Cycling UK Forum

reohn2 wrote: 2 May 2023, 5:27pm

Jdsk wrote: 2 May 2023, 3:20pm

simonineaston wrote: 2 May 2023, 3:17pm What annoys me most is the fact that so few people seem to have a good grasp of the underlying and continuing issues... reflecting on my own experience, I barely know more than one or two people who have taken the time & trouble to read round the subject responsibly and who can articulate relevant arguments. Myself, I've spent hours reading as much as I can get my hands on and still don't think I have a particularly good grasp of the important topics concerned.
In partic. the catnip that is the word sovereignty seems to evade the full understanding of the vast majority of folk I've heard discuss it! All-in-all, it's certainly not the sort of issue for which we should have risked a binding referendum!

Which makes an excellent case for more discussion rather than less.

Jonathan

+1 yet it seems the people who don't wish to engage in such discussion are leavers,funny that!

I'm a "leaver" who has posted on here recently - funny that.
This is a remainer dominated topic . Doubtless it's nice to read posts from those who agree with you but there is something of the echo chamber about it.

ANTONISH wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:41am
This is a remainer dominated topic . Doubtless it's nice to read posts from those who agree with you but there is something of the echo chamber about it.

Do you not think the page is somewhat dominated by the large print title:

Are you "Infected by a remainer mind virus"?

ANTONISH wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:41am
I'm a "leaver" who has posted on here recently - funny that.
This is a remainer dominated topic . Doubtless it's nice to read posts from those who agree with you but there is something of the echo chamber about it.

As a leaver what positive outcomes has Brexit to offer the country or was it big mistake?
If the latter,leavers would earn some respect from remainers as it is for the most part their silence is deafening and those remainers who have spoken up have so far had not one solid reason for leaving.

I've not varied in my belief that Brexit was going to be and has been a terrible disaster for the country,and TBH until proven otherwise or somekind of admittance of mistake from leavers I'll not shut about it.
I've seen and heard some absolute tosh about how Brexit is working,articles such as in the OP telling me it's all my fault it isn't because I don't believe in Brexit is just more tosh.

EDITED for clarity and grammar

Sorry I missed this post.

ANTONISH wrote: 28 Apr 2023, 8:42am .........There were reasons that I voted brexit which had nothing to do with that nonsense on the side of the bus.

Would you mind posting what those reasons were and if you think they've been or will be fulfilled.


BTW as an aside I'm of the opinion we'v had 13 year of idiotic self seeking PMs and governments way out of their depth in the job entrusted to them.

What!??!! Why are we still talking about this!?! Let's just get on with it!!!

(I voted to remain, other folks didn't. However we've still got to find lots of ways to make clean energy, we've still got to find homes for homeless folks and we've still got lots of biodiversity to save and then help florish ))

cycle tramp wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:54pm What!??!! Why are we still talking about this!?! Let's just get on with it!!!

(I voted to remain, other folks didn't. However we've still got to find lots of ways to make clean energy, we've still got to find homes for homeless folks and we've still got lots of biodiversity to save and then help florish ))

Somebody threw a stone at a hornets' nest by starting this thread.

cycle tramp wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:54pm What!??!! Why are we still talking about this!?! Let's just get on with it!!!

It's the way it's being got on with that's causing all the problems

However we've still got to find lots of ways to make clean energy, we've still got to find homes for homeless folks and we've still got lots of biodiversity to save and then help florish ))

Do you think leaving the EU has helped with any of that?

pwa wrote: 3 May 2023, 10:20pm Somebody threw a stone at a hornets' nest by starting this thread.

I think it was the article the OP linked to trying to blame remainers for the problems of Brexit that thew the stone which made a lot of remainer "hornets" angry.

cycle tramp wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:54pm What!??!! Why are we still talking about this!?! Let's just get on with it!!!

(I voted to remain, other folks didn't. However we've still got to find lots of ways to make clean energy, we've still got to find homes for homeless folks and we've still got lots of biodiversity to save and then help florish ))

re emboldened, that's exactly the point I was trying to make - that while the people who are in power blame the people who voted against their scheme for it's failure, rather than getting on with sorting out the fiasco, we can't possibly "get on with it".

Plus, of course, there are multiple highly contradictory beliefs of what "getting on with it" entails, so we need to openly debate the failure and how to get on with it,.

Not blame mystery mind viruses for it.

cycle tramp wrote: 3 May 2023, 8:54pm What!??!! Why are we still talking about this!?! Let's just get on with it!!!

(I voted to remain, other folks didn't. However we've still got to find lots of ways to make clean energy, we've still got to find homes for homeless folks and we've still got lots of biodiversity to save and then help florish ))

There's actually a very clear link between Brexit and the economic/environmental issues you mention. With Brexit, the UK population was fooled by a well-funded and ruthless campaign of misinformation which convinced people that we were going to stride into the sunlit uplands, freed from the red-tape of our neighbour (who, at the time, happened to be the largest trading bloc on the planet) to go and make important trade deals with Ecuador etc. whilst our brave pensioners toiled in the fields to bring in the fruit harvests which the dastardly European invaders would no longer be able to do for us.

Those exact same tactics are being used to ensure the population is sceptical about the true scale of the environmental disaster we're sleepwalking into, and ensuring most of the population would rather victim-blame than recognise the economic and social problems we need to be tackling. If we continue with mainstream and social media dominated by a combination of dumb populism as well as deliberate misinformation, we'll never tackle any of these problems. To see what I mean by 'deliberate misinformation,' take a look at 'Brexit: the uncivil war' on Channel 4, or the documentary series 'how they made us doubt everything' on Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l7q0

I therefore see it as vital that we continue to do a post-mortem on Brexit as the lies come into sharp relief. At least this may raise awareness of the murky tricks that were used, and get us looking for reforms that could prevent them.

DevonDamo wrote: 4 May 2023, 11:01am With Brexit, the UK population was fooled by a well-funded and ruthless campaign of misinformation which convinced people that we were going to stride into the sunlit uplands, freed from the red-tape of our neighbour (who, at the time, happened to be the largest trading bloc on the planet) to go and make important trade deals with Ecuador etc. whilst our brave pensioners toiled in the fields to bring in the fruit harvests which the dastardly European invaders would no longer be able to do for us.

And what about the Pro-EU leaflet sent out by the government to all households, at an expense of £9.3 million to taxpayers? Where was the balance and impartiality in that?

And for those of you who don't beleve me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_le ... %20Ireland.

853 wrote: 4 May 2023, 1:43pm

DevonDamo wrote: 4 May 2023, 11:01am With Brexit, the UK population was fooled by a well-funded and ruthless campaign of misinformation which convinced people that we were going to stride into the sunlit uplands, freed from the red-tape of our neighbour (who, at the time, happened to be the largest trading bloc on the planet) to go and make important trade deals with Ecuador etc. whilst our brave pensioners toiled in the fields to bring in the fruit harvests which the dastardly European invaders would no longer be able to do for us.

And what about the Pro-EU leaflet sent out by the government to all households, at an expense of £9.3 million to taxpayers? Where was the balance and impartiality in that?

And for those of you who don't beleve me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_le ... %20Ireland.

Must confess I don't remember that!

That is quite a strange WIki article, IMO. It features a long point-by-point analysis (fine so far), but for each one they cite a rebuttal given by ... well any source they can find! An odd mixture. Still, history now ...

853 wrote: 4 May 2023, 1:43pm
And what about the Pro-EU leaflet sent out by the government to all households, at an expense of £9.3 million to taxpayers?

The leaflet whose characterisation of Brexit being a bad idea has been borne out by by events?

Remembering that the original telegraph article is blaming a "mind virus" for the failure of Brexit.

I recall the little booklet.

Dull. Very, very dull and about as engaging as a plate of cold porridge.

If Cameron hadn’t been so completely out of touch with the reality of a lot of people’s lives, and the opinions that they’d formed as a result, he might have led a proper campaign in favour of “remain”, instead of issuing a dull booklet and resting on his laissez faire bottom.

mattheus wrote: 4 May 2023, 1:51pm

853 wrote: 4 May 2023, 1:43pm

DevonDamo wrote: 4 May 2023, 11:01am With Brexit, the UK population was fooled by a well-funded and ruthless campaign of misinformation which convinced people that we were going to stride into the sunlit uplands, freed from the red-tape of our neighbour (who, at the time, happened to be the largest trading bloc on the planet) to go and make important trade deals with Ecuador etc. whilst our brave pensioners toiled in the fields to bring in the fruit harvests which the dastardly European invaders would no longer be able to do for us.

And what about the Pro-EU leaflet sent out by the government to all households, at an expense of £9.3 million to taxpayers? Where was the balance and impartiality in that?

And for those of you who don't beleve me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-EU_le ... %20Ireland.

Must confess I don't remember that!

That is quite a strange WIki article, IMO. It features a long point-by-point analysis (fine so far), but for each one they cite a rebuttal given by ... well any source they can find! An odd mixture. Still, history now ...

I remember the leaflet and the partisan nature of the government in the run up to the vote; I thought, and still do, that that was no way for a government to behave and that they should have been scrupulously impartial which, to my recollection, they were not. Foolishly, IMHO, the Labour Party struggled to be impartial too and that was almost certainly a contributing factor to later electoral defeats.

Brexit is a poisonous issue and best held at arm’s length. The whole situation would have worked much better had the politicians allowed free (Westminster) voting along the lines of conscience and the feelings of electorate rather than on political dogma. Yes, a leave vote would still have had to have been implemented but better so by a cross party group led by prominent and experienced leavers who would be answerable to the whole of Westminster on a free vote basis.

Politicians … Teresa May had something less extreme than Boris but she fell out of power when a free vote (with Labour support) would have seen both her proposals go forward and BoJo not elected.