7 ms·

I think (at least a lot of) those of us that voted remain knew there would be a massive watering down of civil liberties and protections should we leave the EU.

I think (at least a lot of) those of us that voted remain knew there would be a massive watering down of civil liberties and protections should we leave the EU. The UK has never suffered occupation under National Socialism or Soviet Union like most of Europe did so we don't have the same fear of authority creep, which is unfortunate because it absolutely is happening here. People in the UK are infuriatingly trusting of their rulers.

skocznymroczny 9y ago
It's ironic, because many people that were under Soviet Union feel like European Union is creeping dangerously closely towards it, with centralized planning (Germany) and silencing of dissenting voices (if people vote against something in referendum, just run a fear campaign and repeat the referendum).
- jussaying2 9y ago
  Do you have any sources to support your assertions on centralized planning done by Germany, or decisions overturned by repeated referendums?
  - NLips 9y ago
    This is an oft-mentioned idea in the UK. See here for a list of state EU referenda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_Eur... The only repeat referenda seem to be ones where: 1) a motion was denied 2) ammendments were made to change or garuantee parts of the motion 3) the motion was subsequently passed In the anti-EU crowd, this has morphed into "repeatedly re-run a referendum until they get the result they want"
Radim 9y ago
That's an interesting read -- wasn't the main "leave" argument pretty much to avoid Socialism, the new Soviet Union and creepy external authority (EU)? Preserve freedom? From the outside, hilariously, it looks like both sides claim the same ultimate goal.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Leavers seemed to fall into one of two camps, one was primarily concerned with high levels of immigration, the other talked about freedom from EU bureaucracy. The agitators mostly seemed to come from the second group but were happy enough to stoke the fears of the first. Neither group appeared to have any coherent arguments to me.
- ionised 9y ago
  My opinion as someone who wished to remain in the EU despite its (many) problems is that those who voted to leave based on a wish to preserve sovereignty, freedom and democracy were woefully misinformed and perhaps even deliberately led astray by demagogues and fascists. But then again they might say the same about my wish to remain part of the union. I value effective regulation, worker protections, considerations of civil liberties and democracy and I made a choice to vote remain in the EU knowing full well that it is far from perfect. I trust the EU to act in my interests a hell of a lot more than my own country's shit-show of career-politician Eton schoolboys, unelected Lords and sycophantic royalists embodying the very notion of hereditary privilege.
- arethuza 9y ago
  Those on the right in the UK see the EU as a fundamentally a socialist enterprise as the EU has views on workers rights and human rights. Those on the (far) left in the UK see the EU as a fundamentally a capitalist enterprise as it is about free trade and ensuring supplies of cheap labour to keep wages depressed.
- deepnet 9y ago
  Quite the opposite actually. The UK is a mixed economy, we have both Capitalism and Socialism and we like it - our safety-net welfare state and the NHS save lives everyday. EU membership is a shield for former soviet satellite states to join the West and escape Russian influence. The main leave "argument" was £350,000,000 was being given to the EU and could save the beloved NHS - this turned out to be a downright lie. Many of the other popular arguments were equally false and fearmongery about out of control EUrocrats legislating on the curvature of bannanas and attacks on the British sausage and that farmers would be better off outside the common market - all very jingoistic. It has emerged that there was a lot of carefully crafted individually targeted Facebook adverts that played on voters fears derived from personal data held outside the UK (and outside UK data laws), sadly these went undocumented so we may never know the extent of the falsehoods or their level of influence. The UK electoral commission has expressed concern over this type of campaigning as no-one knows what is being promised or how much was spent on it. There has been an effort to try to document these dark ads for the recent election where they seem to have been much less effective. Many Brits feel conned as the referendum was pitched as being only advisory but is now being taken as iron-clad and a 4% majority of those who offered an opinion is very little mandate to enact such major constitutional change. As the realities for science funding, farming subsidies have kicked polls are reporting many Brexiters have changed their tune. Goldman Sax's relocation to Europe is a bellweather for the realities for the financial industry which is close enough to Tory hearts that one hopes they'll snap out of their dreams of Empire and Commonwealth. Hopefully the staggering level of incompetence so far demonstrated by David Davis' negotiating team will be the rope that hangs them and we'll get a second real referendum. The alternative Red White and Blue Hard Brexit promised by Teresa May is not good for anyone in the UK unless they are shorting the pound.
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
> People in the UK are infuriatingly trusting of their rulers. No, just the readers of the reactionary black-top press. What's infuriating is erosion of civil liberties that has happened under both Labour and Conservative governments in the past 30+ years - I blame it on the fundamental design of the office of the Home Secretary - whose job-description is seemingly to always put matters of national security (and the reactionaries' opinions...) above such trivial concerns as privacy or liberty. Fortunately this trend can be reversed if an equivalent opposing office, a hypothetical "Secretary of Sensibleness", existed with veto rights over the Home Secretary. I thought we came close with the new Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, but it seems like a holding position for unwanted or up-and-coming MPs than a position of any consequence (London Olympics notwithstanding).
- ue_ 9y ago
  As a loony lefty myself, I find it really disappointing that Labour has decided to take the turns it has with regard to protecting civil liberties. This is just about my only qualm with the leftist parties in the UK; they have little or no emphasis on protecting the right to privacy, freedom of expression etc. and even the right to possess certain drawings, which was made illegal in 2009, as I remember via the proposal of a Labour MP. Is it really so much to ask for a democratic Socialist party that favours protecting civil liberties? One would think it's in the interest of the proletariat. Oscar Wilde would be in favour of it.
  - ionised 9y ago
    > I find it really disappointing that Labour has decided to take the turns it has with regard to protecting civil liberties. This is just about my only qualm with the leftist parties in the UK; they have little or no emphasis on protecting the right to privacy, freedom of expression etc. The issue here is that Labour governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were decidedly NOT leftist. They were very much a Tory-lite neoliberal party. Remnants of those priests of a dying religion still plague the PLP today and spent the better part of Corbyn's leadership attempting to undermine him. My MP is Angela Eagle. A self-described socially progressive lesbian that you would imagine would be on the side of civil liberties and democracy, yet her record speaks for itself; - Refused to vote against Tory welfare cuts - Voted in favour of the war in Iraq - Voted in favour of the bombing of Libya - Voted three times to block investigations into the decision to go war in Iraq - Voted in favour of national identity cards - Voted in favour of Theresa May's Investigatory Powers Bill (legalised mass surveillance of Britain) She is the kind of 'leftist' that made the Labour party utterly right-wing.
nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
Given that the British were on the other side of that transaction for quite some time (occupying territories, leaving people fighting etc.), it's unlikely they think of such things as a risk.
dom0 9y ago
The UK is already a solid police state, they didn't need to leave the EU to implement that. Of course, it can always get worse.
gadders 9y ago
I think leaving the EU was absolutely fear of authority creep, the increasing authority creep of the EU. I'd be interested to see what authority creep you think is happening in the UK right now. I can see no evidence of it.

skocznymroczny 9y ago

It's ironic, because many people that were under Soviet Union feel like European Union is creeping dangerously closely towards it, with centralized planning (Germany) and silencing of dissenting voices (if people vote against something in referendum, just run a fear campaign and repeat the referendum).

jussaying2 9y ago
Do you have any sources to support your assertions on centralized planning done by Germany, or decisions overturned by repeated referendums?
- NLips 9y ago
  This is an oft-mentioned idea in the UK. See here for a list of state EU referenda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_Eur... The only repeat referenda seem to be ones where: 1) a motion was denied 2) ammendments were made to change or garuantee parts of the motion 3) the motion was subsequently passed In the anti-EU crowd, this has morphed into "repeatedly re-run a referendum until they get the result they want"

Radim 9y ago

That's an interesting read -- wasn't the main "leave" argument pretty much to avoid Socialism, the new Soviet Union and creepy external authority (EU)? Preserve freedom? From the outside, hilariously, it looks like both sides claim the same ultimate goal.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Leavers seemed to fall into one of two camps, one was primarily concerned with high levels of immigration, the other talked about freedom from EU bureaucracy. The agitators mostly seemed to come from the second group but were happy enough to stoke the fears of the first. Neither group appeared to have any coherent arguments to me.
ionised 9y ago
My opinion as someone who wished to remain in the EU despite its (many) problems is that those who voted to leave based on a wish to preserve sovereignty, freedom and democracy were woefully misinformed and perhaps even deliberately led astray by demagogues and fascists. But then again they might say the same about my wish to remain part of the union. I value effective regulation, worker protections, considerations of civil liberties and democracy and I made a choice to vote remain in the EU knowing full well that it is far from perfect. I trust the EU to act in my interests a hell of a lot more than my own country's shit-show of career-politician Eton schoolboys, unelected Lords and sycophantic royalists embodying the very notion of hereditary privilege.
arethuza 9y ago
Those on the right in the UK see the EU as a fundamentally a socialist enterprise as the EU has views on workers rights and human rights. Those on the (far) left in the UK see the EU as a fundamentally a capitalist enterprise as it is about free trade and ensuring supplies of cheap labour to keep wages depressed.
deepnet 9y ago
Quite the opposite actually. The UK is a mixed economy, we have both Capitalism and Socialism and we like it - our safety-net welfare state and the NHS save lives everyday. EU membership is a shield for former soviet satellite states to join the West and escape Russian influence. The main leave "argument" was £350,000,000 was being given to the EU and could save the beloved NHS - this turned out to be a downright lie. Many of the other popular arguments were equally false and fearmongery about out of control EUrocrats legislating on the curvature of bannanas and attacks on the British sausage and that farmers would be better off outside the common market - all very jingoistic. It has emerged that there was a lot of carefully crafted individually targeted Facebook adverts that played on voters fears derived from personal data held outside the UK (and outside UK data laws), sadly these went undocumented so we may never know the extent of the falsehoods or their level of influence. The UK electoral commission has expressed concern over this type of campaigning as no-one knows what is being promised or how much was spent on it. There has been an effort to try to document these dark ads for the recent election where they seem to have been much less effective. Many Brits feel conned as the referendum was pitched as being only advisory but is now being taken as iron-clad and a 4% majority of those who offered an opinion is very little mandate to enact such major constitutional change. As the realities for science funding, farming subsidies have kicked polls are reporting many Brexiters have changed their tune. Goldman Sax's relocation to Europe is a bellweather for the realities for the financial industry which is close enough to Tory hearts that one hopes they'll snap out of their dreams of Empire and Commonwealth. Hopefully the staggering level of incompetence so far demonstrated by David Davis' negotiating team will be the rope that hangs them and we'll get a second real referendum. The alternative Red White and Blue Hard Brexit promised by Teresa May is not good for anyone in the UK unless they are shorting the pound.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

> People in the UK are infuriatingly trusting of their rulers. No, just the readers of the reactionary black-top press. What's infuriating is erosion of civil liberties that has happened under both Labour and Conservative governments in the past 30+ years - I blame it on the fundamental design of the office of the Home Secretary - whose job-description is seemingly to always put matters of national security (and the reactionaries' opinions...) above such trivial concerns as privacy or liberty. Fortunately this trend can be reversed if an equivalent opposing office, a hypothetical "Secretary of Sensibleness", existed with veto rights over the Home Secretary. I thought we came close with the new Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, but it seems like a holding position for unwanted or up-and-coming MPs than a position of any consequence (London Olympics notwithstanding).

ue_ 9y ago
As a loony lefty myself, I find it really disappointing that Labour has decided to take the turns it has with regard to protecting civil liberties. This is just about my only qualm with the leftist parties in the UK; they have little or no emphasis on protecting the right to privacy, freedom of expression etc. and even the right to possess certain drawings, which was made illegal in 2009, as I remember via the proposal of a Labour MP. Is it really so much to ask for a democratic Socialist party that favours protecting civil liberties? One would think it's in the interest of the proletariat. Oscar Wilde would be in favour of it.
- ionised 9y ago
  > I find it really disappointing that Labour has decided to take the turns it has with regard to protecting civil liberties. This is just about my only qualm with the leftist parties in the UK; they have little or no emphasis on protecting the right to privacy, freedom of expression etc. The issue here is that Labour governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were decidedly NOT leftist. They were very much a Tory-lite neoliberal party. Remnants of those priests of a dying religion still plague the PLP today and spent the better part of Corbyn's leadership attempting to undermine him. My MP is Angela Eagle. A self-described socially progressive lesbian that you would imagine would be on the side of civil liberties and democracy, yet her record speaks for itself; - Refused to vote against Tory welfare cuts - Voted in favour of the war in Iraq - Voted in favour of the bombing of Libya - Voted three times to block investigations into the decision to go war in Iraq - Voted in favour of national identity cards - Voted in favour of Theresa May's Investigatory Powers Bill (legalised mass surveillance of Britain) She is the kind of 'leftist' that made the Labour party utterly right-wing.

nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago

Given that the British were on the other side of that transaction for quite some time (occupying territories, leaving people fighting etc.), it's unlikely they think of such things as a risk.

dom0 9y ago

The UK is already a solid police state, they didn't need to leave the EU to implement that. Of course, it can always get worse.

gadders 9y ago

I think leaving the EU was absolutely fear of authority creep, the increasing authority creep of the EU. I'd be interested to see what authority creep you think is happening in the UK right now. I can see no evidence of it.