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Brexit Open Thread - the count continues...

by Frank Schnittger Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 01:37:21 AM EST

Please use this open thread to discuss the referendum results. The Guardian live results are here.

At the time of writing, 3.30am CET, the leave camp appears to be building up a slight overall lead, with large leads in areas of England outside London, and with central London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voting decisively to remain.

Sterling has just had its largest fall since the 2008 financial crisis, and the bookies have switched their odds from predicting a remain victory to backing a leave victory. The turnout appears to have been quite high, about 70%, and that is with over a million new voters registering to vote since the general election.

Will this result in new referenda in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Is Cameron toast? Let the games begin...


Display:
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:23:54 AM EST
One way or another, Cameron's time as PM is running to an end.  

Right now the lead is held by Leave by 400,000 votes and a 51/49 percentage.  

What appears to be happening is the Undecideds are breaking for Leave in close areas and for the majority opinion in others.  ?

Also I'm thinking - without any hard evidence - this is as much a rejection of Austerity as the EU.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:59:44 AM EST
Pandering too much and too long to the desires of the self destructive elites of wealth has its price. Let us hope we get some Shumpeterian 'creative destruction' out of this. I fear we will just get destructive destruction and the worst will fall on the weakest.


"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:14:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
the worst will fall on the weakest.

   IOW, same old, same old.  😢

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:30:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Holy Crap.  I. Am. Stunned.

Everybody is calling it for Leave.  BBC saying by 4 points.  

Pound is down 11.5% as of this time stamp.  

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 04:06:29 AM EST
I thought that it would be Remain (and while the vote is Leave, that may yet end up being what happened), but just in case I had exchanged £16500 into Euros yesterday, as I would need to make a big payment in December, to reduce the risk.

Looks like I was wise to do so...

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:00:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
When I started thinking of applying for Italian citizenship about 8 years ago, one of my reasons was the possibility that the UK would leave the EU. Everybody laughed.

It looks like I was right (unless Scotland manages to stay), but I never thought it would happen so soon, or I would have gone about applying for citizenship a lot more urgently.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:06:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
So is Northern Ireland going to get really desperate really fast and play the "Celtic Unity" card on Scotland to try and ride with the Scots to independence?
by rifek on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 04:37:01 AM EST
Sinn Fein is on it.

The former IRA chief-of-staff said that if Britain voted to leave the EU then there was a "democratic imperative" to allow people on the island of Ireland to vote on reunification.

    "If Britain votes to leave the European Union then that could have huge implications for the entire island of Ireland and, given all the predictions, would run counter to the democratic wishes of the Irish people," the Sinn Féin leader said.Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein leader, says Irish people should be given a chance to vote on their future. The Guardian reports:

    The former IRA chief-of-staff said that if Britain voted to leave the EU then there was a "democratic imperative" to allow people on the island of Ireland to vote on reunification.

    "If Britain votes to leave the European Union then that could have huge implications for the entire island of Ireland and, given all the predictions, would run counter to the democratic wishes of the Irish people," the Sinn Féin leader said.



She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 04:44:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Both the Guardian and The FT call victory for Leave! It is not so much a case of chickens coming home to roost as it is of all the demons here assembling. All ships of state may be sailing into an off the chart storm. Or not. But major changes are almost inevitable. It could start in a few hours with a financial collapse. Bloomberg reports the possibility of market disruptions on limit down moves. Gold is up. Hold on for the ride!

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:09:16 AM EST
10:30 PST. Watching MSNBC which is live on BREXIT. The British Stock Market opens in 90 minutes.  Fun Time !! 😋

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:34:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:09:52 AM EST
Brexit should finally kill this wisdom of crowds nonsense. But it won't. The Guardian.
As the polls closed last night, Ladbrokes was offering 4-1 on an out vote, with its betting suggesting that a remain verdict was a 90% certainty.

But with much more money bet on remain than leave, the bookies are likely to turn a large profit.

In a candid statement, Ladbrokes' head of political betting Matthew Shaddick said: "The truth is that bookies do not offer markets on political events to help people forecast the results. We do it to turn a profit (or at least not lose too much) and in that respect, this vote worked out very well for us.

"Nobody at Ladbrokes' HQ will be criticising the predictive powers of our odds, they'll be looking at the money we made."

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:10:06 AM EST
Working class, small amounts.

The in punters were the City boys. A little more disposable income to piss away at Ladbrokes.

Not the wisdom of the crowds, Ladbrokes. Wisdom of City wishful thinking, more like.

by John Redmond on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:54:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
US firms operating in IE "export" to in the EU.

For overall exports, UK of course, but for the shops with IE Euro HQ, where does that tend to go?

by John Redmond on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:51:50 AM EST
So, I hear Cameron is stepping down in the wake of the vote.

Who here thinks the government will actually follow through on Brexit?  Things could stall in the course of inter-governmental negotiations, of course, during which enthusiasm for Brexit might wane.  But those negotiations might never get started.

by Zwackus on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:18:15 AM EST
No idea, which is the problem: what we get now is an extended period of uncertainty, with an emboldened far right across Europe. What could possibly go wrong?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:22:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Everything.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:27:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Starting with Trump's visit to Scotland an hour from now.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:34:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Perhaps he'll be crowned king.
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:39:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The CW says Boris Johnson will be the new leader of the Tories and Prime Minister.  Expect him to move quickly to a full exit.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 01:46:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And expect the EU to tell him not to bother closing the door after him.  Scotland will need the door kept open.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:10:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The usual suspects in Labour will try to stick this to Corbyn. That's probably their best chance. Although they might be to scared to actually take over the party now.

The European ruling classes will blame foreigners for it because the alternative would be that its their fault. Barbed wire manufacturers will prosper.

I suspect they'll copy and paste the TIPP in the new trade agreement with the UK. Passing this will become a matter of live and death.

This is a good opportunity to bury all sins in a recession that is not your fault. It's bailout time.

by generic on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:44:30 AM EST
Nah. The Brits wont get any kind of customized deal at all. Whoever shows up with be told to sign up for the EEA or live with WTO rules, and that will be the only choices on the table.
by Thomas on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 05:22:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The usual suspects in Labour will try to stick this to Corbyn.

Indeed, here's this already: Dismal, lifeless, spineless - Jeremy Corbyn let us down again | Polly Toynbee | Opinion | The Guardian.

Predictably, this op-ed has no comments section... But Corbyn still has support:

'Get stuck in' - Billy Bragg rallies Glastonbury in Brexit aftermath | Politics | The Guardian

The seismic referendum aftermath also led to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pulling out of his appearance at the Left Field tent on Sunday, with a spokesperson saying he was focusing on "momentous" results.

Nonetheless, Corbyn's continued popularity with young voters was reaffirmed as mere mention of his name in the tent prompted a huge cheer.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 08:07:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Also I'd really like people to shut up about the market. I don't care.
by generic on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 09:03:35 AM EST
Like the old adage about there being no atheists in a foxhole even people who should know better return to S&P and the crack weasels for ominous portents of events they don't like.
by generic on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 09:25:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]


They tried to assimilate me. They failed.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 10:02:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The European project is without humor now.
by das monde on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 09:27:18 AM EST
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 11:13:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The Guardian has a map showing where Remain resp. Leave was ahead. Northern Ireland, almost all of Scotland, London, the big cities in the North and south-eastern Wales were for Remain. Surprisingly, Wales as a whole was majority Leave.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 09:45:14 AM EST
Prime Minister in waiting, Boris Johnson, is speaking right now, saying the obligatory nice things about Cameron, but ultimately praising himself and the British people.  He wants to extricate Britain from the Supranational system and thinks that the UK is as united as ever - despite a 62% remain vote in Scotland.

Like everyone else, he is saying there is no need to activate section 50 any time soon.  The EU may beg to differ.  The last thing the world needs now is a prolonged period of uncertainty. He repeats all the shibboleths about Britain providing leadership to the world. I can't see many outside England paying much attention.

It is the end of "Great Britain".

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 10:21:08 AM EST
EU can differ all it wants, there's no good way to force an Article 50 activation.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 11:20:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
No one has to.  But prolonged uncertainty will damage the UK far more than the EU.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 11:37:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Had any been concerned about damaging the UK or Europe there would never have been a referendum. Cameron was almost entirely concerned with his career and tactical considerations. Short-termism has its price. Unfortunately that price will fall more heavily on the non participants. But that is how the system has evolved to work - to the extent it can be said to work.

The outcome of the election was - in effect - a big "FUCK YOU!" from those whose interests had for so long been ignored to the elites who had ignored them. Have the elites noticed?

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 01:44:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Have the elites noticed?

Do they care? Should they care? What will the helpless do?  Take up arms? The English?   😆

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:31:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Looking at the late polls it seems like the huge earlier postal vote may have swamped a late swing to Remain.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 11:55:39 AM EST
Does the mail-in vote in the UK  act like it does in the US: overwhelmingly the old folks?
by rifek on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:37:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Here's a scenario: Boris gets PM. European right uses vote as an excuse to make the changes to immigration and labour rights they'd love to to "neutralise"* their own far right - i.e. "reform" the EU some more.

Boris parachutes into Westminster, Union Jack streaming above him, victory in hand and either calls a new referendum or declares the old one null and void because circumstances have changed.

* i.e. pander shamelessly.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 12:17:18 PM EST
Meanwhile Corbyn is clinging to his post by using the same changed circumstances to oppose a new referendum while simultaneously saying, "See what happens when you break solidarity?"  Thirty seconds after Boris's airdrop, Brexit Tories call for a vote of no confidence, which every other party is happy to support, and Boris becomes the shortest serving PM in modern times.  The Tories fracture because they can't go on old-boying their way around the fact they despise one another, Labour fractures because it just can't help itself, and the UK spins into US-style gridlock.

Scotland forces a divorce from the not-so-UK, and threatens to build a Great Wall of Haggis if anyone in the South doesn't get the memo.  Scotland then tells a tragically desperate Northern Ireland, "Yeah, thanks, no, we've got our own problems you know."  And Northern Ireland looks south.  Hard Orange resistance, Hard Green retaliation, and Irish Alzheimer's are likely to put some blood in the streets, but since it is now possible to distinguish between the Republic's legal code and Canon Law, the swing voters are more likely to vote for cash than creed.  With a Taoiseach who is something more than a ham sandwich, the Republic could actually unite the island, and Ireland could be a modern version of what it was in the 6th and 7th Centuries: a light in the regional darkness.

by rifek on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:14:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European. And that is what you are here for, Richard. Some day we shall have to choose between England and Europe.
Joyce, Exiles, Act 1.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:20:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
EU countries want this over ASAP:

EU leaders call for UK to leave as soon as possible:

The EU's top leaders have said they expect the UK to act on its momentous vote to leave the union "as soon as possible, however painful that process may be" and that there will be "no renegotiation".

And this was absolutely to be predicted:

Scotland Seeks Independence Again After U.K. 'Brexit' Vote:

Scotland's government began moves Friday to hold a new referendum on independence from the U.K. after the "Brexit" vote, saying it faced being taken out of the European Union against its will.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:20:52 PM EST
And

Top EU leader: we want Britain out as soon as possible:

A senior EU leader has confirmed the bloc wants Britain out as soon as possible, warning that David Cameron's decision to delay the start of Brexit negotiations until his successor is in place may not be fast enough.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, told the Guardian that EU lawyers were studying whether it was possible to speed up the triggering of article 50 - the untested procedure for leaving the European Union.



She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:28:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
From the same article
The German MEP Elmar Brok, who chairs the European parliament's committee on foreign affairs, told the Guardian the parliament would call on Juncker to strip the British commissioner, Jonathan Hill, of the financial services brief with immediate effect and turn him into a "commissioner without portfolio".
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 02:37:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
For once that could be good for Europe...

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 04:14:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, that won't be needed:

UK's European commissioner quits in wake of Brexit | Politics | The Guardian

The UK's European commissioner, Jonathan Hill, is resigning, following Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

Lord Hill, the UK's most senior diplomat in Brussels, was sent to Brussels by David Cameron and took the highly prized portfolio of financial services. But his departure after Brexit was a foregone conclusion, as many European politicians oppose a Briton presiding over EU financial stability when the UK is on the way out. Several MEPs have already called on Hill to go.

Hill, said he did not think it was right he carried on as British commissioner as if nothing had happened.

by Bernard (bernard) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 12:29:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:37:18 PM EST
A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit | Politics | The Guardian

"People talk about reluctant remainers, but I think there have been a lot of reluctant Brexiters around, people who voted leave thinking it wouldn't happen but they'd be able to vent and to tell all their friends at dinner parties they'd done it," said one Tory minister.

"He thought what all those reluctant Brexiters thought: it would be a vote for remain, he would be seen as having stood up for a principle." After which leave's newest martyr could simply have bided his time for a year or so before being triumphantly installed in Downing Street.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 08:01:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Petition urging second EU referendum reaches half a million signatures | Politics | The Guardian

On Friday a government website saw an "exceptionally high" number of visits as hundreds of thousands of signatures were added to a second referendum e-petition in the wake of Britain's leave vote. EU parliament leader: we want Britain out as soon as possible President Martin Schulz says speeding up of UK exit being considered after `continent taken hostage because of Tory party fight'
Read more

By the early hours of Saturday more than 520,000 people had signed up, over five times the number needed for the issue to be raised in Parliament.

The surge came as nearly 100,000 people signed a petition calling on London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the European Union.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 08:01:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The surge came as nearly 100,000 people signed a petition calling on London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the European Union.

The editor of The Onion is thinking, "Why didn't we think of this?"

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:37:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
New Rule:  Brits can't pretend Yanks are dumb anymore.

WaPo | The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it

The whole world is reeling after a milestone referendum in Britain to leave the European Union. And although leaders of the campaign to exit Europe are crowing over their victory, it seems many Britons may not even know what they had actually voted for.

Awakening to a stock market plunge and a precipitous decline in the value of the pound that Britain hasn't seen in more than 30 years, voters now face a series of economic shocks that analysts say will only worsen before they improve. The consequences of the leave vote will be felt worldwide, even here in the United States, and some British voters say they now regret casting a ballot in favor of Brexit.



Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:54:01 PM EST
Martin Schulz was reportedly very much pissed off when Cameron announced that the start of exit proceedings would be left to his successor. "White hot anger", "banged his fist on a table" when he watched Cameron's speech with the EUP faction leaders.

An internal strategy document from the German ministry of finance stressed that no special favorable treatment must be given to the UK when it comes to market access to avoid copycats.

I think we'll end up with something between a Norway and Switzerland kind of deal with immigration of course being the most contentious issue.

The Exit Soundtrack: you want out..?

A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit - Guardian

He has everything he ever wanted. It's just that somehow, as he fought his way through booing crowds on his Islington doorstep before holding an uncharacteristically subdued press conference on Friday morning, it didn't really look that way.

One group of Tory remainers watching the speech on TV jeered out loud when a rather pale Johnson said leaving Europe needn't mean pulling up the drawbridge; that this epic victory for Nigel Farage could somehow "take the wind out of the sails" of anyone playing politics with immigration. Too late for all that now, one said.

The scariest possibility, however, is that he actually meant it. That like most of Westminster, Johnson always imagined we'd grudgingly vote to stay in the end. That he too missed the anger bubbling beneath the surface, and is now as shocked as anyone else by the enormity of has happened.

Was it the rain? If young people wanted to stay in by 75% why didn't that come through? Was it the false sense of security in late polls? Demographics? Or are the millenials really as pathetic as people denigrate them to be?

If you're young and angry about the EU referendum, you're right to be - Guardian

The coming years will see, I imagine, perhaps your first experience of how politics - that cocky and inscrutable performance that plays out through your screens - can breach the disconnect and impinge on concrete aspects of your own life. Yes, as a demographic, we have lost, but at the same time we have made a powerful statement It's a lesson that I feel my own generation learned too late, the result of which has been apathy, a lack of political engagement, and the feeling that there is no point participating in a system that does not have our interests at heart.


Schengen is toast!
by epochepoque on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 07:55:29 PM EST
This is nothing. Wait till Trump ascends to the White House ... these are the good old days about which you'll tell your children.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Fri Jun 24th, 2016 at 08:21:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There may well be no rush to exit. Everyone now is saying that the break should be quick and final, but the start of the process requires a government that will notify the EU of the beginning of the proces, Boris Johnson has said there is no hurry, and Cameron has decided to leave it to the next government.

Especially if more Brits come to regret the vote and if a new government cannot be formed without new elections, it would be of no advantage to start the process. Wait until there is a government in place. And what if there is a new government that is elected on a promise to revisit the leave decision? A lot can change in a few months.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 01:22:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I read another strong factor, similar to the US Democratic primaries, was a high share of postal votes: the late poll swing back to Remain didn't affect ballots already mailed.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 07:56:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
About young people:

'Get stuck in' - Billy Bragg rallies Glastonbury in Brexit aftermath | Politics | The Guardian

Speaking before his performance, Glastonbury stalwart Billy Bragg offered a call to arms to the young generation, the majority of whom voted to stay in the EU. Admitting he had not voted when he first got the vote in 1979, Bragg said now was not the time for political apathy.

"My guess is there's a lot of young people who woke up this morning thinking, there's absolutely no way this country would be so stupid to vote us out," he said. "You probably thought there's no point in going to the polling station, I'll let someone else do that. I'm not here to condemn them, after I made the mistake I got stuck into the fight. So now it's your job to get stuck in."

His message was echoed by Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norfolk South, who called for "progressives" to rebuild, be resolute and help him make the world know that "the England Nigel Farage represents is not the UK I want to be part of".



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 08:03:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This whole thing is so fucking depressing.  And terrifying.  Rest assured, the Brits won't be the first.  Or anywhere near the most extreme.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 12:13:49 AM EST
One can only hope.
by John Redmond on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 07:47:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The English have placed a bomb under the Irish peace process | Fintan O'Toole | Opinion | The Guardian

The rather patronising English joke used to be that whenever the Irish question was about to be solved, the Irish would change the question. And now, when the Irish question seemed indeed to have been solved, at least for a generation, it is the English who have changed the question.

Recklessly, casually, with barely a thought, English nationalists have planted a bomb under the settlement that brought peace to Northern Ireland and close cordiality to relations between Britain and Ireland. To do this seriously and soberly would have been bad. To do it so carelessly, with nothing more than a pat on the head and a reassurance that everything will be all right, is frankly insulting.

Just five years ago, when Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning British monarch to visit southern Ireland in a century, there was a massive sense of relief. It was not just relief that the visit went off peacefully and well. It was much deeper than that: it was relief from centuries of both British condescension and Irish Anglophobia. A long story - often nasty, sometimes merely tediously wasteful - was over. There was a dignified, decent, democratic settlement that allowed the natural warmth of a neighbourly relationship to come fully to the surface.



Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:21:08 AM EST
Leave campaign rows back on key immigration and NHS pledges | Politics | The Guardian

...within hours of the result on Friday morning, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, had distanced himself from the claim that £350m of EU contributions could instead be spent on the NHS, while the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said free movement could result in similar levels of immigration after Brexit.

Hannan said: "Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the EU, they are going to be disappointed."

Will there even be a Brexit?

Leave campaign rows back on key immigration and NHS pledges | Politics | The Guardian

Meanwhile, Liam Fox cast doubt on the necessity of triggering the article 50 clause of the Lisbon treaty that sets out the legal process for a country's EU withdrawal.

"I think that it doesn't make any sense to trigger article 50 without having a period of reflection first, for the cabinet to determine exactly what it is that we're going to be seeking and in what timescale.

LOL. I didn't expect buyers' remorse to be this quick.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:42:10 AM EST
In terms of post-referendum gloom, this caricature from The Guardian tales the palm:



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:45:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Boris was looking very chagrined yesterday. My guess is various important people had been shouting at him.

Unfortunately he's the worst person in the world - with the possible exception of Kim Jong-Un - to fix the mess. He's a mediocre journalist, an entertaining popular historian, and a Berlusconi-style politician.

He's not blessed with any particular imagination, and his term in London was full of showy pork-scented failures.

The question that no one is asking - why are all our politicians such revolting people?

There are literally millions of people in the UK who would run the country far more effectively than anyone from either party.  Instead of ranting about worker reform - i.e. lower wages - the developed countries should be thinking long and hard about constitutional reform.

Politics desperately needs to stop being a 19th century blood sport populated by losers and lawyers. Power should be a reward for clear evidence of competence and foresight, and not for being able to sell turds to the peasants.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 09:56:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This pause before the wrangling begins will be a race between both sides to set up an exit framework. I think the UK side will be at a disadvantage now that they suddenly don't want a 'rush' to the exit. Added to that, the UK's industry and commerce lobby wants to / has to preserve single market access, the coming government(s) will be under pressure. The uncertainty period with its economic fallout will add even more pressure. A sour victory.

Schengen is toast!
by epochepoque on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 11:27:59 AM EST
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The ambassador from the EU to the US is being interviewed on CSPAN right now. The ambassador states catagorically that the exit is a done deal.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 12:05:54 PM EST
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by das monde on Mon Jun 27th, 2016 at 12:11:08 AM EST
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British Lose Right to Claim That Americans Are Dumber -- Borowitz Report
Across the United Kingdom on Friday, Britons mourned their long-cherished right to claim that Americans were significantly dumber than they are.

Luxuriating in the superiority of their intellect over Americans' has long been a favorite pastime in Britain, surpassing in popularity such games as cricket, darts, and snooker.

But, according to Alistair Dorrinson, a pub owner in North London, British voters have done irreparable damage to the "most enjoyable sport this nation has ever known: namely, treating Americans like idiots."

"When our countrymen cast their votes yesterday, they didn't realize they were destroying the most precious leisure activity this nation has ever known," he said. "Wankers."

In the face of this startling display of national idiocy, Dorrinson still mustered some of the resilience for which the British people are known. "This is a dark day," he said. "But I hold out hope that, come November, Americans could become dumber than us once more."

by das monde on Mon Jun 27th, 2016 at 12:23:08 AM EST
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I'm numb. The hangover from beer last night doesn't help, but the anticipation of the beer I'll have later does.

I have been very impressed with the reportage from John Harris during the campaign. He's been painting a compelling picture of the Britain that doesn't vote in general elections; the precariat, the victims of IDS welfare changes, the excluded, the disenfranchised and disillusioned. Because they don't vote, as far as Westminster is concerned they don't matter. But they aren't a sullen lumpen mass of apathy, their resentments are every bit as real as ours. They have aspirations, but they are not ours. They  want jobs. they want homes.

All the bullshit about "affordable" homes passes them by, because no home is affordable on benefits or minimum wage flexible hours.

And for 30 years, the tabloids have told them to blame the EU. So they do.

Guardian - John Harris - If you've got money, you vote in ... if you haven't got money, you vote out'

"If you've got money, you vote in," she said, with a bracing certainty. "If you haven't got money, you vote out." We were in Collyhurst, the hard-pressed neighbourhood on the northern edge of Manchester city centre last Wednesday, and I had yet to find a remain voter. The woman I was talking to spoke of the lack of a local park, or playground, and her sense that all the good stuff went to the regenerated wonderland of big city Manchester, 10 minutes down the road.

Only an hour earlier, I had been in Manchester at a graduate recruitment fair, where nine out of 10 of our interviewees were supporting remain, and some voices spoke about leave voters with a cold superiority. "In the end, this is the 21st century," said one twentysomething. "Get with it." Not for the first time, the atmosphere around the referendum had the sulphurous whiff not just of inequality, but a kind of misshapen class war.

And now here we are, with that terrifying decision to leave. Most things in the political foreground are finished, aren't they? Cameron and Osborne. The Labour party as we know it, now revealed once again as a walking ghost, whose writ no longer reaches its supposed heartlands. Scotland - which at the time of writing had voted to stay in the EU by 62% to 38% - is already independent in most essential political and cultural terms, and will presumably soon be decisively on its way.



keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 12:02:42 PM EST
The saddest part is that this will be the very same, most vulnerable, disenfranchised people in Britain who will be suffering most of the consequences of the Brexit. Reuse the £350m of EU contributions to fund the NHS? Ah!

Leave campaign rows back on key immigration and NHS pledges | Politics | The Guardian

But within hours of the result on Friday morning, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, had distanced himself from the claim that £350m of EU contributions could instead be spent on the NHS, while the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said free movement could result in similar levels of immigration after Brexit.

Hannan said: "Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the EU, they are going to be disappointed."

His comments came after the leave camp made voters' concerns about the impact of immigration on jobs, infrastructure and the NHS a key part of their campaigning.

by Bernard (bernard) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 12:26:28 PM EST
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The mysterious NHS pledge will be sorely needed to affront the coming Northern Ireland dilemma.
by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 11:37:21 PM EST
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If they don't vote they don't matter to the politicians.  Just the ways things is.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 at 11:44:45 PM EST
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Thoughts on the sociology of Brexit
1. The geography reflects the economic crisis of the 1970s, not the 2010s. It became clear early on in the night that Leave had extraordinary levels of support in the North East, taking 70% of the votes in Hartlepool and 61% in Sunderland. It subsequently emerged that Wales had voted for Leave overall, especially strongly in the South around areas such as Newport. It is easy to focus on the recent history of Tory-led austerity when analysing this [...]

But consider the longer history of these regions as well. They are well-recognised as Labour's historic heartlands, sitting on coalfields and/or around ship-building cities. Indeed, outside of London and Scotland, they were amongst the only blobs of Labour red on the 2015 electoral map [...] Thatcherism gutted them with pit-closures and monetarism, but generated no private sector jobs to fill the space. The entrepreneurial investment that neoliberals always believe is just around the corner never materialised ....

2. Handouts don't produce gratitude. By the same token, it seems unlikely that those in these regions (or Cornwall or other economically peripheral spaces) would feel `grateful' to the EU for subsidies. Knowing that your business, farm, family or region is dependent on the beneficence of wealthy liberals is unlikely to be a recipe for satisfaction (see James Meek's recent essay in the London Review of Books on Europhobic farmers who receive vast subsidies from the EU). More bizarrely, it has since emerged that regions with the closest economic ties to the EU in general (and not just of the subsidised variety) were most likely to vote Leave ....

3. Brexit was not fuelled by a vision of the future .... many Leavers believed that withdrawing from the EU wouldn't really change things one way or the other, but they still wanted to do it [...]

Thatcher and Reagan rode to power by promising a brighter future, which never quite materialised other than for a minority with access to elite education and capital assets. The contemporary populist promise to make Britain or American `great again' is not made in the same way. It is not a pledge or a policy platform; it's not to be measured in terms of results. When made by the likes of Boris Johnson, it's not even clear if it's meant seriously or not. It's more an offer of a collective real-time halucination, that can be indulged in like a video game ....

4. We now live in the age of data, not facts .... The attempt to reduce politics to a utilitarian science (most often, to neo-classical economics) eventually backfires, once the science in question then starts to become politicised. `Evidence-based policy' is now far too long in the tooth to be treated entirely credulously, and people tacitly understand that it often involves a lot of `policy-based evidence'. When the Remain camp appealed to their `facts', forecasts, and models, they hoped that these would be judged as outside of the fray of politics. More absurdly, they seemed to imagine that the opinions of bodies such as the IMF might be viewed as `independent'. Unfortunately, economics has been such a crucial prop for political authority over the past 35 years that it is now anything but outside of the fray of politics ....

5. The least `enslaved' nation in the EU just threw off its `shackles'. If the EU worked well for any nation in Europe, it was the UK. Thanks to the scepticism and paranoia of Gordon Brown, Britain dodged the catastrophic error of the single currency. As a result, it has been relatively free to pursue the fiscal policies that it deems socially and politically desirable. The fact that it has consistently chosen neoliberal ones is not really the fault of the EU, the stability and growth pact notwithstanding. But in contrast to southern European members of the EU, Britain is scarcely constrained at all. Instead, it has benefited from economic stability, a clear international regulatory framework and a sense of cultural fraternity with other member states. One could even argue that, being in the EU but outside of the Eurozone, Britain has had the best deal of any member state during the 21st century.

by das monde on Sun Jun 26th, 2016 at 11:33:34 PM EST
Outstanding summary...

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 27th, 2016 at 12:09:52 AM EST
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