The "People's Vote" might have a people problem - here's why

Despite gaining support from visibly large crowds of people in the UK, the "People's Vote" campaign for a second Brexit referendum vote demonstrates serious problems engaging with the broader British public on social media.

Local chapter pages of the "People's Vote" movement based on Facebook have insignificant numbers of followers and unremarkable levels of engagement, with the only page with a significant following being a single page that makes heavy use of advertising, titled People's Vote UK. In the case of this page itself, more problems appear.

Looking to the page's posts and the responses is no useful way to assess how British people actually perceive its message, since these posts are likely to have been shared by pro-EU groups and individuals. However, the group does target ads to the general public, and here its claims of popular support begin to look dubious.

Negative comments are being left when the ads appear in people's news feeds

Most visitors to People's Vote UK social media pages are leaving positive comments, but the majority seems to shift to negative comments when the group tries to target the broader public with advertising through news feeds. The resulting barrage of negativity has an effect of drowning out the voices of exasperated EU supporters, who can't tell why they are suddenly faced with offensive comments.

This could be the work of trolls trying to demoralize the pro-EU movement in the UK. But, if so, why are such comments only flooding the page's content when the group tries to advertise to the public? One explanation is that the negative response to the People's Vote campaign actually originates with the campaign's own target audience - the British public.

What is described above hints that the poll data supposedly showing a shift in favor of the UK remaining in the European Union could be dodgy, and there are numerous ways such data could be seriously flawed.

"Leave" may simply have turned quiet and content in their victory, rather than actually losing supporters as the "Remain" camp is fond of claiming. When directly provoked by flooding their news feeds on Facebook they do appear to respond viciously as described above.

Data favoring "Remain" could be flawed because, as well as more eagerly taking part in polls, EU supporters never stopped campaigning. This creates the unrealistic sensation that they have more influence or power, or have now won the debate. Their desire to keep their cause alive through constant adverts, polls, petitions, columns, etc. is clear. The "Leave" campaign, in contrast, is undertaking no similar project to maintain public backing and isn't even watching the polls. Their sole position is that the debate is over and they already won.

So, even if polls and news stories supporting a people's vote do show an accurate cross-section of the population, these are a poor basis to predict a pro-EU victory in a second referendum. The anti-EU side has yet to counterattack or produce its own new slogans and talking points, as it is too busy in power. A decisive lead for pro-EU forces in the polls, while the other side is not campaigning, might become irrelevant as soon as the other side begins a counter-campaign if its plans are really contested.

Treat all this as speculation. Unfortunately, comments on Facebook ads are extremely difficult to capture or prove because Facebook withholds the data once ads go inactive and takes them out of the page's feed itself, allowing posts that receive negative responses to quickly be buried while the page only displays posts that received positive responses. However, you can easily view the comments for yourself if you catch the ads while they are running or see them in your news feed.

Don't take our word for it. Give it a go!

#article: Detailed review: #Corbyn (2016) - @hjbentham review of @leninology book https://t.co/ecTQwCEdif #bestreads pic.twitter.com/mckGAPWZS3 #UK #Labour

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) January 31, 2019

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Brexit will be "An Exit To Nowhere"

Ryan Calhoun

Elites will never be stripped of their privilege by the method of their ascension. The impoverished will never stop being robbed of their potential by handing it over to new elites. The decision by the majority of voting British citizens to leave the European Union has been seen as a mandate against unaccountable technocratic governors in the EU. Objections to this technocracy are not always pretty though. In place of a centralized system of control in Europe, those who voted to leave the EU wish for the tools of power to be shifted back to Britain.

No matter their intentions, and really no matter which side of the vote British citizens found themselves on, very little has changed for the control people have over their own lives. The nationalists wish to take back control of “their borders”. The economic isolationists want control of “their trade”. The Remain voters wish to sustain “their” unity with Europe. No matter the reason, the commonality here is one mass collective illusion. It is the illusion of democratic control and representation. Despite all evidence to the contrary people think this system exists in order to support them, and that a referendum is the best way to assert control.

Democracy has divested common people of control. It has made the individual’s decision making orders of magnitude from mattering. Your participation in the voting process is inconsequential. It may be one of the most inconsequential activities a normal person can engage in. But even if it wasn’t, even if the direction of your vote counted in the re-shuffling of the deck, it will never be you holding the cards. A resentment of technocracy has merely led to a reversion to an earlier model of false representation of your interests. The same institutions that will now decide the fate of borders and trade had previously negotiated away that control, and your opinion on it could not have mattered less.

Now those who had felt so disenfranchised hope to divest others of control, namely the immigrants they begrudgingly deal with now as neighbors. But the logic that denies the right to an open system of migration and residency for immigrants is also an attack on the freedom of natives. National borders advertised as “theirs”, as a tool of sovereignty for the people who call Britain home, is in fact the opposite. It is the tool of British elites. Those with the most political sway in Britain will now get to decide who citizens can communicate with, who they can employ, who they can live with, which countries they are permitted to travel to. It is also the tool of foreign elites, who will carve up trade agreements based on national boundaries rather than on the true will of the individuals. The right to a referendum on this matter is a right to a whispered suggestion in a sea of other whispered suggestions. Will these suggestions enhance your power? No. They merely change some terms of negotiations between the world’s most powerful economic and political interests.

The right to self-determine begins and ends with you. Any domestic ruler of yours telling you otherwise is selling your birthright back to you as a democratic privilege at 1/64,000,000th the value. If you wish to look for the true spirit of sovereign behavior and self-directed action look to your immigrant peers. Look to those who saw the conditions of their homeland they were told represented them, that defined them, that gave power to them. They left. They willed a better life for themselves regardless of borders. The European Union facilitates this behavior for those citizens of member nations, but it too is merely granting technocratic authorization on a matter they have no concern over. Those who cross borders legally and those who cross illegally have an equal moral right to self determination. The EU has acted inclusive of European travel and trade, but that same loathsome bureaucracy prevents you from networking with anyone unpermitted to cross its borders. While nationalist and federalist economic policies ensure the individual citizen’s disempowerment and impoverishment the same power structure is also trapping refugees into encampments rife with human rights violations. The EU is using its unjust and sweeping power to financially strong arm other nations into obedience with its migration policies. What of the sovereignty of people in these countries? Doctors Without Borders recently refused further funding from the EU in their efforts to ensure the health and safety of refugees, objecting to this form of bribery to aid human rights violations. Here is their grievance, from a press release:

“Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East. These deals would impose trade and development aid cuts on countries that do not stem migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential partners are Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan – four of the top ten refugee generating countries.”

Put aside your nationalism. Put aside your false hopes for democratic resolutions. These are false idols. These representatives of your identity you think you have chosen were decided for you by people you have never known, for reasons beyond your interests or understanding. It is time to not reject globalism, but to make it own up to the name. The power to communicate, to network and trade, to travel and connect has never been greater. It should be you that benefits and not some fraudulent system of representatives and delegates. Nations, federations, trading zones carved up by multinationals and political opportunists have grown stronger by keeping the world divided. The Leave Campaign merely shifted the balance. It is time to dismantle it. It is time to demand no less than full access to the social, economic, and technological capacities stolen from you and sold back to capitalist and democratic institutions which have no place in a truly global age. It has kept you down. It has kept the people of your nation and of Europe down. It has nearly destroyed regions of the world and created refugees out of people who wanted nothing more than their home and their communities to prosper as you do. Brexit is over. Let’s start talking about a true exit from this nightmare.

Originally published 28 June, Center for a Stateless Society

https://c4ss.org/content/45494

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EU breakup predicted to follow Brexit

The Blog

With the shocking, rebellious decision of the British people to leave the European Union in a recent referendum, analyses predicting the European Union's breakup should be revisited.

Describing the potential "leave" vote as a big loss for Britain's financial elite, on May 15 2015, historical expert and sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein had stated (as reported at this blog), "public opinion in more countries than Great Britain has become less and less enthusiastic about the EU and parties calling for a withdrawal are gaining strength."

Wallerstein wrote, also, "the EU is divided about how to respond to Russia’s reaffirmation of its political role in Europe, especially in relation to Ukraine. Adding a Brexit to this mix of difficulties might be just too much for the EU. The EU and the eurozone are a house of cards, which might simply collapse".

The EU is now in an economic and political war on two fronts, much as Hitler and Napoleon faced. With the loss of Britain, further political pressure on the EU over the Ukrainian crisis would be extremely demoralizing for remaining EU countries like Germany and France, who remember bitter historic defeats at British and Russian hands. It could be too much, with the EU overwhelmed by the economic and political consequences.

Such an analysis, however, was prior to the "Grexit" vote on Greek withdrawal, which had resulted in Greeks voting to remain in the European Union. The financial effects of a UK withdrawal, meanwhile, are potentially more extreme than Grexit due to Britain's eminent position in the EU and the world economy at large.

Also successfully predicted by Wallerstein was that Cameron would regret his electoral successes, which would ultimately strand him in failures and defeats even despite Scots voting to preserve the Union. With Cameron's resignation now certain, Wallerstein's brutal assessment of 2015-2016 political turbulence has proven true, just as his prediction of growing antistatism and regime collapse in the United States will come true.

Analysis by a different author at the US-based Stratfor intelligence firm just two days before the June 2016 referendum predicted:

If Britain leaves the European Union, it would throw the Continent into yet another political and economic crisis, giving Euroskeptic forces greater ammunition against the bloc and voters fewer reasons to defend it... regardless of what happens June 23, Britain has set a precedent that Brussels cannot stop other EU members from following.

While the French President, for example, has already rejected a request to hold a "Frexit" referendum, it seems abundantly likely that demoralized French and German officials will eventually have to agree to similar votes. With the loss of the second biggest economy in the EU already decided, any departure of its remaining big economies will simply caused the bloc to collapse.

The EU's failures to arrive at any common ground to save relations with Britain could signal greater problems in western supranational organizations and lead to the eventual dissolution of NATO.

Islamic faith irrelevant to Omar Mateen: The BlogCommenting on the work of investigators looking at the attac... https://t.co/s7UlFPXs9b

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) June 24, 2016

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Brexit "beneficial" to trade: committee

The Blog

According to a British Parliamentary committee report, leaving the European Union could actually put Britain at certain economic advantages.

Various media have pointed out the battle of often inaccurate "claims and counter-claims made by both the leave and remain sides", as Treasury Select Committee Chairman Andrew Tyrie MP termed them.

The video below from 38 Degrees shows the endless trading of truths, half-truths and exaggerations by the two campaigns over the future of Britain and the EU.

Tyrie acknowledged, "the Committee confined itself to looking at economic costs and benefits. But this is only part of the story. For some, other issues are more important. As the founder of Leave.eu put it, for him: "this isn't about pounds and pence, it's about democracy"."

The "In" campaign tends to prey on economic fears. Head of Labour's "In" campaign Alan Johnson MP stated, "The economic evidence isn’t so much piling up as becoming a landslide: leaving Europe would hurt Britain’s economy." Anti-democratic war criminal Tony Blair said just holding the EU membership referendum itself is an "enormous economic problem".

However, there are actually strong arguments that leaving Europe would be economically wise and put Britain on a path to restoring its much-depleted international influence and wealth.

Britain outside the EU could enjoy what Tyrie called "potential beneficial opportunities". As the report stated, "high-quality trade agreements with countries like China, India and the United States" may become increasingly possible to sign after the United Kingdom is no longer constrained by EU regulations and dedication to the European market.

It is certain that there would be a major international realignment if Britain was outside the European Union. Whether Britain will become closer to the American regime or be pushed further away from it towards friendlier relations with emerging economies such as China is not clear.

Memorial Day for the military's victims: The BlogWriting ahead of Memorial Day in the US, Garrison Center dir... https://t.co/zqXQ4nvPiA

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US, NATO scared by Brexit referendum

The Blog

Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) would undermine the military goals of the American regime in Europe, Britain's Foreign Affairs Committee admits in a report.

Meanwhile, Britain's own capability to defend itself would be left unaffected by withdrawing from the European Union. The insolent United States would try to ignore Britain, bypassing London to try and control European governments directly - in its continuing hopes to use them as human shields in confrontations with Russia or other states.

The following vital points in the 26 April report "Implications of the referendum on EU membership for the UK's role in the world" were admitted, and deserve attention when it comes to assessing Britain's future relations with the American regime if Britain leaves the EU:

"Since EU defence co-operation remains intergovernmental, withdrawal from the EU should arguably have a relatively minor impact on the UK’s long-term defensive posture and capabilities...

"UK withdrawal from the EU would eventually result in a “diminution of Britain’s influence on both sides of the Atlantic...

"President Obama and his Administration have made it clear that they would prefer the UK to remain inside the EU, where it is generally seen to promote Atlanticist policies (such as TTIP, which the UK has championed in part to bolster the political relationship between the US and EU)...

"outcomes contain risks for the NATO... With the US increasingly looking to its European partners to shoulder more of the burden for their own defence, a weak and divided EU might unsettle the NATO alliance...

"the EU could become more coherent and unified, but—in the absence of the UK—might do so in ways that threaten to decouple it from NATO, damaging the integrity of the transatlantic alliance."

The report omits the fact that Britain would be safer without having strong ties with the extremist regime in Washington, puppet governments in Europe, and the wars they are waging to support the US government and military's vanity. In particular since the 9/11 attacks, the American regime has conflated its own security with its NATO allies and used them as cannon fodder in Afghanistan, relying on the "alliance" to sacrifice the British people without their consent.

Meanwhile, the British Tory government has continued to celebrate its loyalty to Washington, as can be seen from former Foreign Secretary William Hague's belief that there must always be a "pro-American regime" in London and his recent remarks defending President Obama's right to meddle in UK politics.

While the government report uses a negative tone in its view of the "transatlantic alliance" failing, such failure would bring joy to most of the world's population, who have been stomped on and oppressed for years by western forces and live in fear of the west's increasing weapons of mass destruction. As such, people wanting to reduce the US regime's aggression will likely be voting to leave the EU.

Audio book of "Catalyst" coming?: The BlogThe Catalyst thesis this blog is based on may be coming in audio for... https://t.co/C5zrfnwJfb

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) April 22, 2016

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Would a Brexit make any difference?

The Blog

Britain's future in the European Union has been on a lot of minds leading up to the 23 June referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member.

One view is that it ultimately doesn't matter. It is a hollow debate, with either outcome of the Brexit referendum doing nothing to prevent the further subversion of political power in the UK for the interests of corporations.

Blogger Steve Topple draws attention to numerous media materials featuring his work and the European Union in a recent post on 20th March, including seven articles and one video. In one article, Topple notes, "I don’t think a vote either way will make one damned bit of difference as both the EU and UK Governments, as institutions, are controlled by forces greater than themselves – the multinational corporations." He promises to sleep through the entire thing, not caring much for either outcome.

A similarly abstaining view is given at Beliefnet, where a post takes note of the threat to scientific research funding and welfare posed by Britain exiting the EU, but at the same time praises the referendum as "a crucial step in pressuring the EU to rethink its future". The post speculates that Britain leaving the EU could destroy the EU, something that is not in fact the intention of Brexit campaigners who are concerned merely with Britain's future.

What if US elections actually worked?: The BlogIn a recent short post, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp s... https://t.co/etCutaH7i4

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) March 18, 2016

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"Brexit" may need to be prior to 2017

The Blog

The European Union is an "undemocratically corporatized leviathan" and a "proxy for the agendas of the Western Establishment".

This is the view of Steve Topple, breaking with the perspective of much of the proclaimed British political left. Captured in an op-ed at PoliticalSift on 9 October 2015, Topple advocates a strategic British exit ("Brexit") from the EU before 2017.

From the op-ed:

Everything else we now recognise – the EEC, free trade agreements, free movement of people, the ECB – have all been installed as nothing more than levers to further (and protect) the rise of globalised capitalism.

Topple quotes Robert Griffiths, who described the EU as a "monopoly capitalist United States of Europe", explaining that it has become an imperialist actor competing at an increasingly military and economic level with other powers. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which the EU and the US have been negotiating, is sure to undermine the rights of workers and the sovereignty of the public by enabling private firms to sue the public (i.e. their national government). Further criticism is aimed at the European Central Bank and the European Court of Auditors, both of them being corrupt as their members belong to the same financial and corporate special interest groups.

The op-ed warns us that in 2017, EU states are projected to lose their veto rights over key areas of legislation. The EU will become drastically more powerful, with a mere 55% approval for a law in the EU resulting in the implementation of the law, thereby potentially being forced down the throats of entire populations protesting such law. According to Topple, this means the surrender of popular self-determination.

Even more worrying is the fact that states will in that year become unable to withdraw from the EU, according to the EU's new rules, Topple argues. Countries will need, again, 55% approval by the other countries in order to withdraw, and their own people's demands are to be excluded from any say in the process.

@MrTopple @PoliticalSift Curious what mechanism the #EU has in mind for blocking a country unilaterally exiting after 2017. War, perhaps?

— L'Ordre (@LOrdreNet) October 11, 2015

UK Prime Minister David Cameron promised a referendum in late 2017, after the British people will have lost any sovereign right to withdraw from the EU, if Topple's analysis is solid. While the possibility of unilateral withdrawal would still exist, the EU's increasing federalization and calls to construct an army hint at a possible conflict in the event of such "separatism".

Rather than a pure chauvinist iteration of Britain demanded by rightists as the alternative to the EU, however, Topple advocates a "borderless, socialist union" based on majority citizen interests rather than minority financial interests.

Look how @reason got schooled by @c4ssdotorg's @KevinCarson1 on @Pontifex's anti-#capitalism http://t.co/H1BULRHAep pic.twitter.com/rNhrGj8rHJ

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) October 10, 2015

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Greece: long vs short-term poverty?

The Blog

Explaining the dilemma facing Greece on whether to continue austerity to pay off debts, or to fight for "debt forgiveness", Immanuel Wallerstein offered the following commentary.

In order to put things in perspective, Wallerstein gives the following breakdown of the two sets of political actors and their arguments dueling over Greece's economic future:

The "reform" camp (i.e. the EU)

• "Greece’s difficulties are self-created because successive Greek governments and Greek citizens have spent recklessly money they didn’t have in order to sustain a collective life style beyond their level of collective income."
• Greece must cut "collective expenditures in order for it to repay its extensive loans."
• "Over time Greece will emerge stronger."
• Reform camp's "most vocal and uncompromising spokesperson has been Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. He has been making two main arguments: Greece should leave the Eurozone “temporarily” and Greece should be held to the strict payment of all outstanding debts."
• Greece's problems started "essentially when the military dictatorship was overthrown in 1974 and a left party, PASOK, led by Andreas Papandreou, emerged as a major force on the scene. This date puts the blame solidly on Greece itself for adopting the social-democratic policies of successive governments."

Anti-austerity camp (i.e. Syriza's supporters)

• “Austerity” is "cruel and heartless, forcing an ever-growing part of the Greek population into abject poverty." 
• "A regime of austerity will not, cannot lead to an end to the present acute depression in Greece."
• "Each successive loan has increased, not decreased, the rate of unemployment and has made it less possible to achieve its ostensible goal of restoring Greece’s “competitivity” in the world market."
• "Call instead for substantial debt forgiveness and a reversal of the demands of creditors that Greece make cuts in pensions and other parts of the social security net."
• Debt forgiveness has "increasing support from prominent economists like Joseph Stiglitz and from Christine Lagarde, the president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."
• Greece's problems started "earlier, somewhere in the 1930s, when the West European governments, and particularly Germany, imposed a subordinate quasi-colonial system in Greece. This puts the blame squarely on capitalist and imperial forces."

Once it came to power in 2015, the (formerly) radical left party Syriza "had to face up to the dilemmas of being the government, which does not allow the easy positions of being a radical opposition movement".

Syriza betrays the Greek people?

• Syriza promised voters it would not deal with the troika (IMF, The European Central Bank, and the European Union). However, Varoufakis found that no one would talk with him if he didn’t talk with the troika, and had no choice but to break this promise
• Referendum ended in victory for no (OXI) vote against the terms of further austerity
• Greek government committee voted down Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis' "Plan B" or "Grexit on Greece's terms" prompting Varoufakis to resign, despite that he had promised he would resign if the aforementioned vote resulted in a Yes, when in fact it resulted in a No (this confused many people)
• Many now see Syriza leader Tsipras as a "traitor" for agreeing to even harsher reforms than Greece had faced at the beginning of the negotiations

According to Wallerstein, Syriza has proven to disappoint the Greek people through no fault of its own but because of the constraints on any national government that come from the world-system. Any national government has to behave a certain way within the international community and Greece is no exception to this.

Syriza never envisaged any alternative plan than seeking state power, and now that it is in government, it has found that it has almost no options at all. Of the options that do exist, all appear to be bad for Syriza and are likely to result in resentment and a sense of betrayal among Greeks.

The choice facing Greeks can now be narrowed down to the long-term poverty imposed by the terms of loans that Greeks feel they will never be able to repay, and the short-term poverty of leaving the Eurozone. Leaving the Eurozone will have disastrous effects on the standard of living within Greece but will free Greece from the chains of debt. According to Wallerstein, that is the choice facing the Greek people at this juncture.

An alternative economy for the #Greek people and for the whole oppressed world http://t.co/UGE1yG7jZp pic.twitter.com/zMkiCDgwd9

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) July 22, 2015

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Greece (and humanity's) alternatives

The Blog

The antistatist think tank C4SS has an explanation for the betrayal inflicted on the Greek people in their government's recent surrender to European (and US) financial power.

According to an open letter from C4SS social theorist Kevin Carson, the fault for the betrayal of the Greek people rests not with any person but with a misguided plan by left-wing politicians to achieve state power and revise government and corporate policies in order to accommodate the wishes of the people. History has proven that these actions lead to betrayal of the people, as the state's will can be bent by powerful institutions such as banks and corporations, as well as supranational oligarchy and foreign powers. Ultimately, any people who attempt to vote their way to a more humane and compassionate future using the dead end of the capitalist state will end up betrayed.

Syriza's failure to defy the European Union as intended by the Greek people who voted them into power is the triumph of institutions over people: a result that invariably results when one tries to play by the institution's rulebook. The C4SS think tank has an alternative view: Greeks should turn away from the state and focus instead on the development of their own alternative economy, stimulated by a climate of changing technology and increasing individual power. This result is inevitable, but foresight and proactive futurist approaches to Greece's economic oppression could prove to create a real exit for the Greek people from their collective economic misery.

As Carson writes, "hierarchical institutions like states and corporations are becoming obsolete", with piracy, encrypted currencies and the growth of micromanufacturing being the strongest evidence of this trend. Rather than seeing the state, courts, corporations and other monolithic institutions as possible allies, the body politic should instead focus more on circumventing them and ultimately destroying them. The institutions ruling Greece today are thoroughly corrupt, as is any politician who attempts to reform or even negotiate with them. Rather than being respected as authorities, these institutions directing Greece's economy should be regarded as backward or even obscene, and one should invest all effort into eliminating them rather than legitimizing them by trying to co-opt such institutions by starting at the ballot box.

In the conclusion of the C4SS open letter to the Greek people, an alternative economy for the Greek people and for the whole oppressed world is advocated in the following provocative, futurist-inspired paragraphs authored by Kevin Carson:

New, open-source production technologies like micromanufacturing are making high-tech craft tools affordable for individual workers and small cooperative groups — essentially a reversal of the technological shift from individually affordable craft tools to expensive large-scale machinery that led to the factory system. Raised bed, intensive horticulture can produce many times the ouput per hectare of corporate agribusiness. P2P networks with desktop technology can run circles around the old corporate information industries. 

The old corporate dinosaurs and the rentier classes’ large piles of investment capital rely entirely on state-enforced monopolies to stay relevant, attempting to enclose the new technologies of freedom and empowerment within their obsolete corporate framework. Fortunately, the same production technologies that render their capital and institutions superfluous — like file-sharing and encryption — are also rendering their monopolies unenforceable. 

These weapons for building a new society beyond capitalist control are freely available to you right now. And the Central Banks, the IMF and Angela Merkel are powerless to stop you because, unlike the government in Athens, you are not embodied in an official institution over which they can exert leverage. They are fighting a ghost.

Wallerstein: Lat America creeps right: The BlogThe Latin American left may be in a state of self-destruction, ... http://t.co/2vt4hjLngp

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) July 7, 2015

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Wallerstein: "Brexit" may collapse EU

The Blog

Despite winning the UK election, PM David Cameron faces a bitter future for the United Kingdom, world-systems theorist Immanuel Wallerstein predicts.

In a commentary at his widely syndicated column, titled "Post-Britain", Wallerstein uses his famed world-systems analysis to look at the UK as a former "hegemon" of the world-system. It compares with the former United Provinces, now the Netherlands, whose empire similarly dissolved anticlimactically to give way to a new superpower. The last of the Netherlands' power in the world from its days of global dominance was financial, much as the last of Britain's power today is financial.

Wallerstein wrote that David Cameron's government is faced with difficult scenarios and is extremely unlikely to get its way:

Step (a) is to press the EU to “defederalize” further, allowing Great Britain to exempt itself from even more requirements of membership. Step (b) is to call the referendum he has promised the Conservative Party by 2017, but as late as possible. Step (c) is to defeat the referendum, and thus remain in the EU. 

... 

Cameron’s step (a) of further exemptions from EU requirements is unlikely because of strong resistance from other EU members, and notably Germany. Step (b) of defeating the referendum thereby becomes even more unlikely. And therefore step (c) of a Brexit becomes highly likely.

In Wallerstein's analysis, Cameron's government - and its desire to keep Britain as a major financial power - represents the interests of what he calls Britain's financial elite.

The consequences of Britain leaving the EU, an outcome Wallerstein concluded to be likely under the Cameron government, would be severe for the European Union at such a delicate time in its history:

Adding a Brexit to this mix of difficulties might be just too much for the EU. The EU and the eurozone are a house of cards, which might simply collapse.

And of Cameron's fate, Wallerstein concludes:

To go back to the beginning of this analysis, Cameron should savor his unexpected victory in the British elections because he (and Great Britain’s financial elites) may actually come to regret it – quite soon.

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