Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread.

I think he was mostly observing life through a monocle tbh. like as if some peasant from the subcontinent would decide on whim to move to Canada -tally ho it's the days of freedom!

Peasants kinda did "decide" to move despite the dangers and horribleness of the journey tho, right?

Maybe not from the more ruthlessly exploited ends of the Empire i guess

true, but they wouldn't have complained about filling in forms if it meant they wouldn't travel like cattle!

If there were a huge influx of Bangladeshi refugees every time there was a famine pre-1914, I think my man Zweig would have been stressing the need for "sensible borders" i.e. ones that only rich white folks can cross. I mean loads of my ancestors managed to flee a famine, but like you say at the more ruthlessly exploited parts of the empire no such luck.

I conclude that the early 20th C branch of FBPE might have been right about those ghastly Prussians but were ever so slightly smug and myopic!

zweig's perspective is very likely over-rosy -- i'm sure there were class gradients and race hierarchies at work!* -- but largescale migrations, forced, semi-forced and semi-voluntary, were common in the 19th century, within empires (inc.zweig's birth-empire the austro-hungarian empire) and between them. the brits routinely moved chunks of peoples around to suit their needs (hence the so-called "ugandan asians"). many chinese fled murderous civil upheavals (not to mention the various opium wars) to go settle in america -- tolerated bcz labour was needed to build west coastal cities and railroads. the big panic crackdowns in e.g. the US came largely in the wake of the waves of refugees that quit europe during and after WW1.

*money is one: an african labourer or indian peasant would simply never have earned enough even for passage on a package ship to america, say. and of course the border-checks met the package ships rather than the swish ocean liners. class is in fact the name for the gradient at work here, from forced at one end to freely chosen at the other. plus the nazi system of internal racial hierarchy and patrol (which zweig deplores) was very much modeled on the pioneering US version (= jim crow).

(the fact that the globe was divided into a small number of empires rather than a larger number of nations presumably surely had implication for relative ease of travel, for many)

Maybe the Spanish flu epidemic increased border controls in parts of the world more than the war - which helped to spread it?- just assuming here not read this.

"Before 1914 the earth belonged to the entire human race"

"Before 2016 perfidious Albion was actually known as fair and graceful Avalon... rah rah.. etc

ah yes life was idyllic in 1914

Yes I think you could get super-Foucauldian about this, and note that these bureaucratic exclusions arose alongside intelligence tests for the army and various inoculation projects: populations defined by medical and scientific (and pseudo-scientific) mapping and decision-making. But the war was a primary cause – as a vector for disease, as a demand for more0or-less instant armies, as a generator of politics with little to use.

i mean little to lose (i am reading abt lemmy)

I was just reading about how Roy Hodgson is a fan of Stefan Zweig, in fact he's a very well read man who should be invited to the next ILB FAP.

If there were a huge influx of Bangladeshi refugees every time there was a famine pre-1914, I think my man Zweig would have been stressing the need for "sensible borders" i.e. ones that only rich white folks can cross.

I won't deny that Zweig's vision was privileged and naive but I don't think there's really anything in his work to support this conclusion, tbf.

post-ww1 border controls passports primary functiom had shifted from a useful way of avoiding harassment while travelling to being a sweet bit of state control. re the empire/nation distinction afaik everyone in the british empire had the same passport til post ww2

no one was using passports for rail travel in zweig's era, idk abt sea voyages tho

One of the postwar immigration acts had stripped Falkland islanders of their uk citizenship. Which became an embarrassment for thatcher.

Can't remember which one and am on the phone.

It was the 1981 British Nationality Act lol. Obviously such hypocrisy meant that the Thatcher government was owned by its own logic, was unable to extract any political capital from the falklands war and was soundly defeated at the subsequent general election

some hasty amendments were made to the act in '83 to keep the highly vigilant Murdoch press at bay as they were ready to hold the Thatcher gov to account at the first sign of incompetence.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/21/new-ira-staged-derry-riot-to-impress-tv-presenter-reggie-yates

. “There is a strong belief that they were being stoked by dissidents for the benefit of the film crew,” the paper quoted one community worker as saying.

Sunday Times so take with a pinch of salt.

The cosplay ‘RA arrested for the shooting were 18 and 19.

Both have just been released without charge.

Some @ExtinctionR people got the police involved, accusing a couple of young men of pickpocketing. They have just been searched by police who found nothing. Now the police are doing an immigration check on them. Potential deportation for at worst some petty theft. Well done XR.

— Sam Swann (@SamGSwann) April 22, 2019

this is the very type of story that feeds my antipathy towards posh eco-warrior types, of course it may have been an isolated incident of comprehensive twattery - but just saying.

Claire Fox is standing as a Brexit Party MEP. The formal link-up between the Institute Of Ideas / Spiked / Furedi crew and Farage seemed inevitable.

I was agreeing with to her to some extent t'other day, probably a sign I need to kill myself! But feeling some of these green campaigners would be quite happy with a 2 tier austerity system where don't forgo air miles and ppl carriers and too much of the good life they are accustomed to, for some futile concessions that most certainly won't stop the great dying 2.0 (or 6.0 even), whilst it get's even worse for those already fucked hard by austerity. And smugness!

tbf if the value of an idea was whether oblivious wealthy people could turn it to their own ends or not there'd be no worthwhile ideas

what BTL landlords and assorted dangers do we think will announce their candidacy for CHUK today ?

nora mulready is a shoe-in. jiminy bollocks would be hilarious

Was going to say surely now Claire Fox won't be able to show up on Radio 4 as a "former communist thinker" or w/e, but actually the opposite is true isn't it?

Peter Hitchens is a former Communist, if not thinker, so don't see the problem.

there wouldn't be much need to introduce P Hitch's credentials because invariably the rambling old fucker will mention at least a few times that he used to be a trot in just about every interview.

Used to be, Claire Fox still claims to be 'of the left, lol.

she is as "of the left" as that Blue Labour fireman/trade unionist cunt is, who I can't remember the name of. But that all her main "snowflake" type hate-speak stchik is deeply small c conservative reactionary stuff is plain to see

I aspire to be described as a 'former thinker'

Gavin Esler and Rachael Johnson standing for CHUK.

Lots of overlap between Climate Extinction and Momentum/Novara types, doubt you'd get a lot of applause for austerity with those guys. I don't doubt there's some clueless rich ppl being obnoxious in the middle of it all but frankly it's too serious an issue for me to focus on that.

Also running as an MEP candidate for Change UK: former Labour councillor Frances Weetman

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) April 23, 2019

Absolute scenes.

Calz was wondering if any U.K. comedians would try to follow the example of Zelenskiy in Ukraine but tbh without any particularly glam jobs to be directly elected to, Esler, etc, is the calibre of ‘personality’ you are going to get,

Oh lord Rachael Johnson does not seem like a good idea to me, unless they've essentially given up in trying to win many votes/seats off Labour.

Combine that with the announcement that they won't vote against May in a VONC while continuing to campaign for a second referendum she won't offer anyway, it just doesn't make any real political sense. And trying to make the European Elections into a kind of proxy referendum is looking more like a disastrous strategic move with every passing day.

Most of left Twitter has blocked or muted Weetabix.

My Rachel Johnson story: she goes to my friend’s literary salon a lot and once when asking for assistance from staff to find her reserved seat, believed it was helpful to tell the staffer, “I’m a VIP!”

Me, standing behind her: *snort*

TIG are really amateurs who think they’re slickly pro, yes?

i: e2r dies*
ii: monarch chosen by popular acclamation on-line (= tweets)
iii: king jonathan "pie" mcpieface, first of that name

*actually she died early 2018 i mean the delayed official announcement obv

Lots of overlap between Climate Extinction and Momentum/Novara types...

is there? all commentary I’ve seen from those types seems to be along the lines “wasn’t sure about XR but they seem to be boiling all the right people’s piss so critical support”

Also running as an MEP candidate for Change UK: former Labour councillor Frances Weetman

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) April 23, 2019

you love to see it

announce hedges u cowards

Lmao, former Polish finance minister (super neoliberal and super conservative) is also on CUKs lists https://t.co/nHIaS8aEk5

— eggramsci 🍳 (@HelloPoli) April 23, 2019

their new logo is quite something

I may need to change my dn lest u lot start calling me comrade TIG

Weetman doesn't seem as bona fide as Hedges. Lol I thought Suzy meant everyone was blocking Weetabix through empathy with green campaigners cos it's destroying the planet!

TV Programme Idea: Big Brother, but instead of housemate “tasks” the housemates have to read and discuss a George Orwell book each week

— Frances Weetman (@francesweetman) April 23, 2019

Read and discuss some effing Orwell!

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know." - George Orwell

Here for Gavin Esler's working class friend

Weetabix was the one who showed her arse about good grades = better person than ooooooh, dunno - Jeremy Corbyn? These people *never* chat this shit about John Major.

this article posted upthread is good btw if anyone missed it: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/19/who-owns-england-secretive-companies-hoarding-land

the trafford centre is p much the grandest building in manchester & it doesn't make a lot of sense until you see it as john whittaker's vanity project. amidst all the marble and gold leaf are these faux-classical portraits of him and his family, it's totally surreal & yet completely normalised. these companies are so much more powerful than any of the councils they run up against, you can't say you have a functioning democracy while that imbalance exists

tag yourself i'm 'The' pic.twitter.com/rk4DCbL0zt

— ciarán (@schmrn) April 23, 2019

change the independent group UK

I made a poll with the same joke, oops

Time for a quick poll. #ChangeUK #Tiggers #Chuggers #Cuks #Chucks #TIG - I'm firmly on #TeamThe

— uoʇƃuᴉɹɹƎ sǝɯɐſ (@weejay) April 23, 2019