your position is an English nationalist one — Baden

There's nothing other to it than that, Chester. Be honest. The rest does not stand up.

The Irish make me laugh, you inhabit a tiny country that has tried to become an offshore base for big multinationals ...then pretend that you are left wing and care about the workers that you are replacing...Germany's going to want those businesses mate, like I said , you're fucked.

I put my country first but I like us to get on well with other like minded countries and have a controlled immigration system. You're the weirdos lol.

We may become a neoliberal hellhole. But you're likely to beat us to it. Anyway, slán leat.

hopefully...one step up from a socialist one.Bye.

Brexit is actually more of the same from the establishment. If you read the report I mentioned, it speaks about the big variance explaining demographics of support being those who voted for leave being less educated lower income people who feel they've suffered from globalisisation and the distinct wealthy Euroskeptics vs middle class (middle income) more educated liberals. — fdrake

So the EU represents a loss of identity and a loss of autonomy. Middle class liberals are ok with that (or just don't fear it).

The EU is legitimately blamed for some problems by workers and Euroskeptics, while the advantages of being a member are obscure to most people.

A lot of this sounds familiar to me as an American, but I hesitate to take that too far because the UK society and government really are more different than I realized.

I'm not sure why you say this is more of the same from the establishment?

It will drift to the left, the "loads of money" days of the Tory's are over — Punshhh

Drift to the left how?

Your sum up is correct frank. There are some positives to being in the EU, like easy holiday travel, but those advantages come at the cost of a less democratic , less accountable internationalist (globalist) elite. And you are right that the more "educated" middle class are prepared to throw their working class compatriots to the wolves...it comes with the internationalist outlook...they have no problem helping a Romanian get a job over a Briton especially if the Romanian is cheaper, they really don't care about national identity. The working class do care about national identity but the liberal left dress that up as racism.

The UK will need to align itself with either the US, Europe, or China.

The idea that the UK can successfully stand independently is fiction.

I don't have a lot of faith in politicians, but I tend to have faith in the civil servants who work behind them (and for whose work I'm sure the politicians take the credit a lot of the time). We'll see I guess.

That made me laugh because Punshhh knows bugger all about my background.

Prove your background is more working class than mine? Or anyone's for that matter?

So the EU represents a loss of identity and a loss of autonomy. — frank

That is what it represented to people with the politics of @Chester I think. People who identify as working class and losing from globalisation, people who feel like leaving the EU would give the UK more power to look after "its own".

The EU is legitimately blamed for some problems by workers and Euroskeptics, — frank

Yes, few of which were heavily relied upon in the "vote leave" narrative. The less educated poor (stereotyping) seem to blame it for the immiseration of the British working classes since 2008 , the wealthy Euroskeptics dislike it for more mixed reasons; you have the national sovereignty explicitly anti-immigration people like UKIP and the "small government" libertarian group like the Leave backing Tories - they have substantial overlap, and you see that in whether someone is "anti state welfare" like 70% (estimated) of Leave voters were.

while the advantages of being a member are obscure to most people.

I agree with that. The old stories of "the people of Earth are one people", "we're not having war any more with each other in Europe" and "we want a unified geopolitical bargaining unit for the administration of the world market" don't resonate as loudly now in the UK.

Couple that with legitimate concerns, like the EU imposing crippling austerity measures on the Greek populace in 2008 (another of Cumming's touchstones) despite a resounding "no" from their people's referendum on the matter.

It also didn't help Remain's case that people like @Chester got to make bold, memorable assertions; restatements of a narrative backed up by the Daily Express, the Mirror and the Sun and Sky News (this gave that narrative the dominant place in UK news media).

And unfortunately, people like me spent their time demanding an evidential basis for these people's claims, and "Give me the evidential basis for these claims" does not travel as far or as fast as "Take back control".

I'm not sure why you say this is more of the same from the establishment? — frank

The UK government's domestic policies are likely to be the same as they were before. The UK's new points system for immigration is still very flexible, allowing migrant labour in low skilled jobs (not well defined!) when there is a shortage (not well defined!) and will be essentially the same as the international immigration system we currently have for non-EU citizens:

Under the proposed immigration system, freedom of movement – by which EU citizens have since 1992 been able to move freely to the UK to live, work, or study – will end. In its place will be a system which treats EU citizens the same as those from the rest of the world.

and there are no current plans to start the mass deportation of EU migrants that don't fit the very vague new requirements set of them:

The government says employers of migrant workers who do not meet the skills or pay requirements will have to adjust, such as by investing in labour saving technologies like automation. It also points to the more than three million EU citizens already in the UK, many working in lower-skilled jobs, who will remain eligible to live and work in the UK.

and

Alternatively, employers might use strictly temporary, short-term visa schemes that do not have any skills or salary requirements. This includes the two-year Youth Mobility Scheme (Tier 5) visa – the ‘backpacker visa’ – which is currently open to eight countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and attracts around 20,000 people a year, but may in future be extended to EU countries. There will also be a dedicated work visa programme for seasonal agricultural workers.

There are no plans to "fill the gap" in hiring left by immigrants with British citizens. And they have left open the means by which immigrants allegedly crowd out low skilled jobs, just put in policies for acceptance that are expected to change immigration demographics and possibly rights upon arrival.

If you work in a sector where you feel like temporary foreign labour is a problem for you, it will still be a problem for you after Brexit.

But there have been effects on EU immigration (maybe) since the country voted leave:

“The overall story the data tell on EU migration is clear: Britain is not as attractive to EU migrants as it was a couple of years ago. That may be because of Brexit-related political uncertainty, the falling value of the pound making UK wages less attractive, or simply the fact that job opportunities have improved in other EU countries. EU net migration happened to be unusually high in the run-up to the referendum, so at least some of this decline would probably have happened anyway even without Brexit.”

Psst, there's a liberal left conspiracy to pack you all in like sardines before the sea levels rise above your dikes. So you must leave the EU.

Reading through a lot in this thread is quite the comedy.

I have a fairly straight forward question. What is to gain by Brexit? I understand the feeling of autonomously being free from dealing with other people. It's a feeling I have most days against the stupidity of other people. But I'm curious to what is to actually gain in the long run. Think past corporations, globalism, capitalism. There are far too many empty phrases thrown around and in most cases not very well understood in the context so the question again is, what is there to gain by cutting yourself off from a larger group? Looking forward, into the future, what is there to gain?

The world is not the same as before, so what is to gain when thinking about where we are heading?

We've asked Chester what tangible benefits there are to leaving the EU, what we have to look forward to and he has drawn a blank. He can only tell us about the things he hates. The Murdock press has done its job.

Ok, but doesn't it still seem like a coup has taken place? Or is that just an illusion?

The "coup", if you want to put it like that, was by the anti-immigration "small government" wing of the Tory party (figurehead: Bojo) against the "free trade and movement is still good for us" wing of the Tory party (figurehead: David Cameron). They appear to agree on how to govern in almost all other matters. UK political discourse (not necessarily opinion) I think has shifted to that terrain too, and the place has become more hostile to UK nonwhites (evidenced by the surge of hatecrimes).

Edit: I should throw Windrush in there with the hostility to nonwhites in Brexit Britain.

By "align" do you mean join , like we joined the EU ? Or do you mean do trade deals ?

I guess we will see, but I have very little faith in either group...they tend to be risk averse and so don't think big , or outside the box.

We can make this a pissing competition over who's had the harder life but I don't see the point.

The gain was mentioned a while back...less over paid politicians and less unaccountable commissars getting to decide what the over paid politicians get to vote on. Leaving guarantees nothing except UK politicians get to take the blame or credit for what happens...if they fuck up it's easier to get rid of them because they are elected.

People keep saying how small the UK is and how much we need Germany (which is the driving force of the EU) but other countries do just fine outside of it.

How the fuck is a democratic decision a coup?

Thanks! I think I understand it a little better now.

How the fuck is a democratic decision a coup? — Chester

You're right. It was Democratic. I meant "coup" poetically.

Thanks! I think I understand it a little better now. — frank

Glad to be of service! It makes obsessively reading the news worthwhile.

Pfff... As we say: God created the earth but the Dutch created the Netherlands.

Thanks! I think I understand it a little better now. — frank

I should also say that David Cameron's policies were pretty libertarian lite too; the "Big Society" was his strategic spin on it. It is worthwhile remembering, for context, that the same measures the EU imposed on Greece during the financial crisis the UK government imposed, in a restricted form, on the UK; Bojo and Cameron were down with what happened to the Greeks, and probably would not have put it (austerity measures) to a referendum were the UK in Greece's place.

I agree with fdrake on this. The degree of coup depends on how far one delves into possible conspiracies about the divisive nature of parts of the Conservative party. I wrote about this last year (in this thread).
Let me give an example, I don't subscribe to this as a conscious conspiracy, but there are many who do, but rather a general drift towards a free market economy. The kind of Conservatism we have been subjected to in recent years (actually going back 40 years) has been making government, the civil service etc smaller, a small state, creeping privatisation has been eating into public services along with the state funded parts being repeatedly cut and hollowed out. The house price boom and crisis stemmed from this due to no building of council housing, state housing. As the public services become strained an opportunity presents itself for xenophobic groups to blame it on an increase in immigration putting a strain on the services. This switches the blame from the government who starved the organisation of funds, causing the strain and places it on those people over there, those immigrants. The de-regulation of business, erosion of Union power etc leads to workers being exploited more and more, again this is blamed on the immigrants in the same way. So the harder the government starves the economy, the more blame can be lumped on the immigrants and the less blame is attributed to the government. Alongside this is a growth in US style profiteering, profit based privatisations and large amounts of wealth draining out of the country to offshore accounts, or into the estates of wealthy Tory backers who are expert at tax avoidance etc. And if you can start blaming all this on the EU as well, then the more the merrier.

The problem, which is why I suggest politics will drift to the left is Coronavirus, it has shone a light on all this hollowing out destruction of institutions hard won.

One can also factor globalisation into this.

We can make this a pissing competition over who's had the harder life but I don't see the point.

You brought it up, by labelling us as middle class academic elites. Suggesting that salt of the earth working class know better.

Really come on, your are squirming on the floor.

Give us some tangible benefits for the UK to leave the EU.

Don't see Jacob Rees Mogg in that picture for some odd reason.