Sand wrote: » I think we are going to have to agree to disagree because we're going round in circles on this. I'd just like to note Leave voters were clear on what they were voting for. To exit the EU and reject the direction of travel that their country was on. Pretending that they didn't understand that there would be an economic cost reads as an attempt to de-legitimise their view.
Sand wrote: » I think we are going to have to agree to disagree because we're going round in circles on this. I'd just like to note Leave voters were clear on what they were voting for. To exit the EU and reject the direction of travel that their country was on.
Pretending that they didn't understand that there would be an economic cost reads as an attempt to de-legitimise their view.
Professor Moriarty wrote: » Leave voters hadn't a clue what they were voting for. And they still don't. Every red line that the Leave campaigners had promised to maintain has been erased by the EU.
Sand wrote: » So you agree with Ganesh? The UK political class can expect there to be a 'permanently aggrieved' minority, and can/should ignore that minority? The UK ought to get used to continued political instability then. No, I agree with myself. There will always be permanently aggrieved minorities. Just because a few Little Englanders latched onto their wildy diverse grievances and misled them doesn't mean their needs are being met. Quite the opposite. Brexit was never the means by which they would be satisfied. Not least because nobody actually knows what 'they' wanted. I don't agree. Firstly, the Remain vote included reluctant Euroskeptics who voted on the basis of party loyalty or fear of economic disturbance. This was the single biggest reason for voting Remain. Love of Europe, or fear of the UK becoming isolated was a minority issue. Measured by how long ago they had determined their vote, they were as convinced or conflicted as Leave voters. Less than a third believed the UK had the best of both worlds. And Cameron was not offering the EU, business as usual. His campaign for Remain was on the basis of the EU being reformed. There was always going to be changes, but what those changes were and how realistic they were was likely debatable. So its not remarkable that a vote can have many different motivations and causes behind it. Of course Remain voters were diverse and would have differing reasons for voting Remain. But that's not my point. My point is that Remain voters, regardless of their reasons for voting, knew what it was like to be part of the EU for decades. Sure, Cameron offered to work towards reforming the EU but voters knew what it was like to live as part of the EU and what it would very probably be like in the future. Leave voters hadn't a clue what they were voting for. And they still don't. Every red line that the Leave campaigners had promised to maintain has been erased by the EU.
So you agree with Ganesh? The UK political class can expect there to be a 'permanently aggrieved' minority, and can/should ignore that minority? The UK ought to get used to continued political instability then.
I don't agree. Firstly, the Remain vote included reluctant Euroskeptics who voted on the basis of party loyalty or fear of economic disturbance. This was the single biggest reason for voting Remain. Love of Europe, or fear of the UK becoming isolated was a minority issue. Measured by how long ago they had determined their vote, they were as convinced or conflicted as Leave voters. Less than a third believed the UK had the best of both worlds. And Cameron was not offering the EU, business as usual. His campaign for Remain was on the basis of the EU being reformed. There was always going to be changes, but what those changes were and how realistic they were was likely debatable. So its not remarkable that a vote can have many different motivations and causes behind it.
Sand wrote: » So its not remarkable that a vote can have many different motivations and causes behind it.
Professor Moriarty wrote: » It's impossible to represent them because you don't know what 'they' want. Nobody does because there is no 'they'.
I disagree completely regarding Remain. They knew exactly what they were voting for. More of what existed. They lived Remain for decades. They knew exactly what would happen if they won.
Sand wrote: » Again, this is what representative politics is about: representing the voters concerns. I wholly agree there were different motivations on the Leave side. Why is it impossible to represent them, whilst it is not remarkably difficult to represent the Remain side? Lets not pretend the Remain vote was much more unified, or even better informed than the Leave voters. Plenty of Remain votes were based on fear rather than any deep understanding of the issues and the trade-offs.
Sand wrote: » I don't think UKIP is representing anti-globalisation, or anti-immigration views. UKIP is very much a single issue party: exit the EU. The revolution ends there, and so has the party. If there was more to it, if it had a bigger cause then it would still be relevant. Farage is the son of a stockbroker. Farage himself is an ex-City of London banker/trader. He's married an Irishwoman and a German. He is very much plugged into the globalist/metropolitan elite. He's called for the UK to accept more Syrian refugees, rejected talks of caps on immigration and the UKIP immigration policy in 2015 is not exactly radically different to anything the Tories would produce. I think Farage is actually quite liberal on immigration: it is the UKIP base which was pushing hard for more restrictions. Farage is going to be quite happy with the Tory style Brexit. He might criticise the outcome as not being good enough, but Singapore-on-Thames is just fine for him and his class.
Professor Moriarty wrote: » One can be specific in hindsight. But the fact remains, all that is certain is that Leave voters voted for 'a Brexit'. That's all. Regarding who voted for Leave, this report's research suggests that there were three distinct categories only one of which could be seen as 'The Left Behind'. So not alone were there diverse reasons for voting Leave, there were diverse cohorts of people who would have very little in common other than they wanted 'a Brexit'. Satisfying diverse cohorts of people, the 52%, with widely differing, and conflicting expectations won't happen under whatever Brexit emerges.
Sand wrote: » The claim is by Andrew Neather, a former advisor to several figures inside the Labour party, including Blair himself. Neather made the claim in 2009, in a Telegraph article. The exact phrasing is "to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date." The assumption being these new arrivals would be Labour voters, not Tory. Neather claims that Labour leaders may have privately supported this, but they were not going to argue for migration on the benefits of multiculturalism, let alone party political advantage. So the instead the dubious economic benefits were the argument made. You can believe or disbelieve Neather - none of the Labour figures are going to confirm his claim. But its certainly clear that something dramatic happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s to long term migration into the UK. Firstly, in the ten years to 1998, migration into the UK averaged 304 thousand people annually. For the 10 years after 1998 to 2008 this leaped to 535 thousand people annually. This is just an average, many years were much higher again.
Sand wrote: » For another perspective, 1998 was the first year in the records when net migration into the UK breached 100,000. It jumped from just 48,000 net migrants in 1997 to 140,000 in 1998 and has climbed and climbed since to 333 thousand in 2015: this net figure is still higher than annual immigrant only figures in any year preceding 1998.
Sand wrote: » The UK experience of migration over the past 20 years is abnormal. The UK had seen nothing like it previously. Brexit is part of the collateral damage. The problem is none of the parties, Tory, Labour, LibDem or UKIP for that matter want to represent the voters behind Brexit. The parties want more Global Britain. So we're going to see more turmoil, like Brexit, between the voters and their supposed representatives while this works itself out.
Sand wrote: » Farage is the son of a stockbroker. Farage himself is an ex-City of London banker/trader. He's married an Irishwoman and a German. He is very much plugged into the globalist/metropolitan elite. He's called for the UK to accept more Syrian refugees, rejected talks of caps on immigration and the UKIP immigration policy in 2015 is not exactly radically different to anything the Tories would produce. I think Farage is actually quite liberal on immigration: it is the UKIP base which was pushing hard for more restrictions. Farage is going to be quite happy with the Tory style Brexit. He might criticise the outcome as not being good enough, but Singapore-on-Thames is just fine for him and his class.
Leroy42 wrote: » UKIP did and they only got 4m votes and no seats. UKIP ran almost entirely on an anti-immigration platform, with EU the target.
Sand wrote: » I think its difficult because Brexit voters had many different motivations, but its not impossible. It is what representative politics is about afterall. Simon Wren-Lewis took an overview of a dozen polls taken of Leave voters. His conclusion was Brexit was a vote against globalisation and social liberalism, the two issues being connected by immigration. Its certainly open to more study, but I think Ganesh's view that the 'permanently aggrieved' can and should be ignored is both outrageously arrogant and as seen in Brexit, mistaken. These people and their concerns need to be represented. The UK is desperately in need of PR voting. What we can be very, very clear on is that the driving force behind Brexit was not desperately seeking a more global Britain, with free trade deals around the world. Unfortunately, this is what the Tory's want, so it is the Brexit that is being delivered. Either British political classes reconnect with the interests of their voters, or we'll continue to see political turmoil in the UK. Because the 52% are not going to be satisfied with a Singapore-on-Thames Brexit.
Professor Moriarty wrote: » How can any party represent Leave voters? Nobody, including themselves, knows what they voted for.
Leroy42 wrote: » UKIP did and they only got 4m votes and no seats. UKIP ran almost entirely on an anti-immigration platform, with EU the target. But why would any mainstream party run on a platform of making the country worse off? Labour gets ridiculed in the media for being anti-business, when Brexit could be the biggest anti-business thing that has ever been done. Sure you can argue that globalisation is wrong etc, but that is to ignore that other countries don't agree and as such no single country is going to turn to clock back (even the US will struggle and they are by far the biggest).
Sand wrote: » The claim is by Andrew Neather, a former advisor to several figures inside the Labour party, including Blair himself. Neather made the claim in 2009, in a Telegraph article. The exact phrasing is "to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date." The assumption being these new arrivals would be Labour voters, not Tory. Neather claims that Labour leaders may have privately supported this, but they were not going to argue for migration on the benefits of multiculturalism, let alone party political advantage. So the instead the dubious economic benefits were the argument made. You can believe or disbelieve Neather - none of the Labour figures are going to confirm his claim. But its certainly clear that something dramatic happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s to long term migration into the UK. Firstly, in the ten years to 1998, migration into the UK averaged 304 thousand people annually. For the 10 years after 1998 to 2008 this leaped to 535 thousand people annually. This is just an average, many years were much higher again. For another perspective, 1998 was the first year in the records when net migration into the UK breached 100,000. It jumped from just 48,000 net migrants in 1997 to 140,000 in 1998 and has climbed and climbed since to 333 thousand in 2015: this net figure is still higher than annual immigrant only figures in any year preceding 1998. The UK experience of migration over the past 20 years is abnormal. The UK had seen nothing like it previously. Brexit is part of the collateral damage. The problem is none of the parties, Tory, Labour, LibDem or UKIP for that matter want to represent the voters behind Brexit. The parties want more Global Britain. So we're going to see more turmoil, like Brexit, between the voters and their supposed representatives while this works itself out.
ancapailldorcha wrote: » Sand states that Blair was hoping to bin the Tories by letting in so many EU migrants. If there's any more info on this, I would be very interested. Perhaps Blair had plans to streamline citizenship applications and was confident of winning the next election so that the requisite 5 years could pass for these EU nationals to be eligible to vote. Only Ireland, Sweden and the UK declined to put restrictions on Eastern EU migration in place following their accession to the EU.
J Mysterio wrote: » Seems to me that NI's future has just been guaranteed. NI will remain in the EU, there won't be another viable solution.
Leroy42 wrote: » The latest deal seems to cement the December agreement (which the UK claimed was merely a talking point) into a backstop position. In other words if the other two options (technical solution to allow frictionless border or the UK remains in the CU) are not delivered then NI becomes separate in regulatory terms from Great Britain. The problem is that none of these options are remotely achievable. NI cannot be seen to be separated, the technology does not exist. So the only realistic solution is to remain in CU, which is never going to float in the UK.
Leroy42 wrote: » Of course they can. No movement until you define your final position on NI. When, how,how much, what will happen in X, Y & Z.
