I think John Oliver is a little bit cheesed off


A while back, he railed magnificently against the Brexit vote, a tirade that I understand was not aired in the UK until after the vote. Well, now, in the aftermath, he’s even angrier.

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    Braftermath? Brapocalypse?
    Anyway, tory ministers are good at digging up really old laws to use as loopholes, or simply make stuff up, so maybe they could re-define the country as the domain ruled by Offa back in 800 AD? This way only some crappy place like Anglesey or Milton Keynes is ejected from EU while the rest can go on with their lives.

  2. Infophile says

    The official YouTube channel for the show actually did show the Brexit tirade in the UK prior to the vote, though I’m not sure what fraction of the UK audience watches the show that way.

  3. k_machine says

    If both the EU and UK cracks up after this it was worth it. Neoliberal institutions like the EU are the radiation that is causing the rise of the cancerous far right. Brexit has empowered all sorts of douchecanoes, but it is better that the fever breaks now than at some later date.

  4. numerobis says

    k_machine: Why do you expect a bunch of independent nations are going to do better than the EU? Historically they spent their energies invading each other rather than trying to make numbers in a spreadsheet as large as possible. Both endeavour lead to bad results, but war seems far worse than the current state of affairs.

  5. fmitchell says

    Schadenfreude is all well and good, but the people of the U.K. — only ~25% of whom actually voted to Leave — will suffer the most. Uncertainty is taking its toll on small businesses as well as the larger ones. The racists are out in force telling every South Asian, East Asian, African, Romanian, and Pole to “go home” even if they were born in the UK. Stock markets are in free fall, which again affects small retirement accounts as well as big corporate portfolios. If other EU countries fall away, those countries, and those who remain in the EU, will suffer similar turmoil. Meanwhile, the politicians who created this mess and the billionaires who profit off unfettered globalization can console themselves with their giant piles of money.

  6. Zeppelin says

    k_machine: I have very little faith that we won’t be at each others’ throats again within a generation if we loosen the ties of the EU.
    The EU is…distasteful, but I’ll take a bad peace over a good war any day. If it “cracks up” we won’t get a revolution that sweeps away the neoliberal oligarchy — we’ll just get lots of little states (likely some bonus little states even, since a lot of separatist regions would take the occasion and declare independence) with even less ability to resist the power of transnational corporations.
    We need a large, powerful state if we want a chance of preserving any sort of democracy in the current environment. If we tear down that state completely, we’ll all be slaves before we can put something else in its place.

  7. =8)-DX says

    @numerobis #4

    rather than trying to make numbers in a spreadsheet as large as possible. Both endeavour lead to bad results

    I for one, praise and welcome our spreadsheet overlords. (Like when in fuck did a EU spreadsheet lead to any result comparably bad as any of the various wars in Europe?) It’s as if people just have this inate hatred of well organised government bureaucracy, irrespective of the good it actually does. Somehow paying a couple of thousand people to shuffle papers to help the EU common market prosper and try to nudge countries towards freedom, economic prosperity, cultural diversity, exchange of scientific knowledge and environmental sanity is an evil comparable to a warcrime.

    At the very worst the EU has added a few extra paperpushers to our countries’ budgets. And that’s ignoring all the benefits and improvements it’s provided to its members (even before joining) and the world in general.

  8. bittys says

    It’s a nice video, and i’m a big John Oliver fan, but it doesn’t come close to capturing just how goddamned furious I still am over this stupidity.

  9. Dunc says

    To borrow a joke that crossed my FB feed at some point recently:

    History of Europe:
    War
    War
    War
    War
    War
    Arguments about bananas
    I’ll stick with the banana arguments, thanks.

  10. says

    I do not understand where this hate of EU comes from, because in my personal perspective I see no reason for it.

    EU has improved lives of milions over the course of its existence. In CZ all the grumblers agains EU are forgetting how much our country has prospered from it – especially from free movement of workforce. The regions along the German border were totaly atrophied during the times of iron curtain and they struggled economicaly for over a decade afterwards. After the border opened, a visible bloom has occured. EU grants allowed us to build roads and reconstruct many public spaces. People go work over the border to work in Germany, where is better pay, but most of them spend money back home – and thus they pour that money into CZ economy. Germany has profitted as well, incraesed availability of both qualified and unqualified workforce has increased the flexibility and output of many businesses.

    The only reason why people want to get out of EU here is 1) xenophobia (as if not being in EU would help with refugee crisis – those refugees would not vanish, they would still try their best to get to a better place) and 2) idioticaly naive idea that EU is somehow restricting our freedoms and we are powerless to do anything about it (despite the fact that those freedoms are negotiated all the time by our polititians and despite the fact that we enjoy currently in our country the biggest real personal freedom in our history).

  11. says

    Trump “thinks” it was peaceful? I dare him to say that to Poles and non-white people in England. Violence against immigrants and non-white citizens has already started.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/610588862443201/

    I hadn’t heard Farage’s name before this weekend, I had only seen it in print. I thought it rhymed with the British pronunciation of “garage”, when it actually rhymes with the US’s pronunciation. But regardless of pronunciation, a garage is filthy inside, full of slime and junk.

  12. says

    Charly

    I do not understand where this hate of EU comes from, because in my personal perspective I see no reason for it.

    To be fair, there are very legitimate grievances against the EU. Just ask Greece. We’re still robbing Africa blind, only this time collectively and with trade instead of individually with armies. And should TTIP come (currently it looks like the French are going to nuke it) we’re all fucked. The EU is completely failing in the refugee crisis and in standing in solidarity with Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal (after standing in solidarity with the banks that caused the collapse).
    There are legitimate problems with subsidy tourism where companies are granted huge boons for creating jobs in poor regions without demanding these jobs to be new jobs. I can understand workers who are furious if the EU pays a big company a few millions to move their jobs to a country with lower wages.
    Of course, none of that explains Brexit. Brexit is people being actually angry at the things the EU does reasonable well, like allowing freedom of movement and keeping autocrats in check (there’s a reason Orban is cheering Brexit on)

  13. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Can the EU accept Scotland as a sovereign nation, for entry into the EU?
    One of the main reasons, I’ve heard, the vote for independence failed, was to remain part of the EU.
    That if they broke off from the UK, they would have to apply separately for admission into EU.
    Now that the UK has forced that necessity, will Scotland once again vote for secession?
    I apologize if these questions have obvious answers, I guess I’m just ignorant of foreign affairs :-(

  14. =8)-DX says

    @Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #16

    To be fair, there are very legitimate grievances against the EU. Just ask Greece.

    The problem with that view of things is that it’s not easy to pin those greivances on the EU as an institution. Unless I’m much mistaken, the it’s the EU’s lack of common fiscal policy that has lead to many problems. And the Neo-liberal austerity-praising politics that has been part of the Greek crisis has been the result of the popularity of neo-liberal economic policy throughout the EU, we’ve had it here in CZ too, local-grown not imposed by the EU. Similarly with the refugee crisis, it’s local right-wing extremism that’s blocking comprehensive cross-EU immigration policy, it’s the xenophobia and pressure from local electorates not some top-down EU directive that’s making it difficult to properly support Syrian refugees in Turkey and elsewhere.

    In many of these cases more EU, more common European policy and greater willingness of individual EU countries to push for consensus and European values would have improved those situations, just as increased EU integration would.

    I’d love the EU to stand in better solidarity with it’s members, to be more humane and quicker respond to injustices created by it’s subsidy system, but the only way that can happen is if our local politicians start seeing the bigger picture and work together for the EU as a common project, rather than a “what can we grab” buffet.

  15. rq says

    I for one, praise and welcome our spreadsheet overlords.

    All Hail Excel the Excellent!
    Also cosigning onto that comment.

    I’d love the EU to stand in better solidarity with it’s members, to be more humane and quicker respond to injustices created by it’s subsidy system, but the only way that can happen is if our local politicians start seeing the bigger picture and work together for the EU as a common project, rather than a “what can we grab” buffet.

    Same.

  16. Nightjar says

    k_machine:

    Neoliberal institutions like the EU

    The EU is not inherently neoliberal. It is a democratic institution, though, so it ends up being whatever the elected leaders of EU’s most influential member countries make it to be. The problem is the EPP, the way it has been leaning and the fact that a lot of Europeans keep voting for them. I don’t see how getting rid of the EU is going to help this.

  17. Dunc says

    slithey tove, @17: No, those questions certainly don’t have obvious answers, and it will take quite some time for us to work them out. Nicola Sturgeon (First Minister of Scotland) has said that a second independence referendum is now back on the table, but it’s a tricky business in all respects – legally, practically, and politically. It’s probably the most complex political situation I’ve ever seen.

  18. blf says

    bittys@9, I’ll take yer fsmdamned furious and raise it multiple incandescents: In part because of what Giliell@18 points out, expats who haven’t lived in the UK for more than so-and-so many years were not allowed to vote.

  19. rq says

    expats who haven’t lived in the UK for more than so-and-so many years were not allowed to vote

    This is how Canada does elections now, too. Thanks, Harper!
    For general elections, it might arguably not matter so much (though I would love to vote in Canada’s federal elections still), but for something like this, I think all UK citizens should have been given the opportunity to vote. I’m sure the complications of setting up a voting area in a foreign country can be dealt with somehow. :P

  20. blf says

    It should be pointed out almost everyone is, or seems to be, at the moment, doing a good impression of running around with blankets (fluffy ones with bunnies) over their heads and screaming “No, no, not the Peas!” — that is, a lot a yakking but not much of the thinking. And there seemed to be quite a lot of that within England(at least) before the ritual collective self-flagellation.

  21. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    [somewhat off topic]
    Can children of UK citizens, children who have been born in another European (or not) country have dual citizenship? Because in their case, I’m undecided on whether they should be allowed to vote.

    We have this issue in Croatia, where children of immigrants to other countries get Croatian citizenship and use their voting rights to predominantly vote for the most nationalist and right-wing party available. As diaspora is known to be very nationalist , that’s not really a surprise but it’s unsettling that some schmuck who has never set a foot to the country can vote on its leadership, with their vote having the same weight as mine… and the ones they vote for usually making my life worse.

  22. rq says

    Beatrice
    Again speaking from a Canadian perspective, first-generation children now do get citizenship along with all rights associated. Second-generation children no longer do – unless they are born in Canada, in which case regular rules apply. Add to this that whole living-outside-of-the-country-for-too-many-years part (applies to me – still a citizen, cannot vote; theoretically, this sort of thing would also apply to my kids, seeing as they have not lived in Canada at all, so I guess that answers that part of the question…?), and that’s how it works for Canadians, as far as I know.
    I do know that Latvian citizens who have never lived in the country for any considerable length of time (i.e. they come here for a fun summer vacation and just love the country to pieces, it’s so wonderful, but no, no plans to move, haha, why do you ask) can, in fact, vote in national elections and referenda. And yes, the results are similar to what you point out with the Croation diaspora: a very nationalist contingent, despite being relatively progressive in other areas (but you can pretend those issues don’t matter when it’s the nationalism on the line). So. Eh.

  23. blf says

    As diaspora is known to be very nationalist […]

    Um, citation? I cannot say I’ve ever heard of such a thing, either in general or for any particular group or location of expats. Being a dual-citizen and dual-expat myself, that is, currently living in a country of which I am not a citizen and whose passport do not carry, I would not call myself a “nationalist” or anything close to it, for either country (nor for the country of residence), for any sensible definition of the term.

  24. rq says

    In other words, I have no idea what the situation is for children of UK citizens.

  25. blf says

    Reading rq@28, I suppose that, in my case, my own very-much-not-“nationalism” is, in part, due to loathing certain “stuff” about each country, neither of which I have visited in many yonks. None of that “fun summer vacation and just love the country to pieces, it’s so wonderful” shite.

  26. goaded says

    Beatrice@27:

    My children are half English, half German, no problem (or, at least, there wasn’t at the time). As for voting, they would probably have to live in the country for a while at least, to be able to vote there (they aren’t old enough yet). At the moment, I can’t vote for national government in either country (but I can vote for local government where I live).

  27. says

    goaded

    Glenn Greenwald has an interesting post up https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/

    I think Greenwald is making a mistake here I’ve seen a few times now: Assume it was “the disenfranchised vs the cushy middle classes”, blaming the latter for the deeds of the former.
    First of all, the working class isn’t a monolith. Working class PoC voted 75% Remain exactly because of the racism of the Leave campaign.
    Secondly, with margins being very close across all classes it’s hard to generalise from this. If 55% or 60% of white working class people voted Leave and only 45% or 40% of middle class people did (I’m making these numbers up, I haven’t seen anything suggesting a more dramatic split) then it follow that the circles overlap much more than they diverge.
    Thirdly, I’m having a hard time of believing a movement spearheaded by Boris Johnson was anti-establishment.
    Fourthly, I’m personally sick and tired of the excuses being made for racists. If you ask these people you’ll get a long rant about the evils of immigration and so on and so on, but we’re constantly told we need to understand those people, have compassion for these people, work with these people, understand the fears of these people while their victims are told they can go fuck themselves.

  28. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    blf,
    I have to admit that “known” is a very much pulled out of my.. .er, personal experience. It would be interesting to find some data on political affiliation of diaspora of different countries, so I’ll look into that.

    In my country’s case, as I already mentioned, diaspora (especially in US and Canada) is overwhelmingly far-right and nationalist, going as far as invoking NDH with fondness and publicly using their flag/coat of arms during official state visits.

  29. unclefrogy says

    as a US resident and citizen and only having an experience of the EU by way of the news and discussions like this one I have the impression that one of the problems or at least one of the roots of the dislike of the EU is the perception of no democratic voice in the decisions that are made . I do not know how much actual democratic voice people have but the impression is not enough.
    The other thing to not forget in discussing what is likely to happen the rest of the issues facing us are still in effect and must bring their influence to bare sooner or later. There is of course Putin and his Russia to deal with, there is the ongoing upheaval in the middle east and the Islamic world and in Africa and the movement of people across borders. Then you better remember that the fucking climate is changing now. the distribution of wealth and prosperity and international trans national nature of business pitted against the nationalistic nature of labor organizations.
    and lastly (maybe) the population is still increasing.
    how will it shake out ?
    may you live in interesting times.
    uncle frogy

  30. blf says

    Beatrice@35, Ok, thanks for the clarification! I look forward to anything you dig up about “tendencies” with expats, but speculate that has so many variables / confounding factors there won’t much of anything in general.

    unclefrogy@36, I concur there is that impression(“perception of no democratic voice in the decisions that are made”); e.g., I don’t have a clew who my MEP is. On the other hand, I’ve never bothered to find out. There is also a confusing mis-mash of organizations, some of which are EU or EU-affiliated, and some of which are not(including some who you think might be, such as the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights), which is not part of EU — ironic, as I think the ECHR is one of the “br”-exiter’s main hates, in addition to teh icky non-English).

  31. blf says

    [D]iaspora (especially in US and Canada) is overwhelmingly far-right and nationalist, going as far as invoking NDH with fondness and publicly using their flag/coat of arms during official state visits.

    I did a tiny bit of Generalisimo Google on a ustaše–Canada connection. It seems Canada was one of the favored destinations when the short-lived NDH broke up, and there certainly is a confusion about that extraordinarily murderous facist puppet-state; as an example, Ustaše Gifts — T-Shirts, Posters, & other Gift Ideas (for feck’s sake!). What percentage of Canadian-Croatians are so deluded I have NO idea…

    Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge points out that, whilst the total number of Croat diaspora is unknown, it is perhaps as much as one half of all Croats. I also found a number of discussions in various books about the apparent ustaše-leanings of some Canadian Croats, but lack confidence in the vaguely-“specific” claims (e.g., a suspicious lack of references).

    Upshot is there does seem to be something ultra-“nationalistic” about one part of the specific community you, er, pulled out of…(ahem!) but details like percentage and so on are perhaps not-so-clear. As is, for instance, just what these apparent goofballs “think” the ustaše / NDH / “independent state of Croatia” was / did…

  32. says

    @#34, Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-

    I think Greenwald is making a mistake here I’ve seen a few times now: Assume it was “the disenfranchised vs the cushy middle classes”, blaming the latter for the deeds of the former.

    You’re getting a very different sense from that article than I am. What I perceive him to be saying is: the elites, both in politics and in media, have spent the last several decades championing causes which are not merely bad for the world but obviously bad for the world. Iraq was an elite project. Libya was an elite project. NAFTA was an elite project. TPP is an elite project*. The elites have proven themselves untrustworthy, and their control over politics is waning. This is both a good and a bad thing — good because it may diminish their ability to push through said bad causes, bad because people with expertise tend to stick to authorities and elites, which means that expert opinion becomes tainted and gets ignored, even when that results in serious harm. Things like the Trump campaign and the Leave Campaign are made possible thereby. The solution, if there is one, is not to try to prop up the same elites who have been betraying everyone’s trust for decades now.

    *And Hillary Clinton’s team, overruling Sanders’ team, has inserted support for TPP into the official Democratic Platform, along with support for fracking and a refusal to stand with Fight For $15. What was that, Clinton supporters? She’s really a liberal? I knew you were lying when you said that, but pretty soon it will be hard for you to pretend it’s true, too.

    @#36, unclefrogy

    as a US resident and citizen and only having an experience of the EU by way of the news and discussions like this one I have the impression that one of the problems or at least one of the roots of the dislike of the EU is the perception of no democratic voice in the decisions that are made . I do not know how much actual democratic voice people have but the impression is not enough.

    From what I have seen of the claims you’re referencing, it is roughly equivalent to someone in the U.S. saying “I got a parking ticket the other day, the officer who gave it to me and the clerk who took my money for the fine down at city hall were not elected, and our parking rules were written by an unelected task force before they got voted on, and that means this town is not a Democracy! Let’s burn down city hall and declare ourselves independent!” The people who vote on legislation in the EU are elected; it’s a parliamentary system. As in the US, non-elected people often write the phrasing of the laws, but they do not become laws until they are voted on by the Parliament.

  33. says

    I can speak anecdotally to the Croatian-Canadian nationalism thing, as a former football referee. The local men’s league had several teams identifying as one nationality or another, such as the Portuguese, H Hungarians, English, Scots, Croatian, Romanian, Serbian, and Macedonian teams. The only clash that I got to do regularly was the Serb-Croat derby, where we always used women referees (benevolent sexism ftw: they were less likely to assault women refs). It’s also the only one to get a regular police presence, due to a long history of on and off field violence. The things they called one another on the field were invariably based in politics from “back home”. The flags and uniforms made proud reference to NDH and the likes.

    Bear in mind most of the players are more Canadian than I am, having been born and raised here.

  34. unclefrogy says

    @40
    that sounds about like what I would have expected it to be like.
    it is a perception problem and an involvement problem to be overcome then besides a xenophobic nationalist problem.
    How to get the common people to get more involved and to feel like they are getting a fair shake when it is pretty clear to the majority that they are not getting much benefit out of it nor much say so either what ever the truth is.

    uncle frogy

  35. ck, the Irate Lump says

    left0ver1under wrote:

    Trump “thinks” it was peaceful? I dare him to say that to Poles and non-white people in England. Violence against immigrants and non-white citizens has already started.
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/610588862443201/

    And here’s even more: http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/following-brexit-vote-hate-attacks-sweep-uk

    And just think, the kinds of people who are doing these kinds of things in the U.K. during/after the Brexit campaign are the same kinds who are dedicated Trump supporters in the United States. Trump must lose.

  36. bittys says

    @34 Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-

    Do you have a source for that 75% POC voting remain figure? I’d like to use it elsewhere, and i’d rather not just cite some random stranger on the internet :)

  37. Dunc says

    Nerd of Redhead, @38:

    Makes it hard to point to a person who is representing your district.

    Not especially – it just means that there’s more than one of them, representing more than one party, which actually increases your chance of having a representative that’s sympathetic to whatever issue you might want to raise with them. For example, here in Scotland our MEPs are Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith of the SNP, David Martin and Catherine Stihler from Labour, Ian Duncan representing the Conservatives, and David “Toad of Toad Hall” Coburn for UKIP (and bampots in general).

  38. bassmike says

    Another factor is that successive UK governments have used the EU as a scapegoat for lots of unpopular issues. Then they turn round and ask us if we want to remain. A lot of people are unaware of the good things that the EU brings and naturally voted to leave.

  39. says

    The Vicar
    The article starts with this wonderful piece of false dichotomy:

    Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting their own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-Leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility.

    The denial of the obvious racism at the heart of the Leave campaign is galling, especially in light of the murder of Jo Cox and the hundreds of racist incidents since the Referendum.
    There is a media failure and responsibility: They mostly stroked the Anti-EU sentiments and racism.
    I absolutely agree that the things you name are bad things. I wouldn’t so much call them “elite things” as I’d call them “neoliberal wet dreams”. It is also fundamentally true that the Leave campaign is in favour of all those things.
    I think it’s way more patronising to paint the Leave voters as poor disenfranchised (again, look at the numbers, this argument is patently false) people who desperately grasped at straws instead of people who consciously made a decision.

    ++++
    Seriously, how deluded are the Leave Tories thinking they can get access to the free market PLUS free movement for Brits in the EU but NO free movement for other EU citizens?

  40. blf says

    [H]ow deluded are the Leave Tories thinking they can get access to the free market

    Extremely. There was an opinion piece in today’s dead tree edition of the International New York Times on various economic delusions, This Is Just the Start of the Brexit’s Economic Disaster:

    Negotiating a new trade relationship with the European Union is equally tricky. Britain seems certain to lose access to the single market — with which it does nearly half its trade — because this is conditional on accepting the free movement of people and contributing to the European Union’s budget. (These were key issues for pro-Brexit voters.) That will jeopardize the foreign investment and good jobs predicated on single-market membership. Britain-based financial institutions will lose their rights to operate freely across the European Union.

    Brexit’s supporters are deluded when they argue that Britain could cherry pick what it likes about the European Union and discard the rest. Since exports to the European Union (13 percent of G.D.P. in 2014) matter much more to Britain than exports to Britain (3 percent of G.D.P. in 2014) do to the European Union, the European Union will call the shots. Other governments have every incentive to be tough, both to steal a competitive advantage and to deter others from following Britain out the door.

  41. rq says

    Okay, the local papers have it out that this is all part of a US plot to fragment the EU, because it is somehow convenient for them and for NATO… So far it’s just the one (rather prominently displayed) interview, but I wonder how long it will be before it becomes ‘common knowledge’. So all you Brits, jsut say Thanks, Obama! and blame the USA.

  42. says

    @#48, Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-

    The article starts with this wonderful piece of false dichotomy:

    Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting their own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-Leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility.

    The denial of the obvious racism at the heart of the Leave campaign is galling, especially in light of the murder of Jo Cox and the hundreds of racist incidents since the Referendum.
    There is a media failure and responsibility: They mostly stroked the Anti-EU sentiments and racism.

    If you actually read the rest of the article, rather than closing the window after the first paragraph, you’ll find that he doesn’t say both explanations aren’t true, merely that the second one is simplistic and unhelpful.

    Which makes sense. Trump supporters are largely racist. But saying that? Doesn’t help. it neither gives a strategy for defeating Trump if there’s enough racism to support him, nor does it let us try to figure out how to head racists off from politicians who are batshit insane in other ways as well, and it doesn’t give us any clues as to how to reduce racism.

    Using disease as a metaphor: either racism is a disease in its own right, or it is a symptom of something else, or possibly one thing in some cases and the other in other cases. To dismiss the Leave vote as nothing but racism is to say: “racism is always a disease, not a symptom”, and there really isn’t much you can do about that. Racists can’t be disenfranchised — even if you’re in favor of it, how would that even work? — and there’s no sign that their numbers are going down. The people who have been going around threatening and beating up PoC and foreigners since the referendum? Are a lot younger than you would expect. Literally the only hope for change is for there to be an underlying cause for at least some racism, to look for it, and do something about it. If you just throw up your hands and say “racism!” then that is impossible.

  43. says

    @#51, rq

    Okay, the local papers have it out that this is all part of a US plot to fragment the EU, because it is somehow convenient for them and for NATO… So far it’s just the one (rather prominently displayed) interview, but I wonder how long it will be before it becomes ‘common knowledge’. So all you Brits, jsut say Thanks, Obama! and blame the USA.

    So… Obama’s calls for a Remain vote when he visited in April were a cynical ploy to increase racist turnout on the Leave side, because he secretly wants there to be more right-wing, racist governments? (Remember, Boris Johnson, possibly the next PM, once made a statement trying to link Obama to Mau Mau terrorism, so it’s not like the whole thing was a well-kept secret.)

    I don’t like Obama very much, but I don’t think he wants Europe to fall apart. How will he (or his successors) get a fig leaf of respectability for bombing Muslims and austerity policies if the people who usually approve of it are demonstrably failing, themselves? Although I suppose you could make a case that the US was hoping to poach some of the businesses which are now leaving the UK. Not very realistic; most of them want access to the EU market, not the US market.

    Oh, well. I suppose it makes a change to blame all of Britain’s troubles on the US instead of Brussels.

  44. rq says

    The Vicar
    To be honest, I didn’t bother thinking that one out logically.
    Reading your comment, I’m rather glad I didn’t. :)

  45. John Phillips, FCD says

    @unclefrogy. As bassmike comments, the politicians, often supported by the print media, of all the countries with a sizeable opposition to the EU use the EU whenever they need a scapegoat and nowhere near enough voices explain what good the EU might be responsible for in their country. For instance, the Guardian had a n interview with a lad from Ebbw Vale in Wales bemoaning that the EU had done nothing for the area. Yet he was standing in front of a sign that had the EU symbol in the corner and was part of £250+ million project in the town to bring jobs, build and help finance an apprentice training centre, build a sport stadium and training facilities etc. If you go to almost any deprived area in S. Wales you would find the same thing. Of course Brexiters lie and say if they had the money they could spend it on the area instead of the EU. The problem is that the reason the EU came in with funding in the first place is because the region fit the EU’s social help programs because central government wasn’t supplying the necessary finding.

    I imagine you could repeat the above through any socially deprived area of the EU but it just doesn’t get the media attention that the silly stories about things like banana regulations. Not that there aren’t regulation to do with bananas, but it was the industry that wanted them for standardisation purposes and so lobbied the EU for them, not the EU imposing them on the industry. The same applies to many of the other directives or laws that the anti-EU right wing UK media loves to splash across its front pages. I.E. these directives haven’t been pulled out willy nilly from the EU’s rear ends, but are responses to lobbying by interested parties. Such as much like the workers rights written into UK law because we are part of the EU and that the Tories want to rip out of UK law as it makes it harder for their backers to sack people or get away with unsafe working conditions, etc

  46. Ichthyic says

    Although I suppose you could make a case that the US was hoping to poach some of the businesses which are now leaving the UK. Not very realistic; most of them want access to the EU market, not the US market.

    OTOH, the US is trying to form a matching pacific trade partnership that would be just as big as the EU itself.

    I’m thinking the US is no longer thinking it needs to work hard to get access to EU markets, when it is on the brink of forming an even bigger market.

    How that all affects the politics of this though.. is anyone’s guess.

  47. blf says

    In the Grauniad, Of course the Brexiters didn’t plan. Arsonists never carry water:

    […]
    Here stands Britain on the world stage, the sound of cracked glass in the air, economic springs unwinding, political cogs rolling across the floor, riffling through a manual that ought to have been mastered before the act of destruction.
    […]
    [… T]here is nothing cuddly about voracity for power, allergy to responsibility and infidelity to any cause besides personal advancement. Yet that is the constellation of traits that forms the former London mayor’s [Johnson, a.k.a. minitrump] character, exerting such narcissistic gravity that no passing truth escapes unbent.

    Johnson is the incarnation of a campaign that within hours of victory sought to absolve itself of accountability for the outcome. Brexiter Tory MPs ask with straight faces why they should be expected to describe Britain’s future relationship with the EU. For that they look instead in cowardly dudgeon to a lame duck prime minister who spent months arguing that the best model for a relationship with the EU is membership of it. […]
    […]
    One of the many fictions of the leave proposition was that Britain might design a bespoke deal with the EU, preserving the benefits of membership and removing the costs, then present this package to a chastened Brussels for ratification.The Brexiters will soon learn that it is not easy to win the support of 27 separate governments, each with their own domestic political problems, many of them fighting xenophobic, nationalist wrecker movements that have taken great succour from what they discern as a kindred insurgency in Britain.

    There is now a tension between economic and political motives within Europe. There is eagerness to retain fluid trade ties with the UK, a point on which the leave campaign (uncharacteristically) was not lying. But, for the sake of political cohesion among remaining members, there is also an appetite to see the unilateralist Brexit experiment fail.

    The UK urgently needs friends. It needs to be mending relations, applying soothing diplomatic balm to wounded allies. Instead, Nigel Farage turns up in swaggering pomp, crassly insulting members of the European parliament, reinforcing for a continental audience the impression that English politics, once an exemplar of democratic moderation [eh?], has degenerated into the pursuit of football hooliganism by other means.
    […]

  48. Ichthyic says

    “Arsonists never carry water.”

    If that isn’t a famous quote already, it should be.

  49. Ichthyic says

    “What are you doing?” Alain asked.
    “Starting a fire, of course.” Mari held up the thing in her hand. “It’s a fire-starter. A really simple device. Haven’t you ever seen one?”
    Alain shook his head. “Never. That thing seems very complicated. I do not understand how it can work.”
    “How do you start fires?”
    That was a Guild secret. Or was it? The elders had told him that no Mechanic could understand how it worked. What would this Mechanic say if he told her? “I use my mind to channel power to create a place where it is hot, altering the nature of the illusion there,” Alain explained, “and then use my mind to put that heat on what I want to burn.”
    “Oh,” Mechanic Mari said. “Is that actually how you visualize the process?”
    “That is how it is done,” Alain said.
    “That’s…interesting.” She grinned. “So, instead of making fire by doing something complicated or hard to understand like striking a flint, you just alter the nature of reality. That is a lot simpler.”

    ― Jack Campbell, The Dragons of Dorcastle

  50. says

    The Vicar

    If you actually read the rest of the article, rather than closing the window after the first paragraph, you’ll find that he doesn’t say both explanations aren’t true, merely that the second one is simplistic and unhelpful.

    Treating me like I was some stupid child is equally unhelpful. Discussion over.

  51. John Phillips, FCD says

    Ichthyic, yep, all it probably means is that the UK is even lower down the pecking order when it comes to making new trade agreement with the US. in the meantime it will have to rely on WTO to deal with any trade problems with the US and the US has a habit of often largely simply ignoring the WTO, except when it finds in its favour of course.