[TheOtherHobbes]

There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

They think politics is a football match. Their team won the match and now they're oh so happy.

May is playing to that base. But she's using them to pursue far-right extremist Tory policy - which means the end of the welfare state, the end of affordable public health insurance, the end of free education, and so on.

A small cabal of business insiders, including not a few US corporations, stand to profit mightily from all this, even though it will leave most of the population in permanent financial insecurity and/or catastrophic debt.

Of course it's nonsense, and will turn the UK into some kind of fascist North Korea for a decade or so.

The EU is the only organisation that has some interest, no matter how patchy (sorry Greece...), in maintaining humane government and corporate oversight across most of the region.

With the EU out of the picture, the radical neoliberalisation of England can proceed at full speed. (Scotland will probably leave, Ireland will turn back into a mess, Wales is making noises about leaving, so is London, and so to a much lesser extent are some of the regions.)

Most of the people who voted for Brexit will be horribly damaged by this, but by the time they realise they've been conned it will be too late.

[blibble]

> There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

> But she's using them to pursue far-right extremist Tory policy - which means the end of the welfare state, the end of affordable public health insurance, the end of free education, and so on

I must have missed these parts of the tory manifesto, can you point out where any of these things are promised, or being acted upon?

> Wales is making noises about leaving, so is London

both completely unrealistic

this sort of hysteria helps no-one, and only undermines any genuine points you may have

[corford]

>I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

Which bit of the UK were you living in?

[abritinthebay]

> I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

Was it under a rock? Because I lived the first 26 years of my life in the U.K. and practically every conversation around patriotism was a bunch of faded empire nostalgia.

Hell, the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony contained a lot of it.

[mdekkers]

I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

I have lived there for ten, and heard it all the time.

[rwmj]

In a decade many of the people who voted for it will be literally dead. It was mainly carried by an older generation on "triple-locked" pensions who will suffer relatively little from it financially.

[UK-AL]

Honestly, I would not say the EU is good at corporate oversight. They refuse have their accounts audited, tons of other stuff normally considered good governance.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The EU is the only organisation that has taken on Microsoft, Google, and Apple, among others - and won.

It's a world leader in environmental standards, and some countries - like Germany - are working towards moving to an economy that runs exclusively on renewables.

You're certainly not going to find that kind of resistance in any of the Anglo countries.

[blibble]

you are completely ignoring the collaboration of the Commission with Volkswagen on their diesel emissions fraud, which has resulted in the early deaths of thousands of people

Microsoft bundling a media player is nothing in comparison

of course, MS, Google and Apple are American firms, while VW is German

[Oletros]

> you are completely ignoring the collaboration of the Commission with Volkswagen on their diesel emissions fraud

What collaboration? Do you have links? I really ignore it.

[Oletros]

Can you give us a source for your claim that EU accounts are not audited?

[MagnumOpus]

Of course they are audited, every year. [1] And they are found to be fair and accurate as far as the EU can control it. Issues and corruption happen when the member states are responsible to distribute money - a lot of them seem to be less honest than the Eurocrats.

[1] https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

[nikon]

> Ireland will turn back into a mess

didn't know Ireland was in the UK?

[KuiN]

It obviously isn't. But what the border between the Republic and the North looks like post-Brexit is not at all clear. The constitutional upheaval of Brexit will significantly affect all of the devolved nations (including NI) and their relationships with their neighbours.

[naaaaak]

> There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

As opossed to the tribal flag waving from the bureaucrats in Brussels and those they've brainwashed into supporting them?

[timthelion]

Honestly, this is an insane viewpoint. Brussels is the most diverse city I have ever visited, to and to call the EU tribal could not be farther from the truth. You could call them globalist, overreaching, megalomaniac, pendantic, kafka-esque, pompus, shallow, form-over-function. But tribal is just wrong.