“…if the EU has all these obviously egregious impacts on the goals of the Left, then why have so many Labour Leavers seemingly given up on Brexit? Part of the reason, it seems to me, is that the Labour Party has totally and catastrophically vacated the post-Brexit policy space to the Right…”
I don’t agree with this conclusion at all I’m afraid. The real reason is much starker: the Labour party of today is not in any way shape or form the Labour party of it’s roots, or even of three decades ago. Your instinctive alignment with Labour, as mine with the Conservatives, is now a mirage. Both parties have undergone metamorphoses so great, that nothing remains of the original except the shell and the name that still clings to them. For example, what on earth has happened to the UK Left, that it no longer buys into civil liberties? This is no longer a Left or Right that I recognise.
In my case, the horrific realisation dawned through both parties reactions to the pandemic and it’s aftermath, but snapped into focus when first Johnson and then Truss were ousted, followed by ensconcing Hunt as the power behind the scenes. It’s like discovering you are chained to an alien zombie corpse, and my frenzied and horrified reaction in response, is to attempt to chew my own leg off in a bid to escape. It’s like scenes from ‘The Thing’, or from ‘Annihilation’ – the entity that has taken you over has mimicked your base genetics to such an extent that it itself identifies as you, all the way to mirroring your self destructive actions so it too self destructs.
It is shocking to realise that we are living in the age of machine politics – the voters are just a coin toss to decide who heads the machine. Whoever you vote for the Government gets in.
Generally machine politics grind on until the corruption of the political ideology becomes too great. Are we there yet?
Successive crises and the economic revolution post 1970s have morphed Labour wholly away from its roots in the mass working class unionized movement. Such a party naturally would want to fight a global capitalist club like the modern EU. It is hysterically funny to see armies of modern Leftie Remainers bend the knee to Mrs Thatcher’s great creation – the single market- which basically smashed and shattered national labour markets!!! I bet the barons of German industry chuckle daily at the astonishing support the Left give to Global Capitalisms No 1 Club. What ignorance!!!! Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face. It is a shallow empty vessel. Its total ideological void after the death of socialism and the Torys surrender to welfarism is filled only with strident toxic identitarianism and grabbing the colour green to justify Soviet style of red state spending.
Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face.
They’d probably have a go at the miner for “cultural appropriation” and make him a case study for their diversity training.
I fear you are correct. But who am I going to vote for – the Liberals?!
PR would go a long way towards solving the stupid binary system we currently have. Till then Labour will be the natural home of the anti-tory vote.
I fear you are correct. But who am I going to vote for – the Liberals?!
PR would go a long way towards solving the stupid binary system we currently have. Till then Labour will be the natural home of the anti-tory vote.
Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face.
They’d probably have a go at the miner for “cultural appropriation” and make him a case study for their diversity training.
It is shocking to realise that we are living in the age of machine politics – the voters are just a coin toss to decide who heads the machine. Whoever you vote for the Government gets in.
Generally machine politics grind on until the corruption of the political ideology becomes too great. Are we there yet?
Successive crises and the economic revolution post 1970s have morphed Labour wholly away from its roots in the mass working class unionized movement. Such a party naturally would want to fight a global capitalist club like the modern EU. It is hysterically funny to see armies of modern Leftie Remainers bend the knee to Mrs Thatcher’s great creation – the single market- which basically smashed and shattered national labour markets!!! I bet the barons of German industry chuckle daily at the astonishing support the Left give to Global Capitalisms No 1 Club. What ignorance!!!! Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face. It is a shallow empty vessel. Its total ideological void after the death of socialism and the Torys surrender to welfarism is filled only with strident toxic identitarianism and grabbing the colour green to justify Soviet style of red state spending.
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
“…if the EU has all these obviously egregious impacts on the goals of the Left, then why have so many Labour Leavers seemingly given up on Brexit? Part of the reason, it seems to me, is that the Labour Party has totally and catastrophically vacated the post-Brexit policy space to the Right…”
I don’t agree with this conclusion at all I’m afraid. The real reason is much starker: the Labour party of today is not in any way shape or form the Labour party of it’s roots, or even of three decades ago. Your instinctive alignment with Labour, as mine with the Conservatives, is now a mirage. Both parties have undergone metamorphoses so great, that nothing remains of the original except the shell and the name that still clings to them. For example, what on earth has happened to the UK Left, that it no longer buys into civil liberties? This is no longer a Left or Right that I recognise.
In my case, the horrific realisation dawned through both parties reactions to the pandemic and it’s aftermath, but snapped into focus when first Johnson and then Truss were ousted, followed by ensconcing Hunt as the power behind the scenes. It’s like discovering you are chained to an alien zombie corpse, and my frenzied and horrified reaction in response, is to attempt to chew my own leg off in a bid to escape. It’s like scenes from ‘The Thing’, or from ‘Annihilation’ – the entity that has taken you over has mimicked your base genetics to such an extent that it itself identifies as you, all the way to mirroring your self destructive actions so it too self destructs.
Last edited 1 year ago by Prashant Kotak
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
An excellent article. Too often the Left-leaning Brexiteer is forgotten, when the chattering classes want to brand us all as racist little-Enganders (no racist little-Welshman, I notice although they voted to leave also). It never occurs that such voters, of which I am one, (and even many right-leaning voters) voted to leave because of the entire non-democratic, opaque structure which is the EU. No-one expected there not to be some hiccups, and some short-term financial problems, but the problems that we are experiencing are a combination of the Lab/Lib/SNP “coalition’s” attempts to thwart the result. plus a pandemic, plus a war.
There may well have been some principled people who voted to remain, but whenever I hear complaints it usually of the sort that they’ll have difficulties getting to their villas in Spain or farm-houses in Tuscany. I also heard some youngsters, who would have not know a time before the EU, actually saying to me, before the referendum, that they wouldn’t be able to go to the continent, even on holiday, without visa and maybe not at all, and wouldn’t be able to use the Interrail pass anymore; it was difficult to disabuse them of these false ideas that they had. Of course, many were, understandably, afraid of the unknown, and there were others who wanted to be “on the right side of history”. There were still others who didn’t want to “get into bed” with Nigel Farage; I did argue that sometime,s even if you disagree with someone on many other points, you can agree on one point, and that doesn’t make you some sort of traitor to your cause. However, my general impression was no-one had anything positive to say about remaining, I will say that I was honestly looking for someone who could convince me that staying was the better option, for positive reasons, not negative ones.
Well put Linda. I’m baffled as to why socialists would support the white trade fortress of the EU, except for the reasons of entitlement for their champagne socialist elite. I have similar motivations to his in wishing to see Brexit free us to lead the world – and we have on vaccines and Ukraine. Commonwealth next please.
Interesting that you say opaque but the writer uses ‘untransparent”! Potato, potaatto 🙂
Do you think that the world is clamouring for Britain to come and lead it? Or do you just think that the people of Britain are so much smarter and cleverer than the rest or humanity that it is obvious you would manage better than anyone else on the planet if the EU was not holding you back?
Wow Rasmus you have a real downer on the U.K.
In answer to your question, I don’t think we’re any cleverer than anyone else, and the world isn’t clamouring for our leadership. But, due to our history and some luck (in leaving the EU at the right time), we are in a fantastic place to provide help to those who would like help through the commonwealth organisation; and our new independence meant we could decide to take action when our people wanted it – developing vaccines; supporting Ukraine.
Wow Rasmus you have a real downer on the U.K.
In answer to your question, I don’t think we’re any cleverer than anyone else, and the world isn’t clamouring for our leadership. But, due to our history and some luck (in leaving the EU at the right time), we are in a fantastic place to provide help to those who would like help through the commonwealth organisation; and our new independence meant we could decide to take action when our people wanted it – developing vaccines; supporting Ukraine.
Do you think that the world is clamouring for Britain to come and lead it? Or do you just think that the people of Britain are so much smarter and cleverer than the rest or humanity that it is obvious you would manage better than anyone else on the planet if the EU was not holding you back?
Well put Linda. I’m baffled as to why socialists would support the white trade fortress of the EU, except for the reasons of entitlement for their champagne socialist elite. I have similar motivations to his in wishing to see Brexit free us to lead the world – and we have on vaccines and Ukraine. Commonwealth next please.
Interesting that you say opaque but the writer uses ‘untransparent”! Potato, potaatto 🙂
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
An excellent article. Too often the Left-leaning Brexiteer is forgotten, when the chattering classes want to brand us all as racist little-Enganders (no racist little-Welshman, I notice although they voted to leave also). It never occurs that such voters, of which I am one, (and even many right-leaning voters) voted to leave because of the entire non-democratic, opaque structure which is the EU. No-one expected there not to be some hiccups, and some short-term financial problems, but the problems that we are experiencing are a combination of the Lab/Lib/SNP “coalition’s” attempts to thwart the result. plus a pandemic, plus a war.
There may well have been some principled people who voted to remain, but whenever I hear complaints it usually of the sort that they’ll have difficulties getting to their villas in Spain or farm-houses in Tuscany. I also heard some youngsters, who would have not know a time before the EU, actually saying to me, before the referendum, that they wouldn’t be able to go to the continent, even on holiday, without visa and maybe not at all, and wouldn’t be able to use the Interrail pass anymore; it was difficult to disabuse them of these false ideas that they had. Of course, many were, understandably, afraid of the unknown, and there were others who wanted to be “on the right side of history”. There were still others who didn’t want to “get into bed” with Nigel Farage; I did argue that sometime,s even if you disagree with someone on many other points, you can agree on one point, and that doesn’t make you some sort of traitor to your cause. However, my general impression was no-one had anything positive to say about remaining, I will say that I was honestly looking for someone who could convince me that staying was the better option, for positive reasons, not negative ones.
Last edited 1 year ago by Linda Hutchinson
Jim Jam
1 year ago
Good luck getting your average modern Labour member or supporter to back a campaign charecterised by working class folk waving Union flags. For them it was disgust and fear that determined their stance – everything else that followed was merely post-hoc rationalisation.
At the last election there were few or no Labour posters to be seen in East Barnet, but in Highgate, where house prices are almost exclusively in the millions, it seemed like every building was festooned with them.
This is disturbing not just because of what it says about Labour but also because it indicates the extent to which the middle class has become dependent on the state for its wealth.
Correct. I am astonished that the root cause of a deranged vitriolic Remaina is not more widely understood. Remainia was and is rooted in the determination of the metro property owning class (1997-) to preserve the untaxed fruits of a rigged property market which made every owner in a half decent area a property millionaire. This was a socio- economic and class revolution, triggering appalling regional inequity. This calculated heist was dependent on the EU status quo – firstly, the uncontrolled 600000 plus migrants guaranteeing demand (shattering the public sector of course but who cares? One has private health now). Our entire political class, cosy in their now 3/4m Islington homes, then made sure we built zero houses to accomodate. Demand/Supply Sorted. And hey presto! You have a new class of super rich Remainiacs desperate to preserve a Midas Machine of Bricks and potcode, wholly unlinked to merit or work. Base naked ugly greed is the unacknowledged root of Remainia. They waved EU flags and hissed with hatred toward uneducated racyist northern gammons but knew and cared sod all the EU Empire itself. Remember this when these pious creepy supposedly pro EU pour venom on Brexit. You have fooled no one. We know.
Yes. I think historians of the future will view remainers as the most brutal generation of elite class warriors that this country has so far produced. They’re far worse than the old aristocracy, who at least had some concern for the wider good.
Yes. I think historians of the future will view remainers as the most brutal generation of elite class warriors that this country has so far produced. They’re far worse than the old aristocracy, who at least had some concern for the wider good.
Absolutely the same here. Come election time, you’d barely know there was an election on, this is a neighbourhood more inclined to hang their England flags in their windows than to indulge in political posturing.
However, if I walk down towards the sea into the land of detached houses and range rovers, come election time everything is draped with labour or green party signs.
Correct. I am astonished that the root cause of a deranged vitriolic Remaina is not more widely understood. Remainia was and is rooted in the determination of the metro property owning class (1997-) to preserve the untaxed fruits of a rigged property market which made every owner in a half decent area a property millionaire. This was a socio- economic and class revolution, triggering appalling regional inequity. This calculated heist was dependent on the EU status quo – firstly, the uncontrolled 600000 plus migrants guaranteeing demand (shattering the public sector of course but who cares? One has private health now). Our entire political class, cosy in their now 3/4m Islington homes, then made sure we built zero houses to accomodate. Demand/Supply Sorted. And hey presto! You have a new class of super rich Remainiacs desperate to preserve a Midas Machine of Bricks and potcode, wholly unlinked to merit or work. Base naked ugly greed is the unacknowledged root of Remainia. They waved EU flags and hissed with hatred toward uneducated racyist northern gammons but knew and cared sod all the EU Empire itself. Remember this when these pious creepy supposedly pro EU pour venom on Brexit. You have fooled no one. We know.
Absolutely the same here. Come election time, you’d barely know there was an election on, this is a neighbourhood more inclined to hang their England flags in their windows than to indulge in political posturing.
However, if I walk down towards the sea into the land of detached houses and range rovers, come election time everything is draped with labour or green party signs.
At the last election there were few or no Labour posters to be seen in East Barnet, but in Highgate, where house prices are almost exclusively in the millions, it seemed like every building was festooned with them.
This is disturbing not just because of what it says about Labour but also because it indicates the extent to which the middle class has become dependent on the state for its wealth.
Jim Jam
1 year ago
Good luck getting your average modern Labour member or supporter to back a campaign charecterised by working class folk waving Union flags. For them it was disgust and fear that determined their stance – everything else that followed was merely post-hoc rationalisation.
Last edited 1 year ago by Jim Jam
Katy Hibbert
1 year ago
The Labour party is no longer the party of the working class. It’s the party of the wealthy Guardian-reader. They are trustafarians or “work” in some public-sector sinecure. They’re concerned about their skiing holiday or trips to their Tuscan villas being less convenient because of those nasty gammons. Brexit meant that for the first time in their entitled, smug, pointless lives they didn’t get their own way, and they were, and still are, determined to destroy it.
Katy Hibbert
1 year ago
The Labour party is no longer the party of the working class. It’s the party of the wealthy Guardian-reader. They are trustafarians or “work” in some public-sector sinecure. They’re concerned about their skiing holiday or trips to their Tuscan villas being less convenient because of those nasty gammons. Brexit meant that for the first time in their entitled, smug, pointless lives they didn’t get their own way, and they were, and still are, determined to destroy it.
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
You witnessed the most abject betrayal of democracy seen in Europe in our lifetimes and you ‘came close’ to quitting. Ballsy of you.
That’s what i thought too! Like those Labour MPs who sit by whilst their female colleagues are physically harrassed by males in the House of Commons. Careers more important than principles? What a surprise.
That is why Boris continues to attract approval and votes
He prevented what amounted to a coup lead by a traitorous speaker, devoid of principles, and a leader of the opposition devoid of principles. To make up for JCs lack of brains he recruited Starmer to do the dirty work. As we have seen since he is also totally devoid of principles
He didn’t consider resigning he fought the blob and the courts and prevailed
and Boris is the one accused of being untrustworthy
That’s what i thought too! Like those Labour MPs who sit by whilst their female colleagues are physically harrassed by males in the House of Commons. Careers more important than principles? What a surprise.
That is why Boris continues to attract approval and votes
He prevented what amounted to a coup lead by a traitorous speaker, devoid of principles, and a leader of the opposition devoid of principles. To make up for JCs lack of brains he recruited Starmer to do the dirty work. As we have seen since he is also totally devoid of principles
He didn’t consider resigning he fought the blob and the courts and prevailed
and Boris is the one accused of being untrustworthy
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
You witnessed the most abject betrayal of democracy seen in Europe in our lifetimes and you ‘came close’ to quitting. Ballsy of you.
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
Labour is not making the case for Brexit because they intend to re-join the EU, presumably under whatever conditions the EU imposes such as using the Euro.
‘How can we use procurement better now that we are out of the Single Market? How can we follow the example of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Act to provide economic stimulus through publicly supported domestic manufacturing?’ Manufacturing is for white males. Labour members would prefer to continue buying products from slave factories in Asia.
‘What would a socialist trade policy look like, once protection of continental European industries and agriculture is removed from the equation?’ Labour members aren’t interested in agriculture. They prefer to leave growing and harvesting crops to illegal immigrants working for people traffickers.
Corbyn has the chance in 2016 to open up the debate over the EU and demand the deficiencies over democracy and transparency be addressed. Had he done so, he would now be the most important political figure in Europe and either the current PM or PM in waiting. Instead he preferred not to enlighten the deluded young and to leave them singing his name at Glastonbury.
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is anything but…name one noteworthy project resulting from what is just another gross outlay of federal spending lining the coffers of unions. Joe Biden has American taxpayers paying off the pensions of union workers when said taxpayers can hardly put money aside for themselves. Of course unions line the Democrat Party pockets.
There will be a big price to pay for Biden’s profligacy… $400Billion on student debt paydown, $397 Billion on the ridiculously named Inflation reduction act and to top it all $1 trillion on the Infrastructure renewal bill. The US has reached its debt ceiling and for all American readers your Country will run out of money by August this year at the latest. Janet Yellen a vocal critic of the UK’s “Trussonomics” is eating her own words now.
There will be a big price to pay for Biden’s profligacy… $400Billion on student debt paydown, $397 Billion on the ridiculously named Inflation reduction act and to top it all $1 trillion on the Infrastructure renewal bill. The US has reached its debt ceiling and for all American readers your Country will run out of money by August this year at the latest. Janet Yellen a vocal critic of the UK’s “Trussonomics” is eating her own words now.
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is anything but…name one noteworthy project resulting from what is just another gross outlay of federal spending lining the coffers of unions. Joe Biden has American taxpayers paying off the pensions of union workers when said taxpayers can hardly put money aside for themselves. Of course unions line the Democrat Party pockets.
Last edited 1 year ago by Cathy Carron
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
Labour is not making the case for Brexit because they intend to re-join the EU, presumably under whatever conditions the EU imposes such as using the Euro.
‘How can we use procurement better now that we are out of the Single Market? How can we follow the example of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Act to provide economic stimulus through publicly supported domestic manufacturing?’ Manufacturing is for white males. Labour members would prefer to continue buying products from slave factories in Asia.
‘What would a socialist trade policy look like, once protection of continental European industries and agriculture is removed from the equation?’ Labour members aren’t interested in agriculture. They prefer to leave growing and harvesting crops to illegal immigrants working for people traffickers.
Corbyn has the chance in 2016 to open up the debate over the EU and demand the deficiencies over democracy and transparency be addressed. Had he done so, he would now be the most important political figure in Europe and either the current PM or PM in waiting. Instead he preferred not to enlighten the deluded young and to leave them singing his name at Glastonbury.
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
The author cites the principles of “democracy, socialism, and internationalism” as reasons why he was both a Leave voter and remains a Labour Party supporter. Very well. I wonder what, then, is his view of the elitist, corporatist, globalist apparatus of hard law top-down global governance that is, literally as we speak, being constructed around the WHO and other UN institutions with the full-throated support of Labour’s Trilateral Commission-member leader? It’s Geneva, not Brussels, that the author ought be worried about if it’s a genuinely progressive, bottom up, liberal democratic socialism that he wants to see.
I would urge Dr Johnson to look into this with the open, enquiring mind of the great academic that I have no doubt he is.
That’s right, and I have no reason to think that the author does love the WEF etc. But if one is concerned with national sovereignty and democracy in 2023, it makes no sense to be focusing, from the left or the right, on “making the case for Brexit”, when there are much bigger, more relevant fish to fry at the global level.
That’s right, and I have no reason to think that the author does love the WEF etc. But if one is concerned with national sovereignty and democracy in 2023, it makes no sense to be focusing, from the left or the right, on “making the case for Brexit”, when there are much bigger, more relevant fish to fry at the global level.
Just because you hate the EU doesn’t mean you have to love the WEF etc. I’d have thought the opposite to be true.
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
The author cites the principles of “democracy, socialism, and internationalism” as reasons why he was both a Leave voter and remains a Labour Party supporter. Very well. I wonder what, then, is his view of the elitist, corporatist, globalist apparatus of hard law top-down global governance that is, literally as we speak, being constructed around the WHO and other UN institutions with the full-throated support of Labour’s Trilateral Commission-member leader? It’s Geneva, not Brussels, that the author ought be worried about if it’s a genuinely progressive, bottom up, liberal democratic socialism that he wants to see.
I would urge Dr Johnson to look into this with the open, enquiring mind of the great academic that I have no doubt he is.
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Just one word:
Hallelujah!
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Just one word:
Hallelujah!
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago
Oh, the hard ones first? It’s simple. Labour would rather stick its genitals into a sausage machine than adopt any policy which conflicts with uncontrolled immigration.
Oh, the hard ones first? It’s simple. Labour would rather stick its genitals into a sausage machine than adopt any policy which conflicts with uncontrolled immigration.
rob drummond
1 year ago
You are a Lecturer in US Politics. The questions for Americans (especially those who have no clue what The EU actually is) is this:
“Would you want to join an organisation that took (in US terms) $120bn a year from your own services and let people you cannot vote for dictate your laws – you cannot sack and are completely unaccountable to you?” – I know the answer.
And please – nobody give me a lecture on the EU “Parliament democracy” – its nothing of the kind (but puts on a show) as its the unelected Commissioners who have the power. (And blackmail smaller states with funding) If you donr know that you dont know enough.
Last edited 1 year ago by rob drummond
rob drummond
1 year ago
You are a Lecturer in US Politics. The questions for Americans (especially those who have no clue what The EU actually is) is this:
“Would you want to join an organisation that took (in US terms) $120bn a year from your own services and let people you cannot vote for dictate your laws – you cannot sack and are completely unaccountable to you?” – I know the answer.
And please – nobody give me a lecture on the EU “Parliament democracy” – its nothing of the kind (but puts on a show) as its the unelected Commissioners who have the power. (And blackmail smaller states with funding) If you donr know that you dont know enough.
Last edited 1 year ago by rob drummond
Dustin Needle
1 year ago
Best article on Brexit I have read for ages. The incompetence of Conservatives has understandably dominated news media – deservedly so as they are the government after all, also the ones who launched the Referendum, with no intent to plan for both outcomes.
But Labour’s curious role – and Starmer’s in particular – in rejecting the 5 options presented to Parrliament by Teresa May, has puzzled me from time to time. Why not abstain on the softest one, allow the vote to pass and watch the Tories implode implementing it?
This article makes it abundantly clear. Labour is still a creature of “New” Labour and the name of the game is Social Europe (paragraph 3) and the destruction of UK two party politics. PM Milliband (D) taking orders from Brussels is no longer an Andrew Adonis wet dream, it’s a distinct likelihood in the next 5 years.
Like terrorists, New Labour only need to get lucky (with a GE vote) once. Then they will exercise any working majority, even via coalition, far more ruthlessly than the Tories did with their straight 80 seat majority.
Dustin Needle
1 year ago
Best article on Brexit I have read for ages. The incompetence of Conservatives has understandably dominated news media – deservedly so as they are the government after all, also the ones who launched the Referendum, with no intent to plan for both outcomes.
But Labour’s curious role – and Starmer’s in particular – in rejecting the 5 options presented to Parrliament by Teresa May, has puzzled me from time to time. Why not abstain on the softest one, allow the vote to pass and watch the Tories implode implementing it?
This article makes it abundantly clear. Labour is still a creature of “New” Labour and the name of the game is Social Europe (paragraph 3) and the destruction of UK two party politics. PM Milliband (D) taking orders from Brussels is no longer an Andrew Adonis wet dream, it’s a distinct likelihood in the next 5 years.
Like terrorists, New Labour only need to get lucky (with a GE vote) once. Then they will exercise any working majority, even via coalition, far more ruthlessly than the Tories did with their straight 80 seat majority.
“…if the EU has all these obviously egregious impacts on the goals of the Left, then why have so many Labour Leavers seemingly given up on Brexit? Part of the reason, it seems to me, is that the Labour Party has totally and catastrophically vacated the post-Brexit policy space to the Right…”
I don’t agree with this conclusion at all I’m afraid. The real reason is much starker: the Labour party of today is not in any way shape or form the Labour party of it’s roots, or even of three decades ago. Your instinctive alignment with Labour, as mine with the Conservatives, is now a mirage. Both parties have undergone metamorphoses so great, that nothing remains of the original except the shell and the name that still clings to them. For example, what on earth has happened to the UK Left, that it no longer buys into civil liberties? This is no longer a Left or Right that I recognise.
In my case, the horrific realisation dawned through both parties reactions to the pandemic and it’s aftermath, but snapped into focus when first Johnson and then Truss were ousted, followed by ensconcing Hunt as the power behind the scenes. It’s like discovering you are chained to an alien zombie corpse, and my frenzied and horrified reaction in response, is to attempt to chew my own leg off in a bid to escape. It’s like scenes from ‘The Thing’, or from ‘Annihilation’ – the entity that has taken you over has mimicked your base genetics to such an extent that it itself identifies as you, all the way to mirroring your self destructive actions so it too self destructs.
It is shocking to realise that we are living in the age of machine politics – the voters are just a coin toss to decide who heads the machine. Whoever you vote for the Government gets in.
Generally machine politics grind on until the corruption of the political ideology becomes too great. Are we there yet?
Probably not. There’s a powerful support mechanism keeping it all going: Big Money.
Probably not. There’s a powerful support mechanism keeping it all going: Big Money.
It’s simple, really. Having lost Scotland Labour has to win the home counties. Working and small business people can go hang.
Successive crises and the economic revolution post 1970s have morphed Labour wholly away from its roots in the mass working class unionized movement. Such a party naturally would want to fight a global capitalist club like the modern EU. It is hysterically funny to see armies of modern Leftie Remainers bend the knee to Mrs Thatcher’s great creation – the single market- which basically smashed and shattered national labour markets!!! I bet the barons of German industry chuckle daily at the astonishing support the Left give to Global Capitalisms No 1 Club. What ignorance!!!! Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face. It is a shallow empty vessel. Its total ideological void after the death of socialism and the Torys surrender to welfarism is filled only with strident toxic identitarianism and grabbing the colour green to justify Soviet style of red state spending.
Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face.
They’d probably have a go at the miner for “cultural appropriation” and make him a case study for their diversity training.
I laughed at your last sentence because, unfortunately, it’s true.
Me too!!!!
Me too!!!!
I fear you are correct. But who am I going to vote for – the Liberals?!
PR would go a long way towards solving the stupid binary system we currently have. Till then Labour will be the natural home of the anti-tory vote.
I laughed at your last sentence because, unfortunately, it’s true.
I fear you are correct. But who am I going to vote for – the Liberals?!
PR would go a long way towards solving the stupid binary system we currently have. Till then Labour will be the natural home of the anti-tory vote.
Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face.
They’d probably have a go at the miner for “cultural appropriation” and make him a case study for their diversity training.
It is shocking to realise that we are living in the age of machine politics – the voters are just a coin toss to decide who heads the machine. Whoever you vote for the Government gets in.
Generally machine politics grind on until the corruption of the political ideology becomes too great. Are we there yet?
It’s simple, really. Having lost Scotland Labour has to win the home counties. Working and small business people can go hang.
Successive crises and the economic revolution post 1970s have morphed Labour wholly away from its roots in the mass working class unionized movement. Such a party naturally would want to fight a global capitalist club like the modern EU. It is hysterically funny to see armies of modern Leftie Remainers bend the knee to Mrs Thatcher’s great creation – the single market- which basically smashed and shattered national labour markets!!! I bet the barons of German industry chuckle daily at the astonishing support the Left give to Global Capitalisms No 1 Club. What ignorance!!!! Labour today is an urban white collar public sector club full of pious class war progressives and students who would shriek if they saw a coal blackened miner face. It is a shallow empty vessel. Its total ideological void after the death of socialism and the Torys surrender to welfarism is filled only with strident toxic identitarianism and grabbing the colour green to justify Soviet style of red state spending.
“…if the EU has all these obviously egregious impacts on the goals of the Left, then why have so many Labour Leavers seemingly given up on Brexit? Part of the reason, it seems to me, is that the Labour Party has totally and catastrophically vacated the post-Brexit policy space to the Right…”
I don’t agree with this conclusion at all I’m afraid. The real reason is much starker: the Labour party of today is not in any way shape or form the Labour party of it’s roots, or even of three decades ago. Your instinctive alignment with Labour, as mine with the Conservatives, is now a mirage. Both parties have undergone metamorphoses so great, that nothing remains of the original except the shell and the name that still clings to them. For example, what on earth has happened to the UK Left, that it no longer buys into civil liberties? This is no longer a Left or Right that I recognise.
In my case, the horrific realisation dawned through both parties reactions to the pandemic and it’s aftermath, but snapped into focus when first Johnson and then Truss were ousted, followed by ensconcing Hunt as the power behind the scenes. It’s like discovering you are chained to an alien zombie corpse, and my frenzied and horrified reaction in response, is to attempt to chew my own leg off in a bid to escape. It’s like scenes from ‘The Thing’, or from ‘Annihilation’ – the entity that has taken you over has mimicked your base genetics to such an extent that it itself identifies as you, all the way to mirroring your self destructive actions so it too self destructs.
An excellent article. Too often the Left-leaning Brexiteer is forgotten, when the chattering classes want to brand us all as racist little-Enganders (no racist little-Welshman, I notice although they voted to leave also). It never occurs that such voters, of which I am one, (and even many right-leaning voters) voted to leave because of the entire non-democratic, opaque structure which is the EU. No-one expected there not to be some hiccups, and some short-term financial problems, but the problems that we are experiencing are a combination of the Lab/Lib/SNP “coalition’s” attempts to thwart the result. plus a pandemic, plus a war.
There may well have been some principled people who voted to remain, but whenever I hear complaints it usually of the sort that they’ll have difficulties getting to their villas in Spain or farm-houses in Tuscany. I also heard some youngsters, who would have not know a time before the EU, actually saying to me, before the referendum, that they wouldn’t be able to go to the continent, even on holiday, without visa and maybe not at all, and wouldn’t be able to use the Interrail pass anymore; it was difficult to disabuse them of these false ideas that they had. Of course, many were, understandably, afraid of the unknown, and there were others who wanted to be “on the right side of history”. There were still others who didn’t want to “get into bed” with Nigel Farage; I did argue that sometime,s even if you disagree with someone on many other points, you can agree on one point, and that doesn’t make you some sort of traitor to your cause. However, my general impression was no-one had anything positive to say about remaining, I will say that I was honestly looking for someone who could convince me that staying was the better option, for positive reasons, not negative ones.
Well put Linda. I’m baffled as to why socialists would support the white trade fortress of the EU, except for the reasons of entitlement for their champagne socialist elite. I have similar motivations to his in wishing to see Brexit free us to lead the world – and we have on vaccines and Ukraine. Commonwealth next please.
Interesting that you say opaque but the writer uses ‘untransparent”! Potato, potaatto 🙂
Do you think that the world is clamouring for Britain to come and lead it? Or do you just think that the people of Britain are so much smarter and cleverer than the rest or humanity that it is obvious you would manage better than anyone else on the planet if the EU was not holding you back?
It’s about self-determination, and not being part of the empire-building that the EU is engaging in.
Wow Rasmus you have a real downer on the U.K.
In answer to your question, I don’t think we’re any cleverer than anyone else, and the world isn’t clamouring for our leadership. But, due to our history and some luck (in leaving the EU at the right time), we are in a fantastic place to provide help to those who would like help through the commonwealth organisation; and our new independence meant we could decide to take action when our people wanted it – developing vaccines; supporting Ukraine.
It’s about self-determination, and not being part of the empire-building that the EU is engaging in.
Wow Rasmus you have a real downer on the U.K.
In answer to your question, I don’t think we’re any cleverer than anyone else, and the world isn’t clamouring for our leadership. But, due to our history and some luck (in leaving the EU at the right time), we are in a fantastic place to provide help to those who would like help through the commonwealth organisation; and our new independence meant we could decide to take action when our people wanted it – developing vaccines; supporting Ukraine.
Do you think that the world is clamouring for Britain to come and lead it? Or do you just think that the people of Britain are so much smarter and cleverer than the rest or humanity that it is obvious you would manage better than anyone else on the planet if the EU was not holding you back?
Well put Linda. I’m baffled as to why socialists would support the white trade fortress of the EU, except for the reasons of entitlement for their champagne socialist elite. I have similar motivations to his in wishing to see Brexit free us to lead the world – and we have on vaccines and Ukraine. Commonwealth next please.
Interesting that you say opaque but the writer uses ‘untransparent”! Potato, potaatto 🙂
An excellent article. Too often the Left-leaning Brexiteer is forgotten, when the chattering classes want to brand us all as racist little-Enganders (no racist little-Welshman, I notice although they voted to leave also). It never occurs that such voters, of which I am one, (and even many right-leaning voters) voted to leave because of the entire non-democratic, opaque structure which is the EU. No-one expected there not to be some hiccups, and some short-term financial problems, but the problems that we are experiencing are a combination of the Lab/Lib/SNP “coalition’s” attempts to thwart the result. plus a pandemic, plus a war.
There may well have been some principled people who voted to remain, but whenever I hear complaints it usually of the sort that they’ll have difficulties getting to their villas in Spain or farm-houses in Tuscany. I also heard some youngsters, who would have not know a time before the EU, actually saying to me, before the referendum, that they wouldn’t be able to go to the continent, even on holiday, without visa and maybe not at all, and wouldn’t be able to use the Interrail pass anymore; it was difficult to disabuse them of these false ideas that they had. Of course, many were, understandably, afraid of the unknown, and there were others who wanted to be “on the right side of history”. There were still others who didn’t want to “get into bed” with Nigel Farage; I did argue that sometime,s even if you disagree with someone on many other points, you can agree on one point, and that doesn’t make you some sort of traitor to your cause. However, my general impression was no-one had anything positive to say about remaining, I will say that I was honestly looking for someone who could convince me that staying was the better option, for positive reasons, not negative ones.
Good luck getting your average modern Labour member or supporter to back a campaign charecterised by working class folk waving Union flags. For them it was disgust and fear that determined their stance – everything else that followed was merely post-hoc rationalisation.
At the last election there were few or no Labour posters to be seen in East Barnet, but in Highgate, where house prices are almost exclusively in the millions, it seemed like every building was festooned with them.
This is disturbing not just because of what it says about Labour but also because it indicates the extent to which the middle class has become dependent on the state for its wealth.
Correct. I am astonished that the root cause of a deranged vitriolic Remaina is not more widely understood. Remainia was and is rooted in the determination of the metro property owning class (1997-) to preserve the untaxed fruits of a rigged property market which made every owner in a half decent area a property millionaire. This was a socio- economic and class revolution, triggering appalling regional inequity. This calculated heist was dependent on the EU status quo – firstly, the uncontrolled 600000 plus migrants guaranteeing demand (shattering the public sector of course but who cares? One has private health now). Our entire political class, cosy in their now 3/4m Islington homes, then made sure we built zero houses to accomodate. Demand/Supply Sorted. And hey presto! You have a new class of super rich Remainiacs desperate to preserve a Midas Machine of Bricks and potcode, wholly unlinked to merit or work. Base naked ugly greed is the unacknowledged root of Remainia. They waved EU flags and hissed with hatred toward uneducated racyist northern gammons but knew and cared sod all the EU Empire itself. Remember this when these pious creepy supposedly pro EU pour venom on Brexit. You have fooled no one. We know.
Yes. I think historians of the future will view remainers as the most brutal generation of elite class warriors that this country has so far produced. They’re far worse than the old aristocracy, who at least had some concern for the wider good.
Yes. I think historians of the future will view remainers as the most brutal generation of elite class warriors that this country has so far produced. They’re far worse than the old aristocracy, who at least had some concern for the wider good.
Absolutely the same here. Come election time, you’d barely know there was an election on, this is a neighbourhood more inclined to hang their England flags in their windows than to indulge in political posturing.
However, if I walk down towards the sea into the land of detached houses and range rovers, come election time everything is draped with labour or green party signs.
Correct. I am astonished that the root cause of a deranged vitriolic Remaina is not more widely understood. Remainia was and is rooted in the determination of the metro property owning class (1997-) to preserve the untaxed fruits of a rigged property market which made every owner in a half decent area a property millionaire. This was a socio- economic and class revolution, triggering appalling regional inequity. This calculated heist was dependent on the EU status quo – firstly, the uncontrolled 600000 plus migrants guaranteeing demand (shattering the public sector of course but who cares? One has private health now). Our entire political class, cosy in their now 3/4m Islington homes, then made sure we built zero houses to accomodate. Demand/Supply Sorted. And hey presto! You have a new class of super rich Remainiacs desperate to preserve a Midas Machine of Bricks and potcode, wholly unlinked to merit or work. Base naked ugly greed is the unacknowledged root of Remainia. They waved EU flags and hissed with hatred toward uneducated racyist northern gammons but knew and cared sod all the EU Empire itself. Remember this when these pious creepy supposedly pro EU pour venom on Brexit. You have fooled no one. We know.
Absolutely the same here. Come election time, you’d barely know there was an election on, this is a neighbourhood more inclined to hang their England flags in their windows than to indulge in political posturing.
However, if I walk down towards the sea into the land of detached houses and range rovers, come election time everything is draped with labour or green party signs.
At the last election there were few or no Labour posters to be seen in East Barnet, but in Highgate, where house prices are almost exclusively in the millions, it seemed like every building was festooned with them.
This is disturbing not just because of what it says about Labour but also because it indicates the extent to which the middle class has become dependent on the state for its wealth.
Good luck getting your average modern Labour member or supporter to back a campaign charecterised by working class folk waving Union flags. For them it was disgust and fear that determined their stance – everything else that followed was merely post-hoc rationalisation.
The Labour party is no longer the party of the working class. It’s the party of the wealthy Guardian-reader. They are trustafarians or “work” in some public-sector sinecure. They’re concerned about their skiing holiday or trips to their Tuscan villas being less convenient because of those nasty gammons. Brexit meant that for the first time in their entitled, smug, pointless lives they didn’t get their own way, and they were, and still are, determined to destroy it.
The Labour party is no longer the party of the working class. It’s the party of the wealthy Guardian-reader. They are trustafarians or “work” in some public-sector sinecure. They’re concerned about their skiing holiday or trips to their Tuscan villas being less convenient because of those nasty gammons. Brexit meant that for the first time in their entitled, smug, pointless lives they didn’t get their own way, and they were, and still are, determined to destroy it.
You witnessed the most abject betrayal of democracy seen in Europe in our lifetimes and you ‘came close’ to quitting. Ballsy of you.
That’s what i thought too! Like those Labour MPs who sit by whilst their female colleagues are physically harrassed by males in the House of Commons. Careers more important than principles? What a surprise.
Or the way Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman were harassed by Labour anti-semites while Keir Starmer did…….what?
Or the way Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman were harassed by Labour anti-semites while Keir Starmer did…….what?
That is why Boris continues to attract approval and votes
He prevented what amounted to a coup lead by a traitorous speaker, devoid of principles, and a leader of the opposition devoid of principles. To make up for JCs lack of brains he recruited Starmer to do the dirty work. As we have seen since he is also totally devoid of principles
He didn’t consider resigning he fought the blob and the courts and prevailed
and Boris is the one accused of being untrustworthy
That’s what i thought too! Like those Labour MPs who sit by whilst their female colleagues are physically harrassed by males in the House of Commons. Careers more important than principles? What a surprise.
That is why Boris continues to attract approval and votes
He prevented what amounted to a coup lead by a traitorous speaker, devoid of principles, and a leader of the opposition devoid of principles. To make up for JCs lack of brains he recruited Starmer to do the dirty work. As we have seen since he is also totally devoid of principles
He didn’t consider resigning he fought the blob and the courts and prevailed
and Boris is the one accused of being untrustworthy
You witnessed the most abject betrayal of democracy seen in Europe in our lifetimes and you ‘came close’ to quitting. Ballsy of you.
Labour is not making the case for Brexit because they intend to re-join the EU, presumably under whatever conditions the EU imposes such as using the Euro.
‘How can we use procurement better now that we are out of the Single Market? How can we follow the example of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Act to provide economic stimulus through publicly supported domestic manufacturing?’ Manufacturing is for white males. Labour members would prefer to continue buying products from slave factories in Asia.
‘What would a socialist trade policy look like, once protection of continental European industries and agriculture is removed from the equation?’ Labour members aren’t interested in agriculture. They prefer to leave growing and harvesting crops to illegal immigrants working for people traffickers.
Corbyn has the chance in 2016 to open up the debate over the EU and demand the deficiencies over democracy and transparency be addressed. Had he done so, he would now be the most important political figure in Europe and either the current PM or PM in waiting. Instead he preferred not to enlighten the deluded young and to leave them singing his name at Glastonbury.
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is anything but…name one noteworthy project resulting from what is just another gross outlay of federal spending lining the coffers of unions. Joe Biden has American taxpayers paying off the pensions of union workers when said taxpayers can hardly put money aside for themselves. Of course unions line the Democrat Party pockets.
There will be a big price to pay for Biden’s profligacy… $400Billion on student debt paydown, $397 Billion on the ridiculously named Inflation reduction act and to top it all $1 trillion on the Infrastructure renewal bill. The US has reached its debt ceiling and for all American readers your Country will run out of money by August this year at the latest. Janet Yellen a vocal critic of the UK’s “Trussonomics” is eating her own words now.
There will be a big price to pay for Biden’s profligacy… $400Billion on student debt paydown, $397 Billion on the ridiculously named Inflation reduction act and to top it all $1 trillion on the Infrastructure renewal bill. The US has reached its debt ceiling and for all American readers your Country will run out of money by August this year at the latest. Janet Yellen a vocal critic of the UK’s “Trussonomics” is eating her own words now.
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is anything but…name one noteworthy project resulting from what is just another gross outlay of federal spending lining the coffers of unions. Joe Biden has American taxpayers paying off the pensions of union workers when said taxpayers can hardly put money aside for themselves. Of course unions line the Democrat Party pockets.
Labour is not making the case for Brexit because they intend to re-join the EU, presumably under whatever conditions the EU imposes such as using the Euro.
‘How can we use procurement better now that we are out of the Single Market? How can we follow the example of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Act to provide economic stimulus through publicly supported domestic manufacturing?’ Manufacturing is for white males. Labour members would prefer to continue buying products from slave factories in Asia.
‘What would a socialist trade policy look like, once protection of continental European industries and agriculture is removed from the equation?’ Labour members aren’t interested in agriculture. They prefer to leave growing and harvesting crops to illegal immigrants working for people traffickers.
Corbyn has the chance in 2016 to open up the debate over the EU and demand the deficiencies over democracy and transparency be addressed. Had he done so, he would now be the most important political figure in Europe and either the current PM or PM in waiting. Instead he preferred not to enlighten the deluded young and to leave them singing his name at Glastonbury.
The author cites the principles of “democracy, socialism, and internationalism” as reasons why he was both a Leave voter and remains a Labour Party supporter. Very well. I wonder what, then, is his view of the elitist, corporatist, globalist apparatus of hard law top-down global governance that is, literally as we speak, being constructed around the WHO and other UN institutions with the full-throated support of Labour’s Trilateral Commission-member leader? It’s Geneva, not Brussels, that the author ought be worried about if it’s a genuinely progressive, bottom up, liberal democratic socialism that he wants to see.
I would urge Dr Johnson to look into this with the open, enquiring mind of the great academic that I have no doubt he is.
Just because you hate the EU doesn’t mean you have to love the WEF etc. I’d have thought the opposite to be true.
That’s right, and I have no reason to think that the author does love the WEF etc. But if one is concerned with national sovereignty and democracy in 2023, it makes no sense to be focusing, from the left or the right, on “making the case for Brexit”, when there are much bigger, more relevant fish to fry at the global level.
That’s right, and I have no reason to think that the author does love the WEF etc. But if one is concerned with national sovereignty and democracy in 2023, it makes no sense to be focusing, from the left or the right, on “making the case for Brexit”, when there are much bigger, more relevant fish to fry at the global level.
Just because you hate the EU doesn’t mean you have to love the WEF etc. I’d have thought the opposite to be true.
The author cites the principles of “democracy, socialism, and internationalism” as reasons why he was both a Leave voter and remains a Labour Party supporter. Very well. I wonder what, then, is his view of the elitist, corporatist, globalist apparatus of hard law top-down global governance that is, literally as we speak, being constructed around the WHO and other UN institutions with the full-throated support of Labour’s Trilateral Commission-member leader? It’s Geneva, not Brussels, that the author ought be worried about if it’s a genuinely progressive, bottom up, liberal democratic socialism that he wants to see.
I would urge Dr Johnson to look into this with the open, enquiring mind of the great academic that I have no doubt he is.
Just one word:
Hallelujah!
Just one word:
Hallelujah!
Oh, the hard ones first? It’s simple. Labour would rather stick its genitals into a sausage machine than adopt any policy which conflicts with uncontrolled immigration.
I knew there was a reason I didnt eat sausages.
I knew there was a reason I didnt eat sausages.
Oh, the hard ones first? It’s simple. Labour would rather stick its genitals into a sausage machine than adopt any policy which conflicts with uncontrolled immigration.
You are a Lecturer in US Politics. The questions for Americans (especially those who have no clue what The EU actually is) is this:
“Would you want to join an organisation that took (in US terms) $120bn a year from your own services and let people you cannot vote for dictate your laws – you cannot sack and are completely unaccountable to you?” – I know the answer.
And please – nobody give me a lecture on the EU “Parliament democracy” – its nothing of the kind (but puts on a show) as its the unelected Commissioners who have the power. (And blackmail smaller states with funding) If you donr know that you dont know enough.
You are a Lecturer in US Politics. The questions for Americans (especially those who have no clue what The EU actually is) is this:
“Would you want to join an organisation that took (in US terms) $120bn a year from your own services and let people you cannot vote for dictate your laws – you cannot sack and are completely unaccountable to you?” – I know the answer.
And please – nobody give me a lecture on the EU “Parliament democracy” – its nothing of the kind (but puts on a show) as its the unelected Commissioners who have the power. (And blackmail smaller states with funding) If you donr know that you dont know enough.
Best article on Brexit I have read for ages. The incompetence of Conservatives has understandably dominated news media – deservedly so as they are the government after all, also the ones who launched the Referendum, with no intent to plan for both outcomes.
But Labour’s curious role – and Starmer’s in particular – in rejecting the 5 options presented to Parrliament by Teresa May, has puzzled me from time to time. Why not abstain on the softest one, allow the vote to pass and watch the Tories implode implementing it?
This article makes it abundantly clear. Labour is still a creature of “New” Labour and the name of the game is Social Europe (paragraph 3) and the destruction of UK two party politics. PM Milliband (D) taking orders from Brussels is no longer an Andrew Adonis wet dream, it’s a distinct likelihood in the next 5 years.
Like terrorists, New Labour only need to get lucky (with a GE vote) once. Then they will exercise any working majority, even via coalition, far more ruthlessly than the Tories did with their straight 80 seat majority.
Best article on Brexit I have read for ages. The incompetence of Conservatives has understandably dominated news media – deservedly so as they are the government after all, also the ones who launched the Referendum, with no intent to plan for both outcomes.
But Labour’s curious role – and Starmer’s in particular – in rejecting the 5 options presented to Parrliament by Teresa May, has puzzled me from time to time. Why not abstain on the softest one, allow the vote to pass and watch the Tories implode implementing it?
This article makes it abundantly clear. Labour is still a creature of “New” Labour and the name of the game is Social Europe (paragraph 3) and the destruction of UK two party politics. PM Milliband (D) taking orders from Brussels is no longer an Andrew Adonis wet dream, it’s a distinct likelihood in the next 5 years.
Like terrorists, New Labour only need to get lucky (with a GE vote) once. Then they will exercise any working majority, even via coalition, far more ruthlessly than the Tories did with their straight 80 seat majority.