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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

5 Jan

1/ Brexit politics is built on fear. Frightened people tend to seek security in the tribe. Once that tribe might have been the Labour movement, but now in a fragmented post-industrial society it is the nation. Tribal identification is emotional, not rational.

2/ A tribe that feels under threat wants to control its borders, and who enters into its territory. It demands loyalty and solidarity, and its prime virtue is self-sacrifice - economic arguments won't persuade tribalists. Its members want to feel it is strong and powerful.

3/ Tribalism at a time of crisis is intolerant of dissent. The tribe must pull together against its enemies. Dissent and questioning cause division and disrupt the collective effort. Criticism is seen as treason. The Brexit right have ruthlessly exploited tribal psychology.

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

4 Jan

The Brexit right have conducted a relentless Goebbelsian propaganda campaign year after year. What has Labour done to combat it? Nothing.

Is it then a surprise that politically naive voters have come to believe the Brexit nationalist narrative?

Silence is collaboration.

The Left suffers from a naive tendency to believe that voters will respond rationally to economic facts. Marxism has left a legacy of economic determinism and even centrists tend to believe that economic experiences translate pretty seamlessly into political preferences.

But facts don't directly affect political views. They do so only when given a political meaning by political narratives & frameworks which tell us what political significance to put on a fact.

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

30 Dec 20

@Keir_Starmer

Dear @Keir_Starmer. A politician who wants us to forget about the most destructive right-wing policy in modern British history, and the abuses of democracy, including incitement to violence that were used to obtain it, does not deserve to lead Labour.

Brexit has been driven through by hate and lies, by dark ads, electoral fraud, Russian interference, a campaign of populist intimidation including incitement to violence by press and politicians, repeated attempts to conceal evidence and subvert Parliament.

Brexit has been driven through by a concerted right-wing attack on our democracy. We urgently need to stem the tide of lies and we need to hugely strengthen our democracy's defences, but how can we do that if the Labour leader pretends the attack on our democracy never happened?

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

29 Dec 20

What Starmer should say - "This is a wretched deal that breaks almost every Brexit promise. It is bad for the country and bad for the people. We will not be tricked by Tory scaremongering about a no-deal into supporting this abysmal deal. Labour will abstain."

Brexit is not going to deliver on its promises. People won't feel better because of some wholly imaginary boost to our sovereignty. Support for the deal will tarnish Labour with every Brexit failure.

Much Brexit and Tory support is driven by fear of social change. Frightened people generally want strong leadership. An opposition that looks frightened will only earn contempt.

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

17 Dec 20

1/ The leftist critique of empire, namely that it was a thoroughly bad thing, misses the target. To hit the political right we need to point out that the empire failed, that it collapsed, that its defeat was total and humiliating.

2/ The humiliation and pain of loss of empire was hidden under the lie that it was a graceful withdrawal. And the failure to psychologically process that crushing defeat means that England cannot shake off the dead skin of imperialism, and move on to a realistic new identity.

3/ England as a nation spent around 250 years subsumed in Britain and Empire. It re-emerged angry and empty as a result of rejection and defeat. Its very existence is defined by a loss and humiliation that its partisans can accept physically but not emotionally.

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

@nickreeves9876

17 Dec 20

https://twitter.com/PeterKGeoghegan/status/1339316737695690756

Now and again I argue that Brexit is, in part, a result of a mostly English failure to accept the humiliation of the collapse of empire. So many English cling to an imperialist mentality, even while inwardly seething at the absence of empire. Imperialists without an empire - sad!

https://twitter.com/PeterKGeoghegan/status/1339316737695690756

An empire doesn't disappear gracefully or voluntarily. An empire collapses because of defeat and rejection. The collapse of the British empire was a humiliating defeat, but it was dressed up as a graceful withdrawal. So the English never faced up to the pain and humiliation.

So rather than the English working through the pain and loss of defeat and finding a new identity, many of them hid the pain inside themselves, where it has become a kind of malign festering abscess filled with loss, grief, pain, anger and rage.

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Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

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More from @nickreeves9876

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE

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