*Thread* I voted remain in 2016 and I was hugely disappointed by the result at first, seeing it as a victory for the right. But soon the cheap, condecending, and outright idiotic comments from remainers started rolling in and have continued ever since. They've changed my mind.
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and we're smart enough to know that the kind of politics that the EU practices - technocracy, free market fundamentalism and gutless centrism - is part of what created this shitshow in the first place.
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Since then there's been the bizzare campaign of middle class snobs marching through London every other weekend, with their EU flags, dodgy funding and weird obsession with garbled hashtags
#FBPE#WATON#SODEMpic.twitter.com/ZVsG3i6dy0
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These are people who, for the most part, never protested against austerity, yet have developed a religious dedication to the EU, led by (of all people) Alistair Campbell, Mandelson, Blair, A.C. Grayling and other irrelevant New Labour/LibDem has-beens with nothing better to do.
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The prominence of these types in leadership positions and the overall affluence of those who make up the
#StopBrexit/people's vote campaign personifies how the 'remain and reform' argument - pushed by far too many on the left - is bullshit.Show this thread -
The EU can never further the interests of Europe's working class, that's not what it was built for and that's not what its deeply undemocratic structures will allow. It's a Thatcherite clubhouse that only ever serves capital and benefits elites. We should've learnt from Greece.
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It also can't be held up as a bastion of freedom of movement, migrants' rights or internationalism when it fortifies its borders so heavily at the Mediterranean and elsewhere. It's free movement for white people only.
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I used to think that the call for
#Lexit was utopian and detached from everyday life. In reality, those who bang on about reforming this anti-democratic, overbearing leviathan from the inside are the real utopians.Show this thread -
I oppose the call for a second referendum on a number of grounds - as a democrat who respects the result, as an anti-fascist who doesn't want to see a resurgence of the far-right, and as someone who doesn't want to see that kind of tension in my community again.
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But if there is a second ref, not only would I vote to leave this time, I'd give my time to a left campaign for leave - the kind of campaign that's needed to take the limelight off the reactionaries who've piggybacked on popular anti-EU sentiment.
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We need a left that's confident enough to express our principles honestly, that fights to implement them and takes opportunities as they come, not one that expends our energy desperately defending pseudo-progressive (ie neoliberal) scraps, as if these are the best we can do.
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That kind of confidence and ambition, drawn from the knowledge that we represent the interests of our class, is how the left can win a socialist government and a Brexit that benefits workers.
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Are we going to apply this principle when we leave? Wealthy areas of the UK see their taxes only spent in their areas. Doesn’t sound like progress gets made that way or good governance.
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Are you saying that infrastructure, education and apprenticeships are cosmetic, or do you mean other things? Have you got any figures to back up this rather bold claim?
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Also, in a not unrelated comment, I voted Labour in the last election, and have been sorely disappointed by their performance since then. I (presumably along with a number of others), will not be doing so at the next opportunity unless something changes.
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Austerity is *nothing to do with the EU*. It’s a political choice. The UK’s political choice.
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Greece? Italy? Austerity in Southern Europe also because Tories in Westminster??
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They are under Eurozone rules, and spent badly, especially in Greece's case. We have sovereign money policy, so austerity is all our sovereign Parliament's fault - i.e. the Tories.
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" industry declining ? Austerity " ? Errr ! Eff all to do with the EU pal ! That's all down to the Tories ! About time you wised up !
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It is down to the Tories in that they, along with the rest of the political establishment across all parties, have sold the country out to secure their place at the trough. Maybe it's about time *you* wised up?http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-075-an-audit-of-uk-and-how-it-has-been-asset-stripped/ …
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/ Anti-imperialist 
/ Sociology grad / Call centre worker and trade unionist