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Brexit: give me a positive effect (2022 remastered edition)

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Oh Stella, I could drink a pint of you-
Labour cannot make people’s lives better until it dares to start talking about Brexit
Stella Creasy
Creasy's central argument is right: Labour needs to have a position because, without opposition, any choices Johnson makes go unexamined.

But the article avoids the central thorny issue. It says, we need to defeat the impression that any criticism of Brexit is a covert call for another referendum. But the question is, how? It avoids the reality that the right wing press, right wing think tanks and 'Clean Brexit' MPs have very loud voices in Britain in 2022, and that they will shriek hysterically about 'trying to undo Brexit' when the Labour party makes any move to start talking about Brexit. Creasy, without realising it, is in exactly the same hole as Starmer. Because, Starmer has tried, very timidly, to talk about Brexit. Starmer's attempt to cut this Gordian knot has been 'Make Brexit Work'. This founders on the same rocks as Creasy: how? Unless it is abundantly clear what Labour is saying, both in terms of criticism of the current arrangements and in terms of what it is proposing, it is not going to work.

The first step Labour needs to make is to name Johnson's Brexit. Pin Johnson's Brexit down. Call it something that properly skewers some of its central faults, something like 'Johnson's divided nation Brexit'. And don't attach it exclusively to Johnson, in case he is ditched. Divided Nation Brexit. At every opportunity - cost of living, airport queues, lorry queues - Labour must point out the problems of this version of Brexit, and qualify every criticism of Brexit in the same way, so that it is clear that the objection is with the version of Brexit rather than Brexit itself. Divided Nation Brexit. And repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. Divided Nation Brexit. You need to establish that the faults are massive and dangerous to the integrity of the UK. By contrast, you need a named alternative. So that, preferably at the same time as criticism, you can assert the type of Brexit you would like to see, let's call it a 'unifying Brexit'. We need to ditch this divided nation Brexit in favour of a unifying Brexit, the rhetoric should run.

The key to all of this is that Labour needs to address the question of 'How?' If it wants to talk of a unifying Brexit, Labour needs to decide whether it wants Customs Union and Single Market membership, and also whether the best route towards this is via EFTA or otherwise.
 
However, I do see a fairly large number who say they don’t support the tories but seem happy enough with them winning GEs. You could say they have their fingers in their ears and also blinkers full on.

I consistently don't vote for our current government at each GE but they are still in power.....


Well yes and no. I didn't see any mention of the intention to cover the bank in wind turbines.......

yellow butter shipments from NZ.

Once upon a time I remember Anchor butter featuring prominently in our parent's household.

Regards

Richard
 
No, it started with your notion of “common good”.

Are you referring to this "common good"?

VZW0zB7.png
 
Creasy's central argument is right: Labour needs to have a position because, without opposition, any choices Johnson makes go unexamined.

But the article avoids the central thorny issue. It says, we need to defeat the impression that any criticism of Brexit is a covert call for another referendum. But the question is, how? It avoids the reality that the right wing press, right wing think tanks and 'Clean Brexit' MPs have very loud voices in Britain in 2022, and that they will shriek hysterically about 'trying to undo Brexit' when the Labour party makes any move to start talking about Brexit. Creasy, without realising it, is in exactly the same hole as Starmer. Because, Starmer has tried, very timidly, to talk about Brexit. Starmer's attempt to cut this Gordian knot has been 'Make Brexit Work'. This founders on the same rocks as Creasy: how? Unless it is abundantly clear what Labour is saying, both in terms of criticism of the current arrangements and in terms of what it is proposing, it is not going to work.

The first step Labour needs to make is to name Johnson's Brexit. Pin Johnson's Brexit down. Call it something that properly skewers some of its central faults, something like 'Johnson's divided nation Brexit'. And don't attach it exclusively to Johnson, in case he is ditched. Divided Nation Brexit. At every opportunity - cost of living, airport queues, lorry queues - Labour must point out the problems of this version of Brexit, and qualify every criticism of Brexit in the same way, so that it is clear that the objection is with the version of Brexit rather than Brexit itself. Divided Nation Brexit. And repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. Divided Nation Brexit. You need to establish that the faults are massive and dangerous to the integrity of the UK. By contrast, you need a named alternative. So that, preferably at the same time as criticism, you can assert the type of Brexit you would like to see, let's call it a 'unifying Brexit'. We need to ditch this divided nation Brexit in favour of a unifying Brexit, the rhetoric should run.

The key to all of this is that Labour needs to address the question of 'How?' If it wants to talk of a unifying Brexit, Labour needs to decide whether it wants Customs Union and Single Market membership, and also whether the best route towards this is via EFTA or otherwise.

That’s spooky. I was making lunch before reading your post and Gordian knot was going round in my head. Brexit, like Trump’s “Radical ANTIFA/Black Lives Matter/MAGA” pitch in the US was the stake driven into the heart of public consensus. It’s a right wing coup and it’s riddled with booby traps and strapped to a big fat time bomb.
 
We could’ve done if remainders had backed Corbyn after the referendum.

Oh, hang on….

Very likely.

I think Corbyn shot himself in the foot on that one though when he called for an immediate trigger of Article 50 directly after the referendum result. Never mind that something that complex isn't rushed into! The optics weren't good at all as he appeared to align himself with the swivel-eyed Tory and UKIP lunatics in that moment and I think his credibility was damaged for many afterward. I remember shaking my head in disbelief when I saw that.
 
Indeed, Remainers don't see a lot of 'threat', they see opportunities to collaborate, negotiate and progress - and they'd rather focus on the greater good, e.g. peace and prosperity, than, for example, overly aggressive postering towards out-groups so practised by our government (and the comrades). They are more pro social as well.

I've always felt that one of the greatest intellectual failings of remain is that the freedom to vote for - and to sanction - at the ballot box the people who raise and spend our taxes, is somehow seen as antithetical to notions of collaboration, goodwill, peace and prosperity, and that the people who voted for self determination in 2016 must, by extension of their rejection of the EU project, be small-minded, xenophobic and reactionary. This speaks more of the extraordinary success of the EU propaganda machine in associating itself with those notions of peace, progressivism, tolerance and co-operation than it does of many of its more anguished proponents of actually having any real understanding of the specific institutions and governance frameworks of the EU, and also of course of the belligerent tribalism of brexit itself.

Your sentence above confirms this failing yet again. You speak of the EU in utopian terms, and seem only able to acknowledge any negative traits in our own (current) government. Just to take your own example of 'overly aggressive posturing towards out-groups', I see no mention of grim, allegedly abuse-afflicted EU sponsored migrant camps in Libya and Turkey, or of razor wire fences erected across the EU's eastern borders that keep brown-skinned refugees from the wars in the Levant and Afghanistan out, but let white-skinned refugees from the war in Ukraine through.

An aside, but in the context of collaboration and co-operation amongst neighbours, I was delighted to read yesterday that a serving French general has just taken command of the 1st British Division.

The question, and I know after the recent meltdown that I'm taking a risk here, was...what is the actual objective threat?

Amongst the objective threats of continued EU membership one might include the progressive and very real dilution of democracy, the dilution of control of the economy and of sovereign currency, the dilution of control of foreign policy, and the loss of control of national borders. In foreign policy and geopolitical terms I feel that the EU has been astonishingly naive, and has directly and demonstrably contributed the current threat to peace in Europe. What's almost worse is that it continues to do so. I do not entirely see that point as an 'us and them' one either, for we were members of the EU too in the relevant period.

I see the Euro as an objective threat to prosperity, its design flaws and built-in iniquities actively favouring the industrial/exporting centre (primarily an overtly mercantalist Germany, which has built its manufacturing might on a disastrous model of cheap Russian gas) at the expense of the periphery. I see the CAP and the CFP as vehicles for environmental devastation.

PS It's not clear how the EU forced George to enact austerity in this county.

I didn't say that it had. I merely said that austerity was an EU-wide policy. More specifically, it was an EZ-wide policy.
 
Are you referring to this "common good"?

VZW0zB7.png
I was referring to a utilitarian notion of the common good. You seem to be referring to a poll. And as we are talking about the UK leaving the EU, that was decided by a poll. So I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

FWIW my vote was for the minority vote in that poll, and if the same referendum was made in the same circumstance, my vote would remain the same
 
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I consistently don't vote for our current government at each GE but they are still in power.....
Not sure what you’re getting at there as a reply to my comment, but that is how it goes for me. I try to vote in a way that helps Labour to a majority, not that it makes much difference where I live, my vote is one of those that never really counts. It has always been tory and by a large majority.

My point earlier is how frustrating it is that some people who say they dislike the tories and could vote Labour where Labour has (or had, in some cases) a chance refuse to do so, That just helps the tories, imo.

Well yes and no. I didn't see any mention of the intention to cover the bank in wind turbines.......

Once upon a time I remember Anchor butter featuring prominently in our parent's household.

Regards

Richard
We switch between mainly Anchor and Lurpak.
 
That’s spooky. I was making lunch before reading your post and Gordian knot was going round in my head. Brexit, like Trump’s “Radical ANTIFA/Black Lives Matter/MAGA” pitch in the US was the stake driven into the heart of public consensus. It’s a right wing coup and it’s riddled with booby traps and strapped to a big fat time bomb.
The biggest booby-trap is identity. Brexit and MAGA are founded on identity, so they require out-groups. This is easy at election-time, as it's easy to pillory the opposition, but it's crucial to re-inforce these identities between elections. Hence, the culture wars. Endless division.
 
Very likely.

I think Corbyn shot himself in the foot on that one though when he called for an immediate trigger of Article 50 directly after the referendum result. Never mind that something that complex isn't rushed into! The optics weren't good at all as he appeared to align himself with the swivel-eyed Tory and UKIP lunatics in that moment and I think his credibility was damaged for many afterward. I remember shaking my head in disbelief when I saw that.
It was you who raised the obvious benefits of the SM + CU. If you were shaking your head in disbelief at the time that it was on the table, then you have to take some responsibility for the fact that it didn’t stay on the table for very long. Or, to put it another way, if you are not prepared to admit you were wrong then, you stand no chance of resurrecting SM+CU now.
 
Very likely.

I think Corbyn shot himself in the foot on that one though when he called for an immediate trigger of Article 50 directly after the referendum result. Never mind that something that complex isn't rushed into! The optics weren't good at all as he appeared to align himself with the swivel-eyed Tory and UKIP lunatics in that moment and I think his credibility was damaged for many afterward. I remember shaking my head in disbelief when I saw that.
Corbyn shot himself in the foot only in the minds of the intransigent who were thinking only of how the referendum result could be ignored completely. He definitely did not align himself with ‘swivel-eyed Tory and UKIP lunatics’.

I too remember shaking my head in disbelief at the antics of a minority of people who voted remain.
 
I consistently don't vote for our current government at each GE but they are still in power.....



Well yes and no. I didn't see any mention of the intention to cover the bank in wind turbines.......



Once upon a time I remember Anchor butter featuring prominently in our parent's household.

Regards

Richard

The article was about banning trawling. Trawling is a massively destructive, unsustainable, industrial scale attack on the ocean environment. Banning it is inarguably a Good Thing. Wind turbines are a separate issue entirely. I retain my right to feel a little optimism, ta.
 
Corbyn shot himself in the foot only in the minds of the intransigent who were thinking only of how the referendum result could be ignored completely. He definitely did not align himself with ‘swivel-eyed Tory and UKIP lunatics’.

I too remember shaking my head in disbelief at the antics of a minority of people who voted remain.

To Brian and ks.234:

My problem wasn't with Corbyn saying that Article 50 should be triggered per se, it was his use of the word 'immediately'. As in right now, this instant. Such a massive political, social and economic project should not be rushed. It wasn't exactly pragmatic, and came across to me as stupid.

Obviously you both disagree.
 
The article was about banning trawling. Trawling is a massively destructive, unsustainable, industrial scale attack on the ocean environment. Banning it is inarguably a Good Thing. Wind turbines are a separate issue entirely. I retain my right to feel a little optimism, ta.

Things like this will be more than a little disruptive - https://www.modernpowersystems.com/...-north-sea-will-be-a-giant-power-hub-5836496/ and then - https://doggerbank.com

Regards

Richard
 
Creasy's central argument is right: Labour needs to have a position because, without opposition, any choices Johnson makes go unexamined.

But the article avoids the central thorny issue. It says, we need to defeat the impression that any criticism of Brexit is a covert call for another referendum. But the question is, how? It avoids the reality that the right wing press, right wing think tanks and 'Clean Brexit' MPs have very loud voices in Britain in 2022, and that they will shriek hysterically about 'trying to undo Brexit' when the Labour party makes any move to start talking about Brexit. Creasy, without realising it, is in exactly the same hole as Starmer. Because, Starmer has tried, very timidly, to talk about Brexit. Starmer's attempt to cut this Gordian knot has been 'Make Brexit Work'. This founders on the same rocks as Creasy: how? Unless it is abundantly clear what Labour is saying, both in terms of criticism of the current arrangements and in terms of what it is proposing, it is not going to work.

The first step Labour needs to make is to name Johnson's Brexit. Pin Johnson's Brexit down. Call it something that properly skewers some of its central faults, something like 'Johnson's divided nation Brexit'. And don't attach it exclusively to Johnson, in case he is ditched. Divided Nation Brexit. At every opportunity - cost of living, airport queues, lorry queues - Labour must point out the problems of this version of Brexit, and qualify every criticism of Brexit in the same way, so that it is clear that the objection is with the version of Brexit rather than Brexit itself. Divided Nation Brexit. And repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. Divided Nation Brexit. You need to establish that the faults are massive and dangerous to the integrity of the UK. By contrast, you need a named alternative. So that, preferably at the same time as criticism, you can assert the type of Brexit you would like to see, let's call it a 'unifying Brexit'. We need to ditch this divided nation Brexit in favour of a unifying Brexit, the rhetoric should run.

The key to all of this is that Labour needs to address the question of 'How?' If it wants to talk of a unifying Brexit, Labour needs to decide whether it wants Customs Union and Single Market membership, and also whether the best route towards this is via EFTA or otherwise.
That article is nonsensical. Brexit is a done deal (apart, perhaps, from the on-going NI situation which will make things worse rather than better). There is no discussion to be had. There is no going back in any meaningful way until the Tories are out, Labour is in and does not make the mistake of asking the great British Public what they want.
 
To Brian and ks.234:

My problem wasn't with Corbyn saying that Article 50 should be triggered per se, it was his use of the word 'immediately'. As in right now, this instant. Such a massive political, social and economic project should not be rushed. It wasn't exactly pragmatic, and came across to me as stupid.

Obviously you both disagree.
It was impossible to trigger A50 immediately.

Rather than take it literally I think Corbyn was highlighting the govt had no plan. Basically, it was opposing and making it awkward for govt.

ps: you've made it awkward for the other member by replying in the way you did. ;)
 
To Brian and ks.234:

My problem wasn't with Corbyn saying that Article 50 should be triggered per se, it was his use of the word 'immediately'. As in right now, this instant. Such a massive political, social and economic project should not be rushed. It wasn't exactly pragmatic, and came across to me as stupid.

Obviously you both disagree.
You want membership of the SM&CU now, but did not want it ‘immediately’?
 
You want membership of the SM&CU now, but did not want it ‘immediately’?

I'll tell you how it happened with me. On the morning of the confirmation of the Leave result, I was filled with an awful sense of dread. I've never felt so apprehensive about a political outcome, ever. I think it was quite a while later when I saw the speech by Corbyn, but in my anxious, stressed, and somewhat fearful state, seeing him announce the immediate trigger of Article 50 had me shouting at the TV. I was bitterly disappointed, and thought he was better than that. It just added another thing to an already bad day.

I'm sure a lot of Remainers were in the same boat as myself and my wife, and I'm willing to bet that he lost a lot of potential supporters after that speech. First impressions on handling something as huge as Brexit last, and I'm afraid this one is on him.
 
Indeed, Remainers don't see a lot of 'threat', they see opportunities to collaborate, negotiate and progress - and they'd rather focus on the greater good, e.g. peace and prosperity, than, for example, overly aggressive postering towards out-groups so practised by our government (and the comrades). They are more pro social as well.

The question, and I know after the recent meltdown that I'm taking a risk here, was...what is the actual objective threat?

PS It's not clear how the EU forced George to enact austerity in this county.
Nobody said the EU forced the UK into austerity
 
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