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Politics, politics, politics

I normally fulminate at this point about the luddite populist fudgewittery of the 2010 government scrapping the national ID register, but nobody on the Internet ever agrees with me on that.
 
The Times article you linked to previously opens with a French crack squad of nationalists patrolling the Alps, and Africian not Syrian migrants walking across the border. What we forget with all of this stuff, is its not necessarily rational, its emotional. Politicans don't need to deliver practical solutions always, they need to deliver an emotional one. France, Germany, Italy, Hungry, Poland etc all have sizable chunks of their populations who are not happy with migration across open borders. The UK is the same. So there is real scope for the EU to exercise either the existing controls with FoM or add something, albeit token, to appease the hoopla in places like Bavaria - who have threatened to erect their own regional border posts!

This is real, and there is a solution, one that could work for the the UK and dissolve Brexit.
 
SpurMeUp said:
The Times article you linked to previously opens with a French crack squad of nationalists patrolling the Alps, and Africian not Syrian migrants walking across the border. What we forget with all of this stuff, is its not necessarily rational, its emotional. Politicans don't need to delivery practical solutions always they need to deliver an emotional one. France, Germany, Italy, Hungry, Poland etc all have sizable chunks of their populations who are not happy with migration across open borders. The UK is the same. So there is real scope for the EU to exercise either the existing controls on FoM or add something, albeit, token, to appease the hoopla in places like Bavaria - who have threatened to erect their own regional border posts!

This is real, and there is a solution, one that could work for the the UK and dissolve Brexit.
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You’re still conflating two completely separate issues, though. The emotional factors are as distinct as the policy ones.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
You’re still conflating two completely separate issues, though. The emotional factors are as distinct as the policy ones.
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Well I'm suggesting you address the feeling in the population (emotional) with policy that hits that emotive note. So yes it is conflating the two to appease and address something that has become a real issue. Whether emotional or not it's still a real entity in national psyche. I'm not sure I understand my post either :p
 
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A fair point. Or you could say it stops fascists gaining more power. When things like Brexit, 5 star, Trump etc happen it's not extreme nutters anymore - these are massive swathes of the population - and there is something more subtle going on. To address there are more subtle solutions as well imo. The political classes have failed completely to understanding this, or how to deal with it.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Well I'm suggesting you address the feeling in the population (emotional) with policy that hits that emotive note. So yes it is conflating the two to appease and address something that has become a real issue. Whether emotional or not it's still a real entity in national psyche. I'm not sure I under my post either :p
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Yep. “Appease” is a word with baggage for just that reason!
 
I believe the bigger percentage of illegal immigration is now from African countries and is primarily for economic reasons, unsurprisingly.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
Yep. “Appease” is a word with baggage for just that reason!
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Its appease because you and I don't share the concerns about migration. But it would be remiss or blinkered not to recognise real concerns others have. From my perspective its appease. From theirs its address.

ALmost impossible to do, but imagine you lived hand to mouth because of the work you could get. And these jobs became unavailable because desperate migrants were willing to put up with appalling conditions and take any work. You couldn't be the man you were, couldn't pay for your family etc. If the migrants were not there, you would still have work. Stopping migration would address your reality. From the perspective of those who don't have to worry it is appeasement.
 
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My point was, its not fascists when its half the voting population. Populism (is that the correct term?) is more subtle than you are making it out to be. It requires more subtle solutions. In other words policy needs to address quite delicate concerns that are not fascist but touch on nationalism, pride, older age, flimflam politicians, soundbites, lack of invention and determination to affect change. Doing the same old thing is exactly what people are voting against. To address requires fresh thinking.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Its appease because you and I don't share the concerns about migration. But it would be remiss or blinkered not to recognise real concerns others have. From my perspective its appease. From theirs its address.

ALmost impossible to do, but imagine you lived hand to mouth because of the work you could get. And these jobs became unavailable because desperate migrants were willing to put up with appalling conditions and take any work. You couldn't be the man you were, couldn't pay for your family etc. If the migrants were not there, you would still have work. Stopping migration would address your reality. From those who don't have to worry it is appeasement.
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I don’t think that a majority of Le Pen’s voters, or Grillo’s, or Farage’s, were living in abject poverty. They weren’t worried about putting food in their children’s mouths, they were making rather badly informed bets on what would give them better public services and more opportunities for a better standard of living. Your thought experiment is question-begging because it starts off with an emotive picture which doesn’t really reflect the populist voter base.
 
Oh Syria. It is almost too heartbreaking to look. I posted stuff on it in another thread. Essentially how Hilary Clinton and rich developed nations have a lot of blood on their hands (imo).

You are mollycoddled in a different world. With respect. If you are already doing the lowest paid work, then you are competing with migrant workers. No two ways about it.

I am not suggesting that all the people who vote for populist movements are working for the minimum wage or that the Trumps, Farrages, Bannons don't use cheap 'fear of the other' anti-immigration as a cheap way to win votes, because they do. My point was that populism is not
fascism, even though it sails close to the wind, and secondly the lack of understanding of what populist voters motivations are, is the failing of the political classes. Trump is not all racism. 5 star are not all about migrants. Brexit is not just about immigration. Sure its a part of it, but there is more much more going on.
 
SpurMeUp said:
I am not suggesting that all the people who vote for populist movements are working for the minimum wage or that the Trumps, Farrages, Bannons don't use cheap 'fear of the other' anti-immigration as a cheap way to win votes, because they do. My point was that populism is not
fascism, even though it sails close to the wind, and secondly the lack of understanding of what populist voters motivations are, is the failing of the political classes. Trump is not all racism. 5 star are not all about migrants. Brexit is not just about immigration. Sure its a part of it, but there is more much more going on.
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Yup, but to address it properly, you need to address specific root causes. And those are hyperlocal, industry-tailored. Pretending that there is a global similarity between the root causes - or conflating protectionist sentiment in the UK with that in Italy - is what enables the populist demonology, and explains why they share their memes on a global free market of lies.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
I don’t think that a majority of Le Pen’s voters, or Grillo’s, or Farage’s, were living in abject poverty. They weren’t worried about putting food in their children’s mouths, they were making rather badly informed bets on what would give them better public services and more opportunities for a better standard of living. Your thought experiment is question-begging because it starts off with an emotive picture which doesn’t really reflect the populist voter base.
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The thought experiment was simply about the lack of understanding of others realities. Appease to you is address for another. Of course the issues are complex and people have multiple reasons for not liking immigrants. It could be fear, cultural and is often nothing to do with money. But it is real. And to deny it is real to many people (for a variety of reasons) means it will remain unaddressed.
 
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ShipOfGoldblum said:
Yup, but to address it properly, you need to address specific root causes. And those are hyperlocal, industry-tailored. Pretending that there is a global similarity between the root causes - or conflating protectionist sentiment in the UK with that in Italy - is what enables the populist demonology, and explains why they share their memes on a global free market of lies.
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You don't think there is a trend!? Of course there is something going on. To my mind its a reaction to the same old stale political sphere. A cry for fresh, no nonse, innovation. But its not just one thing, there are a number of elements, alluded to above. Denying there is something happening is to not recognise it, and to remain in a state where you can't address it. That to me is far more dangerous.
 
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If we settle on one factor as the reason for populism then we've missed the real reasonS. Fascism in all its guises needs to be exposed. I agree. But to move forward, people want freshness, more than they want racism - imo.
 
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