The next Brexit is less than a month away

The international reactions to Trump's victory are very interesting.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said:

"Trump’s election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people. It is one that has delivered escalating inequality and stagnating or falling living standards for the majority, both in the US and Britain.
"This is a rejection of a failed economic consensus and a governing elite that has been seen not to have listened. And the public anger that has propelled Donald Trump to office has been reflected in political upheavals across the world."

Nigel Farage said:

We now have a President who likes our country and understands our post-Brexit values.
Prepare for further political shocks in the years to come."

But the most interesting statement was made by the Italian bond market.

Italian government bonds slid in the wake of Trump’s stunning victory, reflecting worries that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will lose a referendum on political reform, scheduled for Dec. 4.

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“If protest votes are ‘a thing,’ then the next opportunity for the electorate to express how fed up they are with conventional politics” is for the Italians, Kit Juckes, a London-based strategist at Societe Generale SA, wrote in a note to clients.
“The Italian referendum is probably more about votes in favor or against the establishment and that’s the risk for Renzi,” van Vliet said. “The current polls are pointing in the direction of a ‘no’ which you can probably explain from this anti-establishment perspective and that also presents a danger if you look at the elections next year in many euro-zone countries.”

Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has stated that he will resign if he loses a referendum on constitutional reform, thus triggering an election. Then things will get interesting.

Renzi took power in an internal party coup, and has yet to face a general election. If he is forced to call one, the likely victor is the Five-Star Movement — which is basically just Trump with better jokes. It is committed to a referendum on the country’s membership in the euro. The chances of that resulting in a vote to stay in? Above zero, perhaps — but not by very much. Remember this is a country that has been so impoverished by the euro that it is poorer now than in 2000.
Next up France. It was already a done deal that National Front Leader Marine Le Pen would make the run-off for the presidential election next April and May. Her likely opponent is the center-right Alain Juppe — a politician who has been around so long, and has so much baggage, he is one of the few people in the world who could make Hillary Clinton look fresh and exciting.
If America has a rust-belt problem, so does France – except it’s is even worse. The country’s manufacturing base has been steadily hollowed out since it joined the euro. The result? Mass unemployment and stagnant wages. The conventional wisdom has been that while Le Pen can capture a protest vote, she will never actually win an election. That must surely be toast now — and her commitment to restoring the old French franc has been steadfast.

Anti-Euro parties like National Front and Five-Star Movement gaining power would mean the end of the Euro.
This doesn't even consider the elections next year in smaller nations like Austria and Netherlands.

Back in May, when Donald's Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election seemed the remotest of possibilities, a senior European official took to Twitter before a G7 summit in Tokyo to warn of a "horror scenario".
Imagine, mused the official, if instead of Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, David Cameron and Matteo Renzi, next year's meeting of the club of rich nations included Trump, Marine Le Pen, Boris Johnson and Beppe Grillo.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…just five years, or ten years, or twenty years ago — then it is elementary to predict that a "Brexit-style" vote will occur during any referendum. One should simply assume this and move on, while the slacker analysts invent subversive narrative to place the blame .

Brexitude is a global trend. Sociopolitical information and awareness among the people has reach a certain level of critical mass throughout the world. People can be confident that they have all the information they need to analyze the national situation for themselves and act accordingly. This self-confidence has triggered a profound paradigm shift in attitudes of people toward their government. There's nothing in the least surprising about it, expect it to emerge wherever the wealth of the political class grows exponentially greater than the wealth of the general population. If the general population has grown much poorer and more economically insecure during that time — expect the worst. What could be more logical and moral than for the People to kick the establishment out of government completely, if not incarcerate them for their own protection?

European Neoliberals and Neocons (the Fascists and Neo Nazis of our era) will fall hard and fast. Any austerity levied against the people will elicit terrible experiences for the people doing the levying. Why not Italy first? That was the watercourse way of WWII.

There is far more than enough wealth generated by human activities in developed nations, to allow all of their human population to live very well. Social servants must always live at more modest levels, and from here forward, eschew wealth. They must avoid all conflicts of interest in their lives, or they must pursue a different occupation. Government work is not for them and can become very unhealthy.

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One of the most interesting indicators of a Brexit-type vote is that the People begin lying to the pollsters. Voting commitment goes completely underground.

The US "Brexit-style vote" that took place during the Trump election, was very apparent with the abrupt disappearance of yard signs or bumper stickers in the nation's public squares. Astute observers would be instantly aware that a strategic vote with the purpose of directly benefitting the people, is underway. Expect that vote to also crush the Politically Elite in as many ways as possible.

This is just the sort of spontaneous individual activism that can save the world, when everything else looks hopeless.

By the way, what kind of person would try to link a Brexit vote with racism? Are they part of some future on this planet?

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
solublefish's picture

But I think your analysis is overconfident and perhaps too romantic. Look to your own sig line, and remember: we are the ones who animate the monsters (even if we did not create them).

There is unquestionably racism involved - in the Brexit vote and here as well: in both cases, righteous discontent with the Establishment combined with a heavy dose of racism, fear and ignorance to drive the monsters into positions of power against the better angels that might instead have occupied those posts. Corbyn and Sanders were both driven to the wings and animated caricatures of incompetent rage (certainly in the case of Trump, less so in the case of May) took power.

Consider the US election cycle - the whole of it, including the primaries. Two candidates emerged as champions of the righteous indignation of the people against the corrupt Establishment: Sanders and Trump. Both appealed to the public on the basis of their argument, a correct one, that the system was rigged against ordinary people. But after this they parted.

Trump offered a simple narrative - one with an long pedigree in American history, going back to the late 1870s - and added an authoritarian cast: black and brown people are stealing your wealth and destroying your security. Vote for me and I'll set you free. "Only I" can save you.

Sanders by contrast, placed the issue of inequality firmly in the context of class, and spoke of a movement: the 1% are stealing your wealth and destroying your security. Vote for me and together we can change it.

Trump won. He won in part because his message is simpler and fits more readily into the context of American political culture, which has a LONG history of racial 'populism', and which has been the dominant Republican narrative since 1964/66. By contrast, the economic narrative of social democrats has long fallen into disabuse, collapsing after 1968 and stabbed with a stake in the heart by the Clinton era. In the context of the dominant Republican discourse, Bernie's argument is dissonant: the job creators are the people stealing your jobs and security.

To be able to see and understand that requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of class which most Americans simply do not possess. Like anyone who repeatedly loses a game of 3 card monte, they know when they are being fleeced, but they don't see how it is done. And to be immunized from the attractions of racist and xenophobic fear-based arguments requires an understanding of race (and, arguably, empire) that even fewer Americans posses.

I have simplified the basic argument here, obviously; but I have done so to clarify a basic point in respectful disagreement with your argument. I do not think the voters in general are as thoughtful and educated as you seem to presuppose.

(edited to correct formatting error)

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are so well-stated and clear. And your response is also, I think. I especially appreciate the fact that you point out that the American people aren't very well educated. I hope that will be a big area of discussion going forward.

However, I think one thing the American people know about is what's happening in their own lives. That is something no pundit or progressive analyst can know more about than the people. And what's happening to them in their own lives truly matters.

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a strong, perfectly reflected liberal side to the dominant Republican racial 'populism'.
Namely,

white people are preventing you from getting ahead and are destroying your security. Vote for me and I'll set you free. "Only I" can save you.

And just like the Republican meme, it is simplistic and wrong.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

because we were not allowed to have a head-to-head matchup between Sanders and Trump. Bernie was sidelined, marginalized, cheated, crushed.

That left Trump's bellowing as the ONLY populist voice in the field, and the ONLY way to upset the Corpocratic gilded applecart.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

solublefish's picture

From afar, the whole election is one event, primaries and general included. Two populists went in the door, one came out. The same system that destroyed Bernie did not destroy Trump. Why should that be so? My comment offers one explanation for that.

I agree that the point relies on simplification. But I am not trying to offer a comprehensive or compelling explanation for recent history - just to clarify the reasoning behind my skepticism of Pluto's hopeful picture of the general level of political consciousness among voters here (or in Britain). I don't think too many socialists voted for Trump, nor too many progressives (I could be wrong about that latter one; but I am not inclined to imagine voting for a racist pig to be very progressive). I suspect that most of the people who voted for Trump believe his drivel. And that's a lot of people.

I do agree with you that Bernie would have had a much better chance of defeating Trump than Hillary, had they been allowed to meet in the general - it's the matchup I was hoping for. But I also believe - with Aristotle - that it is in the nature of monstrous systems to produce monsters, at both the top and the bottom of the social order. It has happened on many occasions in the past; and it is happening now around the world: we are not the only country voting up right-wing ethno-nationalists.

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"Socialism never took root in America because the poor do not see themselves as an oppressed proletariat, but as temporary embarrassed millionaires"

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Democrats, we tried to warn you. How is that guilt and shame working out?

solublefish's picture

of the quote is Steinbeck, but he phrased it differently and in a different context:

"I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.

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for this contribution to all we are reading this week. I'm so glad I have read it.

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Kurichan's picture

Drawn during the nation building era that culminated in the settling dust of WWII. You see it in the ME and now in Europe. What this movement holds for the US and the Americas...

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too bad the Democratic leadership decided not to be part of this peoples movement here and aboard. We could have had a real people's leader carrying the Democratic banner but instead....
Henceforth, the republican party could very well be known as the peoples party should they throw us a few more scraps than the dems have...

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There is a global anti-establishment movement going on, and the left isn't part of it.
It's tragic.

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Citizen Of Earth's picture

I call it the Fuck You vote. It's all about throwing sand in the gears of the New Neoliberal World Order when ever possible. Something tells me voting is the most mild action we will see and more forceful manifestations are coming soon.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Bisbonian's picture

I like that. I see bumper stickers and t-shirts.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X