Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊

The Guardian officially vote for . . . . .



Albumen

Don't wait for me!
Jan 19, 2010
11,495
Brighton - In your face
REMAIN!
Who'da thunk it.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...onnected-and-inclusive-not-angry-and-isolated

The Guardian view on the EU referendum: keep connected and inclusive, not angry and isolated
Economics, foreign policy and Britain’s idea of itself are all on the ballot. But after a divisive campaign so, too, is our ability to get along. Another powerful reason why the wise vote is for remain
by Editorial

Who do we think we are, and who do we want to be? Are we so different from others that we cannot play by shared rules? Are we one member in a family of nations, or a country that prefers to keep itself to itself and bolt the door?

All of these questions were always on the ballot in this week’s fateful referendum. But after a campaign that has been nasty, brutish and seemingly endless, the UK will be voting on another question too. With all the differences and the diversity among all of us who already live on these islands, how are we all going to get along? In the run-up to polling day this contest has risked descending into a plebiscite on whether immigrants are a good or a bad thing. To see what is at stake, just consider the dark forces that could so easily become emboldened by a narrow insistence on putting the indigenous first.

Head and heart

The backdrop has been the most unrelenting, unbalanced and sometimes xenophobic press assault in history. The leading political lights of leave have claimed to be pro-immigrant and yet have, at the same time, been ruthlessly fearmongering about Britain being overrun by Turks, after a Turkish accession which they understand perfectly well is not on the cards. The mood is frenzied, the air thick with indignation, and clouded with untruths. The best starting point for Britain to reach a sound decision on Thursday is to cool the passions of the heart, and listen to the head.

All reason tells us that the great issues of our time have little respect for national borders. The leave side has attempted to turn “expert” into a term of abuse, but one does not need the IMF, the Bank of England or any special knowledge to grasp that these border-busting issues range from corporate power, migration and tax evasion to weapons proliferation, epidemics and climate change. Not one of them can be properly tackled at the level of the nation state. Impose controls on a multinational corporation and it will move to a softer jurisdiction. Crack down on tax evasion and the evaders will vanish offshore. Cap your own carbon emissions in isolation and some other country will burn with abandon. In so far as any of these problems can be effectively addressed, it is through cooperation. A better world means working across borders, not sheltering behind them. Cutting yourself off solves nothing. That, fundamentally, is why Britain should vote to remain in the club that represents the most advanced form of cross-border cooperation that the world has ever seen.

We need, too, to remember our history. Britain was formed and shaped by Europe. And we are – in historical as well as cultural, geographical and trading terms – a European nation. In almost every generation of European history until the past 70 years, people from these islands have fought and died in European wars. But within the borders of the European Union, there has been no war at all. This has not been an accident. To turn our back on that is unworthy of our traditions.

This is not to dispute that there are flaws in the way that Europe is constituted and led. The EU is a union of nations working together, it is not and never will be a United States of Europe, and so its leadership is bound to depend on the imperfect leadership of all these countries. The single currency has been a flawed project and has set one nation against another, forcing the poor to pay the price for propping up a shonky structure. But Britain is not part of the eurozone, and the EU is not a plot against the nation state. Britain is still robustly herself too, warts and all.

If the EU has become a whipping boy, that is in large part because of the frustration that many inevitably have with day-to-day life in Britain. There are millions of citizens whose wages have been stuck for many years, whose job security has been hollowed out, and whose hopes of a fair deal are being undermined, all at a time when immigration has increased. People are bruised and angry, and many are ready to take it out on those they feel have let them down. Even if the UK government itself actually bears far more of the responsibility, it must be admitted that the EU is part of an international economic order that has been unkind to many. The wish to kick against it can thus be understood, even though it is mistaken.

For the core issues here are labour standards, and they are more effectively governed collaboratively, or else the great danger is of a competitive pressure to strip away protections covering hours, discrimination or agency and temporary working. More broadly, there is no crisis in Europe which is so serious that it would be better for the British prime minister to be outside the EU knocking on the door pleading to be heard rather than inside the room sorting things out. A leave victory would not solve the problems that cause such anger. On the contrary, it would make most of them worse.

The only argument about the immediate economic effects of Brexit is the depth of the hit that the economy would take, not whether it would take a hit at all. The political victors would not be those who wish to rebuild politics. They would be rightwing Tories, and ruthless plutocrats who want freedom to reorder Britain and make money as they choose. They have no interest in fairer taxes on the rich, or higher spending on the NHS. They have spent their so-called Brexit dividend – which in reality is almost certainly a negative number, not the mendacious £350m a week which has earned them an official reprimand – many times over. A significant group of them are flat-taxers who are whispering about deep cuts to corporation taxes. Facile Brexiter talk of a more buccaneering Britain – presumably a country fit for Sir Philip Green or Fred Goodwin to capture other galleons – offers precisely nothing to assuage the fears of elderly voters who simply want nothing more to change.

It is a fantasy to suppose that, if Britain votes to leave, these victors would want to maintain or extend protections for pensioners or workers. On the contrary. Human rights, equality, health and safety, and aid to refugees would be out of the window. Those who vote to leave as a protest against the elite will, in truth, be handing the keys to the very worst of that very elite. There would be no “taking back control” for most working-class leave voters, just less control over their diminishing share than ever. Those who have not yet made up their mind in this campaign should ask themselves this: do you want to live in a Britain in the image of Nigel Farage? Yes or no? For that’s the choice on offer. If the answer is no, then vote remain.

Fantasy island
Thursday’s vote is in some ways a choice between an imaginary past of which too many in this country cannot let go and a future about which all of us are inescapably uncertain. If it goes in favour of leave it will hand Britain’s young people a country that most of them do not intend to vote for. Is that fair? It may push Scottish nationalists to proceed with a break-up of Britain that was rejected less than two years ago. Is that responsible? It will put the settlement in Northern Ireland – the fragile prize won so recently from decades of hatred – at risk. Is that worth it? Not at all. Instead we should be putting our shoulders to the task of building a democratic, devolved, multicultural Britain with a fair deal for all, connected to the world and working with our European neighbours.

The campaign has further alienated voters who were already disaffected. To an extraordinary degree, it has inflicted the Tory party’s pathological obsession with the EU on a country that does not ordinarily share it. No one bears more responsibility for this whole unedifying event than David Cameron, it is true. In the end, though, Thursday’s vote is not about him. It has become a turn-in-the-road issue for Britain and Europe alike. Imagine a world without the EU – without the clout to face down Russia over Ukraine, without the ability to put together coherent answers to carbon emissions, to protect standards at work from a race to the bottom. Like democracy, the EU is an imperfect way of answering the modern world’s unrelenting challenges. But the answer to its imperfections is to reform them, not to walk away – still less to give in to this country’s occasional hooligan instinct in Europe.

Like democracy, whose virtues are in our minds afresh after the violent death of the committed and principled MP Jo Cox, the EU is not just the least bad of the available options. It is also the one that embodies the best of us as a free people in a peaceful Europe. Vote this week. Vote for a united country that reaches out to the world, and vote against a divided nation that turns inwards. Vote to remain.
 




nicko31

Well-known member
Jan 7, 2010
17,547
Gods country fortnightly
Britain will grow an brain and remain...
 


spence

British and Proud
Oct 15, 2014
9,814
Crawley
It always backed the "IN" Nothing new


In other news i've just learned that the infamous Holloway Prison closes soon.
 


Two Professors

Two Mad Professors
Jul 13, 2009
7,617
Multicultural Brum
The Grauniad has about as much relevance nowadays as the Spectator.
 








Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
Changing the subject slightly, is anyone else increasingly irritated in the way that Broadsheet newspaper websites are making their headlines read like clickbait? The Guardian, to its credit, has kept with proper headlines but The Independent and Telegraph are getting so bad as to make me not want to read whatever is within.

Why do this? I would have thought that one of the golden rules of business is about knowing your customers. If I want Buzzfeed I'll go to Buzzfeed, not the Telegraph.
 






daveinprague

New member
Oct 1, 2009
12,572
Prague, Czech Republic
Changing the subject slightly, is anyone else increasingly irritated in the way that Broadsheet newspaper websites are making their headlines read like clickbait? The Guardian, to its credit, has kept with proper headlines but The Independent and Telegraph are getting so bad as to make me not want to read whatever is within.

Why do this? I would have thought that one of the golden rules of business is about knowing your customers. If I want Buzzfeed I'll go to Buzzfeed, not the Telegraph.

Only really noticed this last week. Its very irritating
 


RyFish

Active member
Dec 6, 2011
280
Changing the subject slightly, is anyone else increasingly irritated in the way that Broadsheet newspaper websites are making their headlines read like clickbait? The Guardian, to its credit, has kept with proper headlines but The Independent and Telegraph are getting so bad as to make me not want to read whatever is within.

Why do this? I would have thought that one of the golden rules of business is about knowing your customers. If I want Buzzfeed I'll go to Buzzfeed, not the Telegraph.

That's the way the Telegraph is going - sacked loads of decent journos recently and dropping towards the gutter.
 


lawros left foot

Glory hunting since 1969
Jun 11, 2011
13,698
Worthing
I was flabbergasted when the Mail on Sunday came out in favour of remain, honestly didn't see that coming, The Guardian? Not so suprised
 




hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
61,210
Chandlers Ford
It is pretty good (but then I would think that, I guess, as I share the viewpoint). I think IF I were undecided, I'd find it pretty persuasive. Nobody right-leaning is ever going to read a long Guardian editorial, though.

This is the important bit:

All reason tells us that the great issues of our time have little respect for national borders. The leave side has attempted to turn “expert” into a term of abuse, but one does not need the IMF, the Bank of England or any special knowledge to grasp that these border-busting issues range from corporate power, migration and tax evasion to weapons proliferation, epidemics and climate change. Not one of them can be properly tackled at the level of the nation state. Impose controls on a multinational corporation and it will move to a softer jurisdiction. Crack down on tax evasion and the evaders will vanish offshore. Cap your own carbon emissions in isolation and some other country will burn with abandon. In so far as any of these problems can be effectively addressed, it is through cooperation. A better world means working across borders, not sheltering behind them. Cutting yourself off solves nothing. That, fundamentally, is why Britain should vote to remain in the club that represents the most advanced form of cross-border cooperation that the world has ever seen.

We need, too, to remember our history. Britain was formed and shaped by Europe. And we are – in historical as well as cultural, geographical and trading terms – a European nation. In almost every generation of European history until the past 70 years, people from these islands have fought and died in European wars. But within the borders of the European Union, there has been no war at all. This has not been an accident. To turn our back on that is unworthy of our traditions
 


hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
61,210
Chandlers Ford
And very much this bit. How can working-class Leave voters NOT see this?

The only argument about the immediate economic effects of Brexit is the depth of the hit that the economy would take, not whether it would take a hit at all. The political victors would not be those who wish to rebuild politics. They would be rightwing Tories, and ruthless plutocrats who want freedom to reorder Britain and make money as they choose. They have no interest in fairer taxes on the rich, or higher spending on the NHS. They have spent their so-called Brexit dividend – which in reality is almost certainly a negative number, not the mendacious £350m a week which has earned them an official reprimand – many times over. A significant group of them are flat-taxers who are whispering about deep cuts to corporation taxes. Facile Brexiter talk of a more buccaneering Britain – presumably a country fit for Sir Philip Green or Fred Goodwin to capture other galleons – offers precisely nothing to assuage the fears of elderly voters who simply want nothing more to change.

It is a fantasy to suppose that, if Britain votes to leave, these victors would want to maintain or extend protections for pensioners or workers. On the contrary. Human rights, equality, health and safety, and aid to refugees would be out of the window. Those who vote to leave as a protest against the elite will, in truth, be handing the keys to the very worst of that very elite
 


nicko31

Well-known member
Jan 7, 2010
17,547
Gods country fortnightly
I was flabbergasted when the Mail on Sunday came out in favour of remain, honestly didn't see that coming, The Guardian? Not so suprised

Not to mention The Times concluding the risk is just too big.

Brexit out to 1-3

GBP / USD1.475

Bad news Nige, there's more chance of England winning the Euro's than you getting a place in the house of lords
 




Buzzer

Languidly Clinical
Oct 1, 2006
26,121
And very much this bit. How can working-class Leave voters NOT see this?

Perhaps they do see it and yet they still want Brexit. Yours and the Guardian's comments kind of reeks of 'listen to your betters when we tell you what's good for you'. Do you honestly think that when the CBI says vote Remain that they give a toss about C2/D social classes in this country? You think the likes of Branson and JP Morgan have the best interests of pensioners and fixed income, low-waged when they call on the people of Britain to vote Remain? When Microsoft threatens to move their tax avoidance somewhere else (yes, I'm aware of the irony) in just whose interests are they acting? The idea that the big corporations, banks and suchlike want Remain for altruistic reasons is, frankly, a joke.

The very poorest are the ones most likely to have had their communities re-shaped dramatically over the last 20 years by mass immigration and the strain on low-paid jobs, housing, schools, medical services and as a social group, they are the ones who haven't felt the benefits that mass immigration has brought , they're the ones who have suffered are the ones most likely to vote LEAVE. Instead of telling them that they are ignorant Little Englander bigots or that they don't understand things properly, perhaps...just perhaps we could also listen to what they aspire to for a change instead of playing to the drum of the wants of big corporations.
 


brightn'ove

cringe
Apr 12, 2011
9,137
London
Changing the subject slightly, is anyone else increasingly irritated in the way that Broadsheet newspaper websites are making their headlines read like clickbait? The Guardian, to its credit, has kept with proper headlines but The Independent and Telegraph are getting so bad as to make me not want to read whatever is within.

Why do this? I would have thought that one of the golden rules of business is about knowing your customers. If I want Buzzfeed I'll go to Buzzfeed, not the Telegraph.

The independent is no longer a Broadsheet, it's sacked it's best writers and is purely a clickbait ad-driven website now - I used to read it but the quality of writing and content has tanked.
 


hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
61,210
Chandlers Ford
Perhaps they do see it and yet they still want Brexit. Yours and the Guardian's comments kind of reeks of 'listen to your betters when we tell you what's good for you'. Do you honestly think that when the CBI says vote Remain that they give a toss about C2/D social classes in this country? You think the likes of Branson and JP Morgan have the best interests of pensioners and fixed income, low-waged when they call on the people of Britain to vote Remain? When Microsoft threatens to move their tax avoidance somewhere else (yes, I'm aware of the irony) in just whose interests are they acting? The idea that the big corporations, banks and suchlike want Remain for altruistic reasons is, frankly, a joke.
.

I don't expect anyone to listen to me. I just want people to vote based on facts, rather than intangibles. All this 'Take back our country' bullshit, that nobody has ever actually crystallised into anything meaningful.

On the corporations, I'm not saying what you suggest in the slightest. Of course the corporations will do what is best for them and their shareholders. That's never been up for discussion. My argument is that the Remain vote, and continued EU membership, and all the employment rights that affords, give the working man better protection from the interests of those corporations than they will ever get in a free market Britain, forced into a downward spiral of pay and rights, to stay competitive.

The very poorest are the ones most likely to have had their communities re-shaped dramatically over the last 20 years by mass immigration and the strain on low-paid jobs, housing, schools, medical services and as a social group, they are the ones who haven't felt the benefits that mass immigration has brought , they're the ones who have suffered are the ones most likely to vote LEAVE.

This is all true. However, are we actually talking about EU immigration here, that has 'dramatically re-shaped' their communities? Leaving the EU isn't going to stop, or slow, immigration from the Commonwealth, or asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere, or illegal immigration of any kind.
 


Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
59,340
The Fatherland
I can now officially confirm I will also be voting Remain.
 






Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,334
Uffern
This is all true. However, are we actually talking about EU immigration here, that has 'dramatically re-shaped' their communities? Leaving the EU isn't going to stop, or slow, immigration from the Commonwealth, or asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere, or illegal immigration of any kind.


According to Farage's Q&A session (the one he did with CMD, can't really call it a debate), immigration from the Commonwealth will go up if we leave the EU as there'll be a block on more EU migration and an increase in migrants from Commonwealth countries. It should be pointed out that Johnson and Gove don't hold this view, however, but are a bit vague about what they do support
 


Albion and Premier League latest from Sky Sports


Top
Link Here