7 ms·

What you've written is exactly what happened in the UK during the Brexit referendum. The lessons still haven't been learned.

amarcheschi 2y ago
As in, they were right calling people bigots if they wanted to get out of the eu? That definitely didn't improve uk, I've even heard about people feeling "betrayed" by the now valid tariffs that damaged their UK business
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  Working class people who, especially, wanted to control immigration were called bigots, uneducated, stupid, racist, etc and were ignored. Result is that they voted for Brexit. No, that didn't change anything because this was ignored by the establishment (both Labour and Conservatives) and that is still festering with the resulting rise of the Reform UK party (of Nigel Farage who's celebrating with Trump in Mar-a-Lago right now).
  - imp0cat 2y ago
    Here's a better analysis of the Brexit thing which was posted here yesterday. It was mostly decided by the fact that the pro-Brexit people had better marketing campaign. https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      "Better marketing" campaign is another word for saying that they understood people's concerns better and were thus able to use that to their advantage instead of insulting the people they were supposed to convince (as the Remain campaign did). This is what Cummings did to win.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        Use that to their advantage by telling the truth or by lying?
      - chimprich 2y ago
        > instead of insulting the people they were supposed to convince (as the Remain campaign did) Can you point to any examples of this? I don't think the official Remain campaign did anything of the sort. Insulting the people you are trying to convert is a poor strategy, which is why I don't believe they did it. When you say "were called bigots, uneducated, stupid, racist, etc", what I think happened was that the Leave campaign alleged that that was what the Remainers thinking/saying and it gained traction.
    - rgblambda 2y ago
      Your "analysis" is from someone involved in the Brexit campaign. Of course Cummings is going to say he was amazing at marketing. Another argument would be that Vote Leave broke campaign spending rules. In countries with legally binding referenda, that would justify rerunning the referendum. But in the UK it was "only advisory".
- ben_w 2y ago
  I believe the argument being made is that calling spades spades is bad when spade is an insult and you need to convince the spades to vote for you. Which is also why Republicans calling Democrats childish names such as "Dummy-crat" or saying "socialist" (or "commie") for all things to the left of their Overton Window doesn't convince any to their left to change their minds rightward.
  - amarcheschi 2y ago
    I think that might be the culprit, but then you have no escape. Some post brexit interviews have been - at least for an European - quite hilarious. I feel sorry for them tho, but it's sort of a leopards ate my face situation
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Indeed, and similar. I used to live in Cambridge; I knew only one person who was a long-time UKIP voter in EU elections, who was "delighted" by the result of the referendum. Even though I'd already been openly discussing moving to Germany ahead of the referendum, and went on an InterRail trip immediately before it to find a place to move to in the event of Leave winning, he did not comprehend that my reaction to the result included cutting him out of my life entirely. He wanted the Cambridge to shrink, I left. That's his face leopard. (As for intelligence: he also sometimes boasted of being in the international maths olympiad, this was Cambridge after all).
d4rti 2y ago
What happened is that the remain side had to fight on the side of a reality that existed and the Brexiteers made up a fantasy future that has failed to materialise.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Brexiteers made up a fantasy future Worse: many different and mutually incompatible fantasy futures, which they denied ahead of the referendum, and which after the referendum became a source of infighting that made all possible Brexits impossible to get past Westminster until Johnson came along and lied to everyone to get enough support to actually close a deal. (The only time I can think of when digging a deeper hole got anywhere, even if the where was a… I guess in this metaphor: a disused basement where the stairs were missing?)
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  Your comment somewhat illustrates the point. It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying to understand them, which is a recipe for eventual failure as we've seen. Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a discussion on this...
  - d4rti 2y ago
    There was nothing coherent to understand. A rag tag coalition mainly built on delusional positions. - we can have all the trade benefits without freedom of movement (specifically denied by EU at the time, didn't materialise) - we will have 'more trade' afterwards (fails to understand how trade works) - we won't have to follow EU rules (in reality, we can't really diverge that much from how the EU works without incurring penalties) - we won't have to pay anything to them / we hold all the cards / ... (we did pay for our liabilities and we definitely didn't hold the cards) - we can become much more left wing if we leave the neoliberal EU (fails to account for the fact our country isn't particularly left wing overall) - politicians will have to take responsibility/can't blame the EU (brexiteers keep blaming the EU even now, BJ et.al. have faced minimal or no consequences for their actions) - we can fish again (ignores relative importance of fishing vs the actually productive economy, disregards that EU is a big market for said fish) What do you suggest we engage with?
YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
What lessons haven't been learned? Keir Starmer's Labour won the last UK elections by a landslide and the Tories got the boot. I do think your analysis oversimplifies a complex issue. I'm not ignoring that Starmer got elected by keeping his mouth shut and his hands behind his back, but the Tories' smash-mouth politics did not win the day anyway. What I can see from where I am is that Brexit was a very special case and it's all gone back to normal now.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  There was no landslide. Labour actually got fewer votes than at the previous election when it was by Corbyn! What happens is that Conservatives voters voted for someone else, mostly Reform UK. And the reasons have been the same as what's been festering since Brexit with the added factor that the Conservatives increased immigration to record level...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
    Labour won with 411 seats (up 211 from 2019) and 33.3% of the popular vote (9,708,716 votes) vs. 121 seats for the Conservatives (down 251) and 23.7% of the popular vote (6,828,925 ). YMMV but I call a lead of 290 seats and 2,879,791 votes a landslide. It was the Lib Dems that seem to have taken most of the Tories' voters: 72 seats (up 64) and 3,519,143 votes. The latter at least checks out. Reform was up 1 seat from 2019 for 5 seats total. Not quite a big splash then. Labour also won big in Scotland against the SNP for the first time in years (but that was rather the fault of the SNP). Data from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_el...
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      You're completely missing the point and where the votes went. Labour got 9,708,716 votes in 2024 vs 10,269,051 in 2019. Starmer and Labour did not convince voters adn lost votes to the Greens. What happened is that people did not vote for the Conservatives and instead voted Lib Dems and, especially, Reform UK, which got a massive 14% (3rd place and more than the Lib Dems). The Reform UK vote is because the Conservatives did not deliver on Brexit and even more importantly did the opposite of what they said on immigration, which reached record level. The number of seats to Labour is a result of the above (Conservatives dropped so Labour candidate was elected) not because people voted Labour more than before. The surge is Reform UK. So the same issues that have been at play in the Brexit referendum are still the key issues.

amarcheschi 2y ago

As in, they were right calling people bigots if they wanted to get out of the eu? That definitely didn't improve uk, I've even heard about people feeling "betrayed" by the now valid tariffs that damaged their UK business

mytailorisrich 2y ago
Working class people who, especially, wanted to control immigration were called bigots, uneducated, stupid, racist, etc and were ignored. Result is that they voted for Brexit. No, that didn't change anything because this was ignored by the establishment (both Labour and Conservatives) and that is still festering with the resulting rise of the Reform UK party (of Nigel Farage who's celebrating with Trump in Mar-a-Lago right now).
- imp0cat 2y ago
  Here's a better analysis of the Brexit thing which was posted here yesterday. It was mostly decided by the fact that the pro-Brexit people had better marketing campaign. https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    "Better marketing" campaign is another word for saying that they understood people's concerns better and were thus able to use that to their advantage instead of insulting the people they were supposed to convince (as the Remain campaign did). This is what Cummings did to win.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      Use that to their advantage by telling the truth or by lying?
    - chimprich 2y ago
      > instead of insulting the people they were supposed to convince (as the Remain campaign did) Can you point to any examples of this? I don't think the official Remain campaign did anything of the sort. Insulting the people you are trying to convert is a poor strategy, which is why I don't believe they did it. When you say "were called bigots, uneducated, stupid, racist, etc", what I think happened was that the Leave campaign alleged that that was what the Remainers thinking/saying and it gained traction.
  - rgblambda 2y ago
    Your "analysis" is from someone involved in the Brexit campaign. Of course Cummings is going to say he was amazing at marketing. Another argument would be that Vote Leave broke campaign spending rules. In countries with legally binding referenda, that would justify rerunning the referendum. But in the UK it was "only advisory".
ben_w 2y ago
I believe the argument being made is that calling spades spades is bad when spade is an insult and you need to convince the spades to vote for you. Which is also why Republicans calling Democrats childish names such as "Dummy-crat" or saying "socialist" (or "commie") for all things to the left of their Overton Window doesn't convince any to their left to change their minds rightward.
- amarcheschi 2y ago
  I think that might be the culprit, but then you have no escape. Some post brexit interviews have been - at least for an European - quite hilarious. I feel sorry for them tho, but it's sort of a leopards ate my face situation
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Indeed, and similar. I used to live in Cambridge; I knew only one person who was a long-time UKIP voter in EU elections, who was "delighted" by the result of the referendum. Even though I'd already been openly discussing moving to Germany ahead of the referendum, and went on an InterRail trip immediately before it to find a place to move to in the event of Leave winning, he did not comprehend that my reaction to the result included cutting him out of my life entirely. He wanted the Cambridge to shrink, I left. That's his face leopard. (As for intelligence: he also sometimes boasted of being in the international maths olympiad, this was Cambridge after all).

d4rti 2y ago

What happened is that the remain side had to fight on the side of a reality that existed and the Brexiteers made up a fantasy future that has failed to materialise.

ben_w 2y ago
> Brexiteers made up a fantasy future Worse: many different and mutually incompatible fantasy futures, which they denied ahead of the referendum, and which after the referendum became a source of infighting that made all possible Brexits impossible to get past Westminster until Johnson came along and lied to everyone to get enough support to actually close a deal. (The only time I can think of when digging a deeper hole got anywhere, even if the where was a… I guess in this metaphor: a disused basement where the stairs were missing?)
mytailorisrich 2y ago
Your comment somewhat illustrates the point. It disparages those who voted for Brexit instead of trying to understand them, which is a recipe for eventual failure as we've seen. Judging by this thread, it's still not possible to have a discussion on this...
- d4rti 2y ago
  There was nothing coherent to understand. A rag tag coalition mainly built on delusional positions. - we can have all the trade benefits without freedom of movement (specifically denied by EU at the time, didn't materialise) - we will have 'more trade' afterwards (fails to understand how trade works) - we won't have to follow EU rules (in reality, we can't really diverge that much from how the EU works without incurring penalties) - we won't have to pay anything to them / we hold all the cards / ... (we did pay for our liabilities and we definitely didn't hold the cards) - we can become much more left wing if we leave the neoliberal EU (fails to account for the fact our country isn't particularly left wing overall) - politicians will have to take responsibility/can't blame the EU (brexiteers keep blaming the EU even now, BJ et.al. have faced minimal or no consequences for their actions) - we can fish again (ignores relative importance of fishing vs the actually productive economy, disregards that EU is a big market for said fish) What do you suggest we engage with?

YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago

What lessons haven't been learned? Keir Starmer's Labour won the last UK elections by a landslide and the Tories got the boot. I do think your analysis oversimplifies a complex issue. I'm not ignoring that Starmer got elected by keeping his mouth shut and his hands behind his back, but the Tories' smash-mouth politics did not win the day anyway. What I can see from where I am is that Brexit was a very special case and it's all gone back to normal now.

mytailorisrich 2y ago
There was no landslide. Labour actually got fewer votes than at the previous election when it was by Corbyn! What happens is that Conservatives voters voted for someone else, mostly Reform UK. And the reasons have been the same as what's been festering since Brexit with the added factor that the Conservatives increased immigration to record level...
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  Labour won with 411 seats (up 211 from 2019) and 33.3% of the popular vote (9,708,716 votes) vs. 121 seats for the Conservatives (down 251) and 23.7% of the popular vote (6,828,925 ). YMMV but I call a lead of 290 seats and 2,879,791 votes a landslide. It was the Lib Dems that seem to have taken most of the Tories' voters: 72 seats (up 64) and 3,519,143 votes. The latter at least checks out. Reform was up 1 seat from 2019 for 5 seats total. Not quite a big splash then. Labour also won big in Scotland against the SNP for the first time in years (but that was rather the fault of the SNP). Data from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_el...
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    You're completely missing the point and where the votes went. Labour got 9,708,716 votes in 2024 vs 10,269,051 in 2019. Starmer and Labour did not convince voters adn lost votes to the Greens. What happened is that people did not vote for the Conservatives and instead voted Lib Dems and, especially, Reform UK, which got a massive 14% (3rd place and more than the Lib Dems). The Reform UK vote is because the Conservatives did not deliver on Brexit and even more importantly did the opposite of what they said on immigration, which reached record level. The number of seats to Labour is a result of the above (Conservatives dropped so Labour candidate was elected) not because people voted Labour more than before. The surge is Reform UK. So the same issues that have been at play in the Brexit referendum are still the key issues.