Oh no!! Brexit not going quite as well as hoped

[Mugshot]

We'd have had no chance to take back the energy industry and transport for public good. Long way to go now, yes, but even longer within the EU I think.

I assume you mean public ownership, in which case I have to ask if you're sure about that?

 

[farfromtheland]

I assume you mean public ownership, in which case I have to ask if you're sure about that?

Public ownership is not necessarily for public good, but can be if done well. I think we'd have had no chance to renationalise in the EU. I think we have some chance without.

 

[Mugshot]

It's potentially more like what I believe in. Remain, as presented by those comfortable with corporate EU lobbying culture, looked dishonest in essence to me. I heard far more remain supporters crying 'racism' than I did leavers actually being racist.

I'll post the relevant word clouds, polls, graphs, the front pages from the Sun, Express, Telegraph and Mail, and evidence of the increase in racially aggravated hate crime following the result to counter this when I get a minute.

 

[Mugshot]

Public ownership is not necessarily for public good, but can be if done well. I think we'd have had no chance to renationalise in the EU. I think we have some chance without.

Yet other countries do have both transport and energy under state ownership within the EU, so I don't know how this stacks up?

 

[farfromtheland]

I'll post the relevant word clouds, polls, graphs, the front pages from the Sun, Express, Telegraph and Mail, and evidence of the increase in racially aggravated hate crime following the result to counter this when I get a minute.

And I'll add that some, probably most unless I misremember, of the people I spoke to who supported Brexit were black. London is an interesting city. I'll thank you not to imply that I am partly responsible for racists though.

Yet other countries do have both transport and energy under state ownership within the EU, so I don't know how this stacks up?

They never sold them off in the first place.

 

[newfhouse]

Yet other countries do have both transport and energy under state ownership within the EU

Many of those state owned entities now own our privatised utilities and transport businesses, they’re just not states that we can influence with our votes.

 

[mudsticks]

These considerations were what made the Brexit vote difficult for me, along with some protection for workers' and disability rights. Since I long ago became convinced the only real way to protect ourselves at work and in society is to organise and take action I took the view that environmental action too was the best protection.

I understand your keeness for organising and taking action, to protect, workers rights and environment.

But we were never prevented from doing that inside the EU.
In fact the EU gave us more protection for workers, environmental, and indeed human rights .

The EU funded some of our projects around cooperative farmers organisations, research, and peer to peer learning opportunities.

All that has gone now.

As well as having all the restrictions on our moving around to work study and live.

I don't see that we've got anything back that makes up for even a fraction of those losses.

 

[Mugshot]

I'll thank you not to imply that I am partly responsible for racists though.

I didn't suggest any such thing, racists are quite capable of being racist all on their own. However, any suggestion that it was the socialist vote that won Brexit is, I'm afraid, demonstrably untrue.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I understand your keeness for organising and taking action, to protect, workers rights and environment.

But we were never prevented from doing that inside the EU.
In fact the EU gave us more protection for workers, environmental, and indeed human rights .

The EU funded some of our projects around cooperative farmers organisations, research, and peer to peer learning opportunities.

All that has gone now.

As well as having all the restrictions on our moving around to work study and live.

I don't see that we've got anything back that makes up for even a fraction of those losses.

One aspect of the Remain argument that I have always felt uncomfortable with is that we had to remain in the EU to protect us from our own government in things like workers rights and environmental issues.

We have the power to vote in the governments that do what we want them to do and should not rely on the protection of others.

 

[newfhouse]

I didn't suggest any such thing, racists are quite capable of being racist all on their own. However, any suggestion that it was the socialist vote that won Brexit is, I'm afraid, demonstrably untrue.

A few hundred thousand voting differently would have changed the outcome. It is not possible to say for sure that Lexiters didn’t get it over the line.

 

[newfhouse]

We have the power to vote in the governments that do what we want them to do and should not rely on the protection of others.

Isn’t that a bit like saying that we shouldn’t have to rely on the unelected House of Lords to protect our rights? It’s true, we shouldn’t, but sometimes you have to work with what you have.

 

[farfromtheland]

I understand your keeness for organising and taking action, to protect, workers rights and environment.

But we were never prevented from doing that inside the EU.
In fact the EU gave us more protection for workers, environmental, and indeed human rights .

The EU funded some of our projects around cooperative farmers organisations, research, and peer to peer learning opportunities.

All that has gone now.

As well as having all the restrictions on our moving around to work study and live.

I don't see that we've got anything back that makes up for even a fraction of those losses.

To me, and many other precarious workers, the EU protections were virtually meaningless. If we are going to resist zero-hours culture and build better working ways it has to be on the ground. When you say 'the EU gave us' things then I worry, because the EU might not always give us anything. It looks liberal enough now, but I think it is moving to the right far more inexorably than the UK population as a whole. We have a tradition of working class resistance, and I feel it is growing. How it shapes is up to us of course.

The environmental changes we need now are fundamental. I don't think the EU will do more than manage them corporately - such as debt-model funding for green power projects in developing countries. The power lobbies are just too big for us to reach, and attempting to out-lobby them risks losing our way within their frame. Energy is more expensive. Is that a bad thing? Perhaps we can do without a lot of it. I know there is a lot of hype about how terrible it is to tell folk to wear jumpers to keep warm, but this is how I grew up. It's not that terrible. What gives Europeans a right to daily showers when people across the world are getting water from a communal tap? We are too privileged. Let us please understand that.


Erasmus scholarships were a big loss, but peer-to-peer sharing still happens. The first co-ops came about before the EU, in response to need. Funding can be great, but it can also channel organisations along accepted routes rather than more radical ones.

 

[farfromtheland]

I didn't suggest any such thing, racists are quite capable of being racist all on their own. However, any suggestion that it was the socialist vote that won Brexit is, I'm afraid, demonstrably untrue.

Thank you - neither would I suggest the socialist vote won Brexit. The referendum was one of those things that crossed left and right lines. I had debates of a more fundamental kind than I ever did around an election, and glad to still be having them.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Isn’t that a bit like saying that we shouldn’t have to rely on the unelected House of Lords to protect our rights? It’s true, we shouldn’t, but sometimes you have to work with what you have.

As long as what you have does stuff that you agree with that's fine.

The HoL is a check on government and not a setter of policy.

I believe that's a reason for having a second chamber, but not necessarily an unelected one.

 

[mudsticks]

One aspect of the Remain argument that I have always felt uncomfortable with is that we had to remain in the EU to protect us from our own government in things like workers rights and environmental issues.

We have the power to vote in the governments that do what we want them to do and should not rely on the protection of others.

Well yes, in theory, but as we know our elections tend to be won or lost on things that favour individual self interest such as promises of tax cuts etc..

That's not something exclusive to the UK electorate of course.
The EU is for all it's faults, in many ways an expression of our collective 'better selves'