I'm confused by what today's vote is all about. Is it the UK's election to the EU Parliament? So...if results stand up, Farage, the most rabid pro-Brexit guy will be sitting in the EU Parliament?
Farage already was in the EU parliament, under UKIP. He's kept his seat, but under the Brexit party now.
The vote was last Thursday, however under EU rules, they weren't allowed to announce any results until yesterday at 10pm.
Officially, the vote was to elect MEPs but unofficially people were using it a bit like a 2nd Brexit referendum and all parties were using their stance on Brexit as their main campaign issue. There's not much else you can do with your EU vote in Britain, seeing as Brexit is going to happen anyway. What the victory for Brexit party suggests is that it's still the case that the majority want to leave the EU.
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(aimed at whole thread/discussion):
What gets me about the whole thing and what almost never gets discussed is the reason why so many people are pissed off. Britain's got dire poverty which has been going on for over a decade now, the result of the financial crisis, followed by the Tories dealing with the financial crisis by imposing "austerity" i.e. cuts to services and benefits (welfare) across the board, leaving many people - including millions of people who are in work on low incomes - utterly destitute. The cost of living here is very high and minimum wage jobs aren't enough to meet the costs. Previously there was the tax credits system which provides an income top up for low income families and also pays for 70% of childcare costs. The Tories are replacing this and some other benefits (in-work benefits and out-of-work benefits) with universal credit, which seems to univerally make everyone poorer - no surprise, because it was the Tories' way of cutting benefits on the sly, without looking like they're cutting benefits. This was after they imposed a draconian and unfit for purpose system of assessing disability benefits which involved replacing the opinions of highly medically qualified people regarding who's fit for work with a system run by minimally qualified people that basically amounted to "you can get around and hold a pen therefore you're fit to work" - this included telling people with terminal cancer that they were fit for work.
At the same time the Tories were happy to take the taxes from EU migrants, turned a blind eye to the fact that employers were using EU migrants from poorer EU countries as a source of cheap labour while people already living here - with families and having to meet the very high cost of living - were forced to accept pay cuts. They took the tax money and completely failed to invest it in communities. The population went up by ten million but they didn't invest the new immigrants tax payers money back into creating school places, building more houses, social housing or ensuring the NHS can cope with having 10 million more people. They did fuck all for the ordinary, low income working people. The ones who benefitted were the already wealthy and the politicians. Oh yeah and they also cut funding to the police, hence the recent surge in knife crime. Meanwhile Tory politicians are trying to explain that one without using the words "long term systematic underfunding of the police". So yeah, this is what happens when a government allowed the population to go up by 10 million while at the same time cutting the amount of money they're putting into services right across the board.
Just a few articles about the extent of poverty in the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48354692 - UN report on UK poverty: "systematic" and "tragic"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-48119099 - school describing itself as the 4th emergency service, helping families in dire poverty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48226256 - more about children living in poverty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46457454 - 1,000,000 children face Dickensian poverty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46236642 - politicians in denial about the extent of poverty in the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-46130355 - food bank use up (due in part to universal credit)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43866980 - food bank use stats (working people having to rely on food banks)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38052684 - more about people in work needing to use food banks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40431701 - who uses food banks? (more stats about working people needing food banks)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45994303 - government minister ignores warnings about child poverty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43611527 - children going to school without having enough food to eat
I could go on. That's just focusing on poverty of children and people who are working but still don't have enough money to buy food. I could do a search on disability benefits and find a whole load of articles. I could do a search on the housing crisis - one of the main reasons for the high cost of living is that housing is so expensive, because there's a lack of social housing or affordable homes for first time buyers, so many working families are left at the mercy of private landlords in a market where rich people will pay high rents for the only available properties, pricing ordinary people out of the market. I could do a search on underfunding and cuts to services of the NHS, police and other emergency services.
The votes for Brexit are in the large part a cry of desperation. People are disillusioned and have been convinced by wankers like Farrage and Etonboy* BoJo the Clown that the EU and immigration is the cause of the problem. It's easier to understand "immigrants taking our resources" and "we need to look after the people who are already here first" and not so easy to understand the more complex issues that have led to the widespread poverty we currently face. Also, immigrants are an easy target while going after a government that's systematically underfunded the country while blaming poor people for being poor is not an easy target. Everyone, whether leave or remain, whichever party they support, needs to understand that this whole fucking mess has been caused by austerity, dire poverty and a handful of rich wankers doing the age old trick of "don't blame us, blame the immigrants".
*Eton:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eton_College (public school does *not* have the same meaning as in the USA!) Farrage went to Dulwich:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulwich_College
What saddens me the most is that Britain's going to leave the EU and it's going to do fuck all to alleviate the poverty in this country. The most likely outcome is that we'll be significantly poorer as a result. And then what? You've got Tory Etonboy fuckwits like BoJo saying "people want Brexit, we have to deliver Brexit" but what people actually want is proper investment in their communities. And when Brexit doesn't work, the country's going to get even more extreme and divided, with more people turning to extremist parties such as neo Nazis. They thrive in this kind of economic situation and exploit it to the max.