European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1126

There were people in England who legitimately believed that Brexit would mean every non-white person was going to leave England, and feel that they have been betrayed by the Conservatives because they're not offering that. And they believe it because UKIP and other even less savoury populist groups strongly intimated that if we weren't in the EU we could do that, nay, we would do it, and the only thing holding us back all this time were those eeeeeeeevil EU regulations.

That's the problem. It isn't even a problem - necessarily - that the causes being championed are often explicitly racist or other -ists. The problem is that the cause is impossible for various reasons. That isn't true politics, it's pure rabble rousing that achieves nothing but social chaos.

Frankly it's pretty disgusting to see people championing the rise of this particular brand of populist across the EU.

So many of them lean towards fascism, in an entirely non-ironic, non-reactionary way. You'd think that history had taught us all a lesson about what happens when fascism takes root in the EU. I'm glad that the worst England's arseholes have accomplished is Brexit, and they've pretty much lost their hold on the populace in its aftermath. I hope the worst that happens on the continent is the status quo gets a kick up the arse. But there's real warning signs coming out of some places. Poland and Italy are both blaring warning signs right now. Spain's recently dodged a legitimate civil war. Germany's throwing up the odd alarm bell too. France had a near miss.

'Tis testing times for the EU. For all our sakes, I hope the bloc comes through okay.

For my own part, I was never a strong Remainer. I voted Remain based on one obvious truth: the leave camp had no idea what to do if we actually voted to leave. It was all rhetoric, empty words, and plain old bullshit. And my observations have proven more accurate than I feared at the time. Brexit has been nothing but a disaster so far, without even the suggestion that things are going to get sorted out in the near future, or a hint that the government has an idea of how to right the ship. All of these things were obvious. But hey. Old news now. The only questions remaining to be answered is how badly we'll be hurt by the severance package, and whether anyone will treat us with respect when we go out to cut new deals.

I don't have a choice.

But every single person involved is failing to put a positive spin on things. When the people who actively said they were going to give us the best Brexit possible are, mid-Brexit, admitting that things are going badly, you have to be pretty deluded to remain optimistic.

Like I said, my main objection to leaving the EU was the lack of a viable (or indeed any) exit strategy. Things are so far going worse than I feared. I'd assumed by now they'd have hashed out some sort of solid plan, maybe not an ideal situation, but one that gets us out with some tolerable but unfortunate pain. We're still at the 'oh goddammit we forgot about that' stage where new problems keep cropping up.

I mean, have you been following the clusterfuck that is known in more common vernacular as 'The Irish Border Problem'? These are things we should have had in iron before voting to leave.

I'd love to be positive. I would. But my own government is giving me no reason to be positive. Theresa May's career is going to be destroyed by this. It's so bad that she's one of the weakest Prime Ministers we've had in decades, and nobody wants her job. Even the Tories, for whom betrayal from the backbenches is so rote that I one day expect a PM to turn to their backbenches mid-PMQ and declare 'CURSE YOUR SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL', are just kind of awkwardly shuffling their feet and waiting for this all to be over before sticking her. Even though everyone in England knows May is a Remainer, and there are multiple hard-leave Tories who would surely be more logical choices for PM during this time.

I'd love for all of Europe to look at what happened in Brexit as a warning sign, and hold their populists to a higher standard. Because people with no understanding of how the world works shouldn't be trying to dictate how it does.

But yes. In five to ten years Britain might be stronger than ever before. I'd love it if someone could tell me how that happens without sounding like they're running a magic bean factory. Because I've listened, and everyone who tries the All is Roses approach does so using predictions that run into massive, instantaneous snags if you think about them for half a second or do some research and see half a dozen roadblocks caused specifically by Brexit.

Have a read of these two articles, one by an Irish paper and one by the Independent (a sort of 'soft-left' paper in the UK, think centre left, but right of The Guardian). Look at how uncertain they are, look at the turmoil within the government; and these were written within the last six months.