Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on Whether nationalism is really the fever and liberalism the normal condition.

Sorry, John, but you can’t understand the present without understanding how we got here. The British Archipelago is at the edge of a vast continent which stretches from Japan to the Atlantic coast of Europe. It has a temperate climate and is endowed with a variety of natural resources.

Therefore it is a place that people might want to get to. It is also a place where it would be inevitable that the natural movements of people would have to stop, regroup and develop the technologies to move further because no-one arrived here who was able to walk on water, let … Read the rest

There was this:

“How did you vote?” said Pooh.

“Leave,” said Piglet.

“I voted remain,” said Pooh.

“Are we still friends?” said Piglet.

“Yes…yes we’re still friends,” said Pooh.

“Good,” said Piglet. “Let’s go and get pissed.”

Jennie Stevenson tweaked it slightly.

“How did you vote?” said Pooh.

“Leave,” said Piglet.

“I voted remain,” said Pooh.

“Are we still friends?” said Piglet.

“Well to be honest, I’m not really sure” said Pooh, uncharacteristically thoughtfully. “It’s a complex issue and not really one that can be reduced to seven lines of text for the purposes of a rather twee meme.

“On the one hand, a belief in unity, that we’re stronger together, and that when we work as a team

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn sacked Hilary Benn in the middle of the night and many Labour MPs have quit the shadow cabinet in response, while the BBC is reporting that Corbyn sabotaged the Remain campaign.

Interesting times.

The latest update from the Guardian:

Writing for the Guardian, Phil Wilson – the chair of the Labour in for Britain group – has called on Jeremy Corbyn to resign, claiming he sabotaged the party’s remain campaign.

[Corbyn] himself issued a note to all MPs on 17 September 2015 telling them that Labour would campaign to remain in the European Union. And yet he decided to go on holiday in the middle of the campaign. He did not visit the Labour

There’s a public Facebook album of screengrabs of xenophobic or racist bullying.

There is much, much more.… Read the rest

The Guardian reports on the hideous fallout of the Brexit vote:

People have been reporting incidents of racism believed to be fuelled by the result of the EU referendum, including alleged racist graffiti and cards reading “no more Polish vermin” posted through letterboxes.

Suspected racist graffiti was found on the front entrance of the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith, west London, early on Sunday morning.

…

The incident comes as Cambridgeshire police are investigating reports of racist laminated cards being distributed in Huntingdon on Friday in the hours after the leave result was announced.

According to reports from the Cambridge News, a number of cards saying “Leave the EU/No more Polish vermin” in both

Guest post by Pieter Droogendijk, originally on Facebook.

It’s a particular kind of person that calls for leaving the E.U, and congratulates the U.K. for doing so. Lots of labels have been used to describe them. Racists, bigots, isolationists, xenophobes, whatever. They may be some of those, or even most of those, but not one of them describes everyone.

But there is one label that describes them all:

Nationalist.

Every one of them thinks Britain is better on its own. ‘Cause fuck everyone else, right? We don’t need the krauts, or the poles, or those milk-drinking clog-fuckers in the Netherlands! Fuck Brussels, and fuck the E.U. We’re the best, ’cause Great is in the name, son!

Nationalism. And it’s … Read the rest

This post by Tom Short has 32,504 shares on Facebook at the moment – by the time you look it will be more. Thoughtful friends of mine have shared it. It’s interesting.

If Boris Johnson looked downbeat yesterday, that is because he realises that he has lost.

Perhaps many Brexiters do not realise it yet, but they have actually lost, and it is all down to one man: David Cameron.

With one fell swoop yesterday at 9:15 am, Cameron effectively annulled the referendum result, and simultaneously destroyed the political careers of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and leading Brexiters who cost him so much anguish, not to mention his premiership.

How?

Throughout the campaign, Cameron had repeatedly said that a

Nick Cohen says pay attention to the lies.

I am not going to be over-dainty about mendacity. Politicians, including Remain politicians lie, as do the rest of us. But not since Suez has the nation’s fate been decided by politicians who knowingly made a straight, shameless, incontrovertible lie the first plank of their campaign. Vote Leave assured the electorate it would reclaim a supposed £350m Brussels takes from us each week. They knew it was a lie. Between them, they promised to spend £111bn on the NHS, cuts to VAT and council tax, higher pensions, a better transport system and replacements for the EU subsidies to the arts, science, farmers and deprived regions. When boring experts said that, far

Benjamin Wallace-Wells at the New Yorker raises the possibility that has me clutching the blankets in fear.

The question this ultimately raises is whether nationalism is really the fever and liberalism the normal condition, or whether it might be the other way around. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy’s party of the center-right and Marine Le Pen’s party of the nationalist far-right are leading early polling for next year’s Presidential election, with the parties of the left and center-left trailing well behind. In the U.K., the majority of voters now appear to be more nationalist than David Cameron’s Tories were. The Tories have become Boris Johnson’s party, and even further to the right there is the ascendant United Kingdom Independence Party. The

The New Yorker puts it very aptly:

The artist is Barry Blitt.… Read the rest

Jim Al-Khalili on Twitter:

Sad and shocked this morning. Presumably as an immigrant I should hand my job back to whoever it is I took it from. A victory for xenophobia

Some replies:

Phoenix on the Right ‏@BigButterNutJoe 5 hours ago
@jimalkhalili You should absolutely leave. What kind of Brit has a last name like Al-Khalili? Your people have a home.

TJWP ‏@Hriob_Zagel 5 hours ago
TJWP Retweeted
Well with an attitude like that you should probably leave since you don’t seem to support the county to begin with. https://twitter.com/jimalkhalili/status/746207671515123714 …

Randolph Carter ‏@occidissident 5 hours ago
Randolph Carter Retweeted
That’s a start. Then self-deportation. Take your skill set and benefit your own country, your own people #brexit https://twitter.com/jimalkhalili/status/746207671515123714

The Washington Post shares a depressing fact:

Awakening to a stock market plunge and a precipitous decline in the value of the pound that Britain hasn’t seen in more than 30 years, voters now face a series of economic shocks that analysts say will only worsen before they improve. The consequences of the leave vote will be felt worldwide, even here in the United States, and some British voters say they now regret casting a ballot in favor of Brexit.

“Even though I voted to leave, this morning I woke up and I just — the reality did actually hit me,” one woman told the news channel ITV News. “If I’d had the opportunity to vote

I’m seeing this all over Facebook:

#Brexit – A Still Life pic.twitter.com/lRrDhP14up

— William Gould (@willgupshup) June 24, 2016

I actually remember that Britain, the one that had never heard of quiche or hummus or gelato, the one where “baked” beans on toast was considered an acceptable meal.… Read the rest