United Kingdom Referendum on European Union Membership

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, the next couple of months is going to be really interesting, on many different levels. The kinda-hilarious thing is that Farage&co have it completely backwards: this will be an unmitigated disaster for the UK, but might actually be beneficial to the EU over the long run.

The really worrying thing is how utterly out of touch Labour MPs are with their own voters. Obviously I can't blame Labour for supporting the choice that's in the best interest of their country, but it's not healthy for a party not to be able to channel the opinions and concerns of their base. Labour is one of the few European parties that has managed to at least partly keep a working class identity, but this could change very soon in the upcoming turmoil. Corbyn might not be the best leader for these times, but I'm pretty sure any of his possible replacements would be even worse.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Lol.....

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/746216684596297729

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No consequences at all...

Much of the elite is feeling angry and spiteful right now.  They're lashing out.  Downgrading the UKs credit rating would be a spiteful move.

There needs to be consequences for this incompetence.

There's the spitefulness!

No spite, just facts. Your credit rating is based on your economic stability, which the voters just decided to disregard.

Indeed, thus downgrading us to the same level as economic basket cases such as the United States and New Zealand... Again, the full economic consequences of Brexit will not be known for some time, however, one thing that will hurt our economy for sure is pointless negative speculation within two hours of voting to leave the EU.

Oh Cass, I'm afraid our rating is going to play a game of how low can you go.

I don't care why I should care about globalists finances, and their spitefulness over common people.

I assume in the Great Depression you would have said "ha stock market losers, this will never effect the common man" or in the recession you would have said "who cares, it's just rich bastards who deal with that stuff"?

This won't lead to the Great Depression. Unless financial institutions make it.

It might not be the Great Depression, but if you really think that severing a multitude of provisions that have connected the UK with its main trading partners will be economically painless (and I mean in terms of direct economic consequences, not even factoring in the financial panic that will indeed happen), you're in for a surprise.

[Antonio the Sixth]

When economic shocks happen, it's always the little guy who suffers you fool.

Is that directed to me?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Losing Sheffield and other Labour strongholds up north tilted it here, if Cameron's gone Crobyn's chair shouldn't be any safer

Can you think of any potential Labour leader who could be any better at speaking to these constituencies, though?

Actually, I'm curious if Al thinks there is one. I haven't seen any but admittedly I don't follow British politics very closely.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Losing Sheffield and other Labour strongholds up north tilted it here, if Cameron's gone Crobyn's chair shouldn't be any safer

Can you think of any potential Labour leader who could be any better at speaking to these constituencies, though?

Actually, I'm curious if Al thinks there is one. I haven't seen any but admittedly I don't follow British politics very closely.

Note also the very poor Remain results compared to what was widely expected in heavily minority areas. I think most voters were not thinking in party terms when they voted yesterday so if the question of 'who could have convinced more Labour supporters in Sparkbrook or Merthyr or Brightside to vote Remain' then it's probably the wrong question.

That makes sense, thanks.

In this case, would you say that there is no feeling of disaffection toward Labour among these constituencies (or, if that there is, it's limited to this specific set of issues and isn't likely to spill over into actual political alignments)? I just find it unsettling that the gap between elites and voters was so wide. In some ways it almost makes me wish there was a pro-Brexit wing in the Labour (even though it would mean such wing would necessarily be made up of awful demagogues), to ensure that the party properly represents its electorate.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In both cases neither are likely to be in much trouble but the asymmetry is interesting.

It's because the one fits into a media narrative (largely driven by what many would like to see happen) while the other doesn't.

Weren't Tories split in half or so about the referendum? That's quite different from nearly all Labour MPs (including Corbyn, who is one of those in the party for whom opposition to the EU would have made some sense) being on the Remain side.

Again that's obviously not something we should blame Labour for, but it's a bit unnerving.

[Antonio the Sixth]

it looks like a lot of young people didn't even bother to vote.

isn't that what happens in every election ever in the UK?

FTFY

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is vaguely interesting tweet storm on Brexit and the City of London by journalist Ben Judah: https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/748097437047332864

While it leaps into conspiracy theorizing in one or two moments, it's interesting as it makes clearer what exactly France and Germany would want for negotiating. Would be interested to hear thoughts, especially from ag.

Beautiful!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Tories ain't never gonna win the uber-working-class Labour areas, period. And FPP makes it very difficult for UKIP to really make a dent there either, though in this case I can't bring myself to quite say "never".

[Antonio the Sixth]

This hyper-centralized system for counting votes is one of the most ridiculous things about British politics - and that's saying a lot.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wonder what a correlation coefficient between Remain-Leave margin and Labour-Tory margin in England (obviously Scotland would skew it quite a bit) would look like. From this map, I don't really see a relationship either way, but there might be one even if it's not obvious.