Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

Looking forward to London becoming a West Berlin-esque Scottish exclave

Yup

they should just split the tories and labour

make four new parties

Yup. Need PR first, though.

xps
It's the catch 22 you get when people are conned into believing that everything wrong with their lives boils down to one abstract thing. If the answers you give them don't address all their anxieties then nothing you have to say about the issue will ever be enough and of course no answer on immigration that isn't an outright lie can achieve that.

the explanations for anti-immigration sentiment seem weak to me; normally explained as people disaffected after suffering from global capitalism (which is obviously vague to the point of meaninglessness), or concerns that rising population puts pressure on services

but neither of these things are unique to the UK. the population growth rate in the UK is not that high. the only thing I can think of which is unique to the UK is the media

Wtf did you guys do?

It's not really a paradox. Immigrants go where the jobs are, 'native British people' are less resentful where the jobs are.

I was in Doncaster, which went 70% leave yesterday, and barely saw anyone who wasn't white and didn't speak to a single Eastern European other than the bemused Serb i was showing around. There are just no jobs there. It's easier for politicians and the media to encourage a discussion of immigration than it is to admit that Doncaster is functionally useless viewed from London.

agree it's difficult to see any historical precedent for poverty and political disengagement leading to right wing racism

corbyn has to be playing the long game here (because as this proves labour had no other to play). let it all fall and rebuild the base. right...?

but neither of these things are unique to the UK.

It's all over though. Trump, Le Pen, Wilders, Pegida, to some extend the Five Star Movement and the new populist party that took Rome recently, etc, etc.

"It's not really a paradox. Immigrants go where the jobs are, 'native British people' are less resentful where the jobs are."

also, immigrants/children of migrants will not likely vote brexit, duh (well some will, but stupid, illogical people come in all stripes).

xxp

possible up to a point. the most pressing problem he has that he's got any hope of addressing is getting rid of about 200 useless MPs

Hard to imagine Corbyn is capable of any type of long term machiavellian shit.

Indeed

i actually love corbyn. but am wondering if the only thing that will make any of the major parties sit up and take notice - re: that idea of destroy and rebuild - is a left wing version of UKIP. nothing is THAT bad right now where anything is genuinely getting destroyed. not yet anyway.

*left wing equivalent

I know of quite a lot of immigrants that have voted Leave. families of colleagues etc

It's the catch 22 you get when people are conned into believing that everything wrong with their lives boils down to one abstract thing. If the answers you give them don't address all their anxieties then nothing you have to say about the issue will ever be enough and of course no answer on immigration that isn't an outright lie can achieve that.

― tsrobodo, Friday, June 24, 2016 12:12 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's otm. Also if you feel you're not being heard, you just repeat the same idiotic point louder and louder rather than have someone take it on board and try to move the conversation further

nothing is THAT bad right now where anything is genuinely getting destroyed

you should check out further education, the NHS, services for disabled people etc etc etc some time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jicnBlcAJ4

A watched pot never rusts.

Left wing UKIP - ie very populist, very 'honest' (simple) in communication, willing to use base attacks against opposition - if nothing else, then expressed as a fraction of Labour - has been an obvious necessity for a while. Corbyn went some of the way, he gained like Sanders because went more left-leaning and stood out, but he's too lifeless as a personality to sell it. You don't need to sink to low depths, but it baffles me how poor politicians who aren't right wing populists are at communicating their ideology through simple language, and how poor they are at dismantling shitty arguments by other politicians. Get some new PR people in there.

agree it's difficult to see any historical precedent for poverty and political disengagement leading to right wing racism

probably necessary but not sufficient causes... maybe the UK isn't especially awash with anti-immigrant sentiment, it's clearly hard to say what the masses think, but we're the only country to have had a referendum and immigration had dominated the agenda to an extent that seems unusual to me

i'm not sure it's easy to say that everyone who voted leave is a right wing racist. i mean fuck them, but i don't believe there are as many right wing racists in britain as there were leave voters. i mean, it's not as if the remain campaign did a good job of telling people what the eu actually does for them.

"you should check out further education, the NHS, services for disabled people etc etc etc some time"

i didnt mean those institutions arent being destroyed.

but i meant for the current political status quo to get destroyed, you need a firm tipping point.

im not sure what that will be.

ITV reporter in Sunderland just nailed it. An awful lot of people felt it can't get any worse for them, so they rolled the dice

this is exculpatory bullshit imo. there might have been a small anti-establishment "give anyone in power a kick" vote, but this referendum was explicitly xenophobic, anti-immigrant and pretty fucking racist. to say that wasn't relevant to how people voted is delusional.

reminds me of the dave eggers piece about trump in the guardian, in which he claimed trump's followers don't care what he thinks, and he could say he wanted to build a wall on the canadian border instead of mexico and it would make no difference because the only thing they want is stuff the establishment doesn't. which, you know, is bollocks.

. You don't need to sink to low depths, but it baffles me how poor politicians who aren't right wing populists are at communicating their ideology through simple language, and how poor they are at dismantling shitty arguments by other politicians. Get some new PR people in there

The UK has had a long list of leftist showmen - Livingstone, Galloway, Sheridan, Hatton, etc, and i think part of Corbyn's appeal is that he isn't drawn from that well. He's thoughtful, considered and policy-led rather than a flashy egotist.

He does need some better PR people but idk how much that would help in the current press climate.

the language of the right is more naturally alluring to people than the nuanced language of political realism.

It appeals to real people. Decent people.

I made a brief fb post about the brexit this morning and one of my British friends gave the following reply:

I voted leave for many reasons. One main one is that there are loads of useless homegrown losers than take advantage of our benefit system, because they know EU migrants will come here and do the jobs they should be doing. Meanwhile the good, talented people go over to Europe. I am not against asylum seekers - God help anyone that has to flee hell and leave everything behind. I am not against immigration - I am an immigrant!

The POTUS came here and told us to stay because our negotiating our leave with the EU would be inconvenient for the US and all their *projects* - they need us undistracted to be on call to help at any time. How thoughtful of him.

There are so many laws and regulations that the EU has put upon us. Human Rights will always be there and that will not be taken away.

Imagine Congress having 5 elected US officials and the rest are from other places that you have no say in their being elected. You don't know what their agenda is. You have to trust that they are out for the good of all. But they aren't because the EU is made up of COUNTRIES not STATES. And that is the problem with being in the EU.

Help me parse this out. Are these common positions among Leave voters?

xp tbc I think anti-immigration feeling is far too widespread to be understoood as classic niche right wing racism. affluent suburbanites overwhelmingly voted leave, they're not disaffected victims of global capitalism and many of them aren't particularly concerned about public services, but they're still full of immigration rhetoric

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/brexit-won-vote-remain-eu-article-50-lisbon-treaty-referendum-david-cameron

thought this piece was interesting. sounds like the perhaps this isn't over yet, or that we could be mired in red tape and in-fighting for a long time.

Despairing American here, with questions.

Question one: is there any real material upside to this?

Question two: are there any predictions of the % of UK's immigrant workforce that is likely to gtfo asap and the negative economic impact that's likely to have on top of the already unavoidable negative impact of leaving?

nothing is happening asap and effectively the country is on political holiday for 3 months

probably necessary but not sufficient causes... maybe the UK isn't especially awash with anti-immigrant sentiment, it's clearly hard to say what the masses think, but we're the only country to have had a referendum and immigration had dominated the agenda to an extent that seems unusual to me

― ogmor, Friday, 24 June 2016 13:30 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exculpatory bullshit imo. there might have been a small anti-establishment "give anyone in power a kick" vote, but this referendum was explicitly xenophobic, anti-immigrant and pretty fucking racist. to say that wasn't relevant to how people voted is delusional.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 24 June 2016 13:39 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there was a conservative concilliatory option to talk about very real concerns, or else there could have been an attempt to split the very real concerns about immigration demographic into pragamatists and racists; whether that might have worked is unknowable but it would have been less cowardly. corbyn doing a little of it but only in his shambling fakir/ low church preacher way and probably a decade after it might have made a difference. ogmor obviously correct to see uk newspaper market as distinctive in a european contest.

the counterfactual something like.....if brown had told that bigoted woman that you are entirely allowed to talk about immigration and no that doesn't make you a racist, but you do appear to be a racist. sweden took the high road and has a doctrinaire antiracist public culture but it doesn't seem to have worked there judging by the new hitlerite party with a significant vote share.

Question two: are there any predictions of the % of UK's immigrant workforce that is likely to gtfo asap

I hope not because that will leave me having to do the work of two people in my workplace.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/13528839_10154282301265477_7774603859419193776_n.jpg?oh=1623f68ba3c4fd144ac7d8dd34e1f699&oe=57FBDF3E

I've been to try an console myself by going back and reading some left-wing cases for brexit that ppl were making during the campaign, but they still seem horribly unconvincing, some brave souls on twitter trying to argue that this is a posthumous victory for Bennism rather than a posthumous victory for Powellism

Well at least we can agree on the internet! Yay! (xp)

... oops, I mean capitalism. Yay again!

corbyn out?

from the FT

https://scontent-bru2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13507269_944124182366875_45188936945174276_n.jpg?oh=daaa708d1b8df4af72b1246ef6bf2317&oe=58091FFF

how's life: "The POTUS came here and told us to stay because our negotiating our leave with the EU would be inconvenient for the US and all their *projects* - they need us undistracted to be on call to help at any time. How thoughtful of him."

One of my family got pissed off with POTUS saying we'd be back of the queue and that was one of his many incoherent reasons for voting leave.
The bit about unelected MEPs too.

the interesting thing about present-day nationalism is the extent to which it's an international movement. what's going on in britain is what's going on in america, in the philippines, poland, guatemala, india... the scariest thing about this is not that it's happening, but that it's happening EVERYWHERE, all at once. we could really be well and truly fucked.

Morgan Stanley has begun moving 2,000 investment banking staff from London to Dublin or Frankfurt.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-will-take-an-age-to-recover-from-this-victory-for-the-exit-fantasists-zzfpxsc66?bcsi_scan_7f6001589688e1d7=7j661rn41TdRaVGMshevfNVD8pKKAAAATFH/yA==

I have bad news for the Hannans and Goves and Johnsons of this world. This is not your victory. You are free riders on the back of Mr Farage. You have smuggled through your sixth-form reading list politics on the back of Mr Farage’s stoking up of immigration fears. I hope you are proud of yourself and I hope, though I do not expect, that you are ready for what is coming. You have made a promise, whether you realise it or not, to bring down immigration. Even if you find, as you will, that employers rebel because they need the labour, you have promised. You have condemned yourself to leading a government for whom the number of foreigners in the country is the primary issue.

You will then find, of course, that when the white working class says “immigration” it means something more than the presence of Polish plumbers and Romanian fruit pickers. It means that life is hard, that employment prospects are bleak and that work is either unavailable or of really low quality. It is beyond laughable that the exit fantasists have the first idea what to do about this. Frankly most of them have never shown the slightest concern about that before. Well, it’s their problem now.

They are going to find that everything is their problem now. So then exit fantasist, it is time to make good on your histrionic promise of liberty. Everything that happens is on your watch. All the tribulations and vicissitudes of the economy are yours. The pound fell to its lowest point since 1985 and the Bank of England is poised to intervene. Standard and Poor’s have said that the UK will lose its fine credit rating. The stock market was down 8.5 per cent in early trading. This is not just a downgrade in the value of assets. It is a leading indicator of the financial turmoil to come. If there is a recession, it is your recession. If inflation goes up and interest rates follow with an attendant spate of repossessions, it’s all yours. Well done.

And for what, exit fantasist? For what? The notion that Britain was not free until the early hours of this morning is the single most childish claim I have ever heard in British politics. I have heard grown people, who ought to know better, talk of serfdom and calling June 23rd “independence day”. This is thinking that is profoundly unconservative, placing an abstract idea above the concrete facts of life. When the sun came up this morning — a new dawn was it not? — it meant nothing to pretend that we have passed from servitude into liberty. It is the emptiest campaign slogan, the self-satisfied bluster of a fluent intellectual dwarf. It is a victory but a victory from which it is going to take an age to recover.

Morgan Stanley looks to move 2,000 London staff
Posted at 14:45

BBC business reporter Joe Lynam reports...

Sources within Morgan Stanley say it has already begun the process of moving about 2,000 of its London-based investment banking staff to Dublin or Frankfurt. And it has a taskforce in place.

The jobs which would be moved from the UK would be in euro clearing but also other investment banking functions and senior management.

The American investment bank needs to avail of the passporting system which allows banks to offer financial services in all countries in the EU without having to establish a permanent base in that member state.

The president of Morgan Stanley, Colm Kelleher, told Bloomberg two days ago that Brexit would be “the most consequential thing that we’ve ever seen since the war”.

oh no not the bankers

Sorry to get your hopes up NV

@ReutersBiz

UPDATE: Morgan Stanley denies reports that it would move 2,000 investment banking staff from London

i just got a letter from my pension fund. they say that it's volatile, my funds are lower, but basically everything's under control and they're monitoring things. that's alright then?

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/FE39/production/_89918056_medved.jpg

i got a letter from the government, the other day, i opened it and read it, it said they were suckers

it's always weird when the government sends that letter