Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[Liverpool lad]

Who thought it was a good idea to let the British public debate this and vote on it?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Who thought it was a good idea to let the British public debate this and vote on it?

Even after the Boaty McBoatface vote.

[Moctezuma]

I still think there needs to be a more concerted attempt to pin Brexit on the conservatives, I still here too many people blaming Corbyn, Labour or 'poor northern voters', which given the vast bulk of the leave vote was from the old empire 2.0 brigade in the south east and midlands is deeply frustrating.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

There's a meeting at The Casa tomorrow of The Left Against Brexit.

 

Could be interesting.

[deiseach]

I still think there needs to be a more concerted attempt to pin Brexit on the conservatives, I still here too many people blaming Corbyn, Labour or 'poor northern voters', which given the vast bulk of the leave vote was from the old empire 2.0 brigade in the south east and midlands is deeply frustrating.

 

Good luck with that. We saw with Rees-Mogg's comment about the benefits of Brexit potentially taking 50 years to manifest themselves that the blame for any costs associated with Brexit that can't be pinned on the EU will be pinned on the fecklessness of the proletariat. Brexit cannot fail, it can only be failed.

[Strontium]

I still think there needs to be a more concerted attempt to pin Brexit on the conservatives, I still here too many people blaming Corbyn, Labour or 'poor northern voters', which given the vast bulk of the leave vote was from the old empire 2.0 brigade in the south east and midlands is deeply frustrating.

Brexit was won by the C2DE demographic, it's inarguable.

 

[mattyq]

Not true, mate

According to the great Danny Dorling, Prof of Geography at Oxford

 

Contrary to popular belief, 52% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum lived in the southern half of England, and 59% were in the middle classes, while the proportion of Leave voters in the lowest two social classes was just 24%. Almost all other European countries tax more effectively, spend more on health, and do not tolerate our degree of economic inequality. To distract us from these national failings, we have been encouraged to blame immigration and the EU. That lie will now be exposed.

[Strontium]

You're comparing apples and oranges there.

[lifetime fan]

Because I’d believe something Lord Ashcroft told me...

[mattyq]

You're comparing apples and oranges there.

No, I'm not

A greater % of C2DE voted to Leave but far fewer of them actually voted 

[Section_31]

No idea why poor people would vote against the EU, especially with all the good stuff they used to get out of it like tariff-free movement of the goods they were manufacturing in their garden shed and access to an unlimited supply of cheap labour to plow their fields and pack their parcels.

[Strontium]

No, I'm not

A greater % of C2DE voted to Leave but far fewer of them actually voted

I can't find turnout figures by social grade, but it's not really necessary: since ABC1 voted to remain, the C2DE vote must have been decisive.

[mattyq]

I can't find turnout figures by social grade, but it's not really necessary: since ABC1 voted to remain, the C2DE vote must have been decisive.

This is a common mistake 

 

The outcome of the EU referendum has been unfairly blamed on the working class in the North of England, and even on obesity: ‘personality traits that characterize both Leave voters and obese adults’7 . However, because of differential turnout and the size of the denominator population, most people who voted Leave lived in the South of England.8 Furthermore, of all those who voted for Leave 59% were middle class (A, B or C1), and 41% were working class (C2, D or E). The proportion of Leave voters who were of the lowest two social classes was just 24%.9 The Leave voters among the middle class were crucial to the final result. This was because the middle class constituted two thirds of all those who voted. If personality traits mattered, it was of some of those who led, funded and ran the campaigns.

[deiseach]

Not true, mate

According to the great Danny Dorling, Prof of Geography at Oxford

 

Contrary to popular belief, 52% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum lived in the southern half of England, and 59% were in the middle classes, while the proportion of Leave voters in the lowest two social classes was just 24%. Almost all other European countries tax more effectively, spend more on health, and do not tolerate our degree of economic inequality. To distract us from these national failings, we have been encouraged to blame immigration and the EU. That lie will now be exposed.

 

Alas, the lie won't be exposed because, to paraphrase Upton Sinclair, the salaries of the people we rely on to do the exposing are dependent on not exposing it.

[Strontium]

This is a common mistake

No, it's simple mathematics. Nobody disputes that most Leave voters were middle class - because most people in general are middle class. But since most ABC1s voted Remain, their votes weren't the deciding factor.

[mattyq]

I've just told you that 59% of the Leave vote- so easily the majority, came from ABC1s

That's simple mathematics

You might think that the CDEs were the deciding factor but you'd be wrong 

[Denny Crane]

I still think there needs to be a more concerted attempt to pin Brexit on the conservatives, I still here too many people blaming Corbyn, Labour or 'poor northern voters', which given the vast bulk of the leave vote was from the old empire 2.0 brigade in the south east and midlands is deeply frustrating.

There has been a fair bit of funding aiming to ensure Labour and Corbyn get the blame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOLOMON HUGHES

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018

 

The big money, lobbyists and Blairites behind Stop Brexit outfits

 

SOLOMON HUGHES investigates the anti-Brexit campaigns which seem more interested in attacking Labour than those who are actually in charge of the process

 

THIS week Labour’s leadership bust a gut to get their MPs to support an amendment to a motion giving MPs a “meaningful vote” on the final deal on the EU.

 

Stop Brexit groups said the amendment was vital — although Labour supported the amendment as a way of Parliament controlling, not stopping, Brexit.

 

Labour MPs worked so hard to back the amendment that Bradford MP Naz Shah even voted in a wheelchair, while on medication.

 

Meanwhile the Tory “rebels” who were supposed to back this amendment mostly melted away.

 

And in the same week, anti-Brexit campaigners vigorously attacked Labour, while sucking up to the Tories.

 

What’s going on? Why are these small, but noisy and well-funded, anti-Brexit groups so keen to attack Labour, while giving the Tories — the actual government party pushing through the “hard Brexit” they claim to dislike — such an easy ride?

 

A close look at the groups shows they are heavily influenced by corporate lobbyists, New Labour obsessives, Lib Dems and even Tory funders.

 

Their dislike of Labour’s left turn seems to be much greater than their love for the EU, and it keeps spilling out.

 

Take Our Future Our Choice (OFOC), a “youth campaign to stop Brexit.” It claimed Tory MP Dominic Grieve was a “legend” and posed for grinning pictures with Justine Greening, thanking the Tory MP for her anti-Brexit stand.

 

But this week OFOC also hired billboard trucks to drive around the constituencies of four Labour shadow cabinet members, with anti-Labour messages.

 

The billboard attacking John McDonnell had a picture of him sticking out of Jacob Rees Mogg’s pocket. It doesn’t make much sense, but does imitate a Tory smear poster from the 2015 election showing Ed Miliband sticking out of Alex Salmond’s pocket.

 

OFOC praised the “rebel” Tories like Grieve and Greening, who in the end didn’t rebel. It attacked Labour, who did back the “rebel” amendment. Why the bias ?

 

Looking at OFOC’s origin, it has close links to the world of lobbying. OFOC was founded by 43 -year-old Felix Marquardt, an international lobbyist and something of a “media personality” in France who now lives in London.

 

Despite his age, Marquardt has a history of founding short-lived “youth” campaigns, often without many young people participating.

 

But Marquardt’s other business is corporate lobbying. His company, Marquardt & Marquardt is a “high-end consultancy” that “specialised in international influence and communications,” which “assists governments, corporations, organisations and individuals in raising their profile and promoting their stakes and interests” in “lobbying and public affairs,” approaching “key officials” as well as running “media relations.” Its slogan is “beyond influence.”

 

Marquardt’s lobbying firm specialised in events on at Davos, the conference of the super-rich. He put on events for the authoritarian leader of Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and had French oil giant Total as a client.

 

Marquardt’s publicity says that he has “advised several heads of state, including most recently French President Emmanuel Macron.”

 

Macron — the firmest opponent of France’s left and trade unions — is an “inspiration” for OFOC’s younger members as well as their middle aged founder.

 

Marquardt left OFOC earlier this year, but as it was founded by a corporate lobbyist with a taste for flashy media stunts, is it a surprise OFOC ended up running an anti-Labour, paid-for stunt like the poster vans themselves ?

 

OFOC’s spokesman told me its current leadership made their own decisions and raised the bulk of their money through their own crowdfunding — with any other support also coming through crowdfunded sources.

 

He said OFOC might sometimes make mistakes but they were working hard to mobilise young people.

 

OFOC also gets support from bigger anti-Brexit organisations. It says it is “powered” by two bigger groups, Best for Britain and Open Britain.

 

It gets free office space, funds and advice from them — particularly Open Britain. This puts OFOC in a milieu stuffed with more corporate executives and disgruntled New Labour types.

 

Best for Britain is run by former New Labour minister Lord Malloch Brown. The Best for Britain board includes private equity investor Stephen Peel, who also funds the group.

 

Peel was an out-and-out Tory. In 2008 Peel gave the Tories £50,000 to help fund their fight against Gordon Brown. Peel has jumped from Tory to New Labour, giving Blairite pressure group Progress £10,000 this year. Peter Norris, the Chairman of Virgin Group, is also on the Best for Britain board.

 

Open Britain is Peter Mandelson’s group. It is stuffed with New Labour people who hate Labour’s current leadership and would do anything to bring it down.

 

Alongside Mandelson, Open Britain’s directors include Will Straw, son of Blair minister and Iraq war enthusiast Jack Straw, and Joe Carberry, who used to be a New Labour adviser.

 

Carberry is now the head of PR for Deliveroo, the exploitative food delivery firm that won’t give its largely young workforce proper rights.

 

Open Britain also has big Lib Dem funders, who obviously don’t like Labour. Richard Reed is on the board. He became a multimillionaire by selling his Innocent smooth drinks firm to Coca Cola.

 

Reed has given the Lib Dems £57,000. He hasn’t given to Labour, but did give Chuka Umunna £7,500 in 2016, widely seen as money for Chuka’s abortive Labour leadership bid.

 

Reed was named as a backer of Project One Movement, a stalled attempt to launch a new, £50 million funded anti-Labour Thrid Party founded by various multimillionaires.

 

James McGrory is another Lib Dem on the Open Britain board. He was Nick Clegg’s chief spin doctor from 2013-5, during the Tory- Lib Dem coalition.

 

Former BT chairman Sir Michael Rake also sits on the Open Britain board. He is a minor Lib Dem donor. Roland Rudd, the corporate lobbyist who runs city PR firm Finsbury, also sits on the board. He is brother of Amber Rudd, though not a Tory donor.

 

The main Remain groups are a mix of New Labour and Lib Dem leftovers, who think they know about “spin,” but I don’t think they know how to organise mass campaigns.

 

They seem happier attacking Corbyn’s Labour with phoney, paid-for PR campaigns than attacking the actual government carrying out Brexit.

 

As a result, I doubt they will swing much opinion on Brexit, but may chip away at Labour, which for some participants may be the main point.

 

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/big-money-lobbyists-and-blairites-behind-stop-brexit-outfits

[Strontium]

I've just told you that 59% of the Leave vote- so easily the majority, came from ABC1s

That's simple mathematics

You might think that the CDEs were the deciding factor but you'd be wrong

You're not understanding my point.

 

A slight majority of ABC1s voted Remain.

A large majority of C2DEs voted Leave.

 

This means the C2DEs were the decisive factor that gave Leave a majority, irrespective of the fact there were fewer of them.

 

I can't put it any clearer than that.

[Denny Crane]

A job ad sent out to Oxford students to help create "stunts and protest coordination" and  "social media communications". 

 

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Well not really as in order not be bound be EU procurement rules we have to be fully outside the EU, so hard Brexit or he’s making it up.

I'm not convinced.

 

https://labourlist.org/2018/07/build-it-in-britain-again-corbyns-full-speech/

 

Too often, we have been told by Conservatives who are ideologically opposed to supporting our industries that EU rules prevent us from supporting our own economy.

But if you go to Germany you’ll struggle to find a train that wasn’t built there, even though they’re currently governed by the same rules as us.

When the steel crisis hit in 2016 Italy, Germany and France all intervened legally under existing state aid rules but our government sat back and did nothing.

We have made clear we would seek exemptions or clarifications from EU state aid and procurement rules where necessary as part of the Brexit negotiations to take further steps to support cutting edge industries and local businesses.

But whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, we will use the powers we have to the full. Where there is a will there is a way and if we need to support our manufacturing sector we will find a way to do it.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Brexit was won by the C2DE demographic, it's inarguable.

 

So...

 

You're in a lift with 10 white people and 2 black people.  One black person and 4 white people drop their guts.  Do you blame the fart-stink on black people, because 50% of them boffed while only 40% of the whites guffed?

[Gnasher]

Expecting everyone else to clean up their shit.

Shit? The shit these people have had to put up with for 30 years?

 

A silly statement.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Shit? The shit these people have had to put up with for 30 years?

 

A silly statement.

According to Government forecasts, every single scenario for Brexit sees the UK significantly worse off as a result.

 

If anyone in the UK is gullible enough to believe that they have had to put up with shit from the EU, they ain't seen nothing yet.

[Gnasher]

I think though, Sec, it was likely to be Christmas. The turkeys can't be entirely absolved of blame.

 

 

 

Giving the turkeys some, er, things turkeys like in the last few years would have helped however.

Oh do fuck off.

 

The turkeys who have enjoyed capitalist bliss for the past 30 years,

[Plev]

Oh do fuck off.

 

The turkeys who have enjoyed capitalist bliss for the past 30 years,

Shouldn’t you be out shopping for Fray Bentos and Spam?