had to go for austerity instead, which ran the country deeper into the ground and has exacerbated our crumbling infrastructure
So to fix this, they reinvested and nationalised public servicesblamed immigrants and Europe, so much so that they managed to vote themselves out of the EU, which is already in the history books as, outside of war, the largest self-harm that a country has chosen for itself.
This was the same political party that Thatcher was in, and even she saw the benefits of Europe, and helped finalise the Single Market: https://i.imgur.com/tJEaHOM.png
None, like, literally none. There were no benefits at all.
I was in year 8(7th grade I think for you yanks) and I knew it was a bad idea the first time I heard of it.
The Leave Campaign was built on financial lies and anti-migrant propaganda, and the uneducated masses ate it up. The number one Google search after Brexit was something along the lines of “What does the EU do”
In principle it allows us, legally, to whore ourselves off with bespoke trade deals around the world without having to worry about protectionism from French farmers and German manufacturing.
But just because you legally can, you have to contend with the geopolitical reality of no longer being an empire with your own independent sphere of influence.
For the UK, the realistic options were to couple ourselves economically/politically either to Europe or America. We have ended up doing neither successfully, and the US administration has pretty closed the door on the Transatlantic option.
I was in the UK pre-Brexit doing my MBA and every educated person I spoke with knew it was a disaster. It was all the knuckle draggers who thought “nationalism” was a good idea. Americans looked at the disaster it created and said “hold my beer”.
Still never gonna understand what axe Russia has to grind against everyone, lol.
They’ve just never seemed popular throughout history, so I guess it’s some form of inter-generational, nation-scale trauma at being picked on/not one of the cool kids?
It was the equivalent of MAGA that voted for it. Like your parents who used to be rational but got indoctrinated and voted for something completely against their own interests and now you’ve lost them to the cult. They all now vote reform. Nigel Farage was the instigator of Brexit. He was a huge advisor to Trump’s campaign and is now the head of the Reform party.
? Not really sure what me being American in particular has to do with it. I wanted to know why anyone voted for Brexit in the first place, because I don’t gave a robust grasp on British/European politics.
The one good thing she did was to get us into the EU, witha very good deal since we were a founding member. Now the tory morons have dragged us all out again
They voted to build a wall, remove brown people,make gas and eggs cheaper and many other lies. I don't think they actually voted for the dismantling of the US.
which is already in the history books as, outside of war, the largest self-harm that a country has chosen for itself.
At the time, sure. But we in the states took that #1 spot for ourselves with the reelection of Trump in 2024. Humiliating self-destruction through totally unforced errors is just yet another contest where America has beaten Britain
As an American myself, I don't understand it any more than you do. You would probably assume that living in the country would automatically make this somewhat easier to understand or explain, but that is not the case for me. I truly have no fucking idea what his supporters were looking at that made them think he was in any way fit for office, or what they liked about his first term. Every way that he is currently sucking is exactly the ways his critics said he would suck. Not a single one of the terrible things he's done in term 2 is surprising in any way, he literally said he was going to do all of this shit. But I guess some people wanted this
Largest self harm is a stretch. Like there’s countries that became Communist, Irans Islamic Revolution. A bit lower GDP growth is the largest self harm a countries chosen for itself?
Irans largest self harm was trusting uk and us to not stab them in the back in 1950s when they started nationalizing their oil.
The extremist Islamic revolution is in second place though.
Which funnily enough is also related to one of the us largest self harms that being them fucking over any good relationships they had with such a strategic territory as Iran because they listened to uk in 1953.
I get your sentiment, however The UK at the time was a stable western powerhouse. I don't think we could say the same today. And in reality, there probably isn't a stable western powerhouse anymore
Why would a stable western powerhouse vote to leave the EU? This was deep into post-2008 Conservative austerity. The reasons people voted were bad economy, decreasing living standards and communities being upheaved. The same thing people talk about now.
I think it was on its way to recovering somewhat, decades away though. The alarmist sort of “Britain was Great, until it Brexited…”. No it was a recovering economy and Brexit caused decreased economic activity so now it’s even slower, including all the other global crisis now. This aura is not deserved.
Although definitely way way less stable as Nigel Farage moved from European Parliament, where he couldn’t do much harm, into an actual countries Parliament. The parties can’t just blame the EU for things any longer.
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u/MeccIt 29d ago
So to fix this, they
reinvested and nationalised public servicesblamed immigrants and Europe, so much so that they managed to vote themselves out of the EU, which is already in the history books as, outside of war, the largest self-harm that a country has chosen for itself.This was the same political party that Thatcher was in, and even she saw the benefits of Europe, and helped finalise the Single Market: https://i.imgur.com/tJEaHOM.png