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Lettres d'Uzès #60: "when you ain't got nothing ... "

25/6/2016

9 Comments

 
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It is about class. It usually is.
 
Jill and I voted by proxy and with our feet, so we spent the day of the referendum firmly in Europe. During the day, we exchanged our estimates of the majority for Remain with fellow ex-pats and with French friends. That night, having watched the Red Sox beat the White Sox 8-7 in extra innings, I reflected that the referendum result might be equally tight. 52-48 Remain seemed to be the consensus.
 
At no point had it crossed my mind that the Leave campaign would win. In England, only one friend had confided that he was going to vote that way. In France, I know no-one of any nationality who thinks that the the UK would be better off out, nor that Europe would be better off without the UK.
 
It started slowly. Gibraltar voted Remain with an unanimity which would have put Stalin’s Soviet Union to shame followed by Newcastle – tight but pro-Remain. The egregious Farage appeared with inside information from his ‘mates in the City’ who had told him Remain had edged it.
 
Then came Sunderland. Then Sheffield. And we all knew we had lost it.
 
We had lost it because, despite the evidence of the General Election, we had failed to understand that the austerity imposed by the Tories had left the working class throughout the north and Midlands without hope. “How can it get any worse?” asked a woman in Hartlepool to a bemused BBC journalist, who was patronizingly attempting to explain the economic case for Remain and the Osborne-briefed consequences of Leave.
 
As we have noted many times before, the present government has imposed an economic policy which owes nothing to economics and everything to political ideology.

To ensure and reinforce the hegemony of a privileged and super-rich elite, Osborne has bought the middle-class. Literally.
 
People like me have colluded with them. And while we may embrace the EU in the same way as we embrace our multi-cultural and multi-racial lifestyle, we need to remember that for many years the Tories have made the EU their whipping-boy. Boris Johnson, in a previous life as a Brussels correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper, famously invented and exaggerated scare stories. But despite his best efforts to appear so, he is not daft. He knew the way the wind was blowing.
 
Cameron did not. A shallow chancer, he has no idea of the world beyond his circle. And every time that I saw the leaflets and social media posts listing those who were pro Remain and those pro Leave, I knew it was losing us votes. Lined up to encourage us to stay were the great, the good and the loaded of the establishment - all powerful individuals, almost all millionaires or more. They were the leaders of political parties, governors of banks, CEOs of multi-national companies who paid less corporation tax than I do, non-doms and tax exiles who nonetheless control vast swathes of our economy.
 
Even I, a passionate European, was occasionally tempted to register my protest against this overwhelming show of force from the haves against the have-nots. I didn't. Remain and reform was my position.

I regret the Leave vote, but I do not blame the Leave voters.

Most are not racist, nor are they bigots. They are certainly not fascists, nor are they unthinking. They are people who have experienced a simple truth of the class society.
 
“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Some variété Française - Cabrel, Greco, Debussy.
9 Comments
Chris
25/6/2016 06:01:22 pm

That about sums it up. The ageing middle class has been paid off. It has taken careerist toffs to provide the people with a voice.

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Allan
25/6/2016 06:22:21 pm

Remain and reform being the Corbyn position of course, and I agree too. Despite the Blairite rumpus and vote of no confidence, 60% of Labour voters in the last election voted to Remain in the referendum. Which is a hell of a lot larger percentage than Tory voters. The current bullshit about Corbyn's perceived lack of 'leadership' is press babble, their inability to see anything beyond personalities. That's why Johnson is where he is today and, dreadful prospect, where he will probably be in October.

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MikeB
26/6/2016 07:45:16 am

All true and the fallout is seismic. Just a thought re Corbyn's leadership. I saw a lot of Corbyn but never a word from Hilary Benn.

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MartinH
26/6/2016 02:42:57 pm

I'm with you much of the way and accept the class division analysis. What I don't get and you don't address is the affluent Tory areas voting against. Arundel?! This cannot be self interest. And they only see EU migrants on Tv. So maybe it is little Englander bigotry after all. Or are they so completely in thrall to the Torygraph and the Mail that they have lost all reason.

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John
27/6/2016 07:01:23 am

It was a protest, an opportunity to register discontent, mistrust of Westminster. And typically, Westminster doesn't get it. The implosion of the Labour Parliamentary Party though not the Labour Party itself shows how far removed from reality these people are. Where were these unknown people. Not campaigning actively to remain, that's for sure. Can anyone find a single speech by Hilary Benn? As for the Tories, they are still playing out their fifty year old disagreements and screwing the country at the same time. A disaster from every point of view.

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max
27/6/2016 08:10:30 am

I wrote this early on the Saturday after the vote, after spending Friday in shock. Since when things have changed. Leavers are backtracking, Poles and Asians are being racially targeted, and the ancien regime in the PLP are attempting a coup against a man who made a thoughtful, sensible and realistic approach to the issue. Meanwhile, the people are helpless and powerless. Once again, what happens will be decided in cabals Chez Benn and Chez Johnson.

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Dan
27/6/2016 02:41:01 pm

As you quoted in an earlier post, narrative beats competence. What a fucking mess. Cameron and Osborne shown to be the total chancers we always knew them to be.

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Chris
27/6/2016 02:55:15 pm

Corbyn criticised for giving EU 7.5 out of 10. Is 75%. But 51.9 equals overwhelming endorsement.

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Marg Roberts
30/6/2016 02:24:30 pm

Much of what you say is true but all the Leave votes weren't cast by disenfranchised working class people. Many I spoke to blamed the EU for problems as far reaching as the voltage of hair dryers and the loss of our fishing industry. Another wanted 'excitement'. On Friday morning most in the gym celebrated. By Monday morning, the implications were becoming real. I might feel better if I knew who to blame, but I don't. Enjoy France, Max and Jill!

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Leamington Spa, England.

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