Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

steddyeddy wrote: »

I was watching Question Time last night and I have to say I think it (the country, the TV show) is getting worse. A woman on the show went on an unchallenged rant about the French "stamping their feet" and petulance being "part of their character". Another audience member stated the French boats should have been sank.

I lived in England and have many great friends from there. However, I think people are kidding themselves about English nationalism. They have a proud misunderstanding of their own history and current events. The comments from the Question Time audience members were more common than people thought.

I'd also add there's a very irrational cultural hatred of the French in aspects of England. It gets rather tiresome when you immediately get references to Napoleon and wars from centuries ago, or some ridiculous stereotype thrown when anything comes up about anything to do with France.

It isn't normal. It's actually Francophobia or Gallophobia and it seems to come from centuries of a hostile relationship with France, but also probably having absorbed a lot of anti-republican messaging in the 1700s and outrage at the French revolution and French anti-Monarchism etc and before that an anti-Catholicism in England in the 1600s and so on. However, I have no idea what it has to do with 21st century Anglo-French relations.

They also imagine that French newspapers and commentators spend huge amounts of time producing similar stuff about the English, when in reality this level of hostility is not reciprocated and is often not even understood. There's a lot of head scratching about why there's so much nastiness directed across the channel and I think in general, looking at French media coverage of the Jersey issue yesterday, it was more of a boring story about angry fishermen and total befuddlement as to why people were making statements about 'wars' in British media.

Even look at British comedy, there are endless examples of anti-French sentiment that just comes out of nowhere in particular. I don't mean the likes of Allo Allo, which wasn't anti-French and actually developed quite complex and interesting characters, but sketches stand out all over the place, and you'll get smug comments from the likes of the Top Gear guy and so on and just endless stereotyping.

England can be fantastic and open minded, but there's a thread of xenophobia and quite literally Little Englandism that runs through politics. For decades it had been in the margins, even if perhaps not so much in the margins in certain tabloids, but it has been moved to front and centre by Brexit and it is utterly toxic.

That story of rallying against the French yesterday was a big morale boot for those who absorb that kind of messaging.

The Express was literally referring to the Gendarmerie Maritime (the French Coastguard) that had been sent in to monitor and police the protest and basically ensure safety, as "war ships" and used the term "war" so many times it was bizarre and you'd people online trying to claim that because the Gendarmerie Nationale is linked to the French defence forces that they were absolutely war ships.

The whole thing is just ... I don't even know what it is. Comical is one word for it, but I think we are long past comedy.

20silkcut wrote: »

Saw a video on you tube of a guy in 18th century attire firing a musket at French fishermen.

Yea, that really happened and wasn't just a sketch for the League of Gentlemen.

Some of the spectacles that were witnessed on the continent in the last few years have been beyond shocking. The Brexit Party's departing speeches, particularly that of Ann Widdecombe, and all of the rather unpleasant and jingoistic nonsense that was spewed by that party in Brussels set a tone that is very difficult to forget.

We also have a situation where the PM is quite literally one of those tabloid style of journalists who built an early career and profile spinning Euro myths from Brussels.

I honestly don't see UK-EU relations being remotely healthy or sane for probably another decade, as this politics is here to stay for some time. The Tories, much like the GOP in the US, have found a formula that can trigger the public and keep them in power and they will keep pushing those buttons.

You have to understand this situation in terms of populist nationalism. So, things like appealing to pragmatic arguments about economics and practicalities of European Union systems just does not have any purchase in that kind of political environment. It's like trying to argue similarly pragmatic points with the DUP. All they care about are issues like symbols, flags, sentiment, feelings and patriotism. Things like economics or common sense polities are secondary to that.

Labour, for whatever reason, is in an existential crisis and is just not likely to be able to overcome this. I also think Labour has a major problem in the sense that Brexit is heavily supported in the old working class heartlands of England, and much like Trump's populist right wing rhetoric went down in 'Blue Collar America', the Tories are appealing to similar 'blame someone else for all your economic problems' type approaches which has been hugely successful for them.

I don't think Labour will easily win back those voters, as even if the economic opportunities dwindle and their quality of life sinks, they will just continue to blame the EU or blame immigration or whatever the topic they're being directed towards is. Arguments for a fairer society don't click, even though they would obviously benefit enormously from it.

You've also got a vaccine bounce, which is being presented as a great win for having taken a hard and jingoistic line to put Britain ahead of an kind of internationalism and that, whether it's true or not, has been very heavily absorbed and will probably see Johnson through another general election, which takes us to a decade or more of this chaos.

It's also a de facto two-party system and operates within a first past the post system, which means that unless you get a very well assembled, single opposition party, you split the vote in constituencies and you end up with a Tory seat win on less than half the votes cast. It's something you'll see quite a lot in marginal constituencies where you'll have a Tory win on say 37%. The unfortunate reality is that if you have a situation where Labour and Lib Dems are going for the same votes, the Tories will always win. That's a huge flaw in the UK electoral system, but it suits the Tories to keep it in place.

I honestly think you're looking at a lost and quite toxic decade.

I don't really think all the appeals to rationality will amount to much.

There were a lot of proposals after WWII that didn't amount to much. The pre EU institutions emerged as the most sensible way forward on those proposals.