I'm doing some research to try to understand what is going on with the UK but what I mostly want to know is what other people think about Jeremy Corbyn.
Please if you have any thoughts or opinions on Corbyn, especially regarding particular things he did or did not do, please tell me. Pm if you don't want to reply publicly
@douginamug @resl my perception is he was held to an impossible standard with Brexit.
His own personal position was anti-EU (old school Labour left style — look at who took which side in the 70s referendum). But party policy was pro-EU, and as far as I know he consistently stuck to that position. (It’s obviously not the only thing he differed from the party on, even as leader.)
But that wasn’t good enough for some people — even though he was willing to put his own preference aside in favour of the party’s (and rightly so), the fact that he even had that opinion was unacceptable. (Either because Brexit was such a divisive subject and some people were unwilling to hear nuanced views, or because some people would latch onto anything they could find to criticise Corbyn with, or both.)
@resl @douginamug In short the point is that the EU is a capitalist institution at its core. It’s socially liberal in many ways (within limits) but it’s not clear that it’s compatible with state control of the economy.
From memory: while state-owned enterprises exist within the EU there are limits (perhaps unclear ones?), and it’s sometimes considered a forbidden interferenfe with competition. And so there’s a concern that if a member state tried to go further with nationalisation than had already been tried, EU law would be used to prevent that happening.
The other example that comes to mind is union activity being treated as an anti-competitive action and so also disallowed.
There are also critiques from the left about EU border policy: free movement within the EU (a good thing IMO) comes at the expense of increased enforcement (and violence at its borders (especially the mediterranean).
Squirrel
Doug Webb
ben