Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

What, then, explains Brexit? Mass immigration is another fear across the EU, and it was whipped up in the UK by the Leave campaign, in which Nigel Farage was a conspicuous speaker and organiser, alongside prominent Conservatives. But xenophobia on its own is by no means enough to outweigh fear of economic meltdown. In England, as elsewhere, it has been growing as one government after another has lied about the scale of immigration. But if the referendum on the EU had just been a contest between these fears, as the political establishment sought to make it, Remain would have no doubt won by a handsome margin, as it did in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. There were further factors. After Maastricht, the British political class declined the straitjacket of the euro, only to pursue a native neoliberalism more drastic than any on the continent: first, the financialised hubris of New Labour, plunging Britain into a banking crisis before any other European country, then a Con

" Soon, the United Kingdom will consist of Buckingham Palace, the City, some satanic mills in the north and some desiccated farms elsewhere. So, the debate over the Empire has the soothing quality of a dream world in which it seems alive again, brought to life by the question of how bad, or occasionally good, it was." Empire of Ethics

This is an exageration . Banks, hedge funds, etc, have found in London a safe haven. Panama Files and Roberto Saviano, and others, have demonstrated that Britain financially "is the most corrupt country on earth", the most deregulated financial hub and most aggressive neoliberal economy in Western Europe. Where will banks and their associates find a better place?

Working to rule

British imperialism, the City of London and brexit

Britain The middle-class academic elite is totally out of touch

"Britain has built a national myth on winning the Second World War, but it's distorting our politics"

"The promise of Brexit was steeped in ideology from the very beginning, a fairy tale based on dark chauvinism. The Spanish Armada, Napoleon, Hitler and now the Polish plumbers who allegedly push down wages..." "A wave of anger crashes over Britain"

"The high Conservative vote, and some signal defeats for Labour in the areas where working class xenophobia is entrenched, indicate this will be a long, cultural war. A war of position, as Gramsci called it, not one of manoeuvre. But in that war, a battle has been won. The Tories decided to use Brexit to smash up what’s left of the welfare state, and to recast Britain as the global Singapore. They lost. They are retreating behind a human shield of Orange bigots from Belfast." "Corbyn has won the first battle in a long war" But he is "A mainstream [Scandinavian] social-democrat"

To understand 'brexit', look to Britain's tabloids

In this new Gilded Age, robber barons are no longer the villains

One star down — Banksy

The British PM calls for a snap eelection. — They are not only criminals, they are also clever and they know when to change their minds and to strike  when it is hot. — Another chance for "the public" to elect the criminals (again).

"Brexit reinforces Britain's imperial amnesia"

Brexit means the end of single market access for London

Why the system will still win

" There is nothing socialist about this, nothing social democratic, nothing liberal, nothing progressive, nothing moral, nothing with any optimism or imagination." What is it?

The "British people" have accepted austerity imposed on them because of plunder carried out by the banks. Now "the British people" will have to pay £50+ billion because of a blunder by Cameron and his allies. "The British people", I am almost cetain, will accept this. Juncker, the European Commission president, adds insult to injury with a naive, poor reading of history by praising the criminal racist Churchill.  "We need to settle our affairs not with our hearts full of a feeling of hostility, but with the knowledge that the continent owes a lot to the UK. Without Churchill, we would not be here - we mustn't forget that, but we mustn't be naive."

"When Theresa May sets off to embrace the autocrats in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the other Gulf countries, the democratic opposition in these countries will be even less heard." — Anna Lehman, the Guardian, 18 December 2016 Ah, because this embrace is a new thing! Previous governments were champions of "human rights", trying to overthrow those autocratic families and were always supporting progressive oppositions until Brexit and Theresa came.

After Brexit, here we have another product of neoliberalism (a form of capitalism). So far the effect has been in the two most aggressive countries where neloliberalism have been implemented.  " Trump has won because a (just) sufficient number of people are fed up with the status quo.  Apparently 60% of voters asked at the polling booths reckon that the country “is on the wrong track” and two-thirds were fed up and angry with the Washington government – something Clinton personifies. Like the vote of the Brits for Brexit, against all expectations, a sufficient number of voters in America (mainly white, older and in small businesses or working in failing industries in smaller central US states) have overcome the vote of the youth, the more educated and better-off in the big cities.  But remember hardly more than 50% or so of eligible voters turned out to vote.  A huge swathe of people never vote in American elections and they constitute a sizeable part of the working class.