UK extends visa rights to 3 million Hong Kongers

[Sheilbh]

Couple of things on this caught the eye recently.

First as expected uptake seems to be higher (especially given travel restrictions) than anticipated by the Home Office. Apparently it's expected that we'll be at around 125-150,000 for 2021 by year end. The Home Office estimate was that only 300,000 would actually move in the first five years of the scheme which seems like it's probably an underestimate. Not only that but there's amendments working their way through the Commons and a lot of backbench pressure to extend the scheme to all Hong Kongers including young people who aren't yet eligible - obviously that would be a very good thing.

Second though is that it has started some fights/tensions in the British Chinese community (with British tankies joining in ) - in the UK historically the majority of British Chinese originate from Hong Kong/Cantonese communities in China so there's always been a Cantonese bent here. However in the last 20-30 years there has been a huge increase in the number of Mainland Chinese moving to the UK. Many are students but also many are moving for work and there has been a growing division between groups that align with the regime v groups that support the protesters. So there's competing Chinatown trade associations etc. I think this is something that has been relatively common in Australia, Canada and the US but is now starting to happen here - for example scuffles over protests in Chinatown (from the SCMP). All of those organisations (Min Quan Legal Centre, Federation of UK Fujian Chinese etc) have a history of backing pro-regime protests etc.

In this case it seems that a rally against anti-Asian hate was actually largely about the Chinese government - and was challenged by people with ties to Hong Kong with a counter-protest which was then attacked. Although using a widely supported sentiment like "racism is bad" reminds me of the Socialist Workers Party who run various front organisations like Stand Up To Racism or Stop The War which attract lots of well-meaning support, but then as you get deeper it starts to get more SWP-ish. And, as mentioned, we've seen fairly regular commemorations of key dates in the Hong Kong protests:

What a brawl at a rally against Asian hate and the BN(O) influx of Hongkongers can tell us about political fires between Chinese groups in the UK
    Experts warn there may be more confrontations between pro-Beijing groups and newly arrived Hong Kong immigrants over differing political views
    Hostility towards Hongkongers on social media and in the streets in recent months has caused them to feel insecure in their new home, says manager of group helping new arrivals to Britain
Laura Westbrook
Published: 8:01am, 30 Nov, 2021


A scuffle breaks out between a pro-Beijing group and Hong Kong migrants during a rally in London's Chinatown on Saturday. Photo: Getty Images

A brawl at a rally against Asian hate in London over the weekend has exposed potential political tensions between Chinese groups in the UK, with the spotlight on a wave of Hongkongers migrating to the country under the British National (Overseas) visa scheme.

Experts warned there could be more confrontations between pro-Beijing groups and newly arrived Hong Kong immigrants, as established Chinese organisations are dealing with an influx of people holding different political views.

On Saturday, an anti-Asian hate rally was held in London's Chinatown, organised by the Min Quan Legal Centre, the Monitoring Group and the Federation of UK Fujian Chinese, with several organisations including the London Chinatown Chinese Association supporting the event.


Pro-Beijing attendees hold placards during a rally in London's Chinatown on Saturday. Photo: Getty Images

A leaflet for the rally accused government leaders of using "anti-China rhetoric during the pandemic", culminating in violence against Chinese people and communities.

In the first three months of 2020, according to British police, there were at least 267 recorded hate crimes against Chinese, East Asian and Southeast Asian people in Britain, compared with 375 in the whole of 2019.

Organisers said on social media that the rally was a peaceful anti-racism gathering, accusing a counter-group of heckling them.

A group of Hong Kong migrants accusing rally-goers of ignoring human rights abuse in Hong Kong and Xinjiang had staged their own event, chanting slogans such as "shame on you". A person also waved a black Hong Kong independence flag.


The rally, which was held at London's Chinatown (pictured) on Saturday, was described as a peaceful anti-racism gathering. Photo: Getty Images

Jabez Lam, manager of the Hackney Chinese Community Services, which has been assisting new arrivals from Hong Kong, said the violence erupted after the rally had finished. Lam, who was at the event, said a group of about six men had charged at the retreating Hong Kong group.

A brawl then ensued before police intervened. Several people were injured.

In a statement to the Post, the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating a report of an assault which had occurred at about 2.15pm on Saturday on Gerrard Street.

"A 19-year-old man reported being assaulted by a group of men. Inquiries are ongoing. There have been no arrests," the force said.

Victor Gao, a chair professor at Soochow University, said the protesters from Hong Kong had "hijacked" an approved rally for their own agenda and bore "more responsibility for the fistfights".

Gao said Chinese diaspora members in Britain were a diverse group, but had more in common "than what separates them".

"They may have different political views, but they need to express their views by abiding by the rule of law," he said.

The London Chinatown Chinese Association was among about 200 Chinese organisations in the UK which showed support for the national security law and the "patriots-only" legislature in Hong Kong via advertisements in Chinese newspapers in Britain.

The national security legislation was imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in June last year to outlaw acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. This was followed by a shake-up of the city's electoral system in March to ensure only "patriots" could hold public office.

The Post has reached out to the London Chinatown Chinese Association and the Monitoring Group, a community-based anti-racism organisation, for comment.

Jabez Lam from the Hackney Chinese Community Services said he had observed hostility from some Chinese community groups towards Hongkongers on social media and in the streets in recent months in the form of verbal abuse, as well as physical attacks.

"The effect of such hostilities is causing disharmony in community relations, damage to community cohesion, and the Hong Kong community living in fear and feeling insecure in their new home," he said.


Hong Kong activists were among those who staged a pro-democracy march in London and burned a Chinese flag outside the country's embassy in Marylebone on October 1. Photo: Twitter

On October 1, during China's National Day, Hong Kong activists protesting in London were among those who staged a pro-democracy march and burned a Chinese flag outside the country's embassy in Marylebone. They had also set off flares with smoke.

In 2019, a 19-year-old man was arrested in Sheffield after clashes among students who were protesting and calling for democracy in Hong Kong. In the same year, eggs were thrown at people gathering to attend a concert by Canto-pop singer and political activist Denise Ho Wan-sze, as opposing crowds waved Chinese flags and shouted pro-Beijing slogans.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said historically the Chinese communities of Britain had come from Hong Kong because of the colonial connection. However, the mainland Chinese immigrant community had grown faster in recent years and was now bigger.

"The mainland Chinese community in Britain generally supports the policies of Beijing and can be aggressive in its attempt to silence voices sympathetic to those speaking out for Hong Kong and Xinjiang," he said.

The issue with Xinjiang, a northwestern region in China, centres on accusations by the West that the central government has suppressed ethnic minorities there.

Benedict Rogers, founder of the Hong Kong Watch (HKW) group, said some Chinese organisations with close ties to the Chinese embassy regarded arriving Hongkongers in Britain as political opponents, and "for that reason are very hostile towards them".

With the January 31 introduction by the UK of the BN(O) visa scheme in response to Beijing's imposition of the national security law, some 88,900 Hongkongers have applied for the pathway to citizenship, of which 76,176 have been approved.

The scheme allows those with BN(O) status and their dependants to live, work and study in Britain for up to five years, and to apply for citizenship after six.

"It is regrettable but not surprising that an incident like what happened in Chinatown in London over the weekend materialised," Tsang said.

With a growing Hong Kong diaspora in Britain, including members who had taken part in the 2019 anti-government protests in the city, Tsang said such groups would be vocal in speaking up for rights in their hometown, and would stand their ground when confronted by mainland Chinese opponents defending Beijing's policy.

"This makes this kind of confrontation potentially more likely if not policed well," he added.

[Zanza]

Germany had conflicts like that between groups with Turkish and Kurdish backgrounds.

[Jacob]

The Chinese government is very aggressive in cracking down on expats and the Chinese diaspora. The have full on government agencies dedicated to managing overseas organizations and bringing pressure to bear to ensure they comply.

A non-trivial number of the overseas Chinese at pro-regime protests are there because they're incentivized in various ways (positively or negatively).

On the other hand, once expat or immigrant Chinese flip - coming to terms with the negatives of the CCP - they tend to flip hard.

[Josquius]

Totally agree with this article - doubt we'll have learned those lessons but it would be worth it:

The thing about that London council is slightly alarming. Most of the British-Chinese community is still Cantonese and originally moved from Hong Kong, but the fastest growing (and most recent) in the last couple of decades have been from the Mainland which may not go down well.

Missing the point a bit but not sure I'd agree with open doors to Poland et al being the maker of Brexit. That proved to be pretty uncontroversial with the UK being in a boom economy with a shortage of workers at the time.
It was Romania and Bulgaria which made the difference, coming as they did during a recession.

I think the problem with the first batch of eastern europeans was just absolutely awful comms. Too many have this idea of eastern europe as a perpetually poor exporter of migrants. In actual fact all numbers suggest even sans brexit we'd hit the peak in the mid 2010s as the pre-2000 backlog of people potentially interested in moving has dwindled to virtually nothing and the economies over there catch up with the west fast meaning less push for the young to make the move.

I am surprised we are getting many takers with the current batch.
Though good news brewing that MPs are actually pushing to extend these rights to the HKers most likely to want /need to use them.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/28/british-mps-call-for-law-changes-young-hongkongers-escape-to-uk

More than nine in 10 people who have faced protest charges in Hong Kong are too young to access a UK visa scheme dedicated to helping Hongkongers flee to Britain, according to advocates and MPs calling for new laws to assist them.

The release of the figures on Sunday by the advocacy group Hong Kong Watch comes before a parliamentary debate this week on proposed migration law amendments that would widen the pathway for people with British national (overseas) (BNO) status to resettle in the UK.

More than 10,000 people were arrested during or after the mass protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019. The data found that 93% of more than 1,000 who had been tried by July this year were under the age of 25.

Another 49 people arrested under the national security law were also under the age of 25. Last week the 20-year-old student activist Tony Chung was jailed for 43 months on charges relating to pro-independence social media posts.

In the wake of the crackdown on protesters and pro-democracy figures that sent people fleeing overseas, the UK launched its BNO visa scheme, allowing holders of BNO status and their immediate families – estimated at the time to be about 5 million people – to apply for dedicated entry visas with a pathway to full citizenship.

Tens of thousands applied in the first few months, but there has been long-running concern that people born after 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China, are not eligible to move to the UK under the scheme unless accompanied by a parent with BNO status.

Hong Kong Watch said the scheme in its current form has "left behind" young people, and called for the adoption of a borders bill amendment that was proposed by Damian Green and has the support of at least 12 Conservative MPs including the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Tom Tugendhat, and the former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith.

The amendment would see the home secretary expand the BNO visa scheme to Hongkongers who have a BNO status-holding parent and are aged between 18 and 25.

"The BNO scheme is a great success story which the government should take credit for, but sadly the current scheme does not cover many of the brave young activists in Hong Kong," said Duncan Smith.

"Many of these pro-democracy campaigners are in danger of being prosecuted by the intolerant Chinese Communist party and its representatives in Hong Kong. I urge the government to think carefully about helping these people too."

Green, a former immigration minister, said his amendment would also relieve pressure on Britain's refugee processing.

"My amendment would mandate a simple rule change that would ensure our immigration system offers a lifeline to the young people who need it most," he said. "If we do not rationalise the policy in this way, many of these people will inevitably end up claiming asylum because they face political prosecution."

Hong Kong Watch said a recent survey of 24 Hong Kong asylum seekers who were waiting to have their applications processed in the UK found that half had at least one BNO status-holding parent.

[Sheilbh]

Missing the point a bit but not sure I'd agree with open doors to Poland et al being the maker of Brexit. That proved to be pretty uncontroversial with the UK being in a boom economy with a shortage of workers at the time.
It was Romania and Bulgaria which made the difference, coming as they did during a recession.

I think the problem with the first batch of eastern europeans was just absolutely awful comms. Too many have this idea of eastern europe as a perpetually poor exporter of migrants. In actual fact all numbers suggest even sans brexit we'd hit the peak in the mid 2010s as the pre-2000 backlog of people potentially interested in moving has dwindled to virtually nothing and the economies over there catch up with the west fast meaning less push for the young to make the move.

I don't think that's the argument - I think it's that failing to plan and properly prepare made things worse and helped drive Brexit. And it is a failure when you estimate that, what, less than 20,000 people from the EU10 will come every year and when it comes to the Settled Status applications (which is not the peak) there's over 1.1 million Poles alone. That's a prediction and planning failure as well as comms.

I think that difference in scale requires a different of plans and ways to adapt etc. The problem wasn't the open door or people coming but the failure to anticipate that people might want to come to the UK at all.

It's the weird paradox at the heart of British attitudes to immigration that most people in Britain on right or left can't understand or sympathise with why anyone would want to move here

I am surprised we are getting many takers with the current batch.
Though good news brewing that MPs are actually pushing to extend these rights to the HKers most likely to want /need to use them.

Agreed - and I think it is possibly a sign of how bad things are getting in Hong Kong. The reporting on that stopped because covid took over, now it's more difficult to report and the covid restrictions plus the National Security Law really ended the protests. But I think the screws have just kept tightening over the last year.

And I totally agree and I think it's essential that we offer a way out for the most affected, at risk young people - I think so far we have had a few asylum claims and the vast majority have a parent with a BN(O) passport so even extending it in that way would probably help hugely.

[Agelastus]

Missing the point a bit but not sure I'd agree with open doors to Poland et al being the maker of Brexit. That proved to be pretty uncontroversial with the UK being in a boom economy with a shortage of workers at the time.

Interesting.

I worked for a small manufacturing company in the 2000s, and that was not the impression one got from British-born workers on the factory floor. They were very unhappy about the influx.

Despite my own political views regarding Europe their attitude used to annoy me. I used to ask them if they'd voted for Blair, which as far as I can recall they all had. So I told them (quite nastily in hindsight) that they had no business complaining as they'd voted in the government that hadn't set limits for up to seven years post-accession unlike most of the other western European countries.

[Surprisingly, perhaps, given my views I also supported the decision not to put restrictions in place for 10 years. We were a part of the EU and restrictions would effectively have declared the citizens of the new Eastern European members to be second-class compared to the citizens of existing members. That would have been dishonorable.]

[Josquius]

There was always an anti immigrant minority about of course. But the EU connection with migrants just didn't seem such a big thing then. Complaints about the EU tended to revolve around bendy bananas, being able to weigh things in farthings and whatnot.
Remember 2000 was closer to a time when the UK had net emigration than it is to today. It really was a different time as far as these things went.
UKIP for instance remained devoutly vocally neoliberal and the far right party of the hour was the unashamedly racist BNP.
But then even go back to 2010 and you're looking at a different world with less than 20% of the population giving a shit about the EU either way.It's fascinating to look at yougovs data tracking back to the 2000s about what people care about and how the EU rarely cracks the high teens.
It truly is amazing how all the stars aligned in 2016 and they were able to steal the country out of nowhere.
Sadly there do seem to be efforts in place out there to write over this fact and pretend it was a long struggle and the will of the people and all that flag wavy nonsense.

[Sheilbh]

There was always an anti immigrant minority about of course. But the EU connection with migrants just didn't seem such a big thing then. Complaints about the EU tended to revolve around bendy bananas, being able to weigh things in farthings and whatnot.
Remember 2000 was closer to a time when the UK had net emigration than it is to today. It really was a different time as far as these things went.

But the EU10 happened in 2004. The bendy banana side of thinigs was the 90s. And the European election after the EU10 in 2009 UKIP were in second place, they came first in 2014.

I think that had a bigger impact than Bulgaria and Romania - partly because we put restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania like the rest of the EU, but also because the scale of immigration from the EU10 was so much higher than government had planned or said and it was the first.

But then even go back to 2010 and you're looking at a different world with less than 20% of the population giving a shit about the EU either way.It's fascinating to look at yougovs data tracking back to the 2000s about what people care about and how the EU rarely cracks the high teens.

But again, Farage has explicitly talked about this. The EU10 accession and the failure to prepare or explain it properly and the unexpected scale were key. He has said that it allowed him to link an issue people care about (immigration) with an issue they don't (the EU/sovereignty). So from 2004 immigration is normally one of the top three issues facing the country and it was part of the conversation on Europe.

It truly is amazing how all the stars aligned in 2016 and they were able to steal the country out of nowhere.
Sadly there do seem to be efforts in place out there to write over this fact and pretend it was a long struggle and the will of the people and all that flag wavy nonsense.

But it wasn't out of nowhere - there was decades of activism. There had never been a strong almost universal consensus around Europe, in the way there is in most countries, instead it had been a divisive issue for at least one major party at any point in the last 50 years. They did win the referendum and they did win two subsequent elections.

The really contingent bits I think are the Eurozone crisis and the migrant crisis. I think without those the vote is tight but goes the other way - but then imagine the chaos of a Cameron government with a 6 seat majority, Farage in the ascendancy and pushing for more and, say, a massive common EU debt for the coronavirus recovery fund. I'm not convinced that we don't end up in broadly the same place just by a different route.

That's not flag wavy nonsense - those are just the facts of how we got here and Brexit did not come out of nowhere. It was the product of politics and political decisions working for decades across the full spectrum of British politics that got us to now. Frankly it's the lesson re-join campaigners should be learning - they should be going out and buying the Benn diaries and reading Alan Sked and Bob Crow, they should be looking at what Farage and Banks have done (plus any memoirs they publish). Because it didn't happen by accident and we're out now, so that's the status quo and there's no quick way back in (we can't just withdraw the Article 50 letter). So they need to win the argument to rejoin and, because I doubt the rest of the EU will want to restore British privileges, they need to do that on the basis of rejoining the EU in full (no opt-outs, no rebate, signing up to eventually joining the Euro - though see Sweden - and probably signing up to Schengen). They need to be thinking how they build support in parties and with the public, what are issues people care about and how can you link it to re-joining (not, crucially, to why Brexit was wrong) - and I'd be looking at basically pro-European entryism into one of the parties. But from what I've seen they still mainly want to behave like commentators, not campaigners.

[Josquius]

But the EU10 happened in 2004. The bendy banana side of thinigs was the 90s. And the European election after the EU10 in 2009 UKIP were in second place, they came first in 2014.

I think that had a bigger impact than Bulgaria and Romania - partly because we put restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania like the rest of the EU, but also because the scale of immigration from the EU10 was so much higher than government had planned or said and it was the first.

Which note is once the financial crisis has started to bite, many years after 2004.
For most of the 2000s the EU-hate did tend to revolve around bureaucracy, with the euro briefly popping up and enraging conservatives.

Also worth remembering about Europe is a key reason the Tories were in the political cold during the 2000s and genuinely looked set to fall into 3rd place for a while ( ) was their Europe-obsession which just wasn't cutting through with normal people at all.

But again, Farage has explicitly talked about this. The EU10 accession and the failure to prepare or explain it properly and the unexpected scale were key. He has said that it allowed him to link an issue people care about (immigration) with an issue they don't (the EU/sovereignty). So from 2004 immigration is normally one of the top three issues facing the country and it was part of the conversation on Europe.

Fair point.
But I don't recall them having success with this at the time. It took years for it to come through and it wasn't really until the financial crisis and the need for a scapegoat that it really started seeing progress.

They did win the referendum and

With amazingly lucky timing of perfect storm of factors all combining in their favour, lies and underhand methods (including some amazing innovation in the practice of bullshittery), a flawed referendum setup, a terrible remain campaign, promising every version of brexit under the sun, and the flip of a coin..... yes. They 'won' by a wafer thin margin.

they did win two subsequent elections.

More accurately Corbyn lost them.

The really contingent bits I think are the Eurozone crisis and the migrant crisis. I think without those the vote is tight but goes the other way - but then imagine the chaos of a Cameron government with a 6 seat majority,

The Eurozone crisis I think could have been better handled. As indeed could have modern Labour's view of Blair and Brown. People are too keen to forget just how dire things nearly got back in the global financial crisis.
The migrant crisis though, yes. Absolutely perfect for the brexit campaign. Still fresh in people's minds despite the worst being over by the time the referendum came. They really fed heavily on the "Turkey is joining so loads of ISIS people are free to move to the UK" nonsense.

Farage in the ascendancy and pushing for more and, say, a massive common EU debt for the coronavirus recovery fund. I'm not convinced that we don't end up in broadly the same place just by a different route.

Even if brexit is delayed 5 years thats 5 years of school leavers getting a better start in life.
But I do think if the vote had been delayed even up until the current day that the results would have been flipped purely through demographics. 2016 was absolutely the prime time for the leave campaign, at no other time would they have pulled it off.

That's not flag wavy nonsense - those are just the facts of how we got here and Brexit did not come out of nowhere. It was the product of politics and political decisions working for decades across the full spectrum of British politics that got us to now.

Only in the sense that anything is the result of a myriad of factors over time.
Taking a broad look at the last 30 years and the odds of Britain leaving the EU are tiny. This really was one of those moments of history where everything had to go just wrong in a certain way to give the result we got. Tweak the factors just a little and its unlikely you will get more than 52-48, but very likely you'll get a result the other way.

Frankly it's the lesson re-join campaigners should be learning - they should be going out and buying the Benn diaries and reading Alan Sked and Bob Crow, they should be looking at what Farage and Banks have done (plus any memoirs they publish). Because it didn't happen by accident and we're out now, so that's the status quo and there's no quick way back in (we can't just withdraw the Article 50 letter). So they need to win the argument to rejoin and, because I doubt the rest of the EU will want to restore British privileges, they need to do that on the basis of rejoining the EU in full (no opt-outs, no rebate, signing up to eventually joining the Euro - though see Sweden - and probably signing up to Schengen). They need to be thinking how they build support in parties and with the public, what are issues people care about and how can you link it to re-joining (not, crucially, to why Brexit was wrong) - and I'd be looking at basically pro-European entryism into one of the parties. But from what I've seen they still mainly want to behave like commentators, not campaigners.

Oh sure. It happened. Its a fait accompli. I don't deny this.
But I will forever continue to reject Orwellian attempts to rewrite history the way they so thoroughly did with the 70s and Thatcher. Sadly it seems modern technology is speeding up the way reality slips from our minds rather than helping to slow it.

I am confident in the mid term that Britain's future is with Europe (if we have a future anyway). The true blue brexit supporters won't live forever. Give it a decade and it'll be like the Iraq war, not many admitting to having supported it.  It will be a difficult and gradual up-hill process that will see the UK in a considerably worse place at the end of the day (both in terms of special privileges in Europe and overall) than if we just hadn't bothered.
Its the short term where I live however and...well. The place is a write-off. Can't be having my son growing up in a country in decline. Hopefully the Hong Kongers are able to insulate themselves from it all!

[Sheilbh]

Which note is once the financial crisis has started to bite, many years after 2004.
For most of the 2000s the EU-hate did tend to revolve around bureaucracy, with the euro briefly popping up and enraging conservatives.

Also worth remembering about Europe is a key reason the Tories were in the political cold during the 2000s and genuinely looked set to fall into 3rd place for a while ( ) was their Europe-obsession which just wasn't cutting through with normal people at all.

Yes - but I think we need to split that in two and there are three key factors that I think shift in the 2000s. One is the financial crisis obviously and moving from Britain as an expanding economy with broadly speaking growing spending on public services. Then there's a shift from Blair to Brown which I think is important - I like Brown a lot but I think Blair was still a better communicator and better at keeping Labour support. The thrid was that I think there was a shift around 2005 from Europe being about Britain joining the Euro ("banging on about Europe") which was never going to happen so looked eccentric v the Lisbon Treaty/referendum politics. I think their Europe-obsession was eccentric and not engaging people when it was in the abstract, I think after Lisbon (perhaps combined with the EU10 accession) that started to shift - and the lack of a referendum, Brown trying to sign it on the quiet etc all contributed to that.

Fair point.
But I don't recall them having success with this at the time. It took years for it to come through and it wasn't really until the financial crisis and the need for a scapegoat that it really started seeing progress.

I don't think anyone blamed immigratns for the crash and the Tories were seen as better on immigration than Labour in the 2005 election - people already preferred the Tory line on that. What happened that was important in the crash was that Labour's economic credibility plummeted and has still not recovered. Eleven years on, with national debt at the highest level in decades (which I'm comfortable about in general) the Tories are still perceived as better at managing the economy and better at managing budget.

I don't think that's the only thing that matters or is relevant, but I think it's essential for Labour to win to clawback trust on the economy - and that's a post-war cycle of Labour governments losing power and being discredited in economic crisis, while the Tories' reputation generally seems to survive their recessions and Sterling crises etc.

With amazingly lucky timing of perfect storm of factors all combining in their favour, lies and underhand methods (including some amazing innovation in the practice of bullshittery), a flawed referendum setup, a terrible remain campaign, promising every version of brexit under the sun, and the flip of a coin..... yes. They 'won' by a wafer thin margin.
[...]
More accurately Corbyn lost them.

They won. They didn't cheat. And none of the rest matters. It's like complaining that x team didn't face a real challenge - you can only win the campaigns that you face in the context you face them.

And you can put this other way round. The Remain campaign ran through and had a direct line to Number 10 - so they were in a position to shape the context far more than the Leave campaign. They discussed and were consulted on the date of the referendum, they had institutional support from government with the Treasury especially out there tarnishing their reputation, they were backed by the leaders of all three parties, various respected organisations and international leaders like Obama etc. If we're talking about underhand methods I think the Remain campaign leveraged their access to power in a way that would be utterly unacceptable in a general election. On lies and bullshit all of the economic projections/warnings by George Osborne (Project Fear) were based on the UK leaving the EU the day after a referendum without a deal, which was never going to happend and has undermined economic cricism of Brexit ever since. If we're talking about the advantages one side or other had, you would definitely choose the Remain side.

And on Corbyn - sure but again you can only beat the opponent you're facing. The other side of that is that Labour lost in a campaign where the other side imploded over a "dementia tax" and lost against Boris Johnson with all of his known flaws. There was a leadership challenge in 2016 and given the choice between focusing on Brexit or having Corbyn, the Labour party members overwhelmingly decided that having Corbyn as leader was their priority.

Even if brexit is delayed 5 years thats 5 years of school leavers getting a better start in life.
But I do think if the vote had been delayed even up until the current day that the results would have been flipped purely through demographics. 2016 was absolutely the prime time for the leave campaign, at no other time would they have pulled it off.

Yeah I don't buy the demographics argument on this - or any other political issue ever. The other side of it is that we are an ageing population so in the last five years the proportion of over 65s has basically gone up by a percentage point.

The flipping point in age in the Brexit vote (and the 2017 election) was about 45 - I don't think that would just automatically move up to 50. I think it would probably still be about 45.

Only in the sense that anything is the result of a myriad of factors over time.
Taking a broad look at the last 30 years and the odds of Britain leaving the EU are tiny. This really was one of those moments of history where everything had to go just wrong in a certain way to give the result we got. Tweak the factors just a little and its unlikely you will get more than 52-48, but very likely you'll get a result the other way.

Maybe - but I think looking across the UK's membership it feels like the odds are higher than for any other European country. We had a referendum in 1975. We had a Labour Party committed to withdrawing through the first half of the 80s and generally Labour support for another referendum in the late 80s.

The 90s is relatively peaceful (even if it's causing chaos within the Tory government), but by 2004 UKIP are winning over 15% of the vote in European election and it only increases after that.

I am confident in the mid term that Britain's future is with Europe (if we have a future anyway). The true blue brexit supporters won't live forever. Give it a decade and it'll be like the Iraq war, not many admitting to having supported it.  It will be a difficult and gradual up-hill process that will see the UK in a considerably worse place at the end of the day (both in terms of special privileges in Europe and overall) than if we just hadn't bothered.

You might be right. But I don't think it'll just happen - I think it's as big a political project as leaving the EU was.

I think you might be right that no-one admits supporting Brexit, but I don't think that necessarily means that all those people will want another referendum with all of the divisive/polarising things that come with a referendum, or that they will want to re-join the EU. I think it's more likely that most people will settle into thinking it was a mistake, but accepting the status quo. Re-joining is going to be change campaign, up-ending the status quo especially after, at the very least, a decade of divergence. And that's always a challenge - it's why they should be looking at and learning from the Eurosceptics who faced a similar challenge.

Its the short term where I live however and...well. The place is a write-off. Can't be having my son growing up in a country in decline. Hopefully the Hong Kongers are able to insulate themselves from it all!

Well - see what I said about Brits on left and right not understanding how anyone coule possibly want to live in the UK

[Josquius]

Yes - but I think we need to split that in two and there are three key factors that I think shift in the 2000s. One is the financial crisis obviously and moving from Britain as an expanding economy with broadly speaking growing spending on public services. Then there's a shift from Blair to Brown which I think is important - I like Brown a lot but I think Blair was still a better communicator and better at keeping Labour support. The thrid was that I think there was a shift around 2005 from Europe being about Britain joining the Euro ("banging on about Europe") which was never going to happen so looked eccentric v the Lisbon Treaty/referendum politics. I think their Europe-obsession was eccentric and not engaging people when it was in the abstract, I think after Lisbon (perhaps combined with the EU10 accession) that started to shift - and the lack of a referendum, Brown trying to sign it on the quiet etc all contributed to that.

It is interesting how conspiracy theories started to break through a lot at that time. The whole myth of Ireland being forced to have two referenda, that Lisbon meant the UK wouldn't be a free country and would have to A, B,C , etc....

I don't think anyone blamed immigratns for the crash and the Tories were seen as better on immigration than Labour in the 2005 election - people already preferred the Tory line on that. What happened that was important in the crash was that Labour's economic credibility plummeted and has still not recovered. Eleven years on, with national debt at the highest level in decades (which I'm comfortable about in general) the Tories are still perceived as better at managing the economy and better at managing budget.

I don't think that's the only thing that matters or is relevant, but I think it's essential for Labour to win to clawback trust on the economy - and that's a post-war cycle of Labour governments losing power and being discredited in economic crisis, while the Tories' reputation generally seems to survive their recessions and Sterling crises etc.

I wouldn't be so certain. Immigrants to blame for the crash...no. But Labour and the EU certainly do get blamed for it. A lot of people have a very small world view where they can barely see beyond their town. That this was a global problem just doesn't.
Labour's economic credibility falling out of this is a key example. They stopped the country from collapsing and set the UK up to be one of the best recovering countries in Europe...but no. History has been rewritten. Labour over-spent and pushed the country into debt so austerity absolutely had to happen and thats what caused the crash.
Immigrants, and Europe, do get roped into this a bit through innumeracy. That a big part of the over spending was due to needing to pay for immigrants and that EU contributions are absolutely huge and definitely made the difference in sending us into debt.

And yep. Its the standard cycle of UK politics. Labour builds a better country and genuinely inches things forward, then a global crisis emerges, the Tories swoop in blaming that crisis entirely on Labour and presenting the image that Labour are the ones who are bad with finances whilst they trash the country.

With amazingly lucky timing of perfect storm of factors all combining in their favour, lies and underhand methods (including some amazing innovation in the practice of bullshittery), a flawed referendum setup, a terrible remain campaign, promising every version of brexit under the sun, and the flip of a coin..... yes. They 'won' by a wafer thin margin.
[...]
More accurately Corbyn lost them.

They won. They didn't cheat. And none of the rest matters. It's like complaining that x team didn't face a real challenge - you can only win the campaigns that you face in the context you face them. [/quote]
They won a referendum which should never have happened the way it did and they certainly did 'cheat'.
There's been active efforts to avoid coming up with any evidence for what might legally get them in trouble over this (which wouldn't amount to much) but Cambridge analytica and all that sort of thing... it really has to be made illegal going forward.

As to none of it matters...well see how history was rewritten about Thatcher and the 70s. Who controls the past controls the future.

And you can put this other way round. The Remain campaign ran through and had a direct line to Number 10 - so they were in a position to shape the context far more than the Leave campaign. They discussed and were consulted on the date of the referendum, they had institutional support from government with the Treasury especially out there tarnishing their reputation, they were backed by the leaders of all three parties, various respected organisations and international leaders like Obama etc. If we're talking about underhand methods I think the Remain campaign leveraged their access to power in a way that would be utterly unacceptable in a general election. On lies and bullshit all of the economic projections/warnings by George Osborne (Project Fear) were based on the UK leaving the EU the day after a referendum without a deal, which was never going to happend and has undermined economic cricism of Brexit ever since. If we're talking about the advantages one side or other had, you would definitely choose the Remain side.

The government had the opportunity to fix things in remain's favour but they didn't take it, unlike in the AV referendum.
In a way all these paper advantages that were ill-utilised only served to further the advantages of the leave side. They allowed this most establishment of movements to present itself as the plucky underdog rebels against the big bad evil establishment at a time when trust in government and politics was at an absolute low.

And on Corbyn - sure but again you can only beat the opponent you're facing. The other side of that is that Labour lost in a campaign where the other side imploded over a "dementia tax" and lost against Boris Johnson with all of his known flaws. There was a leadership challenge in 2016 and given the choice between focusing on Brexit or having Corbyn, the Labour party members overwhelmingly decided that having Corbyn as leader was their priority.

Sure. Labour have been awful.
But many are keen to present general elections as a solid remain vs. leave rerun where leave won. Nothing backs this up. By 2019 far more than people supporting brexit far more of an issue was people being sick to death of it and just wanting it 'over'.

Yeah I don't buy the demographics argument on this - or any other political issue ever. The other side of it is that we are an ageing population so in the last five years the proportion of over 65s has basically gone up by a percentage point.

The flipping point in age in the Brexit vote (and the 2017 election) was about 45 - I don't think that would just automatically move up to 50. I think it would probably still be about 45.

The demographics are VERY relevant in this.
I posted in the other thread a while ago the demographics from the referendum in the 70s- its remarkable how you have these same people running through to voting the same way today.
Its true as time goes on we would lose more of the generation who remember the war, replacing them instead with boomers, but the maths add up that the losses here would be made up for by new voters who grew up in a world where Europe is at peace and freedom of movement is a fact of life.
I don't see many as they creep beyond 45 suddenly deciding they want to go back to the 1960s.

Whether this now holds true moving into the future as the default is brekshit is a different matter of course, lots of different factors at play. But I would put all my money on an alternative 2021 referendum having had flipped results.

Maybe - but I think looking across the UK's membership it feels like the odds are higher than for any other European country. We had a referendum in 1975. We had a Labour Party committed to withdrawing through the first half of the 80s and generally Labour support for another referendum in the late 80s.

The 90s is relatively peaceful (even if it's causing chaos within the Tory government), but by 2004 UKIP are winning over 15% of the vote in European election and it only increases after that.

Trueish.
Though I'd argue thats less because we're especially euroskeptic and more because we're particularly undemocratic, rarely giving people much of a voice thus making referenda excellent occasions for rebellion, and uneducated on European matters.
Austria stands out as far more euroskeptic for instance... but not dumb enough to cut off their legs in the way we did.

I am confident in the mid term that Britain's future is with Europe (if we have a future anyway). The true blue brexit supporters won't live forever. Give it a decade and it'll be like the Iraq war, not many admitting to having supported it.  It will be a difficult and gradual up-hill process that will see the UK in a considerably worse place at the end of the day (both in terms of special privileges in Europe and overall) than if we just hadn't bothered.

You might be right. But I don't think it'll just happen - I think it's as big a political project as leaving the EU was.

I think you might be right that no-one admits supporting Brexit, but I don't think that necessarily means that all those people will want another referendum with all of the divisive/polarising things that come with a referendum, or that they will want to re-join the EU. I think it's more likely that most people will settle into thinking it was a mistake, but accepting the status quo. Re-joining is going to be change campaign, up-ending the status quo especially after, at the very least, a decade of divergence. And that's always a challenge - it's why they should be looking at and learning from the Eurosceptics who faced a similar challenge.

Hopefully it won't take another referendum to get a sane brexit that actually reflects the results of the referendum in place. Beyond that full membership.... I actually don't see Britain rejoining the EU as we know it and rather a new arrangement in Europe being worked out which Britain is a part of.
Big fingers crossed we'll be a democracy by this point too.

Well - see what I said about Brits on left and right not understanding how anyone coule possibly want to live in the UK

Well, put the UK against a Chinese labour camp and we may just about be the winner. Italy maybe? But they've got the food....
Compared to any other first world democracy though.... hard to think of many with worse prospects at the moment.
I have heard tell (not just from Mono) that this attitude is reflected in HK too with many there seeing the UK as the inferior option if they have the choice, with Australia or Canada being preferred.

[Sheilbh]

It is interesting how conspiracy theories started to break through a lot at that time. The whole myth of Ireland being forced to have two referenda, that Lisbon meant the UK wouldn't be a free country and would have to A, B,C , etc....

Ireland did have two referendums for the Lisbon Treaty.

I wouldn't be so certain. Immigrants to blame for the crash...no. But Labour and the EU certainly do get blamed for it. A lot of people have a very small world view where they can barely see beyond their town. That this was a global problem just doesn't.
Labour's economic credibility falling out of this is a key example. They stopped the country from collapsing and set the UK up to be one of the best recovering countries in Europe...but no. History has been rewritten. Labour over-spent and pushed the country into debt so austerity absolutely had to happen and thats what caused the crash.

History hasn't been re-written. I think history is generally very kind to Gordon Brown and Darling. Whatever book you read about the global financial crisis they come out of it pretty well.

But that's different than the politics at the time. I think Cameron and Osborne (and Clegg) were better at shaping perceptions around that - the whole "didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining" line. But I think in the same way as there is a global financial crisis I think there was also a global to how the discourse shifted. So by 2010 you have the IMF pushing austerity, you have the start of the Eurozone crisis (solution: austerity), you have the rise of the Tea Party and Scott Brown taking Kennedy's old seat, you have establishment media like the Economist and the FT pushing austerity as necessary and you have central banks starting to worry about QE - both the BofE and the ECB wobbled a bit. I think the global discourse has shifted on this and Ed Balls' attempt to push a limited defence of Brown's time in office during 2010-15 is now consensus.

I think all of those institutions would now admit they got it wrong and have shifted quite significantly and I don't think the politics would be the same now. And that's why Brown and Darling get a good write-up now - maybe if inflation keeps spiking and the central banks have to cut QE and raise interest rates and there's widespread negative equity again etc then Cameron and Osborne will get a better review.

Immigrants, and Europe, do get roped into this a bit through innumeracy. That a big part of the over spending was due to needing to pay for immigrants and that EU contributions are absolutely huge and definitely made the difference in sending us into debt.

I've never heard a link of immigration or Europe to the debt. Just that it costs too much generally.

And yep. Its the standard cycle of UK politics. Labour builds a better country and genuinely inches things forward, then a global crisis emerges, the Tories swoop in blaming that crisis entirely on Labour and presenting the image that Labour are the ones who are bad with finances whilst they trash the country.

Ish. I think the 1949 Sterling Crisis, the late 60s balance of payments issues and the winter of discontent are pretty specifically British

But it's right Labour tends to lose power when its economic credibility goes, the Tories tend to lose power when the government looks tired and worn down by scandal (Profumo, sleaze in the 90s - sleaze in the 2010s?).

They won a referendum which should never have happened the way it did and they certainly did 'cheat'.
There's been active efforts to avoid coming up with any evidence for what might legally get them in trouble over this (which wouldn't amount to much) but Cambridge analytica and all that sort of thing... it really has to be made illegal going forward.

The ICO did a huge investigation into Cambridge Analytica - gave the maximum fine and punishments they could because it massively misused people's data. What it couldn't find - and no-one has - is any evidence that CA actually was doing what it said it was doing in its marketing bumph, or that it was in practical terms any different from any data-based advertising company.

As I say I've not seen anything from the Brexit campaign that I wouldn't consider relatively standard in a political campaign.

As to none of it matters...well see how history was rewritten about Thatcher and the 70s. Who controls the past controls the future.

I agree but that's why we disagree on these points. My view if your analysis is the 70s was great and it's a shame Thatcher came along to destroy it all, or Brexit came out of a clear blue sky and they won because they cheated - then your analysis is wrong and you're going to lose the next fight too. I think that is a big part of why it took Labour 18 years to beat the Tories after 79 and it's taking them at least 13 years, if not 17-18 to beat the Tories this time. The left prefers comforting myths to confronting why they lost and what they need to do to win again.

The government had the opportunity to fix things in remain's favour but they didn't take it, unlike in the AV referendum.

What did they do in the AV referendum that they didn't here?

Sure. Labour have been awful.
But many are keen to present general elections as a solid remain vs. leave rerun where leave won. Nothing backs this up. By 2019 far more than people supporting brexit far more of an issue was people being sick to death of it and just wanting it 'over'.

Absolutely - I don't disagree with that. But 85% of people in 2017 voted for parties committing to end free movement which means hard Brexit and there was a pretty clear choice in 2019 too. What backs it up is the government we have on the best conservative vote in decades. It wasn't leave v remain because remain didn't consolidate they splintered across multiple parties, multiple strategies, multiple movements - so they lost, again.

The demographics are VERY relevant in this.
I posted in the other thread a while ago the demographics from the referendum in the 70s- its remarkable how you have these same people running through to voting the same way today.
Its true as time goes on we would lose more of the generation who remember the war, replacing them instead with boomers, but the maths add up that the losses here would be made up for by new voters who grew up in a world where Europe is at peace and freedom of movement is a fact of life.
I don't see many as they creep beyond 45 suddenly deciding they want to go back to the 1960s.

I think people's votes change as they get older. Labour have always won the youth vote and those same people end up voting Tory as they get older (acquire capital - plus cultural shifts). I'm not sure that wouldn't happen with the Brexit vote too. My suspicion is that at least part of the age split is because Brexit was synecdoche for Tory and the young are anti-Tory, not any considered position.

Because you're right most people didn't care about the EU but that goes both ways - people have only become passionately pro-EU since 2016. I think the same indifference on one side and passion on the other would play out in broadly the same way.

Whether this now holds true moving into the future as the default is brekshit is a different matter of course, lots of different factors at play. But I would put all my money on an alternative 2021 referendum having had flipped results.

I don't - I think the politics of a common €750 billion covid recovery fund would mean we'd either already blown up the EU or, my guess would be, Leave win by a bigger margin. There is no way I see Remain winning in that context.

Hopefully it won't take another referendum to get a sane brexit that actually reflects the results of the referendum in place. Beyond that full membership.... I actually don't see Britain rejoining the EU as we know it and rather a new arrangement in Europe being worked out which Britain is a part of.
Big fingers crossed we'll be a democracy by this point too.

It depends what you mean by sane Brexit - I think Starmer's position on this is right "make Brexit work" a fixit v wrexit positioning plus it goes with his competence pitch and the developing "I prosecuted corrupt MPs, he's trying to save their jobs" line.

But if sane Brexit involves single market by joining the EEA - and free movement again (which Labour have ruled) I think that would require a new referendum.

I doubt there'll be a bespoke solution. I don't think the EU wants that for very good reasons. I hope aside from the UK that the EU does consider alternatives to the relationship via membership/accession model and works on some other models for its neigbourhood of countries who are not going to join any time soon.

[Josquius]

Ireland did have two referendums for the Lisbon Treaty.

Which isn't a bad thing in itself.
Theres two versions of this story, the reality, and the one the brexit brigade has loads of people believing.
Real- Ireland had some qualms about Lisbon so rejected it and told the EU to change those bits which the EU did. Ireland then voted on the reformed treaty and said OK.
Brexit- Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty. The EU pulled some kind of nasty gangster "Are you really sure you want to do that? VOTE AGAIN UNTIL YOU GET THE RIGHT ANSWER" thing and Ireland was forced to accept it.

History hasn't been re-written. I think history is generally very kind to Gordon Brown and Darling. Whatever book you read about the global financial crisis they come out of it pretty well.

There's your mistake there, reading actual books written by people who presumably have a clue what they're talking about. :p
I'm referring to the popular history that the man on the streets believe- that the financial crash was all Labour's doing and Brown wrecked the country.

I've never heard a link of immigration or Europe to the debt. Just that it costs too much generally.

Interesting. I really do see this one all the time- every single problem we have in the country is due to too many immigrants.
A lot of people out there seem to have a mercantilist view of the economy as a closed system which can never grow and the more people you have the more resources must be spread.

Ish. I think the 1949 Sterling Crisis, the late 60s balance of payments issues and the winter of discontent are pretty specifically British

I was very much thinking of the winter of discontent in this and I'd disagree that was a British problem. Rather that was the key symptom that showed up in the UK of the global problems of the fallout from the Yom Kippur War and the end of Bretton Woods.

The ICO did a huge investigation into Cambridge Analytica - gave the maximum fine and punishments they could because it massively misused people's data. What it couldn't find - and no-one has - is any evidence that CA actually was doing what it said it was doing in its marketing bumph, or that it was in practical terms any different from any data-based advertising company.

As I say I've not seen anything from the Brexit campaign that I wouldn't consider relatively standard in a political campaign.

When you're dealing with such a binary life or death issue this stuff is far more effective than in actual grown up politics.
Thats exactly the problem here though, that they found problems and levelled the maximum fine. There was also all the stuff with the leave campaign shifting funds around fake groups to get around spending limits....they were more than happy to swallow the fine.
The brexit campaign really showed quite how absolutely fucked the concept of democracy is in the UK.

A
I agree but that's why we disagree on these points. My view if your analysis is the 70s was great and it's a shame Thatcher came along to destroy it all, or Brexit came out of a clear blue sky and they won because they cheated - then your analysis is wrong and you're going to lose the next fight too. I think that is a big part of why it took Labour 18 years to beat the Tories after 79 and it's taking them at least 13 years, if not 17-18 to beat the Tories this time. The left prefers comforting myths to confronting why they lost and what they need to do to win again.

No. The 70s weren't great.
However this was a problem afflicting other countries as well. Things weren't so dire in the UK as presented nor was the source of the problem the unions.
Brexit came out of nowhere and they only won because they're lying shit bag con artists who pulled out every scam in the book and got massively lucky. I will never change my mind on this. It's important to remember quite how marginal the victory was. Well within the margin of error. The slightest of things could tweak the outcome and as it ended up it was on the extreme right of the margin.
That they tapped into pre-existing problems et al is definitely the case. They succesfully were able to tie the concept of victory in this referendum to a myriad of unrelated lovely things. These are indeed tactics to learn from. But this doesn't change that brexit itself was a complete fluke and its depressing to think that if only a decent politician had been around who could have tied these problems to their better match in the remain side....

What did they do in the AV referendum that they didn't here?

Hired the brexit campaign's people to indulge in the same sort of non-sequiturs and claiming general discontent and hate for their side.

Absolutely - I don't disagree with that. But 85% of people in 2017 voted for parties committing to end free movement which means hard Brexit and there was a pretty clear choice in 2019 too.

I don't agree with this in the slightest.
Most political parties support nuclear power for instance. But go ask around about it as an individual issue and you'd find far more split numbers.
I also wouldn't agree labour were for hard brexit in 2017. Soft brexit was their goal.

What backs it up is the government we have on the best conservative vote in decades. It wasn't leave v remain because remain didn't consolidate they splintered across multiple parties, multiple strategies, multiple movements - so they lost, again.

It wasn't leave vs remain because remain wasn't even a side in the election outside of the lib dems. Brexit just isn't an issue most people cared about and they were sick of it.

I think people's votes change as they get older. Labour have always won the youth vote and those same people end up voting Tory as they get older (acquire capital - plus cultural shifts). I'm not sure that wouldn't happen with the Brexit vote too. My suspicion is that at least part of the age split is because Brexit was synecdoche for Tory and the young are anti-Tory, not any considered position.

As I say though look at the 70s data compared to 2016. People didn't change. They just got older.
I have never really agreed with the old the elderly flip to conservative thing. Its more the centre moves leftwards. Yesterdays moderate communist is far more likely todays centrist dad than todays UKIPper (though between the extremes flippers are more common. Kind of shows its not about the politics there so much as mental health).

Because you're right most people didn't care about the EU but that goes both ways - people have only become passionately pro-EU since 2016. I think the same indifference on one side and passion on the other would play out in broadly the same way.

Yes, that will be a challenge. Which is why a move towards a soft brexit should be done without a referendum. We elect MPs precisely to make this sort of decision about whats best for the country.

It depends what you mean by sane Brexit - I think Starmer's position on this is right "make Brexit work" a fixit v wrexit positioning plus it goes with his competence pitch and the developing "I prosecuted corrupt MPs, he's trying to save their jobs" line.

But if sane Brexit involves single market by joining the EEA - and free movement again (which Labour have ruled) I think that would require a new referendum.

Why?
That would be fully consistant with the first referendum. Even if you totally disregard the remain vote. Looking at the first referendum fairly and bringing everyone into mind there is no way hard brexit was ever remotely the mandate.

I doubt there'll be a bespoke solution. I don't think the EU wants that for very good reasons. I hope aside from the UK that the EU does consider alternatives to the relationship via membership/accession model and works on some other models for its neigbourhood of countries who are not going to join any time soon.

I don't mean a bespoke solution just for Britain.
I mean the entire EU needs reform.
I can see by the middle of the century the EU is gone and replaced with some sort of Neo-EU (hopefully named in a way that non Europeans can join?) with better rules about democracy and rule of law to stop stuff like Hungary and Poland's hijinks and other problems, ala League of Nations/UN.

[Sheilbh]

Which isn't a bad thing in itself.
Theres two versions of this story, the reality, and the one the brexit brigade has loads of people believing.
Real- Ireland had some qualms about Lisbon so rejected it and told the EU to change those bits which the EU did. Ireland then voted on the reformed treaty and said OK.
Brexit- Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty. The EU pulled some kind of nasty gangster "Are you really sure you want to do that? VOTE AGAIN UNTIL YOU GET THE RIGHT ANSWER" thing and Ireland was forced to accept it.

There's not a wild amount of difference between the two. It's also a rare example of Sinn Fein and Brexiter convergence because the Brexit line is exactly what the Irish "no" campaign was saying.

There's your mistake there, reading actual books written by people who presumably have a clue what they're talking about. :p
I'm referring to the popular history that the man on the streets believe- that the financial crash was all Labour's doing and Brown wrecked the country.

That's fair - I think that myth still is out there.

Interesting. I really do see this one all the time- every single problem we have in the country is due to too many immigrants.
A lot of people out there seem to have a mercantilist view of the economy as a closed system which can never grow and the more people you have the more resources must be spread.

Yeah I think there's stuff pressure on services and "look after your own first". But I've never seen a link to debt or to the financial crisis and the economy collapsing.

I was very much thinking of the winter of discontent in this and I'd disagree that was a British problem. Rather that was the key symptom that showed up in the UK of the global problems of the fallout from the Yom Kippur War and the end of Bretton Woods.

I think you're wrong on that. Yom Kippur, the oil embargo and Bretton Woods were all early 70s, around 1973. The winter of discontent was later and a bespoke British crisis

Thats exactly the problem here though, that they found problems and levelled the maximum fine. There was also all the stuff with the leave campaign shifting funds around fake groups to get around spending limits....they were more than happy to swallow the fine.

Again the Court of Appeal largely overruled a lot of those findings and said the Electoral Commission had got the law wrong.

No. The 70s weren't great.
However this was a problem afflicting other countries as well. Things weren't so dire in the UK as presented nor was the source of the problem the unions.

I think the unions were a problem. It's why Barbara Castle tried to reform them in the late 60s - unfortunately she was beaten by internal Labour politics and especially Jim Callaghan. I always think that's the Sliding Doors moment of British politics, because industrial relations aren't reformed they keep spinning through the 70s and you end up with Thatcher breaking them utterly.

Brexit came out of nowhere and they only won because they're lying shit bag con artists who pulled out every scam in the book and got massively lucky. I will never change my mind on this. It's important to remember quite how marginal the victory was. Well within the margin of error. The slightest of things could tweak the outcome and as it ended up it was on the extreme right of the margin.
That they tapped into pre-existing problems et al is definitely the case. They succesfully were able to tie the concept of victory in this referendum to a myriad of unrelated lovely things. These are indeed tactics to learn from. But this doesn't change that brexit itself was a complete fluke and its depressing to think that if only a decent politician had been around who could have tied these problems to their better match in the remain side....

Yeah I just disagree. I think it was the result of long term trends in our politics, economy and society. I don't think it was inevitable, but it wasn't a fluke and it wasn't down to the evil genius of Dom Cummings or Boris Johnson's shamelessness.

Hired the brexit campaign's people to indulge in the same sort of non-sequiturs and claiming general discontent and hate for their side.

I don't remember the AV campaign being that passionate on either side The stuff of it costing too much money is maybe a non-sequitur but not untrue, it would cost more. I think attacking the Lib Dems/Clegg as always in government despite never winning an election is fair game.

Plus, again, the AV campaign just never thought through what their pitch or argument was (and it's difficult because AV doesn't seem intrinsically fairer than FPTP, unlike PR).

I don't agree with this in the slightest.
Most political parties support nuclear power for instance. But go ask around about it as an individual issue and you'd find far more split numbers.
I also wouldn't agree labour were for hard brexit in 2017. Soft brexit was their goal.

In 2017 Labour said they wanted Brexit with no free movement - that means hard Brexit. I think it's entirely right to say their goal was cakeism (and might still be), but that's not a serious policy. The consequence of their commitment to say no free movement would be hard Brexit, they just wouldn't admit it and still struggle with that reality.

It wasn't leave vs remain because remain wasn't even a side in the election outside of the lib dems. Brexit just isn't an issue most people cared about and they were sick of it.

It was the number one issue in the 2019 election - 70% of people said it was the most important issue. I agree that reflected a lot of exhaustion and just wanting to move on, but we can't pretend it wasn't the big factor in the election.

As I say though look at the 70s data compared to 2016. People didn't change. They just got older.

I don't know that I agree with that take. In 1975  the pro-leave group was young, left-wing, Labour voters (and more strong in Scotland than England). I don't think those people necessarily aged into the Leave voters of 2016 - they may actually have been voting Remain, for independence and the SNP Plus even though that was the most anti-stay group in 1975 they still voted to stay by 62% so there was still some swing over the next 50 years as that group became over 60% Leavers by 2016.

I think it is a feature of the anti-EEC politics being mainly a thing on the left in the 70s - so groups that are more likely to vote left (young, Scottish, Labour supporting) were less likely to vote to stay. In 2016 it was more of a thing on the right (though not exclusively) so groups who were more likely to vote right (old, English and Welsh, Tory supporting) voted leave.

I have never really agreed with the old the elderly flip to conservative thing. Its more the centre moves leftwards. Yesterdays moderate communist is far more likely todays centrist dad than todays UKIPper (though between the extremes flippers are more common. Kind of shows its not about the politics there so much as mental health).

I don't really think it's about politics. I think as you age you acquire assets and capital, often you become more tied to a specific community/location - and for now the Tories are the party of assets and (rentier) capital and the more "settled". I don't think it's that people's opinions change but that their life circumstances do in ways that make them more likely to vote for the right. And you tend to, I suppose, pick things up and vote similarly to your group on other issues.

Yes, that will be a challenge. Which is why a move towards a soft brexit should be done without a referendum. We elect MPs precisely to make this sort of decision about whats best for the country.
[...]
Why?
That would be fully consistant with the first referendum. Even if you totally disregard the remain vote. Looking at the first referendum fairly and bringing everyone into mind there is no way hard brexit was ever remotely the mandate.

But I think this requires us to pretend that the 2016 wasn't about immigration, which doesn't work. Maybe in 2040 things will look different because we'll be sufficiently distant but I think when there was a referendum that was primarily about immigration, you can't reinstate free movement (and cede some sovereignty/law-making power) without going back to the people and making that case.

I don't mean a bespoke solution just for Britain.
I mean the entire EU needs reform.
I can see by the middle of the century the EU is gone and replaced with some sort of Neo-EU (hopefully named in a way that non Europeans can join?) with better rules about democracy and rule of law to stop stuff like Hungary and Poland's hijinks and other problems, ala League of Nations/UN.

I'm nowhere near as positive on that side of things - and I don't think I've ever seen the League of Nations or UN cited as an aspiration

[Sheilbh]

Was just reading the Economist piece on some polling of Hong Kongers with BN(O) status - which I thought all sounded very positive. But puts into scale that this is now one of the most imporant current immigrant groups. Apparently 90,000 Hong Kongers have applied in the first 9 months of the year while in the same period there's been about 190,000 work visas.

Work is normally the largest immigration category but that puts Hong Kongers going through BN(O) at about the same numbers as family members/people applying to join residents in the UK.