Should Britain remain in Europe. ?

[Classicrock]

Chances are the Scots will vote out with rest of UK. If this pole is a fair indication Cameron and Sturgeon are in for a shock. Yes campaign have already scored an own goal by putting big business in charge (who love cheap immigrant labour). Stuart Rose hardly managed to restore the fortunes of M & S. Old boys club in charge will just piss the prolls off even more.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

If you took this pole anywhere in Europe you would get a similar result as people can be negative without it costing them. In every case that a referendum has been held the nearer you get to it the more reality raises its ugly head, the more paranoid and undecided people become, so on the day of the vote everything reverses. Happened here originally, in Ireland and (I think) in Denmark and others.

So basically this pole is meaningless, apart from as a bit of fun.

[Fretless]

Polls are more of a reaction against circumstances rather than a well-judged decision - or so I hope.

At the moment in the polls in Holland, the extremist, anti-EU, right-wing party of neo-fascist Geert Wilders would easily win a general election. This is entirely based on a populist (unthinking) reaction against the current Middle-eastern refugee situation.

Farage is a clown compared to Wilders, who is a dangerous figure driven by megalomaniac ambition.

[jammy395]

This is entirely based on a populist (unthinking) reaction against the current Middle-eastern refugee situation. (Fretless).

Perhaps its a thinking reaction.

[Fretless]

This is entirely based on a populist (unthinking) reaction against the current Middle-eastern refugee situation. (Fretless).

Perhaps its a thinking reaction.

Mr. Wilders approach is reminiscent of Oswald Moseley's unpleasantly successful attempt to create a British fascist party in the 1930's. Also a populist who could inspire support with empty rhetoric that gave the dissatisfied masses the idea that somebody was going to change things and make their lives better.
Luckily, Moseley was stopped in time from becoming the UK's leader.

Anyone with any sense sees through this - unfortunately there are those that don't (and a lot of them).

[Macca]

There seems to be some confusion as to what fascism is. It has nothing to do with opposing immigaration or racism although it can incorporate both things, as can most poitical philosophies. I can't really see that The Freedom party have much in common either in beliefs or operationally with Moseley's fascists. Nor was immigration an issue in England in the 1930s so that connection is rather tenous.

Also fascism, like Nazism, is a left-wing ideaology.

However if you were using the modern, co-opted meaning of 'fascist' which appears to be: 'people who don't think like me', then as you were.

[joe]

And Moseley could hardly be described as 'successful'. Interestingly, he went from Conservative to Labour to Fascist in a very short space of time.

Here is Orwell on misuse of the word 'fascism'':

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_ ... lish/efasc

One of the social survey organizations in America recently asked this question of a hundred different people, and got answers ranging from ‘pure democracy’ to ‘pure diabolism’. In this country if you ask the average thinking person to define Fascism, he usually answers by pointing to the German and Italian régimes. But this is very unsatisfactory, because even the major Fascist states differ from one another a good deal in structure and ideology.

It is not easy, for instance, to fit Germany and Japan into the same framework, and it is even harder with some of the small states which are describable as Fascist. It is usually assumed, for instance, that Fascism is inherently warlike, that it thrives in an atmosphere of war hysteria and can only solve its economic problems by means of war preparation or foreign conquests. But clearly this is not true of, say, Portugal or the various South American dictatorships. Or again, antisemitism is supposed to be one of the distinguishing marks of Fascism; but some Fascist movements are not antisemitic. Learned controversies, reverberating for years on end in American magazines, have not even been able to determine whether or not Fascism is a form of capitalism. But still, when we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or Japan or Mussolini's Italy, we know broadly what we mean. It is in internal politics that this word has lost the last vestige of meaning. For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set of people — certainly no political party or organized body of any kind — which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years. Here I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term ‘Fascist’. I am speaking of what I have seen in print. I have seen the words ‘Fascist in sympathy’, or ‘of Fascist tendency’, or just plain ‘Fascist’, applied in all seriousness to the following bodies of people:
Conservatives: All Conservatives, appeasers or anti-appeasers, are held to be subjectively pro-Fascist. British rule in India and the Colonies is held to be indistinguishable from Nazism. Organizations of what one might call a patriotic and traditional type are labelled crypto-Fascist or ‘Fascist-minded’. Examples are the Boy Scouts, the Metropolitan Police, M.I.5, the British Legion. Key phrase: ‘The public schools are breeding-grounds of Fascism’.
Socialists: Defenders of old-style capitalism (example, Sir Ernest Benn) maintain that Socialism and Fascism are the same thing. Some Catholic journalists maintain that Socialists have been the principal collaborators in the Nazi-occupied countries. The same accusation is made from a different angle by the Communist party during its ultra-Left phases. In the period 1930-35 the Daily Worker habitually referred to the Labour Party as the Labour Fascists. This is echoed by other Left extremists such as Anarchists. Some Indian Nationalists consider the British trade unions to be Fascist organizations.
Communists: A considerable school of thought (examples, Rauschning, Peter Drucker, James Burnham, F. A. Voigt) refuses to recognize a difference between the Nazi and Soviet régimes, and holds that all Fascists and Communists are aiming at approximately the same thing and are even to some extent the same people. Leaders in The Times (pre-war) have referred to the U.S.S.R. as a ‘Fascist country’. Again from a different angle this is echoed by Anarchists and Trotskyists.
Trotskyists: Communists charge the Trotskyists proper, i.e. Trotsky's own organization, with being a crypto-Fascist organization in Nazi pay. This was widely believed on the Left during the Popular Front period. In their ultra-Right phases the Communists tend to apply the same accusation to all factions to the Left of themselves, e.g. Common Wealth or the I.L.P.
Catholics: Outside its own ranks, the Catholic Church is almost universally regarded as pro-Fascist, both objectively and subjectively;
War resisters: Pacifists and others who are anti-war are frequently accused not only of making things easier for the Axis, but of becoming tinged with pro-Fascist feeling.
Supporters of the war: War resisters usually base their case on the claim that British imperialism is worse than Nazism, and tend to apply the term ‘Fascist’ to anyone who wishes for a military victory. The supporters of the People's Convention came near to claiming that willingness to resist a Nazi invasion was a sign of Fascist sympathies. The Home Guard was denounced as a Fascist organization as soon as it appeared. In addition, the whole of the Left tends to equate militarism with Fascism. Politically conscious private soldiers nearly always refer to their officers as ‘Fascist-minded’ or ‘natural Fascists’. Battle-schools, spit and polish, saluting of officers are all considered conducive to Fascism. Before the war, joining the Territorials was regarded as a sign of Fascist tendencies. Conscription and a professional army are both denounced as Fascist phenomena.
Nationalists: Nationalism is universally regarded as inherently Fascist, but this is held only to apply to such national movements as the speaker happens to disapprove of. Arab nationalism, Polish nationalism, Finnish nationalism, the Indian Congress Party, the Muslim League, Zionism, and the I.R.A. are all described as Fascist but not by the same people.

[Macca]

Indeed the origins of the word refer to the idea that a bundle of sticks together cannot be broken, unlike a single stick (see also: King Lear). It therefore could be used to describe any group of people who band together for mutual suport and to achieve collective goals. Therefore outside of its various, confused, contemporary and historical useage it actually has no inherently negative connotations.

If you think a man is wrong, say so and say why. If you think he is a racist, say so and say why. Describing someone as a 'fascist' in 2015 is essentially meaningless 'nu-speak'.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Macca, every single word adapts to new think and new peoples, if you tried to understand someone who lived in your space 500 years ago you would hardly understand a word. Fascism has taken on a new meaning, that is all.

[Daniel Quinn]

Scotish independence economic policy founded on oil being at $148 a barrel , current price of oil . $45 dollars a barrel .