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Tony Blair: Brexit’s Stunning Coup

92 points by leothekim 10y ago

branchless 10y ago
How did this happen? Blair let the banks own britain. Incomes have been decemated by land prices. Blair set this in train. Get back to jp morgan for some more cash you filthy liar, Blair.
flyinglizard 10y ago
You don't even have to read between the lines with this one. Brexit is a precursor for what is about to come in the next decade; the globalism pendulum is swinging back in full force.
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  The people saw no benefit from globalism. Instead they saw their jobs dry up, their benefits disappear and their incomes flatline. Of course, rather than demand more from their employers or blame capitalism at all, the corporations guide them toward the demon from afar, as has always happened and as will always happen. I wonder who this round's Hitler will be...
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The people saw vastly increasing incomes and life expectancy, primarily at the bottom. Also massive and unprecedented decreases in poverty. http://www.maxroser.com/economic-world-history-in-one-chart/ http://www.maxroser.com/economic-world-history-in-one-chart/ https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/ https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/ https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/74560291412360396 https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/74560291412360396 Oh, by "people", did you mean "privileged westerners"? The "people" also saw no benefit from desegregation if you define "people" to be "white people".
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      He’s presumably talking about the folks who voted for Brexit, that is, predominantly older, less educated, native-born English (and Welsh), many of them from regions of England which have been economically stagnant or declining for several decades and where a high proportion of ambitious youngsters have left for greener pastures in London or elsewhere in Europe.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - vkou 10y ago
        Amusingly enough, those people's futures were not auctioned off by the EU, but rather by Thatcherism.
        ptaipale 10y ago
        And not really by Thatcherism, but by technological development, European integration and world commerce.
      - shawndumas 10y ago
        I think GP would say that those people are privileged westerners–by worldwide standards.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Declining? What good or service did those people have in the past that they don't have today?
    - danharaj 10y ago
      > The people saw vastly increasing incomes and life expectancy, primarily at the bottom. Also massive and unprecedented decreases in poverty. It's not necessarily the case that the benefits of globalism could only come with the costs of globalism. Yes, neoliberal global capitalism was better than the imperialism that came before it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have fatal shortcomings that are coming to a head.
  - voodoomagicman 10y ago
    Well there is this (extreme poverty to fall below 10% of the world population for the first time): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-extreme-poverty-to-fall-below-10-of-world-population-for-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-e... I think globalization played a big part.
- themartorana 10y ago
  Relax. Britain was EU minus the Euro and the schengen. They gave up pure sovereignty without buying into the true core of the EU, which boils down to economics. I get it. If the UK didn't buy into the Euro (and retained fiat currency) and didn't buy into the schengen, what exactly were they getting from EU membership minus encroachment on sovereignty? Edit: since joining the EU, Britain has known nothing but austerity. Whether or not that had anything to do with EU membership, you can see how it was blamed, yes?
  - v1tyaz 10y ago
    Access to the European single market and a large supply of skilled labour.
    - themartorana 10y ago
      Existing trade agreements covered exports and remote labor has always been on the table.
      - johncolanduoni 10y ago
        Maybe this is getting blown up by the media, but I've seen a lot of tech people in the UK on HN and elsewhere looking (sometimes desperately) for other opportunities. Even if future agreements don't make it harder for them to remain and work in the UK on paper, it may still cause a lot of skilled labor to leave the UK purely due to perception. That's assuming that it remains just as easy to do so, which seems unlikely given immigration was part of what was driving the leave vote. Even if it is still easier in absolute terms for someone in the EU to work in the UK than the US, the lowered differential could have pretty negative effects on the market for high-demand jobs.
      - izacus 10y ago
        Really? Because I explicitly remember that running a company and dealing with other European countries has been hell of paperwork, lawyers, different standards and protectionism which made running a company that sold goods or software across Europe extremely complicated before entry of the coutry into EU in 2004. Just the standardization of financial (global VAT system, unified taxes, etc.) and regulatory (if an item is legal in one EU country then it's legal in another) has brought so much more commerce, jobs and startups that I doubt people in this topic born after EU can even fanthom.
- mc32 10y ago
  Globalization was one of those things that overall has brought good to the world [See China, India]. With it, there was necessary move towards equilibrium. Poor countries got richer and rich countries didn't grow as much. It brings wealth to global businesses [Apple, Toyota, Siemens, etc.] But brought with it stagnant wages in developed nations [EU, US, JP, etc.] but wage growth in CN, IN, BR, ZA, etc. Then you had the anti-WTO anti-globalization movement who sympathized with third world countries [because 'exploitation'] and were anti-big business and pro blue collar workers in developed nations --but how were those countries going to develop without globalization? And of course, anti-globalization also meant more nativism and non-westernization of developing countries... yet they were mostly pro immigration to developed nations [which goes against the don't dilute culture attitude for developing nations] Schizophrenic.
  - pdonis 10y ago
    Economic globalization, which has indeed brought good to the world overall, is not the same thing as political unification, which has not. We don't need to have everyone in the world belong to a single country in order to reap the benefits of globalized specialization and trade. Political unification just means that people have less and less voice in how they are governed. The EU's rules are written by unaccountable bureaucrats; I'm not at all surprised that Britain voted to exit from that.
    - PeCaN 10y ago
      I agree. To pick a low-hanging fruit, the EU's internet legislation can only have come from bureaucrats completely detached from reality.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        Which legislation do you mean? (Genuine question. I can see some examples, such as the completely idiotic requirement that forces web sites to have those exceedingly irritating pop-ups for consent to have cookies. Whoever wrote that law clearly didn't understand how web sites work, socially.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  Globalism can't swing back full force because it was driven primarily by advances in technology that are not going to go away. The Internet is not going to disappear. Airplanes and ships and telephone lines and satellites are not going to disappear. From the human perspective, the world has shrunk permanently. What we are seeing now is the backlash to that from an aging generation. I don't mean to be dismissive; their fears are real and legitimate from their perspective. But that perspective won't last forever. The vote pattern in Brexit was clear--young people, who have only ever known a small world, voted for the EU. The next decade or two will be volatile (what decade isn't, really?). But globalism is here to stay. It's far more real than national boundaries, BTW. This globe is humanity's only home, and it's up to us now to manage it. At some point we will grow as a species into accepting that.
- kmiroslav 10y ago
  Too soon to tell. Sure, a few countries will try to follow suit and try to leave the EU but imagine a future when, in a couple of years, Britain's economy has dropped below #10, unemployment is at an all time low, the deficit has ballooned, etc... What do you think EU members will think by then? They will certainly want to stick around. The bottom line is that the current decision was made by voters who are swayed by immigration and talking points from crafty politicians but who have little understanding of how global economy works. Let's see what the situation is in 2018.
YZF 10y ago
It's obvious that open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're against the free movement of people in Europe you're a racist". The US was a supporter for UK to stay in the EU but at the same time you don't see it opening its northern and southern borders for free movement of people. It's significantly more locked down than Europe was before the EU. Another factor is the sluggish global economy. People are looking at that as a failure of globalization. Rightly or wrongly. A random thought. Why should Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, Microsoft, NetFlix, Amazon, Tesla, all be separate companies? They could get together and form, FTAGMNFAT Inc. They would share resources, IP, offices, etc. etc. Stop fighting with each other... I guess one reason we feel this is stupid(?) is that we believe that competition encourages positive outcomes. So how is this different when it comes to countries? Why is it inherently an economic advantage for the UK to be part of a bigger block? We consider small startups to be nimble and adaptive and big companies to be the opposite. On one hand the anti-immigrant feelings reminds me of much darker days. On the other it seems chaos would reign if all world borders were abolished tomorrow. As an individual I like the idea of being able to live anywhere on this planet but I'm not sure how that idea scales especially given more and more people and seemingly less and less resources.
- airesQ 10y ago
  To address the immigration point. The UK has fewer migrants than Spain, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia and many others; [1]. Roughly the same percentage as Germany, France and Iceland. Why are the other countries much less worried about (legal) migration? I think it comes mostly down to housing. The UK build ~400 thousand houses in 1971, but last year built 'just' ~140 thousand [2]. There is a huge shortage of housing, and the migrants are blamed for this. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/79/Foreign-born_population_by_country_of_birth%2C_1_January_2014_%28%C2%B9%29_YB15.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/7... [2] - http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2 http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2
  - NetTechM 10y ago
    A relatively small island nation that is an extremely attractive destination to acquire work. Especially from the poorer countries in the EU. Being paid in pounds, would net you even more than average (for the EU) for low skill requirement jobs.
quadrangle 10y ago
The comments on the article seemed surprisingly good. Anyway, if you build a global system, it will only be sustainable if it actually serves the interest of the general public. A global capitalist system that serves moneyed interests and screws over the middle class and working class is one that will be volatile and upended at times, and some of that will be in entirely misguided directions.
DominikR 10y ago
Sorry, but what did Merkel expect what would happen after she invited everyone from Africa and the Middle East to immigrate to the EU? She didn't ask her population if they support this, let alone the other countries within the EU. What kind of democracy is this where one person can decide on her own how the future of a continent will look like? The funny thing is that she actually still wants to force mass migration to the EU down our throats, even after this disastrous result in the UK. Seems like our elite is absolutely incapable of learning. This is why the EU will fail.
- _delirium 10y ago
  The UK already secured an opt-out from EU refugee resettlement, so if that was the objection, wasn't it already solved?
  - obmelvin 10y ago
    A lot of the people for the leave movement were from less educated demographics who don't think like you or I do.
johncolanduoni 10y ago
Not that I think it should be decided any other way, but I'm curious what the error bars would look like for the vote. 51.9 to 48.1 is pretty damn close. I would find it kind of funny if the p-value for data backing such an important decision was too low for a scientific paper on just the possibility. Though with over 70% participation it's probably still sufficient even for those standards.
gabrielc 10y ago
A lot of racist comments here.
ern 10y ago
At the risk of generalizing, most of us reading this are of above-average intelligence, and have the ability to cope and thrive in a globalized world. We probably have more in common with the global elites than we do with the "lumpen proletariat", and most of us are probably nett beneficiaries of immigration. But a bit of empathy is in order. It's telling that Blair points out Eastern European EU migrants contribute more in taxes than they take out in welfare payments, while ignoring the effect they have on wages. The dominant education narrative in the last few decades in the West has been envy of countries like China, Japan and Singapore, with (allegedly) superior education systems. The subtext being that intellectual achievement is the primary means of determining one's worth (or you will be "left behind"), with no recognition that many people just aren't capable of meeting standards set in cram schools on the other side of the planet. People who are not as capable intellectually are being increasingly marginalized in the quest to drive wages down for non-knowledge work. It's difficult to raise a family as a bus driver, a plumber, a cleaner or a shop assistant if your wages are being undercut by migrants, or (soon) by robots. It's tough to run a corner shop if you are undercut by migrants who, due to the need to remit money, are driven to sacrifice quality of life by keeping their shops open 24x7. The elites, by virtue of being elites, have been able to con working people to vote against their own interests for decades, and put open borders and free trade above all else; and their arrogance has blinded them to the fact that the masses would eventually cotton on to the game. I am as horrified as anyone about the closing of minds and the rise of populism in the West. But I'm not surprised by it.
- airesQ 10y ago
  Too many compliments? Anyway. If the worker cannot move to the factory, the factory moves to the worker. That is the way of the world, and it causes many problems. Those problems need solutions. But I'm not convinced that getting rid of migrants will improve things. For the most part it just changes the place "where stuff happens". We had this revolution in the UK, and yet unemployment is at record lows[1]. Aren't migrants taking jobs? (Not sure about earnings though.) [1] - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-...
  - 10y ago
wavefunction 10y ago
Only stunning if you're totally invested in the status quo and can't conceive of any alternative reality where the people who haven't benefited from your schemes finally call you to task. I'm sorry but 2016 is the year the establishment got it very wrong and didn't learn its lessons. Yeah, it's not over yet.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  That is so true, and the same thing seems to go on even after the vote. If I had had a vote in Britain, I would have voted Remain, but I'm not surprised at all by the result and I even see many upsides in it although difficult times are surely ahead for all of EU because of this. But perhaps difficult times are what is needed to find a new direction - is this a project for United States of Europe, or a common market for European nations? Most major politicians as well as major media outlets - from NY Times to HuffPo to most European government broadcasters - have been painting a picture where the leavers are stupid, uneducated, old, xenophobic racists for expressing their concerns about continued integration towards a federal European government, instead of a common market, and ever-rejoiced multiculturalism in form of immigration that should be unrestricted. What are you going to get out of that? You'll get angry people. Angry people who still have a vote, however much you dislike their having a vote. You won't get people who embarrassedly rue their previous opinions and nicely behave the way you want. Rather to the contrary: the campaign on the Remain side - as so many other campaigns - that tries to strengthen the feeling of solidarity in their own bubble simply miscalculated, and it backfired big time. I suspect that the isolation of people, created by social media - Facebook friend selection, Twitter mobs etc - has strengthened a phenomenon where people cannot understand others who have different problems and different opinions from their own. This could be a result of many, many people de-friending others for just having a different political opinion.
mmaunder 10y ago
"The lasting effect, however, may be political, and with global implications. If the economic shocks continue, then the British experiment will serve as a warning. But if they abate, then populist movements in other countries will gain momentum." Either they lose or we all lose.
rayiner 10y ago
Interesting word choice. "Coup" for something voted on by direct referendum with 70% turnout.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The phrase "stunning coup" for a major, usually unexpected, success for the party pulling it off (and often an upsetting one for opponents) is common and does not derive from the use of "coup" as short for the phrase "coup d'etat". So it's not surprising at all.
aaron695 10y ago
"If the economic shocks continue, then the British experiment will serve as a warning. But if they abate, then populist movements in other countries will gain momentum. > But if they abate Ummm that means economically it's all ok, just a bit or nervousness on the markets. Sooooo they made a ok decision but not yours so it's bad? If there's some sort of morality outside of economics then he should have spelt it out. Britain can still allow immigrants so not sure what this is supposed to mean.

92 points by leothekim 10y ago

How did this happen? Blair let the banks own britain. Incomes have been decemated by land prices. Blair set this in train. Get back to jp morgan for some more cash you filthy liar, Blair.

flyinglizard 10y ago

You don't even have to read between the lines with this one. Brexit is a precursor for what is about to come in the next decade; the globalism pendulum is swinging back in full force.

dclowd9901 10y ago
The people saw no benefit from globalism. Instead they saw their jobs dry up, their benefits disappear and their incomes flatline. Of course, rather than demand more from their employers or blame capitalism at all, the corporations guide them toward the demon from afar, as has always happened and as will always happen. I wonder who this round's Hitler will be...
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The people saw vastly increasing incomes and life expectancy, primarily at the bottom. Also massive and unprecedented decreases in poverty. http://www.maxroser.com/economic-world-history-in-one-chart/ http://www.maxroser.com/economic-world-history-in-one-chart/ https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/ https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/ https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/74560291412360396 https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/74560291412360396 Oh, by "people", did you mean "privileged westerners"? The "people" also saw no benefit from desegregation if you define "people" to be "white people".
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    He’s presumably talking about the folks who voted for Brexit, that is, predominantly older, less educated, native-born English (and Welsh), many of them from regions of England which have been economically stagnant or declining for several decades and where a high proportion of ambitious youngsters have left for greener pastures in London or elsewhere in Europe.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - vkou 10y ago
      Amusingly enough, those people's futures were not auctioned off by the EU, but rather by Thatcherism.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        And not really by Thatcherism, but by technological development, European integration and world commerce.
    - shawndumas 10y ago
      I think GP would say that those people are privileged westerners–by worldwide standards.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Declining? What good or service did those people have in the past that they don't have today?
  - danharaj 10y ago
    > The people saw vastly increasing incomes and life expectancy, primarily at the bottom. Also massive and unprecedented decreases in poverty. It's not necessarily the case that the benefits of globalism could only come with the costs of globalism. Yes, neoliberal global capitalism was better than the imperialism that came before it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have fatal shortcomings that are coming to a head.
- voodoomagicman 10y ago
  Well there is this (extreme poverty to fall below 10% of the world population for the first time): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-extreme-poverty-to-fall-below-10-of-world-population-for-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/05/world-bank-e... I think globalization played a big part.
themartorana 10y ago
Relax. Britain was EU minus the Euro and the schengen. They gave up pure sovereignty without buying into the true core of the EU, which boils down to economics. I get it. If the UK didn't buy into the Euro (and retained fiat currency) and didn't buy into the schengen, what exactly were they getting from EU membership minus encroachment on sovereignty? Edit: since joining the EU, Britain has known nothing but austerity. Whether or not that had anything to do with EU membership, you can see how it was blamed, yes?
- v1tyaz 10y ago
  Access to the European single market and a large supply of skilled labour.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    Existing trade agreements covered exports and remote labor has always been on the table.
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
      Maybe this is getting blown up by the media, but I've seen a lot of tech people in the UK on HN and elsewhere looking (sometimes desperately) for other opportunities. Even if future agreements don't make it harder for them to remain and work in the UK on paper, it may still cause a lot of skilled labor to leave the UK purely due to perception. That's assuming that it remains just as easy to do so, which seems unlikely given immigration was part of what was driving the leave vote. Even if it is still easier in absolute terms for someone in the EU to work in the UK than the US, the lowered differential could have pretty negative effects on the market for high-demand jobs.
    - izacus 10y ago
      Really? Because I explicitly remember that running a company and dealing with other European countries has been hell of paperwork, lawyers, different standards and protectionism which made running a company that sold goods or software across Europe extremely complicated before entry of the coutry into EU in 2004. Just the standardization of financial (global VAT system, unified taxes, etc.) and regulatory (if an item is legal in one EU country then it's legal in another) has brought so much more commerce, jobs and startups that I doubt people in this topic born after EU can even fanthom.
mc32 10y ago
Globalization was one of those things that overall has brought good to the world [See China, India]. With it, there was necessary move towards equilibrium. Poor countries got richer and rich countries didn't grow as much. It brings wealth to global businesses [Apple, Toyota, Siemens, etc.] But brought with it stagnant wages in developed nations [EU, US, JP, etc.] but wage growth in CN, IN, BR, ZA, etc. Then you had the anti-WTO anti-globalization movement who sympathized with third world countries [because 'exploitation'] and were anti-big business and pro blue collar workers in developed nations --but how were those countries going to develop without globalization? And of course, anti-globalization also meant more nativism and non-westernization of developing countries... yet they were mostly pro immigration to developed nations [which goes against the don't dilute culture attitude for developing nations] Schizophrenic.
- pdonis 10y ago
  Economic globalization, which has indeed brought good to the world overall, is not the same thing as political unification, which has not. We don't need to have everyone in the world belong to a single country in order to reap the benefits of globalized specialization and trade. Political unification just means that people have less and less voice in how they are governed. The EU's rules are written by unaccountable bureaucrats; I'm not at all surprised that Britain voted to exit from that.
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    I agree. To pick a low-hanging fruit, the EU's internet legislation can only have come from bureaucrats completely detached from reality.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      Which legislation do you mean? (Genuine question. I can see some examples, such as the completely idiotic requirement that forces web sites to have those exceedingly irritating pop-ups for consent to have cookies. Whoever wrote that law clearly didn't understand how web sites work, socially.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
snowwrestler 10y ago
Globalism can't swing back full force because it was driven primarily by advances in technology that are not going to go away. The Internet is not going to disappear. Airplanes and ships and telephone lines and satellites are not going to disappear. From the human perspective, the world has shrunk permanently. What we are seeing now is the backlash to that from an aging generation. I don't mean to be dismissive; their fears are real and legitimate from their perspective. But that perspective won't last forever. The vote pattern in Brexit was clear--young people, who have only ever known a small world, voted for the EU. The next decade or two will be volatile (what decade isn't, really?). But globalism is here to stay. It's far more real than national boundaries, BTW. This globe is humanity's only home, and it's up to us now to manage it. At some point we will grow as a species into accepting that.
kmiroslav 10y ago
Too soon to tell. Sure, a few countries will try to follow suit and try to leave the EU but imagine a future when, in a couple of years, Britain's economy has dropped below #10, unemployment is at an all time low, the deficit has ballooned, etc... What do you think EU members will think by then? They will certainly want to stick around. The bottom line is that the current decision was made by voters who are swayed by immigration and talking points from crafty politicians but who have little understanding of how global economy works. Let's see what the situation is in 2018.

YZF 10y ago

It's obvious that open immigration was one of the main factors here. Something the "stay in the EU" supporters didn't really seem to address beyond "if you're against the free movement of people in Europe you're a racist". The US was a supporter for UK to stay in the EU but at the same time you don't see it opening its northern and southern borders for free movement of people. It's significantly more locked down than Europe was before the EU. Another factor is the sluggish global economy. People are looking at that as a failure of globalization. Rightly or wrongly. A random thought. Why should Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, Microsoft, NetFlix, Amazon, Tesla, all be separate companies? They could get together and form, FTAGMNFAT Inc. They would share resources, IP, offices, etc. etc. Stop fighting with each other... I guess one reason we feel this is stupid(?) is that we believe that competition encourages positive outcomes. So how is this different when it comes to countries? Why is it inherently an economic advantage for the UK to be part of a bigger block? We consider small startups to be nimble and adaptive and big companies to be the opposite. On one hand the anti-immigrant feelings reminds me of much darker days. On the other it seems chaos would reign if all world borders were abolished tomorrow. As an individual I like the idea of being able to live anywhere on this planet but I'm not sure how that idea scales especially given more and more people and seemingly less and less resources.

airesQ 10y ago
To address the immigration point. The UK has fewer migrants than Spain, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Latvia and many others; [1]. Roughly the same percentage as Germany, France and Iceland. Why are the other countries much less worried about (legal) migration? I think it comes mostly down to housing. The UK build ~400 thousand houses in 1971, but last year built 'just' ~140 thousand [2]. There is a huge shortage of housing, and the migrants are blamed for this. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/79/Foreign-born_population_by_country_of_birth%2C_1_January_2014_%28%C2%B9%29_YB15.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/7/7... [2] - http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2 http://imgur.com/OEP7Sm2
- NetTechM 10y ago
  A relatively small island nation that is an extremely attractive destination to acquire work. Especially from the poorer countries in the EU. Being paid in pounds, would net you even more than average (for the EU) for low skill requirement jobs.

quadrangle 10y ago

The comments on the article seemed surprisingly good. Anyway, if you build a global system, it will only be sustainable if it actually serves the interest of the general public. A global capitalist system that serves moneyed interests and screws over the middle class and working class is one that will be volatile and upended at times, and some of that will be in entirely misguided directions.

DominikR 10y ago

Sorry, but what did Merkel expect what would happen after she invited everyone from Africa and the Middle East to immigrate to the EU? She didn't ask her population if they support this, let alone the other countries within the EU. What kind of democracy is this where one person can decide on her own how the future of a continent will look like? The funny thing is that she actually still wants to force mass migration to the EU down our throats, even after this disastrous result in the UK. Seems like our elite is absolutely incapable of learning. This is why the EU will fail.

_delirium 10y ago
The UK already secured an opt-out from EU refugee resettlement, so if that was the objection, wasn't it already solved?
- obmelvin 10y ago
  A lot of the people for the leave movement were from less educated demographics who don't think like you or I do.

johncolanduoni 10y ago

Not that I think it should be decided any other way, but I'm curious what the error bars would look like for the vote. 51.9 to 48.1 is pretty damn close. I would find it kind of funny if the p-value for data backing such an important decision was too low for a scientific paper on just the possibility. Though with over 70% participation it's probably still sufficient even for those standards.

gabrielc 10y ago

A lot of racist comments here.

ern 10y ago

At the risk of generalizing, most of us reading this are of above-average intelligence, and have the ability to cope and thrive in a globalized world. We probably have more in common with the global elites than we do with the "lumpen proletariat", and most of us are probably nett beneficiaries of immigration. But a bit of empathy is in order. It's telling that Blair points out Eastern European EU migrants contribute more in taxes than they take out in welfare payments, while ignoring the effect they have on wages. The dominant education narrative in the last few decades in the West has been envy of countries like China, Japan and Singapore, with (allegedly) superior education systems. The subtext being that intellectual achievement is the primary means of determining one's worth (or you will be "left behind"), with no recognition that many people just aren't capable of meeting standards set in cram schools on the other side of the planet. People who are not as capable intellectually are being increasingly marginalized in the quest to drive wages down for non-knowledge work. It's difficult to raise a family as a bus driver, a plumber, a cleaner or a shop assistant if your wages are being undercut by migrants, or (soon) by robots. It's tough to run a corner shop if you are undercut by migrants who, due to the need to remit money, are driven to sacrifice quality of life by keeping their shops open 24x7. The elites, by virtue of being elites, have been able to con working people to vote against their own interests for decades, and put open borders and free trade above all else; and their arrogance has blinded them to the fact that the masses would eventually cotton on to the game. I am as horrified as anyone about the closing of minds and the rise of populism in the West. But I'm not surprised by it.

airesQ 10y ago
Too many compliments? Anyway. If the worker cannot move to the factory, the factory moves to the worker. That is the way of the world, and it causes many problems. Those problems need solutions. But I'm not convinced that getting rid of migrants will improve things. For the most part it just changes the place "where stuff happens". We had this revolution in the UK, and yet unemployment is at record lows[1]. Aren't migrants taking jobs? (Not sure about earnings though.) [1] - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-...
- 10y ago

wavefunction 10y ago

Only stunning if you're totally invested in the status quo and can't conceive of any alternative reality where the people who haven't benefited from your schemes finally call you to task. I'm sorry but 2016 is the year the establishment got it very wrong and didn't learn its lessons. Yeah, it's not over yet.

ptaipale 10y ago
That is so true, and the same thing seems to go on even after the vote. If I had had a vote in Britain, I would have voted Remain, but I'm not surprised at all by the result and I even see many upsides in it although difficult times are surely ahead for all of EU because of this. But perhaps difficult times are what is needed to find a new direction - is this a project for United States of Europe, or a common market for European nations? Most major politicians as well as major media outlets - from NY Times to HuffPo to most European government broadcasters - have been painting a picture where the leavers are stupid, uneducated, old, xenophobic racists for expressing their concerns about continued integration towards a federal European government, instead of a common market, and ever-rejoiced multiculturalism in form of immigration that should be unrestricted. What are you going to get out of that? You'll get angry people. Angry people who still have a vote, however much you dislike their having a vote. You won't get people who embarrassedly rue their previous opinions and nicely behave the way you want. Rather to the contrary: the campaign on the Remain side - as so many other campaigns - that tries to strengthen the feeling of solidarity in their own bubble simply miscalculated, and it backfired big time. I suspect that the isolation of people, created by social media - Facebook friend selection, Twitter mobs etc - has strengthened a phenomenon where people cannot understand others who have different problems and different opinions from their own. This could be a result of many, many people de-friending others for just having a different political opinion.

mmaunder 10y ago

"The lasting effect, however, may be political, and with global implications. If the economic shocks continue, then the British experiment will serve as a warning. But if they abate, then populist movements in other countries will gain momentum." Either they lose or we all lose.

rayiner 10y ago

Interesting word choice. "Coup" for something voted on by direct referendum with 70% turnout.

dragonwriter 10y ago
The phrase "stunning coup" for a major, usually unexpected, success for the party pulling it off (and often an upsetting one for opponents) is common and does not derive from the use of "coup" as short for the phrase "coup d'etat". So it's not surprising at all.

aaron695 10y ago

"If the economic shocks continue, then the British experiment will serve as a warning. But if they abate, then populist movements in other countries will gain momentum. > But if they abate Ummm that means economically it's all ok, just a bit or nervousness on the markets. Sooooo they made a ok decision but not yours so it's bad? If there's some sort of morality outside of economics then he should have spelt it out. Britain can still allow immigrants so not sure what this is supposed to mean.