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Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 8:22am
by Paulatic
This bit that Vince said is oh so true
I have myself been on a journey. I confess that my own initial reaction to the referendum was to think there was little choice but to pursue Brexit. I thought the public have voted to be poorer, that is their right.
What changed my mind was the evidence that Brexit had overwhelmingly been the choice of the older generation. 75% of under 25s voted to Remain. But 70% of over 65s voted for Brexit. Too many were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white, and the map was coloured imperial pink. Their votes on one wet day in June, crushing the hopes and aspiration of the young for years to come. The excuse for this outrage – a vision of a Global Britain signing lots of new trade deals– is a fraud. Far from opening our arms to the world, we will be tearing up preferential trade deals we already have with 27 countries in the EU and 74 outside it.
There is no more eloquent testimony to the government’s folly about trade, that at a time when the world is descending into Trade War, they put more faith in the Warmonger in Washington than they do in our friends and trade partners in Europe. It was never a good idea to leave the EU. To leave it now borders on extreme recklessness.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 8:56am
by kwackers
mr bajokoses wrote:Strange how so many people now claim they knew exactly what they were voting for.
Post purchase rationalisation
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 9:49am
by reohn2
Paulatic wrote:This bit that Vince said is oh so true
I have myself been on a journey. I confess that my own initial reaction to the referendum was to think there was little choice but to pursue Brexit. I thought the public have voted to be poorer, that is their right.
What changed my mind was the evidence that Brexit had overwhelmingly been the choice of the older generation. 75% of under 25s voted to Remain. But 70% of over 65s voted for Brexit. Too many were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white, and the map was coloured imperial pink. Their votes on one wet day in June, crushing the hopes and aspiration of the young for years to come. The excuse for this outrage – a vision of a Global Britain signing lots of new trade deals– is a fraud. Far from opening our arms to the world, we will be tearing up preferential trade deals we already have with 27 countries in the EU and 74 outside it.
There is no more eloquent testimony to the government’s folly about trade, that at a time when the world is descending into Trade War, they put more faith in the Warmonger in Washington than they do in our friends and trade partners in Europe. It was never a good idea to leave the EU. To leave it now borders on extreme recklessness.
Yep,I agree totally with Vince.
The brexit supporters can try to wrap it up any way they want ,that is the sum total of their reasons for voting out and I won't be convinced otherwise.
It's been a shambles from the start and the UK will reap the whirlwind if it doesn't come to it's senses PDQ.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 10:26am
by kwackers
reohn2 wrote:Yep,I agree totally with Vince.
The brexit supporters can try to wrap it up any way they want ,that is the sum total of their reasons for voting out and I won't be convinced otherwise.
It's been a shambles from the start and the UK will reap the whirlwind if it doesn't come to it's senses PDQ.
There was some talk on the news this morning about the dire state of shopping habits. Apart from the big name failures nobody is having a great time of it and even online sales are falling (although by less).
The general opinion is that this was simply a lack of consumer confidence tied to brexit and apparently once that was out of the way confidence would return and it'd all be great again.
However that's imo is another huge failure to understand what brexit is. It's not something that simply ends in 2019. It's another decade at least of unknowns. It'll take at least that long to get trade deals sorted and for the economy to fall into some sort of pattern.
And even then there's the assumption that folk will be well off and that's simply not looking likely and even if they were how much money is the government going to have to spend to repair the damage of 20 plus years of austerity and where are they going to get that money?
We really need the profanity filter removing to get in enough expletives to describe just how screwed this country is going to be.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 11:10am
by bovlomov
kwackers wrote:And even then there's the assumption that folk will be well off and that's simply not looking likely and even if they were how much money is the government going to have to spend to repair the damage of 20 plus years of austerity and where are they going to get that money?
We really need the profanity filter removing to get in enough expletives to describe just how screwed this country is going to be.
You simply lack the necessary levels of belief! In order to keep the Brexit balls in the air (I mean the Brexit balls up) the likes of Hannan and Rees Mogg have to dismiss all evidence. So everything we ever believed is wrong, and all the institutions are basically wrong or treasonous.
But, to take their words at face value, for a moment - let's suppose the judiciary, the Lords, the economists, the merchants, the academics and intellectuals, and all the centrists are indeed completely mistaken. To abandon all these institutions overnight and to run policy without recourse to any standard procedures (I think that's what is happening) is an act of revolution. Revolutions - even well-intentioned ones - never turn out well.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 11:15am
by reohn2
kwackers wrote:............We really need the profanity filter removing to get in enough expletives to describe just how screwed this country is going to be.
Well if we were all to become binmen that would solve it
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 12:33pm
by Debs
reohn2 wrote:kwackers wrote:............We really need the profanity filter removing to get in enough expletives to describe just how screwed this country is going to be.
Well if we were all to become binmen that would solve it
We could do with a current
'Spitting Images' on the telly, ...so we can lean what's really going on.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 1:42pm
by Ben@Forest
Paulatic wrote:This bit that Vince said is oh so true
...What changed my mind was the evidence that Brexit had overwhelmingly been the choice of the older generation. 75% of under 25s voted to Remain. But 70% of over 65s voted for Brexit. Too many were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white, and the map was coloured imperial pink...
But of course those same people voted to remain in the then Common Market in June 1975. And by a substantial majority of 67% of a 64% turnout. I was far too young to vote then but the people that Cable is now castigating had no issue with being part of a European free-trade area, but they feel they have not have been listened to since. And It's true - all three of the major political parties have subscribed to EC/EU dogma ever since then and people who felt they were not being listened to had to like it or lump it - and eventually 4 million lumped their lot in with UKIP (2015 election).
Frankly if politicians like Cable and Clegg had done more to represent the more Eurosceptic strain of the British electorate UKIP and the referendum would likely not have happened. As it was it was a
fait accompli where the EC/EU always trumped the more sceptical attitude of many of the UK electorate. Cable should look to his own lack of awareness in pursuing a European project without recourse to the feelings of many of his countrymen.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 1:48pm
by Psamathe
Ben@Forest wrote:...... but they feel they have not have been listened to since. And It's true - all three of the major political parties have subscribed to EC/EU dogma ever since then and people who felt they were not being listened to had to like it or lump it - and eventually 4 million lumped their lot in with UKIP (2015 election).....
I think that "not being listened to" is something that actually applies pretty well across all [political] issues and if far broader than just on EU matters. Politicians have stopped listening to the electorate on most things, instead pursuing their personal/party dogmas. I don't se it as being an EU thing. In fact my own opinion is that the EU political system/politicians are more receptive and listen more to their electorates than Westminster do.
Ian
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 1:56pm
by bovlomov
Ben@Forest wrote:Cable should look to his own lack of awareness in pursuing a European project without recourse to the feelings of many of his countrymen.
The outright pro-EU politicians are less guilty than those who believed our interests lay within the EU while seeking to blame the EU for all our domestic problems.
It's OK to blame the EU for its own faults, but much of the anti-EU and anti ECJ feeling was propagated on lies (made up by the likes of Boris the journalist and May the Home Secretary).
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 2:17pm
by 661-Pete
And meanwhile...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43336351Well, the graph says it all. People change. And people react to subsequent information, true or false.
Some will argue, the only ones clamouring for a referendum are those who think they'll win it. Not so. I thought Remain would win last time - but I was still opposed to the whole idea of holding a referendum.
But this time, it seems to be literally the only way out of one unholy mess.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 2:45pm
by Ben@Forest
No, I would say this sentence in the article says it all.
Rather, most of the movement is accounted for by the 28% who did not vote in 2016 now being much more likely to say they would vote Remain than Leave.i.e. People who couldn't be bothered to vote at all, when stopped in the street, or phoned at home, or on an online approach now say are more likely to vote one way than the other. Depending of course if they bother next time, if they haven't changed their minds, or are actually undecided, or if it's raining, or their holiday to Spain last week was brilliant or crap...
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 2:46pm
by Stevek76
Why should clegg and cable etc do more to represent eurosceptic views? That does not fit with their views or party's stance, they are quite clearly pro EU.
However, their constant campaigning for a fairer voting system would have equally allowed eurosceptic views and generally helped ensure that parliament had to listen to the whole country, not meet a few tens of swing seats.
Regardless, the reason most of these people are anti EU is because the EU they are against only exists in their imaginations fed by an unrelenting barrage of lies from the likes of the telegraph/mail (see poll above) since the vote 40 odd years ago. This is why very few can actually name a real EU regulation or directive that they don't like, and even of the few that can manage that, it is inevitably something the UK government supported anyway. With mainstream politicians all to happy to let the EU take the blame for domestic decisions and the aforementioned neglect of certain regions and you have the current dogs dinner.
Ironically the one time that it would have been good for the country for HMG to not listen to the people they've suddenly decided that the 'will of the people', as expressed by a slim, simple majority, in a single, advisory vote, with a number of disenfranchisement issues, on a binary question about an extraordinarily complex issue that the vast majority didn't even have the slightest foggiest of even the basics on, is now absolute and to be obeyed come hell or high water (other idioms are available) regardless of the damage it will do, particularly to those who voted for it.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 3:20pm
by Ben@Forest
Stevek76 wrote:Regardless, the reason most of these people are anti EU is because the EU they are against only exists in their imaginations fed by an unrelenting barrage of lies from the likes of the telegraph/mail (see poll above) since the vote 40 odd years ago. This is why very few can actually name a real EU regulation or directive that they don't like, and even of the few that can manage that, it is inevitably something the UK government supported anyway.
And that's the issue in a nutshell - essentially whatever government of whatever stripe bent to whatever the EU regulated because none of the parties strayed far from the EU line. Those issues may have been good/bad or right/wrong and you may scoff at them now but people had reasonable information about variously the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Nice Treaty, and the Treaty of Lisbon at the time. All of those (especially the SEA) significantly changed what was signed up to in 1973 - but effectively there was no voice beyond a largely pro-European political class.
I'm rather suspicious of people claiming that anyone who is Eurosceptic cannot think for themselves and only exists on a diet of opinion or lies, whereas of course, those who are happy to continue to a federal Europe are insightful, intelligent and know the EU exists only for a wonderful utopian vision.
Re: ** The Brexit Thread ** - 'Brexit Means Brexit'
Posted: 12 Mar 2018, 3:45pm
by roubaixtuesday
661-Pete wrote:But this time, it [2nd referendum] seems to be literally the only way out of one unholy mess.
I seriously doubt it.
If a second ref reversed the first we'd end up with a toxic politics where people trust politicians even less. The EU 27 would be very unlikely to fully trust the UK not to reverse again, and would impose conditions on re-entry accordingly, and continue to treat us with mistrust.
If a second ref didn't reverse the first, leaving the EU would still be an omnishambolic self-inflicted wound for generations to come.
In other words, there is *no* way out of the mess. There are, however, many ways to get further into it, and the current govt are currently bent on expertly testing them out one by one.