this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025

41 points (95.6% liked)

UK Politics

3652 readers

112 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I found this article interesting. Here are some quotes:

Brexit’s backers sold the project as a magic bullet that would solve the problems caused by a globalizing economy — not unlike Mr. Trump’s claims that tariffs would be a boon to the public purse and a remedy for the inequities of global trade. In neither case, experts said, does such a panacea exist.

“The truth is, Brexit did not correct any of the problems caused by deindustrialization,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. “If anything, Brexit made them worse.”

Mr. Trump’s MAGA coalition has some of the same ideological fault lines as the Brexiteers, pitting economic nationalists like Stephen K. Bannon against globalists like Elon Musk. That has led analysts to wonder if post-Trump politics in the United States will look a lot like post-Brexit politics in Britain.

“Brexit caused profound damage to the Conservative Party,” Professor Travers said. “It has been rendered unelectable because it is riven by factions. Will the Republican Party be similarly factionalized after Trump?”

top 19 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Brexit was a lesson on how a critical mass of gullible voters swallowed a bunch of outrageous lies peddled by anti-Europe politicians.

MAGA was a lesson on how a critical mass of gullible voters swallowed a bunch of outrageous lies peddled by Trump.

The lessons here being:

Voters are hopelessly gullible.
It doesn't take a genius to convince them to do any stupid thing - neither Farrage nor Trump are particularly well furbished in the IQ department.
Gullible voters never learn any lesson from history or from other countries. They're just... gullible. At any given moment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

The biggest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Maybe. But in a democracy the voters choose what they want, whether you like their choice or not.

Maybe the political centre needed to do a better job of serving the people who ultimately voted for Brexit and Trump. Those people felt that politicians didn't care about them at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

But in a democracy the voters choose what they want, whether you like their choice or not.

The problem is who controls the choices they get.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe. But in a democracy the voters choose what they want, whether you like their choice or not.

Yes I know. As Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. But really, when you see how dumb the voting public is, has been and always will be, repeating the same terrible mistake over and over again, it's fucking depressing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I get your frustration... and maybe some voters have been just genuinely mistaken. But calling voters dumb just pushes them away and makes them more likely to vote for some alternative. Their reaction is "you think I'm dumb? Then fuck you, I'm not going to vote for what you want".

If the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit and Reform UK then the centre needs to try to include everyone - even those tempted by Reform. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Most voters are effectively as thick as two short planks.

This is immutable fact, demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. Whether or not you or they like the fact is irrelevant, the fact remains; most voters are easily led by their emotions, only able to focus on one issue at a time, and are tribal and short-sighted. In short, stupid.

You need to work with the truth, find a way to harness the stupidity. Trying to convince yourself and others that people en mass aren't dumb, easily led animals will eventually drive you to madness.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That attitude probably won't win any political contests though... voters do not like being thought of as stupid. They want their concerns taken seriously. If we have a political system where we don't listen to certain members of the public then that's basically autocracy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't disagree, but unless we can manage the stupid, democracy will always die to lowest common denominator populism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I think democracy does a pretty good job of surviving when you have free and fair elections, and proportional representation probably makes politics even more democratic. In European countries that have maintained free and fair elections, they generally haven't plunged into populism. Macron defeated Le Pen twice, for example. AfD have obviously grown their base in Germany, but they haven't entered government. Hungary is arguably ruled by a populist, but some people would say their politics aren't really free and fair anymore. If their politics remained free and fair then populism might have less power.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What you're saying is that to beat the populists, you have to pretend to take the voting morons as seriously as the populists do. And yeah, I get it, it's the least terrible stragegy really. But beyond the facade, those with an education and a working brain really dislike having to fake respect for those who don't deserve any.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Pretending probably isn't enough. If a political movement (such as a centrist or pro-Europe movement) wants to win then it has to take all voters seriously, surely. Or at least as many as possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you think prisoners deserve any respect? Or do you think they are victims of genetics, bad luck, upbringing etc?

I am not sure where to draw the line for free-will or even if it exists.

We need a better public education system but that isn't going to solve much in our lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am not sure where to draw the line for free-will or even if it exists.

You know a moron who shouldn't vote when you see one. It doesn't matter if they're victims of bad genes or bad upbringing: some people just aren't fit to decide important things. In fact, I'd argue a majority of the population isn't.

But you hit the nail on the head: where do you draw the line?

In this case, where is that hypothetical line that decides those who are "good enough" to votes and those who aren't?

Of course, it's impossible to make the distinction because the decision is almost completely arbitrary. There is no well-established, proven set of scientific criteria to decide whether a human being is worthy of the right to vote.

So we do the next best thing: we let everyone vote. That's democracy. We let everyone vote because not letting everyone vote is always worse. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make me retch when I see a cretin in a MAGA hat who doesn't even know basic history, geography or civics proudly tell you on TV that he voted Trump because Trump'll fix it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Here in Australia the Left overwhelmingly is kept that we have compulsory voting.

I however think it would not be so difficult to have a civics test before citizens are given licence to vote. We do it with driving after all.

basic history, geography or civics

Or science (vaccines, climate change, statistics). Better education at school would definitely help. Half of USAmericans cannot read being 6th grade level. A quarter don't know we orbit the sun. 40% didn't know how long it takes a year to orbit the sun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nonsense. They wouldn't be able to do a thing, those voters lives in a propaganda bubble. Also the brexit referendum wasn't democracy. It was supposed to be advisory only. An actual referendum on such a matter would never have been a simple majority decision in any actual democracy.

This was the opposite of democracy and blaming people who actually opposed this instead of the people who acutally orchestrated it is disingenous at best.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I'm not blaming remainers or leavers or anyone. But if the political centre wants to beat populist causes like Brexit, Trump, or Reform UK, then the political centre needs to appeal to voters who are tempted to vote for populist causes. E.g. if Starmer wants to win another election, he will have to win the votes of some people who will be deciding whether to vote for Labour or for Reform UK.

As for Brexit being democracy or not, I think it was an expression of democratic will. But I think it would have been democratically valid to have a second referendum asking what kind of Brexit people wanted, because the first referendum did not make that clear. Britain could have stayed in the EU single market while still leaving the EU itself for example (Norway and Switzerland both take part in the single market, but they're not in the EU).

Also another thing that could improve democracy in the UK would be proportional representation. In the 2017 UK general election, the right-wing parties (Tories + DUP) only got about 43% of the vote between them. Meanwhile, Labour + Lib Dem + SNP + Green got about 52% of the vote between them. So there could have been a centre-left majority, under proportional representation. This could have resulted in the UK staying in the EU single market at least.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It is similar, because a majority either didn’t want it or didn’t understand what it would mean, but there just wasn’t the enthusiasm to come out to bat for the lacklustre status quo (e.g. free markets working out great for the City of London but not much money trickling down to the rest of the country). Trump said all the mad and evil shit he wanted to do but do most people even pay any attention to what the candidates say?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Last year in the developed world every election resulted in the incumbent party losing. Presumably because people stupidly voted for change without thinking much.