Guardina 'ambivalent about politics of age' shock

Grudina faces two ways as ever today. First, there is rage against Corbyn's views on the EU as in the blog below. As predicted, millenial Momentumites are threatening rebellion over their single issue: 

Labour leader accused of betrayal on second poll and ‘in danger of losing young backers’

Richard Brooks, a Labour member, activist and co-founder of For our Future’s Sake (FFS), a pro-remain youth and student-led organisation, said Corbyn risked losing the backing of young people as well as the mass Labour membership he had promised to empower. “Jeremy Corbyn is in danger of betraying and losing the support of millions of young people and students who very nearly propelled him to Downing Street last year, and whose support he needs if he is to ever to become prime minister...“Students and young people will not forget or forgive politicians who sell them down the river by backing a Brexit that limits our life opportunities and makes us poorer,” he said.

Although there is also this:

Pat McFadden, a former Labour business minister, said: “It would be a tragedy if Jeremy Corbyn facilitated Brexit and continued his lifelong hostility to the European Union on the basis of his views of the state-aid rules. There are plenty of EU member states with state-owned industries and with different tax and spend policies from those followed by the Tory government. It would not be the EU that would stop a Labour government regenerating the United Kingdom, but the economic damage brought about by Brexit that he may yet enable.”

It is well worth discussing before anything is decided, I would have thought. From what I can see, some countries have managed to slip state aid past the EC on a temporary or historical basis. The ECJ ruling, first floated in Private Eye and covered in the Gudian , eventually forbade State price interventions in the UK electricity market -- once it got round to dealing with the case:

The UK’s scheme for ensuring power supplies during the winter months has been suspended after a ruling by the European court of justice that it constitutes illegal state aid...the ECJ ruled that the European commission had failed to launch a proper investigation into the UK’s capacity market when it cleared the scheme for state aid approval in 2014...“The consequences are absolutely huge. Immediate cessation of payments is going to have immediate consequences for electricity generators that were relying on them,” said Ed Reed, head of research at analysts Cornwall Insight....Alan Whitehead, shadow energy minister, said: “This judgment effectively annuls previous state aid permission to provide subsidies for existing fossil fuel power plants. I have long criticised this bizarre arrangement, which simply throws money at old dirty power stations.”

Elsewhere, a rather different take is apparent as the Gruniad feels a bit exposed about ignoring a particular minority:

Attempts to pit younger voters against older people are hateful and prejudiced – we need a New Generational Compact

The piece discusses a campaign in the USA:

Funded by Democrats, the ad features a set of older, out-of-it, conservatives telling young people, “Don’t vote.” One ditzy dame “can’t keep track of which lives matter”. Another smirks as she describes climate change as a “you problem. I’ll be dead soon.” It’s slick; Adweek chose the video as an Ad of the Day. And it’s satire. But it’s hateful....It’s time to add ageism to the list of prejudices we no longer tolerate, and to deny it a foothold in our political discourse.

There are references to the UK too:

 Younger Britons suggested that their elders be banned from the polls, and cheered their imminent deaths. “It is a sure sign that politics is running on empty when generational revenge becomes central to an election campaign,” observed sociologist Frank Furedi about efforts to mobilize youngers in the 2017 UK general election.

Overall: 

Olders are not “them”, they are us: our parents, our neighbors, our friends, and it is grotesque to suggest that our interests are inherently opposed... It is critically important to see the headlines that blame climate change or our kleptocratic Congress on “old people” for what they are: a distraction from the underlying social and economic issues that affect the entire 99%. Income inequality does not discriminate by age.

But I insist that the Remain campaigners need to oppose things. That is the nature of the petit-bourgeois aesthetic. Any opposition will do. Guardina-type liberals forbid opposition to ethnic or sexual minorities, and the issue of class is active but rather implicit, often buried in accusations of racism or terms like 'the left behind'  That really only leaves the old as a much-identified element of the Leave demographic. Who now will be left as focuses of contempt and superiority -- Northerners? Provincials?