Yup, a vote for Brexit is showing wilful blindness to the fact it was an ethno-nationalist xenophobic /racist project. Anyone who voted for other reasons was “I know the implications of this but I voted because I like autobahns and trains to run on time” , but I think more importantly, anyone who still supports Brexit now, in the light of everything revealed over the last few years, is an out and out racist, easily the equivalent of one of Trumps current supporters.
I’m just disappointed the Brexiters are tolerated here in a way the Trump supporters aren’t. American racists are bad, but British racists aren’t? :/
There’s a big difference between electing representatives and voting on a single issue referendum. Talking about a platform in the context of a referendum seems nonsensical to me. The whole point of a platform is to give an idea of what the people you elect will do once in power.
I mean you make a great case for how supporting the rights of palestinians is antisemitic, or how supporting Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK is inherently reactionary, or supporting Spanish territorial integrity is an endorsement of police violence.
Also since you seem so keen to talk about platforms, on the EU issue, we know we can’t trust the platforms of euro-enthusiasts because they will promise one thing, and then pursue further EU integration anyway. We’ve seen no sign of a change of heart since 2008: Labour MPs who promised to implement Brexit in 2017 are now actively trying to stop it.
We’re back to the lazy logic of “Hitler was a vegetarian, so all vegetarians are Nazis”. And a vote in the referendum is a binary yes/no decision about the constitution and governance of the country, not a vote for a party platform.
You seem to be claiming about 75% of British voters are either racist or antisemitic then. It seems to me you are promoting hatred by encouraging a manichean us-vs-them worldview. Doesn’t that make you like Trump?
I’ve already linked the story showing a third of Brexiters sit in the “we must protect white culture from the darkies” camp. That’s 5,000,000 supremacist level racists at the heart of the Brexit project.
And again no one seems to have a problem calling out tens of millions of Trump supporters for what they are. I dont see you in the Trump threads defending his supporters for their choices, and for their solidarity with ethno-nationalists and the far right.
The only reason Brexiters aren’t chanting “build the wall” is we have the English Channel. No difference between them and the Trumpalos. None at all.
They were intended as one-sentence labels or pointers to what are, obviously, more complex ideas. Because I didn’t have time to write an essay, and I’m not sure anyone here wanted to read one.
And one of the points I was trying to get at was that the EU Referendum asks what is a fundamentally simple question about identity. Ask a resident of Mexico City if he wants to be governed from Washington. “I’m not a fucking American” is absolutely a valid answer. You might think he’d be better off economically if Mexico was part of the US. You might think he’d experience better government. You might see larger, high-level federations as a force for peace. But national identity matters to people, sometimes more than money, and I don’t see how a democracy can function if there isn’t a shared sense of identity and culture. If the Germans don’t really feel a sense of shared identity with the Greeks, they’re going to tell them to fuck off when the time comes to ask for real help.
No, the bad analogy would be “Hitler was a vegetarian, so voting Nazi means I’m ok with vegetarianism”. Or, the leaders of the Brexit campaign are espousing xenophobic messaging, so voting for Brexit means I’m ok with xenophobia.
Yep, I pretty much all of those above are certainly right given the specific specific platforms you can support. AFAIK there’s no mainstream Palestinian faction that is not anti-Israeli or no mainstream Unionist party that is not reactionary, so directly supporting those does make you complicit, yes. There are mainstream pro Spanish territorial integrity parties that have not used police violence (although I myself am more of a federalist, but in that case you have options). But if you vote for a government that uses police violence, then yes, it means you endorse it. It’s pretty obvious.
Bullshit. As has already been pointed out, when you vote in a referendum, you’re not voting for a leader. You’re not voting for a person or a platform or a government. You’re answering a simple question, and your answer is your own.
This is just another tired version of the laziest strategy in political rhetoric. Find an excuse to project evil motivations onto everyone who disagrees with me, and I can enjoy the glow of self-righteousness and the reassurance that their arguments don’t matter. They’re evil anyway.
Pick any political position that you hold. I bet I can find some complete asshole or idiot (or both) that agrees with you. By your logic you’d then be forced to change your opinion.
Sorry, but you are grossly oversimplifying. The Brexit refenrendum ran on ideology. It was not a simple yes/no question… It was loaded and it’s disingenuous to say otherwise.
It was the main, most visible leaders of that campaign the ones espousing xenophobia, not a random second or third class politician.
Oy yes, right, Social Psychology has enough trouble doing genuine science on non-political issues. The only reason to treat something like that as trustworthy and authoritative is that it’s telling you what you want to hear.
Except, actually it isn’t. It argues, if you take it at face-value, that racism, narcissism and authoritarianism have a statistical effect on hostility to immigration. Duh. It’s just another way of saying that some racists voted to Leave, which I don’t think anyone here disputes. What you’re arguing is that everyone who voted Leave is a racist. Which is just as dishonest as it was before you read that paper.
I’ve actually personally experienced a rise in racist comments and attitude since the EURef. This is in real life, not online, where its of a magnitude worse.
Anyone claiming this is not about fears about race, culture and immigration is lying. The UK has changed dramatically over the last few years and Brexiters are solely to blame.
Everything about Brexit revolves around immigration. Everything. Brexiters are literally willing to cripple the UK for generations to keep us darkies out.
No, it says that a significant number of people (30-50%) that voted leave seem to have done because of racism, and almost none did so due to national identity.
I think it’s you who just read the overall conclusions and not each study independently.
Let’s leave it as most people who voted leave supported the racist overtones of the campaign.
Right, I’ll take your word as trustworthy and authoritative then /s
If you want, find a Social Psychology paper that supports your views. If it’s so untrustworthy a field, there should one at least one out there. Then let’s compare methodology between studies. I’m certainly open to be proven wrong by a good argument supported by good data.
But otherwise your argument boils down to ignoring data you are uncomfortable with.
OK, but if your purpose was to offer up examples of valid (which is to say, non-racist) reasons to vote for Brexit, you didn’t actually do that, because none of those were reasons that make the speaker’s motivation clear.
Of course it does. But there are words we use to mean very strongly held views about group identity: Words like racism, culturalism xenophobia.
There is very little shared sense of identity between a native New Yorker and a native Alabaman. Of course it’s true that you could argue that democracy isn’t functioning that well in the US, and I’d be forced to agree, but it is stumbling along.
In any event, what sort of politician knows that a shared sense of identity is necessary for a democracy to function, and yet still frames an important referendum in terms that is certain to provoke strong anti-identity reactions from a segment of the populace, and then actively campaigns in such a way as to aggravate those strong reactions, even while knowing that, whether the referendum passes or fails, there will still be large numbers of people of the ‘wrong’ identity living in the country, even citizens of the country, and those people will suffer the abuse of the very voters the politician has encouraged to hate them? That’s not good, right?
This piece is old, but the writer Paul Kingsnorth makes a case for leave (largely from an eco-left point of view. Although I’m a fan of his writing I disagree with him here.) http://paulkingsnorth.net/2017/04/10/the-lie-of-the-land/
Thanks for linking. It’s strangely idealistic but good hearted. Reject a supranational organization that is doing a lot (although certainly not enough) to protect the environment in hopes that a hypothetical future government not tied by that organization can do more.
It’s like he’s not seeing one of the goals of Brexit was to do away with EU regulations, many of those regarding the environment.
Oh jeez, we’re going down this rabbit hole are we?
Psychology is a soft science. It’s absurd that you seek to paint 17.5 million people who hold a differing political viewpoint to yourself as racist. I expect that you also believe Ted Talks are a bastion of truth.
