06.27.2016 11:47 AM

Brexit boneheads begrudge bigotry blaming

I love alliterations. So shoot me.

 

TWAT

A twat.

…and some people really want to.  They – the ones who voted to make Great Britain Not-So-Great anymore – are shocked and appalled, Mr. Speaker, that anyone would ever, ever suggest that (a) they used dog-whistles to win or (b) they have a disproportionately-large number of knuckle-draggers on their side.

So, let’s look at the evidence, shall we?

And so on.  There’s plenty more, for those with a stomach for it.

So, to those Brexit types who say that they didn’t make implicit/explicit appeals to bigotry to win – to those who say they weren’t anti-immigrant – I say:

Go tell Ms. Le Pen, and Mr. Trump, and Mr. Putin, and the assorted European neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rallied to your cause because it was anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and pro-racist.

They’ll laugh at you, too.

 

43 Comments

  1. Luke says:

    Holy crap, that has layers.

  2. Pipes says:

    Changing the subject just for a moment. I hope you don’t mind.

    I drive the 401 to Kingston on a regular basis, and transport truck speeding and tailgating is relentless. I have NEVER seen a transport truck pulled over by the OPP-not once!

    I wrote the OPP an email two weeks ago about it and they seem to have chosen to ignore it.

    Most of these trucks are out-of-control and killers-at-the-wheel.

    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/06/27/girl-4-among-four-dead-in-fiery-hwy-400-crash

    As far as Brexit is concerned, I think it will be an absolute disaster, especially as it applies to Defense.

  3. Ted H says:

    Cameron promised the referendum because of UKIP support eroding the more right wing elements of his party. He did this to ensure his re-election, it was ill thought out and self serving. In other words just another Conservative f**k up.

  4. Bill Malcolm says:

    Amazing that the New Yorker has so little clue – the bowler hat brigade of the City of London stock and banking corporations would have voted 100% to Remain. But no doubt it’s yuk, yuk material for the US crowd that still thinks Brits have the accent of Basil Rathbone.

    The poor outside London are the ones who voted Leave, and the NY Times amazingly sent a reporter outside London to actually talk to some:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/world/europe/european-union-brexit-sunderland-britain-cameron.html

    The MSM, beholden to the usual trans-national corporate nitwits that pull all the strings globally, are the ones characterizing half of Britons as racist – it suits their cause to pretend to be elegantly “open-minded free-traders”. My relatives in England were half and half on the issue. People are just fed up at stagnant or lowering wages IF you can get a job, when all the better-off are swanning about London, the continent, or relaxing in their Spanish retirement homes. So they sent a message – we’re fed up. Problem is, ultra right types like Boris who never met a man better than himself will lead them all to an even worse right wing future. He’s an affable cad who never met a government program he liked. He and Jason Kenney would get on famously trading lies and ideologies, until they tried to decide who was the better man of the two. Two sociopaths in one spot will lead to personal nastiness.

    • Luke says:

      The cartoon (which Warren has since replaced with a twat), referred to the classic Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks skit, and was not referring to bankers. It was a brilliant cartoon. Layers of meaning concisely and neatly presented in a single, simple image.

  5. rumleyfips says:

    Think about the true victims of Brexit. Football hooligans will be stopped at the frontier and sent back. How cruel. On a more serious note; Poles – they hate the Poles . WTF?

    • bluegreenblogger says:

      Poles have a special place. Many came in the Second World War, before the waves of refugees at the end, so they became poster boys for undesirable white foreigners. By 1946 anybody with a white skin and a thick accent became a Pole. It is shorthand for ‘others a little harder to detect by virtue of cleverly owning white skin’

      • Vancouverois says:

        I don’t think it’s because of that. Poland was admitted to the EU relatively recently, so more have come recently to the UK, and are more easily depicted as stereotypical EU migrants who take British jobs.

  6. Amusing alliteration highlights hate-crimes arising after Brexit bombshell.

  7. Francis says:

    I can’t wait to read all the well-thought rebuttals to this post; insisting that Brexit “was not remotely about racism” ………..

    (I’m kidding. I already know the comments are going to be stupidly incomprehensible attempts at self-exonerating.)

  8. Joe says:

    Many years ago I was walking down the street in Saskatoon when I was stopped for a ‘man on the street’ segment the local CTV affiliate was doing on how cold it was outside. It was about -30 C which to me, who doesn’t get cold, not bad out at all. I gave my opinion to the shock of the reporter and that night I tuned in to see myself on television. I was edited out. It didn’t break my heart but it certainly taught me a lesson about ‘man on the street’ interviews. They simply reflect what the media outlet wants to portray. In the Briex case we have no idea how many people gave reasonable explanations for the reason they voted LEAVE because the media wants us to believe all the LEAVErs are froth at the mouth bigots. All reasonable explanations out all bigotry in.

  9. Bernie Orbust says:

    Those who oppose NAFTA and other disastrous neoliberal reforms are clearly racist misogynists just like the hateful “Bernie Bros.”

    Milton Friedman didn’t design neoclassical economic ideology so the upper class could loot free money from the rest of society who actually earned it. His real goal was to bring PEACE, LOVE and UNITY!!!

    (Rule of internet posting: anything posting in caps is TRUE especially when followed by multiple exclamation points.)

    So let’s all of us non-racist non-misogynists hold hands with David Cameron and Stephen Harper and sing Kumbaya! We once thought they were in the wrong. We once thought they were POS. Turns out they were RIGHT all along!!!

    Bring on MOAR austerity, MOAR tax cuts for the rich (and accompanying skyrocketing government debt,) MOAR deregulation, MOAR privatization, MOAR falling real median incomes, MOAR rising inequality, MOAR global economic chaos descending into fascist revolutions and world war repeating the history of the 1930s. IT’S ALL GOOD!!1!11!!!

    • bluegreenblogger says:

      Milton Friedman did not design any ideologies. He was an economic theorist. Amongst other things, he described a better way of modelling peoples decision making behaviour, and explored the implications for policy formulation. You should perhaps know a little more about what he did. It does drive many important decisions, and, of course, it is not even vaguely an ideology.

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      Yes, it certainly was!

    • Bernie Orbust says:

      “How Brexit shattered progressives’ dearest illusions”

      Oh yeah. The past 3 decades have been a progressive’s wet dream: Friedman, Reagan, Thatcher, Blair, the Clintons. Now it’s all coming to an end. The “progressive” neoliberal era, that is.

      I wouldn’t call deregulated borders a progressive policy. Sounds more like market fundamentalist clap trap to me. But I’m glad the European plutocrats threw that in with all the other neoclassical nonsense they forced on the people against their democratic will.

      Why? Because now the center-left and extreme right are tearing down the right-of-center establishment from both sides. When the robber barons are put on ice (like they were from 1933-1980,) it will be the progressives who sweep to power like they did under FDR. (His policies were carried on through the post-war era creating the wealth of the first-world nations.)

      Barbarians in business suits are on the way out. Another New Deal for the people is on the way in. Fascists and flaky establishment economists to be relegated back to the lunatic fringe.

      Milton Friedman is dead. John Maynard Keynes to the rescue, once again. Oh, yeah!

  10. G. McRae says:

    So if the vote went the other way, all this racist undercurrent goes away? Not likely.

    The leave side’s perceived reality is their “truth”. From what I can tell, no one one debated it at that level – they just hurled insults about the leave side’s lack of intelligence. If I were someone worried about my job and some tells me that I am knuckle dragger for having that concern and does not address why I might be feeling worried, then I would have voted “leave” just out of spite. “Piss off” as they say.

    As painful as it is right now, it is better to have this in the open to shine a light on the bigotry.

  11. Bill says:

    Opposing unfettered immigration from EU countries is no more bigotry than opposing Chinese foreign investment in Vancouver real estate – both can and do have detrimental effects on segments of the population. In Vancouver, there are 3 levels of government that citizens can hold accountable for inaction on the issue of foreign investment. In Britain, the only democratic means they had to get action on their concerns was to vote for Brexit.

  12. patrick says:

    This was obviously a preemptive move – after losing to Iceland Britain would have been laughed out of Europe.

  13. Al in Cranbrook says:

    I am at a loss here.

    So, let’s say that our Liberal government signed on to the concept of an “American Union”, comprised of the nations of north and south America. They agreed, further, to the creation of a “governing council”, the members of which would be appointed by governments of said nations…meaning, not a single one of these council members would be democratically elected, thus subject to limited terms in office, and thus directly accountable to those over whom they are governing.

    And that council then would be in charge of economic, trade, and immigration policy for the Americas. In effect, creating laws and regulations, and even imposing taxes, on, specifically, Canadians. You know, over and above the three levels of laws, regulations and taxation Canadians already live with and pay for.

    …which, following the example of the EU, would create open borders between all member states, and thus allow someone…meaning pretty much anyone…from, say, Columbia, to move to Vancouver or Toronto, and get a job…or, in the lack thereof, collect welfare benefits. Canada being a great place to come to because welfare benefits are comparatively easy to attain…a condition somewhat similar to the Brits, if I’m not mistaken?

    I’m wondering just exactly how long Canadians, forget about Americans, would put up with that.

    And would those not so inclined to put up with that, thus categorically be determined “racists”, along with a list of similarly derogatory labels?

    Hmmm…

    • Al in Cranbrook says:

      Some might say, well, this isn’t what the Brits signed up for. And you would be right.

      But when executive power is concentrated within the hands of an unaccountable few, the old adage comes quickly into play: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

      The EU governing council is an “elitist’s” wet dream come true, is it not?

      And it became the elected, but increasingly ineffectual, politicians’ ultimate excuse: We have to go along with this for the “greater good”, so suck it up…all you whiners and wankers!

      One thing that has become patently clear is that, while not all “progressives” are necessarily “elitist”, there’s certainly an argument to be made that all “elitists” seem to be suitably “progressive”.

      For that’s how the pros/cons, by far for the most part, split, didn’t it? Progressives vs everyone else…or if I may, the heretics, which, I’d observe, most of them were thinking, albeit they were reluctant to use the term. (See above link posted by Peter…)

      Fortunately, the member states are, more or less, democracies. And thus, they have the opportunity to extricate themselves by peaceful means, i.e., voting themselves out of tyranny.

      And that is a good and positive thing, IMHO. The alternatives, as demonstrated by history, are not so pleasant.

  14. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    Makes me wonder how many actually researched it before deciding to vote Leave…that’s what I thought.

  15. monkey says:

    What’s ironic is brexit has nothing to do with Muslim or non-white immigration. Britain whether in or out of the EU has the right to make its own immigration policy in respect to non-EU nationals so that will not change. All that will change is EU citizens will no longer have the automatic right to move to the UK once they leave. In addition I suspect had the remain narrowly win it would have been worse as many would have blamed the immigrants much like Parizeau did in 1995 for costing them the referendum.

    There are plenty of reasons to favour leaving the EU, after the all the EU takes on many nation like characteristics be it its own currency, flag, parliament, lack of border controls, ability to override national laws so I think those claiming the EU infringes too much on national sovereignty or lacks a democratic deficit are all serious and legitimate concerns and its unfortunate the more racist elements have become the face of euroscepticism which makes the necessary reforms for the EU to work less rather than more likely. Otherwise I think if the leave side had take the approach the Liberals did in the 1988 election on NAFTA whereby arguing being an EU member amounted to giving away too much sovereignty, that would be fine. If there is any problem its not that many in Britain want to leave the EU, its the problem too many in the leave allowed the more xenophobic elements to play a large role thinking it would help them rather than taking a principled stance, even if it meant making the referendum harder to win, that they aren’t interested in them. And besides lets remember anti-EU attitudes go back a long ways in Britain and until very recently had little connection to immigration. Had this referendum been held in the 90s, I suspect you would have gotten a similar result and the leave side would have been more about keeping the pound and not wanting to be part of a European superstate (which the EU elites until recently used to openly state was their long term goal).

  16. Jack McLeod says:

    THE BREXIT vote one might call it “The revolt of the parents!!

  17. MikeTO says:

    A tribe encroaches another tribe’s territory, there is war, encroaching tribe is defeated or conquers…repeat, repeat, repeat – for 100,000,000 years.
    The Brexit sentiments ARE racist, and a primal and integral part of the human animal. IMO, to ignore this predictable response is to wish reality away.

    • MikeTO says:

      that’s 1,000,000 for all you anthropologists, he he.

    • Francis says:

      Exactly.

      Its a primal response to a situation that has been repeated for 100,000,000 years. The problem with that is we supposedly progressed leaps and bounds over the past 100 years of human history in every facet of our existence; yet, we continue to hold this tribalistic mentality that is completely incompatible with modern societal interaction.

      To be honest, I’m not surprised to see this sort of racism due to the myriad of preexisting factors that contributed to this culmination of troglodytic attitudes. That said, the UK situation is particularly ridiculous seeing as this apparent tidal wave of anti-immigration comes after centuries of British colonialism that planted the very seeds cross-globe migration. Frankly, the British have no one else to blame but themselves for their perceived troubles because they are the pioneers of the worldwide network of trading relationships of goods and people. If even half of these dumbasses would bother to crack open a history book, they’d realize that this sort of thing didn’t just happen over night and its not going to change overnight. We are a vastly connected world and neither walls, ___exits, or xenophobia are going to put an end to the natural progression of humanity.

      This is why anti-intellectualism is a like a pan-societal cancer. Ignoring factual sensibility, logic and rationality in favour of emotional reactionism is why people like Hitler, Trump and Farage continue to find success.

      • Peter says:

        Wow, that was impressive. From pre-history through colonialism and Empire to today in just a few brief sentences. Thank goodness we little people in the grip of emotional reaction have brights like you bursting with logic and rationality to keep us steady on the course of the “natural progression of humanity”. I just hope you have a good supply of oxygen up there in that rarefied air.

        • Francis says:

          Oh, there’s plenty of clean oxygen up here since you mouth breathers aren’t here polluting the air with racial epithets and breath that reeks of chewing tobacco. 😉

          But go on, rejoice in your enlightened conscience; born of a humble, isolated existence and a convulsive aversion to knowledge. Nothing quite as endearing as an unbridled pride in ignorance and disdain for higher thought passed on as anti-elitism.

          Normally, I try to keep my comments to a “few brief sentences” as an effort to retain the attention of those who are informed largely by the erratic haiku of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, it seems my efforts were in vain since you’ve evidently failed to grasp the rudimentary elements of sociological development that were laid out in my previous post.

          Its okay though, Trump still loves the poorly educated — so you’ll always have a place with those emotionless xenophobes, Pete.

          • MikeTO says:

            It’s cute how this little exchange illustrates my point on the certainty of human conflict – all that has progressed is our “efficiency” at waging war (in this case strangers on the internet – who wouldn’t have met 50years ago). As society, the best we can do is minimize and manage the triggers – Peter and Francis, to your separate corners, please.

  18. Brian says:

    I would hypothesize that, had UK not entered into the EU in the first place, many of these alleged incidents wouldn’t be happening at all. The EU is actually quite a harbinger of hate and rhetoric itself. German papers call Greeks lazy and worthless while Greek papers depict Germans in Nazi regalia… It’s quite simple; Everybody is wrong except for the EU and it’s minority of supporters in England. Sounds like a big fat case of denial to me. EU is a destructive force run by the un-elected and making decisions for nations they have no business making decisions for. They sit in a chamber reminiscent of the USSR’s parliament and have no oversight. The EU is a communist, bordering on fascist, sorority and frat house rolled into one.

    As for the spike in reports of hate crimes… During the G20 there was a spike in reports of police brutality yet 99% of them were (apparently) unfounded. So, let’s take it for what it is… People are upset and they’re gonna piss and moan about it. They’ll get over it. The Commonwealth always does.

  19. Trisha A. says:

    Agreed. Brexit = Fascism. Xenophobia. Racism. Islamophobia. England is now a rogue country. The EU must act quickly and with ruthless firmness to quarantine this contagion of Nationalism lest it spread to other EU members. Citizens of the World should immediately start a boycott-divestment-sanctions program against England. This vote has proven once again that localized democracy is the generator of retrograde populism and mob rule. The intelligence organs of the EU and the UN should be working to back a coup d’état to establish a pro-EU and Internationalist regime in the UK. Mayor Sadiq is the obvious choice. The rabid bulldog must be brought to heel to maintain open borders at all costs. Power to the Refugees!

  20. Vancouverois says:

    Glenn Greenwald has something to say about all this.

    Given the vitriolic, hate-filled condemnation of Leave voters for daring to win – and the utter refusal of so many to acknowledge the EU’s multiple failings and how they may have had a role in that victory – I think he’s spot on.

    https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/

  21. Kelly says:

    Here’s what the biggest donor to the leave campaign has to say, in the Guardian today. . . as well as his future plans, admitting what this was all about… It was taking an American-style media approach,” said Banks. “What they said early on was ‘facts don’t work’ and that’s it. The remain campaign featured fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. It just doesn’t work. You have got to connect with people emotionally. It’s the Trump success.”

    and… “The Conservatives are now trying to rewrite the campaign that immigration wasn’t important, but boy was immigration important,” Banks said. “The first thing we did was poll everybody and we found that if immigration wasn’t the issue, the issue was schools or education, proxies for immigration. It was the number one issue by a country mile.”

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