Well, it makes just as much sense to blame Indian nationalists who had been long enough in Britain to also get British nationality and voted Leave because they thought immigrants from the EU were competing with immigrants from India (yeah, I knew one such person in Britain when I lived there) or people like the Polish immigrant in Britain interviewed on TV who was pro-Leave because she basically wanted to pull the ladder up now that she was in.
I mean, there is a lot of variously sized categories of assholes you can choose to blame, though arbitrarily picking any on specifically and saying “this is the one who tipped the scales” seems like a poor way to choose somebody to blame for it.
The way I see it, what makes most sense is that blame is proportionate to contribution, which brings me around to the politicians fucking up the country for decades even whilst using “blame the EU” as a get out of jail free card for the consequences of their own policies, the ultra-rich who owned most of those politicians and couldn’t stop themselves from pillaging the nation even when things got really bad in the 2008 Crash (hence why the politicians enacted Austerity AND tax cuts for the rich, which mostly hurt those whose income came from work to help those who income came from Asset ownership), the newspaper and TV channel billionaires whose news-media companies kept pushing Jingoism, anti-EU and anti-Immigration messaging and the politicians who shamelessly pushed for Leave during the actual Referendum with lie, after lie, after lie, manipulating people who had been brainwashed their whole lives into believing Nationalistic Delusions Of Grandeur and who hence did not question things like “because of Britain’s importance, when we leave the EU will give us the same rights as an EU member states without the obligations”.
Also, of course, never forget that a bit over 30% of Britons who explicitly went out and voted Leave - one can hardly exonerate people for actually acting in some way when nobody forced them to.
Of course, the people now telling British newspapers that “Russia interfered in Brexit” are “winners” in the very system that made Britain be as it is - having way more wealth and privilege as the average Briton - so they’re not going to, for example, point at the Rothermere family or Rupert Murdoch and say that the pro-Leave messaging in their newspapers was probably a much more powerful force pushing Britons to become against the EU over the year and ultimately made so many vote Leave than all the foreign influence combined, much less criticize the way the British System is right now with it’s low social mobility and high inequality.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in Britain for more than a decade is that when a posh person says something “controversial” to the mainstream media, they’re doing so in a very calculated way to distract people away from something else or to influence people in a certain way (so in this case, maybe it’s because the Labour government fucked up badly or their new leader is still as much a Terrorist-law-abusing pro-Israel fascist in sheep’s wool as the last one, or maybe it’s to shore up support for Ukraine in Britain by reminding people of the character of present day Russia).
Given how tight the result was it is not unreasonable to believe that Russia tight tip the scale. It idms not certain but entirely possible.
Well, it makes just as much sense to blame Indian nationalists who had been long enough in Britain to also get British nationality and voted Leave because they thought immigrants from the EU were competing with immigrants from India (yeah, I knew one such person in Britain when I lived there) or people like the Polish immigrant in Britain interviewed on TV who was pro-Leave because she basically wanted to pull the ladder up now that she was in.
I mean, there is a lot of variously sized categories of assholes you can choose to blame, though arbitrarily picking any on specifically and saying “this is the one who tipped the scales” seems like a poor way to choose somebody to blame for it.
The way I see it, what makes most sense is that blame is proportionate to contribution, which brings me around to the politicians fucking up the country for decades even whilst using “blame the EU” as a get out of jail free card for the consequences of their own policies, the ultra-rich who owned most of those politicians and couldn’t stop themselves from pillaging the nation even when things got really bad in the 2008 Crash (hence why the politicians enacted Austerity AND tax cuts for the rich, which mostly hurt those whose income came from work to help those who income came from Asset ownership), the newspaper and TV channel billionaires whose news-media companies kept pushing Jingoism, anti-EU and anti-Immigration messaging and the politicians who shamelessly pushed for Leave during the actual Referendum with lie, after lie, after lie, manipulating people who had been brainwashed their whole lives into believing Nationalistic Delusions Of Grandeur and who hence did not question things like “because of Britain’s importance, when we leave the EU will give us the same rights as an EU member states without the obligations”.
Also, of course, never forget that a bit over 30% of Britons who explicitly went out and voted Leave - one can hardly exonerate people for actually acting in some way when nobody forced them to.
Of course, the people now telling British newspapers that “Russia interfered in Brexit” are “winners” in the very system that made Britain be as it is - having way more wealth and privilege as the average Briton - so they’re not going to, for example, point at the Rothermere family or Rupert Murdoch and say that the pro-Leave messaging in their newspapers was probably a much more powerful force pushing Britons to become against the EU over the year and ultimately made so many vote Leave than all the foreign influence combined, much less criticize the way the British System is right now with it’s low social mobility and high inequality.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in Britain for more than a decade is that when a posh person says something “controversial” to the mainstream media, they’re doing so in a very calculated way to distract people away from something else or to influence people in a certain way (so in this case, maybe it’s because the Labour government fucked up badly or their new leader is still as much a Terrorist-law-abusing pro-Israel fascist in sheep’s wool as the last one, or maybe it’s to shore up support for Ukraine in Britain by reminding people of the character of present day Russia).