However the Brexit vote turns out, one thing is certain: public anger with the status quo is taking Britain to within a few % of bolting from the EU, weakening a key global institution and continuing a trend towards political “weirdness” worldwide.
Except it is not weird, or accidental. It is inevitable.
As incomes become more fragile, as wealth becomes more obscenely unequal, as business becomes more global and the means of democratic oversight more remote from everyday folk, how else can things turn out?
Of course the sensible middle class will be gradually polarised.
Of course the old certainties will be swept away.
But what will replace them?
Let us hope it is sustainable, democratic and humane.
Let us hope it results in good international rules and global power sharing.
Let us hope we can begin to address the challenge of global climate change that is now roaring at us.
Use technology for good and provide a just transition to new, flexible forms of work supported by lifelong learning.
And restore justice and opportunity to so many who are increasingly marginalised, disempowered and angry.
Because it could so easily be the reverse: Economic, political and ultimately military chaos on a scale not seen since WW2 and the Great Depression.
Reform prevents revolution.
Reform is long overdue.
Just ask the good people at Te Puea Marae.
“|And restore justice and opportunity to so many who are increasingly marginalised, disempowered and angry.
Because it could so easily be the reverse: Economic, political and ultimately military chaos on a scale not seen since WW2 and the Great Depression.”
Just ask the good people at Te Puea Marae.”
Yes you nailed that well David, you need to get out front with the party and hit the hearts of many as we hear less from all opposition parties to all get together AND FORM SOME COMMON VOICE LIKE THIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDiGONVJqcU
The UK is not alone in this position.
The distrust in govt, political and commercial power and adventurism in warfare, is well earned.
NZ’s position is not far removed.
Update: at 4pm Friday Brexit ahead 52-48. See tracker below.
The marginalised regions of the midlands and north are leading the Leave result. Those marginalised by globalisation are having their say. Let us hope this does not cause more problems than it solves – though I fear that it will.
Message to the Davos elites: care about all your people, before they get their own back.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis
Capitalism Will Collapse Because Elites ‘Allow Poor to Rot,’ Tariq Ali Tells Chris Hedges (Video)
Posted on Jun 14, 2016
By Chris Hedges
“The elites who have run the United States and Western Europe have proven incapable of offering even the smallest palliatives to their populations,” says Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani radical intellectual, in an interview with Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges on RT America. “They have allowed the poor to rot—regardless of skin color—and grow. … And so what we have is a protest against this center elite, which I call the extreme center, because whether it’s social democratic or conservative, they unite to crush.”
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/capitalism_collapse_elites_allow_poor_rot_tariq_ali_chris_hedges_20160614
From out of the frying pan, into the fire
People want change but they seem to forever put their faith in the wrong vehicle for it eg Trump in America. Tripped up by their own ignorance, prejudices and need to have a scapegoat to blame.
Nice article, by the way
Interesting to note that the left were mostly in the remain camp. As a leftie, I’ve been frustrated at how parties like Labour have become part of the establishment, telling people what’s good for them, and maintaining the current economic system that increases income disparity.
Brexit have it. Long live the Queen
We see a bright future in UK as the French past PM agreed Brixit signals a “Re-found” Europe!
The EU is run by “un-elected beaurocrats” who are not representing any people but their own interests, and that have caused this not UK!
“The fact that people have given up on Europe is a major cause for concern for all countries. I am totally against the UK leaving Europe. The worst would be Brexit plus Turkey’s membership, that would be the grand slam of errors,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/17/brexit-debate-is-opportunity-to-re-found-europe-says-sarkozy/
By Henry Samuel, Paris
17 May 2016 • 5:32pm
The Brexit debate has created an “opportunity to re-found Europe”, Nicolas Sarkozy has said, but the former French president warned that Britain’s departure from the European Union would go down as part of a “grand slam of errors” for the continent.
Mr Sarkozy, 61, who leads France’s main centre-Right opposition party, The Republicans, said that Europe requires a new treaty, notably to better manage its borders, regardless of whether Britain remained in the bloc.
“The debate on Brexit is an opportunity to re-found Europe. On many of their criticisms, the British are right,” he told Le Monde.
“The fact that people have given up on Europe is a major cause for concern for all countries. I am totally against the UK leaving Europe. The worst would be Brexit plus Turkey’s membership, that would be the grand slam of errors,” he said.
“But Brexit or no Brexit, we will have to deeply re-found the European project regardless and that will happen via a treaty that France will propose as early as summer 2017.
Mr Sarkozy is widely thought to want to run for re-election next year and is limbering up for party primaries in November in which the current favourite is Alain Juppé, the more moderate, veteran ex-prime minister.
One of his primary rivals Bruno Le Maire, a former Europe minister, has pledged to hold a referendum on Europe in France should he be elected – without specifying whether the question would be on whether to leave the EU or the eurozone.
The former French president said he was against holding a referendum on “such complex questions as re-founding Europe”, but wanted to push on with a new treaty recognising that the current Schengen agreement on free movement in Europe was “dead”.
Europe requires a “Schengen 2” with a “government” of interior ministers from member states led by a “stable president” who would “have authority over Frontex” – the EU’s border force, he told Le Monde. While this is being set up, the free movement of all non-EU nationals should be put on hold, he proposed.
The condition for this new “common immigration policy” would be “harmonising” social benefits for asylum seekers to avoid “welfare tourism”, he said. Mr Sarkozy suggested blocking in-work benefits for workers from any new EU entrant for five years “like the British” (who have a deal blocking such benefits for four years) and drawing up a list of “safe countries” from which migrants cannot seek asylum.
The conservative ex-leader was deeply critical of the EU accord with Turkey, whose 75 million citizens will have the right to enter the Schengen zone for up to 90 days at a time with biometric passports from the end of June if Ankara passes key anti-corruption and terrorism reforms.
The decision was part of a hastily-assembled deal brokered by Brussels to halt the flow of migrants from Turkey to Greece.
A European Commission report acknowledged this week the “increased mobility into the Schengen area of criminals and terrorists who are citizens of Turkey, or who are foreigners based in Turkey.”
Mr Sarkozy described the deal as “irresponsible in the current security climate” and given the fact that Turkey was “heading more and more towards an authoritarian regime”.
“To think that Turkey can durably manage and resolve these problems is a mistake,” he said.
It’s just another step in the age old war between democracy and capitalism. Each time it’s happened before we’ve become just that slightly bit more democratic, just a slightly bit more humane. Perhaps this time we’ll add sustainability to the bill as well.
Capitalism is slowly losing out as we learn more.
I don’t see where Mr. Cunliffe gets his heading from. The people have voted to divorce themselves from the faceless apparatchiks in Brussels that were telling them how to live their lives and flooding their country with people who wouldn’t pass a UK visa application.
The people have spoken and democracy is strengthened. The people can sometimes push back against the progressive elite agenda after all.
Editorial licence on the heading.
Onmetrack; “Progressive elite agenda”? Hmmm, the Right come up with another term based on “One Percent elite agenda”.
Never let it be said that the Right engage in create thinking when parroting and mis-using other phrases is easier.
And since when have the right-wing ever been concerned about the “people have spoken and democracy is strengthened”?
Tell me, Onetrack, would you support a referendum on whether or not New Zealand should be part of the TPPA?
I secound that
Ditto, Sam.
Come on , One Track, answer Frank. Would you support a referendum on the TPP? And would you vote YES to EXIT the TPP?
Simple questions.
I don’t think you will get a response Sally.
For what it’s worth, I would love to get a chance to vote YES to EXIT the TPP in a government initiated referendum. It’s binding, whereas a citizen initiated ref is not. That’ needs to change under a new government.
Well said Frank !!
By the way, David, well-written blogpost. We’d like to see more from you!!
2000% Sally’s husband,
David needs to be raised up inside the labour party again.
There is a lot of support for him as a centre left labour MP.
Give him a break, the vicious, hateful media have only just started leaving him alone. I am amazed the guy is still standing, still doing a great job after the media tried to destroy him, and he hasn’t come out unscathed. I can’t help but get the impression, his ranking drop was to put him out of harms way. I could be wrong, but from what I see, he’s been free to do his job without the media assaults. Surely that’s way more important than rankings at this stage.
I second that Sally.
There’s another coming right up on Brexit: Why and what next?
Well said David, this should be at the top of the agenda for the next Labour Conference.
Everything you say is correct, people around the world have had enough of so few having so much, each month the gap grows wider.
Communities around the world are being fed a diet of fear, fear does terrible things
Fear was one of the reasons so many voted the way they did, they are now wondering why they did. In the morning light things look very different.
Yes I support a NZ vote on the TPPA, I suggest Key and his cronies are beginning, in the cold light of this morning to ask themselves… I wonder if New Zealand would do that to us?
Well said David, this should be at the top of the agenda for the next Labour Conference.
Everything you say is correct, people around the world have had enough of so few having so much, each month the gap grows wider.
Communities around the world are being fed a diet of fear, fear does terrible things
Fear was one of the reasons so many voted the way they did, they are now wondering why they did. In the morning light things look very different.
Yes I support a NZ vote on the TPPA, I suggest Key and his cronies are beginning, in the cold light of this morning to ask themselves… I wonder if New Zealand would do that to us?
The most compelling issue that drove the Bexit was the human spirit to keep the UK sovereignty above all so they could choose their own future not to have some un-elected Brussels German/French/Austrian/Italian or other beaurocrat to order their own Government to comply with Brussels.
Isn’t this (without bossy other beaurocrats) what we want too?
Another great article there Mr Cunliffe, thank you.
“However the Brexit vote turns out, one thing is certain: public anger with the status quo is taking Britain to within a few % of bolting from the EU, weakening a key global institution and continuing a trend towards political “weirdness” worldwide.”
The most politically “weird” thing I ever came across was the newly elected Labour Party of the early eighties embracing Rogernomics and the unholy doctrines of the Chicago Boys. Quite satanic really and now this weird factor is openly diplayed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYKnfDQ7IMg
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