quote:

On the PM's comment that his mother would criticise Mr Corybn's dress sense
"I've never had the pleasure of meeting his [David Cameron's] mother so I have no idea what she would say - my mother gave lots of advice and she said stand up for what you believe in."

Taear posted:

I watched a documentary by Boris Johnson of all people about this. He wanted to solve it by having a "European Emperor". I'd always thought he was pro EU because of that - sure it's dumb but it meant he wanted a more unified europe.

Miftan posted:

Corbyn is just adorable.

Zephro posted:

He's completely right, though. If you dislike the EU because it's too liberal then OK, but somehow arguing that Britain by itself would be a socialist paradise makes literally no sense when it's been the most neoliberal country in the world, including Murca itself, for the past thirty years.

Tigey posted:

The biggest issue with the lack of democracy in the EU is that there simply isn't a European 'demos' - or developed Europe-wide public consciousness. It basically comes down to issues of identity and legitimacy. We still primarily think in national terms - EU democratic institutions - such as the Parliament, are basically elite driven projects which lack legitimacy (I have dealt with many MEPs through work and in my opinion they live in an utter self-reinforcing bubble - far more even than Westminster MPs. The Belgians particularly). This is reflected in the mediocre turnouts and joke/protest votes during European elections.

Guavanaut posted:

I'm not voting because I think it will make Britain immediately wealthier or stronger or whatever the talking heads are on about, Britain is wealthy enough, too wealthy perhaps, the problem is with who has that wealth. That's not what is being voted on in June though, but it is something that the British people will have to act on. I'm considering voting Leave because there is a strong chance that it will cause the EU to collapse and put a stop to the absolutely atrocious poo poo that they pull on the world stage. I might be slightly worse off, but I think that the world might be slightly better the more impotent the nations of Europe are.

Guavanaut posted:

I'm not sure. I've heard that one a lot as part of Empire apologia in the form of "if Britain hadn't joined the scramble for Africa then France or Belgium would have just taken those countries and they were even worse" etc. and it doesn't really sit right with me.

I'd love to believe in the Corbynite soft-euroskeptic view that the EU can be reformed from the inside out into a force for genuine social good, but all evidence seems to show it going in the exact opposite direction. Plus it would mean an uprooting of the EU's core raison d'etre as a force for globalization and privatization. Twinned with Tigey's point about the lack of a pan-European consciousness, something that would need to be constructed before such a thing could begin to happen, I'm pessimistic about the possibility of reform.

Guavanaut posted:

I'm not voting because I think it will make Britain immediately wealthier or stronger or whatever the talking heads are on about, Britain is wealthy enough, too wealthy perhaps, the problem is with who has that wealth. That's not what is being voted on in June though, but it is something that the British people will have to act on. I'm considering voting Leave because there is a strong chance that it will cause the EU to collapse and put a stop to the absolutely atrocious poo poo that they pull on the world stage. I might be slightly worse off, but I think that the world might be slightly better the more impotent the nations of Europe are.

Yes, the independent nations of former Europe will probably try to be as atrocious as they writhe around in their collapsed cesspool, but their capacity to do so will be severely diminished. It might make things a tiny bit worse in Britain for a short term, but no worse for actual people than what the long view of the EU to "liberalise trade in services world wide and remove barriers to a truly global market” would do to public services.

Private Speech posted:

That's what accelerationism is, unless you just want everyone to be really miserable which would make you a huge prick? I'm not going to link the whole discussion, but all those posts were direct replies to people arguing for staying in the EU.

Really not seeing how it's any different from voting for Trump out of spite.

Spangly A posted:

aside from giving the tories the power to scrap the human rights act I'd also like all my eastern european friends to not be deported and replaced with returning "expats" who will probably not be labour voters.

GaussianCopula posted:

What kind of atrocious poo poo are you referring to and what makes you believe that the post-EU world would not be dominated by multinational corporations, whose power will only increase relative to countries which they can play against each other? You could argue that a Brexit would lead to a deeper integration of the EU, in which the more state oriented countries of south Europe have more influence, which could be a force that counteracts the market oriented Anglo-Saxon ideology, but that would require you to believe that the EU in itself can be something positive, which is probably hard for you.

Zephro posted:

Also I'm kinda sympathetic to that Yanis Varoufakis piece from earlier when he points out that the EU stands a good chance of collapsing anyway and Brexit would make that a racing certainty, and that if that happened there's a good chance we'd get to see a full re-run of the 1930s which was literally exactly what the EU was set up to avoid.

Miftan posted:

Corbyn is just adorable.

Tesseraction posted:

My main argument is that the major benefits of the EU are currently being consistently weakened (see: environmental protections, worker protections) while little positives are being added. Free movement of people? Pretty good. Monetary union? Sounds like a good id-- oh wow you're letting each country work completely different fiscal policies... oh cool now half of them are basically in default? Amazing. I love the sound of this political union.

Regarde Aduck posted:

Please don't vote leave. On the grounds that so many people will get kicked out. The suffering is not worth it.

Regarde Aduck posted:

Please don't vote leave. On the grounds that so many people will get kicked out. The suffering is not worth it.

quote:

“He was the Greek finance minister who left the economy in ruins,” says the PM.

“That is Labour’s policy in two words. Acropolis Now!”

quote:

A freedom of information request by the Huffington Post UK website earlier this month found that only seven Isis fighters had been killed by British bombs, according to Ministry of Defence records.

Furthermore, the much vaunted Brimstone missiles, which David Cameron had pledged would “cut off the snake’s head” in Syria and ministers had dubbed “unique” – had killed no Isis fighters.

Fans posted:

Helen Highwater posted:

Billions of quid spent to murder 7 random dudes.

Fans posted:

And in news that will surprise no-one, the Syria Airstrikes did gently caress all useful.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-air-strikes-arent-pushing-isis-back-in-syria-ministers-admit-a6903536.html

Pound_Coin posted:

and we'll probably have to take back all the costa del sun expats

Renaissance Robot posted:

A sense of politeness compels me to claim that I don't want to say "we told you so"... but I really really do.

gently caress Benn and everyone else who pushed for this utter waste.

Helen Highwater posted:

Billions of quid spent to murder 7 random dudes.

Guavanaut posted:

I'm not voting because I think it will make Britain immediately wealthier or stronger or whatever the talking heads are on about, Britain is wealthy enough, too wealthy perhaps, the problem is with who has that wealth. That's not what is being voted on in June though, but it is something that the British people will have to act on. I'm considering voting Leave because there is a strong chance that it will cause the EU to collapse and put a stop to the absolutely atrocious poo poo that they pull on the world stage. I might be slightly worse off, but I think that the world might be slightly better the more impotent the nations of Europe are.

TACD posted:

Given this, I don't see how it follows that leaving the EU is a superior choice to staying and working harder for positive reform. Leaving would certainly be easier, emotionally cheaper and with the attractive 'gently caress those idiots' dash of spite, but these are the same reactionary justifications that get made in support of regressive politics in general. I've yet to see a well-argued position in favour of Leave that rises beyond 'the EU isn't perfect'; show me a strong argument in favour of isolationism in general, because that's what a vote for Leave essentially is.

Helen Highwater posted:

B...b...but... BRIMSTONE! ARE BOYS! THE FEW!


Edit:


Billions of quid spent to murder 7 random dudes.

Doctor_Fruitbat posted:

Do you have a link to the HuffPost article? I can't find it and I'd like to rub some people's faces in it, by which I mean post it on Facebook.

Tesseraction posted:

How is it isolationism? It's not voting for a wall or to stop trading with the EU, merely to leave the political union. The EU should be reformed from within, and if I believed that were likely I wouldn't have considered voting Leave, but if anything by voting stay you're giving a thumbs up to an increasingly lovely institution.

Like I said, I want us to leave a lovely union and later re-join a renovated one.

GaussianCopula posted:

Your plan is to leave the EU, hope it reforms to be less market oriented and than rejoin it?

First of all in this world the EU and UK would move in opposite directions, one under Tory rule becoming even more free market oriented while the EU would become more state oriented under the influence of Italy and France and integrate further. Now at this later point the UK would somehow want to rejoin the Socialist Union of Europe because somehow the English will have seen their folly and agree to abandon the Pound in favor of the Euro (there will be zero special UK rules in this scenario)?

GaussianCopula posted:

Your plan is to leave the EU, hope it reforms to be less market oriented and than rejoin it?

Tesseraction posted:

How is it isolationism? It's not voting for a wall or to stop trading with the EU, merely to leave the political union. The EU should be reformed from within, and if I believed that were likely I wouldn't have considered voting Leave, but if anything by voting stay you're giving a thumbs up to an increasingly lovely institution.

Like I said, I want us to leave a lovely union and later re-join a renovated one.

Zephro posted:

Eh, I dunno. We're already skirting close to rerunning the 1930s as it is. We're repeating all the beggar-thy-neighbour stuff within the Euro, cooperation is visibly falling apart thanks to the refugee crisis, right-wing populists are doing well everywhere, and so on. Europe as a collection of individually sovereign nations has a terrible track record of killing colossal numbers of people in apocalyptic wars every few decades and I'm willing to put up with quite a lot if it lessens the chance of that happening again.

Which was, after all, precisely the reason for founding the EU in the first place.

Malcolm XML posted:

lmao leaving the politcal union without leaving the single market is an own goal. u can't join the single market w/o signing up to the directives and whatnot, it's part of the treaties. so since the critical bit the nationalists want is the end of free movement of people, it'll automatically kick you out of the single market

so you would then have to sign up all the regulations and poo poo w/o having representatives.


and lmao if you want to leave the single market, that would be catastrophic on many many levels.

Guavanaut posted:

I'm not sure the same thing could happen again.