#Brexit disaster: A great night for Anime Nazis, Trump fans, and dudes who say “cuck” a lot

Is immigration actually higher in the UK than it used to be? Or is the backlash just biggest?

I ask because in the US, rates have been pretty stable, but to hear the anti-immigration people tell it, it’s people are coming here in ever increasing rates. The concern for the economy and for US workers is pretty clearly thinly veiled racism and xenophobia.

@Alan Robertshaw

This vote was as much a rejection of a political elite by a population that feels a real disconnect with politics and politicians generally.

…Because Parliament totally isn’t composed of an out-of-touch political elite? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

Perhaps I just don’t want to believe it; hence my feeling (hope?) that the bulk of people complaining about immigration are doing so based on economics not racism.

Why would you think that? It’s never been true before, what are the odds that it is this time?

To suggest that they acted with dishonest or naive motives is a bit disingenuous I think.

Again, why? You’ve said some pretty naive things about it yourself in this very thread; I quoted one just there.
@Neurite

And on a more general note, I just read someone pointing out that the economic effects of this may be particularly damaging because the world is still only barely crawling out of the last economic crisis, and most countries still have minimal or nonexistent interest rates as a part of the last attempt at a stimulus

Gee, maybe instead they could stimulate the economy by spending some damn money? I am so sick of neoliberal bullshit being dragged back out over and over again because this time it’ll work, we promise.

@EJ(TOO)

The issue now is that this dogwhistle has been used not to promote party unity, but to allow a faction to seize control of the whole party. Johnson, Gove and their ilk have carried out a palace coup against Cameron, Osborne and their ilk. That’s really all that this is.

Anyone who blames Farrage for this is missing the point, possibly deliberately. Farrage has never been anything more than noise. Johnson’s hatred of Cameron is the proximal cause, but the real cause is that the dogwhistle has been so useful over the decades that it’s grown too powerful.

You’re giving them too much credit, I’m afraid. Fascists gonna fascist, and just because they have intercenine feuds doesn’t mean any of them aren’t total scum.

@Amazed by today’s blog comments

or the fact that most analysts have said that if we still had or own currency instead of Euro we would have been able to endure the Recession better.

And Britain has got its own currency, what’s the significance?
@ epitome of incomprehensibility

my impression is that nationalism attracts racists, even though many nationalists may not be racist.

In England, all nationalists are absolutely racist. This is less true of Scottish Nationalists, and much less true of the Zapatistas or West Kurdistan. In general, nationalist movements attract fascists like outhouses attract flies; the less actual oppression the nation in question faces, the more fascist nationalists get, generally speaking. (sometimes even genuinely oppressed nationalist movements end up fascist too, of course. Nationalism is seriously problematic.).

@Scildfreja

strong, independent country again. Good people, wanting something good, can still accomplish things that are incredibly bad, for the best of intentions.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” H. L. Mencken

That said, I don’t give a quarter dram of stale rat piss if someone votes for fascists with the best of intentions or the worst. When one support fascism, for whatever reason, one declares oneself an enemy of humanity, full stop.
@Croi

Owen Jones, middle-class champion of the workers, admitted as much today in an article where he said it is ‘undeniable that this result was achieved off the back of furious, alienated working-class votes’. He writes: ‘Millions of Britons feel that a metropolitan elite rules the roost which not only doesn’t understand their values and lives, but actively hates them. If Britain is to have a future, this escalating culture war has to be stopped’.

As I said in another recent discussion here, when the political ‘left’ abandons economic issues, they cede an incredible amount of ground to the fascists.

@Alan:

Obviously that’s true in the strict dictionary definition sense, but I’m sure you’re aware of how, in political theory, it’s come to mean a particular type of authoritarian elitism.

I am aware that many people see it as that. Every person I have ever encountered who professes that viewpoint, however, can (on closer examination) be found to be using it as a fig leaf for the following viewpoint:

“I belong to a traditionally dominant elite. Now, however, a new elite is arising and threatening the group I was born into. Their use of things like knowledge and effectiveness may make my dominance obsolete. I resent them for this. I may tolerate them for their effectiveness and attempt to use them as servants, but will fiercely object to any attempts on their part to unseat me.”

It is theoretically possible that an anti-technocratic person exists who is not merely reacting to their loss of ruling-caste status. I haven’t met that person yet.

It is true that most technocratic people in the western world are white and male. It is also true that they are less white and male than the traditional elites in the western world, and that their favoured policies often tend to help people of colour and nonwhite people more than non-technocratic systems do.

@alan

After a lot of soul searching, I decided the best thing for me was not to vote. There was actually a horror story going around that a no-vote would be automatically counted as a Remain. Although I really hate the racists claiming this as a victory, I am actually glad to be Out.
By the way, I think a lot of Americans have trouble understanding this, but the left that the Fascists are so glad to blame for everything are not actually left wing. Most Liberals are fiscal conservatives, even Obama, Hillary and even Bernie. The bogeyman of Cultural Marxism is not even a thing. Marxism is an economic model rather than a plot to destroy the Whites by mixed race intercourse, homosexuality and feminism. Women are treated much better under a socialist system, but it is by no means a gynocracy. Even the so called Fascists are extremely deluded in their beliefs that Fascism is supposed to be racist and misogynistic, sure they really mean Nazism, because Fascism was originally unconcerned with anything other than oppressing the masses, regardless of colour or gender.

@WWTH
Yes. 8% were foreign born in ’01, 12% now. For reference it’s 13% back home

@Croi

‘undeniable that this result was achieved off the back of furious, alienated working-class votes’

Dass cool
Here’s the thing. I don’t care. I just don’t. You don’t placate the culture warriors. You tell them to shut up and you drag them forward. Whether they be poor, rich, whathaveyou
Over in Murica, we’ve been pretending our culture warriors aren’t backwards shitheads for 40+ years now. No good comes of it. If your response to being told you’re “racist and wicked” is to join the EDL or UKIP or whatever, you get to fuck off

then give them to chance to rebel

http://www.lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/186312-Well-There-s-Your-Problem.jpg

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” H. L. Mencken

That said, I don’t give a quarter dram of stale rat piss if someone votes for fascists with the best of intentions or the worst. When one support fascism, for whatever reason, one declares oneself an enemy of humanity, full stop.

So true, @dalillama. I can’t fault someone for wanting out of the EU on its own (The EU isn’t a utopia after all), but I sure have to look askance at them if they stick with it once they realize the literal fascists are pushing for the same thing. It breaks my heart to think that the same people who survived the Blitz and its aftermath might inadvertently (or very vertently) push fascists into power out of fear.

@Crys T, thank you for sharing that link, but, ugh. Painful to read.

I don’t know what immigration changes have been in the UK, but I imagine it’s gone up slightly with Syrian and other economic refugees. I really hope my country opts to take more.

I agree this issue has been way oversimplified. It’s not Brexit that is the problem, to most working people this is not going to make one iota of difference. After all, if this was a decision which could harm the powers that be, they wouldn’t let the public make that decision. Having two Tory sock puppets like BloJo and Piggy Cameron squabble just made a bit of a side show to confuse the proles. They’re just going to get busy now figuring out ways to do what’s best for capitalism, and watch the proles get upset about stuff that’s outside their control. The racism thing is just a part of that ‘divide and conquor’, in reality the whole Brexit campaign has been blighted with Fascism, when really it has zero to do with the actual, socialist, reasons for leaving. It was very wrong indeed to paint this as a leftie vs rightie thing, when it isn’t. Remaining would have prolonged cuts and ‘austerity’ and leaving will do very little to improve worker’s rights.

Thanks WWTH, this is EXACTLY it: “working class” means a very specific kind of person in this context. Working class people who don’t fit that mould can basically go fuck themselves.

And seriously? I am so over the #NotAllBrexiters bullshit. Yeah, we know. Just like #NotAllMen, #NotAllWhiteFeminists, what the fuck ever. But enough Brexiters are shitheaded racists to make it a serious fucking problem. Deal with it rather than whining about how the rest of us are being sooooooo meeeeaaaaaaaan for calling a virtually fascist campaign virtually fascist. All you have to do is look at the news today to see the stories of racist abuse being flung at anyone who doesn’t look or sound sufficiently British.

If you don’t like being put in the same boat, fucking DO SOMETHING to call out the assholes on your side who are engaging in this shit, and stop fucking whining about having the hatred pointed out.

Of course, now that Scotland and Northern Ireland are seriously considering ditching their mean-minded *sassenach* neighbors, we might wind up with:

Rule Brittania,
Brittania great and strong
And find England measures just five inches long!

Wales voted to stay. More importantly, it’s a lot more difficult for Wales to leave the UK than Scotland, which was an independent nation until very late in the 18th century and still has its own justice system.

Northern Ireland won’t leave the UK for ROI, either. The Unionists will never agree to it. Now, if Scotland became independent and joined the EU, NI might join with them.

Bit of an update if anyone cares

Upthread, I asked if there were gender neutral terms for Englishman and Welshman. I found Englander and none for Wales (none that weren’t insults anyway) except Welshperson, and that’s just terrible. I was also reminded that a Drunken Peasants wiki exists, so… that’s both fun and necessary…

@Beyond ocean
Cool name btw!
But on to the point. There was facism before hitler and their will be after. They say it was the first world war that shattered innocence but if you know anything of the history of the Jewish people then you know that persecution and that kind of horror has always existed. The best deceivers are always the ones that can carry out their evil.

A big part of the problem is making policy decisions by referendum, of which I have never been a fan because on almost any given area of knowledge, most people know next to nothing. I don’t mean that in an elitist way: for example on the subject of car problems, non-mechanics tend to be ignorant regardless of IQ or level of education. So the minority who have relevant expertise are drowned out by the ignorant and the outcome is basically random. Nobody would suggest a referendum to decide which type of nuclear reactor to build, well almost nobody. Note that is different to electing a representative, where the question is who do you trust to represent you, a subject on which you are the only expert.
Then there is the whole day-of-destiny vote with its inevitable media hype, that ups the tension and emotion, and makes good news copy but is not conducive to reasonable decision making. Most media described the vote as ‘historic’ or some such, which is a subtle invitation to change, because after all, it’s not really historic if we choose the status quo. It’s a bit like an “open the box or take the money proposition” on a game show: who wants to be lilly-livered take the money person? With a cool head, most of us, on an emotional day of destiny, very few. Normally we try to make once in a lifetime, irreversible decisions under much different conditions. Tl:dr version public consultation: yes please, referendum: no thanks.
BTW Thanks David for providing a space for civilized discussion of this and to all the commenters for helping me to process what’s going on. As a currently unemployed UK expat in the EEA, my future suddenly became very uncertain yesterday.