Lessons from Brexit won’t repeat Trexit success in New Zealand
ACT suspect that 20% of the country is very very very redneck in their opinion about māori.
This 20% are made up of Culture War Boomers, new asian migrants, frightened whites in Northland and angry whites in the South Island.
ACT hopes however that their packaging of this divisive race stunt will appeal to a larger percentage than that banjo twanging cross burning 20%, they hope that there is a secret yearning on par with Brexit they can tap into for truly appalling reform like full privatisation of the NZ State.
ACT want their own Trexit moment in NZ politics where the vast shadow majority will explode from the deep and revolt against the Treaty once and for all.
Lessons from Brexit won’t repeat Trexit success in New Zealand.
Brexit was forged by 3 momentums.
1 – Legitimate Grievance
2 – Cambridge Analytics
3 – Culture war between those workers burnt by neoliberalism and those Identitarians championing it.
The Legitimate Grievance of domestic British workers who were forced to compete with other European nationalities in their own country and the mass sackings those corporations expanding outside of Britain created was also a righteous anger by the domestic mostly white working classes of Britain and joining the EU impacted their standard and quality of living substantially. That’s not the case in NZ – white NZ has no legitimate grievance with the Treaty they are the ones benefiting and breaking the Treaty, if ay one has. righteous grievance here, it is Māori! In NZ, the whites have to manufacture and generate a grievance that doesn’t exist to get excited and angry. Excited and angry doesn’t a legitimate grievance make, so when push comes to shove in NZ, it’s just bigotry, not righteousness that is the dominate feature.
Without legitimate grievance, a movement falls over as the next thing to excite and anger rednecks comes along.
Cambridge Analytics was the game changer in Brexit. The points of data that came from Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytics to create micro targeted adverts designed to play to the deepest fear of the British working classes over Brexit, this enabled a polarisation and extremism of debate with zero holds barred. In NZ, the Right have some of the tools of Cambridge Analytics at their disposal, but nothing like what impacted Brexit. In NZ, these tools are given to Right Wing activists by the International Right Wing Think Tanks, which is their true power. What International Right Wing Think Tanks offer is not direct funding, that is too obvious and traceable, it is in the private discussions and presentations of how to incite social media hot button topics and how to dress messaging for the most amount of radical right wing policy. The NZ Right doesn’t have Cambridge Analytics but they do have tried and tested right wing think tank funded guidelines which will make a lot of noise.
The igniter in this bonfire of vanities was the Culture war between those workers burnt by neoliberalism and those Identitarians championing it. You had dyed in the wool lefty older white male workers who had always voted Labour, being told by online by young London cosmopolitans that they were racist of they didn’t vote against Brexit.
This worked because again, the workers burnt by neoliberalism had a point and it was righteous, in the NZ context, workers burnt by neoliberalism have no righteous grievance against the Treaty being honoured.
In the NZ context, the justice is not with the bigotry of those against the Treaty, it is with those fighting for it it.
In modern NZ, a vast swathe of civil society believes the Treaty is a source for optimism, not a means for division.
Brexit had a manipulated righteousness at its heart because neoliberalism had robbed British working classes, but that same manipulation of righteousness can’t be made against the Treaty, in the NZ context, it is simply bigotry being manipulated.
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Spot on point Martyn.
Apparently this useless waste of time bill has already cost us Taxpayers’ $6 million according to the Ctu economist Clive Renny.
That’s quite few new hips and knees for those on the never ending waiting list, and where is Nicky No Boats now on “wasteful spending”. The present lot are the most useless unqualified govt in the past 50 years.
I heard Seymour rolling out all the tired tropes about individuals standing on their own two feet and taking responsibility…very Ayn Rand. Then he went into how ancestry shouldn’t determine outcomes, meaning Maori ancestry. Of course he’s right, if you are born to a lawyers family, schooled at Kings or Christs, and paid through uni by parents, hired by some school old boy, well naturally you have ancestral advantage.
And have your parents permanently ‘loan’ you half a million $$dollars+ and give you free food and lodging to help you buy a house, of course you can stand on your own two feet…
Seymour is clueless..
One of life’s out and out wankers .
Telling everyone else what should and shouldn’t be achieveable when he himself is getting donations from all and sundry so he can get a job paid for by the taxpayer ..
No idea about the real world…where the fuck did Atlas dig him out from.
I heard Seymour rolling out all the tired tropes about individuals standing on their own two feet and taking responsibility…very Ayn Rand. Then he went into how ancestry shouldn’t determine outcomes, meaning Maori ancestry. Of course he’s right, if you are born to a lawyers family, schooled at Kings or Christs, and paid through uni by parents, hired by some school old boy, well naturally you have ancestral advantage.
Two things about privatization is the loss of sovereignty and the increase in cost to the consumer. Once you lose public ownership then private vultures can charge whatever they want. So why would someone in public office be pushing for something so harmful to communities (we already have a free market and an abundance of choice)? Is it because the current and recently departed Members of Parliament have driven the country into the ground in the last decades, as evidenced by the rockstar to rock-bottom economy reports? They have nothing to give, no ideas, no innovation, no patriotism, no foresight, no future, all they have is contempt for citizenry and a lazy, almost pathological impulse to sell the country out. And who t.f. made this ridiculous cardboard figure Seymour arbiter of New Zealand’s future? Please.
It’s the age old story of capital seeking rent. Anything risky get the government to underwrite, the privatize the profit.
They have plenty to give…. To their corporate donors, its just that there is nothing left to give to ‘actual taxpayers’.
Like your summing up EB.
They have nothing to give, no ideas, no innovation, no patriotism, no foresight, no future, all they have is contempt for citizenry and a lazy, almost pathological impulse to sell the country out.
I don’t think offhand there is anything to add to that dread list. Maybe also no understanding of history and the binding role of culture that melds people. Anyone got further points?
I see that in the USA health care is now sending the sorted to the wall as it is way too expensive .Like NZ the squeezed middle is now the squashed middle bottom feeders.
My thoughts are that people are takers or givers or some sort of combination of both across all of society, those at the top cause the most damage to our economic stability as their greed leads to the concentration of wealth yet media mostly only ever cover those struggling to survive who use an inappropriate way to meet their desires. Since many people aspire to affluence (just look at lotto sales) there is only muted condemnation of the likes of Seymour so while I agree that the treaty is essential I don’t have so much confidence in our fellow citizens once the greed factor gets motivated, we know that only the top end will gain from any treaty rollback and tha vast majority of us will be much worse off but many in the population do not understand that. The recent Hikoi protest is a solid base for optimism though.
Yes I see a good sized protest at Ruakaka the the other day against the fast track plan to fuck Whangarei Harbour led by local Maori .My red neck brother in law did not attend even though he disagrees with what is going to happen and his great fishing spot dissapearing under tons of dredging reclaimed land .
He is sitting on his hand moaning and slagging Maori but will happily let them do the heavy lifting then fuck them over after wards
I don’t understand this.
You had dyed in the wool lefty older white male workers who had always voted Labour, being told by online by young London cosmopolitans that they were racist of they didn’t vote against Brexit.
I thought that workers had been encouraged to vote to get out of Europe, and therefore to vote for Brexit. Am I wrong. There are so many currents that my mind gets swept away in a rip.