Charlie Stross is in excellent form this morning about the likely outcomes from last night’s Brexit vote, hitting all the highlights: collapse of the finance sector when Euro-denominated derivatives trades relocate to an EU state; collapse of the London property market (a big deal as 40% of the UK’s national wealth is property in the southeast); secession risks for Scotland and Northern Ireland; the increased legitimacy of the reactionary right and xenophobia and racism as the “shy UKIPpers” realise (or claim) that they were more numerous than they had believed.
The Tories will have a leadership change. As they didn’t bother to appoint a deputy PM when they took office, secession is unclear. Labour – whose neoliberal wing have been stabbing Corbyn in the back since his first day as leader – is sharpening their knives again.
One important signal to pay attention to, apropos Labour’s future: There are a lot of Leave voters who come from traditional Labour strongholds and demographics. It’s a mistake to dismiss them all as bigots. Many of them see no future for themselves, and also feel unrepresented by the political mainstream (why would a working person vote for the party of Tony Blair?). They opted to let the country burn. Margaret Thatcher told them there was “no alternative” and given that calculus, Remain becomes a vote that doesn’t serve your interests, and Leave is also a vote that doesn’t serve your interests, but has the advantage of punishing the bastards who put you in that situation.
When Americans wonder whether the lesson that US voters will take from the UK post-Leave economic collapse is to vote against Trump, on the grounds that he is the American Farage, remember this: the support for Leave wasn’t just opposition to the EU, it was also the sense that the “progressive” side had no use for neoliberalism’s losers. If Labour moves a Blairite or a Milliband-alike into the leadership seat, expect those voters to continue to vote for “none of the above,” even when it cuts their own throats.
A narrative among Clinton supporters about Bernie backers who say they’ll vote Trump rather than Clinton is that they’re radical leftists exhibiting depraved indifference to the undeniable horrors of a Trump presidency. There may be some voters who fit that description, but I believe a much larger pool is a “none of the above” group who think – correctly – that the establishments of both parties are willing to throw them and their children under the bus (with TPP, harsh criminal “justice” reforms, Wall Street bailouts, mass surveillance, pointless foreign wars, destruction of the social safety net) and will vote for anyone who promises any kind of alternative, even a nightmarish one.
Here’s my lesson from Brexit: when you’ve got nothing to lose, and you’re being asked to vote between someone who’ll be terrible for you but good for the people who took everything you love; and someone who’ll be a disaster for everyone, including the people who screwed you over, even terrible choices can seem good. It’s a mistake to think that Trump supporters all believe that he’ll be good for the country: plenty just believe that he’ll visit their tormentors with the kind of misery they’ve endured since the Reagan years.
