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> The fact is that Brexit divisions have settled in in the country, becoming more part of people's political identity than political party. I wish people would

by spuz 8y ago

> The fact is that Brexit divisions have settled in in the country, becoming more part of people's political identity than political party. I wish people wouldn't see Brexit as the ultimate test of British values. It's just a thing that roughly 50% of the country are on different sides of - like milk in tea or marmite on toast. That doesn't mean they fundamentally disagree on every other political issue. Even if as you suggest we go ahead with Brexit and somehow come out better off, do you think we won't find something else to divide us again? Whether you support Brexit or not says nothing about whether you support immigration rights, free trade and regulation and those political issues say nothing about what your values are as a person. If this makes little sense to you then try this experiment, find a friend who is opposed to your view on Brexit and then try to find out whether or not they actually share the same fundamental values as you. I'm willing to bet that you have a lot more in common than you think.

barrkel 8y ago
No one in my social circle is pro-Brexit. The closest I get to pro-Brexit people are the people on a motorcycle forum I frequent. I have interacted with people there, and our positions are in fact quite opposed on the topics you mention. On our values: - London: I love London, whereas the pro-Brexiters generally see London as a filth-infested pit of crime, stabbings, Islamic terrorism, a failed experiment of multi-culturalism, and a grand distraction that occupies far too much public attention. - Immigration: I distinguish between EU free movement and immigration, they do not. They do not value the right to settle anywhere you like in the EU in the same way I do. They see a feeling of European identity above national identity as stark raving bonkers, loony bin stuff. - Nationalism: I've seen the poison of nationalism in Ireland and how it leads to conflict and violence; they seem to see little difference between nationalism and patriotism or supporting a football team. They don't understand the danger. - Regulation: I am strongly in favour of central regulation for everything that affects inter-state commerce because the alternative is a race to the bottom with short-sighted politicians pursuing beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Whereas Brexiteers dislike regulations coming from Brussels, seeing it as an imposition with not enough democratic checks and balances. I'm sympathetic to the criticism of lack of democratic checks, but I think the answer is EU reform, not leaving the EU. Other, more left-leaning people might resent EU restrictions on state aid, I'm not in favour of state aid either - you see how US states competed with one another with tax breaks for Amazon, it's far better to have central restrictions on this nonsense to cut it out. So on the topics you list, my position and pro-Brexit positions are opposed.
- petre 8y ago
  > I think the answer is EU reform That's probably what the Cameron administration tried to do and failed. After he promused to hild the referendum and won tge majoriry, he probably hoped the outcome would be something like 48% leave and use that as a bargaining coin to negotiate with the EU. It didn't work because the Brtis voted to leave instead.
  - barrkel 8y ago
    Cameron wanted an emergency brake on immigration; he got an emergency brake on benefits. I don't think he tried to make the commission more democratic, or enable EU parliament to propose legislation, and I'm pretty sure he didn't try to create any unifying executive head elected from across the whole population. National governments are jealous of their powers, and fearful that the lightweight EU parliament would just be a tool of lobbyists rather than responsive to citizens, that citizens wouldn't be engaged with their representatives. And in many ways they're right. But it's a Catch-22: the EU parliament will remain a bunch of lightweights for as long as it has little power. The EU definitely has a bunch of problems. Top of the list is democratic back-sliding in Hungary, Poland, Romania. And Euro area fiscal union or some other mechanism of fixing economic imbalances under monetary union without needing pro-cyclical austerity and depreciation. And migration from Middle East and Africa. And USA's pivot towards unenlightened self-interest and Russia's reawakened regional power-plays. Brexit is a fair ways down the list at this point for the rest of the EU, much less democratic reform, alas.
    - petre 8y ago
      The EP and EC are by no means lightweights as long as any act voted or adopted by them becomes law, with the obligation of nation states to ratify it and transpose into national laws and regulations. The fiscal union was flawed from the onset, which is why Margaret Tatcher opposed the UK joining the Eurozone. And she was right to do so. https://youtu.be/5TPpuIslzG4 https://youtu.be/5TPpuIslzG4 People in Poland, Hungary and Romania should fight for democracy, as opposed to waiting for the EU to fix their problems. Democracy is won in the street, it isn't granted by decree.
jaziek 8y ago
>Whether you support Brexit or not says nothing about whether you support immigration rights, free trade and regulation and those political issues say nothing about what your values are as a person. Yes it does. This "my political views say nothing about me as a person" statement really aggravates me. It doesn't make any sense. Of course your views are part of you as a person. More specifically to the matter at hand, how does your vote on an issue directly related to immigration, trade, and regulation have nothing to do with those issues?
- spuz 8y ago
  > Yes they do, and yes it does. Supporting brexit simply means you do not want the UK to be in the EU. It doesn't mean that you don't support any of the EU's policies. You might prefer more immigration from non-EU countries for example but still support Brexit. Similarly, you might think that the regulation that we get from the EU is a good thing - you just don't agree with the system of governance that the EU is built on. > More specifically to the matter at hand, how does your vote on an issue directly related to immigration, trade, and regulation have nothing to do with those issues Your vote on those issues of course does reflect your views on those issues. I am referring to values beyond those we are argue about in politics such as a value of fairness, justice, community, family etc. I.e there is a vast swathe of issues on which most people in society actually agree - violence is bad, dishonesty is bad, crime is probably bad etc but that large proportion of values are never shared because they are obvious. I want to bring them up because otherwise it's all to easy to project opposing values on all possible spectra onto those on which we disagree with only a few small issues.
  - jaziek 8y ago
    >fairness, justice, community, family etc. How are these different issues to the ones that are voted on? I fail to see any separation. Immigration is directly related to community, regulation to justice etc... I think you're far too quick to make assumptions about what the baseline of shared values actually is. Yes, it may be easy for us to say that most people think violence, dishonesty or crime are bad things, but absolutely everyone on earth has a different definition for each of those, and differing ideas about to whom or what such definitions should apply. At a certain point, there are hard lines in the sand, across which it is impossible to find common ground. For me, and many others, this issue is one of those.

by spuz 8y ago

barrkel 8y ago

No one in my social circle is pro-Brexit. The closest I get to pro-Brexit people are the people on a motorcycle forum I frequent. I have interacted with people there, and our positions are in fact quite opposed on the topics you mention. On our values: - London: I love London, whereas the pro-Brexiters generally see London as a filth-infested pit of crime, stabbings, Islamic terrorism, a failed experiment of multi-culturalism, and a grand distraction that occupies far too much public attention. - Immigration: I distinguish between EU free movement and immigration, they do not. They do not value the right to settle anywhere you like in the EU in the same way I do. They see a feeling of European identity above national identity as stark raving bonkers, loony bin stuff. - Nationalism: I've seen the poison of nationalism in Ireland and how it leads to conflict and violence; they seem to see little difference between nationalism and patriotism or supporting a football team. They don't understand the danger. - Regulation: I am strongly in favour of central regulation for everything that affects inter-state commerce because the alternative is a race to the bottom with short-sighted politicians pursuing beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Whereas Brexiteers dislike regulations coming from Brussels, seeing it as an imposition with not enough democratic checks and balances. I'm sympathetic to the criticism of lack of democratic checks, but I think the answer is EU reform, not leaving the EU. Other, more left-leaning people might resent EU restrictions on state aid, I'm not in favour of state aid either - you see how US states competed with one another with tax breaks for Amazon, it's far better to have central restrictions on this nonsense to cut it out. So on the topics you list, my position and pro-Brexit positions are opposed.

petre 8y ago
> I think the answer is EU reform That's probably what the Cameron administration tried to do and failed. After he promused to hild the referendum and won tge majoriry, he probably hoped the outcome would be something like 48% leave and use that as a bargaining coin to negotiate with the EU. It didn't work because the Brtis voted to leave instead.
- barrkel 8y ago
  Cameron wanted an emergency brake on immigration; he got an emergency brake on benefits. I don't think he tried to make the commission more democratic, or enable EU parliament to propose legislation, and I'm pretty sure he didn't try to create any unifying executive head elected from across the whole population. National governments are jealous of their powers, and fearful that the lightweight EU parliament would just be a tool of lobbyists rather than responsive to citizens, that citizens wouldn't be engaged with their representatives. And in many ways they're right. But it's a Catch-22: the EU parliament will remain a bunch of lightweights for as long as it has little power. The EU definitely has a bunch of problems. Top of the list is democratic back-sliding in Hungary, Poland, Romania. And Euro area fiscal union or some other mechanism of fixing economic imbalances under monetary union without needing pro-cyclical austerity and depreciation. And migration from Middle East and Africa. And USA's pivot towards unenlightened self-interest and Russia's reawakened regional power-plays. Brexit is a fair ways down the list at this point for the rest of the EU, much less democratic reform, alas.
  - petre 8y ago
    The EP and EC are by no means lightweights as long as any act voted or adopted by them becomes law, with the obligation of nation states to ratify it and transpose into national laws and regulations. The fiscal union was flawed from the onset, which is why Margaret Tatcher opposed the UK joining the Eurozone. And she was right to do so. https://youtu.be/5TPpuIslzG4 https://youtu.be/5TPpuIslzG4 People in Poland, Hungary and Romania should fight for democracy, as opposed to waiting for the EU to fix their problems. Democracy is won in the street, it isn't granted by decree.

jaziek 8y ago

>Whether you support Brexit or not says nothing about whether you support immigration rights, free trade and regulation and those political issues say nothing about what your values are as a person. Yes it does. This "my political views say nothing about me as a person" statement really aggravates me. It doesn't make any sense. Of course your views are part of you as a person. More specifically to the matter at hand, how does your vote on an issue directly related to immigration, trade, and regulation have nothing to do with those issues?

spuz 8y ago
> Yes they do, and yes it does. Supporting brexit simply means you do not want the UK to be in the EU. It doesn't mean that you don't support any of the EU's policies. You might prefer more immigration from non-EU countries for example but still support Brexit. Similarly, you might think that the regulation that we get from the EU is a good thing - you just don't agree with the system of governance that the EU is built on. > More specifically to the matter at hand, how does your vote on an issue directly related to immigration, trade, and regulation have nothing to do with those issues Your vote on those issues of course does reflect your views on those issues. I am referring to values beyond those we are argue about in politics such as a value of fairness, justice, community, family etc. I.e there is a vast swathe of issues on which most people in society actually agree - violence is bad, dishonesty is bad, crime is probably bad etc but that large proportion of values are never shared because they are obvious. I want to bring them up because otherwise it's all to easy to project opposing values on all possible spectra onto those on which we disagree with only a few small issues.
- jaziek 8y ago
  >fairness, justice, community, family etc. How are these different issues to the ones that are voted on? I fail to see any separation. Immigration is directly related to community, regulation to justice etc... I think you're far too quick to make assumptions about what the baseline of shared values actually is. Yes, it may be easy for us to say that most people think violence, dishonesty or crime are bad things, but absolutely everyone on earth has a different definition for each of those, and differing ideas about to whom or what such definitions should apply. At a certain point, there are hard lines in the sand, across which it is impossible to find common ground. For me, and many others, this issue is one of those.