More on Brexit
December 2024 › Forums › General discussion › More on Brexit
- This topic has 493 replies, 22 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 5 months ago by ALB.
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July 16, 2019 at 10:05 am #188826robbo203Participant
I dont wish to ruin peoples’ appetites but this caught my attention on reading about the prospects of Britain becoming a vassal state of the Great American empire…
Johnson has previously sought to downplay fears about a US trade deal weakening UK food and agricultural standards.
Under US food standards, products can contain certain amounts of foreign bodies, including maggots, insect fragments and mould.
For example US producers are allowed to include up to 30 insect fragments in a 100-gram jar of peanut butter; as well as 11 rodent hairs in a 25-gram container of paprika; or 3 milligrams of mammalian excreta (typically rat or mouse excrement) per each pound of ginger.
Johnson has recently sought to downplay such fears by insisting that he would demand the US would meet UK standards instead as part of any deal.July 19, 2019 at 8:36 am #188883alanjjohnstoneKeymasterFar-right protests are attracting the largest number of supporters since the 1930s as Brexit fuels anger against the “elite”. They bemoan the supposed suppression of their rights and freedoms and claim to represent the oppressed “people” versus a corrupt “elite”
Whatever the outcome of Brexit, the far-right will “use the narrative of betrayal to advance their politics for the next 10 years. If there is a hard Brexit and these communities get hit, they will come up with an excuse and say something went wrong, we didn’t leave strongly enough. If we stay in, it’s been betrayed. The far-right will be using this, regardless of what happens.”
“When people feel that the system is broken, they look outside of it and step into a political arena where the far right is able to capitalise on these fears, offering simplistic answers to complex problems,” the report said.
“There’s little doubt that no matter which side of the Brexit debate you fall on, the failure to deal with it competently has fed into disillusionment and anger,” he added. “We’ve seen through polling that people are increasingly disillusioned with all political parties and leaders, but they are still angry and want change. So they’re looking for alternatives, and for some of them that is Tommy Robinson.”
The far right has adapted its message and adopted a platform that is more palatable to the public, within the confines of acceptability,” it said, detailing how groups were repurposing the notion of free speech to present themselves as human rights activists and freedom fighters.
July 22, 2019 at 10:50 pm #188925alanjjohnstoneKeymasterUK might be leaving the EU but it still appeals to its European military allies for assistance against Iran
August 1, 2019 at 1:00 am #189184alanjjohnstoneKeymaster“Government plans to buy up hundreds of thousands of tonnes of unsold lamb in the event of a no-deal Brexit could be unworkable because there is nowhere to store it”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49186065
August 6, 2019 at 10:54 am #189325alanjjohnstoneKeymasterAs we said before…with capitalism, if you are down on the ground, don’t expect a helping hand to get up but be prepared for being kicked in the kidneys.
The former US treasury secretary Larry Summers has said, “Britain has no leverage, Britain is desperate…it needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that’s when you strike the hardest bargain.”
August 13, 2019 at 2:47 am #189524alanjjohnstoneKeymasterBolton informs Boris, that Britain will become a colony of the USA.
Perhaps that is a bit too much of a hyperbole but if the UK expects some sort of generous trade deal that benefits British interests, they are in for a very big shock.
Perhaps a satellite state of the United States might be a more accurate depiction of the new “special relationship”
August 13, 2019 at 10:56 am #189533alanjjohnstoneKeymaster54% said they agreed with the statement: “Boris Johnson needs to deliver Brexit by any means, including suspending parliament if necessary, in order to prevent MPs (Members of Parliament) from stopping it.”
46% disagreed with the statement.
Support for the Conservative Party had risen by 6 percentage points to 31%, compared with 27% who said they would back the opposition Labour Party.
August 16, 2019 at 10:13 am #189605alanjjohnstoneKeymasterAugust 16, 2019 at 2:47 pm #189609ALBKeymasterYes, it will be an interesting to see what those politicians defending the interests of the dominant section of the UK capitalist class will do to bring down Boris Johnson’s government of crazies and “collaborators” with US capitalism and prevent British capitalists being cut off by tariff walls from the markets they have built up in Europe over the last 40 or so years. There’s going to be some fascinating viewing or radio-listening in September and October. A veritable reality show.
August 19, 2019 at 6:56 am #189693ALBKeymasterMarquito has drawn attention to this article on Brexit from the Marxist Humanist Initiative in the US
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/uk-news/boris-johnson-brexit-and-the-law-of-value.html
I’m not sure it succeeds. Are there really any capitalist firms that favour Brexit because the fall in the value of the pound will make their exports more competitive? After all, a fall in the value of the pound will also make imports more expensive, while exports to Europe will have a tariff imposed on them in the event of a no-deal Brexit. And has immigration from East Europe really undermined wages in Britain? The minority capitalists interest in Brexit would still seem to be financiers who favoured getting out of EU regulation of their deals in favour, as is now being revealed, of switching to the less onerous US regulation. In any event, the present US regime wants Brexit so as to weaken the EU as a competitor on world markets, with pro-American UK politicians now openly pushing the US interest.
More interesting was the link they gave to the discussion within MHI before the referendum on what line thy should take. They say that as an organisation they have no position (fair enough, why should they?) but are publishing two points of view. I had expected there’d be one for Remain and one for Leave. In fact there was one for Remain, with the other for Abstain, Which I suppose was the only real choice facing those with the interests of the working class at heart, reflecting that there was no conceivable working class case for Leave. The one for Abstain by Ravi Bali makes some good points against Lexit.
August 19, 2019 at 7:54 am #189695DJPParticipantI thought this video, also on the MHI, wasn’t too bad. If it hasn’t been mentioned before:
August 19, 2019 at 1:46 pm #189699alanjjohnstoneKeymasterI may well be getting took down the rabbit hole of contesting propaganda but I found this article to be rather depressing and contrary to the prevailing perception of what might happen.
Home secretary, Priti Patel, intended to impose new border restrictions overnight on 31 October if Britain left the EU without a deal.
Home Office sources told the Times details of an alternative plan to maintain freedom of movement until January 2021 and to allow EU immigrants who came to the UK in the meantime to apply to stay under existing “settled status” rules did not reflect government thinking and that freedom of movement for people from EU countries would end “on October 31 should we leave without a deal”.
A Home Office spokesperson told the Independent: “The home secretary has been clear in her intention to take back control of our borders and end free movement after 31 October.
“Ending free movement means we are no longer required to give unlimited and uncontrolled access to those from EU countries when they are coming here seeking to work.”
Theresa May put into place a process for residency for EU citizens but we can be sure that many will be left in a bureaucratic limbo. Just a million out of the estimated 3 million have been granted pre-settled status. They have just over a year to do so.
August 19, 2019 at 11:13 pm #189717alanjjohnstoneKeymasterA bit further info
40 million people arrive from the EU – EU nationals – every year into the UK
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49393556
You can be sure of tit for tat reaction by the EU countries which do not rely heavily on UK tourism.
August 22, 2019 at 10:05 am #189747ALBKeymasterFrom today’s papers President Macron’s assessment of what a no-deal Brexit would mean for capitalist Britain:
“Can [the cost of a hard Brexit] be offset by the United States of America? No. And even if it were a strategic choice, it would be at the cost of a historic vassalisation of Britain. I don’t think this is what Boris Johnson wants. I don’t think it is what the British people want.
“The British are attached to being a great power, a member of the Security Council. The point can’t be to exit Europe and say ‘we’ll be stronger’ before, in the end, becoming the junior partner of the United States, which is acting more and more hegemonically.”But maybe it was the point of those who financed the Leave campaign?
August 22, 2019 at 4:27 pm #189750JClark96ParticipantIt’s wise to remain skeptical about the musings of EU leaders at this time.
It’s quickly becoming a debate over whether it’s best to be aligned with the EU or the US’ efforts to manage capitalisms inherent contradictions.
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