Cameron’s EU deal

[rodmanlewis]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Yes, good points, I accept all that. I am calm, and I shall carry on campaigning with Labour In, but the worry is that a Brexit win will, as you've said, give a boost to racism and xenophobia,

You're confusing cause and effect. Brexit of itself won't give a boost to racism and xenophobia, it will endorse what is already there.

[DJP]

rodmanlewis wrote:

You're confusing cause and effect. Brexit of itself won't give a boost to racism and xenophobia, it will endorse what is already there.

I don't think things separate out that easily. There are no one-way streets. If the predominant mood is one of isolationism and xenophobia, and Brexit would be a boost to this mood, then more people will be inclined to think that way. 

[Anonymous]

There's been a last minute revision of the EU Referendum voting paper…  

[Young Master Smeet]

For some bizarre reason, leave are trying to drag Elizabeth Windsor into the argument.  Two papers today lead on her being a secret Eurosceptic, and:https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/745531956125827074Surely, that's a core vote shore-up-your-base line?  They must think they've lost, but want to continue the argument later.

[ALB]

gnome wrote:

There's been a last minute revision of the EU Referendum voting paper…  

This is the ballot paper I'm going to put in the ballot box as well tomorrow (or is it today now?)

[alanjjohnstone]

For the late left Leave voter – the counter argument from Ewa Jasiewiczhttp://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/06/22/why-im-pushing-lexit-wont-help-migrants-or-working-class

Quote:

When migrant workers are the pawn in this game of EU and domestic class control, voting for a move which will exclude them, and normalise restrictions on their rights, will not encourage their participation in a political process – a left wing alternative – which needs to include them as a part of the whole UK working class.

[ALB]

Your introduction didn't make it clear than this is a plea not to vote Brexit or Lexit. Makes some good points:

Quote:

So when we 'take our country back' are we going to take our workplaces back? Control over our own labour back? No one is talking about that.

[Young Master Smeet]

So, tomorrow is christmas for anoraks, I can hardly wait, either way, there'll be an interesting result, oodles and oodles of data to crunch, and big constitutional questiopns to examine and argue about till we're mauve in the face.

[Anonymous]

From The Canary…

Quote:

Those who wish to see Britain cut immigration dramatically are going to be bitterly disappointed in the event of a Brexit vote. The economics embraced by David Cameron and the conservatives doesn’t permit protectionism – or ‘looking after our own’. This is why they do nothing for working class Britons losing jobs because their bosses choose to exploit immigrant labour. This is why they do nothing when companies ship British jobs overseas to exploit workers in far away countries. They are not patriots, or nationalists. They think as part of a trans-national capitalist class. The bottom line for them is the profit and loss accounts of themselves and their peers, not the personal aspirations of 31 million working people in Britain, or the near 2 million unemployed. Rest assured that if Britain leaves the EU there will be every bit as much, if not more, exploitation of immigrant and overseas labour, and all the losses of jobs, wages and working conditions that go along with it.All things considered, we are forced to conclude that the only groups to win from this EU Referendum are the very same groups that have won for as long as anyone can remember: those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Those who see the NHS not as the foundation rock of our public health, but as a cash cow, ripe for milking. Those who see housing not as the basis for family and community life, but as a market in which to speculate and accumulate. Those who see education not as a ladder leading people up to a better place in the world, but as a means of turning young people into debtors with hefty student loans which shackle them for life. Those who see immigration as a way of lowering working conditions and wages to the lowest common denominator. Those who see trade deals as another way of doing the same.While the rest of us might disagree on the solutions, we are all craving remarkably similar things at the heart of it: community, safety, prosperity, good neighbourliness and civility, respect, integrity in our institutions, individual freedom. And none of us are going to get these things through this EU Referendum. Instead, it is likely that whichever way we vote, they will remain firmly out of our reach until we take far bolder steps at the ballot box come general election time.

 http://www.thecanary.co/2016/06/21/the-eu-referendum-is-one-of-the-cruellest-tricks-every-played-on-the-british-public/

[Anonymous]

I really hate this conservative government.  Whoever wins the referendum, the poor and dispossessed are going to carry on suffering.I did a google search just now, looking for an article on job centres I had read earlier.My search read: "the guardian job centre despair".These are the headlines that came up:"Poverty: six steps from the jobcentre to the food bank""Job centre staff 'sent guidelines on how to deal with claimants' suicide threats' ""If you want long term, meaningful work, don't go to a jobcentre'"Mental health of benefit claimants is put at risk by welfare reform'"Unemployed? Don't go to your local jobcentre""Britain's epidemic of private despair makes this an economic crisis like no other""Jobcentre bosses warn of suicide risk among benefit claimants""Job centre whistle-blower says claimants routinely tricked out of benefits"And so it goes on.  The state of the nation summed up in a few headlines.(By the way, this was the article I searched for:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/23/charlotte-sees-desperation-first-hand-job-centre-benefits-system)

[Young Master Smeet]

Well, the Earth is still going round the sun.  There's still a bunch of damp and mossy islands in the Eastern Atlantic, and we still work for the people who own them.

[stuartw2112]

The Great Idiot Revolt has it. I lost a fiver. If that's all we lose, we'll be very lucky indeed

[alanjjohnstone]

Well, the nationalists in Scotland seem to have a strong case for another independence referendum…i hope we can present a stronger presence second time around. Alex Salmond reckons in two and half years time so time enough to prepare. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein are using their remain result to ask for a referendum for Northern Ireland and a United Ireland. If not, that border will become a smugglers' paradise. I note Lambeth was particularly strong remain vote…maybe we should build on that cosmopolitanism with world socialism in the next run of elections there

[jondwhite]

stuartw2112 wrote:

The Great Idiot Revolt has it. I lost a fiver. If that's all we lose, we'll be very lucky indeed

Remaining in the EU wouldn't have been the sort of victory for the working-class we are looking for.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

I lost a fiver.

Stuart, I've lost more than a fiver the next time i go to the ATM because of the pound exchange rate fall  and that might continue and continue…Hopefully, the Party's investment portfolio isn't going to be too badly affected. 

[Author]

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