It has also done the same for lot of people in the rest of the EU who before believed the same far-right populist fables about how great it would be to leave the EU, which is why the far-right in those countries doesn’t talk about that anymore.
I lived in a couple of countries in the EU and my impression was that Britain was the best candidate of all in the EU to fall for the whole “We would be better of outside the EU” because they were the ones who looked back to the years before entering the EU and mainly saw a great Great Britain (an image relentlessly beautified and pushed by local media right, which is why even now almost a century after it a “new British film coming out about how Britain pretty much singlehandedly won WWI” is still a regular event and news about international affairs in Britain tend to be either spinning Britain as having great influence in the World or “look at that tupid thing happening in that country, this would never happen in Old Blighty [as we’re superior to those foreigners]” news pieces) so it was easy for such Delusions Of National Greatness to be turned into Brexit by outside influences (namely, American - just look up who funded Cambridge Analitica to spread pro-Leave propaganda).
After the subsequent shitshow with the “most likely nation in the EU to fall for Alone We’re Stronger bollocks” none of the larger nations left in the EU (which are just mid-sized nations in World terms) have any illusions that leaving would make them better of (plus people there already had fewer delusions of greatness to begin with than Brits), whilst the smaller nations never had any fond memories of time before the EU when they were little more than kicking balls for the bigger nations, to begin with.
All this to say that the country were an EU exit was most easy to leverage by foreign interests has already had that happen and the result stands as an example that further deters the idea of leaving in the few EU countries were the idea that “we were stronger alone” ever had more than a handful of believers.
That racks with what it looks like from here. It was also a perfect storm of events to cause it. The old wanted the glory of the empire back. The young were lashing out at the PM for unrelated reasons. Enough of the middle aged brought into Boris’ lies.
That combined with leave having an excellent campaign, while remain were lackluster to non-existent. Lastly, enough remain voters couldn’t comprehend enough people being stupid enough for it to matter, and so didn’t bother voting.
The rich then latched onto it, and ran away with it. It let them both firesale the UK economy, and dodge some embarrassing tax rules Europe was bringing in.
I’m glad there has been some benefits to it. Even if they are just “look at what happened to those idiots, don’t do that!”
My theory is that the Remain campaign was so weak because, after decades of both the traditional Tories and New Labour blaming the EU for anything bad that happened in Britain and for unpopular measures (most notably measures which they themselves introduced and pushed for at the EU level), actually admitting the good things of the EU would make obvious they previous lies and deceit, so instead they just restricted themselves in that campaign to only these things which wouldn’t contradict their previous words, at that was pretty much just “staying in the EU is good for Britain, trust us”, a weak message at a time when (not least due to the 2008 Crash and the subsequent choice for “Money for Bankers, Austerity for the rest”) the trust in mainstream British politicians was already pretty low.
It has taught a lot of Brits how good being in the EU was (by taking away the benefits). All the “advantages” have also evaporated like pixy dust.
It has also done the same for lot of people in the rest of the EU who before believed the same far-right populist fables about how great it would be to leave the EU, which is why the far-right in those countries doesn’t talk about that anymore.
I lived in a couple of countries in the EU and my impression was that Britain was the best candidate of all in the EU to fall for the whole “We would be better of outside the EU” because they were the ones who looked back to the years before entering the EU and mainly saw a great Great Britain (an image relentlessly beautified and pushed by local media right, which is why even now almost a century after it a “new British film coming out about how Britain pretty much singlehandedly won WWI” is still a regular event and news about international affairs in Britain tend to be either spinning Britain as having great influence in the World or “look at that tupid thing happening in that country, this would never happen in Old Blighty [as we’re superior to those foreigners]” news pieces) so it was easy for such Delusions Of National Greatness to be turned into Brexit by outside influences (namely, American - just look up who funded Cambridge Analitica to spread pro-Leave propaganda).
After the subsequent shitshow with the “most likely nation in the EU to fall for Alone We’re Stronger bollocks” none of the larger nations left in the EU (which are just mid-sized nations in World terms) have any illusions that leaving would make them better of (plus people there already had fewer delusions of greatness to begin with than Brits), whilst the smaller nations never had any fond memories of time before the EU when they were little more than kicking balls for the bigger nations, to begin with.
All this to say that the country were an EU exit was most easy to leverage by foreign interests has already had that happen and the result stands as an example that further deters the idea of leaving in the few EU countries were the idea that “we were stronger alone” ever had more than a handful of believers.
That racks with what it looks like from here. It was also a perfect storm of events to cause it. The old wanted the glory of the empire back. The young were lashing out at the PM for unrelated reasons. Enough of the middle aged brought into Boris’ lies.
That combined with leave having an excellent campaign, while remain were lackluster to non-existent. Lastly, enough remain voters couldn’t comprehend enough people being stupid enough for it to matter, and so didn’t bother voting.
The rich then latched onto it, and ran away with it. It let them both firesale the UK economy, and dodge some embarrassing tax rules Europe was bringing in.
I’m glad there has been some benefits to it. Even if they are just “look at what happened to those idiots, don’t do that!”
My theory is that the Remain campaign was so weak because, after decades of both the traditional Tories and New Labour blaming the EU for anything bad that happened in Britain and for unpopular measures (most notably measures which they themselves introduced and pushed for at the EU level), actually admitting the good things of the EU would make obvious they previous lies and deceit, so instead they just restricted themselves in that campaign to only these things which wouldn’t contradict their previous words, at that was pretty much just “staying in the EU is good for Britain, trust us”, a weak message at a time when (not least due to the 2008 Crash and the subsequent choice for “Money for Bankers, Austerity for the rest”) the trust in mainstream British politicians was already pretty low.