It doesn’t work when they are the majority, no. But history demonstrates that pretending that they* aren’t* doesn’t work either. *Pretending *that people aren’t bigots out of fear of offending them doesn’t make them less bigoted; it just gives them a freer hand to persecute the targets of their hatred.
I take it you don’t read the Daily Mail or the Daily Express. Literally hundreds of inflammatory, xenophobic and frequently outright false headlines every year about immigrants. How dare people call out these arguments? All this referendum has shown is that all bigots have to do is to claim that anyone who disagrees with them is the real bigot and voila, they get away with it. Not that everyone in the Leave camp is a bigot - far from it - but when you’ve got a massive bigot (plus someone willing to play a bigot when it suits him) leading the campaign AND the campaign literature is rife with xenophobic tosh (“Turkish people are coming! Booga booga!”) you don’t get to play the wide-eyed innocent when called out on it.
That said, personally I think the Remain campaign was appallingly bad (to the point where I was starting to wonder if certain elements weren’t run by the Leave campaign). Instead of talking about immigrants we should have been talking about the benefits being in the EU conveyed, including a vast array of workers and human rights, economic assistance in underdeveloped areas, freedom of movement, health and safety improvements and a much freer market.
Soon we’ll have our “independence” back. Great. So who will benefit? Will it mean more power to the people? Nope - apart from the fact that we’ll actually get one less representative to vote for, we’ll still be left with electing one local representative on a FPTP basis as the sole means of holding the government accountable for everything it’s done in the past five years. In the meantime the government itself will have more free reign to do what it wants, including some of the fun things the EU had hindered it on before like “indefinite custody without charge”.
Will it mean more money in our pockets? Well, quite apart from the fact that the 0.68% of GDP we send to the EU will be a pittance compared to the 1-5% reduction in GDP various economist groups predict (the one exception being the group “Economists for Brexit” who might not be objective), the EU pours a lot of money into rural Britain in the form of farm subsidies and development grants. Anyone believing the Leave campaign’s promise that of course all those will be covered by the British government - plus scads of extra money for the NHS - hasn’t been paying attention to what the government has been doing since 2010. Not only have they been deliberately running down public services but any “extra money” seems to be an incentive for yet another tax rate cut for the highest earners. And that’s not counting any price increases to dairy and produce thanks to the loss of subsidies and the free movement of seasonal workers.
But British workers will have more rights, right? Well, apart from the loss of statutory 20 days’ annual leave (one of the supermarket chain owners at the debate the other night was practically rubbing his hands and cackling when asked about this), statutory maternity leave, the right to actually have a job when you come back from maternity leave, the right to be informed of imminent major restructurings and redundancies, and various workplace anti-discrimination and health and safety practices. But I’m sure businesses will continue all those things out of the goodness of their hearts.
So to sum up: the people who will gain money and power from the UK leaving the EU will be the people who already have the most money and power. For the rest of us: at best it’s a wash and at worst it’s a major step backwards even if the economy stays on an even keel.
Oh, and I’m guessing this guy is pretty happy today:
Terribly undemocratic, isn’t it, when foreigners tell the British government what to do…
It’s hard to disagree when the main anti-immigration organisation puts out straight up Nazi posters.
Yes, yes. Let us know how you really feel, liberals.
It’s fun to see you scream “racism!111” when your emotions let down the barriers.
Bigots are bigots regardless of whether or not the “liberals” call them that to their face. The Right is by nature always overwhelmingly composed of bigots; all that’s really changed is that they’ve become less honest about it in the last few decades.
Speaking of which, I expect you’ll see an upsurge of violence and persecution from the right in Britain, now. Both because the vote validated their bigotry, and because as the negative consequences roll in they’ll blame everyone but themselves, as usual.
Well at least the Remain voters can say they’re more tolerant of other people’s views.
Sounds like high school dropouts who ended up as bitter old white men.
Actual votes cast in primaries vs established, well funded candidates?
He’s cleared with ease every hurdle put in front of him so far. He’s only got one flight to clear before the home straight.
Yes, they’d be highly concerned about the proportion of their base which will jump onto the T-Wsgon even if when polled say they are staying. But what is the unknown and biggest worry is the proportion of the huge block of unlikely voters who might also join maybe create an ambush, or perhaps more correctly another ambush.
I’m not screaming. It is racism or xenophobia. It simply is.
‘Sovereignty’ is a fucking joke. Fear, lies, misinformation is the reason this has happened. Fear of the Other.
Farage has the sheer gall to talk about ‘independence day’. It’s not going to feel so good when you are indepedent of all your favorable trade deals, and on the outside of the most successful peace project in history. I’m just really sad for the UK today.
The age-breakdown of votes is also interesting (and sad). Those who have the least to lose have saddled the young with a future they didn’t want.
Of course, posters with a long history of racism & xenophobia applaud the vote!
I totally agree with that and I think it’s wise to pitch your tone relative to your audience, but I think in the final analysis, nothing was really ever going to dissuade you you from being such a clueless flailing asshat.
And no matter how much you state this and wish it to be true…you merely repeat the same old mistake of using those terms to try and discredit the other side of the debate and shut-down the discussion. Who is going to engage with you if you’ve already decided their position is de-facto xenophobic? And if you won’t listen to them for the very same reason then you are simply not open to serious debate in an adult fashion.
I know for a verifiable fact that people on the political left also wished to leave the E.U.
People of all colour, ethnics background and political persuasion wished to leave the E.U. for myriad reasons.
Are some xenophobic and racist or made that choice for those reasons? Yes.
Is the act of voting to leave the E.U. Xenophobic and racist in and of itself? No, of course not…and it is lazy political posturing of the worst type to even suggest it.
I despair at the lack of imagination and political openness in response to this vote.
Have people actually spoken to voters on the other side of the debate? Did they listen? Do they believe what they hear?
The biggest free trade and free movement treaties between Switzerland and the EU took place at the Switzerland-EU level. In theory they could be held at the canton-country level; in reality it turns out to be more practical to deal at the higher levels.
You sad bro?
I have no idea why you feel the need to insult other than some intrinsic fault in your wiring. Have a hug.
My wife does some writing for a UK publication and her pay was negotiated in pounds at the time. Woke up this morning to see she just took a 8-10% pay cut 
Can someone explain to this ignorant outsider what the advantages of the brexit are supposed to be?
Not having to comply with EU rules and regulations. The US seems to do just fine trading with Europe under those circumstances. I suspect the UK can, as well. Not that I think they should leave the EU, but it’s not the end of the world.
The UK was not part of the biggest aspect of the EU (monetary union and free movement of people), so they really only had one foot in to begin with. Well, maybe one and half feet…
Look, I’m not trying to engage with the other side. Not now. Both the right and the left in the UK have a sizable chunk of their voters who are racist and xenophobic. It’s not a right/left issue.
The act of voting to leave the EU is not per se xenophobic, but the reasons why ~80% of said voters did so is at least related to ideas of xenophobia – and also unresponsive to facts. I’m not sure, right now, what engagement there possibly can be.
People who decided to leave the EU because of ‘sovereignty’ alone were, at the very least, deluding themselves.
I’m allowed to be angry about this.
Not to get into the weeds too much, but what specific rules and regulations were primary motivating factors?
For one, we now have another annoying word to listen to on every single fucking newscast and to have to read in every publication. I only became aware of it a few days ago and I’m already feeling homicidal.
Oh, you said ‘advantages’. Carry on.