#622

Presumably they found it repugnant to vote for Macron because they were to the left of him though?

If Mélenchon had gone through to the run-off, most polling showed that Macron and Fillons supporters would have backed LePen in enough numbers to see her be elected.

#625

Wasn’t it close in the end? Like way closer than an avowed Communist should have gotten.

It should also be mentioned that Melenchon himself is pretty damn racist.

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#626

Oh yeah I saw that. I’m not sure I’d equate the Brexit racists with the (ex?) socialist(?) leaning racists but I think the examples of organising labour inclusively that we’ve seen in the past have been somewhat…promising, or at least interesting and it’s a useful way of going forward. I don’t think workers joining up despite their differences solely out of necessity is a magic answer it’s got to be a part of a multifaceted thing I guess. I think that’s why I’m so happy to see just eat and Uber workers organising because they include such a diverse range of people. My views might be a bit idealistic but I go to union things on lovely sunny days and see diverse groups of working class people hanging out and speaking up for each other and it gives me hope.

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#627

The fundamental issue is that people keep wanting to pin the Leave vote on one thing - economic anxiety, racism etc - when it was a wide variety of things. There’s very little connection to middle aged people on the dole in Middlesbrough and OAPs in deepest Hampshire, but they both voted the same way.

What can be said is that Leave managed to be a lot of things to a lot of different people, which is what any successful political campagin must strive for. Remain didn’t offer anything but the status quo, and the damning thing is that that wasn’t enough for such a supposedly well-off and privileged country.

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#628

I agree with your sentiments here - but I still strongly believe that membership of the EU is not good for British working people. So if it takes a few dumb racists to get the result over the line, I will take that - as long as we ensure we kick those racists and their ideas into the long grass again when all this is over.

Also - I think there is mileage in the left taking ownership of the free-movement issue. As far as I am concerned - free-trade and free-movement are capitalist ideas to reduce production costs. I would much rather we train our own young people - like we used to - than seek labour from Europe. And when I am talking about young people - I am looking around me at the area I live in South London, and that is second/third generation Africans, Asians and west Indians as well as Europeans. This generation can’t even get shop work easily any more, as these jobs are being taken by Europeans in their 30s and 40s. We owe these kids to give them a level playing field - and free-movement is limiting that - because they now have to compete with every tradesman, graduate and skilled worker in Europe. This wasn’t the case when I was growing up, and certainly not when my parents were.

#631

‘Conclusion
While recent EU-led improvements in employment protection have been more limited
than in the past, and some EU activities have served to reduce the existing settlement,
the overall contribution of EU employment rights to the UK workforce is substantial.
The gains UK workers achieve as a result of our membership of the EU include
improved access to paid annual holidays, improved health and safety provision, rights to
unpaid parental leave, rights to time off work for urgent family reasons, equal treatment
rights for part-time, fixed-term and agency workers, rights for outsourced workers,
information and consultation and significant health and safety protection. Given these
benefits we conclude that EU membership continues to deliver wide-ranging protections
to UK workers. Furthermore, evidence also suggests that in the years ahead, remaining
in the European Union may provide significant opportunities to extend employment protections for working people.’

And you do realise you’re other point is ‘lets support the far rights plans and hope we can remove them in the future’ don’t you?
No deal brexit will destroy UK job/manufacturing and the tories are itching to remove workers rights. If they end up getting marshal law you will have full on fascism not some fantasy socialist utopia.

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Brexit Thread w/c 04/2
#632

Sorry, but only a white person with no skin in the game can say this
FR POC are sick an tired of being used as sacrificial pawns in pursuit of some weird idea of utopia

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#636

Oh and that second paragraph is just ‘foreigners coming over and taking our jobs’. Oh and with a bit of ‘there never used to be that many when I was younger’.

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#638

Ash Sarkar always talks about these matters very well. And her analysis checks out if you ask me, for the UK. However nativism or hostility to multiculturalism is absolutely not unique to the UK. In every single nation state there are a rump of the populace who are explicitly nativist and hostile to people who are perceived to be from ‘somewhere else’. Goes back to the point upthread about how even Sweden have a hostile immigration policy. I don’t know how you would begin to ‘edit out’ this part of, what seems like, a lumbering part of the human condition more widely.

I suppose you could analyse the EU in this regard. Free movement of people. Schengen. A model of how multiculturalism can work across borders. However far right parties as we know are gaining traction across Europe because of hostility to non-EU immigrants. Seems like a totally illogical distinction to me but, there you have it.

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#639

I didn’t really understand where Blakely was coming from with her Lexit position previously but after watching that episode it became a lot clearer and I don’t entirely disagree with her idea of trying capture some of the momentum created by the political disruption to try and fashion a popular left-wing position on brexit despite initially voting to remain.

The problem is as I keep getting told and is basically my experience, barely anyone has any real appetite for it. Labour have gone some of the way in suggesting a position that keeps the UK in the customs union whilst allowing for an extensive program of economic reorganization but there ultimately needs to be more of that kind of talk for it be viable.

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#640

I don’t really want to jump on this as well because a few people already have but I think it’s really crucial that left broadly speaking move on from the concept of socialism in one country rather than international solidarity.

Capitalism is a global system and as a result effective resistance to it can’t take place on a national level.

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#641

I actually think the age of horrorscope policy in actual politics is coming to an end.
In a referendum like this it was perfect, loads of people putting there own idea on what leaving europe meant but none of them are deliverable.
I think the brexit leave debate is actually a condensed version of the neoliberal boom and bust of the last 25 years

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#642

The skills gap is due to governments undersupporting education, not FOM or EU membership. If we prevent EU people taking jobs, there won’t be enough people to do them until we a) sort out education to provide more useful skills to stuents and b) wait for enough of them to enter the workforce to make a difference.

For instance, the engineering field has a shortfall of about 59,000 jobs a year:

If we don’t let people in to do those jobs, then what?

The idea that foreigners or whoever ‘take our jobs’ is a RW trope in itself. Jobs can only be given or taken by the employer: I can’t go to your office and steal your job directly from you like it’s the last biscuit.

Employers make hiring decisions, not other workers - don’t blame them like the RW want you to

Well no, free movement creates the level playing field, the problem is that we now have to compete on it

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#643

That’s Amber Frost’s description of Obama, isn’t it? It’s a good one.

I’m not all that confident. It’s definitely true that in the current cycle policy has become much more important than throwing vague concepts of hope and sovereignty at the wall and letting people’s imagination do the rest. And that’s definitely the result of genuinely left wing voices like Corbyn and AOC making themselves heard on a centre stage for the first time in a generation.

But right wing centrist politics is very adaptable. We’re already seeing how they might overcome being confronted on core policy issues - take hold of central leftist concerns like Medicare for All and turn them into the same amorphous concepts that might mean anything they’ve always been imminently comfortable throwing around.

#644

See also, more brazenly, a living wage

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#645

I am certainly not blaming the Europeans for taking these jobs - they are allowed to - so why shouldn’t they? And of course - they are not taking jobs directly from individuals. But their presence increases supply - and that affords British businesses the opportunity to reduce their offer to employees. As I said, it is the design of the system that is at fault - not the people that benefit from it.

The fact is - it is harder for a graduate to get a job in this country than it used to be. And when they do get that job, it is for a lower salary. Not because the jobs aren’t there - but because the competition for jobs has increased.

This form of immigration policy is disruptive to our social contracts, and only really benefits capitalists looking to reduce their production costs.

What is the alternative to a discussion that fails confront that? Complete open borders? Then why would any nation bother to pay for the training of anyone? To nurture the people in our own communities (and I am not talking about race here - London is a multicultural community). The result is a world where you pay for your own training, then travel to wherever you can scrape a half-decent job. How is that progressing the socialist ethos?

#646

Does it really though? As I understand matters it was non-binding. And I think analysis saying it demonstrated that MPs would definitely vote no-deal down are wildly overlooking the number of those MPs that talk a big game and then fall in line when crunch time comes.

So whilst I can see how Corbyn can spin it that his conditions have been met, they haven’t really so it’s not unfair to call this a u-turn, much as I loathe our BBC correspondent

#648

Yes. I thought it was great so have nicked it.

Harris is already rolling back on what medicare for all means. People are asking the right questions.
The press are an absolute complicit nightmare in this but the corbyn surge when the reporting rules changed in the lead up to the election shows people want policy. His policies still poll very well

#649

“Horrorscope” sounds like a Marilyn Manson album.

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#650

Has CG got a new alt?

1 Like