testing requirements of the regulation may lead to more animal testing but this is not a requirement of the regulation.

However, I’m sure that once Theresa May and the tories have taken back power from the EU parliament, banning all animal testing will be the very first thing they do. After all, the Tories are way more compassionate and active than members of the EU parliament, and these are exactly the kinds of concerns that animated the leave voters, not fear of Turkish ascension. Why the leave campaign focused on the latter and not the effect of EU directives on the Tories’ long-standing and oft-stated desire to abolish animal testing and fix mandatory working hours at 15 hours per week, is a mystery to me.

128

Sebastian H 07.14.16 at 2:52 am

“Sebastian, for some reason, is concerned only that the poors won’t get enough bread and circuses and will have tantrums. He isn’t concerned that wrong policies will be implemented. He isn’t concerned that EU functionaries will perform badly due to lack of cultural competence. He isn’t concerned that creating economic losers is unjust. He’s only willing to express concern that they might become irrational, or rather that they might express their irrationality by voting incorrectly.”

Bianca you may be violently agreeing with me. I am concerned about all of those things, but didn’t want to get sucked into a point by point grudge match over the pros and cons of every possible EU decision. So I limited myself to addressing Harry’s contention that EU elites don’t need to bother to try for buy, but instead are all about performing technocratic competencies. My response to that is that *even if the EU were getting all of the other technocratic choices correct* [which is a point that I definitely don’t believe] getting buy-in from the populace is a crucial component of governance and if you are letting anything more than 10-15% of the people get desperately unhappy with the regime, you aren’t doing ‘technocratic competence’ properly. So letting 40-50% of the population get to a lashing out point suggests a serious technocratic failure.

Now I ALSO happen to believe that all sorts of wrong policies are being implemented, but in my response to Harry, which seeded most of my other responses, I’m just pointing out that it definitely is an important function of governance to make sure that there isn’t a huge amount of discontent.

129

Sebastian H 07.14.16 at 2:53 am

Ugh, I’m clearly having trouble typing today. that should be “bother to try for buy in”

130

faustusnotes 07.14.16 at 6:01 am

No, it really doesn’t appear to be that at all.

131

novakant 07.14.16 at 7:28 am

132

novakant 07.14.16 at 7:28 am

“Most new laws passed by Parliament result from proposals made by the government.”

133

Layman 07.14.16 at 11:43 am

Patrick: “What is the advantage of the three layers of indirection?”

It permits a union of nations while maintaining a high degree of sovereignty for the member states?

“What theory of government predicts that this is a good idea?”

As an American, you should take a long, hard look at the text of the Constitution, in its original, un-amended form. You know, the one where Senators were selected by the legislatures of each state, and where the legislatures of each state appointed something like a Council, called the electoral college, who in turn elected a President. Could it be that this sort of devolution of power to the states, rather than to the people, is a means of making it possible to form a union of states in the face of public skepticism about the notion of losing the identity and prerogatives of each state?

134

NomadUK 07.14.16 at 12:05 pm

As an American, you should take a long, hard look at the text of the Constitution, in its original, un-amended form. You know, the one where Senators were selected by the legislatures of each state, and where the legislatures of each state appointed something like a Council, called the electoral college, who in turn elected a President. Could it be that this sort of devolution of power to the states, rather than to the people, is a means of making it possible to form a union of states in the face of public skepticism about the notion of losing the identity and prerogatives of each state?

In the absence of a ‘Like’ button, I’m just going to say this is brilliant.

135

Collin Street 07.14.16 at 12:09 pm

getting buy-in from the populace is a crucial component of governance

Sure. But the way the EU is set up, its institutions don’t formally have any sovereignty or innate authority; EU-wide regulations don’t have any local effect until they’re adopted under the local legal framework, and the administrative and implementation details likewise are all up to the national governments.

Which means that the interface-with-the-population, the thing that generates your goodwill or otherwise, that’s under the control of the local authorities. Westminster, not Brussels.

I’m reminded of the story of the man who murdered his parents and asked for mercy as an orphan.

136

TM 07.14.16 at 12:16 pm

The UK is to my knowledge the only member country that has repeatedly opted out of portions of the European Convention on Human Rights in order to be able to imprison suspects without trial, and now there is talk of completely dissing the ECHR. But it’s the EU that is marginalizing people, never the UK government.

For clarity: the ECHR is not formally related to the EU but all EU member countries have ratified the ECHR and both institutions are usually implied when we refer to the “European” project or idea.

137

Brett Dunbar 07.14.16 at 12:25 pm

The president of the commission is since 2014 chosen by the European Parliament. The parliament chooses a single candidate and the heads of government have no choice, Juncker was the candidate for president pre election of the EPP. It is the same effectively as hoe the PM is appointed, the Queen makes the appointment but has only one possible choice. Juncker was elected by the people of Europe in the same way Cameron was elected by the people of Britain.

Deregulation can be mutually beneficial, economics isn’t a zero sum game and regulation can prevent mutually profitable transactions. For example an affordability test may include assumptions that are no longer realistic.

138

novakant 07.14.16 at 12:27 pm

Boris @$#% Johnson ?!?! F@CK

139

soru 07.14.16 at 12:27 pm

> Brexit won narrowly in a context that was far whiter than the US, and Republican problems with minorities are well documented. If minorities turn out for someone other than Obama, and Trump does not do better with them than Romney did, that’s pretty much it.

Bingo.

Racism is typically a net vote loser if minorities get to vote; people on the whole dislike being discriminated against more than they enjoy being bigoted.

Don’t know what the figure is for US blacks, but the relevant minorities in the UK were near 100% disenfranchised. Unlike the earlier waves of Commonwealth/Irish workers, they have to full-on naturalize in order to get a vote on how the taxes they pay are spent, whether they get to stay in the country, etc. So the Leave campaign could be as anti-Polish as they liked without any electoral consequence.

Presumably > 90% of the EU-origin workers in the UK would have voted Remain, which is easily enough to reverse the result of the referendum, and probably the last election.

There is some talk of the contenders in the leadership election pledging to run the referendum. If they do, they should remember that good old US slogan ‘no taxation without representation’.

140

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 12:36 pm

Sebastian: my response to Harry,

Your response to Harry’s reply to me on the same subject. Everything you say is quite right. If you’re going to repeatedly misrepresent what I said and dismiss my additions as implicitly implied in your statement (yet somehow of less than zero value to mention), please don’t claim we’re “in agreement.”

141

bob mcmanus 07.14.16 at 12:36 pm

147: It is brilliant, and correct, but we can’t go back. Borders and nation-states are no longer coherent enough to compete with globalized capital.

What we should probably look for, and smarter and more articulate people could phrase or develop this better, is not even proportional representation but borderless affiliative representation. If UFO watchers can get 1 million votes (say online) from any and all US states, or the 435th highest number of online signatures, they get a US representative. In actual practice, the better organized affective groups will dominate:parties, unions, ethnicities, sometimes geographical entities.

This constitutional change isn’t going to happen soon, of course.

142

TM 07.14.16 at 12:46 pm

Patrick: “If the European Parliament had the power to introduce legislation, I’d have hope that the EU could enact similar reforms.”

Question for Patrick: how would you like it if the EU Parliament did indeed have the power of a true legislature and enacted laws that a majority of UK MEPs objected to? And those laws would nevertheless be binding, just like Westminster laws are binding for Scotland even if Scottish MPs had voted against them? I strongly suspect you wouldn’t like that outcome even though it would be more “democratic” than what we have at present, which is that the UK government almost always gets veto power over important EU decisions. Likewise, how would you like it if the EU had a directly elected president, and a guy from Poland won the election with only 25% of British voters voting for him? It would be totally democratic now wouldn’t it? I’m sure you would feel much less marginalized!

The fact is that the institutional setup of the EU has more checks and balances than the UK does and it is far less centralized than the UK political system. If you want to hold it against the EU that member governments have a lot of power within that system, I am at a loss to follow you. To accuse the EU of a lack of democratic accountability is a hoot when your own government can exert almost dictatorial powers (restricted only by such tyrannical instruments as the ECHR) without even coming close to majority electoral support. Your rant at 59 makes little sense and suggests that you are as clueless as most of your Brexit brethren.

143

TM 07.14.16 at 12:51 pm

(I assumed that Patrick is British, if I am mistaken, apology.)

144

ZM 07.14.16 at 1:06 pm

bob mcmanus,

“What we should probably look for, and smarter and more articulate people could phrase or develop this better, is not even proportional representation but borderless affiliative representation.”

The Australian Senate voting is a bit like that. Nowadays the voting paper doesn’t fit inside the booth and you have to fold it or this person used the walls of the booth for the left and right ends of the voting paper

http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/uploads/businessinsider/2016/07/IMG_8215.jpg

Just in voting for Senate candidates for Victoria as well as the main parties — Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens — and a lot of independent candidates we had :

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Animal Justice Party, Science Party, Australian Cyclists Party, Palmer United Party, Jacqui Lambie Network, Australian Christians, Sustainable Australia, Pirate Party, Socialist Equality Party, Health Australia Party, Renewable Energy Party, VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy! , Family First Party, Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group), The Arts Party, DLP Democratic Labour, Citizens Electoral Council, Secular Party of Australia, Australian Liberty Alliance, Nick Xenophon Team, Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, Marriage Equality, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Socialist Alliance, Australian Country Party, Drug Law Reform, Voluntary Euthanasia Party, Mature Australia, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, Liberal Democrats, Rise Up Australia Party, Australian Progressives, Australian Sex Party

145

TM 07.14.16 at 1:17 pm

Btw, this really shouldn’t need spelling out but it probably does –

Rebutting anti-EU propaganda doesn’t commit me to approve everything the EU has ever done nor does it imply that there aren’t valid criticisms of the EU. One just gets the impression that the Leave campaign has managed to attack the EU for all the wrong and none of the right reasons, and to ensure that the outcome of Brexit is guaranteed to be worse than the status quo.

146

Sebastian H 07.14.16 at 2:33 pm

Bianca,”If you’re going to repeatedly misrepresent what I said and dismiss my additions as implicitly implied in your statement (yet somehow of less than zero value to mention), please don’t claim we’re “in agreement.””

I didn’t criticize what you were saying in the initial part of the thread with Harry because you were making sense and he wasn’t. That doesn’t imply that it is of zero value to mention.

I criticized you later in the thread because you characterized my positions as “Another problem with Sebastian’s statement is that it equates “marginalization” with “not having enough money.”” in 109 and “you frame the problem entirely in terms of “people who don’t have a say might get mad and lash out,” not of, say, “people who decide how things are based on how they believe things should be might be unable to cope when situations go bad.”” 118. Neither of those are what I’m saying.

I believe that the EU has failed in a number of crucial areas of its project despite setting themselves up as the technocratic experts. I believe that you and I agree on that. Harry suggested that the EU elites don’t need to try for buy in because they should be focusing on their [alleged] technocratic functions. My argument is that generating buy-in to expansive projects is a huge part of what good technocratic government is supposed to do, so having ~50 of a major polity thinking that you are screwing them over represents a major technocratic failure. (And we shouldn’t forget that the UK isn’t the only country that seems to have a huge portion of its population deeply dissatisfied with the EU).

I’m not sure, but I’m wondering if you are taking my examples (which were largely economic) as if they were the strict descriptions of my position. The problem I’m describing is that the EU is making a lot of people unhappy and seems content to ignore that it is making a lot of people unhappy and demonize them when they express that they are unhappy. Much of that is economic and much of it isn’t. My position isn’t that the remedy is bread and circuses unless we believe that the lack of bread and circuses is deeply what is making people unhappy. I don’t think you believe that, and I certainly don’t believe that. The remedy is do find out why people are so unhappy and try to fix it.

I deliberately didn’t sketch out exactly why people are so unhappy with the EU because I don’t know. I have suspicions, but I haven’t researched exactly all the reasons why and exactly what their weights are. However I am VERY suspicious of all the people upthread who want to wave it away dismissively as just racism. Racism may very well have been the seed which the discontent finally crystalized around, but that doesn’t mean it is the cause of the discontent. And again it is a huge technocratic failure that there is so much discontent that when it crystalizes it looks like ~50% of the voting population.

Upthread, and in the general elite response there seems to be a lot of willingness to jump on racism as *the reason for all the discontent*. The EU has spent 2 decades dismissing all the other reasons for discontent.

147

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 2:36 pm

@158

Similarly, recognizing that the situation in the UK now is and has been a cock-up doesn’t imply that the only path going forward is to venerate the EU, nor does the fact that Trump has stated he approves of the racist aspects of Brexit mean Brexit and the question of the EU have anything really to do with the US, or that US people need to take an opinion on it.

148

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 2:42 pm

Sebastian: @161 crossed with your @160. I don’t have time to read your comment fully now, so let’s just mentally edit out the parts that refer to me as not agreed to by me, and let the rest stand as a statement of your views, shall we? You seem to have preoccupations here that I’m not interested in debating with you.

149

TM 07.14.16 at 2:47 pm

161: BS, out of curiosity, why DO you “take an opinion on it”?

150

Pete 07.14.16 at 2:53 pm

@146: The analogy of the US constitition is not an accident. The long term plan has always been for an “ever closer union” mirroring the US. A United States of Europe.

However, this overlooks the critical role of the US civil war in determining the supremacy of the Federal government over the states. Even now that’s still not entirely settled comfortably; it’s only the tendency of the states rights’ supporters to go immediately for racism that prevents the idea from being taken seriously. Even now the conspiracy fringe rails against the Federal government.

(And of course the US president is directly elected while the EU president isn’t)

151

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 2:53 pm

TM, can you find an opinion expressed by me other than “it’s not the case that the only options are ‘I’m a proud racist” and “the EU represents the Millenium”, or a post by me on Brexit that is not a reply to a statement by a US person who disagrees with my statement that it has nothing to do with the US?

152

NomadUK 07.14.16 at 3:11 pm

(And of course the US president is directly elected while the EU president isn’t)

Except, of course, he isn’t.

153

harry b 07.14.16 at 3:13 pm

” However I am VERY suspicious of all the people upthread who want to wave it away dismissively as just racism. Racism may very well have been the seed which the discontent finally crystalized around, but that doesn’t mean it is the cause of the discontent. ”

Just to say, I don’t see anyone upthread waving anything away as ‘just racism’ and haven’t heard anyone claiming that racism is the cause of the discontent. Everyone understands there’s a good deal of discontent; the lefties among us attribute it to economic conditions. I think it is an understandable mistake (understandable especially in the light of the outright lies told be the leave campaign about, for example, the extent of EU control over UK law, and about the net cost of belonging to the EU) to blame membership of the EU for that. I also believe that most voters for exit were not racist, or motivated by racism. “Brexiteer’ in the OP was intended to refer to the leaders of the campaign, not to the voters. What is true of the leaders of the campaign is that they harnessed the latent xenophobia and racism of some voters to get their desired result. (Well, the result some of them desired — its pretty clear that some of the Brexit leaders assumed and hoped that the vote would go against them).

As I said, I agree with Bianca that pro-EU leaders in the UK have failed in a spectacular manner over several decades, and I’ve been impressed to hear a few not-well-known Tory MPs expressing regret and shame at not having been more public and vocal in defence of the EU over that time period.

“The idea seems to be that “technocracy” works by having people far away make top-down, detailed decisions based on information that does not have to be made available to those involved at lower levels.”

— For what its worth the EU seems to me considerably more transparent than the Federal government in the US, considerably less vulnerable to capture by moneyed elites, a whole lot more responsive to organized labor, and better at actually implementing the regulations it passes. Someone can presumably tell us whether it spends a greater or lesser proportion of its revenues on progressive redistribution.

154

ZM 07.14.16 at 3:17 pm

Does anyone from the UK know much about all the ministry reshuffling? The culture secretary John Whittingdale who I wrote to the other week is being replaced by Karen Bradley who worked with Theresa May on the Modern Slavery legislation. There seems to be quite a few women ministers in this government.

Our multicultural network in Australia SBS had an article praising May for talking about inequality :

“She addressed a sea of reporters outside her new residence at 10 Downing Street, outlining her plan to create a Britain “that works for everyone”.

“If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than what people in Westminster realise,” she said.

“If you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others. If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.

“The mission to make Britain a country that works for everyone means more than fighting these injustices.”
….

“As we leave the European Union we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works, not for a privileged few, but for everyone of us,” she said

“That will be the mission of the government I lead and together we will build a better Britain.””

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/07/14/australian-politics-can-learn-theresa-mays-strong-social-agenda-expert

155

TM 07.14.16 at 3:18 pm

BS 165, I remember you claiming – erroneously – that the EU required member states to overturn their bans on animal testing. I would applaud your heeding your own advice and refraining from giving us your US perspective on EU matters.

Pete 164, you are correct in pointing out that there are important differences between the US and EU (not that anybody claimed otherwise), including the non-trivial fact that the UK is free to leave without thereby provoking a civil war. Let’s all be grateful for that.

156

TM 07.14.16 at 3:37 pm

I second 167 regarding the EU’s supposed technocratic centralism. Most people talking making those claims about top-down decisions by unaccountable bureaucrats really have no clue how the whole thing works. The EU does have a subsidiarity principle and takes it seriously. Most EU directives put in place frameworks and minimum requirements that the member states have considerable latitude in implementing. As an example, the 2010 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-efficiency/buildings) requires the following:

* energy performance certificates are to be included in all advertisements for the sale or rental of buildings
* EU countries must establish inspection schemes for heating and air conditioning systems or put in place measures with equivalent effect
* all new buildings must be nearly zero energy buildings by 31 December 2020 (public buildings by 31 December 2018)
* EU countries must set minimum energy performance requirements for new buildings, for the major renovation of buildings and for the replacement or retrofit of building elements (heating and cooling systems, roofs, walls, etc.)
* EU countries have to draw up lists of national financial measures to improve the energy efficiency of buildings

Notice that member states have to set minimum energy performance requirements, establish inspection schemes, and propose financial incentives, but the directive doesn’t dictate each country’s requirements and incentives and so on. They have wide latitude to implement the directive in consideration of their respective local situations, which differ quite a bit for example between Spain and Sweden.

I would love to find even a single example of Brexit proponents making a factually correct and well researched case for how British people are hurt by “EU overreach”.

157

bruce wilder 07.14.16 at 3:37 pm

The United States of Europe has somehow evolved constitutionally into something rather more like Cisleithania or the North German Confederation without the monarchies than the U.S.

Americans tend to overlook the many amateurish defects of their Constitution, speaking ignorantly of the miracle of 1787. American nationalism, tied up with a spirit of democratic egalitarianism, overcame those defects, though at considerable cost.

Europe is supported by a spirit of cosmopolitanism and liberal idealism, but it is not quite sure what to do with its many nationalisms. And, its liberalism, in the circumstances, isn’t quite sure of democracy. A liberalism without democracy, it seems, can become brittle and authoritarian, and patronizing if not cruel or corrupt.

Liberalism made the democratic nation-state work, but only after two civil wars that made the American affair of 1861-5 look like a romp in the park had opened the door for a social welfare state. The liberalism of Europe now is dismantling that social welfare state, bit by bit, I think, and retreating from democracy, abandoning nationalisms to the reactionaries, who have forgotten their kings.

158

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 3:39 pm

TM, fn posted a link to regulations that seemed less than impressive, and seemed not to regard the well known British pioneering of anti-animal testing laws. The article was quite vague, but we do have fn’s word as to the correct interpretation. Was there something especially American about my comment?

You have successfully found a comment that wasn’t captured by my first description, but it still doesn’t express an opinion about Brexit.

159

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 3:41 pm

@Harry

— For what its worth the EU seems to me considerably more transparent than the Federal government in the US, considerably less vulnerable to capture by moneyed elites, a whole lot more responsive to organized labor, and better at actually implementing the regulations it passes. Someone can presumably tell us whether it spends a greater or lesser proportion of its revenues on progressive redistribution.

I don’t know enough about your beliefs to be able to figure out whether I would agree with you. Obviously, too, those facts aren’t due directly to the differences in government structure.

160

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 3:46 pm

organized labor,

Also this should have “in non-debtor” states added to it, from what I gather. Unless the attitude to Greece, etc., is supposed to be attributed to an outside force that doesn’t count as “the EU.”

161

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 4:05 pm

I do like those EU-mandated labels on cosmetics that tell how long you can safely keep the product once it’s been opened.

162

Layman 07.14.16 at 4:08 pm

Pete: “However, this overlooks the critical role of the US civil war in determining the supremacy of the Federal government over the states.”

I wouldn’t say it overlooks it, as I’m well aware of it. My point is not to say that the EU is similar to the US today, but rather to say that it is not dissimilar to the US as founded, and for much the same reasons.

163

ZM 07.14.16 at 4:10 pm

Leadsome ended up with the environment secretary portfolio so she did well with the reshuffle. Polly Toynbee has an article saying the public school ministers are all replaced by state school ministers apart from Boris Johnson. And the Brexiteers got tasked with implementing the Brexit.

164

Layman 07.14.16 at 4:12 pm

“And of course the US president is directly elected while the EU president isn’t.”

Well, no. At the time of the founding, the President was chosen by an electoral college, whose electors were in turn chosen by the state legislatures. Since the amendment, the President is chosen by an electoral college whose electors are chosen by the voters of each state, but who are not bound to any candidate. It is a convention that they have regularly chosen to honor the wishes of the voters, but it is not a requirement.

165

engels 07.14.16 at 4:29 pm

Polly Toynbee has an article saying the public school ministers are all replaced by state school ministers apart from Boris Johnson

Grammar schools, Oxbridge and, in Rudd’s case, Cheltenham Ladies College

166

engels 07.14.16 at 4:31 pm

But yes, mostly lower down the pecking order than Old Badmintonian Polly…

167

engels 07.14.16 at 4:51 pm

We now have a justice secretary with a very tough line on foreign cheese
https://www.youtube.com/embed/n_wkO4hk07o

168

engels 07.14.16 at 4:53 pm

And a racist foreign minister who is the laughing stock of the rest the world…

169

Layman 07.14.16 at 5:05 pm

“The United States of America would never allow a United States of Europe.”

One wonders how you can write such twaddle with a straight face – or, rather, if you aren’t actually laughing at your reflection as you write it. Perhaps you could describe the method of prevention here…?

170

engels 07.14.16 at 5:23 pm

Interesting, actually, if you look at their backgrounds they mostly seem to be people from upper-middle-class families (vicar in May’s case, professor in Truss’, surgeon in Fallon’s) who got to Oxbridge via the state sector

171

engels 07.14.16 at 5:41 pm

(All very petty bourgeois – Maggie would be proud…)

172

novakant 07.14.16 at 5:58 pm

I wish we had an opposition.

173

engels 07.14.16 at 5:58 pm

And while I have the floor to myself—did anyone else see May’s victory speech? She said she wanted Britain to work for ‘working class people’ then defined that as someone who has a job, owns their own home and worries about getting their children into a good school. Maybe that’s the same definition of working class the Labour NEC were using when they decided to restrict voting to people who could pony 25 quid in the next 48 hours?

174

TM 07.14.16 at 6:02 pm

“I don’t know enough about your beliefs to be able to figure out whether I would agree with you.”

BS, for Pete’s sake, do you really not notice how ridiculous you sound? Harry made a factual statement, not one about beliefs.

“Was there something especially American about my comment?”

To be honest, yes. And 169 still applies.

175

bianca steele 07.14.16 at 6:36 pm

TM,

It should have become obvious maybe four or five exchanges ago–maybe a lot farther back–that I don’t consider your opinion much. I’m sure your saying I was somehow typically American in some way you seem unable to specify will change my attitude, though. Somehow. You do seem awfully well informed on the topic.

176

harry b 07.14.16 at 6:38 pm

I assume the idea behind having Boris and brexiteers in charge of Brexit is that they take the fall when it is kind of a mess. But for that to be worth the cost assumes that the Foreign Secretary doesn’t really have anything else to do in the next two years. Should have given Boris David Davis’s job.

177

Patrick 07.14.16 at 6:45 pm

@TM 155
“The fact is that the institutional setup of the EU has more checks and balances than the UK does and it is far less centralized than the UK political system.”
It has institutional checks but it doesn’t have democratic checks. Since the UK government is responsible for providing those checks, rather than voters, the problems with the UK government that you mention tend to exacerbate the accountability problems of the EU rather than mitigate them.

@Faustus 137
You seem to be conflating means and ends. I won’t dispute that the EU has passed some beneficial, progressive, and fair legislation, but reliance on the perpetual benevolence of leadership has historically been a poor system of government. If the system is not accountable and there are no plausible routes for reform within the system, then opting out is the only reasonable alternative.

178

TM 07.14.16 at 9:07 pm

You know, BS 190, it isn’t actually that hard to be informed about the EU and the fact that you chose to post 20+ comments while remaining deliberately uninformed speaks for itself.

Patrick 192, it’s kind of amusing to watch you tie yourself into knots.

179

J-D 07.15.16 at 12:31 am

@85 I really had no idea how incredibly lazy you are. You pontificate on Brexit without learning the basics of the dynamics – all easily accessible. Now, you manage to go to the reliably unreliable Nate Silver to ensure you come up short again.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/state/

Ohio, PA, Florida, Iowa.

When I click on that link, what I see at the top are the following poll results:
Florida Trump+3
Pennsylvania Clinton+9
Pennsylvania Trump+2
Ohio Tie
Ohio Tie
Iowa Clinton +3
Iowa Clinton +2
Wisconsin Clinton +4
Colorado Clinton +10
Colorado Clinton +2
Virginia Clinton +7
Michigan Clinton +7

180

kidneystones 07.15.16 at 2:48 am

@ 194 Editing you for clarity: “When I clicked on that link some two days later

Right now: Trump – Clinton tied nationally CBS/NYT Trump + 7 nationally Rasmussen.

Clinton has spent millions more already simply to earn a virtual tie with Trump. Many, many, many more millions of dollars in key swing states.

I’ll take a chance and call it for Trump today.

181

ZM 07.15.16 at 3:02 am

harry b,

“I assume the idea behind having Boris and brexiteers in charge of Brexit is that they take the fall when it is kind of a mess.”

Yes, maybe. Although I can’t see any Prime Minister wanting a huge mess under their leadership.

What this reshuffle made apparent to me is that Brexit has given the government a sort of mandate to implement a lot of changes to make Brexit successful. I hadn’t really thought of that before the reshuffle.

As far as I can tell there was not really any concept of what Brexit would actually look like, so this government has a lot of leeway to decide what Brexit is going be and what the UK is going to be like as a country independent from the EU. They are basically going to be laying down a path for the UK to follow for decades to come, without having gone to election and without giving the UK a solid concept of what Brexit would be like.

182

engels 07.15.16 at 3:07 am

Just on Brexit: I was (am) against it as I said at length elsewhere. But two good sides to it already: austerity and very possibly TTIP in the dustbin of history

183

J-D 07.15.16 at 4:40 am

kidneystones 07.15.16 at 2:48 am

@ 194 Editing you for clarity: “When I clicked on that link some two days later”

Right now: Trump – Clinton tied nationally CBS/NYT Trump + 7 nationally Rasmussen.

Clinton has spent millions more already simply to earn a virtual tie with Trump. Many, many, many more millions of dollars in key swing states.

I’ll take a chance and call it for Trump today.

‘Editing’ you for ‘clarity’: ‘Polls bounce around all the time, so let’s pay attention to the ones I like and ignore the ones I don’t.’

184

kidneystones 07.15.16 at 4:56 am

@ 198 Now, now. You’ve been caught, so just own it.

I knew you’d bite btw. I cited the two most recent national polls in @ 197, in order to indicate change, not uniformity. I did the same with @89 days ago. You omit all references to time, or to polls bouncing, or the fact you’re clicking a link that leads to a different set of poll results.

One might think you’re being dishonest.

185

J-D 07.15.16 at 6:37 am

@199

Now, now. You’ve been caught, so just own it.

One might think you’re being dishonest.

186

kidneystones 07.15.16 at 6:56 am

@ 201 You really don’t know when to quit, do you.

Your normal tic is pedantry, so it’s no surprise you’ve no reply. You’re unable to even grasp what I write, when you quote me.

I write: “I’ll take a chance and call if for Trump today” which in your upside-down reading is an implicit and emphatic statement that the outcome is beyond doubt, and that no polls or predictions exist to suggest Trump might actually lose.

Polls will go up and down. Trump may lose. A great deal of evidence suggests he should lose, most notably the fact that both political establishments, much of the media, and much of Wall St. are all lined up behind the favored candidate of the oh-so-smug.

This thread, in my view, is about hubris, dishonesty, and facing up to uncomfortable truths. The hubris and disdain for the concerns of voters in Britain the elites of both parties took for granted for far, far too long ended up in Brexit.

The same hubris is on display here with the ‘Trump supporters=the Klan” in its various manifestations. All the ‘facts’ point towards another win for Wall St. God knows they’ve payed her and her foundation well enough for several elections. T

he voters that you and the rest of the smug take for granted have demonstrated a remarkable willingness to reject the usual siren songs of their masters and now here and there give every indication of giving you all the finger.

I can’t wait.

187

novakant 07.15.16 at 7:01 am

austerity and very possibly TTIP in the dustbin of history

well, we could have had that without Brexit

188

TM 07.15.16 at 8:11 am

After the Greenpeace leaks, chances of TTIP successfully concluding were close to zero. The irony is now that several Brexit proponents are eager to conclude a UK-US TTIP.

Re austerity, the linked article quotes Osborne as saying that due to the economic shock of Brexit, there won’t be a budget surplus any time soon. Whether that really translates into more expansionist policies we’ll see.

Jusrt reading A progressive’s guide to Theresa May (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/progressives-guide-theresa-may).

189

casmilus 07.15.16 at 8:19 am

@200

No, the point is they’ll quickly realise that their wishful thinking doesn’t work in the real world, and quickly scale back expectations on free movement etc. They need to be the ones to do this so they can explain it to their voters. If a government of Remainers got the same deal it would be denounced by the Leave fantasists as a “betrayal” and “Blame Remain” would be the story ever after.

The spoiled children should be forced to grow up and take responsibility. May’s mistake was to take Johnson (already discredited) into government but leave out Gove (the chief Wishful Thinker). Gove will spend the rest of his career claiming he could have made good on everything Vote Leave promised, and the sad sack will probably believe it.

190

J-D 07.15.16 at 9:30 am

Yama 07.13.16 at 2:11 pm
“It’s the working classes against the smirking classes.”

Pithy, but useful.

You reckon? I expect anybody who says ‘It’s the working classes against the smirking classes’ to be a smirker.

191

J-D 07.15.16 at 9:32 am

kidneystones @202

You really don’t know when to quit, do you?

192

Soullite 07.15.16 at 11:51 am

A lot of ‘Technocratic governance’ seems indistinguishable from oligarchy in practice. It’s just not a workable goal because of how every corrupt elite inevitably perverts all studies to their own ends, which is exactly what happened with economics and is increasingly happening in the social sciences (where suddenly, poverty no longer matters, on social identity issues…which conveniently allow the elite to play progressive without ever making a significant number of people’s lives better, and which allow them to play man against woman, white folk against black ones, the religious against the atheists, etc.).

I don’t believe that ‘Technocratic ends’ are possible. I think that technocracy is a lie smart people with very obvious ideologies tell themselves to convince themselves that their ideology is ‘fact’, and to convince the rest of us that their new priesthood will be so much better than the last one.

193

kidneystones 07.15.16 at 12:13 pm

More fall-out from utterly meaningless polls: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/287845-democrats-freaked-out-about-polls-in-meeting-with-clinton

Fun facts: “The sense of uneasiness among Senate Democrats is heightened by their observation that Trump has stayed within striking distance in pivotal states despite being vastly outspent. NBC News reported this week that Clinton’s campaign and allied super-PACs have spent $57 million so far, while Trump’s campaign hasn’t spent anything, and two allied outside groups have spent only $3.6 million. Team Clinton has outspent Team Trump in nine battleground states by a 40-1 ratio, NBC reported.”

194

Layman 07.15.16 at 12:19 pm

And in other news, Rasmussen Reports and Gallup report that Mitt Romney has won the 2012 presidential election, by a slim 1% margin.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

195

Eimear Ní Mhéalóid 07.17.16 at 9:19 am

Sure. But the way the EU is set up, its institutions don’t formally have any sovereignty or innate authority; EU-wide regulations don’t have any local effect until they’re adopted under the local legal framework, and the administrative and implementation details likewise are all up to the national governments.
Sorry, this isn’t correct. Regulations and indeed the EU treaties are directly applicable without any local enablement. Directives have to be implemented by local legislation but can be directly effective in some circumstances (against a state which has failed to implement ).

196

Eimear Ní Mhéalóid 07.17.16 at 9:20 am

Drat, that should have been a quote.

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