Brexit matters

[birchesgreen]

Especially as the fish themselves don't need protecting (despite what the Mail is claiming), they don't really care who catches and eats them, all the same to them.

 

[alex397]

As a reminder, fishing accounts for 0.1% of our GDP.

Quite incredible really. Almost as if this obsession is being used as a distraction.....

 

[Journeyman]

As a reminder, fishing accounts for 0.1% of our GDP.

...and we're willing to trash entire industries employing millions of people for it.

 

[birchesgreen]

Thing is fishing is fairly easy to understand for the average Joe compared to pan-border supply chains and JIT logistics

 

[brad465]

Especially as the fish themselves don't need protecting (despite what the Mail is claiming), they don't really care who catches and eats them, all the same to them.

Quite incredible really. Almost as if this obsession is being used as a distraction.....

...and we're willing to trash entire industries employing millions of people for it.

Someone pointed out that if we gave everyone employed in our fishing industry £1 million to go and retire, we would have spent less money than we have on Brexit so far, and/or on that wasted on our botched Test and Trace programme and other pandemic wastages.

 

[37424]

...and we're willing to trash entire industries employing millions of people for it.

Arh but sovereignty is more important, even though when were in the EU most of the important decisions for this country have been taken by the UK government and not the EU, and all these companys that came here as a EU base won't leave because thats just fearmongering.

One of the LBC presenters not long since made a comment that 10 years ago when he tried to do phone in on the EU they got very few calls, now you look at some stuff on social media and like 'No Surrender', 'EU get lost we dont need them'.

A lot of I think boils down to the shambles of tying to get Teresa May's deal through, the length of time things were taking with people getting fed up of it and hence a lot voted Brexit Party in the last Euro elections as a protest. The Tory Party then saw that as a need to get much more more Hard Brexit and here we are in a crazy situation, and the way Johnson purged the moderates in his party was disgraceful, It seems to me that right managed to succeed in taking over the Tory party while Momentum failed to take over Labour.

 

[Chester1]

A lot of I think boils down to the shambles of tying to get Teresa May's deal through, the length of time things were taking with people getting fed up of it and hence a lot voted Brexit Party in the last Euro elections as a protest. The Tory Party then saw that as a need to get much more more Hard Brexit and here we are in a crazy situation, and the way Johnson purged the moderates in his party was disgraceful, It seems to me that right managed to succeed in taking over the Tory party while Momentum failed to take over Labour.

Some of the purged remainers have been allowed back into the fold e.g. Ken Clarke now sits in the Lords as a Tory.

If there is a last minute deal would you support Boris purging any Conservative MP who doesn't vote for it? I would on the grounds that they would be voting against their party's number 1 policy. It would benefit him because they would be ineligible to trigger or participate in leadership contests. There were a segment of Tory MPs last year that were utterly determined to reverse the referendum result at any cost. There are a segment of Tory MPs now that are determined we leave without a deal, regardless of what is offered. Political parties should be broad but there is a limit.

 

[37424]

Some of the purged remainers have been allowed back into the fold e.g. Ken Clarke now sits in the Lords as a Tory.

If there is a last minute deal would you support Boris purging any Conservative MP who doesn't vote for it? I would on the grounds that they would be voting against their party's number 1 policy. It would benefit him because they would be ineligible to trigger or participate in leadership contests. There were a segment of Tory MPs last year that were utterly determined to reverse the referendum result at any cost. There are a segment of Tory MPs now that are determined we leave without a deal, regardless of what is offered. Political parties should be broad but there is a limit.

But on the other hand the Tory was mixed church of leavers and remainers but the narrative now seems to be if you don't belive in Brexit than you carn't be a Tory.

If you believe the front page of the Daily Mail this morning then it appears that its Merkel taking a tough line, and the UK offered potential pay a tariff for divergance solution which Merkel rejected.

Chance of No Deal Brexit 'hits 80%' as Boris Johnson takes personal control of preparations before talks expire TODAY and UK insiders blame German intransigence​

'Merkel wants Britain to walk across broken glass'

Of course on the other hand the Government will be working overtime to stick the blame on the EU

 

[Dave1987]

Downing street clearly briefing the right-wing press like the Daily Fail and Express what they want to see on front pages. Really sad to see phrases like "No Surrender!!" bounding around with regards to the negotiations. The EU has been our closest trading partner for decades and yet anyone would have thought we were negotiating with the Soviet Union . I doubt British people will be overly welcome in the EU much going forward. Ow and good luck with workers rights in the future. There will probably be a massive bonfire of workers rights post no deal with the unskilled workforce that wanted Brexit so much the worst effected!

 

[Domh245]

Boris Johnson takes personal control of preparations​

Oh no, we really are doomed

 

[alex397]

The rhetoric from the right-wing press (and as a side note, I think media shouldn’t be left or right, it should always be unbias, but that’s a discussion for elsewhere) and politicians is quite disrespectful and damaging really, and is getting far too similar to how the media and politicians have talked in previous moments in history in other countries to stir up hatred. Let’s hope we don’t repeat mistakes.

The ‘peace, prosperity and friendship to all nations’ 50p piece is looking even more laughable now.

 

[class ep-09]

I wonder what the Navy is going to do if French / Dutch etc fishermen send 10+ boats to fish from all directions .

Carpet bombing perhaps... )

 

[radamfi]

Best to ignore British media in general. Even this forum has many Brexiteers. If you read Irish forums then you will see almost no Brexiteer action, except people from Northern Ireland and GB trying to cause trouble.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

Marr being incredibly annoying this morning. Sovereignty sovereignty sovereignty. Brits love their sovereignty and having control of their own country, apart from the fact that they have an unelected monarch as their head of state. That’s totally different. How dare anyone question that. Rule Britannia.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

It will be the EUs fault. This is the genuinely dangerous phase of brexit. Rather than take responsibility for the decisions they made (and failed to make) they will blame the EU and accuse the EU of deliberately trying to damage the UK economy and punish them for leaving. The seeds for this have been well down, and the consequences for them politically could be very dark indeed.

Xenophobic populism will increase, there will be no place in the press for any pro European points of view and we’ve seen what happens to populations that are fed a narrative of victim hood alongside worsening economic conditions

Weimar Germany is a lesson we should not forget

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wonder what the Navy is going to do if French / Dutch etc fishermen send 10+ boats to fish from all directions .

Carpet bombing perhaps... )

Who can remember the days of the Cod War when Icelandic gunboats had no compunction whatsoever in taking action they felt fit against English and Scottish trawlers who entered the Icelandic extended coastal waters?

Will these same British naval vessels also take action against those vessels setting out from the various places along the coastline dangerously filled with people without any post-Brexit entitlements to enter the UK?

 

[21C101]

Crimson Permanent Assurance Brexit it is then.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Yes it's interesting that there is a strong left-wing perspective to Euroscepticism; journalists Grace Blakeley and to an extent George Monbiot are of this position, while demanding the downfall of capitalism.

The reason I believe a left-wing orientated Brexit never came to being is because the "warlord/disaster capitalism" argument for leaving received tonnes of campaign/bribery money from those who would benefit from Brexit via that form of capitalism, so that's where all the campaigning for leaving was. George Monbiot revealed this recently in a vlog of why we are where we are, and called himself a "Eurosceptic Remainer": he doesn't like the EU's principles, but he'd much prefer staying in to letting the disaster capitalists dictate leaving.

Possibly the reason is that left-wingism has slowly moved away from the protection of the working class over the last forty years and moving towards a more general idea of "fighting oppression". Left-wingers see membership of the EU as a buffer between nationalism (and thus racism) in theory, but in practice it boils down to a simple argument between nation-state vs global institution which the left, likely due to its shift towards the middle class, firmly identifies with the latter. Which is a pity because the ideal world would be a useful mix of both.

Brexit may reveal the problem it does nothing to solve it. It actually makes it worse because a smaller economy overall makes it more difficult to fund the sort of investment that the "left behind" areas need, and because much of the damage will fall on areas least able to withstand it (some but not all of them being the most strongly Brexit-voting).

And the Brexiters cynically exploited that divide to secure the result they wanted, whether disaster capitalists or those who've never outgrown the Eton debating society or the Oxford Union and relish winning above all else. If they really cared about the economic and social divides within the UK they would have found a better way of bringing them to everyone's attention.

This, printed on T-shirts please.

I wouldn't be so sure. If you change the political economy of Britain overnight-which Brexit did, then all Brexiteers have to do is bed down and wait to harvest the seeds they planted. After all, their communities were going nowhere prior to 2016, so the gamble was, vote remain and have nothing change, or vote leave where the risk is more misery or salvation. If you feel have nothing to lose, leave is probably the best option.

Of course they don't care, but the left-wing establishment doesn't care either. To put it straight, the entire intellectual class of Britain doesn't actually care about what happens outside London because the intellectual class is London. You could be Etonian educated or left-wing Dulwich private school, they're both the same to South Wales, the West Midlands and the North East. Brexit was a way for the rest of Britain to finally speak about the discontent in their communities.

 

[alex397]

Xenophobic populism will increase, there will be no place in the press for any pro European points of view and we’ve seen what happens to populations that are fed a narrative of victim hood alongside worsening economic conditions

The ingredients are all there, so it is very worrying indeed.
As history has taught us though (well, some of us), any warnings are ignored. And in recent years, we have already seen warnings of Brexit successfully dismissed as ‘Project Fear’ and ‘scaremongering’, when a lot of it has already turned to reality. I fear we are just making similar mistakes to previous events in history.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The ingredients are all there, so it is very worrying indeed.
As history has taught us though (well, some of us), any warnings are ignored. And in recent years, we have already seen warnings of Brexit successfully dismissed as ‘Project Fear’ and ‘scaremongering’, when a lot of it has already turned to reality. I fear we are just making similar mistakes to previous events in history.

we’ve seen what happens to populations that are fed a narrative of victim hood alongside worsening economic conditions

Weimar Germany is a lesson we should not forget

Sure but this could also be said for Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland.

 

[radamfi]

Sure but this could also be said for Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland.

They want to join the EU and become proper Europeans again.

 

[edwin_m]

I wouldn't be so sure. If you change the political economy of Britain overnight-which Brexit did, then all Brexiteers have to do is bed down and wait to harvest the seeds they planted. After all, their communities were going nowhere prior to 2016, so the gamble was, vote remain and have nothing change, or vote leave where the risk is more misery or salvation. If you have nothing to lose, leave is probably the best option.

Of course they don't care, but the left-wing establishment doesn't care either. To put it straight, the entire intellectual class of Britain doesn't actually care about what happens outside London because the intellectual class is London. You could be Etonian educated or left-wing Dulwich private school, they're both the same to South Wales, the West Midlands and the North East. Brexit was a way for the rest of Britain to finally speak about the discontent in their communities.

I'm not disagreeing with the reasons for many people to vote for Brexit - give the government a kicking for its long-term failings and more recently six years (at the time) of austerity. My point is that a government could have responded to the vote by moving decisively towards a policy of levelling up, but also said something like "We see the problem but Brexit isn't the answer. In response to this mandate we'll negotiate a the arrangement and call a confirmatory referendum on the specific details." Good leadership sometimes involves being honest about bad news, and sometimes involves doing what's best rather than doing what's popular.

Instead the May government ignored and essentially humiliated the nearly half of voters (which became a small but steady majority in autumn 2017 according to opinion polls) who would have preferred to remain. They appeased the Brexiters, who ratcheted up the pressure by taking every concession as a reason to agitate for another one, resulting in the hardest of possible Brexits which almost certainly wouldn't have secured a majority had it been spelled out in 2016. Only in 2019 was there any recognition of the underlying divisions within England, and so far that's all talk and no walk.

Speaking as someone with above-average education and who has lived in Northern England, Scotland and the Midlands but never London, I'd say you are making some sweeping generalisations about the "intellectual class". I've been acutely aware of the north-south divide since the 1980s when I was a student in the south and encountered some of the generation that later produced the likes of Osborne and Johnson. I'd say most of the blame falls on the Tories not the "left-wing establishment". The Thatcher/Major governments didn't care about industry or the communities that relied on it, and could have used some of the oil money to cushion the impact from the (probably inevitable) demise of most of that industry. Blair/Brown did a certain amount to level up, particularly their early efforts to get people back into work, but had to avoid falling into the trap of Foot and Kinnock (and later Miliband and Corbyn) of being too radical to get themselves elected under our biased voting system. And Cameron implemented savage cuts that hit those marginal communities hardest, in an unsuccessful attempt to recover from a recession caused by the excesses of the Thatcher-deregulated financial services industry.

 

[Dave1987]

“They need us more than we need them“, “we are definitely more than happy to walk away with no deal”, “£4.5bn has been spent on no deal preparations”, “We will walk away on Sunday if the EU does not capitulate”.

BoJo has called the EU and............ the talks continue.

For a “sovereign nation” that’s more than happy to walk away with no deal we seem remarkably keen to have a deal done.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

They want to join the EU and become proper Europeans again.

I don't think its that simple as that.

Alex397 said "history has taught us though (well, some of us), any warnings are ignored. And in recent years, we have already seen warnings of Brexit successfully dismissed as ‘Project Fear’ and ‘scaremongering’". This is exactly what is happening with Scottish nationalists, who dismiss the warnings of independnece as ‘Project Fear’ and ‘scaremongering’".

Scotland also has an uneasy mix of economic depression (in some areas) and a strong sense of nationalism. The SNP has essentially charactierised "Westminster" as "the other" and recent images of Scottish nationalists at Glasgow Central station and at the Scottish border holding banners telling English people to "go home" suggests Scottish discontent is not limited to the UK government but also to England as a whole.

Independence would only breed Scottish anglophobia, especially if the Scottish economy really does decline because of UK refusal to join a currency union, imposition of border controls or insistence of paying debt or whatever. The Scottish government would have to spin that the UK is oppressing the newly independent Scotland to avoid a resurgence in Unionism and tensions would really become toxic. If you want to chastise England and Wales (the latter always forgotten) for voting for Brexit, then remainers by logic but chastise Scottish nationalists who are near carbon copies of the most principled Brexiteers.

 

[Journeyman]

Sure but this could also be said for Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland.

They want to join the EU and become proper Europeans again.

As a Remainer and an Englishman living in Scotland, who feels that Scottish independence would cause as much division and chaos as Brexit, I truly despair at what's going on here, and the choices I face, all of which are ghastly.

I voted remain not because I love the EU, but because it was blindingly obvious that leaving would create exactly the problems we face right now, and that the sovereignty argument was entirely bogus.

No way do I think destroying the UK is a price worth paying for rejoining the EU, and no way fo I want a fully fledged international border - because that's what we'd get - appearing between England and Scotland.

Attempting to push for independence now is the height of irresponsibility, and will plunge Scotland into poverty and irrelevance for decades.

 

[alex397]

Sure but this could also be said for Nicola Sturgeon's Scotland.

You do have a point. There are some flaws in the Scottish independence campaign.
But would there be as much talk of Scottish independence if the UK didn’t go ahead with the reckless idea of Brexit? I don’t think so! That was also one of the warnings of Brexit.

Sturgeon now has the attractive argument of rejoining the EU which will appeal to many voters (Scotland voted to remain after all) especially when Scotland sees the mess that Westminster has created. I’m not saying we should have an independent Scotland, but things seem to have been made much easier for the nationalists.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I'm not disagreeing with the reasons for many people to vote for Brexit - give the government a kicking for its long-term failings and more recently six years (at the time) of austerity. My point is that a government could have responded to the vote by moving decisively towards a policy of levelling up, but also said something like "We see the problem but Brexit isn't the answer. In response to this mandate we'll negotiate a the arrangement and call a confirmatory referendum on the specific details." Good leadership sometimes involves being honest about bad news, and sometimes involves doing what's best rather than doing what's popular.

Instead the May government ignored and essentially humiliated the nearly half of voters (which became a small but steady majority in autumn 2017 according to opinion polls) who would have preferred to remain. They appeased the Brexiters, who ratcheted up the pressure by taking every concession as a reason to agitate for another one, resulting in the hardest of possible Brexits which almost certainly wouldn't have secured a majority had it been spelled out in 2016. Only in 2019 was there any recognition of the underlying divisions within England, and so far that's all talk and no walk.

Speaking as someone with above-average education and who has lived in Northern England, Scotland and the Midlands but never London, I'd say you are making some sweeping generalisations about the "intellectual class". I've been acutely aware of the north-south divide since the 1980s when I was a student in the south and encountered some of the generation that later produced the likes of Osborne and Johnson. I'd say most of the blame falls on the Tories not the "left-wing establishment". The Thatcher/Major governments didn't care about industry or the communities that relied on it, and could have used some of the oil money to cushion the impact from the (probably inevitable) demise of most of that industry. Blair/Brown did a certain amount to level up, particularly their early efforts to get people back into work, but had to avoid falling into the trap of Foot and Kinnock (and later Miliband and Corbyn) of being too radical to get themselves elected under our biased voting system. And Cameron implemented savage cuts that hit those marginal communities hardest, in an unsuccessful attempt to recover from a recession caused by the excesses of the Thatcher-deregulated financial services industry.

Theresa May did start by talking about levelling up. I remember just after she was elected leader she made a speech in Birmingham about rebalancing the economy and protecting manufacturing. This all quickly went out of the window and she presented a dud manifesto in 2017 when it could have been a chance to push levelling up once and for all.

I'm talking more about sociological research. In the year after the vote more material was suddenly written about the leave/remain cultral and economic divide. But yes, it would have been nice for the Tories to have grasped this more firmly at the get-go rather than banging on about "Singapore-upon-Thames" and leaving the real research confined to the bookshelves of Waterstones for the first three years after the referendum.

I see what you are saying, but I can say with some certainty that the New Labour ideals of globalism was whole-heartedly embraced in London in the 90s-2000s. I.e "manufacturing is old hat", "buy off the world not buy British" mantra which guts the life out of communities across the UK. Sure, the Tories did too, but after 13 years of New Labour they were as complicit. Manufacturing, like fishing, seems to have been caught up in this identity war we are now seeing. Adopting a pro-manufacturing, pro-export stance usually has tinges of protectionism and thus nationalism, so the left nowadays generally avoids this and by proxy embraces Thatcherite neoliberalism at least because its "global". Even now, I remember reading when Starmer was elected leader that Labour members were dismayed that Starmer was going to go for the red wall seats again which would inevitably lose the metropolitainism of Labour during the Corbyn years.

I did some research into New Labour's levelling up and to be honest it was a bit lame. Their basic premise was that devolution would provide economic growth for the regions which failed at the first hurdle without any back up plan. Their "industrial policy" was overwhelmingly skewed towards defence, pharmaceuticals and generic R&D while leaving all other manufacturing sectors to decline. This was partly because New Labour was obsessed with image and worried that if they were stupid enough to talk about supporting the British steel industry, they would suddenly be seen as Trots and the Tories would sweep into power-which of course would not have been what happened. Regions such as the West Midlands and North East grew at nearly half the pace that London did throughout Blair's premiership. Wales grew poorly as well, which suggests devolution wouldn't have made much difference to England had the regional assemblies been established.

Then of course there was all their light rail plans they abandoned because they didn't want to upset motorists by asking them to pay for it through congestion charging schemes.

As a Remainer and an Englishman living in Scotland, who feels that Scottish independence would cause as much division and chaos as Brexit, I truly despair at what's going on here, and the choices I face, all of which are ghastly.

I voted remain not because I love the EU, but because it was blindingly obvious that leaving would create exactly the problems we face right now, and that the sovereignty argument was entirely bogus.

No way do I think destroying the UK is a price worth paying for rejoining the EU, and no way fo I want a fully fledged international border - because that's what we'd get - appearing between England and Scotland.

Attempting to push for independence now is the height of irresponsibility, and will plunge Scotland into poverty and irrelevance for decades.

I know what you mean. I voted Remain, even though ideally I would have voted leave-because I thought the only sensible way out was no-deal which would probably be too difficult. Plus, the Northern Ireland border (which confuses me why people say this was never mentioned before the referendum when I had heard enough of it to sway my vote to remain) and Scotland.

My point to the other comments was that, not only do some Scots see destroying the UK as price for EU membership, but that some are more than willing to see a border with England and lose their lucrative trade south of the border for EU membership, which one can't deny has xenophobic tinges if severing ties with England is important enough to endure economic harm.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2020 ==

You do have a point. There are some flaws in the Scottish independence campaign.
But would there be as much talk of Scottish independence if the UK didn’t go ahead with the reckless idea of Brexit? I don’t think so! That was also one of the warnings of Brexit.

Sturgeon now has the attractive argument of rejoining the EU which will appeal to many voters (Scotland voted to remain after all) especially when Scotland sees the mess that Westminster has created. I’m not saying we should have an independent Scotland, but things seem to have been made much easier for the nationalists.

I don't know, I still think idependence would of had a chance. Sturgeon had more of her MPs in the Commons in 2015 than she had now and even if we voted Remain, COVID still would have happened giving nationalism a boost and Johnson would still have been elected leader of the Conservative Party in 2017 (when Cameron intended to stand down). As long as the SNP control Holyrood, Independence would always linger in the air.

It is attractive, but only because the Scots don't yet have to make the choice between the UK and the huge costs of EU membership. (border, currency, deficit reduction) Which is why I think that if there was another referendum it would be another "No" vote.

 

[radamfi]

It is attractive, but only because the Scots don't yet have to make the choice between the UK and the huge costs of EU membership. (border, currency, deficit reduction) Which is why I think that if there was another referendum it would be another "No" vote.

Ireland are outside of the UK and seem to be perfectly happy with it. Why not let Scotland join the EU and have a customs union and single market between England/Wales and the EU? Solves all the problems.

Scotland were lied to in 2014 when they were told to avoid independence to avoid leaving the EU. How is England going to apologise for that?

 

[najaB]

Independence would only breed Scottish anglophobia, especially if the Scottish economy really does decline because of UK refusal to join a currency union, imposition of

There isn't really much deep-seated
Anglophobia - yes there is a small, vocal minority - but the vast majority of Scottish people see the English as their annoying cousins.

Yes we argue with you and complain about you, but if anyone else were to mess with you we'd be the first to have your backs.

 

[Journeyman]

Ireland are outside of the UK and seem to be perfectly happy with it. Why not let Scotland join the EU and have a customs union and single market between England/Wales and the EU? Solves all the problems.

Scotland were lied to in 2014 when they were told to avoid independence to avoid leaving the EU. How is England going to apologise for that?

Ireland went through decades of grinding poverty after they became an independent nation. Personally, I'm not convinced it's worth the risk, as far as Scotland were concerned.

Scotland wasn't lied to. It's true that there were serious potential issues around an independent Scotland joining the EU, and UK government policy throughout Cameron's government was continued EU membership. Cameron fully expected Remain to win the EU referendum by a substantial margin. He was an idiot for gambling our future on it, but leaving the EU only became government policy after the referendum. It certainly wasn't government policy in 2014. No-one expected the Tories to win a majority in 2015 either.

 

[21C101]

The root of both Brexit and Trump is that the upper middle classes who dominate key instutions, politics and boardroom have over the last forty years collaborated (small c) identified socialised and increasingly intermarried with similar upper middle class people in other countries.

At the same time for various reasons (in the UK exacerbated by the abilition of grammer schools and end of national service) they have had less and less association with people outside this circle and have increasingly viewed their native working classes as "deplorables"

Even when it comes to asylum seekers, many of them come from similar middle class and intellectual backgrounds which is why they firstly annoyed their regime and secondly had the funds to pay people smugglers.

The EU was as Wedgewood Benn stated a coup by these middle classes, it gave them huge opportunities to expand their horizon and force through political and social change that had desired for decades or even centuries, perhaps even since the Glorious Revolution; as the EU and its courts could impose things through directives and court judgements that otherwise would never have got through parliament.

Eventually a backlash was inevitable. Leaving the EU represents a huge transfer of power away from the managerial class.

For example the supreme court could effectively strike down an act of parliament by ruling a ministerial decision based on it incompatible with European Law. Parliament could do nothing about it, only the unelected European Commission could, as only they can initiate changes to European Law.

Now if the supreme court took such a decision, parliament can pass an act reversing it. Power has drained from elite judges and Eurocrats to whoever is elected to parliament. That is almost revolutionary change and in my view why Brexit is viewed with horror by the great and good.

 

[Journeyman]

The root of both Brexit and Trump is that the upper middle classes who dominate key instutions, politics and boardroom have over the last forty years collaborated (small c) identified socialised and increasingly intermarried with similar upper middle class people in other countries.

At the same time for various reasons (in the UK exacerbated by the abilition of grammer schools and end of national service) they have had less and less association with people outside this circle and have increasingly viewed their native working classes as "deplorables"

Even when it comes to asylum seekers, many of them come from similar middle class and intellectual backgrounds which is why they firstly annoyed their regime and secondly had the funds to pay people smugglers.

The EU was as Wedgewood Benn stated a coup by these middle classes, it gave them huge opportunities to expand their horizon and force through political and social change that had desired for decades or even centuries, perhaps even since the Glorious Revolution; as the EU and its courts could impose things through directives and court judgements that otherwise would never have got through parliament.

Eventually a backlash was inevitable. Leaving the EU represents a huge transfer of power away from the managerial class.

For example the supreme court could effectively strike down an act of parliament by ruling a ministerial decision based on it incompatible with European Law. Parliament could do nothing about it, only the unelected European Commission could, as only they can initiate changes to European Law.

Now if the supreme court took such a decision, parliament can pass an act reversing it. Power has drained from elite judges and Eurocrats to whoever is elected to parliament. That is almost revolutionary change and in my view why Brexit is viewed with horror by the great and good.

Good grief. I've never read such a massive pile of nonsense in my life. If you think this is some glorious "power to the people" revolution, you're in for a shock.

The people who promoted Brexit and got us to this point don't care about you at all.