United Kingdom 2

josh wrote:

The fact that a majority of Britons voted overwhelmingly.

52-48 was not an overwhelming margin.  Nonetheless, their wishes should be upheld.  

How many voted or would ever vote for a no-deal Brexit?

The only way the Remain position can ever, in any way, be progressive is if those obsessed with Remain agree that they will back the right of future UK governments to defy EU rules on taxation, spending and nationalization.  Any government that accepts the current EU policies on those issues, policies which make permanent austerity cumpulsory and any alternative to capitalism impossible, can only govern as a Tory government.

The last thirty-eight years have proved that a humane, democratic, inclusive society can never be made under "market values".  There are no other possibilites but socialism OR barbarism.

Ken Burch wrote:

The only way the Remain position can ever, in any way, be progressive is if those obsessed with Remain agree that they will back the right of future UK governments to defy EU rules on taxation, spending and nationalization.  Any government that accepts the current EU policies on those issues, policies which make permanent austerity cumpulsory and any alternative to capitalism impossible, can only govern as a Tory government.

The last thirty-eight years have proved that a humane, democratic, inclusive society can never be made under "market values".  There are no other possibilites but socialism OR barbarism.

I agree that a soft-Brexit  that gets rid of the things you mentioned would be the way to go. The Leave side ran on a soft-Brexit and it defies belief that the UK politicians have been too tribal to deliver it. I think FPTP is the basic cause of this as majority opinion is not important in FPTP politics when there are more than two viable parties running.

JKR wrote:

josh wrote:

The fact that a majority of Britons voted overwhelmingly.

52-48 was not an overwhelming margin.  Nonetheless, their wishes should be upheld.  

How many voted or would ever vote for a no-deal Brexit?

No idea.  Nor is it relevant.  The question was remain or leave.  Not remain or leave conditionally.  If people had doubts of what leave meant, they had the option of voting remain.

josh wrote:

From the full Brexit link:

Brexit is simply about leaving the political and legal structures of the EU and restoring the unfettered power of parliament to make laws that govern the UK. A Tory government may well make use of this newfound freedom to enact policies the left does not like. But that government can then be voted out at the next election and a different set of policies introduced. In other words, there is nothing permanent about a “Tory Brexit” because the Tory part can always subsequently be unpicked. The only reason to believe otherwise is that one doubts the capacity of the left ever to win an election. That is merely an expression of defeatism and cowardice.

And yet, by insisting on overturning the referendum results, these people are going to deliver the exact opposite of what they want, which is either a Conservative majority or a Conservative-Brexit Party majority coalition. The focus on Brexit has divided the anti-Conservaitve vote between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and as long as issues like poverty, income inequality, education, health care and climate change are off the table at the expense of Brexit, there is literally nothing Labour can do to gain the support it needs to win a general election, Corbyn or no Corbyn. There's a reason that the Conservatives are mulling a snap election. It's because they know their chances of victory in this climate are very good.

'Corbyn Better Than No-Deal Brexit, Say Investment Bankers...'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/03/corbyn-better-no-deal-br...

Jeremy Corbyn, the scourge of bankers and avowed opponent of capitalism, is winning support from unexpected new quarters: two of the biggest global banks operating in the City of London are warming to the Labour leader. Unlikely as it may seem, [ Not to moi] he is now seen as the lesser of two evils by analysts at Citibank and Deutsche Bank, respectively American and German titans of the financial system. 'Is Corbyn as bad as no-deal? Perhaps no longer, said Christian Schultz at Citi..."

Lol. Nuff said.

Fight For Democracy, Fight For Change: Neither Boris, Nor Brussels!

https://twitter.com/LeFTCampaign/status/1168216698450796545

"The failure of the British political class to deliver on the Brexit vote, using all manner of Parliamentary machinations, has opened the way for Johnson's cynical, anti-democratic use of prorogation. We need a general election now, we need a working class led movement to break with the EU and to radically transform British political and social life..."

Richard Wolff thinks that brexit will be of no help to the British people in fighting neo-liberalism.

Brothers Johnson Split Ways As Brexit 'Logjam' Grows - Galloway

https://youtu.be/nHPq4EyFquk

"UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's sibling, Jo Johnson, abruptly resigned from Parliament today over political differences after snap elections were called. This comes as the embattled PM attempts to facilitate the country's exit from the European Union on October 31."

"Labour has descended into renewed civil war over the election. Corbyn wants to vote for Oct 15 but his 5th Column won't let him. Blairites are queuing up to tell journalists that if their leader proceeds to try and go to the country they will defy him. The future: Brexit.

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1169684057061543936

'Still One of the Best Summaries We've Seen' (and vid)

https://twitter.com/labourleave/status/1164495763520532482

"If the undemocratic assault on Brexit by MPs were to succeed, the forces unleashed would 'smash the present political system..."

Johnson having to resign - that would be a just reward 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boris-jo-johnson-resign-general-election-brexit-extension-delay-a9093116.html

Labour's Brexit Shambles

https://unherd.com/2019/09/labours-brexit-shambles/

"A rambling, shambling policy on Brexit, coupled with going around shouting nonsense about a 'coup' will do nothing to propel the Labour party to power or win back the hearts and minds of its one-time core vote. The Party's laughable strategy is alienating all its voters..."

"You do know when the insanity of Labour's Brexit policy costs them the election they will  blame Corbyn and overthrow him, right?"

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1170055141858455554

NDPP wrote:

Why Hasn't Brexit Happened?

https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/why-hasnt-brexit-happened-yet/

"The EU's ability to evade democratic accountability has proved even more robust and tenacious than the champions of Brexit had feared. Brexit clarifies the constitutional stakes for the world as nothing else..."

The Claremont Institue? Really?

WATCH: "Labour's Barry Gardiner used to be clear that a second referendum would be wrong...so why is he backing one now?"

https://twitter.com/Change_Britain/status/1170324840659599362

Those hard Brexiters who left-identify show an almost touching naivety in their beliefs: 

1)That the UK is actually a functioning democracy rather than a neoliberal managed democracy (as the recent successful co-ordinated smears against the extermely rare progressive Corbyn illustrate).

2)That a hard Brexit is a blow against neoliberalism when it merely represents a shift in ruling corporate neoliberal winners and losers.

3)That a hard Brexit will bring greater sovereignty to Britain from which socialism will triumph over neoliberalism in some undefined and improbable future.

4)That with hard Brexit's imagined sovereignty it will be easier to extract itself from the resultant total, rather than merely major, dominance of the US empire--when they acknowledge the role of the US is at all.

A Trump Brexit Threatens  September 6, 2019 

 Rapacious U.S. interests lurk behind Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit bluster, which would  imperil Britain’s welfare state & move the UK even closer to U.S. Empire, says John Wight.

Trump’s otherworldly vice president, Mike Pence, has just said more in one short sentence to unravel the complexities of the Brexit crisis that continues to bedevil the UK, than the ocean of column inches that have been devoted to the subject since the referendum was held in 2016.....

Speaking at a black tie event in London on Thursday night, attended by an array of business executives, Pence proclaimed, “The minute the UK is out, America is in.”

Thus let there be no doubt that the hard no-deal Brexit advocated by the UK’s newly installed Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his supporters is to all intents a Trump Brexit – one that will see the UK economy opened up to the tender mercies of U.S. corporations on terms set not by London but Washington.

In other words, we’re talking disaster capitalism on steroids, bringing with it the likely prospect of the decimation of what’s left of the UK’s welfare state, including that most revered totem to social solidarity, the National Health Service (NHS), which since the end of WWII, when it was established, has provided generations of British citizens with free healthcare at the point of need, funded out of general taxation, regardless of social class or personal wealth.

In her classic work, Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes:

       “Believers in the shock doctrine [of disaster capitalism] are convinced that only a great rupture – a flood, a war, a terrorist attack – can generate the kind of vast, clean canvases they crave,” while earlier in the same passage, warning that “This desire for godlike powers of total creation is precisely why free market ideologues are so drawn to crises and disasters.”

A no deal Brexit, which means to say a complete break from the EU with no trade relationship in place, offers the perfect storm of economic shock, and, with it, vulnerability that would turn the UK, currently the fifth largest economy in the world, into a prized dripping roast offered up to U.S. corporations to feast upon...

Even Closer to the Empire

The possibility of a hard no-deal Brexit does not only carry dire domestic consequences for the UK vis-à-vis Washington. It also guarantees that London will be dialed into U.S. geo-strategic objectives in such a way as to make the country’s subordination to the empire complete.

We have already been treated to an example of what this would be like when, at the behest of the Trump administration, British Royal Marines seized the Iranian oil tanker, Grace 1, in the Straits of Gibraltar and forced it to dock in the British-controlled territory.

It was an act of pure piracy undertaken in clear violation of international law, which only confirmed that in Washington the neocons have retaken control of the asylum....

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/06/a-trump-brexit-threatens/

WATCH: "Back in the 1990s Jeremy Corbyn could see the undemocratic EU for what it was. What changed?"

https://twitter.com/Change_Britain/status/1170255634551513089

Why Doesn't the Left Want To Leave the EU?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/12/14/why-dont-the-left-want-to-leave...

"To the delight of left-leaning cheerleaders, Labour's two-faced Brexit mask has slipped, revealing the party leadership's support for 'Soft Brexit' - aka 'Not Brexit' or 'Remain By Another Name'. Time to remind them that the desperate desire to remain attached to the EU is not radical or progressive. It is a sign of all that is illiberal, anti-democratic, and yes, conservative in politics today..."

NorthReport wrote:

With the Johnson as PM farce, it really is a shame that Labour does not appear ready to call Johnson’s bluff and agreee to an election

 

It's to prevent Johnson from slipping no-deal Brexit through in the time before an election, North.

George Galloway: TMOATS - Episode 12

https://youtu.be/7SGYDV5d79k

BREXIT and more..."I'd rather poke my eyes out with a sharp and burning pin then rejoin what is today's Labour Party..."

Their Internationalism And Ours

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/their-internationalism-and-ours/

"...The EU project represents and institutionalises the interests of capital. It constitutionalises the free movement of capital, and in this way makes governments and states subject to the diktats of capital. As Claus Offe notes the freedom that the EU treaties accord to capital dramatically diminishes the power and rights of democratically elected national governments and enhance the power of capital.

While the political economy of the EU enshrines the transnational interests of capital, the ideology of liberal cosmopolitanism provides a moral veneer for the project. By waving the flag of free movement of people (a freedom that has always been partial and subject to the interests of capital), and extolling the virtues of a post national constellation, the truncated internationalism naturalises and valorises the EU project and the internationalisation of capital.

This is, however, a world away from the internationalism of the working class. It reflects instead the class consciousness of the frequent flyer - the section of the national middle classes around Europe who are best placed to take advantage of the opportunities for material advancement presented by the EU project. This form of integration does not, and cannot foster solidarity, but instead produces stark divisions and enmities of all sorts. It is for this reason that Asbjorn Wahl argues that the EU project represents 'the greatest threat to Europe's unity, not on a national but on a social basis.' The political project that Europe's ruling classes are wedded to, serves first and foremost, the interests of capital. The social and economic policies they pursue to advance their project decimate the living standards of working people...Socialist internationalism requires a fundamental rupture with the EU."

Brexit Turmoil Puts UK in 'Uncharted Waters' - Galloway

https://youtu.be/zNaLo9YucVQ

"Brexit is scheduled to go into effect for October 31st, but opposition MPs of the so-called Rebel Alliance are trying to push the date to January 31st 2020. Former MP George Galloway joins In Question to discuss. 'Yes, there has to be an election because the Government can't govern and the opposition isn't in a position to govern. And if you're trying to stop Brexit AND stop the people voting in a General Election at the same time, well frankly you're only postponing the inevitable."

NDPP wrote:

WATCH: "Back in the 1990s Jeremy Corbyn could see the undemocratic EU for what it was. What changed?"

https://twitter.com/Change_Britain/status/1170255634551513089

....

A false claim of a flipflop.

Corbyn's valid criticisms of the EU are still valid today and, as far as I know, Corbyn has never recanted that criticism. Yet he has never campaigned for Brexit--let alone the insanity of a no-deal Brexit. 

Valid criticisms of the EU don't mean that embracing something worse should be the logical or necessary answer, and that will be the result and not some fantasy of "UK people's independence".  

Chomsky:

“I’m unenthusiastic about either, but I think probably the worse choice would be 'Brexit.' My sense is that it would probably turn Britain—or maybe England, if Scotland pulls out—into even more of a dependency on the U.S.," 

Corbyn in 2016:

Speaking to an audience of Labour-supporting students and trade unionists in London, he repeatedly pointed to the shortcomings of the EU in its present form – but said he wanted to forge alliances with leftwing parties across Europe to reform it.

“You can’t build a better world unless you engage with the world,” the Labour leader said, urging young people to “make sure you register to vote, and vote to keep the UK in Europe in June”, and warning that a Conservative government would take the opportunity of Brexit to slash protection for workers, in a “bonfire of rights”....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/14/jeremy-corbyn-leaving-e...

Whether the EU is reformable or not, with a no deal Brexit extricating itself from the resultant total US dominance with its far worse environmental, social destruction and imperialistic requirements will be much more difficult.

No deal Brexit will be as stated before, "disaster capitalism on steroids".

Back in 2017 Naiomi Klein retweeted this article as a "must read" and though some of the players have changed, the analysis is still accurate:

Brexit is the home-coming for the shock doctrine....

And, for me, this emphasises the real risk of Brexit. It reaffirmed what amounts to (along with Northern Ireland) the biggest worry of this whole affair, which isn’t about some abstract question of what’s ‘best’ for the country as a whole. After all, what do workers manufacturing cars in Sunderland have in common with those manufacturing credit default swaps in the City? Do the crofters of Sutherland really share much of an interest with the Duke of Sutherland? Do Tory voters in David Davis' seat have the same worries about Brexit as Sinn Fein supporters in Derry?....

In her now legendary book “The Shock Doctrine”, Naomi Klein details how, for decades, neoliberals have used crises to force through their radical, pro-corporate agenda. It’s not through the slow mechanics of normal democratic processes that the great privatisations and deregulations have taken place....

The only thing that’s different about Brexit is that the crisis wasn’t a natural disaster or the final collapse of a dying regime. It was actively created by the same groups as have promoted shock therapy before, as an opportunity to force through the interests of the rich and powerful. Whatever the various possibilities for ‘Lexit’ might have been with a theoretical different government, the people who led the campaign to deliver a Leave vote saw it as an opportunity to remove Britain’s ‘red tape’ protections against corporate abuse, to turn the country into a playground for the rich and powerful, and to undermine the global action on climate change which the EU has played a key role in, and which represents an existential threat to much of the fossil fuel industry.

And the people in the room, negotiating what our future relationship with the EU – and our future trade deals with the rest of the world – will look like, were at the forefront of that movement. They are exactly the same people whose networks of friends and backers include the 'think tanks' with unknown funding sources, who argue against any kind of law which restricts profit, and who think that freedom means only the freedom to extract wealth from workers and the planet....

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/brexit-negotiations-why...

The Nothing-Matters-But-Remain crowd within Labour have continually, TO THIS DAY, refused to commit to fighting for any significant changes in EU policies on spending, taxation, and the ability to nationalize-to fight for the ability of a Labour government to BE a Labour government.  And they have totally refused to address the issue that led, more than anything else, to the Leave victory-the fact that, under both EU and Tory/Blairite rule, the North and Northeast of England have largely been left to rot economically.  To my knowledge, nobody in the People's Vote crew gives a damn about that.  Perhaps the Remain obsessives think those regions deserve to simply die out.

Am reposting earlier interviews with economist, scholar and ex -Syriza MP Costas Lapavitsas in hope that certain obvious confusions on certain fundamentals of  Brexit probably coming from an exclusive reliance on msm sources can be clarified.

Lexit Reloaded (2018)

https://youtu.be/8IGP7qZefGU

"...From the perspective of the left the argument is clear cut and very simple. Getting out of the single market is necessary if you wish to go against neoliberalism and if you wish to apply a set of policies that really change things in the interest of working people. The British people voted to get out. There will be a cost but hardly the end of the world..."

Class Struggle Over Brexit

https://youtu.be/jh65ee5U9Kk

March 14, 2019, 08:30 "The left so far has failed abysmally on the issue of Europe. The left suffers from 'Europeanism', a new kind of disease which infects the grey cells of the brain...One thing that is abundantly obvious to all involved in this process, is that the main centers of power in this country, economic power - the City of London, financial interests, but also big industrial and commercial capital with extensive export interests - the core interests of British capitalism and the British ruling class, do not want Brexit under any circumstances. They are foursquare for Remain. I say this because a lot of people on the left are hopelessly confused..."

"Struggling to keep up with Lab's policy. Now it seems the plan is to offer May's colony treaty vs Remain, or in other words, Remain with voting rights vs Remain without. Just keep it simple, tell the public you're guaranteeing Remain, however despicable the stitch up has to be."

https://twitter.com/labourleave/status/1170993204726042624

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/08/the-guardian-view-on-the-world-and-brexit-rue-britannia

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-lib-dems-revoke-article-50-jo-swinson-peoples-vote-final-say-a9098461.html

So, according to NDPP, Boris and Nigel are working for socialism and Corbyn is working against?!?!?!? Has hell frozen over?