
Malign incompetence of the British ruling class - fanf2
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/sunday/brexit-ireland-empire.html
======
candiodari
Maybe it's just me but unless I'm really blind, it seems to me that the
British ruling class is doing everything it possibly can to avoid a Brexit,
including sabotaging democracy, and generally grasping at straws. They're also
clearly expecting to lose a lot of money in the process.

The support for cutting out the EU is very much carried by the worker class,
and this seems to be done very much in open conflict with the ruling class.
Even most of the conservative

~~~
drcongo
I think there's probably quite a lot you're missing, which is not a criticism
because there's simply so much at play with Brexit. The ruling classes, or
more accurately a particular branch of it, are very much driving Brexit as
they're disaster capitalists - they know it's going to cause misery to
millions of people, but they stand to personally profit hugely from it. Owners
of tabloid newspapers have for years been fuelling the anger that has led to
the working classes backing the idea. Our newspapers regularly run stories,
that are out and out false, about immigration, EU bureaucracy, migration etc.
It's straight up propaganda as a long game designed to enrich a few people.

~~~
candiodari
"Owners of tabloid newspapers" ... you and I have very different ideas from
who and what the British ruling class are.

Might I suggest you put yourself through another test. Get a job at the local
McDonalds (or a cleaner, or driver, or ...). Look at the conditions, look who
takes the jobs and why. Because it will make it VERY obvious what needs to
change, and why exiting the EU is seen as a viable option.

I understand why you say that Brexit won't help with that (although I do think
it might make it possible to prevent things from deteriorating further). And I
even agree with that assessment, you see, but at least take a look at the
other side of the argument from the perspective of the other side of the
argument.

~~~
drcongo
It would appear we _do_ have different ideas about who the ruling classes are,
I think it’s those who are actually pulling the strings.

Your “get a job at McDonalds” bit reads like the same racist arguments against
immigration that are largely parroted by many leave voters, a thinly veiled
“foreigners are taking our jobs” - the reality is that immigration is a net
benefit to the economy and this country is going to struggle without it. The
NHS is already hitting problems, our universities, who rely on foreign
students paying much more in fees, are seeing a potentially catastrophic
decline in enrolments (anecdata). I totally understand the other side of the
argument, the problem is that it’s based on lies they’ve been fed by those who
stand to profit. The groundswell of anger that brought about the leave vote
was orchestrated by exactly those who I’m calling the ruling classes - they
gave the disenfranchised someone to punch down at.

~~~
candiodari
> the reality is that immigration is a net benefit to the economy and this
> country is going to struggle without it

As I said I understand and even agree with this argument. Now find a way to
make it a benefit, not a cost, to those people (most of whom are immigrants,
and yes, you read that right: immigrants are mostly pro-Brexit. This will make
a lot of sense once you think about it for 10 minutes), and very little of the
Brexit fervor will remain.

Fact of the matter is these people want Brexit because _their_ situation won't
improve due to immigration. And let's be honest. They're right.

~~~
drcongo
If you don’t understand how something that is a net benefit to the economy
improves the lives of everyone who is a part of that economy then I’m not sure
I can help you.

~~~
candiodari
Spoken as a true economic academic, well, an Austrian one.

But no worries. I can help you: you have seen your house, right ? The
university building ? At the front, there's a door. Walk through and don't
walk through again until you've talked to 10 young people working there about
their lives. Go into the country and talk to anyone. Note how rapidly
anecdotal evidence builds up that seems to contradict your basic claim here ?

~~~
drcongo
Oh right, you’re a “what people believe is more important than facts”
brexiteer, I get why it’s impossible for you to see reason now.

~~~
candiodari
Nope I'm very much a facts person. For low wage workers Brexit is a far better
alternative to EU: less competition for low end labor means higher wages.

No Brexit will damage people higher up mostly. That's the view, and that's
correct. Or a fact, if you will.

~~~
laaph
Brexit will not damage anyone higher up. If it becomes damaging, they leave
for another country.

Brexit will take that option away from anyone with lower wages, however.

------
agurk
> Churchill displayed in his long career a similarly imperial insouciance
> toward Ireland, sending countless young Irishmen to their deaths in a
> catastrophic military fiasco at Gallipoli, Turkey, during World War I and
> unleashing brutal paramilitaries against Irish nationalists in 1920.

I was unaware of the Irish serving at Gallipoli so I looked it up[0] and
apparently 15,000 served with 3,000 fatalities - a similar number to New
Zealanders.

Interestingly there never was conscription in Ireland - it was planned later
in the war but never implemented due to the crisis it created[1].

[0] [https://www.independent.ie/life/world-war-1/sea-at-
gallipoli...](https://www.independent.ie/life/world-war-1/sea-at-gallipoli-
ran-red-with-irish-blood-30270528.html)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1918](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1918)

------
earnubs
To quote Marcus Leroux (@marcusleroux):

"I will accept being called a settler by the New York Times only if the New
York Times accepts it is a settler publication. (Plantation of Ulster: 1609.
Arrival of Mayflower at the conveniently-named Plymouth Rock: 1620)."

[https://twitter.com/marcusleroux/status/1085885980173832192](https://twitter.com/marcusleroux/status/1085885980173832192)

~~~
borvo
He misses the point by a mile, as do his twitter correspondents. If we're to
indulge him let's ask if the staff of the "nytimes" consider themselves
"American" or if they're stuck in a time warp clinging to a 1609 "British"
identity that even the British no longer recognize.

------
gaius
_imposing a patently unworkable timetable of two years_

That simply isn’t true - the 2 years is written into Article 50! Any PM would
have faced the same timetable.

~~~
sago
I think the point is that there was no compulsion to begin the two-year
countdown before any plan was formed or a strategy agreed.

I agree that I don't think another PM would've been obviously more clear
thinking. And I also think two years should've been plenty of time, if the
government hadn't run the clock down quite so spectacularly. As late as
October, EU negotiators were pleading with Britain to figure out what deal it
wanted.

But the comparison with Mountbatten isn't invalid: the timing itself is a
self-inflicted wound.

------
sctb
Related discussion from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18935572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18935572).

