Oddbean new post about login | logout @43d7c4ea The EU problem for Labour for a long time was that 1) The majority of Labour voters were pro-EU 2) The majority of Labour constituencies were pro-Brexit That's no longer true. I had Momentum insiders tell me they couldn't possibly come out and be anti-Brexit because it would destroy them in the Labour Heartlands. That wasn't true even then. But they believed it.
@6fce6863 @43d7c4ea still unbelievable that some Unions were pro Brexit. Imagine being shoulder to shoulder with the millionaires, billionaires and public schoolboys pushing Brexit whilst pretending not to be the Elite, and then believing that those same people want the best for ordinary people, and what is good for them was also best for ordinary people.
@544f4f05 @6fce6863 @43d7c4ea Lexit was always a baffling project led by deluded people aiming to fool those without the time and inclination to look into basic facts. The main arguments appeared to be eradicating FOM would be beneficial (ignoring knock-on effect of leaving SM) and that EU standards weren’t good enough, despite being minimums. (Similar energy in unions – fortunately a diminishing number – that support FPTP.)
@683562c3 @544f4f05 @6fce6863 My take was that it was driven by a simplified notion of what #neoliberalism was, identifying the EU as a neoliberal project & thinking that leaving the EU would strike a blow against neoliberalism... This of course failed to appreciate that one of the main drivers towards the EU's partial neoliberalism was the UK itself, and if you took the UK out of the EU, the brakes would come off domestic neoliberal tendencies (which I prefer to term #rentiercapitalism)