EXIT NEGOTIATIONS

[Montmorency]

Immoderate =/= revolutionary, but OK:

*The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution
*Like, all the wars and revolts ever (monarchy is a hell of a drug)
*Mass unionism and labor and franchise agitation and its violent suppression from the Luddites to the general strikes to Scargill riots
*Enforced intolerance against liberalism and republicanism after the French Revolution until - what, 1848? - including periodic crackdowns on anti-monarchy speech and association such as William Pitt's Treason Trials

And I'm sure you're aware of all the nasty stuff like the government pretty much owning the bodies of the poor and the criminal (including political dissidents) until the world wars, repression of the Scottish, Irish (how many rebellions?), and Welsh peoples, and the white man's burden. None of this was unique to Britain, but that Britain was not unique is just what I'm saying. How was any of this moderate except in the sense that it was uncontroversial to the aristocratic and mercantile ruling elite?

(Extremism doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it extremism)

[Pannonian]

Immoderate =/= revolutionary, but OK:

*The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution
*Like, all the wars and revolts ever (monarchy is a hell of a drug)
*Mass unionism and labor and franchise agitation and its violent suppression from the Luddites to the general strikes to Scargill riots
*Enforced intolerance against liberalism and republicanism after the French Revolution until - what, 1848? - including periodic crackdowns on anti-monarchy speech and association such as William Pitt's Treason Trials

And I'm sure you're aware of all the nasty stuff like the government pretty much owning the bodies of the poor and the criminal (including political dissidents) until the world wars, repression of the Scottish, Irish (how many rebellions?), and Welsh peoples, and the white man's burden. None of this was unique to Britain, but that Britain was not unique is just what I'm saying. How was any of this moderate except in the sense that it was uncontroversial to the aristocratic and mercantile ruling elite?

(Extremism doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it extremism)

I left out the Glorious Revolution because I didn't know enough about it, but the first group is the only bit that does not fit what I defined as moderate politics, and I specifically cited the Civil War as a time when the idea of absolute monarchy was overturned. On the others, I note that you define anti-moderate politics to include illiberal politics. Here you fall into the same habits as the Brexiteers, in defining sensible politics to include your side, but condemn the others. I've tried to avoid this, by defining it in philosophical terms, and applying it across the board, to what I would call my side as well as the opposing side.

I've excluded armed struggles, from the state or from demonstrators, as the exception than the rule, and not systemic. I've only included examples as anti-moderate politics where the rules themselves are shown to be useless, not people's non-observance of such. Hence I asked you, what do you suggest I do about it? You were dismissive of my observation of how the rules are being abused and made useless, so I described what I do about it, how that's within the rules but made ineffective because the rules themselves are being abused, and asked you for your suggested solution instead. Your response is that Britain has never been moderate, and that I should get used to this as the norm. So I've answered your question of what I am going to do about it. Can you answer my question of what do you suggest I do about it?

Edit: And don't fill your answer with technical terms like metonym that most people don't know. To me, an essay filled with dictionary words merely suggests the responder is trying to bluff with long worded BS, not provide a sensible answer.

[Gilrandir]

Tell me, why should I reject you, edyzmedieval, Beskar and many other people as my peers, but somehow celebrate some old geezer from Bavaria who doesn't share any of my values and does not even use the internet as my national peer who I feel so connected to? The fact is that I don't feel connected to him at all while my connection to you is quite obvious since we are at the very least communicating with one another here.

In any community (I expect even in your neighborhood or even among your family members) you will find a person who doesn't share your worldview and values. Will you stop considering him your uncle or your roommate or your next door neighbor because of it?

[Husar]

In any community (I expect even in your neighborhood or even among your family members) you will find a person who doesn't share your worldview and values. Will you stop considering him your uncle or your roommate or your next door neighbor because of it?

No, but that also wasn't my point. My point was that I don't have illusions about how I'd be a lot more sovereign/better off if only that small circle were to decide about the politics that govern my life.

[Gilrandir]

No, but that also wasn't my point. My point was that I don't have illusions about how I'd be a lot more sovereign/better off if only that small circle were to decide about the politics that govern my life.

But the small circle knows your needs and problems more, so their governing your life may be more beneficial for you. No?

[Husar]

But the small circle knows your needs and problems more, so their governing your life may be more beneficial for you. No?

No, I don't see how, especially if the whole village doesn't have the same job, the same medical issues, the same digestion, the same way to work, the same hobbies, the same face, etc.
Even in an inbred village of farmers they'd probably all have different needs from their inbreeding issues.
And just because someone knows about your needs, it doesn't mean they care, quite a few people may also use it against you.

[Furunculus]

Husar, there is another aspect of sovereignty that was taken for granted in the past, in the era of moderate politics, but which is now abused to destruction by Brexit, Corbyn, Trump, and other manifestations of extremism. That is constitutionality. The formal and informal rules that everyone worked by, because if people stepped outside these bounds whilst observing legalities, society would no longer work. I defined moderate politics earlier in this thread as politics that observes customs and respects the losing side, whereas extremism is whatever it can get away with.

Let's take the example of Brexit, as personified (and personification is a common aspect of this) by Nigel Farage. UK democracy is based on governments formed by parties elected on manifestos that the opposition and the press can hold them to. If there is abuse of the electoral system, the candidate who abused the system is disqualified and another election held in the area. Compare with Leave, who made promises that their supporters now claim they should not be held to, who use their referendum victory to claim a mandate for things that they assured the electorate would not happen, and who abused the legalities and customs of normal electoral process yet, because the referendum was supposedly merely advisory, are not subject to the checks of normal electoral process. In the face of this, there is another, equally democratically valid check, that of Parliament. But even here, the organisers of Leave identified that Parliamentary authority is merely custom, and not legal, and despite the flagrant disregard of democratic authority this represented, ignored Parliament's requests to answer their questions.

And what has happened since the Leave victory in the referendum? The architects of Leave, Farage and his close associates in particular, have kept clear of those trying to implement it. Instead, they keep making nebulous claims whilst saying that it is the fault of others that things are not working, culminating in Farage's new Brexit party getting a third of the vote whilst explicitly saying that they do not have a manifesto. In addition to this absence of constructive plans or identity other than opposition, they have also encouraged a culture of seeing divergence from them as treason, and the identification of their ill-defined cause with a personality.

In the UK, Brexit has polarised the country. Politics is no longer the constructive debate of ideas, tested for their workability. It is now whatever whoever gets a momentary backing of a majority can legally get away with. And the tragedy is that there are actually mechanics to correct this. But the Left have themselves enacted a form of the above, which albeit is less extreme than that enacted by Brexiteers, is nonetheless equally uncorrectable within traditional means.

you get too excited by the idea of farage as some pied piper character .

i think you will agree i'm as committed a brexiteer as they come, yet i have no time for farage and have nevef considered myself a kipper.
i had my own reasons long before he was on my scene, and i didnt much care for him once he waz.

[Montmorency]

I left out the Glorious Revolution because I didn't know enough about it, but the first group is the only bit that does not fit what I defined as moderate politics, and I specifically cited the Civil War as a time when the idea of absolute monarchy was overturned. On the others, I note that you define anti-moderate politics to include illiberal politics. Here you fall into the same habits as the Brexiteers, in defining sensible politics to include your side, but condemn the others. I've tried to avoid this, by defining it in philosophical terms, and applying it across the board, to what I would call my side as well as the opposing side.

I've excluded armed struggles, from the state or from demonstrators, as the exception than the rule, and not systemic. I've only included examples as anti-moderate politics where the rules themselves are shown to be useless, not people's non-observance of such. Hence I asked you, what do you suggest I do about it? You were dismissive of my observation of how the rules are being abused and made useless, so I described what I do about it, how that's within the rules but made ineffective because the rules themselves are being abused, and asked you for your suggested solution instead. Your response is that Britain has never been moderate, and that I should get used to this as the norm. So I've answered your question of what I am going to do about it. Can you answer my question of what do you suggest I do about it?

Edit: And don't fill your answer with technical terms like metonym that most people don't know. To me, an essay filled with dictionary words merely suggests the responder is trying to bluff with long worded BS, not provide a sensible answer.

Metonymy is not a technical term, you can double-click > right-click > search [engine] for "metonymy"

You're not a reactionary, right? You provided a definition:

observes customs and respects the losing side, whereas extremism is whatever it can get away with.

I don't see how you can think what I listed clears your definition.

I've excluded armed struggles, from the state or from demonstrators, as the exception than the rule, and not systemic.

But they were systemic. State policy of repression and coercion is not respectful of the "side" that isn't in power, or of people who are so weak they weren't even counted as political agents in "polite society".

I've only included examples as anti-moderate politics where the rules themselves are shown to be useless, not people's non-observance of such.

What's the distinction? Was Nazi fascism not counted as immoderate because they weren't observing Weimar rules? (Not that the Weimar government was gentle to those out of power.) And wait a minute, your consistent complaint with Brexiteers is that they don't observe your norms. Am I misunderstanding the quoted sentence?

Can you answer my question of what do you suggest I do about it?

I'm not ultimately confident in how much can be accomplished, but there is no return to the specific arrangements that have existed as the "international liberal order" and its national systems. Leaving aside your view of pre-Brexit UK, what do you think the UK's political system and civil-societal relations ought to look like? Ideally you could build a comprehensive program off that and influence politics with it. A more limited step might be to adopt a "radical Remainer" orientation and try to sell Labour and/or the LibDems politicians and voters on the UK as an activist government within the EU, but that might not be your predilection and it doesn't really address how the internal politics and civil society of the UK should function and how to achieve that. You would probably know better what you want and what is reasonable. The point is you have to be more imaginative than bemoaning the decline of a status quo ante, you can't go home again.

[Gilrandir]

No, I don't see how, especially if the whole village doesn't have the same job, the same medical issues, the same digestion, the same way to work, the same hobbies, the same face, etc.
Even in an inbred village of farmers they'd probably all have different needs from their inbreeding issues.
And just because someone knows about your needs, it doesn't mean they care, quite a few people may also use it against you.

So, people in Berlin know more what road in this Bavarian village needs repairment or what school bus in this village needs replacement?

[Viking]

I have a completely different (world) view on sovereignty than you do.
You obviously mean national sovereignty, but Germany was once >50 little sovereign nations, some of which did or did not elect a German king. Up to 1871 states like Bavaria and Saxony were their own sovereign nations, which also didn't want to give up their sovereignty to the "Saupreißn" as the Bavarians called them. So now it's not even 150 years and two world wars (in which Germany already got chipped quite a bit, depending on your POV, after all especially the eastern parts previously had other owners as well) and I'm supposed to see the current nation of Germany as the ultimate arbiter of sovereignty, even if I disagree with quite a lot of things in that nation?

Tell me, why should I reject you, edyzmedieval, Beskar and many other people as my peers, but somehow celebrate some old geezer from Bavaria who doesn't share any of my values and does not even use the internet as my national peer who I feel so connected to? The fact is that I don't feel connected to him at all while my connection to you is quite obvious since we are at the very least communicating with one another here.

There are old geezers in Hermival-les-Vaux, Ashcott and Dobrzyca that don't like you because you are German. You'd likely prefer to work with the old geezer from Bavaria.

I don't see a world where the government hires private corporations to write laws and asks other corporations for permission to enact these laws as one where I have more sovereignty. The smaller the government (in terms of the market and territory it controls), the more likely it is that a big international corporation will have more power. For proof, just look at how the tobacco industry sued some small countries into submission so even children can smoke there. How is that for sovereignty in these countries? My country may not be there yet, but we're moving in that direction, the EU is a consolidation of power that can (if used correctly) counter this. That's why I see more potential sovereignty of the people in the EU than any national government.

You don't need the EU for that. You can have separate intergovernmental organizations (don't even have to be European) where member states can cooperate to achieve shared goals; and where they can join, leave or create alternative organizations as they see fit.

Power is also in unity, as unions and industry organizations clearly show (it's funny in that regard how worker unions are frowned upon, but you never see a libertarian argue against capitalists having industry organizations where they coordinate for their own interests in the same way). Herd and pack animals use the same principles against their foes.

Members of unions are not expected to give up their sovereignty. A union does not decide how its members should live their lives.

[Husar]

There are old geezers in Hermival-les-Vaux, Ashcott and Dobrzyca that don't like you because you are German. You'd likely prefer to work with the old geezer from Bavaria.

Why? The Bavarian doesn't like foreigners either.

You don't need the EU for that. You can have separate intergovernmental organizations (don't even have to be European) where member states can cooperate to achieve shared goals; and where they can join, leave or create alternative organizations as they see fit.

Can, but don't. Why abandon a framework we have a for a pipe dream we may never get? Not to mentions that intergovernmental organizations like the UN are not exactly known for their life-changing powers. They may do some good, but far less than is necessary. And with the same argument you could disband every federal Republic like the US and Germany, the UK and probably a lot of centralized nations as well. I was talking about a balance of powers and what you suggest only creates more imbalance. I'm trying to reduce competition between governments and you propose competing intergovernmental organizations. It becomes more laughable the more I think about it.
Without any power bloc, it will be as sturdy as leaves in the wind.

Members of unions are not expected to give up their sovereignty. A union does not decide how its members should live their lives.

Way to miss what I was talking about in that context. And the EU doesn't dictate how to live your life any more than the Norwegiuan government does. If you join a union and miss every strike they call for because you're too afraid to make your boss unhappy, then you're sovereign, but you still won't get a raise. So if a union is to work and achieve something, it will have to dictate parts of your life.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Members of unions are not expected to give up their sovereignty. A union does not decide how its members should live their lives.

600k of my fellow Americans ended up dead in asserting just the opposite.

[Beskar]

[Viking]

Why? The Bavarian doesn't like foreigners either.

Because he will be more receptive, all else being equal.

Can, but don't. Why abandon a framework we have a for a pipe dream we may never get? Not to mentions that intergovernmental organizations like the UN are not exactly known for their life-changing powers. They may do some good, but far less than is necessary. And with the same argument you could disband every federal Republic like the US and Germany, the UK and probably a lot of centralized nations as well. I was talking about a balance of powers and what you suggest only creates more imbalance. I'm trying to reduce competition between governments and you propose competing intergovernmental organizations. It becomes more laughable the more I think about it.
Without any power bloc, it will be as sturdy as leaves in the wind.

If the UN is for all countries, it cannot be more united than the countries of the world are.

We already have influential/effective intergovernmental organizations that serve specific purposes, like NATO and the European Space Agency. I imagine the early forms of the EU belonged to this category as well; not just the current version.

Different intergovernmental organizations don't have to compete; there is in principle nothing that prevents them from cooperating and forming unions.

If there are strongly different views within an intergovernmental organization on the organization's purpose, however, splitting the organization or booting member states can be less dramatic if the scope of the organization is narrow, and lesser still if useful alternatives exist that leaving member states can join.

Way to miss what I was talking about in that context. And the EU doesn't dictate how to live your life any more than the Norwegiuan government does. If you join a union and miss every strike they call for because you're too afraid to make your boss unhappy, then you're sovereign, but you still won't get a raise. So if a union is to work and achieve something, it will have to dictate parts of your life.

The members of the metaphorical EU union are of course its member states. The more the EU turns into the USE, the more it it will dictate what members states can and cannot do.

[Husar]

Because he will be more receptive, all else being equal.

So?
That's a big if and being more receptive still doesn't mean he will actually listen.
What exactly is your point other than a vague potential based on a very uncertain assumption?
If a Bavarian hates foreigners, he might hate me just as much since I'm not a Bavarian and thus a foreigner to him. I'm not part of Bavarian sovereignty.

If the UN is for all countries, it cannot be more united than the countries of the world are.

We already have influential/effective intergovernmental organizations that serve specific purposes, like NATO and the European Space Agency. I imagine the early forms of the EU belonged to this category as well; not just the current version.

Different intergovernmental organizations don't have to compete; there is in principle nothing that prevents them from cooperating and forming unions.

If there are strongly different views within an intergovernmental organization on the organization's purpose, however, splitting the organization or booting member states can be less dramatic if the scope of the organization is narrow, and lesser still if useful alternatives exist that leaving member states can join.

You could abolish marriage with the same argument. Or nation states. Then every person can join the inter-person-organization that they like best and no border controls are necessary because there are no borders and no hard feelings. If you're not happy in one inter-person-organization, you can just find another.

The members of the metaphorical EU union are of course its member states. The more the EU turns into the USE, the more it it will dictate what members states can and cannot do.

Except that the USE is made up of the member states so the members states will dictate to the member states what the member states can do. And since all member states have to agree to the rules of what the member states can dictate the members states to do, they're basically dictating themselves and somehow you're trying to make a problem of it. So you're basically trying to dictate to the inter-governmental organizations to what extent they may coordinate and consolidate? do you deny them the sovereignty to decide about the degree of integration for themselves?

[Viking]

You could abolish marriage with the same argument. Or nation states. Then every person can join the inter-person-organization that they like best and no border controls are necessary because there are no borders and no hard feelings.

This is slippery slope argumentation, and not particularly interesting. If you have ever bought a snack bar from Nestlé, you are a member of the Nestlé snack bar buyer's association, right?

If you're not happy in one inter-person-organization, you can just find another.

Sounds like reality.

Except that the USE is made up of the member states so the members states will dictate to the member states what the member states can do. And since all member states have to agree to the rules of what the member states can dictate the members states to do, they're basically dictating themselves and somehow you're trying to make a problem of it. So you're basically trying to dictate to the inter-governmental organizations to what extent they may coordinate and consolidate? do you deny them the sovereignty to decide about the degree of integration for themselves?

Just as unions don't have to dictate what TV shows their members watch, cooperation between European countries does not have to involve an entity like the EU.

[Husar]

This is slippery slope argumentation, and not particularly interesting. If you have ever bought a snack bar from Nestlé, you are a member of the Nestlé snack bar buyer's association, right?

So what? Your argument didn't tell me much either. Yes, you can have inter-governmental organizations, but why would you want to and what would be the benefits over closer integration? And why would you not see the EU in its current form as a closely integrated inter-governmental organization? You talked about leaving them and joining others, but Britain is currently doing that. So where exactly is your point? You think the EU is fine as it is?

As for the slippery slope, did you forget all the terrorist organizations and other efforts of regions to leave their nation states? Most recently Catalonia and Eastern Ukraine...The Scottish are considering a referendum about leaving the UK as well. It seems quite a few countries have slipped on it.

Just as unions don't have to dictate what TV shows their members watch, cooperation between European countries does not have to involve an entity like the EU.

It does not have to, but it should. So what's your point?
I already argued why it should.

[Gilrandir]

As for the slippery slope, did you forget all the terrorist organizations and other efforts of regions to leave their nation states? Most recently Catalonia and Eastern Ukraine...

(A part of) Easten Ukraine (as well as Crimea) was hijacked by Russia, not left by itself.

[Strike For The South]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...football-match

Maybe milkshakes are a measured response?Obviously no one is the same person but I hardly see the same kind of pearl clutching going on.

[Husar]

(A part of) Easten Ukraine (as well as Crimea) was hijacked by Russia, not left by itself.

So noone there helped Russia and wanted that to happen?

[Viking]

So what? Your argument didn't tell me much either. Yes, you can have inter-governmental organizations, but why would you want to and what would be the benefits over closer integration? And why would you not see the EU in its current form as a closely integrated inter-governmental organization?

[...]

So where exactly is your point? You think the EU is fine as it is?

I think the EU should be abandoned, and that no new organization that effectively aspires to become a new pan-European republic should take its place.

Obviously, there could be a new organization for trade and other forms of economic cooperation. Countries that wish to have the same currency could cooperate on that, separately. Those that wish to cooperate militarily can organize that, either through organizations or treaties.

In the long term, I'm worried that closer European integration could lead to (civil) war. National governments will lose more and more power to the central institutions of the EU in the process (essentially becoming more like regional authorities), and will likely be seen as less legitimate by the local populace. Add in some economic hardship and a spark, and you have a war.

You talked about leaving them and joining others, but Britain is currently doing that.

Which alternative to the EU is the UK joining?

As for the slippery slope, did you forget all the terrorist organizations and other efforts of regions to leave their nation states? Most recently Catalonia and Eastern Ukraine...The Scottish are considering a referendum about leaving the UK as well. It seems quite a few countries have slipped on it.

115 years ago I'd be living in Sweden. C'est la vie.

Smaller countries are weaker, as are countries with bigger internal differences. It's not so that you can just annex another country and expect to become stronger, yet this seems to be the strategy that the EU is pursuing currently (the bigger union, the better).

It's in the interest of any country to settle internal differences so that they can retain their current size, but they might just not be able to do so.

It does not have to, but it should. So what's your point?
I already argued why it should.

The essence of your argument is really that international cooperation is necessary, but nowhere do you demonstrate that an organization like the EU of today is necessary.

[Husar]

I think the EU should be abandoned, and that no new organization that effectively aspires to become a new pan-European republic should take its place.

Obviously, there could be a new organization for trade and other forms of economic cooperation. Countries that wish to have the same currency could cooperate on that, separately. Those that wish to cooperate militarily can organize that, either through organizations or treaties.

In the long term, I'm worried that closer European integration could lead to (civil) war. National governments will lose more and more power to the central institutions of the EU in the process (essentially becoming more like regional authorities), and will likely be seen as less legitimate by the local populace. Add in some economic hardship and a spark, and you have a war.

Why would that war not happen without the EU? I would argue without the EU such a war is more likely because the countries would coordinate less, wouldn't have EU programs that work against the hardship, etc.
You're also still forgetting that the national governments don't "lose" power and the EU doesn't "aspire" to that, it's the national governments that give their power to the EU and the mandate to do what it does.
Trade deals like CETA, TTIP and so on also included super-national courts so the trade deals that would replace the EU would likely do many of the same things, but with a bigger focus on investment security than national interests. The citizens could lose even more power.
So I don't see how that would alleviate the issue of citizens losing trust in their national governments. Not to forget that if citizens wanted out of the EU they could vote for parties promising an exit, much like Britain did. Apparently that is not the case in most other countries.

Which alternative to the EU is the UK joining?

We don't know yet, it's leaving the EU though.

Smaller countries are weaker, as are countries with bigger internal differences. It's not so that you can just annex another country and expect to become stronger, yet this seems to be the strategy that the EU is pursuing currently (the bigger union, the better).

It's in the interest of any country to settle internal differences so that they can retain their current size, but they might just not be able to do so.

How many counbtries did the EU annex? How many joined the EU willingly and how many voted against a change in how the EU works and how many of these changes were implemented anyway?
You can't just put words in the same sentence as EU and then expect me to think they apply to the EU.

The essence of your argument is really that international cooperation is necessary, but nowhere do you demonstrate that an organization like the EU of today is necessary.

It is necessary for the consolidation of power that it represents. It can enact laws that count for all members countries, it can ban goods in all member countries and so on. The tight integration, the hard introduction process and the complicated process of leaving give the EU more coherence. A relatively loose set of countries in some trade organization can more easily be divided and conquered by corporations by giving them something in their national interest in return for leaving the organization, etc. You hinted earlier that Britain was not joining another organization, maybe that is because few of them exist for that very reason. How many inter-governmental organizations can you name that exist or have rules to curb corporate influence?

[Montmorency]

I'd like to bring the thread back to Brexit politics for a moment. It's a followup to an article I posted a few months ago about Labour's conundrum in courting a relatively pro-Brexit electorate in most of the swing seats compared to the safe Remain seats generally being safe Labour seats. Well, the EU elections have brought the results of Corbyn's gamble on "constructive ambiguity" for us to review:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When the last of the ballots had finally been counted in the recent European Parliament elections, it became abundantly clear that one of the biggest losers was Britain’s Labour Party, and its Brexit strategy most of all. The party finished in third place, behind both Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and the ardently pro-Remain Liberal Democrats, with a mere 14.1 percent of the total vote. If the results are anything to go by, then Labour’s attempts to appeal to both Leavers and Remainers by being as ambiguous as possible about Brexit have actually had the opposite effect and alienated both sides of this deep divide in the United Kingdom.

Although the Brexit Party was the big winner of the night, topping the polls with 31.6 percent and winning every region in England except London, Farage’s outfit fell 8.8 points short of the combined total accrued by parties seeking to overturn the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. This may not serve as resounding proof that the national consensus on Brexit has shifted, but it does show that the country is still irreparably polarized and that those politicians who advocate compromise appeal to the smallest of constituencies.

It appears that the Labour leadership has finally gotten the message, as Jeremy Corbyn seems to be coming around to the idea of putting any final Brexit deal to the public in a new referendum. Of course, Corbyn has made similar noises in the past before backpedaling. This time, however, things feel different. Having lost such a sizable portion of its core vote to parties committed to remaining in the EU, it looks like Corbyn has little other choice.

As I’ve written here before, the Labour Party finds itself in a unique and unenviable position. Although its base is ardently pro-European, with 65 percent backing Remain in 2016, 61 percent of the party’s parliamentary seats are located in Leave-voting constituencies, as are a further 87 percent of seats narrowly held by the Conservative Party that Labour would like to flip. For nearly three years now, the Labour leadership has strained to endear itself to Brexit voters in the hopes of winning a sizable parliamentary majority in the next election. That has come at the expense of the party’s Remain base, who were widely believed to have nowhere else to go: The Tories are unequivocally the party of Brexit, while the Lib Dems were regarded as too tainted by their time in government under Prime Minister David Cameron—the man who promised the Brexit referendum—to pose a serious threat. The Lib Dems’ miserable performance in the 2017 general election only confirmed that. But last weekend’s election seems to indicate that Remainers in the Labour Party are fed up and the Lib Dems are no longer quite so toxic.

According to the respected pollster Lord Ashcroft, 22 percent of 2017 Labour voters defected to the Lib Dems in last month’s European Parliament elections. A further 17 percent switched to the Greens. A mere 13 percent lent their vote to the Brexit Party. Although elections for the European Parliament hardly see the same turnout and dynamics as parliamentary ballots, and are instead often used as a safe arena to register a protest vote, what the results do show is that Labour has more to lose from turning its back on Remainers than on Leavers.

The endless fascination in the British media with white, working-class, Labour-voting Brexiters seriously inflates the significance of this demographic. Just 20.7 percent of the Leave vote, which is some 3.5 million people, came from voters who backed Labour in the 2015 general election. This is marginally less than the 3.6 million Leave votes that came from the supporters of smaller parties and people who don’t usually vote at all. It’s also often overlooked that, at 39 percent, a slightly higher proportion of Conservatives—4 percent more—voted for Remain than the other way around. Labour could potentially offset the loss of its Leave voters by appealing to Tory Remainers. It already did this successfully in 2017, when 1.1 million of them defected to Labour, compared to the 850,000 that went the other way.

There should be no doubt that if Labour came out firmly against Brexit, it would eat into a significant slice of the vote for the Lib Dems, Greens and the new, centrist Change UK party, which was founded by Labour MPs disaffected with Corbyn’s leadership. Although in all likelihood that still wouldn’t win the party a majority in Parliament, Labour is well positioned to top the polls, which would hand it democratic legitimacy and the right to govern either as a minority government or as the head of a chaotic, anti-Brexit coalition. In such a bitterly polarized country, this is arguably the party’s only route to power—especially at a time when all signs seem to indicate that the era of the big parliamentary majority is over. The Conservatives haven’t achieved one since 1987, when they had Margaret Thatcher at the helm. Labour managed to do so more recently, in 2005, but that was an entirely different political era that bears no resemblance to the current electoral landscape. Hung parliaments and paper-thin majorities are Britain’s new reality.

Up to 45% of 2017 Labour voters voting in the recent EU elections switched to other, pro-Remain, parties. Not more than a sixth switched to Brexit Party or other pro-Leave.


At a time when the Conservative Party is collapsing, it's hard to get around interpreting this as anything other than a colossal cock-up on Corbyn's part. Two years ago there seemed to be a real electoral dividend in Labour's end in part due to audacious policy messaging and canvassing from the party. Maybe ambiguity on Brexit when it was more popular and more nebulous made sense relative to bashing Tory austerity, but those conditions have shifted in the past year. Ironically enough the Labour leadership seems to have thrown the electoral dividend away by retreat to a caricature of the exact sort of cowardly, noncommittal centrism that Corbyn's ascent was alleged to discredit.

Crikey.

(Now when I first presented the stuff about Brexit polling in Labour/Con swing districts, my interpretation accepted the existence of a pro-Brexit Labour swing vote and the assumption that pro-Remain Labour voters "had nowhere else to go". As has been shown through experience the real marginal Labour voter is the Remain voter, in part because unlike America, UK is multi-party. In my defense, I was making a snap judgement based on one article, and I don't work as a party analyst or anyone who would have the responsibility to use electoral data toward strategic action.)

Corbyn and the Labour leadership need to look beyond the mirage of parliamentary majorities and focus on winning the battle of values.

Again, super-ironic that the ostensible vanguard of the rejuvenated Left would need to be told the thing they for years kept telling the Third-Wayers and Blairites.

Hung parliaments and paper-thin majorities are Britain’s new reality.

Welcome to the club.

Just as unions don't have to dictate what TV shows their members watch, cooperation between European countries does not have to involve an entity like the EU.

Some of your premises would support an anarchist position. Structures create and support individual cooperation, not autonomous self-motivated decision-making by individuals. The same applies to states and governments. Collective action needs to be 'locked in' and path-dependent to be systematic. Intergovernmental bodies for purposes of narrow regional cooperation can be useful for what they're worth, but because they place so few constraints and obligations on members there is limited path-dependence and what cooperation there is tends to be passive and driven by external events.

In the long term, I'm worried that closer European integration could lead to (civil) war.

What do you think is going to happen long-term in general?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...football-match

Maybe milkshakes are a measured response?Obviously no one is the same person but I hardly see the same kind of pearl clutching going on.

If you and Furunc want to have this discussion we should do it in a new thread, but to summarize the reactionary logic: when leftists use social shaming or embarrassment to contest the will of the right to dominate them, the right interpret this as an escalation worthy in turn of a preemptively even more violent response than was already being discussed among them. 'Show me deference, or I will have no choice but to kill you.'

Why would that war not happen without the EU? I would argue without the EU such a war is more likely because the countries would coordinate less, wouldn't have EU programs that work against the hardship, etc.
You're also still forgetting that the national governments don't "lose" power and the EU doesn't "aspire" to that, it's the national governments that give their power to the EU and the mandate to do what it does.

I think to actually be viable you do have to de-emphasize the power of national governments in favor of more direct popular sovereignty in supranational government, because only a universal and aggressive pursuit of common interest on the part of individuals embedded in communities can assure enduring global prosperity. Elites and bureaucrats can't do it on their own, even if they wanted to. National governments just aren't coherent, committed, or powerful enough to look out for human interests no matter what body they're part of. The trick is how to bootstrap it...

[Gilrandir]

So noone there helped Russia and wanted that to happen?

There are always collaborators who did and do. The same as before and during WWII. But no one speaks of "efforts of Sudetenland" to leave Czechoslovakia, somehow.

[Pannonian]

I'd like to bring the thread back to Brexit politics for a moment. It's a followup to an article I posted a few months ago about Labour's conundrum in courting a relatively pro-Brexit electorate in most of the swing seats compared to the safe Remain seats generally being safe Labour seats. Well, the EU elections have brought the results of Corbyn's gamble on "constructive ambiguity" for us to review:

Up to 45% of 2017 Labour voters voting in the recent EU elections switched to other, pro-Remain, parties. Not more than a sixth switched to Brexit Party or other pro-Leave.

At a time when the Conservative Party is collapsing, it's hard to get around interpreting this as anything other than a colossal cock-up on Corbyn's part. Two years ago there seemed to be a real electoral dividend in Labour's end in part due to audacious policy messaging and canvassing from the party. Maybe ambiguity on Brexit when it was more popular and more nebulous made sense relative to bashing Tory austerity, but those conditions have shifted in the past year. Ironically enough the Labour leadership seems to have thrown the electoral dividend away by retreat to a caricature of the exact sort of cowardly, noncommittal centrism that Corbyn's ascent was alleged to discredit.

Crikey.

(Now when I first presented the stuff about Brexit polling in Labour/Con swing districts, my interpretation accepted the existence of a pro-Brexit Labour swing vote and the assumption that pro-Remain Labour voters "had nowhere else to go". As has been shown through experience the real marginal Labour voter is the Remain voter, in part because unlike America, UK is multi-party. In my defense, I was making a snap judgement based on one article, and I don't work as a party analyst or anyone who would have the responsibility to use electoral data toward strategic action.)

Again, super-ironic that the ostensible vanguard of the rejuvenated Left would need to be told the thing they for years kept telling the Third-Wayers and Blairites.

Corbyn's position isn't a "retreat to a caricature of the exact sort of cowardly, noncommittal centrism that Corbyn's ascent was alleged to discredit". It has been, and remains, allowing Brexit to break Britain, and for Labour under Corbyn to pick up the pieces of a broken Britain ripe for reshaping. That has been Marxist theory since the early 20th century, but it has never been popular in the mainstream Labour party because it has never been willing to condone real life suffering to enable some enacting of political theory. Because of the demonisation of Blair, it is now politically viable within the Labour party to pursue that course, and when faced with concrete evidence that it's not going to work, chant "Blair", "neo-liberals" and firm up support for the leader wherever he wants to take them. And because Corbyn is an idiot who has wasted the privileged position he was born with, his handlers like his CoS Seumas Milne (a man who was expelled by the British Communist Party for being too hard line Stalinist) get to direct the Labour party.

Remainers have abandoned the Labour party because they have repeatedly given the leadership notice that they expect Labour to pursue a course opposite to that of the government, and been repeatedly rebuffed. On the last occasion, this was made clear policy by the Labour conference, which Corbyn had previously promised would make policy for the party that the leadership would follow. Rather than follow through with his promise to enact membership-directed policy, he ignored it in the following months. There has been an increasing and unignorable build up of evidence that Corbyn is pursuing Brexit for ideological ends. Which has been expected by those of us who have done research on his past. And the Labour party is still pursuing this course, as the shadow foreign secretary, who urged the party to learn from their mistakes and to back a second referendum, has been demoted for doing so.

All this has been no surprise to those of us who have been keeping close tabs on the affairs of the Labour party. And that stat about a majority of Labour constituencies voting Leave? Even there, a majority of Labour voters support Remain. And let's not forget, Corbyn was the first politician to call for the immediate invocation of article 50, before any studies came to light. His support for Brexit isn't the result of considered study of electoral mathematics. It is ingrained, barely covered by pretended support for Remain that he dropped as soon as he saw the opportunity.

Leave voters will never vote for Corbyn. He represents a political position that they utterly loathe. Remain voters who would normally vote Labour have been repeatedly ignored by Corbyn, who is fundamentally pro-Brexit. Their vote for Labour, which they'd intended as opposition to the government, has been interpreted as the 80% in support of the government. So in order for their opposition to the government to register, they have to vote elsewhere.

[Husar]

Some of your premises would support an anarchist position. Structures create and support individual cooperation, not autonomous self-motivated decision-making by individuals. The same applies to states and governments. Collective action needs to be 'locked in' and path-dependent to be systematic. Intergovernmental bodies for purposes of narrow regional cooperation can be useful for what they're worth, but because they place so few constraints and obligations on members there is limited path-dependence and what cooperation there is tends to be passive and driven by external events.

You truly have the best words. I wanted to say that earlier (last paragraph of post #2812), but I guess I just can't express myself as well as you do.

I shall shamefully retreat and memorize expressions to better myself.

There are always collaborators who did and do. The same as before and during WWII. But no one speaks of "efforts of Sudetenland" to leave Czechoslovakia, somehow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_Germans

After 1945, most ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia to Germany and Austria.

Well, yeah, after the ethnic cleansing, they're now demanding their rights from the safety of Germany. One of the reasons they were expelled might be that Hitler used them as a reason to invade.

Konrad Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938 and was instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government. In the Carlsbad Decrees, issued on 24 April, the SdP demanded complete autonomy for the Sudetenland and freedom to profess Nazi ideology. If Henlein's demands had been granted, the Sudetenland would have been in a position to align itself with Nazi Germany.

So nowadays there are no efforts to secede there anymore because they have all been driven out and replaced by locals. There are still organizations that demand retribution and so on though. Same for Poland where more or less the same thing happened after Eastern Prussia and some other areas were given to Poland.

[Gilrandir]

So nowadays there are no efforts to secede there anymore because they have all been driven out and replaced by locals. There are still organizations that demand retribution and so on though. Same for Poland where more or less the same thing happened after Eastern Prussia and some other areas were given to Poland.

I must have been unclear. I don't mean that now people want to leave. I mean that we now don't say that back in 1938 people of Sudetenland wanted to leave. Unless (as your quote proves) they WERE TOLD FROM THE OUTSIDE they wanted to leave. Exactly what happened in Donbas. They were instigated by false rumors of Ukranian nazi atrocities which was coupled with the open intrusion by Girkin's (aka Strelkov's) group who captured police departments in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk thus triggering the military stage (by Girkin's own admission).

[Husar]

I must have been unclear. I don't mean that now people want to leave. I mean that we now don't say that back in 1938 people of Sudetenland wanted to leave. Unless (as your quote proves) they WERE TOLD FROM THE OUTSIDE they wanted to leave.

Not quite, that quote can be misleading if you do not read it carefully. The guy went to Hitler to get advice on how to secede or something like that. See the relevant parts before:

In 1935 the Sudeten German Home Front became the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei) (SdP) and embarked on an active propaganda campaign. In the May election, the SdP won more than 60% of the Sudeten German vote.
[...]
The party represented itself as striving for a just settlement of Sudeten German claims within the framework of Czechoslovak democracy. Henlein, however, maintained secret contact with Nazi Germany and received material aid from Berlin. The SdP endorsed the idea of a Führer and mimicked Nazi methods with banners, slogans, and uniformed troops. Concessions offered by the Czechoslovak government, including the installation of exclusively Sudeten German officials in Sudeten German areas and possible participation of the SdP in the cabinet, were rejected. By 1937 most SdP leaders supported Hitler's pan-German objectives.
[...]
On 13 March 1938, the Third Reich annexed Austria, a "union" known as the Anschluss. Immediately thereafter many Sudeten Germans supported Henlein.
[...]
Only the Social Democrats continued to champion democratic freedom. The masses, however, supported the SdP.

They were initially not about secession, but with a little bit of propaganda it seems that people were easily led that way. This is a good example for how dangerous identity politics and divisive propaganda can be. ;)

[Viking]

Some of your premises would support an anarchist position. Structures create and support individual cooperation, not autonomous self-motivated decision-making by individuals. The same applies to states and governments. Collective action needs to be 'locked in' and path-dependent to be systematic. Intergovernmental bodies for purposes of narrow regional cooperation can be useful for what they're worth, but because they place so few constraints and obligations on members there is limited path-dependence and what cooperation there is tends to be passive and driven by external events.

There is no dichotomy here. By some standards, the current organization of the EU is loose, by others, it is tight.

What do you think is going to happen long-term in general?

Fewer wars. I don't know if Pinkers' data analysis is correct, but I find it plausible that his conclusion regarding a decline in violence is, regardless.

More wars in Europe are likely - it's not so long ago a new one started in Eastern Ukraine - but it should be possible to avoid some of them. True long-term trends can also be interrupted by periods where the measured value shortly trends strongly in the opposite direction.

Why would that war not happen without the EU? I would argue without the EU such a war is more likely because the countries would coordinate less, wouldn't have EU programs that work against the hardship, etc.

Because now separatist motivations are mixed in. If the government is located in the capital, you can go there to protest against it. If the government is located in a different country, so to speak, heading to the capital in your own country is less efficient, and parts of the population may start to seriously think about secession instead. The more powers that have been handed over to the EU, the more likely such a conflict should be, because then the local government will seem like more of a puppet regime, while at the same time it has less control over the situation (e.g. in terms of the economy).

You're also still forgetting that the national governments don't "lose" power and the EU doesn't "aspire" to that, it's the national governments that give their power to the EU and the mandate to do what it does.

You lose what you give away.

Trade deals like CETA, TTIP and so on also included super-national courts so the trade deals that would replace the EU would likely do many of the same things, but with a bigger focus on investment security than national interests. The citizens could lose even more power. [...]
Not to forget that if citizens wanted out of the EU they could vote for parties promising an exit, much like Britain did.

So they should vote for parties that go against such trade deals, according to your own recipe.

We don't know yet, it's leaving the EU though.

Painfully.

How many counbtries did the EU annex?

By analogy.

It is necessary for the consolidation of power that it represents. It can enact laws that count for all members countries, it can ban goods in all member countries and so on. The tight integration, the hard introduction process and the complicated process of leaving give the EU more coherence. A relatively loose set of countries in some trade organization can more easily be divided and conquered by corporations by giving them something in their national interest in return for leaving the organization, etc.

A corporation might be able to bribe a municipality or a city that way, but a group of corporations generally don't have much to offer an entire country, except for the smallest and poorest ones.

It also needs to be explained how the countries coming together in the shape of the EU are less likely to steer off course than if they instead were members of more loosely organized organizations. I.e. that a European organization for food safety somehow would be less capable of banning toxic food packaging than the EU.

[Beskar]

Conservatives are lining up to get appointed as head of the UK Super Villain Society.

You look at the list and there is only despair with the choices on offer.
"You failed at Education, You certainly failed at Health, and... well, for you... 'former foreign secretary' doesn't summarise the colossal mess you did."

I would be in favour of an outsider for sure. At least they haven't had the opportunity to screw-up yet.

Is that really the number 1 choice on that list?