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Brexit discussion thread XI (Please read OP before posting)

Quin_Dub

This is the eleventh incarnation of our Brexit discussion thread,

Same warnings etc still apply:

As we are approaching the critical end of March October 2019 period, please bear the following in mind before posting:
Insults directed at popular figures are not acceptable in this forum
Please do not post memes, videos or comedy links here
Please do not be uncivil to other posters
Please use the report function to alert the mods when necessary

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Spanish Eyes

Not sure that voter involvement reaches the nuances of this storm now, and maybe that’s what they rely on. Not demeaning anyone, but honestly the FPTP system really means engagement locally results in nothing if the constituency is a safe seat does it?k

GM228

Posted this a few days ago, but worth posting again as the topic has come up again:-

https://twitter.com/IanCLucas/status/1185962901368168449?s=19

devnull

Varta wrote: »

It is incumbent on every voter to seek the truth and vote accordingly. There will always be people trying to influence you by fair means or foul. Your vote is precious and you should give it only after great consideration. Once your vote is cast there is no going back. To seek to change the result of a referendum on the basis that people allowed themselves to be influenced is akin to opening the ballot boxes before the count has even happened. One man, one vote, and no one should judge or seek to dissolve the value of that vote. Otherwise democracy dies.

So just to confirm, you are saying that if someone cheated and broke the law and we punish them, then they are a bigger victim than the people who were cheated if we do nothing? That's quite frankly outrageous and just tells people to cheat and break the law, because nobody will stop you and you'll prosper.

It's one thing to try and influence someone, it's a completely different thing to break the law. If you cannot see the difference then honestly I don't know what else I can say to you, other than saying that I'm a law abiding person and I have respect for the law and that it something that a lot of people in the UK in the leave campaign could learn, as they've spent the last few years and even recent weeks and months basically thinking they can do what they like and the law and the rules don't apply to them .

It's times like this when I'm glad that we're in Ireland.

hotmail.com

Tell me how wrote: »

Check out Carole Cadwalladr's work on uncovering the Leave campaign using almost its entire budget targeting individuals based on their FB profiles as part of the Cambridge Analytica project. That has been proven to have been illegal.

Your second paragraph is true, both if the above had not happened, it is very possible that we'd have spent 3 years talking about them nearly having voted to Leave.

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years. It's far too simplistic to just look at the campaign.

The remain side fails to recognise that a lot of Britons do not like the European Union and don't really view themselves as European. The outcome of the referendum was a manifestation of those feelings, held for a long long time.

devnull

hotmail.com wrote: »

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years. It's far too simplistic to just look at the campaign.

I don't have a problem with them capitalising on that, even though I disagree with it, what I have a problem with is them doing it illegally.

Mr.Nice Guy

hotmail.com wrote: »

I suppose my point is that unrest is usually led by young people and young people seem to be more in favour of remain.

I can't see 80 year olds out looting.

Young people are more in favour of remain but I'm not sure why you think the only people who support Brexit are Last of the Summer Wine fans.

woohoo!!!

schmittel wrote: »

Woohoo!
General Election, this will be very exciting!!

You called

GM228

Varta wrote: »

It is incumbent on every voter to seek the truth and vote accordingly.

Those seeking the truth were given untruths by those who had the ability to easily pass what they liked as the truth, when you have great wealth and high profile faces backing you it's not hard to pass off what you say as the truth even to those who wish to dig deeper.

devnull

GM228 wrote: »

The spin is out:-

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1187430924243406849?s=19

Note how he says he got Parliament to approve the deal (at least on the second reading) - the deal absolutely was not approved by Parliament.

Mentions December 12th again - a motion for a GE can not dictate when a GE will occur.

Apparently threatening to put the Government on strike if he does not get a GE.

The usual tactics, threats, scaremongering, and more pathological lying and the belief that rules, laws and parliamentary procedures do not apply to him and if he cannot get his own way he will throw his toys out of the pram.

I read this article this morning, which sums it up rather well
https://news.sky.com/story/why-the-normal-rules-dont-apply-to-boris-johnson-11843361

hotmail.com

devnull wrote: »

I don't have a problem with them capitalising on that, even though I disagree with it, what I have a problem with is them doing it illegally.

It's done, it's over. They weren't the first to lie and confuse during a campaign and they won't be the last.

The illegal behaviour on Facebook didn't win the campaign.

GM228

hotmail.com wrote: »

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years.

Remind me how old the EU is?

hotmail.com

GM228 wrote: »

Remind me how old the EU is?

European? Did you read what I wrote?

Strazdas

hotmail.com wrote: »

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years. It's far too simplistic to just look at the campaign.

The remain side fails to recognise that a lot of Britons do not like the European Union and don't really view themselves as European. The outcome of the referendum was a manifestation of those feelings, held for a long long time.

I'm not convinced there was much anti-European feeling 100 years ago. Britain fought two world wars alongside France as a very close ally and would hardly have done so if there was a anti-European thing going on.

British Europhobia and Euroscepticism seems much more recent.....perhaps from the 60s/70s onward.

devnull

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Young people are more in favour of remain but I'm not sure why you think the only people who support Brexit are Last of the Summer Wine fans.

Indeed, one of the most pro remainers I know is a 60 year old who works in education in a senior position and she's far from the only person I know in that camp. Yes age is a factor but polls have shown that education and income among other things is also a factor.

The leavers tend to fall into different categories, even with age groups, you have the middle class people who mostly read the Mail and the Express and then you have the working class who read the comic, sorry I mean newspaper which is The Sun who also take things at face value.

[Deleted User]

hotmail.com wrote: »

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years. It's far too simplistic to just look at the campaign.

The remain side fails to recognise that a lot of Britons do not like the European Union and don't really view themselves as European. The outcome of the referendum was a manifestation of those feelings, held for a long long time.

For most of those hundreds of years, Europe was a group of competing empires with frequent wars between all of them.

hotmail.com

Strazdas wrote: »

I'm not convinced there was much anti-European feeling 100 years ago. Britain fought two world wars alongside France as a very close ally and would hardly have done so if there was a anti-European thing going on.

British Europhobia and Euroscepticism seems much more recent.....perhaps from the 60s/70s onward.

This isn't true.

They viewed their neighbours with scorn for having them got involved in two world wars. If it weren't for their cultural cousins, America, Britain was screwed. It wasn't Europe that saved Britain in the wars, it was America.

GM228

hotmail.com wrote: »

European? Did you read what I wrote?

Smiley face? Did you read what I wrote?

Seriously though what 100s of years anti European feeling, are some in the UK now against their geographical location aswell?

hotmail.com

GM228 wrote: »

Smiley face? Did you read what I wrote?

Seriously though what 100s of years anti European feeling, are some in the UK now against their geographical location aswell?

What was the smiley face supposed to indicate. You need to express your opinions. I assumed you misread it as European Union which I hadn't said.

devnull

hotmail.com wrote: »

This isn't true.

They viewed their neighbours with scorn for having them got involved in two world wars. If it weren't for their cultural cousins, America, Britain was screwed. It wasn't Europe that saved Britain in the wars, it was America.

I don't know where to start with this, but the wars involved many countries who fought off the rise of the Nazis by working together. Almost every country in the world was involved at one time, whilst some were neutral at the start, not many were by the end.

Yes America did help Britain, but if so many other countries didn't help the Allies out in the Second World War then America's help may not have been enough because the Nazis would have been stronger if other countries simply didn't get involved and work together to fight off the Nazis.

Tell me how

hotmail.com wrote: »

Again that may be true, but the Leave side was merely capitalising on the anti European feeling that has been around for hundreds of years. It's far too simplistic to just look at the campaign.

The remain side fails to recognise that a lot of Britons do not like the European Union and don't really view themselves as European. The outcome of the referendum was a manifestation of those feelings, held for a long long time.

No.
You're correct in there being a number of UK people who dislike the EU, a significant number, but, without the illegality, that number would likely not have been sufficient to swing the referendum, given how close a result it was.

hotmail.com

devnull wrote: »

I don't know where to start with this, but the wars involved many countries who fought off the rise of the Nazis by working together. Almost every country in the world was involved at one time, whilst some were neutral at the start, not many were by the end.

Yes America did help Britain, but if so many other countries didn't help the Allies out in the Second World War then America's help may not have been enough because the Nazis would have been stronger if other countries simply didn't get involved and work together to fight off the Nazis.

My point is that there is a deep routed anti European attitude in Britain. For the world war generation, Europe represented a place where relatives had fought and not come home.

My second point is that Britain is instinctively and culturally closer to current and former UK colonies. This was boosted by America's help during the wars.

hotmail.com

Tell me how wrote: »

No.
You're correct in there being a number of UK people who dislike the EU, a significant number, but, without the illegality, that number would likely not have been sufficient to swing the referendum, given how close a result it was.

Perhaps it's worthwhile to look past the last few weeks of a campaign to explain how things worked out.

And the result wasn't that close. There was a clear Leave majority.

johnnyskeleton

Mod note:

While there is some tolerance in terms of discussing traditionally held views in the UK, lets keep the history debates to the history forum please! Especially since there is the longevity fallacy i.e. this house has been here for 100 years, therefore itll stay for a hundred more

lawred2

devnull wrote: »

The usual tactics, threats, scaremongering, and more pathological lying and the belief that rules, laws and parliamentary procedures do not apply to him and if he cannot get his own way he will throw his toys out of the pram.

I read this article this morning, which sums it up rather well
https://news.sky.com/story/why-the-normal-rules-dont-apply-to-boris-johnson-11843361

Works though. A lot of people care nothing for prudence, propriety, precedence or parliamentary procedure.

It serves their agenda so BJ is free to literally take the piss right out of the useful fools.

Irish Praetorian

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

But your rationale (and well articulated it is) runs aground when you consider that this was a vote for independence from the European Union.

So to pursue your own logic on how bad Brexit would be economically for people to it's conclusion then Ireland would never have gotten it's independence or any state dependent on a bigger power for that matter because people were going to be worse off immediately afterward.

The UK is a big confident resourceful country, well able to support itself inside or outside the EU.

I make that same argument of all countries big and small in the EU as well.

No matter what one thinks of the referendum (and lets be real there were lies and falsehoods on both sides) they voted to leave.

It does not get any simpler than that. To me that means they leave all the institutions of the EU.

The only people making it seem complicated are those who never accepted the result.

And that is my argument:

1. Accept the result
2. Once result is implemented then remainers can put forward a new debate to rejoin.

You are most kind and I certainly appreciate someone similarly articulate putting forward the more nuanced argument for Brexit.

I must fall at the first hurdle so to speak though when it comes to your contention - I have a hard time seeing the first Brexit vote as endorsing anything other than vague claims of sovereignty and democracy, interwoven with more appealing claims about economic opportunities and immigration. The specifics of what the EU does and doesn't do and what it ought to versus ought not to do, was I would content, a sorely lacking argument during the referendum, epitomized by the morning after surge of people googling 'What does the EU do'.

Now the economic argument is incidental to this initial argument but I don't mind exploring it with you. Firstly, I would have to make the counter-argument that often separatist movements are grounded in some kind of idea (real or imagined) of improving their economic prospects, typically by freeing themselves from the 'burden' of 'supporting' other parts of their country/state. This was the argument of the 13 Colonies, of the Italian Lega Nord, of the Catalonia separatists and in its own convoluted way, of our own independence movement, which saw the Famine as the ultimate economic failure and political control as a means of improving economic conditions. Now to be fair, this is sort of the argument of some Brexiteers - basically 'fishing our own fish' etc, but it remains a fairly economically illiterate one. I would also add I'm not necessarily convinced by the idea of each country doing better economically outside the EU, I think the EU certainly levies a financial cost but the benefit in terms of trade and shared institutions is more than compensation - this might be a side topic though.

To return to the central argument you make about the vote being a net vote to leave, I simply cannot square that assumption with some of the problems we saw, namely;

1. The lack of a vote for UK citizens resident in EU nations.
2. The poor level of debate conducted prior to the referendum.
3. The utter divorcing of one vote option from any bearing on reality.

Now I'll set aside the first two points because three is the really compelling one and I think it is the fundamental reason why the referendum went the way it did, and is partly the reason we should take a second look at it. Now in the Irish tradition, referenda deal with set and specific portions of our constitution and typically have a piece of legislation attached to them, so when one side or another wins, everyone knows what follows next. However in the UK case, only one side had to bother to deal with this matter, whilst the Leave side was free to argue and campaign for everything under the sun. Given this disparity, it's hardly unexpected which side triumphed and also why that same side was immediately fractured with 100 different visions of what 'leaving' meant. Now I would submit that the only rational reaction to this, is to get clarification - to get the most popular options (namely the Deal or No-Deal) as well as a backing out option and let the populace decide. The fear that you have for major unrest is one that I could easily see replicated if either of these less appealing outcomes is made into UK policy without getting the endorsement of the UK populace.

devnull

hotmail.com wrote: »

Perhaps it's worthwhile to look past the last few weeks of a campaign to explain how things worked out.

And the result wasn't that close. There was a clear Leave majority.

Nigel Farage said that 4% wasn't a clear majority, he said that if it was only 4% then it had a long way to go and it was not the end of it*

That's before we take into account the fact there was cheating, someone winning by 4% legally and someone winning by 4% illegally is a world of difference.

* But we all know in reality what he really meant is that if his side won by 0.1% it was the end of it, but if it lost by 4% then it wasn't, because he's a hypocrite like that.

SeaBreezes

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why should we conduct our politics in such a manner as to appease thugs?

Which thugs do you mean?
The billionaires who have a deadline of Jan 2020 at all costs, or the man on the street who's happy with a deal?

To me, another referendum is the only way forward to avoid civil disruption.

Strazdas

lawred2 wrote: »

Not to question a mod or anything but as a married man where the other half of our new family is British, I can assure you that this historical view of 'Europe' is very relevant to their Brexit opinions.

I think too this Euroscepticism / Brexit mindset thing is much more recent, perhaps coinciding with the rapid decline of the Empire.

hotmail.com

devnull wrote: »

Nigel Farage said that 4% wasn't a clear majority, he said that if it was only 4% then it had a long way to go and it was not the end of it*

That's before we take into account the fact there was cheating, someone winning by 4% legally and someone winning by 4% illegally is a world of difference.

* But we all know in reality what he really meant is that if his side won by 0.1% it was the end of it, but if it lost by 4% then it wasn't, because he's a hypocrite like that.

The outcome was illegal? You've lost me.

I made no comment on Farage. I'm commenting on the underlying anti European sentiment in Britain.

I don't agree with it, but some in Ireland have to come to terms with it. They want to leave. Talking about illegal campaigning just seems ridiculous at this stage.

Headshot

I'm watching "The View" and fills me with a warmest feeling of seeing DUP put under a bus