Brexit: a timeline of the coming slow-motion car-crash

[daneel]

@daneel

Hopefully we’ll get another Brexit today.

We did! Hooray!

Stupid English.

[FFabian]

… haha and vs Iceland, makes it even better

[aeon]

@anon50609448

But that’s not the story of the left having no use for neoliberalism’s losers, that’s the story of actual progressiveness being plowed under. Labour under Tony Blair wasn’t a left wing that didn’t care about the poor, it was more neoliberalism. And meanwhile, those people who were crying out about their lot in life were mostly voting for the Conservatives.

The UK’s blue collar population traditionally tend to be socially conservative. They vote against their economic interests if the Right offers stability and the Left does not.

I’m not claiming that it’s just Progressive politics to blame. But every hashtag helped it along. As did events like Rotherham’s child exploitation scandal and New Labour’s determination to “rub their faces in diversity”. And if you actually see immigrants undercutting you for jobs that could have been yours, will you believe someone who tells you to shut up because you’re stupid? Or someone who tells you they can make it stop?

My Facebook page is a mess. On the one hand I have my family and friends from where I grew up in the UK, in a socioeconomically deprived blue collar area which almost solidly voted Leave. They’re crowing how they showed those elites that never listen that they need to listen now; they want everyone to pull together and make Britain great again as an independent nation. And they’re right, they did and that needs to happen. On the other hand, I married an immigrant and we have mixed race children. So we also have friends and family who aren’t from the UK originally who’ve made a home there. They’re worried for their future, which they saw in a united Europe. And I don’t blame them.

The whole thing is a mess.

[renke]

Fun with Google Translate. Currently the German translation for “a bad day for Europe” is “ein guter Tag für Europa” (“a good day Europe”).

[anon61221983]

That’s something I wonder about - if some people in Europe are happy to be rid of the UK in all this, as well.

[renke]

Kind of. The UK delayed the process for a more political union quite often, something not loved by everyone (be it politicians or baseline humans) - and the cherry-picking (“I want my money back”) gets old rather fast.

[nungesser]

I can’t find the actual quote now, but on Brexit Morning, one of the EU secretaries tweeted something along the lines of “30 years of UK uncertainty has come to a decisive end. A swift divorce is better than a failed marriage.”

[daneel]

A classy bit of targeted advertizing just popped up in my twitter feed…

[KarlS]

@anon61221983

That’s something I wonder about - if some people in Europe are happy to be rid of the UK in all this, as well.

This is going to come across as more hateful than it is meant to be, but yes, I am (or rather would be). I do not think they ever truly accepted the EU and too often they didn’t seem to deal with it in good faith. Decades of denial and sabotage have to come to an end at some point. Even here and now you still get people agitating for the destruction of the union which many of us hold dear.

I would have preferred them remaining, but only if they had actually wanted it.

Of course them leaving will cause a lot of disruption and we’ll have to find a way to deal with it that limits the harm to the rest of the EU.

[OtherMichael]

What have the EU ever done for us?

[Snowlark]

That is goddamned brilliant.

[anon61221983]

I don’t think it’s hateful at all, but rather honest.