Cameron, Corbyn, and Brexit
Prime Minister David Cameron has gone into full scaremongerry, the-end-of-the-world mode. He wants the voters to curl up in the fetal position in a total panic instead of voting to leave the EU.
Protections for state pensions, the NHS and defence spending cannot be guaranteed if Britain leaves the EU, David Cameron has warned.
The Prime Minister said the strain on the public finances caused by Brexit would threaten the end of the "triple lock" guarantee for OAP payments and the ring-fencing of health funding.
And Chancellor George Osborne said the armed forces could see their budgets slashed by £1-£1.5 billion a year as the wider economy shrank.
Normally this is a good strategy. The public usually responds to fear rather than hope.
The problem happens when the public stops believing you. What happens when the public stops being afraid?
Emergency battle plans are being drawn up to try to win over voters and save the Prime Minister’s career after a series of opinion polls put the Leave campaign ahead.
The plans will see David Cameron take a back seat in the campaign after polling showed he has lost the trust of voters on the referendum issue.
Instead Labour will be put in charge of winning over wavering voters in the North of England.
This is an amazing development for two reasons, but first let's look at the new Brexit polls.
The campaign to take Britain out of the EU has opened up a remarkable 10-point lead over the Remain camp, according to an exclusive poll for The Independent.
This poll was backed up by a YouGov poll today, showing support for leaving leading by a small margin.
Besides the fact that the public isn't cowering in fear like they are supposed to, it is amazing that the establishment is turning to Labour to save them. Because Labour means Jeremy Corbyn, a proud socialist.
Let's turn back the clock to September, when David Cameron had this to say about Jeremy Corbyn.
Cameron even called Corbyn a 'terrorist sympathiser'.
“You should not be walking through the lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn and a bunch of terrorist sympathisers,” the prime minister reportedly told the committee.
It wasn't just the Tories. The tabloids jumped on the hysteria bandwagon as well.
And it worked for a while. Corbyn's approval ratings tanked...until they stopped.
The Labour Party never abandoned Corbyn.
The poll suggests 64 percent of Labour members would vote for Corbyn as party leader again, up from the 59.5 percent who backed him in September.
72 percent of members think Corbyn is doing a good job, compared to 66 percent in November.
However, the most significant change was in Corbyn's overall approval ratings versus Cameron.
David Cameron's approval rating has fallen below Jeremy Corbyn's for the first time, a new poll has revealed.
Just 34 per cent of voters said the Prime Minister was doing a good job, while 58 per cent felt he was not.
The 24 per cent difference is worse than the 22 point difference between the 30 per cent who approve of the job Mr Corbyn is doing and the 52 per cent who disapprove.
Certainly those are not good numbers for Corbyn, but the trend is positive, unlike Cameron's.
And now they want Corbyn to save them from Cameron's failure. Hmmm.
Comments
Thanks for this essay gjohnsit
I've been following the Brexit poll coming up. The Guardian UK is pumping the fear and hysteria as much as the US edition is wall to wall Trump will be the next Hitler. Yesterday they ran labour neoliberal poodle Tony Blair's propaganda and today it was Gordon Brown. I know people respond to fear but there does come a point where you just don't believe their wolf crying anymore. I hope in our election people say enough. Anytime they Oh no! We cant have____ it will cut the 'defense' budget I think good something ought to.
The Guardian has changed
It skews much more neoliberal now than a few years ago.
Both sides of this are fearmongers and both of
the interested parties in this faeces flinging contest are on the right.
If the English vote leave then the division of the UK between England and the rest [The Celtic bits] will kick off two weeks after the vote.
Europe is many things good and bad and much of what they will lose relates to workers rights and social policies. They leave and the next PM will be Boris Johnson public schoolboy supreme and his merry band of xenophobes and racists.
Good grief, this has been a Tory shitfest and I'm afraid Labour has been all but useless in making a real case to remain.
For a left perspective on why UK should Leave:
https://medium.com/@aldursys/brexit-and-the-single-market-3e275c62d387#....
I hope the US electorate catches up
When politicians from both parties consistently lie to voters over decades, they're not entitled to be believed. This well-earned cynicism may lead voters down some awfully stupid paths, such as Republicans supporting Donald Trump. But at least Republicans have figured out that their party is not to be trusted. Democrats are behind the curve on that one, so if anything they may be dumber than Republicans.
Please help support caucus99percent!
In the UK its really just one party infighting for a
power grab, Labour has been watching enjoying the show with its thunb up its ass the only effective voice in the Remain camp has come from the SNP [Scottish nationalists]. Both Europe and the Tories joined by labour threatened Scotland if they left the UK would be excluded from Europe and not be able to use the pound or the Euro, this swung the vote in their favour, can you feel the irony.
It's all about power and nothing to do with the people.
Oh and btw the elections in Scotland after their refernedum vote prety much wiped out Labour and the Tories in Scotland it devastated Labour in Westminster [-49seats or so]
I watched a podcast the other day that had an hour long debate
between the two sides in this issue, but after hearing them both and having no true dog in the hunt I gotta say the "leavers" make a pretty persuasive argument imo.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I think the English will vote leave, and that will carry the
UK, then sit back and watch the Tories rip apart the NHS and every social program then strip workers rights for profit and sadly Labour are about as effective as a damp squib these days.
The NHS and workers rights
didn't happen because of the EU.
No but the have expanded rights
My problem with the EU is the Euro done to quickly, the UK is not part of that. The free movement of people within the union is what the UK whines about and that is one of the best things about it, they forget 3million UK citizens are expats. The extreme right is growing and they all have one thing in common xenophobia. if the UK leaves there will be more who will play upon the same fears. Based on history Europe is a far better and stable place now, as for immigration from without the EU, well if we built rather than bombed that might work.
The only reason the UK is having a referendum is that Cameron used it as a bartering tool to avoid the conservative party splitting like a rotten banana, now he is fighting for his political life hence the usual right wing drivel, scary.
The NHS is under constant attack by the right Cameron happen to be a compassionate conservative so the destruction is in measured steps. See the Boots scandal from opening the door to medical services provided by the private sector.
The European Union has expanded workers rights whereas the Tories just love things like zero hour contracts, no guaranteed working hours but you cannot take another job because you might be required to work at the whim of the company.
Some leftists who are voting Leave:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/left-case-brexit
https://gianalytics.org/1053-why-brexit-is-a-massive-smokescreen-and-why...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/08/eu-reform-green-bre...
Thanks katie
That really helped me understand why Labour and the left in Europe support remain. Yanis especially confused me as well as Corbyn. I see this a strange inversion in US politics in regards to supporting the neoliberal neocon Demorat's because otherwise the KKK will take over.
The fear of how the Tories will use Brexit to destroy the HHS or enable racist RW policy in regards to immigration doesn't seem to take into account the EU's detrimental effect on democracy and sovereignty. I admit to my distrust and bias against centralization. It reads Imperialist to me loud and clear.
I think globalization especially financial is the monkeys paw. It's not inevitable it's anti-democratic. Who runs the EU not democratic institutions but the Davos, IMF, Goldman Sachs crowd. I do not believe that the Brixit passing means the RW loonies like Ukip will prevail any more then I think RW nut jobs in the US will own the place if Trump wins.
Why can't Labour stop playing the game on Tony Blair's or Gordon Smiths debunked New Labour's neoliberal territory? What's up with these so called leftists that they cannot look ahead and see anything other then 'reform' to a system that has shown itself to by it's own ideology and agenda to be not open to reform on any level that is democratic and dioes nothing but foster globalizing monsters who are armed and mean all people harm?
Maybe like the Democrat's in the US Labour needs to step up and stop being poodles who support the inevitable way forward. Bejeeze why dance to the tune of the enemy because you fear what the collapse of the status quo might bring.
Good links about neoliberal flaws
The reasoning applies as much to the US as to UK and the EU. I've been saying this for years about the "globalism" arguments made here in the US to justify inequality and a terrible economy.
From your first link:
Pretty much the game Obama, neolibs and the GOP have been playing for the last decade.
Yes, governments have the power to regulate and control their own economies, taxation and global trade. The problem is when politicians don't want to do so (usually for personal financial gain) and refuse to use the legislative and regulatory tools available to them.
"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, take their money and then vote against them you've got no business being in Congress."
Thanks for this
I'm a bit confused by Corbyn's stance on this. He's consistently voted against the treaties that comprise the EU. I understand his argument to remain is that left parties across Europe need to work together effectively. That's of course a good idea but isn't what has actually happened across the continent the past decades. I get the sense that the left has abandoned working people in the UK and thrown them to the right wing wolves. I wonder if there's a Bernie in the UK that can navigate these complex policies in a way that's a win for ordinary people, the world and the planet. On a positive note, I think TTIP is dead in the water either way.
My normally socialist leaning English friend
is all in a dither about what result from disengagement from the euro, while I, as an somewhat unaffected USA'n, see this as mostly good for the UK.
I think the unknown is the fear, here. Just as fear of the the unknown caused many to not vote for Bernie, and to go with the known Clinton, even though many knew her as a corporate shill, they were still fearful of change.
I try to tell her that There'll always be an England, maybe even a better one than the one she has now.
Nice thead one I apprciate Thnks gjohnsit.