Tommy Robinson using UKIP as a vehicle for fascism

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

I think it'd be better to call him by his real name.

It's hard to see how the current rabble led by football hooligan Yaxley Lennon is going to make big inroads, but clearly some organised political force is going to emerge from the seething sense of betrayal and abandonment half the country are going to feel when brexit is thwarted.

The reaction of the main parties is crucial, in terms of how ugly the backlash gets, but unfortunately both have them will have burnt through a whole lot of trust and political capital once this is all over, perhaps fatally so. Whatever happens, the trajectory is pretty bleak unless we have some major, very radical changes - not tinkering around the edges, or papering over the cracks. A whole class of elites in this country need to acknowledge that the political and economic settlement that has served them so handsomely is over, and the gross and growing inequality in the country needs to be addressed head on, even if its at their expense.

Pretty much that.

[Johnny Yesno]

It's funny the people who have turned out to shy socialists.

[Zetetic]

There's no outcome to Brexit that doesn't cause a "sense of betrayal and abandonment" amongst those who voted to Leave.

The most earnest outcome does nothing to improve anyone's lot (other than perhaps a few crisis gamblers), perhaps makes a little clearer that Westminster doesn't much care about the majority of the UK, and doesn't appease anyone's xenophobia. It's self "thwarting" as a policy sold as it has been.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

"vehicle"

[Buelligan]

Perfectly normal, nothing creepy at all.

There's no outcome to Brexit that doesn't cause a "sense of betrayal and abandonment" amongst those who voted to Leave.

The most earnest outcome does nothing to improve anyone's lot (other than perhaps a few crisis gamblers), perhaps makes a little clearer that Westminster doesn't much care about the majority of the UK, and doesn't appease anyone's xenophobia. It's self "thwarting" as a policy sold as it has been.

Yes and let's not forget the 48% who feel a sense of betrayal and abandonment.   I can assure you, the 1.3 million Brits living in the EU feel pretty betrayed and abandoned.  Especially the ones that weren't even allowed to vote.

[biggytitbo]

I'm not going to pretend to speak for the 48%, but its unfortunate optics that the most vocal and public voices of remain mostly seem to have done alright thank you very much out of our membership and its current economic model, leading to legitimate suspicions that their desperation to stay is more drawbridge pulling than the much vaunted 'national interest'.


For the 52% you can't make a serious argument to them that our 45 year membership of the EU has benefited them. Thats the illusion vs reality thing again. The argument is made that the anti EU feeling is just a proxy for the economic and social inequality and hollowed out communities that have been developing for 30 odd years but have gotten worse since than financial crash, which is true but EU membership is about locking us all into that very economic model, so its not an argument that works for me. The 52% can see quite clearly that the political classes in the UK are indivisible from those in the EU, they're the same people with the same model of how the world will be run and that model will always leave them at the bottom of the pile.


The likes of Tommy Robinson and the right wing trend throughout Europe is a direct if warped consequence of the EUs adoption of the shitty neoliberal model pioneered by Thatcher, and being oblivious to the reality of the world it has produced for its own citizens. All political systems react with glacial pace to change, and obviously exist to perpetuate themselves, but there cannot be a political body more ill-equipped to address change than the EU, whose entire DNA is designed to be a long term project that is deliberately unresponsive to the 'short termism' of national politics and democracy. Thats why it is incapable of responding to the fact its economic model is not only dead and causing pain for its member countries, but its political model is by its very nature incapable of addressing it.

[jobotic]

TL:DR. The destruction of worker's rights for those that earn a lot less than me will be for their own good.

[madhair60]

I personally dislike Tommy Robinson.

[Cuellar]

Personally I like him - it's his ruddy politics I can't stand!!

(I don't really like him)

[biggytitbo]

I personally dislike Tommy Robinson.

What about Yaxley Lennon?

[Bhazor]

Sure multiple countries in Europe now have massive far right ultranationalist movements. But hey at least they aren't those horrible evil war mongering EU bankers. I mean when you get down to it their the real villains. Geert, Le Pen, the Brotherhood, dear sweet BNP. They're just the poor victims.

[Paul Calf]

I'm not going to pretend to speak for the 48%, but its unfortunate optics that the most vocal and public voices of remain mostly seem to have done alright thank you very much out of our membership and its current economic model

"Unfortunate optics"

[Funcrusher]

Sure multiple countries in Europe now have massive far right ultranationalist movements. But hey at least they aren't those horrible evil war mongering EU bankers. I mean when you get down to it their the real villains. Geert, Le Pen, the Brotherhood, dear sweet BNP. They're just the poor victims.

Even by the standards of the hit and run hurr-durr insert blank are the real victims here posts that seem to be almost the only thing that you post, this is pretty weak.

[Benevolent Despot]

It's ironic since Hitler is Islam's favourite infidel. The admiration was mutual as he wished Europe had been blessed with Islam since it would make better fighters out of his troops.

Since we're all still on the X is hitler bandwagon, might as well join in with some kindle for the fire...

[Monsieur Verdoux]

how many times do you dummies need to hear that Islam is not a monolith before you stop regurgitating the shit you hear in Gavin McInnes videos. log off once in a while. the world is more complicated than your Christopher Hitchens YouTube playlist makes it out to be

[Buelligan]

I think people often prefer not to think or talk about things, recognising them as complex and nuanced.  This is probably because it makes them feel and look dumb and powerless.  Without easy answers.

[biggytitbo]

The thing about Islamophobia is you can blame dickheads like Yaxley Lennon all you like, but that shit is coming straight from the top.

[Zetetic]

For the 52% you can't make a serious argument to them that our 45 year membership of the EU has benefited them. Thats the illusion vs reality thing again. The argument is made that the anti EU feeling is just a proxy for the economic and social inequality and hollowed out communities that have been developing for 30 odd years but have gotten worse since than financial crash, which is true but EU membership is about locking us all into that very economic model, so its not an argument that works for me.

I don't think this makes much sense for a number of reasons 1) the EU isn't locking us into any 'economic model' (it might, at most, be a manifestation of power relations that do so but leaving won't change this and risks exacerbating this) and 2) Leaving the EU wasn't sold on the basis of escaping any such 'economic model' (if anything, economically, it was largely sold on the basis of going deeper into it, with the emphasis on 'free trade') and 3) lots of Leave voters weren't from 'hollowed out communities' (even if they disproportionately were).

1 has been done to death. The EU doesn't prevent the state building housing, owning public good providers (or establishing them as non-profits or other such alternatives), effectively privileging such providers, prevent raising minimum working conditions or wages, prevent progressive wealth and income taxation, prevent more effective and egalitarian use of state capital (e.g. local investment banks). In the few situations where it might be argued that it does on paper, we can clearly show by example that it doesn't in practice - leaving has a decent probability of changing this, by lending the EU's member states better weapons in the context of FTAs and indeed opening us up to many others' retribution (given the emphasis on FTAs with the rest of the world).

On 2, we know that the Leave campaign emphasised spending claims which are entirely within the hands of the Westminster administration, immigration (but interestingly mostly of a form largely irrelevant to our membership of the EU), and nebulous concepts of 'sovereignty' and 'control'. Taking the last of these at face value (rather than a way of making xenophobic discourse more palatable), again leaving threatens this. Much was also made in the popular campaigns of the EU holding back British industry - not because of state aid, but because of regulation and limiting the extent to which we could engage with 'free trade' with the rest of the world (thereby locking us into more agreements intended to limit domestic economic policy).

And regarding 3, we know that plenty of fairly well-off people from healthy communities (setting aside endemic racism and ignorance) voted to Leave.

Brexit is both a symptom and will, yes, be a cause of growing support for xenophobic authoritarian politics. It is a perfect policy to do so - it vaguely attaches a bunch of genuine ills to half-way credible but ultimately false supposed causes. We'll attack those causes, to end except perhaps making some of those ills worse, and yet it'll grow the association and the general desire to blame Others.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

The thing about Islamophobia is you can blame dickheads like Yaxley Lennon all you like, but that shit is coming straight from the top.

i don't think that anybody here thinks that Yax is the sole or even most influential propagator of islamophobia. the "wake up sheeple!" bit gets tired sometimes, you know? learn to read the room

[Zetetic]

The same is also true of looking to blame the EU for most of the ills of the last few decades, of course. It has been an ideal scapegoat for policy that Westminster doesn't wish to engage the public on seriously.

The one positive of leaving that we might imagine is that this would become harder. (Quite some imagination required, however.)

[biggytitbo]

i don't think that anybody here thinks that Yax is the sole or even most influential propagator of islamophobia. the "wake up sheeple!" bit gets tired sometimes, you know? learn to read the room

Are you really paranoid or something? You seem incapable of grasping when i'm talking about us collectively a as a society or a culture rather than you personally.

Anyway, Yaxley's more fun isn't he, than our ongoing imperialism and racist policies and stuff. He certainly seems to get more column inches at least. Ohh Yax is horrid, whilst they turn a blind eye to their own bombs falling.

[Zetetic]

The 52% can see quite clearly that the political classes in the UK are indivisible from those in the EU, they're the same people with the same model of how the world will be run and that model will always leave them at the bottom of the pile.

Large swathes of Leave voters - not all, but a very large proportion - maintain favourable opinions of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, which is an interesting combination of visions to be capable of.

(I think it's fundamentally a mistake to believe that these people are all the same. Some are genuine ordoliberals by any reasonable description, some are neoliberals and some are mostly playing at politics for no great ideological reasons, but are into profiteering from other people's crises in their spare time/cash.)

[biggytitbo]

Large swathes of Leave voters - not all, but a very large proportion - maintain favourable opinions of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, which is an interesting combination of visions to be capable of.

(I think it's fundamentally a mistake to believe that these people are all the same. Some are genuine ordoliberals by any reasonable description, some are neoliberals and some are mostly playing at politics for no great ideological reasons, but are into profiteering from other people's crises in their spare time/cash.)

I don't think thats true, but so what? Don't mistake some pantomime figures on the telly with the fundamental decisions we make as a country. Its quite clear from the last election and public opinion that the core issues people care about, housing, wages, public services, trains etc - are swinging decisively in the favour of the progressive left, away from whatever it is Johnson et al stand for.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Are you really paranoid or something? You seem incapable of grasping when i'm talking about us collectively a as a society or a culture rather than you personally.

Anyway, Yaxley's more fun isn't he, than our ongoing imperialism and racist policies and stuff. He certainly seems to get more column inches at least. Ohh Yax is horrid, whilst they turn a blind eye to their own bombs falling.

I don't think you're talking about me personally, I just think that you're stating things that are really obvious to pretty much everybody here. Learn to turn your attentions towards the ongoing discussion, rather than constantly shouting at people offscreen

[biggytitbo]

I don't think you're talking about me personally, I just think that you're stating things that are really obvious to pretty much everybody here

Whats wrong with that? I mean you're stating things that are pretty obvious as well, nobody here thinks he's anything other than an awful racist dog turd.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Ah, trying to pull the "no u" thing. I don't know what you're talking about because I haven't made any real comment on Robinson in this thread, and everything I've said has been in response to someone else, which is how a discussion works. I'm not bellowing into the void like you. You need to try harder with this stuff, if you want to childishly attempt to fling criticism back you have to actually have receipts to do so

[Zetetic]

Its quite clear from the last election and public opinion that the core issues people care about, housing, wages, public services, trains etc - are swinging decisively in the favour of the progressive left, away from whatever it is Johnson et al stand for.

It's a bit of an odd choice, on the part of 'people', to return another Conservative government - an exceptionally unattractive and incompetent one at that - under the circumstances.

I'm not saying that they don't care about those things - that's why the Leave campaign used some of these things to convince them to vote for them - but that doesn't mean that they have a good grip on who will deliver them and how.

It's also worth remembering that the vast majority of this country are enormously better off than the 10% or 20% worst off in this country. Even the bottom 30-40% are very different bunch to the bottom 10% - either considering wealth or income.

[biggytitbo]

Ah, trying to pull the "no u" thing. I don't know what you're talking about because I haven't made any real comment on Robinson in this thread, and everything I've said has been in response to someone else, which is how a discussion works. I'm not bellowing into the void like you. You need to try harder with this stuff

Talking about Yaxley Lennon in a thread about him is hardly bellowing into the void. Nobody had yet pointed out that Yaxley Lennon's islamaphobia was entirely consistent with the warmongering British state, its not some awful abhorrent fringe thing. I'm sorry if you think that was so blindingly obvious it doesnt even need saying.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Yeah that's my fucking point, and you didn't even make that direct comparison, just some vague obvious statement about it being 'from the top'

[biggytitbo]

Who did you think I meant by the top? Ronnie O'Sullivan? Wasn't it so obvious you should have known this?