Jul 7 2016

‘We want our country back’ – stop sneering, start listening

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Posted in: EU ref, United Kingdom

By Michael Skey

The post-mortem is now well under way and the general consensus seems to be that those who voted leave were gullible fools led astray by a combination of a partisan press and slick political operators selling a particularly potent brand of snake oil, one part false promises, two parts undiluted bigotry. Notwithstanding the quality of the overall political debate around Brexit (it was awful on both sides), such a view might make Remainers feel better about themselves but offers little in making sense of what actually happened last Thursday and why.

In the lead up to the vote, there were very few who actually got what this was about. John Harris of the Guardian was one of them because he actually bothered to tour the country and talk to people in unglamorous places like Nuneaton (66% Leave), Barking (62% Leave) and Hartlepool (70% Leave). On Wednesday he wrote:

Even those who understand that something seismic is afoot among predominantly working-class voters are still too keen on the idea that they are gullible enough to be led over a cliff by people with whom they would actually disagree, if only they knew the facts. But most people are not really being “led” by anyone. In my experience, Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove et al are viewed by most people with as much cynicism as the people fronting the remain campaign.

What is now happening … in the UK underlines a tangle of other stuff – to do with culture, belonging and community – that is going to require a completely different level of response.

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Posted by: Posted on July 7, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: ,

Jul 4 2016

On Brexit & Control

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Posted in: EU ref, Europe, Migration, United Kingdom

By Tom Gaisford

The EU referendum result was not a triumph for democracy, so much as a symptom of large-scale manipulation. For all the discord and unrest it has unleashed, it may at least serve to enhance global awareness of how mind-control works.

The truth of what happened was that a minority group of politicians garnered support by offering us a rare opportunity to reclaim control of the nation from all those purportedly holding us back. Yet, the politicians’ offer was based on misinformation, designed primarily, it seems, to satisfy their personal ambitions and/or to control the nation themselves.wooden-mannequin-791720_1920

The strategy was no doubt to embolden nostalgic nationalists along with the generally disaffected, by professing to endorse their sovereignty, thereby overriding their willingness to engage critically with their liberators’ bogus prospectus. The message was music to the ears of many. Yet – as betrayed by the absence of any genuine plan – that is all it was.

The referendum vote was as unsafe as it was unrepresentative -­ it deserves as little respect as the architects who contrived it. “Regrexit” is testament to this. Yet, so too is the blind fervour of those who continue to cling to the untruths they invested in, while the country crashes around them.

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Posted by: Posted on July 4, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , , ,

Jun 29 2016

Brexit and Democracy

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Posted in: EU ref, Europe, Euroscepticism, United Kingdom

By Mary Kaldor

320px-PalaceOfWestminsterAtNightThe vote to leave Europe seems to have set off a spate of events spinning in different and dangerous directions. The two main political parties are falling apart. Scottish politicians are already a tabling a second referendum on the independence of Scotland. Sinn Fein politicians are talking about a referendum on a united Ireland. European leaders are calling for haste in separating Britain from the rest of Europe – a haste that will not insulate them from what has happened in Britain and indeed may have the opposite consequences from what they intended.

To me, it feels like the disintegration of Yugoslavia or the events that led to the First World War, where every wrong step contributed to the next wrong step. No-one can assume that these processes of disentanglement will be amicable or smooth. Already hate crime is on the rise in Britain.

The general consensus is that this was a ‘democratic moment’ and that we have to respect a democratic decision. But what does that mean? Certainly it was a populist moment. But surely democracy is about reasoned debate and constitutionalism. This was a failure of our institutions and our unwritten constitution. The vote was called not in response to popular demand but in response to internal differences within the Tory party. The ‘rules’ were ‘agreed’ by the Tory majority in the House of Commons. Commonwealth citizens were allowed to vote but not European citizens resident in Britain who are allowed to vote in local elections and European parliamentary elections. People over the age of 16 were allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum  but not in the EU referendum. And who decided on a simple majority? In most countries with a written constitution, changes of this magnitude require a much bigger majority as well as the agreement of all major regions. Continue reading →

Posted by: Posted on June 29, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , ,

Jun 25 2016

The UK is Reaping What the British Media Have Been Sowing for a Long Time

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Posted in: EU ref, Euroscepticism, Maria Kyriakidou, United Kingdom

By Maria Kyriakidou 

The result of the EU referendum and the now imminent Brexit have been met with shock and disbelief both globally and in the UK. Despite indications by the polls there was still hope that reason would prevail over inwardness, hate and anger. At the same time, however, the result seems to be the sad but natural culmination of a campaign period marked by viciousness, lies and fear-mongering, which has divided the country and unleashed dark powers of nationalistic superiority, racism and xenophobia that would have been hard to deal with, even if the result of the referendum had been different, and the British public had decided to stay within the Union. Emotions have been running high in the last months, and the UK media contributed significantly to this. But their toxic role in the referendum has to be seen beyond this specific historical moment.

anti-immigration-right-wing-press-daily-mailThe Brexit vote is not a vote of protest against the undemocratic, bureaucratic and neoliberal EU, as Lexit supporters would like to believe. It is predominantly a blow against immigration, refugees and transnational solidarity inspired by fear, resentment, nationalism and a historical sense of superiority. These anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and nationalistic feelings have been fomented by decades of racist and xenophobic media coverage, especially in the tabloid and right-wing press. What the referendum did was further legitimise these sentiments by offering them a platform of public expression within the VoteLeave campaign. Once unleashed beyond the domain of the tabloids, such discourses will have a grave impact on the social fabric of society.

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Posted by: Posted on June 25, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , ,

Jun 21 2016

Beachfront Gone Bust: Spain’s Second Home Economy on the Rocks

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Posted in: EU ref, Spain

by Sam Holleran & Max Holleran

Beachfront Gone Bust. 06.22.16 from Sam Holler on Vimeo.

In the early 1950s, Mayor Pedro Zaragoza woke at dawn and left Benidorm, the sleepy-coastal village he governed, to make the 300 mile trip to Madrid by Vespa. The Mayor had an audience with General Francisco Franco—the authoritarian leader who would rule Spain for 35 years (until his death in 1975). Mayor Zaragoza, a devoted Franquista, had a peculiar request for the leader—he wanted permission for bathers on the Town’s beaches to wear a new, French-designed bathing suit. The garment, which exposed a woman’s midriff, was controversial in the deeply Catholic country. The prohibition of the swimwear had led fun-and-sun seeking tourists away from Spain to the more-permissive French Riviera. Hoping to win-back tourists, Zaragoza asked Franco to make Benidorm a special exemption. Franco approved, and the bikini-ban was lifted. The rest is history.

Routemaster_RM2156_in_Benidorm,_Spain_(1)In the years since, Benidorm has risen to towering heights and become a byword for low-cost beachfront tourism. Sun-worshippers flock there in the millions from the soggy polders of Northern Europe, a peach schnapps-infused cocktail bears the name “Sex in Benidorm,” and numerous stag and hen weekend deals direct people there for “the chance to drink themselves stupid” and partake in “Sexy Stripper banquets” (lest they get hungry and have to leave the club). The debouched image is just one quadrant of the City’s tourist economy. Lots of visitors are pensioners (not that this precludes them from the activities above) who rent motorized scooters and enjoy beachfront chair yoga. Many Northern Europeans—dead set on never again donning a down jacket—settle in the region permanently.

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Posted by: Posted on June 21, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , ,

Jun 16 2016

Capitalism Today: The Austrian Presidential Election and the State of the Right and the Left in Europe

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Posted in: Austria, EU ref, Euroscepticism, Nationalism

By Christian Fuchs

Europe Today – Capitalism Today

Europe is in a crisis. Capitalism’s contradictions resulted in a new world economic crisis that exploded in 2008. Governments have bailed out banks and have protected the rich and transnational corporations, while the mass of people has faced hyper-neoliberalism and austerity. The Troika of the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank have under German conduct abandoned Europe’s weakest link Greece by refusing a debt haircut, prolonging the country’s socio-economic crisis without an end in sight, and casting doubt on the existence of solidarity in Europe. Wars and crises have resulted in refugees fleeing their home countries. Europe has failed to respond in a co-ordinated manner. Countries have blamed each other and answered with erecting borders, quotas, and fostering racism and nationalism. On the one side, new progressive movements and parties have emerged. But on the other side, a stronger tendency has been the political manifestation of nationalism, racism, authoritarianism, separatism, right-wing extremism, elements of fascism, spirals of violence, and ideological fundamentalisms. The world system’s violent political mood could be the prelude to the next world war.

The Contemporary Far-Right’s Cell Form: The FPÖ in Austria

In recent years, the far-right has been strengthened in many parts of the world. The strong performance of the Freedom Party (FPÖ)’s candidate Norbert Hofer in the 2016 Austrian presidential election is one of the most recent examples. Is it just an accident that it is Austria, where 2.22 million voters cast their ballot in the second round for the far-right so that its candidate achieved 49.3% of the vote? Could such a political agreement to the far-right have also taken place in another European country because of the ongoing crisis? norbert hofer

In 1986, Kurt Waldheim, member of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) during the Second World War, became Austria’s President. In 1999, Jörg Haider’s leadership of the FPÖ culminated in the party achieving 26.91% in the Austrian general election. The FPÖ became the junior partner in a coalition government led by the Conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). After the FPÖ’s split into two parties and Jörg Haider’s death in 2008, Heinz Christian Strache became the new leading figure of Austria’s far-right. According to polls, 34% of the voters would cast their ballot for the FPÖ if there were general elections in Austria today. The FPÖ would become the strongest party. These examples show that Hofer’s result in the Presidential election is not an exception. Why has the far-right especially in Austria been so strong? There are several dimensions. Continue reading →

Posted by: Posted on June 16, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , , ,

Jun 14 2016

“We Are the Green Ones”: How News on Climate Change Make ‘Us’ European

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Posted in: Europe

By Leif Hemming Pedersen and Magnus Boye Bjerregaard  

Frontpage_illustrationAs research on European integration ever so often seems to point out, the European Union suffers from a democratic deficit. The challenge lies in the distance between lawmakers and citizens, between the EU-elite and the national publics, and between the very national identities of the European people. When searching for a bridge over these distances we just as often end up in a “chicken and egg” type of problem – do we need a common European public to mend the fractures in the European democracy, or do we need a fully democratic union before a common public can arise?
No matter how we view this challenge it seems increasingly clear that the utopian dream of one European people with one common identity united in one common public discussion will not present itself any day soon.
So, in academia, we have set out to look for the EU. We search in the everyday discussions of each national public and first and foremost we search carefully for the EU in the national media. And as we search, the more EU we find in terms of topics, actors and communicative exchange across borders the happier we get. However, the EU we get a glimpse of once in awhile is often not the EU of community, cohesion, and common identity. More often than not, we find an EU that keeps its distance to the citizens, or worse, an EU, which is seen as an external force seeking to usurp the national democracy one directive at a time. This description will be recognized in media across nations such as the UK, Greece, Hungary and Denmark.

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Posted by: Posted on June 14, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , , ,

Jun 9 2016

Will The Real Project Fear Please Stand Up?

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Posted in: EU ref, Europe, Henry Radice, United Kingdom

By Henry Radice

This is the second in a series of pre-referendum opinion pieces, Defenestrations: (Un)Framing the EU Referendum Debate. The first one addressed the issue of the referendum itself, and attracted a powerful rejoinder from Roberto Orsi.

Iain_Duncan-Smith_OfficialOne of the earliest and most frequently employed tropes of Leave campaigners, when challenged with the myriad possible downsides of Brexit, is to deploy the accusation of scaremongering, of engaging in ‘project fear’. The term, which gained currency during the Scottish independence referendum, has a problematic, arguably dangerous role in contemporary British political discourse. It normalises practices of negative campaigning (disguised by populist indignation), contributes to the infantilisation of political discourse and to an anti-meritocratic anti-intellectualism, and fuels anti-political sentiment in the name of pseudo-democracy.

First, the project fear accusation frames the opponent as practicing negative campaigning, which understandably has a bad reputation for using devices such as dog whistles or ad hominem attacks. The power of blanket accusations of scaremongering, though, is that they carefully deploy the playbook of negative campaigning in accusing the opponent of the very same, painting them in a ghoulish light while positioning the accuser as the plucky defender of common sense against a predatory elite. They infantilise political discourse precisely by deliberately blurring the distinction between sober, well-grounded concerns, and lurid speculation. Continue reading →

Posted by: Posted on June 9, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , ,

Jun 6 2016

The Great Pushback: Western Politics and Dynamics of Exclusion

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Posted in: EU ref, Europe, Euroscepticism, Roberto Orsi, United Kingdom

By Roberto Orsi

A recent piece by Henry Radice on this very blog envisages a connection between different phenomena on the two sides of the Atlantic, namely Mr. Cameron’s political tactics (or strategy?), which has led to the Brexit referendum, and the ascent of Mr. Trump as the Republican nominee in the upcoming US presidential elections. The connection would rest in the background of a widespread, growing anger in the US and UK public, in a “toxic culture of political irresponsibility” (in the GOP), and in an unclear identification of the EU’s role in British politics, as well as of Britain’s position within the EU, from the side of many. This bundle of disparate elements is worth exploring.

The author of the present piece, technically an EU (Italian) citizen residing in Japan, has clearly no vote in either US elections or British referenda, and feels obliged to remain as much as possible aloof in relation to those contests, and would certainly not wish to side with any party in the ongoing political debates, which do pertain exclusively to members of the political constituencies concerned. However, expressing an opinion about emerging trends in Western politics appears as somewhat legitimate activity to any Westerner, and such is the aim of this admittedly long piece.

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Posted by: Posted on June 6, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , , ,

Jun 2 2016

EU Migrant Workers’ Welfare Rights: the New Fair Game

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Posted in: Europe, Migration

By Alessio Colonnelli

Political success will be measured by how many EU economic migrants one manages to put off – a race to the bottom gradually spreading across Europe.

migrant-393130__180

Four months before succumbing to leukaemia, Guido Westerwelle conceded his last major interview in Cologne. In November 2015, the German erstwhile foreign minister told Der Spiegel that large sections of society were showing zero tolerance towards refugees.

“When you allow this to happen, you end up on a slippery slope, with no chance of climbing back up. And then you just keep slipping faster and faster,” maintained Westerwelle. To the next question, on how he viewed Europe’s situation, he replied: “It’s worrying… Europe has yet to be accomplished, as a political project I mean. What you build together, can also fall apart. I see lots of centrifugal forces around.”

Soon after this interview, the idea that EU workers shouldn’t be entitled to the same social rights as national workers started to gather serious momentum. It had been in the air for some time. But it never materialised, until Britain got it off the ground and made it viable. Brussels gave it the green light (“fighting abuse of free movement” was how European Council president Donald Tusk defined it), after initially rejecting it for being discriminatory. To restrict benefit entitlement is now seen as desirable. Freedom of movement is still important, no moderates dare question it – but a cornerstone?

Germany is also weighing up EU workers’ benefit entitlements. A bill will soon be debated in the Bundestag. Access to the national welfare safety net may well be restricted in some shape or form. Europeans would be banned from most unemployment benefits for five years following their arrival. The bill, however, also contains provisions to partly help those not entitled to benefits: for four weeks claimants would receive benefits for food and other basic needs. At the same time, they would get a refundable grant to cover travel expenses to get back to their country, where they can ask for social aid.

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Posted by: Posted on June 2, 2016 by Eurocrisis in the Press   Tagged with: , , ,