ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: Hannah McKay/Reuters
Written by Dr.Leon Tressell exclusively for SouthFront
The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians off all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario. This had lead to a huge distrust in the political class amongst the long suffering public.
As the clock ticks down towards the 29 March exit date it is worth while recalling how this crisis came about in the first place. Regardless of which Brexit option the UK takes over the next period it will not detract from the fact that there is a huge chasm between large sections of a bitterly discontented population and the political establishment that does not bode well for the future stability of a key American ally.
A recent poll of 33,000 people revealed that an overwhelming majority felt that whatever Brexit option is adopted it will not address the rampant inequalities, political alienation and disenchantment that lay behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016.
In June 2016 the UK vote to exit the EU shocked the financial and political elites and led to turmoil on global stock markets. The corporate media was full of shocked pundits lamenting the democratic decision of British people for Brexit. Brexit voters were being blamed for everything from the rise in racism against immigrant families to the increased dangers of terrorist attacks.
The corporate media both in Britain and internationally was and still are furious with the British electorate for voting for Brexit. They never saw it coming and still don’t fully understand why ordinary people voted for Brexit. More than this, they still don’t understand how the Brexit vote reveals how completely out of touch the corporate media and the political/financial elites are with the millions of working class people who voted for Brexit.
Let’s be very clear about this: the vote for Brexit was a working class rebellion against the financial and political elites of Britain who have presided over a massive redistribution of wealth in favour of the super rich leaving a fifth of the population in poverty. Analysis of the referendum vote shows how the poorer an area was the higher the vote was for Brexit.
The working class stood up to massive pressure from the Bremain camp that included: all of the mainstream political parties, the Bank of England, CBI, IMF, ECB, Obama, the World Bank and the trade union bureaucrats.
The vote for Brexit revealed how out of touch the establishment advocates of the EU are with working class people. Millions of working class people are struggling to get by with low wages, incessant benefit cuts, zero hour contracts, food banks and poor housing that are putting their families and communities under intense strain. On top of this, working class people suffer the most from the cuts to the welfare state and the incessant cuts to local council services.
Working class people are not stupid they can how the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation that is completely unaccountable to them. The secret negotiations that took place between the EU and the Obama administration over TTIP, which members of the European Parliament had no say over, proved conclusively how this is an organisation run for the benefit of the too big to fail banks and the multi-national corporations.
They can see how the undemocratic EU has bludgeoned the people of Greece into living in permanent austerity and mass poverty despite a referendum last year that decisively rejected austerity measures. Obama’s favourite economist Paul Krugman called the EU’s intervention into Greece in 2015 a ‘coup d’etat’.
The advocates of Bremain in 2016 such as Mark Carney (ex-Goldman Sachs), then Prime Minister Cameron (from a tax avoiding banker family) then Chancellor George Osborne (son of a Baronet) warned working class people that Brexit would lower their living standards more than any other group in UK society.
However, millions of working class people were not taken in by the crocodile tears coming from those responsible for creating a massively unequal society. Quantitative easing and ZIRP have made the super rich fabulously richer as they have benefited from the massive bubbles on the stock market and in property. The top 10% of society own 45% of all wealth totalling over £5 trillion while the bottom 50% of society own a pathetic 9% of the wealth.
Prime Minister Cameron’s government presided over a savage attack upon welfare benefits which have led to one and half million benefit sanctions leaving people totally destitute and leading to hundreds of people committing suicide. The attack on welfare benefits for disabled people have been so severe it prompted the UN to launch an investigation into the human rights violations of disabled people. In 2018 the UN accused the UK government of ”systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights..
The political and financial elites who advocated that Britain should stay in the EU were puzzled as to why so many working class people stubbornly supported Brexit in 2016. They were and still are incapable of comprehending the anger, pain and suffering of millions of working class people who feel increasing contempt towards a political and financial elite that has no understanding of their daily lives. Over 13 million live in poverty (1 in 5 of the population) while 15 million live in inadequate housing conditions.
This inchoate anger at the daily reality that confronts them has few outlets in life. The EU referendum provided working class people with a means of sticking two fingers up at the political and financial establishment which now presides over a very divided country along lines of class and geography. This sense of alienation and disenchantment with the political establishment has only increased in the two and half years since the Brexit referendum.
The Brexit vote has led to unprecedented turmoil in both of the main political parties in Britain, particularly the Conservative Party.
The financial and political elites suffered a major defeat in 2016 Brexit vote. The Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history and has served the British ruling class well for over two hundred years. Now it faces an unprecedented crisis and is unable to effectively govern.
Regardless of which Brexit option the Conservative government takes over the next period the UK will face huge challenges as the world economy continues to slow down and heads towards another devastating recession.
This will pose major challenges for the stability of the UK, whose manufacturing base continues to weaken while its financial services sector loses its dominant position in European capital markets due to Brexit. A discontented population may take inspiration from its yellow vested neighbours across the English Channel.
When the betrayal comes, and that betrayal shall almost certainly come – then the UK shall lurch to the far-right and far-left.
“When the betrayal comes, and that betrayal shall almost certainly come – then the UK MEDIA will present it to their brainwashed viewers that the UK has lurchedto the far-right and far-left.”
There, I fixed it for ya.
Do you watch BBC, read the Economist, and believe them? You’ve been brainwashed.
I take offence at the above article, although I doubt the author intended it.
1. Why the generalisation of “working class people”, the same rhetoric as the MSM use ?. That is not true at all. Vast swathes of middle class voted to Leave as ….. heaven help us, but some of the Wealthy elite as well.
PS Apparently, there are 7 classes in the UK – https://www.indy100.com/article/these-are-the-seven-social-classes-of-britain–ZyoKTbqjdx
2. As for the Conservative party being hit the hardest, maybe you are aright, but I think both the top 2 parties maybe in for one hell of a shock in the next election; just by watching and reading the media, my blood pressure rises at all of these political filth, avoiding answering questions and just spewing out the same old BS.
We voted out, we want out; not some poncy middle of the road shite……. either way all hell will beak out and that hell shall be rightly blamed on the political filth.
I took longer to pen my post and did not see yours , as I am old and slow Al. Reading your post, it is clear that we are both on the same page.
Martial law is being mooted and a Peterloo Massacre scenario 2.0 is possible again.
I enclose a Youtube account of this for our foreign friends who are unlikely to kow about this stain on ‘Our British Democracy’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh_pikNlEp4
Like minds hey ?. I actually went on further, but after noticing the explicits had out-numbered politeness, I deleted it.
Nice and informative video, thank you. Yet again, my North West pulls the punches, the capitalist side is of course the Industrial revolution.
Try and watch the Brexit vote tonight and we can chat later or tomorrow.
Cheers for now……Manchester hey?, best in the World.
The most disgraceful aspect of the disparagement of the so called ‘working classes’ by the self styled elites, is that the ‘great unwashed’ as the elites also describe them, are the citizens who have always been the forced cannon fodder for the benifit of the scum in power.
Essentially the tradesmen, drivers,nurses,factory workers, miners etc , would have had a similar life ,whomsoever won the wars of the morally corrupt.
British peasants tried to gain their freedom in 1380, they were of course put to the sword. Britain is one of the few countries to still live under a form of feudalism. Corporate feudalism like in the USA has replaced the nobility but the basic ruling class and the peasants structure still remains.
Yes, and Tythes are now the interest payments that the masses give to the banks .
Banks that employ ‘fractional banking’ in order to lend more money than the deposits and assets that are actually held by the banks are worth. About 8 to 10 times as much.
The masses are chaining themselves to a life of serfdom when they borrow this ‘created ‘ money.
The system is based on the premise that not all bank depositer’s will ask for their money back at once. It this does happen as in past recessions, it is called a Run on the Bank, and the bank either fails , or is bailed out. Usually by the tax payers who borrowed money from the banks :)
That’s the measure of it. And it is certain that every systemic financial crisis is engineered by the banksters to rob the people even more. Too big to fail means tax payer money is squandered by the truck-load.
There is an interesting possibility: as the central banks derive their power from the tax that is collected from everyone, this opens up a real opportunity if a campaign to abolish all income tax and VAT/GST gains momentum. It is a myth that we (the society) need all these taxes. They mostly benefit the banksters, who squander most of it, and the government spends the rest in the most inefficient way possible.
” and the government spends the rest in the most inefficient way possible.” Retired Admiral Lord West in the UK Daily Telegraph Letters today stated that the MOD is wishing to ‘reduce’ the number of carrier F35’s. He also said that this would prevent pilot training on these aircraft. So is he saying that NO carrier F35’s will be purchased :)
Perhaps the Shiny New UK Aircraft Carrier F35 landing trials in the US recently ,were not encouraging for this boondoggle aircraft.
Nothing new then
?
“the vote for Brexit was a working class rebellion against the financial and political elites of Britain ”
This false narrative is pushed by the metropolitan chattering and Twitterati self styled elites. The referendum was the most democratic vote that Britain has ever had and every vote was collected into one ‘box’ for each of the two ballot box choices . The box with the greater number of votes won.
Millions of people from all walks of life voted to leave. Votes to leave were cast by all the class stereotypes that the chattering classes sneeringly love to use. Vote Leave won.
I voted to leave because I despise the current ruling elite in the UK and EU and feel that Britain must again be independent of unelected officials within the EU who are pushing the neo-liberal agenda that is destroying the nation states of Europe , at the expense of the citizens and it is indeed the so called ‘working classes’ who have been the first to suffer financially, morally and culturally.
I fully expect the parasites in parliament to ‘ kick the can down the road’ and ignore the will of the majority. If this happens the unintended consequence will be the festering anger of defrauded voters who will, for decades, punish the elite. There are many legal ways to do this.
Its true its not just “working class” and includes the middle class in the UK. My sister’s family are all UK upper middle class and they all voted for Brexit. They told me they did it because they saw what Germany did to Greece.
Yes, that is a fact that the British MSM do not wish to be known. The same situation was reflected in the US after their elections I think.
Thanks for the better perspective, Florian and Al. Yes, Brexit vote was a vote against globalism, represented by EU, and the elites in Britain, the Royals, and the central worm in its nest, the Rothschilds in their luxury stronghold castle. Both political parties are in fact puppets of the elites and do not represent the people whom they despise. Please note that the word “Royal” in front of Navy and Air Force means they belong to the Royals and not to the people!! You could say that all of the fighting force of Britain belongs to the elites and the people cannot control them and have no one to protect them, if push comes to shove. In many ways Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg if you want to “leave” the globalist camp! It is the most interesting situation. Your comments are always appreciated.
Thank you, I appreciate your comments as well.
A further betrayal of the ‘deplorable ‘ voters on Tuesday 29th was made when an amendment submitted by Conservative MP Caroline Spelman was passed. This amendment enables that there will be no Brexit if the EU refuses to renegotiate .
It would be voted on ,but as most MP’s are members of the Friends of Israel group, I would not expect it would be voted down.
OMG. An amendment that basically says “it is up to EU if there is a Brexit or not”. Unbelievable passing of the buck and disenfranchising of the we the people in one hit. This is high treason in the parliament, as surely the parliament does not have the power to delegate critical sovereign decisions to the EU (one is hopeful). How many treasonous decisions before the people rise up? It is high time!
The referendum result had a 4% majority to leave, and the ‘remoaners’ want a new referendum.
Yet the Spellman amendment is non-binding and only had a 0.6 % (nought point six) majority , that the ‘remoaners’ consider to be a just method to betray the electorate who voted to leave.
Love your comments Florian, but do reconsider the word “electorate”. To me it seems to reduce “We The People” to a subordinate mass that is only allowed to express something during elections. It’s a small point, but we need to recalibrate our language to reflect a reality with a rising sense of our sovereignty and reclaimed power. ;)
I agree 100%. Thank you.
Send the British army to sack the City of London first, then I’ll believe in British democracy
I agree and strip all those with Dual Israeli citizenship of all their assets. They will not need any in a labour camp anyway.
ffs..!!
I wish they would make a decsion and then get on with it..
the elites did make a decision, i.e. to stop Brexit. Got it now?
You obviously have not spent time with limey gits, the most two faced devious arseholes on earth.
hey.. I’m willing to give em a chance… where can I meet the limey gits..?
The elected satanic pedophile UK elites NEVER had any intention of allowing Brexit. They’re stalling till they can come up with something. Time to protest is now, England!!! Get OUT THERE and protest and to make your point wear your yellow vests!
I agree, expecting warring European tribes to create a “union” was a lunacy to begin with. Italy and France are already at each other throats over colonialism and Germany is an occupied US vassal. Not that tiny UK is independent, but it being in a dying EU makes no sense at all. Most of the limey gits voted to get out and they should. Also demolish the chunnel while you are at it and turn the grid lock Heathrow into Disneyland with a racetrack. Jolly good show chaps :)
The capitalists want the UK to stay, Her Gracious Majesty wants out, her Majesty will prevail.
The EU is false construct and unsustainable, at least the limeys have the right idea for the wrong reasons.
It started out well, as a trade block, but degenerated into a regime, the common currency is a fatal flaw.