brexit background info

corvid party 9 hours ago
I'm extremely sleep deprived from following this all night and only getting 3 hours' sleep but bear with me

Grinchworth 9 hours ago
sits down.

corvid party 9 hours ago
OKAY SO yesterday the UK (england, scotland, wales, northern ireland) and gibraltar (british overseas territory all the way over on a peninsula joined to the south coast of spain) held a referendum on whether

corvid party 9 hours ago
to remain a member of the european union or leave

Dove-mun 9 hours ago
/sits here

corvid party 9 hours ago
we were never meant to have this referendum and politicians and leading commentators, aswell as the markets, assumed the public would just slide along with the status quo as normal and vote remain

corvid party 9 hours ago
now literally everyone is in shock because we've actually voted or leave and our prime minister has just been forced to resign

corvid party 9 hours ago
SO. some background:

washingtub 9 hours ago


corvid party 9 hours ago
britain wasn't a founding member of the EU, or the european economic community as it was back then, but joined in 1973. the european union was formed in 1993 to promote closer integration based not just on

corvid party 9 hours ago
economics but foreign policy, security, law etc

corvid party 9 hours ago
we refused to join the schengen zone, which means complete open borders with other EU member states, and we also refused to join the common euro currency and kept the pound sterling

corvid party 9 hours ago
keeping in mind in the latter half of the 20th century we were a former superpower, an empire in decline, and an island nation, we've always had isolationist delusions of grandeur so I suppose that's why we've

corvid party 9 hours ago
always been a comparatively eurosceptic country compared to germany or france

corvid party 9 hours ago
but in common british public life, EU membership has been accepted for as long as I've been alive and euroscepticism was never part of normal public discourse, confined to the 'loonies and fruitcakes' of the

corvid party 9 hours ago
hard right, or the radical anti-capitalist left

corvid party 9 hours ago
and by loonies and fruitcakes we're talking the nationalist parties like the BNP and later Ukip, who were never taken too seriously but taken as something of an offensive joke. they were popular with

corvid party 9 hours ago
disillusioned working class communities in impoverished, deindustrialised towns, particularly in the north/northeast (where I'm from) and they yelled nonsense about foreigners coming over and taking our jobs

corvid party 9 hours ago
hence the discourse began of unemployment being blamed on immigration. this was in the 00s, but it picked up speed after the global financial crash of 2008, which hit the poorest parts of britain hardest

corvid party 9 hours ago
(HOPE YOU'RE ALL KEEPING UP WITH ME cuz I'm gonna grab a coffee brb)

corvid party 9 hours ago
now britain might have climbed out of recession since then, but the poorest parts of the country never recovered. we blamed the financial crash not on banks but on the lack of regulation and oversight by the

corvid party 9 hours ago
labour party, then in charge with gordon brown having succeeded tony blair, but we didn't really want a conservative government either. so we had a hung parliament, unprecedented in british politics, which was

corvid party 9 hours ago
a coalition of the conservatives (the main opposition party headed by david cameron) and the liberal democrats (then the third largest party but hasn't served in government since before WWII)

corvid party 9 hours ago
the conservatives came in with a ruthless ideological agenda of austerity. that is, picking up a machete and ruthlessly cutting and hacking at the welfare state, because they blamed government overspending

corvid party 9 hours ago
instead of irresponsible bankers on the financial crash and they followed the margaret thatcher tradition of free market capitalism in which the markets and big business dictate all, whereas things like the NHS

corvid party 9 hours ago
(national health service) and funding in education, transport, arts and culture etc etc should all be slashed to the ground

corvid party 9 hours ago
this may or may not be a good thing if you voted for them but i'm horribly biased and from one of the aforementioned deprived areas so all I saw was business making a recovery while the destitute working class

corvid party 9 hours ago
heartlands were left abandoned by the wayside to poverty and being blamed for their own poverty

corvid party 9 hours ago
the conservatives are EXTREMELY ideological in that regard, no matter how many studies and experts tell them austerity does more harm than good and is only making the average person poorer

smile curse ☀ 9 hours ago
Liking this for later, thank ye muchly

corvid party 9 hours ago
so yeah I'm politically biased but as a working class person who grew up in poverty and surrounded by crime and desperation, my salt is extremely justified and i'll pile it on when talking about tories.

Ḅồỳ Ợḟ ṦṮḚḚḸ 9 hours ago
The salt is justified.

corvid party 9 hours ago
meanwhile the UK has been undergoing demographic changes due to immigration, and now white british are an ethnic minority in big cities like london, or leicester, where I did my undergrad degree

corvid party 9 hours ago
this means communities have changed and there have been debates back and forth as to whether it's a good thing or whether multiculturalism has failed because communities of pakistanis, bangladeshis, etc.

corvid party 9 hours ago
supposedly come over and stay in their own communities and don't properly learn english and blah blah blah

corvid party 9 hours ago
eastern european economic migrants, such as polish workers, have also been brought over as cheap sources of labour, undercutting wages and working standards

corvid party 9 hours ago
but often they do shit back-breaking jobs no one else wants to do, like helping out on farms or in factories

corvid party 9 hours ago
so they're exploited and victimised perhaps the most out of all the working class in this country. but again, more fodder for nationalists to point to and start screaming about british jobs for british workers

corvid party 9 hours ago
fast forward to 2015. last year in may we had another general election. the government wasn't popular but he was up against ed miliband's labour government, who was more left-of-centre than the blair years

corvid party 9 hours ago
er, labour opposition* not government

corvid party 9 hours ago
miliband was also more aligned with trade union interests, but only a teeny bit, and nothing compared to corbyn. people just didn't click with him and it became an election based on personality rather than

corvid party 9 hours ago
substance because they felt were was no difference between labour and the tories

corvid party 9 hours ago
except that david cameron was slick and professional, miliband was 'weird', 'awkward', looked like wallace from wallace and gromit, had no idea how to eat a bacon sandwich (yes seriously)

corvid party 9 hours ago
nick clegg, the leader of the liberal democrats, had meanwhile been the whipping boy for every unpopular tory policy during his time in power because he was viewed as a cop-out who abandoned his principles for

corvid party 9 hours ago
power in entering the coalition and betraying people like students in hiking tuition fees, when he promised to scrap them

corvid party 9 hours ago
so the 2015 election was very unclear. people were expecting a con-lib dem coalition again, or maybe a lab-lib if ed miliband had slightly more seats

corvid party 9 hours ago
there was even speculation of lab-lib-SNP (the scottish national party, now the most popular political party in scotland who want an independent scotland)

corvid party 9 hours ago
meanwhile Ukip had appeared out of nowhere after doing well in the european parliament elections in 2014 and wanted to contest some seats and be taken seriously

corvid party 9 hours ago
hilariously their leader, nigel farage, couldn't even win a seat in his contested constituency in thanet

corvid party 9 hours ago
however, he's kind of like a more moderate donald trump of politics, and he's managed to shift the debate about the economy by banging on and on and on and on and on about those Damn Immigrants Taking Our Jobs

corvid party 9 hours ago
so lots of the 2015 election focused on confused and concerned voters questioning what a new government would do to clamp down on what was seen as unfettered immigration and people flooding the UK, putting

corvid party 9 hours ago
pressure on housing and the NHS

corvid party 9 hours ago
(never mind the government's aforementioned austerity policies and failure to invest in proper housing)

corvid party 9 hours ago
Ukip, being primarily designed to make the UK become independent of europe, peddled the immigration myth and shifted blame to focus squarely on europe, and in particular those horrible unelected bureaucrats

corvid party 9 hours ago
in brussels who create all this legislation and don't answer to anyone! and look at all this money we send over to the EU which gets wasted! and look at all these foreigners we have to let in because of EU free

corvid party 9 hours ago
movement of labour!

corvid party 9 hours ago
keeping in mind nigel farage is an ex-city of london trader neck-deep in the establishment, but like donald trump he tries to pass himself off as a radical anti-establishment figure who cares about working

corvid party 9 hours ago
people

corvid party 9 hours ago
because, idk, he goes into pubs and drinks pints in front of a bunch of cameras like real working people do???????

corvid party 9 hours ago
anyway so tl;dr he shifted the debate towards immigration so david cameron, in all his short-termist wisdom, promised on the conservative manifesto that if they got elected there would be a referendum on

Ḅồỳ Ợḟ ṦṮḚḚḸ 9 hours ago
And isn't Farage's wife German?

corvid party 9 hours ago
farage himself has french roots iirc, you just need to look at his surname

corvid party 9 hours ago
he's a filthy hypocrite but he appeals to emotions rather than reason, so people might not like him but they can't help but be convinced by him

corvid party 9 hours ago
-membership of the EU. this was designed only to placate concerned voters who would have otherwise voted Ukip. keep in m ind like i said before that cameron never expected the conservatives to get reelected.

corvid party 8 hours ago
they didn't expect a majority so at the very least they expected to reenter a coalition, and the referendum would be blocked by the liberal democrats, so they could promise whatever they liked

corvid party 8 hours ago
what everyone thought would happen was that labour would get elected

corvid party 8 hours ago
it didn't happen. the conservatives were elected, and it wasn't a hung parliament, they increased their seats to a majority

corvid party 8 hours ago
so, they were forced into the absurd situation of doing something most of cameron's supporters never wanted to do: having a referendum on the EU, despite most voters not understanding it and despite it being

corvid party 8 hours ago
focused on solely as an issue about immigration

corvid party 8 hours ago
the further right of the tory party were delighted because they're hardline eurosceptic, so since than david cameron has faced backbencher rebellions over europe and boris johnson, former mayor of london, has

corvid party 8 hours ago
stepped in as the head of the leave campaign

corvid party 8 hours ago
farage was booted to the sidelines of that debate and ran his own leave campaign, but the referendum has essentially been a proxy war for a conservative leadership struggle, boris johnson sniping to become

corvid party 8 hours ago
prime minister by dicking around and pretending he doesn't like europe

corvid party 8 hours ago
now david cameron has been forced to resign and boris johnson will almost certainly take his place, rich politicians will be celebrating while the average working person has lost.

corvid party 8 hours ago
the EU provides protections to the environment, workers rights, human rights, provides trade, peace, international cooperation, easy movement around europe for all our summer holidays and whatever

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
Holy shit this is all just blatant fear mongering to veil personal agendas isn't it

corvid party 8 hours ago
but we're going to scream and throw all our toys out the pram because the UK is deeply unequal and people are angry and want change

corvid party 8 hours ago
BitterBearFace: yes, yes it is. but unless you follow it all as closely as I have and notice the patterns, all you'd see is the scare stories in rightwing tabloids yelling about immigrants

corvid party 8 hours ago
I haven't mentioned the migrant crisis either - refugees fleeing syria and war and corrupt regimes in north africa have been crossing the med to europe in their tens of thousands, settling at calais to try to

corvid party 8 hours ago
cross the border to the UK

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
I've been following this thing all night here in the states with the kind of morbid fascination one reserves for watching a slow motion train wreck

corvid party 8 hours ago
they've also been used in the EU referendum debate to imply that if we let them in it'll put even more pressure on us and risk admitting terrorists

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
And this plurk has been incredibly informative and my heart and well wishes go out to you and everyone else in the UK on my timeline because holy shit

corvid party 8 hours ago
the schengen zone has been supposedly blamed for things like the paris terror attacks in december, so why would we want to help out thousands of fleeing, desperate people!! they're going to bomb us or they're

corvid party 8 hours ago
going to take our jobs

corvid party 8 hours ago
BitterBearFace: thank you :c I've been following all this shit very closely and I will openly say I am an anti-austerity activist, pro human rights, a peace campaigner, and pro-europe for all its faults

corvid party 8 hours ago
so i'll be open about the fact my opinion is biased but essentially that's the progressive (as opposed to rightwing/conservative) view of the current state of affairs in UK politics

corvid party 8 hours ago
oh and i'm an environmental activist so i'm devastated on that front that we're no longer going to have safeguards against things like air pollution, fracking, dangerous pesticides...

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
This really sets a terrifying precedent. Like...I can literally see the ripple effect this decision is having with so many other general elections coming up around the world this year

corvid party 8 hours ago
spain has an election just this sunday, actually, so watch that space

Ḅồỳ Ợḟ ṦṮḚḚḸ 8 hours ago
What a time to be alive

corvid party 8 hours ago
austria narrowly voted in a left-wing leader over a right wing fascist last month iirc

corvid party 8 hours ago
europe is becoming more and more polarised with right wing, xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric vs left wing socialist/anti-establishment parties

corvid party 8 hours ago
the front nationale in france, podemos in spain, syriza in greece... probably the only stabilising force in europe is angela merkel and her party in germany but she's lost credibility over the refugee crisis

corvid party 8 hours ago
anyway I think that about sums it up, and if you're interested I definitely recommend you read as much extra material as you can, because this is going to effect the entire global economy, not just europe

corvid party 8 hours ago
and if anyone has any questions gimme a shout

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
Thank you for breaking this all down

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
I'll admit I haven't noticed the brexit/bremain campaigns just because I've been staring down the loaded gun that is the US presidential election

bluecake was 8 hours ago
the current labour party leader in favor of leave? I've seen conflicting reports

BUDDY MAGNUS 8 hours ago
But this gives a lot of perspective to what's going on and I appreciate it

corvid party 8 hours ago
bluecake: he's eurosceptic and always has been, but the official labour stance has been to stay in europe while wanting democratic reform from within

corvid party 8 hours ago
which was incidentally my stance as well

corvid party 8 hours ago
BitterBearFace: the US presidential election definitely isn't happening in a vacuum, it's just part of a wider trend across the western world

corvid party 8 hours ago
what is worrying about europe, of course, is that the EU was founded on the premise of creating peace after it unleashed two horrific world wars on the rest of the world

corvid party 8 hours ago
and we've had unprecedented peace and cooperation for the latter half of the 20th century

corvid party 8 hours ago
now we're repeating all the old mistakes of the past, turning away desperate migrants, descending into right-wing nationalism, racism and xenophobia

corvid party 8 hours ago
only now instead of antisemitism, it's islamophobia

corvid party 8 hours ago
which was why it was such good news that london elected its first muslim mayor last month, but the differences between london and the rest of the UK's attitudes are massive, unfortunately

corvid party 8 hours ago
I'm going to be starting an MA in international relations in september so needless to say i'm going to be in for a wild rid

corvid party 8 hours ago
e

corvid party 8 hours ago
probably all the course material is going to be very outdated soon enough if it isn't already

Ḅồỳ Ợḟ ṦṮḚḚḸ 8 hours ago
Oh boy. But at least it will be interesting!

corvid party 8 hours ago
yeah! and maybe one day I'll become a competent and informed adult to be able to actually exercise political influence instead of just turning up to rallies and yelling a lot about how shit everyone is

corvid party 8 hours ago
oh I should mention what I didn't at the start - gibraltar was offered a vote in the referendum because it's surrounded by spain and would be disproportionately affected by brexit

corvid party 8 hours ago
like spanish commuters who go to work in gibraltar every day, and the fact spain is still contesting territory but one of the things keeping it in check is the EU arrangement

corvid party 8 hours ago
the referendum will open all those cans of worms on small-scale regional disputes and potentially lead the way to other independence referendums. I know catalan, for example, has been vying for independence

corvid party 8 hours ago
from spain

corvid party 8 hours ago
but as you can guess i'm what i've already outlined, this is the worst possible time for europe to beecome more fractured and divided when we have multiple crises on our doorsteps - climate change, terrorism,

corvid party 8 hours ago
the migrant crisis, which we're STILL failing to deal with and just trying to deport them all to turkey instead or trying to chase them off with gunboats or whatever

corvid party 8 hours ago
Europe is Fucked, an Essay by Candace

washingtub 8 hours ago
Do you have any specific reading recommendations? I'm not as informed as I'd like to be.

corvid party 8 hours ago
just watch lots and lots of the news and read all the breaking political analysis. if you need to start with the basics, sites like the BBC have been breaking the referendum down issue by issue and party by

corvid party 8 hours ago
party

corvid party 8 hours ago
there's always wikipedia for historical summaries and more context if you need the broader picture, too

corvid party 8 hours ago
I first studied sociology when I was sixteen in college and my teacher's advice was that if I wanted to be more informed, I just needed to watch/read the news. a lot

corvid party 8 hours ago
I've done so religiously since then and it's pretty much how i've gotten all my knowledge, aside from activism and personal experience and stuff

corvid party 8 hours ago
I also read the guardian and the new statesman, though the latter veers more towards opinion on current affairs than pure news journalism

corvid party 8 hours ago
the independent is pretty good too

corvid party 8 hours ago
don't touch tabloids with a barge pole

washingtub 8 hours ago
I avoid tabloids like the plague as a matter of principle.

corvid party 7 hours ago
 it pretty much goes without saying that they're not bastions of factual news

corvid party 7 hours ago
but yeah just try to immerse yourself in it, research things you don't know, and you'll pick it up as you go along

Grinchworth 7 hours ago
The US is kind of hung up on our Congress acting like babies right now, so it may be hard for people over here to find info through our default channels.

corvid party 7 hours ago
BBC news/world news and the guardian are the place to go

Grinchworth 7 hours ago
nods.

Meta 4 hours ago


HurricaneChris 4 hours ago
I'm very globalist, so the wave of nationalism across the world frightens me.

HurricaneChris 4 hours ago
I talk a lot about Russia because Russian nationalism frightens me the most, but I oppose it pretty much everywhere because I know all too well what it does.

HurricaneChris 4 hours ago
And speaking of Russia, I'm pretty sure this is good news for the Kremlin.

HurricaneChris 4 hours ago
It's also good news for ISIS.

corvid party 4 hours ago
yeah putin openly supported brexit as far as I know

corvid party 4 hours ago
I'm also very globalist. studying abroad in two different countries and making friends across the world really makes you realise we have more in common than differences

corvid party 4 hours ago
so why in turbulent political climates is isolation considered a good option I have no idea

Grinchworth 3 hours ago
On the bright side, this is at least happening through voting, not shooting. Let's just hope it stays that way.

candytuft 3 hours ago
I just want to say that you'll be an absolute credit to your International Politics course.

corvid party 2 hours ago
thank you, mandy

Sakura✿Shark 2 hours ago
Thank you so much for sharing this breakdown, really helped with trying to sort out what's going on

corvid party 2 hours ago
no problem. it really does have a complex background, it's not just about small-minded xenophobic parts of the UK vs the rest of the country, and anyone who tries to dumb the debate down to one thing is wrong

corvid party 2 hours ago
it's about the poverty and disenfranchisement of the working class, it's about millions of people who feel like the political establishment isn't listening to them, it's about people who have felt left behind

corvid party 2 hours ago
when it comes to globalisation and who are desperately looking for alternatives

corvid party 2 hours ago
even if we do leave the EU, and even if boris johnson were to get into power, the political establishment has some serious soul-searching to do if they don't want voters to keep revolting against their every

corvid party 2 hours ago
expectation like this

darjeeling 2 hours ago
Thanks for breaking it down like this. I've been trying to read up on everything that's happening and this is definitely helpful.

corvid party 2 hours ago
no problem!

triedsohard 2 hours ago
you word better than me candace

corvid party 2 hours ago
I worded my best even if it was riddled with typos and sleep deprivation

TR☆SH ST☆R 2 hours ago
Liking this to read on a laptop later

donkey brains 2 hours ago
I wasn't aware at first of the sort of protections offered by the EU. Holy shit. So at least a lot of the regulations that keeps capital in check would be thrown out. That's severe...
I guess this is a bit

donkey brains 2 hours ago
early to really know for certain, but going forward into the next two years, is there any way to mitigate all of this damage...? But that might be the main question, really, since nobody's sure how bad this is

donkey brains 2 hours ago
going to be, right?

corvid party an hour ago
yeah, that's what no one knows at this point, what's going to actually be negotiated, and at what pace

corvid party an hour ago
or WHO will be doing the negotiating because it won't be david cameron

triedsohard an hour ago
yeah and I imagine that the EU will take a hard line despite the leave gang now being like "um well we can take our time and not go straight away" the EU council are going to want to get things done

triedsohard an hour ago
mostly to disuade any other member states from doing the same, but also to get this over and done with, like ripping off a plaster

corvid party an hour ago
yeah, so it'll be a tug of war between our government and the EU over the coming days and months

ρεℓℓƴ ♥ an hour ago
Thank you for writing this, I've been trying to find background.

corvid party an hour ago
no worries!

donkey brains an hour ago
yeah, you gave a lot of details and enlightened me on the finer points of what's been happening... the uncertainty is just terrifying, but there are some clear lessons to take away from this...

corvid party an hour ago
I suppose the one major lesson is that politicians being out of step with voters has finally come back to bite them, since there really are very few winners as things stand