Timing
The Washington Post shares a depressing fact:
Awakening to a stock market plunge and a precipitous decline in the value of the pound that Britain hasn’t seen in more than 30 years, voters now face a series of economic shocks that analysts say will only worsen before they improve. The consequences of the leave vote will be felt worldwide, even here in the United States, and some British voters say they now regret casting a ballot in favor of Brexit.
“Even though I voted to leave, this morning I woke up and I just — the reality did actually hit me,” one woman told the news channel ITV News. “If I’d had the opportunity to vote again, it would be to stay.”
Hmm. So she voted on the basis of non-reality? Fantasy then?
Bad move.
That confusion over what Brexit might mean for the country’s economy appears to have been reflected across the United Kingdom on Thursday. Google reported sharp upticks in searches not only related to the ballot measure but also about basic questions concerning the implications of the vote. At about 1 a.m. Eastern time, about eight hours after the polls closed, Google reported that searches for “what happens if we leave the EU” had more than tripled.
Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant. The time to do that was eight hours before the polls closed, not after. Before before before.
Sound’s like it might be a good time to refinance though…
Well to be fair I was one of the people googling those terms at that time. I voted to remain and had already concluded that Brexit was a fucking nightmare but I felt I could do with some understanding of the details. But you’re right the idiots who have foisted this bloody scenario on us should be ashamed. I’m considering rubbing their faces in it over the coming weeks. A tea shirt with don’t blame me I voted Remain is a possibility. I’m sure one will appear soon if not already.
Also as a lefty who has always sympathised with the poor I feel inclined to say fuck em after the way they voted Brexit basically as a protest vote at Cameron. Many people treated it as they do bye elections – a way to give the government a kick up the backside. Labour has lost their support, simple right wing tropes blaming immigrants, the usual scapegoats for the countries ills which of course are due to the fucking neocon trickle down disaster and callous indifference to their fate by the toffs. Great breeding ground for fascism. It was obvious I’ve been expecting it since the 2007 meltdown and the austerity crap we’re all suffering from. I mean I thought it was a basic everyday fact that everyone understood after certain events in the 1930’s involving men with moustaches.
A great many of those protest voters are going to really regret their decision. Unfortunately I have to live in this little soon to be tin pot dictatorship (England) unless Scotland is generous towards English refugees. This country is going to hell and please don’t feel left out USA, your turn will come. November is not so far away.
Well I’m not sanguine about a Democratic victory, but hopefully sanity will prevail here in the States.
Nogbert
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I am negotiating producing a tee shirt.
Nogbert:
This may be a clue as to why “the poor” voted for leave (although the strongest correlation between local authority areas’ voting split and a demographic metric is with educational level). The low-skilled, less-educated, lower income populations of the Labour heartland feel they have had little *but* sympathy for a generation. People are angry at (real or perceived) declining living standards. When people feel they are being treated unfairly, or are losing out on the prosperity they see elsewhere, they look for someone to blame.
Truly, a lot of the problems the working classes of places like Sunderland, Lincolnshire, the South West, etc. suffer can be traced to the financial deregulation, globalisation, the 2008 crash, and subsequent austerity politics. But they’ve been told otherwise. As James O’Brien pointed out after Jo Cox’s murder, we’ve all been fed a steady diet of anti-immigrant and anti-EU propaganda for years if not decades. In the absence (mostly) of any counter-narrative, and without a consistent, positive, democratic socialist message from the Labour Party, that propaganda has had an effect.
Some of the areas with the strongest vote for leave recieve most funds from EU projects, in the same way that some areas of the US which are the biggest net winners from federal spending are most likely to favour the GOP and be anti-Washington. It’s easy to deride these people as low information voters, but it’s not true. In our modern world we swim in an ocean of information, a lot of it is wrong or at least highly selective, but that’s not always the fault of the recipients.
Despise the poor if you wish. I’m blaming myself. I didn’t work hard enough for a Labour Party true to its traditions. I didn’t work hard enough to help inform people better. And I’ll be (relatively) OK. I won’t suffer the severest consequences of this decision. It will be the less-educated, those on low-incomes and those most vulnerable to exploitation. They’ve been ill-served by their political leaders (on both sides of the question) and the media, and have been convinced to vote against their own interests. They’re the victims of a massive con-trick, not the perpetrators of some crime against their fellow citizens.