The lies told to get Brexit over the line normalised a period of exceptionalist reality-denying insanity which has spilled over into Covid policy, economic policy, climate policy, health policy, energy policy, immigration policy [1], transport and logistics, media credibility, and political stability.
It is - without any exaggeration at all - an absolute shit show.
No one earning less than a few million a year has benefited in any lasting or significant way. Certainly not big-picture economically.
[1] Pandemic aside, Brexit has had no impact on immigration numbers.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...
England has been captured by far-right think-tanks, dressed up in nice suits and dresses. There are pockets of resistence within the ruling party, but that doesn't change the last 10 years of madness.
If you are unaware of this, your personal Overton window is all over the place. I'd get that checked out at the local mechanics.
What are the top three most far-right policies the UK government is now pursuing since it was captured by these think tanks?
Hell, the whole “not letting anyone in just because they claim to be a refugee” aspect was normal in Europe…10 years ago?
You mean rightwards, right? Otherwise we don’t live in the same reality. Even Labour is tame compared to what it was 30 years ago.
> Not being beholden to the EU and controlling your borders was perfectly normal 30 years ago.
The problem with Brexit is not the control of the borders, it’s the whole nationalist bullshit that goes with it (and the fact that it’s completely unrealistic). 40 years ago Thatcher was commuting the country to thriving in the single market. And she was as right wing as it comes, and the political mainstream of the day. 30 years ago it was Major.
> Hell, the whole “not letting anyone in just because they claim to be a refugee” aspect was normal in Europe…10 years ago?
No, not really. If you are British, your perspective might be a bit skewed, but there were discussions about refugees waves regularly after the Viêt Nam war or the Armenian genocide, for example, certainly no consensus to deport them to a third world country. The only example of fortified borders in Europe from that era was the iron curtain.
What? 30 years ago was the 1990's. The era of Blair and Brown.
Try and be historically honest, please.
And before that was John Smith. Pro-European and further to the left than the more centrist Blair.
Again, please be historically accurate.
You're not just insulting my intelligence and memory, but the legacy of truth of dead men.
Thank you.
Some in government intend the UK to have no tariffs whatsoever.
And want to solve everything with austerity.
As far as I can tell, anything remotely right wing is now 'Far right' amongst a growing band of idiotic and insufferable liberal moralisers, so the moniker has effectively lost all meaning.
It's a lost cause us discussing this. I think if you describe how the UK has been governed in the last 10 years as 'far right', you're an idealogue and completely irrational. You're convinced I'm blissfully ignorant with an unintentionally warped political compass, or I'm a crypto right-winger. Oh well.
Ascribing defintions to yourself that you think I have, or might, call you, in anticipation, is where we're at.
As someone else said. Our current ruling party (or a section of it, considering the internal war going on) are pushing polices that were not out of place (and actually, in terms of the Rwanda nonsense) beyond where the BNP and National Front were 40 years ago, which I think we can agree were 'the far right'.
Again, if you're unwilling to acknowledge this, you've jumped off the logical and historical diving board into a sea of nonsense.
My condolences.
A German documentary (it has English subtitles for the German narration)): British Fishermen and Brexit | ARTE.tv Documentary https://youtu.be/gUKywFazdDo
A financial times article on Brexit - The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film https://youtu.be/wO2lWmgEK1Y
A TLDR from earlier this week: No-one Likes Brexit Anymore: What Happens Next? https://youtu.be/kLZOlHhumq8 (the main part on this relevant is the polling and the corresponding events)
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There's a fair bit of Brexit-regret going on now and some people apparently still think its a good idea. At the time of the referendum, it appears that quite a few people who did a day's work in Britain thought that it was a good idea, but have since come to realize that it wasn't.
I can also recommended this short video (3 min): Brexit update (August 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUiJxH2pclM
(As an aside, our national newspapers, mostly right-wing and Conservative-supporting, have poisoned political discourse for decades in the UK. The FT is the only national newspaper with a higher standard of journalism than the others.)
I found the German one to be the interesting too in that it was more "regular person" interview content (which was all in English) and the thoughts that they had about the Brexit, the promises that they were given and what they're seeing now. The FT video had a much more business orientation, which while informative on the, well, financial side of it didn't capture the common person's experience as much.
In principle, unless the Government reverses it (which they are semi-consistently somewhat threatening to do), UK pensions are supposed to be protected by a "Triple lock". They increase each year by whatever is the highest out of inflation, average wage, or 2.5%. So if the country tanks and inflation skyrockets, they are supposed to get an increase to match it.
But a large number of pensioners have a ridiculously tiny private pension (or none), so the state pension is a large and essential fraction of their income and the triple lock remains relevant to pension-age voters.
Many pensioners have a spre property by one means or another (often inherited - "accidental landlords"), which they rent out to supplement their pension. As rents have tended to go up with or even faster than general inflation until recently, this buffers the effect of inflation on those pensioners too.