Brexit – Pike & Hurricane

YNTR – February 2020: Greece’s floating wall, protests in Chile, Trump’s impeachment, and more

EditorChief — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 16:41:50 +0000

Greece. The Greek government has proposed to set up a floating wall to stop refugees from reaching the island Lesbos by blocking the main sea route between Greece and Turkey. Around 20 000 refugees are currently being held in a camp on Lesbos with a holding capacity of less than 3 000 people. According to Vasileia Digidiki and Jacqueline Bhabha of The Guardian, the floating-wall project is a sign of the failure of European migration policies.

Chile. The protests in Chile, which began in October 2019, are continuing despite concessions made by the government, including the drafting of a new constitution, submission for approval of which is scheduled for late 2021 provided that the required public spending can be afforded. While the concessions might have appeased some Chileans, others continue to protest against inequalities within Chile, as well as against the human rights violations and police repression (having led to the death of several protesters) they accuse the government of.

Switzerland. While most attendants of the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which took place in January, arrived by private jet, a group of climate activists set out on a three-day protests march from Landquart to Davos. The march was one of several protests organised around the World Economic Forum to raise awareness on climate change and put pressure on politicians and big companies to take climate action.

USA. In a vote on the US president’s impeachment, Donald Trump has been acquitted of charges of impeachable crimes laid against him as all Republican members of the Senate except Mitt Romney voted against Trump’s impeachment. With the presidential elections in November, however, the long-term impact of the impeachment process remains to be seen.

Great Britain/ EU. On 31 January 2020, Great Britain left the European Union (EU). The European Parliament voted with a majority for the Brexit contract. While the Brexit party was celebrating the decision, the majority of delegates in Brussels were less enthusiastic about the development and some wore scarves with the writing “United in Diversity” on them. As a good-bye, they stood up together and, holding each others hands, sang the European anthem. During the one year transition period following the Brexit there will be a lot of work and (re-)negotiations to be done.

Australia. The Australian bushfires of the past months have fuelled the debate on climate change. Climate activists organised big demonstrations in major cities in Australia, but also worldwide, to protest against the coal mining industry, emission politics and for more climate action. The Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, who was on holidays in Hawaii shortly after the fires started, was widely criticised for his reaction to and handling of the situation, as were other Australian politicians. Morrison admitted that climate change could have a part in the events, but also said this is not the time to discuss it since there was an emergency to deal with. The public (domestically and internationally) expressed a lot of support, respect and empathy for the firefighters as well as critique of the government, because the firefighters do not receive enough resources.

Photo Credits

pi-IMG_5623, zhrefch, CC0 1.0

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“The European Union wants to kill our cuppa”: How Euromyths and fake news affected the Brexit vote

Isa Tiilikainen — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:26:00 +0000

On 31 January 2020, Britain became the first country ever to leave the European Union. The Leave campaign leading up to Brexit was, to the surprise of many, a success. But how did they manage to do it?

Britain’s relationship with the EU has always been a problematic one. Their accession to the European Union, then EEC, in 1973 was preceded by two previous attempts, both denied by the French. Then, only two years after joining, a referendum was held in 1975 asking the British people: “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community?”. With two thirds of the population voting yes, the country continued to be a member, but the suspicion and mistrust towards the Union always accompanied the 47 years of British membership.

Scepticism appears to stem from this belief of British exceptionalism: they are fundamentally different, and superior to, other nations. In a similar manner, the thought of personal exceptionalism led David Cameron to believe that he could win the referendum on Brexit. The imperial myth of Britain as a superpower leads to the nation approaching the EU from a standpoint that their country deserves a special status and preferential treatment.

To this idea of exceptionalism, the Leave campaign built its narrative. On one hand, the sense of superiority, and on the other hand the myth of being the underdog of the EU facing unfair treatment. Their strategy can be broken down to three parts: (1) simple messaging appealing to people’s emotions, (2) massive social media campaign by micro-targeting, and (3) controlling the debate framing with falsehoods.

False narratives

“We send the EU £350 million a week: let’s fund our NHS instead”, read the side of the infamous Brexit Battle Bus we can all remember. To suggest that such an amount of money would be available for extra spending when the UK leaves the EU was both misleading, as well as a straight up lie. According to different estimates, the actual amount of net payment, after deductions, agriculture subsidies and regional grants, comes down to about £160-190 million a week. And even this amount of money is surely not going to be fully budgeted for the NHS, as post-Brexit customs and legal institutions, among other things, will take up a large part. But the facts didn’t matter. What was important was to build a strong Eurosceptic narrative and appeal to the already existing cynicism of the population.

During the last 25 years or so, British newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have been whipping up paranoia related to all kinds of things the EU allegedly wants to ban. Whether it’s curvy bananas, vacuums, kettle pots, lawnmowers or double-decker buses, the EU is about to ban it and Britishness is being severely threatened. These false narratives about the EU are called Euromyths and there have been so many of them circling around, that the European Commission has its own web page dedicated to addressing them. The openly EU-critical news coverage has been widely spread in the British media over the last few decades and that, without a doubt, contributed to the Euroscepticism among the nation. The seed of Brexit has therefore been developing for years before the actual referendum took place.

Social media targeting

A key component in winning the Brexit vote was the massive social media campaign spreading false narratives. The Leave campaign spent 40% of it’s campaign finances on one single technology firm: AggregateIQ. In pounds, this sums up to about 2,7 million, which translates to about 3,2 million euros. AggregateIQ is essentially referred to as a ’’department’’ within Cambridge Analytica; the company that many associate with the ’’fake news’’ around Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign. The same methods of micro-targeting in social media were substantially used in the Brexit campaign. What this microtargeting essentially boils down to, is targeting individuals based on specific information gathered about them online. Cambridge Analytica is, for example, legally able to buy consumer data sets from airlines and magazine subscriptions and then connect this information with people’s personal data. The aim is to find persuadable voters and target them with suitable triggers. Facebook has proven to be a great source of psychological insights to millions of voters and fundamentally make all of this targeting possible.

While some of the Leave campaign’s ads run on Facebook maintained that new trade deals outside of EU would create 300 000 new jobs in Britain, others included claims ranging from the EU wanting to “kill our cuppa”, banning tea kettles, complaining about “5 million immigrants coming to the UK by 2030” and “Turkey’s 76 million people are granted visa-free travel by the EU”. So the message was not only focused on “costs and control”, but also based on the nationalist and even xenophobic sentiments. Thus, the campaign was successfully able to target a vast amount of people with a diverse set of values. The way in which the falsities were spread, not only through social media but also through mainstream media, was systematic and strategically intelligent.

Controlling the framing

As was established later on, the Leave campaign’s political message was in many ways built on lies, but initially the lies were not intended to be believed; that just came as a bonus. The intention was to frame and warp the debate. Vote Leave’s strategy was to constantly put out misleading information that would then distract the Remain campaign from having to interfere. By this, the Leave campaign managed to set the stage in their own benefit and get the opposite side to play into their hands.

As the Remainers were forced to correct the falsehoods the Leave campaign was actively repeating, they ended up just reinforcing the myths. You see, even though the claim of sending 350 million pounds a week to the EU was false, it impelled the Remain campaign to talk about the fact that Britain does send money to the EU, and that is exactly the subject that the Leave campaign wanted to talk about. Remain’s efforts to concentrate on the single market, economic affairs and all the benefits EU brings to Britain, went to waste. As Dominic Cummings, the campaign director and mastermind behind the Leave campaign, said: “Would we have won by spending our time talking about trade and the single market? No way.”

by Isa Tiilikainen

Photo credits

Banksy does Brexit (detail), Duncan Hull, CC BY 2.0

UK News Brexit Headlines 22nd June 2016, Jeff Djevdet, CC BY 2.0

Vote-leave-misleading-headlines, Abi Begum, CC BY 2.0

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YNTR – January 2020: Heat record in the EU, India’s Citizen Amendment Act, the cost of Australian bush fires, and more

EditorChief — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 17:44:49 +0000

Australia. As of January 6, 24 people and almost half a billion animals have died in Australia’s bush fires. Thousands had to be evacuated, almost 2 000 homes and vast amounts of land have been burned and the fires are still raging. A heat wave with a new temperature record followed the driest ever recorded spring contributing to this summer’s fires being particularly destructive. The smoke from the fires has made Sydney air quality one of the worst in the world on some days, and ash and debris threatens to contaminate drinking water, which without significant rain and tighter water restrictions might run out in Sydney by May 2022. The situation confirms scientists’ predictions that climate change will lead to more extreme bush fires, and has put focus on the Australian government, which is influenced by Australia’s mining history and the coal lobby, having failed to cut CO2 emissions. In December, protesters camped outside PM Morrison’s residence in Sydney demanding immediate climate change actions.

European Union. In the end of a decade of heat records, the EU has declared the climate emergency. The declaration includes a call for the Commission to ensure that all proposals are in line with the 1.5°C target, and urges EU member states to cut emissions so that European climate neutrality will be achieved by 2050, to “at least double their contribution to the international Green Climate Fund” and to stop all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. The symbolic move is supposed to increase pressure on the upcoming European Commission to take a stronger stance in the fight against climate change. Yet, environmental campaigners warn that the declaration is not backed by sufficient action.

United Kingdom. In the UK’s third general election within 4 years, on 12 December 2019, the Conservative Party under the lead of Boris Johnson gained the biggest majority since Thatcher. Johnson had called for early elections in the hope to increase his parties majority in parliament and have his Brexit bill passed so that the UK will be able to leave the EU on 31 January 2020 which now is a likely possibility. The Scottish National Party (SNP) gained seats as well, whereas Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lost votes so that now, nationalists are outnumbering unionists in Westminster for the first time.

Finland. After two weeks of nationwide postal-led strikes, Antti Rinne (Social Democratic Party) resigned from his post as Prime Minister following criticism voiced by his coalition government of how he handled the strikes. He was replaced by Sanna Marin who now is the world’s youngest serving PM. All five party leaders of the coalition government are women of which four are in their thierties. The government changes might have an impact on the EU as the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU is currently held by Finland putting the country in a central role in establishing the EU budget.

France. The nationwide strike against planned pension reforms that has caused major disruptions mostly to public transport is France’s longest strike since May 1968. Talks between unions and the government are scheduled for 7 January, yet Macron is intend to not back down on his plan that he argues is necessary to make the pension system fairer and more sustainable. Unionists warn that workers will lose out due to an increased age of retirement and decreased payouts. They call for blockades and mass protests from 7 to 10 January.

India. A citizenship law, the Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes Muslims has sparked mass protests in India. PM Modi’s government has reacted with bans on protests, curfews and the shutdown of internet services. As of 31 December at least 25 people have been killed as police used water cannons, batons and live ammunition against protesters. Dozens were injured and more than 1 500 arrested by 21 December, among the detainees are journalists, activists and intellectuals. Some, however, see a positive development in the reluctance to discuss politics before the protests to a more open conversation about political matters.

USA. House Speaker Pelosi (Democrats) ordered an impeachment inquiry of Trump following allegations that the US president pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate the family of former Vice President Biden. On 18 December, the House voted to impeach Trump on grounds of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. A two-third majority of the Senate is still required. In the impeachment trial set for January, 20 Republicans would have to vote in favour of the impeachment along with all Democrats for it to go through.

Iran. The year 2020 wasn’t even a week old as the USA carried out an airstike in Baghdad that killed general Soleimani who is seen by many as a hero and revolutionary freedom fighter. Iran reacted by vowing revenge and pulling out of key agreements of the 2015 nuclear deal that the USA had already pulled out of in 2018. Trump, on the other hand, claimed to have acted to prevent a war and described Soleimani as “terrorist number 1”. He tweeted, the USA would attack 52 Iranian sites if Iran retaliated.

Photo Credits

pi-IMG_5623, zhrefch, CC0 1.0

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Brexit: Should I stay or should I go?

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 14:40:48 +0000

There have been many movements and changes going on in international politics in past years- but much attention is also on an event that does not seem to move since more than three years- and if it moves, then not necessarily forward, but to the left and right and sometimes also backwards: Brexit. Going on exchange to the UK during the summer semester of 2019, I got a brief idea of the mood in the country.

Moving onbackwards

Is it coming, when and how? These are the questions that not only Brits, but all Europeans are asking when it comes to the exit of the UK from the EU. No one has any idea what is going to happen because politics keep changing directions all the time and the government does not seem to have one united direction that they are moving towards. Currently, the planned date for the Brexit is the 31st of October 2019. But by the time you are reading this, the world might have already changed again.

Being on exchange in the UK when Brexit was supposed to happen (but did not), I could experience the “chaos” that it creates. It is not an obvious mess, everyday life is still functioning- but questions appear here and there and, most importantly, no one knows what to prepare for: Move!? But where to?

Before leaving, I talked to Brexit protesters in Westminster in front of the British parliament. They use every opportunity to make their point and many of them come regularly to this place. We had a long conversation that revealed insights into the situation and some problems of the country. It needs to be mentioned that I made my experiences in the cities of London and Brighton where the population voted mainly for Remain. So yes, these quotes are opinions and represent a certain point of view. They are not representative of the whole UK or a claim of truth by Pike & Hurricane.

“I wish I would wake up and it’s not”

The real frustration derives from the lack of action from all politicians, the leading Conservative Party as well as the opposition. The Labour Party for instance is not united in what they want, which hinders them from taking a clear stance.

“The Labour Party does not know what it wants. […it] has got to make a decision and they want to try to be in the EU and not be in the EU. So, people are really frustrated with the Labour Party because they are not making a decision”

The country is not moving in one direction, instead everyone seems to want something different.

How could it come that far? Many possible explanations exist,therefore, it is interesting to see what the people in the streets are saying. Based on what they said it is possible to paint a picture of distrust and misinformation. One aspect are unequal conditions in the country, the other one is that various actors blame the fault on other actors- mainly the EU- and use the old geopolitical rivalries between the UK and continental Europe. In that regars, the press does have a significant role to play when it comes to shaping the public opinion through their information and story-telling.

“It is a brainwashing thing. We have a very poor press […] in this country and it supports this nonsense.”

Many still have the political views of the last world war in their mind which saw Germany as the opponent, and thus eat up stories that the EU is controlled by Germany who is trying to dictate laws on Britain and undermine its sovereignty.

“It’s a terrible situation in this country, there are a lot of very unhappy people, […] so they blamed Europe, the politicians blamed Europe”.

The protesters in Westminster see dark times ahead if Brexit takes place. They fight especially for the faith of future generations who will lose the privileges of the EU, that present generations could enjoy.

“[In] particular the young people, they are the ones who suffer. It won’t be the older people with their houses and their cars and their pensions, they are all set up, so they can afford to be nationalistic and stupid. But it is actually going to threaten the working opportunities of my children”.

And they are disappointed in their own country and where it is moving.

“I thought I lived in a diverse country that is reasonably progressive […] but we are not progressive at all- we are going backwards.”

“I’m British, and I’m European. And I would say that I’m European first and British second.”

“We can’t afford to give up”

The protesters I met see leaving the EU not as the solution to problems. Changing an institution can only be done from within.

“Like many other organisations, the EU has its faults, you can try to change it.”

That is why they are hoping for another “people’s vote”, which is the reason why they still stand regularly in front of Westminster to protest. Since the last referendum three years have passed and according to them, many people only see now what actually will happen to their country and therefore come to the realisation that they would not vote for Leave anymore. The Brexit referendum has no support and mandate anymore to be executed, they say.

“We haven’t voted to leave , a small minority of the overall population […] voted Brexit. A lot of people have changed their minds, the opinion polls suggest that. On a decision of this importance, we are fighting for another referendum, a second opportunity”

“People know more about what is in price and we are confident that if we get another referendum […] we will remain full members of the EU”

It needs to be kept in mind that the disagreement over British politics just reflects the many conflicting opinions in the UK. And they need to be respected, listened to and understood to resolve the situation.

Motion sickness

What seems to unite the UK now, is that they want something to be done, they want to know in which direction they are moving. The British people are frustrated because too little is happening. And that makes it tricky, also for the international political community: how to deal with a country that does not know where it stands and where it will go? That is the real problem of this constant moving back and forth: the time, energy and resources that are spent on Brexit could be better invested in solving problems of more pressing issues. May it be environmental issues, culture clashes, the gap between rich and poor or the city and the countryside, security questions… the list of priorities is long.

Before leaving, I asked the protesters for a message they want to give to the rest of Europe. They all sounded similar:

“Please don’t give up on us!”

“Please be patient. Don’t chuck us out, ‘cause it’s not sorted out here.”

“Millions of us love you.”

Written by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

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Brexit from a New Perspective: British-Bangladeshi Reactions to the Discussion of Immigration

Emilia Henkel — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 13:06:46 +0000

Complex questions and important decisions

On the 23rd of June, the British people voted on a very important decision, a decision that would determine the country’s future: Leave or Remain in the European Union. Even though this is an incredibly complex question, touching on all parts of social life and organisation, the Vote Leave campaign managed to steer the discussions to one single omnipotent problem: immigration. It seemed to be addressing a need to talk in the British society. In the past decades Britain has taken a multicultural approach in its policies dealing with immigration. However in the mid-2000s the discourse about culture, cultural differences and the cultural heritage of immigrants changed, with Gordon Brown opening up a discussion on Britishness.

Journey to England

Questions of national belonging and identity continuously resurfaced during my journey through England in June 2016. I was meeting with British-Bangladeshis to talk about their relation to their country of origin in the context of their life in England. The month of June was, from a wider political point of view, a very interesting time to travel, since issues of immigration and assimilation discussed by people in the streets, in pubs and at academic lectures related to the topic of my journey. While I was in England, I interviewed British-Bangladeshis in Manchester and London about their perception of and relation to Bangladesh transforming over the years in the diaspora. My interviewees were very different in terms of their age, gender, profession and their relationship with England. Inevitably, we came to talk about Brexit and the related discussion about immigration, even though I didn’t ask any structured questions about it during our interviews. In this article, I want to share the opinions of people I met during my journey and add to this edition new perspectives, that rarely make their way into the mainstream media.

Access to the discourse

Many of the people I interviewed were immigrants to Britain and therefore explicitly concerned with the impact that changes to immigration would have in case of a secession from the EU. The Annana Community Centre in Manchester, which is run by British-Bangladeshi women, provides advice for navigating the British system and everyday many newly arrived migrants from Italy, Spain and France meet there. Interestingly, many of them are unaware of the political changes ahead even though they have plans to invite more relatives to Britain.

Dipu

A striking example is the following scene I experienced in the Annana Office: Dipu, an Italian-Bangladeshi volunteer, who has settled in England three years ago, asked her British born colleague Hasina about the meaning of some flyers she received in her mail. Hasina quickly explained to her why the hateful information sheets of the “Out” campaign were very bad and advised her to throw them away as quickly as possible. While Dipu is going to be directly affected by changes in immigration laws for European citizens, her knowledge of English is limited and therefore she is excluded from the discussions on immigration to England, which concern her very much. While she is the central object of the discourse, her possibilities to take part in it and influence her own future are limited.

Sujit and Shumon

Sujit and Sumon on the election day.

A very different example is provided by the British-Bangladeshi brothers Sujit and Sumon. Sujit came to London 11 years ago with a student visa, succeeded in his professional career and recently acquired permanent residency in Great Britain. His brother Sumon´s student permit has expired after seven years in Britain and without a new visa he faces expulsion from the country, where he built himself a life in the last seven years. The British immigration law has toughened over the last years and Sumon was refused a new visa several times. Sujit started looking for alternative paths and found a loophole in the confusing interrelations of EU law. He made plans to move to Ireland to apply more successfully for a visa for his brother. On the night of the 23rd June, the brothers followed the results of the referendum with great tension. When it became clear that Britain voted to leave the EU around 5 in the morning, it meant for Sujit and Sumon that their space to act was shrinking and they would have to be quick to realize the plans. Sumon and Sujit had access to the discourse and cast their vote, however their perspectives are rarely discussed in the public discourse.

Diverging opinions

Jesmin

Jesmin sitting for a conversation.

My British-Bangladeshi interviewees, among them many who already acquired British citizenship or were born in the country held all kinds of attitudes towards the referendum. Jesmin, a Mancunian cultural activist and translator in her forties, who has lived and raised her kids in England for 20 years, expressed her great distress about the vote to leave the EU on Facebook in the following comments, posted within the hours of tension when the results of the referendum were published: “In in in in!”, “If leave wins, it would be down to the inaction and complacence of the remain supporters. Going to bed with an uneasy feeling; I don’t like breakups, especially ones that we’re not so sure about.” “Only 4% majority shouldn’t be enough to leave the EU. Feeling apprehensive about the future.”

Dr. Renu

Dr. Renu, who spend her whole adult life in England and currently works for the local authority in London, expressed similar distress about the decision to leave the EU: “I feel so sad, depressed and shocked because of Brexit. The Bengali people in London faced a lot racism in the 70´s and 80´s and I thought those days are over. This intolerance is terrible”. At the same time she expressed critical views of immigration, paraphrasing slogans of the Vote Leave campaign about eastern European immigrants “ They never stand in the queue and are very uncultured. It is probably because of they are used to communism. They cannot deal with their freedom here. They are also very racist. They don´t like other skin colours. They bring a lot of children from Romania because they are earning more on child benefit than they could otherwise. One woman told me in a whispering voice that she is from Romania, she didn’t want anyone to know.”. A very interesting discrepancy in her discourse emerges, as she negotiates her ideas of tolerance with images of the other prevalent in the British media at the time.

Faisal

Her distress about European immigration was shared by Faisal, a 29 year old London born British Bangladeshi, who is an activist for Palestinian rights and sympathises with left and anarchist politics. To explain his stance against European immigration he told the following story: When he was a teenage boy, he used to earn pocket money by delivering papers. A few months ago, he contacted his old employer again in order to ask for a job for his younger cousin but all the papers were delivered by an adult Polish man now. Faisal was unhappy with this development which he found contributing to problems of young people with migrant backgrounds in London. For him immigration from Europe presented competition for limited access to jobs, education, public spaces and other opportunities, which should be open first and foremost to local youth. It is interesting how he negotiates personal experiences of racial discrimination and migration in his family with the right wing anti-immigration arguments he supports in the Brexit discussions. Faisal argues for example that EU law favours European immigrants over those from Britain´s former colonies and consequently is euro-centric and neo-colonial. When I met Faisal, a fervent supporter of “Out” before the 23rd of June, again some days later, he deeply regretted his own and his country’s vote, abashed by the racist violence springing up all over England.

A Majority for Remain

Next to the people presented above, who were following the political development with great interest, some interviewees were more on the surface or not so much concerned with the referendum. However, they also shared the opinion of the majority that the Vote to Leave would negatively affect Britain and especially immigrants and people with non-English heritage. They feared increasing racism and discrimination in public spaces and the job market.

Conclusion

All in all, the diverse approaches of my interviewees towards the questions on immigration raised by the Brexit campaign reflect their very different social attributes. Next to personal political opinion and the environment, age, gender, profession, length of stay in England and level of English determined their access to the discourse as well as their opinion. There was no general consensus but rather multiple, even opposing opinions shaped by own lived experiences as well as “greater narratives” promoted by politicians and media.

Emilia Henkel

Image 1: Jeremy Weate Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic

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