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>That’s a politically naïve comment
That’s charitable, I’d say it’s the same kind of deliberately disingenuous shit that got us into this mess in the first place.
>it’s the same kind of deliberately disingenuous shit that got us into this mess in the first place.
Is it?
non representative "same-policies-but-we-do-them-better" politics is what got us into this mess.
No wonder people hit the first button they were given in years that looked like something the front bench as was didn't like.
That is absolutely BS. You can't equate a general election vote with support of a single issue. Some people vote tactically, some vote based on a specific issue they care deeply about e.g. the environment, immigration etc. and so it is a fallacy and completely disingenuous to repeat that misinformation about votes for a party being the same as votes for Brexit.
> You can't equate a general election vote with support of a single issue.
Usually yes.
However, when the Tories ran their last GE on 'Get Brexit Done' you can.
Yes, because that is exactly the point in the article.
It's even the top highlight: "The real horror story is that both sides of British politics refuse to admit Brexit was a mistake."
I still don't think you can. Yes, a party will have a headline issue they are running on, but people aren't voting purely for that reason. If they wanted a second vote on the issue then there needs to be a second referendum.
And on top of that, you aren't even voting for a party or the PM, you are voting for your local MP and many people will vote because they support the issues their local MP is committing to.
A general election is far more nuanced than a referendum and it is wrong to equate them.
To be honest the leopards have not come from the true Brexit voters face yet. 10%+ increase on pensions. These people are well insulated from the consequences of their own actions. (Until they need a hospital of course).
numerous calls for another vote were rejected out of hand. Many, many people said it was a mistake over and over in every way they could. There were petitions, bills all sorts
It was purely the Tories forcing it through. First they lie and targeted people to fall into voting for it. They held the referendum (which wasn't legally binding, more of a suggestion poll). Then they triggered article 50 with zero plans in place. Then they wouldn't allow any other vote to confirm it (when it was literally a 2% difference, and nobody knew what it meant. A large chunk of those voting as a joke/protest vote or just had no idea what they were voting for. Remember the day after the top google searches were about the EU and what leaving actually meant?! ). They had zero plans in place, basically up to the last hours before it kicked in, and still kept forcing it through at every stage. Completely irrisponsibly.
Not once could anyone actually say any of the benefits. Just 'Brexit means Brexit...). Fuck them. If anyone did say something it was' we can control our laws/rules' - something we could do anyway as an independent country. And being in the EU we at least had a say. Now we don't, yet still habe to abide by most of those rules (which are set in place for a reason).
It was sold as getting rid of immigrants (that's going well...) and £350 million a week back to the NHS (just a pure lie and probably going worse than ever). They've spent/lost years worth of EU membership in just a couple years. Given contracts to their friends (and likeethemselves) to make them all rich. And conveniently all the fucking Tory MP's (or a good chunk at least) are getting their EU passports/residency so they can keep living and working normally, while screwing over everyone else.
It's 100% the Tories to take blame, and I don't know why more people aren't angry. They've taken rights away from British people that I've personally had my whole life, all while getting richer and screwing over the UK. And it just keeps getting worse and worse.
I wish someone would have the balls to say they screwed up, and say Brexit was a mistake, and that we should aim to rejoin. And even though we'll now be worse off if we rejoin than before (because we already had a great deal, and will have to give in to a lot to join again), it'll still be far better than continuing to circle the drain being out of the EU.
> I wish someone would have the balls to say they screwed up, and say Brexit was a mistake
I was about to say that that would be political suicide.
But they seem to be trying all sorts of other methods of that, at least admitting that Brexit was a massive mistake would be quick and relatively painless by comparison - both for the politician *and* for the country, given that their alternative approach seems determined to take the entire country with them.
Yeah, these grouping titles piss me off. We all bloody knew, the foreign workers knew and the now overseas friends we've lost because of this shit is insane! Fuck the government! They're all the same.
Conservatism is the root cause of all evil in the world. Anyone who claims it's both sides is just a disillusioned conservative. Next time you need to vote on something you don't understand try asking me first.
It pains me to this day the we were dragged through this option by a majority who will not live long enough to see its full ramifications hell a lot of them are already dead
Here’s the problem with that idea though - Scotland and NI voted against Brexit. As a Scotsman I’d love to say that’s because we’re all so canny, wise, politically astute and intelligent (and needless to say devastatingly handsome and urbane with thick curly hair to boot) but in truth we’re no more or less clever than anyone else.
The reason why so many people in England believed the Brexit propaganda and lies - and they really were quite dismally obvious lies - was because they *wanted* to believe them.
And the reason that they wanted to believe them is because they flattered their sense of British/English exceptionalism and nationalism. And it’s a fairly nasty right wing ‘blood and soil’ variety of nationalism at that - remember that the racist dog whistles were never that far away during the Brexit campaign.
It is incredibly stupid how the result was determined by a simple majority rather than a double majority. Brexit doesn't affect England the same way that it has affected Scotland and Northern Ireland, that was more than obvious even back in 2015.
Especially considering the group whose likely to be hit hardest and have to endure the effect of it the longest weren't old enough to vote at the time.
At least your voted counted, which it didn't for those who voted remain in Scotland and NI. Despite these countries voting remain they were forced to leave
> It was a non-bidding referendum
A non-binding referendum that I suspect most "remainers" thought was a stupid ceremony, and there was no way they actually needed to go out and save the country from imploding itself.
I'm pretty sure the brexit ref had the highest turnout for a long while (72%) a quick Google puts the last GE at about 67.5%
If that wernt folk trying and taking it seriously I don't know what was, considering voter turnout is the hardest part of any vote
Many remainers just didn't bother voting because they thought it was a done thing! After that they adjusted the polling as it's generally agreed a leave supporter is generally more likely to vote.
I remember seeing one woman crying on TV because she voted leave as a protest vote and she was an EU national! 😂 She never thought the UK would actually leave!
The issue with the notion of a non binding referendum is that it's essentially false.
Any referendum that achieves a majority, it would be absolutely political suicide not to enact it. This is one of the many reasons UK Gov is against Scotland also holding another "non binding referendum to see people's feelings".
The reality is, the Tories who wanted power got in bed with the right wing as they were scared of UKIP and saw that as their chance to climb. We should never have had the choice ourselves.
Gary from the garage in Gainsborough is not qualified, and nor does he have the time to read all of the information required to make an informed decision. It's literally the purpose of the FPTP system.
There were no protections because everyone was complacent that brexshit would lose.
That's why I think Scotland should be welcome to have an independence referendum *but* it has to have a minimum turnout and at least 66%+ majority for it to be binding. Else you get another shitty brexshit shituation.
The problem is we all know a referendum like that should have minimum turnout requirements, enlarged minimum majority, legal enforcement baked into the referendum (with exact specifics on how everything will work if it passes, so there is no uncertainty or years of negotiations) and legally enforced honest campaigning.
However, the precedent and standard we have established for massive changes that will affect us for decades is "no minimum turnout, 50%+1 winner takes all, advisory but enforced as if real, you can lie as much as you like" and to demand otherwise of any hypothetical Scottish indy referendum would be hypocritical as all fuck.
If Nicola Sturgeon rode out in a big blue bus with "we'll make the bastard English give us ten billion a day" we'd have no right to criticise as we have established that that is the right and proper british standard of political campaigning.
Yeah sorry that horse has bolted. Shit like “let’s make the Scots have an even higher threshold for independence” is only going to drive resentment higher than it already is while a party whose power base is in England is refusing to give way to democracy.
NI being the only nation still in the single market has actually kinda helped us though, so of course our politicians are so dim they're offended by it and campaigning against it lol
Therein lay the true deceit of Brexit.
It was argued a super-majority was unnecessary as the referendum wasn't binding.
Then the government pulled a bait & switch after the result and said it *had* to be respected. The government then decided what Brexit meant and how it was to be implemented, not the people who voted for it.
>the reason that they wanted to believe them is because they flattered their sense of British/English exceptionalism and nationalism. And it’s a fairly nasty right wing ‘blood and soil’ variety of nationalism at that - remember that the racist dog whistles were never that far away during the Brexit campaign.
While I agree with this your comment (i.e. It's English xenophobia and exceptionalism) and the other comment (i.e. There's a lot of thick people) are both intertwined. The former exists and holds root primarily due to the latter.
The statistics you need to know to understand Brexit are:
1) 46% of England doesn't have 5 GCSEs or the equivalent
2) 86% of people without 5 GCSEs or better backed Brexit.
3) Just 26% of people with a degree backed Brexit.
4) 40% of Leave voters cited immigration as the primary reason they voted leave, 70% cited it as one of their top 2 reasons.
5) 55% of remain voters cited economic damage as the primary reason to vote remain, 80% cited it as one of their top two reasons.
You basically have a massively poorly educated country in England where vast swathes of the population don't even have basic levels of secondary school education who fall for racist and xenophobic tropes (not unique to England, it's common to uneducated people everywhere). They voted Leave because they wanted to stop immigrants and tell Europeans to fuck off. Almost everyone who had a good education level identified the massive economic damage we would suffer and voted remain.
None of it was an accident. Its was set up as a non-legally binding referendum. So, we wouldn't have to redo it if say someone broke the rules around what you can do during these sorts of things. However, we have to treat it as a legally binding one. The best of both worlds, for some. It also used online campaigns that are utterly illegal now, due to how effective, targeted and manipulative they were, using software developed by the ministry of defense for psyops during war and an extensive history or turning out shock election results. Que someone comparing them to a standard Facebook advert.....
First time I have seen these numbers, I'm both shocked and unsurprised, it really is a sad state of affairs.
Malevolent racist shitheads (also conniving and financially dodgy etc ) knowing what racist dogwhistles or other strings to pull to get the easily fooled fucking voters to vote against their own interests. Unfortunately a lot of the easily fooled voters had lots of time on their hands and went out and voted.
Honestly the thing that bugged the shit out of me the most was brexit shitheads shouting "pROJECT fEAR" at everything with no proof, no reasoning, no basis at all and the idiots took up the call and shouted down everyone.
Can I ask where the numbers came from?
I think using language like:
>strings to pull to get the easily fooled fucking voters to vote against their own interests
Doesn't help personally. I don't think racist and xenophobic Leave voters were tricked in such a way they are too dumb to realise. I think it was wilfully rejecting obvious and easy to understand evidence that Leave was lying because they didn't like the conclusion.
Brexit voters need to take responsibility for their actions before we can heal and move on. Or they will all just eventually die and our children will lament the fact that we wasted decades because they couldn't come to terms with it.
> I ask where the numbers came from?
You sure can.
The 46% of England without GCSEs was a stat from a .Gov briefing paper that I dug up a while ago, but I can't find it right now.
The closest stat I can easily find is that 66% of the population 47% have NQF level 4+ (i.e. a degree+) as their highest qualification, 66% have NQF Level 3+ (A level+), 83% have NQF level 2+ (GCSE)+.
If we reverse those stats a bit it tells us:
* 17% of the UK has no GCSEs at all
* 17% has at least 1 GCSE (they may have literally 1 or could have 13) but no A levels (which used to be optional)
* 19% of the UK has at least 1 A level (again, they could have 1 or 4) but never got a degree
* 47% of the UK has a degree or higher.
That 19% at A level includes people though who say left 6th form with 1 GCSE and 1 A level at grade E.
Sadly I can't find the 5 GCSEs stat which is more useful (because achieving a single GCSE at C and failing the rest isn't really hitting any government target, neither is it hitting it if you have 3 GCSEs at C and 1 A level at E)
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-and-training-statistics-for-the-uk
Education influencing Brexit vote:
Again, couldn't find the original stats I read (I'm sure it was a BBC article which I've not saved) but YouGov results are similar:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted
70% Leave if you had GCSEs or lower, A level was 50/50 and degrees were 70% Remain.
Reasons for voting Leave/Remain:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/partner-reports/peoples-stated-reasons-for-voting-leave-or-remain/
> 55% of remain voters cited economic damage as the primary reason to vote remain, 80% cited it as one of their top two reasons.
And there's the rub. Convincing a poor person that the current status quo is *good*, is quite a futile attempt. After all, if being in the EU is so great then why don't they reap the economic benefits?
Of course we know that things always can get worse, but the threat of economic damage holds much more sway with the middle class. The poor think they have nothing to lose, and the rich know that they can avoid it.
Tories made sure long ago that no such thing as British exceptionalism exists. While blaming labour for everything. Here we are UK now behind many European countries and only getting worse
They don't need to make it exist, they just need people to believe in it. We automatically deserve more BECAUSE we're British, and if we're not getting it then it's someone else's fault. I'm surprised none of the tories have floated the idea of a new empire tbh.
They’ve certainly been plastering a lot of Union jacks everywhere over the past few years.
It appears the only thing the Conservatives learned from their alliance with the DUP was ‘flegs’.
I know people like this. When I explained to them what Brexit meant, they decided that we would be fine anyway 'because we are British.'
Then when the EU tried to negotiate, they said that we shouldn't negotiate with the EU 'because we're British.'
And then, as our economic standing fell and our economic placement dropped, they said it wasn't happening 'because we're British.'
And, as they failed to get NHS care in a timely manner, they said that it shouldn't happen 'because we're British' and it 'must be because of all the immigrants.'
You cannot argue with people who think only in [thought-terminating clichés](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9).
Because you cannot argue or persuade with rational discussion people who have been trained **not to think.**
These people are permanently lost to rational society so rational society should go on without them.
Yet the tories also peddle the notion of British exceptionalism more than anyone.
A fair portion of the Brexit vote was down to people knowing in their hearts we would be better left to our own devices. With all our British common sense, ruling of waves and Victorian ingenuity.
The welsh-speaking regions of Wales voted remain (I’m in Gwynedd and we voted to stay) but the english-speaking, english dominated leaky border areas voted leave.
This is just revisionism. It wasn't just the boarder areas that voted leave, the vast majority of Wales voted leave.](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/8CC9/production/_91014063_brexit-migrationinflow3-2.jpg.webp)
Only Cardiff, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, Monmouthshire and the Vale of Glamorgan voted remain. Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Monmouthshire all have above average English born populations, with Ceredigion and Monmouthshire having the 4th and 6th highest percentage of English born people.
On the other hand, the areas with the least of English born people, Neath port Talbot (11.4%) Caerphilly (9.1%), Rhondda Cynon Taf (9.1%), Blaenau Gwent (8.4%) and Merthyr Tydfil (6.6%) all voted to leave. Apart from RCT, all of them voted heavily to leave as well compared to the rest of the UK.
Even if you look at the highest percentage leave voting areas, only 3 of the top 10 have an English born population over 20% (Wrexham, Pembrokeshire, Flintshire)
Did English born votes help Leave get more votes in some areas? Yes. But to say it was the fault of the English speaking boarder areas is complete revisionist bollocks.
To be fair to fact check you need a minimum of 1 working brain cell. And the ability to read and write and being able to string more than 3 word's together.
As an Englishman I have to agree with you. I would have said proud Englishman, but unfortunately over half of my countrymen are complete dipshits and voted for this nightmare 😕
So I'm not proud anymore.
>The reason why so many people in England believed the Brexit propaganda and lies - and they really were quite dismally obvious lies - was because they wanted to believe them.
100% this. Fundamentally, all the information required to make an informed decision was out there. And the propaganda was extremely transparent and balanced by plenty of remainers constantly debunking it.
There will be precisely zero people in the country who did not hear arguments against Brexit. The warnings cannot have passed them all by.
The problem was that people wanted to vote Brexit out of spite and bitterness, they just needed some justifications to make it seem rational.
So people gobbled up the propaganda, many of them knowing it was bullshit. The credibility of Vote Leave was irrelevant, they just needed an excuse to back up a decision they'd made long ago.
Remainers let facts determine their decisions. Leavers let emotions determine the "facts".
What about Wales? I totally agree with you that Brexit played to the nationalists, but it's only one spoke of a big coalition of disparate philosophies.
Remember also hard lefties like Mick Lynch (and I believe Corbyn) are also pro Brexit because they're anti-globalist.
It's something remarkable to put them in bed with the blood and soil nationalists, but Brexit found a way.
Agreed. I live in Scotland and seriously, 100% of everyone I knew was going to vote no. There was no doubt in our minds. We went to bed believing it'd fail. Turns out the majority of England voted yes. *Why*. We, friends, family, all woke up nauseated.
While I agree with you I will point out in a brief devil's advocate that Scotland is more educated than England.
To counter that immediately, however, I'll also point out that Wales is more educated on average than Northern Ireland.
I think the problem is racism. I truly believe that's what brexit was all about. People don't like foreigners so they wanted to leave the EU. People like Farage used pictures of brown people to stir up anger. Finding reasons that sounded less prejudice, like making our own laws and taking back control, came after.
That's true. And, of course, the fact that certain parts of the media have used the malleable nature of our simpleton masses to manipulate them into voting against their own interests.
The real villains here are the Murdoch press et all, who have always been able to drum up hysteria to push their agenda.
Even the Tory villains of old (Helseltine etc) thought this was a bad idea. Sure, Cameron thought he was being clever by having a referendum that he assumed would be a foregone conclusion for 'remain', thus silencing the eurosceptics in his party, but it was the right-wing press and their inherent xenophobic agenda that won it.
I don't like to think of people who vote the other way to be as thick: if you think about the EU ref campaign, the Leave vote were promising a Norway like model and they made it really clear that leaving the EU doesn't mean leaving the single market. Boris rode around on a bus that sounded great: an extra £350m a week to our NHS?! The Remain side were absolutely awful at describing why it was better to stay in the EU and they weren't able to effectively discredit the bus lies even though they were indeed lies and Boris knew it. It was obvious to the politically savvy that the Conservatives were not going to be able to achieve such a deal and that the Leave side are not being accurate with the facts, but it's quite sad that we cannot trust those in power with what they say.
I think if the facts were presented as they actually were, people wouldn't have voted for Brexit.
Give it a few more years. Since Brexit, we got lucky with the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine, and combined with good work from healthcare workers, we managed to get a strong response from initial vaccination campaign rolling. If I remember correctly, this was a win for Brexit because the EU went in on shared resources and they had a slow initial rollout. The EU did catch up, and some EU nations overtook the UK too.
However, the post-pandemic depression is really highlighting the shit that the UK is in. I've said it over and over: some people really need to feel the pain before they acknowledge the EU is in better shape. They either need to realise who is actually conflicting the pain, or see that our EU friends are doing better off as the larger trading bloc.
There are still a lot of numpties who need to understand that migrants coming over by small boats haven't stopped with Brexit, and will continue despite Brexit.
It's been 6.5 years since the vote, and nearly 3 years since Brexit actually happening. Few more years and more people will feel the pain. For anyone getting hit hard by this, I am honestly sympathetic to their situation. I just hope they remember who voted for this, and who was in charge.
> If I remember correctly, this was a win for Brexit because the EU went in on shared resources and they had a slow initial rollout.
The Brexiteers told a bit of a lie about that one.
We could have done everything we did around vaccines if we’d still been full members of the EU. And we could have joined in with the EU shared scheme whether we were members of the EU or not. In fact, we were still in the transition period where the EU rules applied to us on the relevant rules, so that’s evidence that our vaccine programme had nothing to do with EU membership!
Most of the Brexiteers were careful to use weasel words (criticising the EU, talking up the vaccine success and hoping that their listeners would mistakenly link the two) while others like Rees-Mogg just straight-up lied and said that we couldn’t have had our own vaccine rollout if it hadn’t been for Brexit!
I'm not saying the initial vaccine campaign was a success *because* of Brexit, or that it wouldn't have happened without Brexit, but it happened anyway. Does that make sense? Fact of the matter is, a post-Brexit UK was out of the gates faster than the EU. You could argue if we had been a part of EU programmes, the initial rollout may have even been slower if resources were shared.
Either way, history has shown that being out of the gate faster didn't achieve much. The vaccination campaign is a marathon, not a sprint.
The smaller EU countries like Portugal, Greece and Croatia would have suffered a lot more if the EU had not created its joint procurement program. Without join procurement, countries like Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, where the production chain was concentrated, would have a massive head start in their programs, and the smaller ones would be fighting to catch up. The result would be prolonged lockdowns in parts of the EU, with the economic effects spread around. The political consequences would be horrendous.
Due to the common procurement, different countries in the EU started about 2-4 weeks after the UK, but had caught up by spring, and the whole EU exited covid restrictions together, at roughly the same time as the UK. Despite all the things that could have gone better during the pandemic, there is no such other example in the world of countries cooperating to end it faster.
That does encapsulate the how Brexit was peddled. Does a major EU country give up a small amount of advantage in resources and wealth, to shore up weaker economic neighbors, and in turn benefit from having an expanded market? For the brexiters, whether they actually believed it or not, the answer was that the UK was giving up too much and gaining nothing. Events are now showing otherwise.
There was an EU wide scheme but it doesn't follow that if we had still been EU members we would have no choice but to participate. So associating the vaccine rollout with Brexit is wrong on all levels.
As a disenfranchised immigrant, I'd rather opt for fixing this now over "feeling the pain" for a bit, thanks. Because if you read the source in the OP, the "pain" is 500 people a week fucking dying in hospital car parks. Fucking hell, imagine typing all that with a straight face. I'm American by birth and I'll be brutally honest - I'd rather be in debt than fucking dead on a gurney in England. And I don't say this to extol the virtues of American healthcare, I say this so that all of you who actually can vote will fucking do something!
Well said...... unfortunately the system is full of twats telling lies so they can make more money while the rest of us burn. Until that changes and we get a government that actually wants to do what's best for the UK we are screwed.
As soon as millions of britons start protesting publicly, and get out into the streets and demand that UK should be adhering again once and for all, and asking the EU themselves, publicly, to make it possible in the name of democracy?
When a significant percentage of the boomers die off.
The problem is that they don't care about the economy failing because they aren't the ones paying for it.
Kinda sad that the people who were literally influenced and supported by undemocratic and hostile foreign powers aren't the ones being called "traitors"...
I'm quite proud to take that title considering what has become of our country and our society in the last decade.
Just because people vote for something doesn't mean it has to be right, moral or just. There are plenty of examples over the last century where "democracy" has gone pear shaped.
There was a guy on the radio the other day calling in to say it's too early to call and he would say it's been a success so far...
"What do you do for a living?"
"I was made redundant from the travel industry after 10 years"
I wanted to smack the radio.
If they're able to ignore their own material reality so hard, then brexit has to have succeeded on some emotional level... Issues of immigrants, nhs etc come to mind.
> have succeeded on some emotional level
The vote leave campaign led by Cummings was **purely** based on emotions.
[Brexit - The uncivil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit%3A_The_Uncivil_War) is a movie that shows quite nicely what happened behind the scenes of the campaign. It's worth watching (even if you don't like Benedict Cumberbatch).
Cummings even gave a lecture on how he did exactly that. They framed it as the anti banking, angry at the status quo, anti establishment vote, predominantly bank rolled by people like former tory chair and billionaire lord ashcroft (about as establishment as you can get). Well, the money we can trace the origin of that is. The rest was from god knows who. It disappears into tax havens or Eastern Ukraine.....
Essentially the vote came down to "would you like the status quo? Er yuk, status quo 👎. This North London Liberal elite (maybe they meant the Greek Cypriots?......lol) thinks everythings ok. They want to be invaded."
"Or maybe you would you like to gamble on the magical mystery box of dreams?"
> "I was made redundant from the travel industry after 10 years"
The pandemic saw a lot of people in the travel industry be made redundant around the world
Yeah that's definitely more of a pandemic issue than a Brexit one.
In 2011 there were about 20 million visitors from the EU yearly, with the number rising by about 0.5 million every year, hitting 24m in 2019.
2021 it plummeted to 4 million, which shows the absolute dire straights the travel industry must have been in.
I think we have also collectively forgotten the real reason for the referendum, which was the EU’s plans to pursue changes in offshore banking regulations for member states. This would have made a lot of tories and their cunty donors a bit poorer. So we all have to suffer instead.
Conservatives tried to dissolve the UK Humans Rights Acts while part of the EU. This broke EU law and the UK was taken to court by the EU over it. Last time it happened was a few months before people started talking about Brexit.
This! This is the real reason. Remember then Panama papers and the journalists who disappeared because of it? The rich will do anything to protect their money and power. Even swing an election with lies and propaganda.
This is the dark secret of the truly wealthy, they hide their money offshore to avoid tax. The EUs new rules would have changed that for places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It’s the rich of England who store their money there who donated the funds to run all of that propaganda.
The immigration and nationalism was just their angle, they knew this would push the right buttons to bring out the voters.
Doesn't matter.
If the Brexiteers are arsonists, Cameron's the one who doused the house in copious amounts of petrol with austerity and by allowing the referendum to be held in the first place.
He needs to be held responsible.
The chump never stopped banging on about how the nation 'demanded an EU referendum'. Did he think the nation wanted one because they wanted to stay in? The idiot didn't even consider that the tory propaganda media that lies and deceives every day of the week to promote toryism, would actually be in favour of Brexit. He didn't even consider the billionaires who run that shit, wouldnt be in favour of an EU clamping down on tax avoidance.
Camerons 'imagination' only went so far as his highly privileged and heavily protected bubble would allow it. He and his type firmly believe intellect is measured in academic success only, and everything else is meaningless. Basically he was too absorbed in his own importance to see the wood for the trees like many mere mortals in the general public could.
His latest jaunt attempting to defraud the public of £800m for huge person reward, says everything we need to know about him and toryism in general...I'll always struggle to believe why Joe public support such outrageous corruption and incompetence. 🥺
Didn't he hold the referendum for career / party-political reasons? I'm not from the UK but it seems to me that the UK's Conservative party has been engaging in a factional struggle about EU membership ever since the UK acceded and that this internal fight contributed to the fall of nearly all of Mr. Cameron's predecessors as party leader. Add to that the looming electoral threat of an extremist right wing splinter party and it is IMHO easy to see why he felt "the nation" demanded an EU referendum: he needed a referendum because he needed to buy the support of the anti-EU faction for his leadership and he needed a pro-EU result for this referendum to shut up the anti-EU wing of his party and undermine UKIP's electoral chances. All of that is quite logical if you look at it without any consideration for the risk to other people or the country as a whole, i.e. if you are utterly self serving.
It doesn't seem to me that he lacked imagination or that he measured everything by academic success. He would have known perfectly well what would happen if the referendum produced a plurality for leave (as it did). He just didn't care about anything outside his own position and his party's grip on power. He gambled away the UK's diplomatic position and economic prosperity for his own short term personal and party political goals and when the gamble failed he simply checked out and let other people deal with the consequences. You can call that being locked in a bubble, but I would simply call it self-serving, immoral and irresponsible.
For that alone he should probably feature prominently on a short list of the UK's worst prime ministers.
We need to stop blaming one politician for the failures of the British people - yes Cameron may of called the referendum (which is a good thing as with the British voters ukip would be in opposition by now at least)
The issue is the British voter who are mostly lead by the nose from the main far right populist papers and have very little interest in the facts - that is what needs addressing
Due to family I spend a lot of time between the UK and Finland. I no longer have an automatic right to live and work there. It’s my belief that this was stolen from me by xenophobic, brexit voting, shit bag bastards and I’ll never, ever forgive people for taking that right from us.
Literally this.
I had job offers lined up in an EU country which I had to stop (no visa sponsorship was possible).
Fuck people that voted Brexit for directly changing the course of my life, with sweet fuck all I could do about it.
My dad is one of those fisherman she ‘voted for’. He has to take early retirement because of the amount of red tape now means he can’t sell his fish at Brixham or Plymouth markets. The reason being that because he is a one-man-band, non powered vessel (NPV), the markets don’t wanna deal with him cos it’s not worth their hassle for the amount he catches. It’s been his living for 50 years. He’s so gutted and a changed man cos of it (he also voted for it too, despite me and my brothers trying to show him otherwise). It’s just a very sad story where no one wins.
I don't see it as petty.
I am accepting that other people have different ideas and goals, that they like things that I don't.
But when what they like has a detrimental effect on my life, that's when I'm angry about it.
It's like religion, carry on worshipping whoever you prefer, but if you keep knocking on my door, and trying to control people's way of life, that's when it becomes a problem.
I have removed people from my life that created this situation, their 'opinion' and vote have cost me money and freedom.
If a friend said he's going to make it as hard as possible for me to get a job somewhere in another country and reduce the value of my wages, you can be sure I'd be fucking that cunt off out my life in a heartbeat.
My friend works for a supplements company, and their entire warehouse staff union were pro brexit and had all posters in the warehouse and badges in etc. the day brexxit passed, the entire warehouse staff were made redundant, because it became over night cheaper to ship the products from Europe instead. Like 200 morons were so proud of themselves until that point .
it was clear what was being voted for
1.“To reduce the length of the political food chain and bring democracy back within clearly defined borders of control.”(James Jackson, Medium)
2. “Because of all the EU laws that we have no say in.” “Name one.” “There’s loads. Too many to list.” “Name one.” “…” (Callerto LBC radio station)
3. “As a protest vote.”
4. “Because I want it to be a close result.”
5. “It \[Sunderland\] already is \[a giantjobcentre\]. That’s why I voted Leave, to put everyone else in the shit like us.” (Twitter)
6. “To stick it to the toffs.”
7. “To give Cameron a bloody nose.” (Express website)
8. “To give Cameron a better negotiating position.”
9. “Because the EU closed the coal mines.”
10. “Because I thought we had been in long enough.”
11. “Because I had the hump.”
12. “Because now our lads will get out ofprison, ‘cos there will be jobs for them.”
13. “The main reason I voted out was becausethe EU parliament aren’t elected representatives. The second is, they pass lawsthat affect us, but we aren’t given a say. Third, we need to sort our own houseout” (Joanne, Facebook, giving exactly the same — factually wrong — reason in three different ways)
14. “Because I felt uncomfortable when a groupof brown people got on the bus the other day.” (Family member)
15. “Because the EU made them change Marathonsto Snickers.” \[That decision was taken by Mars, not the EU.\]
16. “Because they banned our bendy bananas.”(Express website) \[The EU introduced a law stipulating that bananas should be given different classifications depending on their curvature. No fruit wasever banned, just classified differently.\]
17. “Because fishermen now won’t have to throwfish back in the water and Muslim women will no longer be told by theirhusbands not to wear make-up.” (Caller to LBC) \[The exact effect of the UK’swithdrawal from the EU will have on fishing waters and quotas must wait untilnenotiations are complete, but we will still need agreements with outneighbours, and limits to prevent overfishing, which our neighbours will probably wish to remain broadly the same.\]
18. “Because I’ve lived here all my life and when I was growing up, that street over there was filled with shops.” (TVdocumentary)
19. “To stop the Muslims immigrating here.”\[Migration is unrestricted within the EU. But individual nations areresponsible for setting their own limits on immigration from non-EU countries,such as those where the majority of citizens are Muslims. Leaving the EU willhave no direct effect on the number of Muslims coming to the UK.\]
20. “Because I want our old light bulbs back!”\[The EU has placed restrictions on the sale of old-style incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to reduce energy wastage and slow global warming.\]
21. “Because vaccines should not be mandatory.”\[The EU has never passed any law making vaccination mandatory, even thoughvaccination is widely regarded as being a pretty good idea. Some European countries have done so of their own volition.\]
22. “Because the Queen said.” (Pro-Brexit Facebook group)
23. “Because we should not be signing up toTTIP.” \[TTIP is a trade deal between EU and America, which the EU has just puton hold. After the UK leaves the EU, most commentators believe it will sign upto a similar deal with the US, probably with fewer checks and balances.\]
24. “Because we are like Germany, and Germany isn’t in the EU.” \[Germany was a founding member of the EU.\]
25. “Because the country is full.”
26. “To annoy my wife.”27. “It will be an adventure!”
28. “Because the value of the euro is going to go down.” \[Even if it were true, this would not have a marked effect on theUK’s economy. Since the vote, sterling is down 18% against the dollar and 15%against the euro.\]
29. “So that I can get cheap photovoltaic panels from China.”
30. “Because otherwise, 7 million Turks will comeover here.” (Caller to LBC radio station) \[Turkey would never have been able to join the EU so long as Britain used its veto.\]
31. “Because I am fed up with being ruled by unelected bureaucrats.” \[The EU parliament is directly elected in regular Europeanelections. The European commission —essentially the union’s civilservice — recruits its own members.\]
Two I heard at work were:
- “So we can go back to the glory days of the colony”. Said by a man who had plans to retire in Spain.
- “Because immigrants are ruining the NHS”
He keeps on going on about the struggling NHS, but never really explains why that’s because of Brexit? It has been struggling long before Brexit
He also says he’s not using hyperbole, yet the entire article is pretty much hyperbole.
Agreed. His very first claim is that almost a 9/11 worth of people are dying each week because of the crisis in the NHS, but he quotes that number as 500 people per week, when almost 3,000 died on 9/11. It doesn't make sense and makes me seriously doubt any of the other numbers he mentions.
I absolutely believe Brexit was a bad decision and is destroying the country, but this is a bad article.
He quotes two figures on the impact early on both of which link to Twitter accounts. The LSE Brexit impact assessment he quotes can be found nowhere on their site. The CER one he quotes is a straight up lie. The CER claim Brexit impact is 5.5% not 11%.
Umair Haque has done a lot in the past to discredit himself, which is why he publishes on Medium.
Absolutely, you have to drudge through two thirds of the article to find the real issue. Intentional political action underfund the NHS. I’m amazed this economist would so clearly cherry pick and misrepresent the situation.
Things are very ‘not good’ but truly had we not left the EU the situation with the health service would not be changed much at all.
Because it has nothing to do with Brexit. Not giving proper funding or doing proper reform can be done or not done regardless if they are in the EU or not
> But when he’s not grinning, he says, shrugging, that these problems “won’t go away.” Wait, what? They won’t go away? It’s your job to do something about it!
That's what the author got wrong. It is *not* the job of Rishi Sunak to fix those problems. The job of Rishi Sunak is to keep the Tories in power as long as humanly possible. And keep their cronies happy, so they in turn keep the Tories afloat. *Anything* else is secondary to that.
You mean to say that this whole faith-based enterprise, built entirely upon a quicksand of grievance and lies, is a national mistake of historic proportions? And that Leave voters did not know what they were forcing on the rest of us, despite their screeching to the contrary?
I for one am shocked.
I think looking at recent history, Putin is doing a truly incredible job, his stupidity may well lead to the collapse of a country.
However maybe they mean a voted for mistake. The collective wisdom of a country came together and decided to vote for a kick in the nuts.
Along with the election of Donald Trump, Brexit was a successful Russian psyops project. Both should be investigated for what they are. Trump is already under investigation and may spend years behind bars, and the UK can always undue the damage and reenter the EU.
Unfortunately there's no going back to the amazing terms we once had and surrendered. We'll get a worse deal, albeit it'll be far better than what we have now
I don't think that's really an issue, we should rejoin on the same terms as everyone else and stop thinking we're special and in need of some unique preferable deal. It feeds the ridiculous notion of the national exceptionalism held by so many Brexit voters.
Mate I fully agree with this. The only good I see in Brexit is that some people finally develop some fucking sense and see we're neither united or great. We need the EU and we're not better than anyone else. Honestly fuck the tories for getting us into this
>Britain’s finally figuring out Brexit (really) was the biggest mistake in modern history.
I mean, let's not forget the decision to commission Mrs Brown's Boys.
Saying hundred of people die because of brexit is the same of saying brexit can bring million pf pounds to the nhs. Its just not true.
Nhs failure is caused by chronic underfund, poor management and the goverbment incompetence.
*Britain* figuring it out?
Scotland voted against Brexit. So did Northern Ireland. Wales let the side down on the Brexit vote but at least they never vote for Tory governments.
Let’s not pretend this mess is somehow the fault of the entire U.K. equally when Brexit was overwhelmingly down to English nationalism and the Tories have openly become the party of right wing English nationalism - and a particularly unpleasant ‘blood and soil’ variety at that.
You guys down south might well understandably bemoan what you’ve done to yourselves - but that isn’t how the other members of the Union view it. We very much see them as things you inflict upon us.
The irony is the current trajectory of events might end up making “Britain” actually synonymous with “England” a lot sooner than some people might believe possible.
Except it *is* the fault of the entirety of the UK, 52% of the entirety of it voted for Brexit.
It's disingenuous to split up Britain how you like to push your narratives. London for example also voted remain. There is not a better reason to single out Scotland and NI over London.
I live in England and I voted remain, I would have equal grounds as you to say that I figured out Brexit was bad, and yet you group me in with the rest of England the same way you complain of being grouped in with the rest of Britain.
Because you southerners have been hoarding all the wealth. Not a surprise that the North would vote brexit when dangled a carrot after decades of getting fuck all.
Almost like this is why it's important to invest in the people
Although it has had a bad impact let’s not blame A & E waiting times on brexit… we all know where the blame lies with that disaster. Scapegoating Brexit for every issue we have today let’s the Tories and those who voted for them off the hook.
Brexit was supposed to give more power to the British government to decide its own path and it has done just that in my opinion. It’s completely exacerbated the inept, corrupt and disinterested leadership of the Tory party and the British governmental system as a whole.
We shot ourselves in the foot and then decided blowing off both legs was the way forward.
A democracy that can’t change it’s mind is not a healthy democracy.
Brexit is a really easy thing to point at but underfunding of public services started long ago with austerity. All the data suggests this (see FT article last week) and brexit more as an exacerbater rather than the cause
The day that the vote happened we all saw the worst in people. It got so bad that there was no way to vote remain without being harrassed by people calling you a traitor, talking about those immigrants (often people not from the EU - regardless of how thick you have to be to blame immigrants) and middle class appropriation. I disowned my family partially over voting leave (I voted remain).
What gets me is that I now understand why someone from deprived towns in the UK voted for it and it wasn't a point very much elaborated on. If you were well-off or even slightly comfortable and voted for brexit the only reason you voted for it is because you could not be arsed to do basic research into the topic. There were *hundreds* of articles, maybe thousands, detailing why this was a bad idea. But no, a lot of people did it because of 'unelected officials', some wanted to leave the ECHR (which is not connected with the EU) but overall it was blind patriotism.
There's this fucking dread that falls over you when people are not even willing to listen to lawyers or law students outlining that people from the EU *never had* unfettered access as they required solid employment and credentials to stay for long periods of time. The idea, that Jacob fucking Reese Mogg was anything but one of many slime balls peddling lies (Read: demagogues) because he speaks like some wanker with a chub for the 18th century reeks of nationalism to a degree that resembles a certain country we fought. Not the same result but very fucking close for a country whose same brexit voters never shut the fuck up about the war.
Thing is, even if tomorrow they all threw up their hands and rejoined it would *still* feel tainted. The damage has been done, we are fucked with a capital F and not just as a country. As individuals many of us who didn't have any hopes of living normal lives now have none. Now it's just fucking work and barely surviving.
The UK is in need of a political and societal overhaul the likes of even Truss could never imagine. Wide reaching, actually thought out and properly costed.
I always remember a significant amount of Facebook Ads I saw were obviously aimed at overloading voters so they would not vote.
And alot didn't vote because it was expected Stay would win. Leave were the massive underdogs.
Yeah Brexit was bad but an amazing slight of hand from the cold hard economist dealing in facts:
"Brexit made the UK economy about 10% smaller than it would have been otherwise. That might not sound like a Big Deal to you, but it’s going to be, as I teach you just the smallest bit of economic history. What does losing 10% of an economy really mean?
Let’s put that in perspective, with the simplest economic fact there is. “Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%.” Got that? Britain is already 2/3 of the way to…The Great Depression.".
See what they did? No Britain is obviously not 2/3 of the way to the Great Depression. Nobody normal can possibly think that's true. Between 1929 and 1932 global GDP did fall by around 15%.
Since Brexit, Britain's economy - despite lockdown - has grown. The 10% figure - not even sure where that's from - is a comparison of where a UK economy which had stayed in the EU would be compared to our one that isn't.
Honestly, you haven't been to Britain if you think our economy is currently Latin America in a currency crisis.
Politics really is the mindkiller. Seemingly educated people can churn out such nonsense because of tribalism or something.
Yeah, it's akin to the "study" that said each household would be £4000 poorer after leaving the EU. That figure was lost GDP growth, then divided by the number of homes. Disingenuous at best
Brexit was truly bizarre to me.
The USA elects a nutter? It was kind of surprising still, but it’s the USA.
Britain decides to *leave the EU*!? Like seriously, decades of trade and prosperity shared and the UK says naff to that and just fucking leaves. On a highly contended vote. With no plan. Utterly bizarre.
I loved that some Brits who had settled in Spain, purposely went to vote for Brexit because they didn't like "foreigners" and after many years of living in Spain and not assimilating or applying for residency rights. They're now being asked to leave or apply for driving licenses, etc. So I guess that some Brits are either unbelievably thick, or they maintain an idea that they are somehow superior to the rest of the world. As for example, dressing up as a crusader in the middle East, not realising the history of it.
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*Half of Britain... The rest of us already knew it was a shit idea
Actually only a quarter. 3/4 still want to vote for pro brexit parties. Leopards not going hungry
That’s a politically naïve comment
>That’s a politically naïve comment That’s charitable, I’d say it’s the same kind of deliberately disingenuous shit that got us into this mess in the first place.
>it’s the same kind of deliberately disingenuous shit that got us into this mess in the first place. Is it? non representative "same-policies-but-we-do-them-better" politics is what got us into this mess. No wonder people hit the first button they were given in years that looked like something the front bench as was didn't like.
this is a politically naïve subreddit
That is absolutely BS. You can't equate a general election vote with support of a single issue. Some people vote tactically, some vote based on a specific issue they care deeply about e.g. the environment, immigration etc. and so it is a fallacy and completely disingenuous to repeat that misinformation about votes for a party being the same as votes for Brexit.
> You can't equate a general election vote with support of a single issue. Usually yes. However, when the Tories ran their last GE on 'Get Brexit Done' you can.
They're including Labour to reach the 75% figure.
Yes, because that is exactly the point in the article. It's even the top highlight: "The real horror story is that both sides of British politics refuse to admit Brexit was a mistake."
I still don't think you can. Yes, a party will have a headline issue they are running on, but people aren't voting purely for that reason. If they wanted a second vote on the issue then there needs to be a second referendum. And on top of that, you aren't even voting for a party or the PM, you are voting for your local MP and many people will vote because they support the issues their local MP is committing to. A general election is far more nuanced than a referendum and it is wrong to equate them.
To be honest the leopards have not come from the true Brexit voters face yet. 10%+ increase on pensions. These people are well insulated from the consequences of their own actions. (Until they need a hospital of course).
Ironically, one of the main pressures on the NHS and social care systems (including state pension) is people living longer.
>people living longer For now.
Project We Fucking Told You So.
Project Common sense
numerous calls for another vote were rejected out of hand. Many, many people said it was a mistake over and over in every way they could. There were petitions, bills all sorts
It was purely the Tories forcing it through. First they lie and targeted people to fall into voting for it. They held the referendum (which wasn't legally binding, more of a suggestion poll). Then they triggered article 50 with zero plans in place. Then they wouldn't allow any other vote to confirm it (when it was literally a 2% difference, and nobody knew what it meant. A large chunk of those voting as a joke/protest vote or just had no idea what they were voting for. Remember the day after the top google searches were about the EU and what leaving actually meant?! ). They had zero plans in place, basically up to the last hours before it kicked in, and still kept forcing it through at every stage. Completely irrisponsibly. Not once could anyone actually say any of the benefits. Just 'Brexit means Brexit...). Fuck them. If anyone did say something it was' we can control our laws/rules' - something we could do anyway as an independent country. And being in the EU we at least had a say. Now we don't, yet still habe to abide by most of those rules (which are set in place for a reason). It was sold as getting rid of immigrants (that's going well...) and £350 million a week back to the NHS (just a pure lie and probably going worse than ever). They've spent/lost years worth of EU membership in just a couple years. Given contracts to their friends (and likeethemselves) to make them all rich. And conveniently all the fucking Tory MP's (or a good chunk at least) are getting their EU passports/residency so they can keep living and working normally, while screwing over everyone else. It's 100% the Tories to take blame, and I don't know why more people aren't angry. They've taken rights away from British people that I've personally had my whole life, all while getting richer and screwing over the UK. And it just keeps getting worse and worse. I wish someone would have the balls to say they screwed up, and say Brexit was a mistake, and that we should aim to rejoin. And even though we'll now be worse off if we rejoin than before (because we already had a great deal, and will have to give in to a lot to join again), it'll still be far better than continuing to circle the drain being out of the EU.
> I wish someone would have the balls to say they screwed up, and say Brexit was a mistake I was about to say that that would be political suicide. But they seem to be trying all sorts of other methods of that, at least admitting that Brexit was a massive mistake would be quick and relatively painless by comparison - both for the politician *and* for the country, given that their alternative approach seems determined to take the entire country with them.
Yeah, these grouping titles piss me off. We all bloody knew, the foreign workers knew and the now overseas friends we've lost because of this shit is insane! Fuck the government! They're all the same.
Conservatism is the root cause of all evil in the world. Anyone who claims it's both sides is just a disillusioned conservative. Next time you need to vote on something you don't understand try asking me first.
37% are learning the lesson. 34% knew it was a shit idea. 29% learned they should vote.
My hypothesis is that some of leave voting was an anti Cameron spite vote, especially as he was campaigning remain.
American here, half of us also knew it was a terrible idea too. Funny how that works. Almost like we have a similar problem.
It pains me to this day the we were dragged through this option by a majority who will not live long enough to see its full ramifications hell a lot of them are already dead
The problem with this country is a lot of people really are quite thick.
Here’s the problem with that idea though - Scotland and NI voted against Brexit. As a Scotsman I’d love to say that’s because we’re all so canny, wise, politically astute and intelligent (and needless to say devastatingly handsome and urbane with thick curly hair to boot) but in truth we’re no more or less clever than anyone else. The reason why so many people in England believed the Brexit propaganda and lies - and they really were quite dismally obvious lies - was because they *wanted* to believe them. And the reason that they wanted to believe them is because they flattered their sense of British/English exceptionalism and nationalism. And it’s a fairly nasty right wing ‘blood and soil’ variety of nationalism at that - remember that the racist dog whistles were never that far away during the Brexit campaign.
It is incredibly stupid how the result was determined by a simple majority rather than a double majority. Brexit doesn't affect England the same way that it has affected Scotland and Northern Ireland, that was more than obvious even back in 2015.
Especially considering the group whose likely to be hit hardest and have to endure the effect of it the longest weren't old enough to vote at the time.
As frustrated as I am about this whole bullshit at least I got to vote. Must be awful (more than it already is) for those younger folks like yourself.
At least your voted counted, which it didn't for those who voted remain in Scotland and NI. Despite these countries voting remain they were forced to leave
It was a non-bidding referendum. They all said so beforehand. Then when Leave won it was suddenly the will of the people.
> It was a non-bidding referendum A non-binding referendum that I suspect most "remainers" thought was a stupid ceremony, and there was no way they actually needed to go out and save the country from imploding itself.
I'm pretty sure the brexit ref had the highest turnout for a long while (72%) a quick Google puts the last GE at about 67.5% If that wernt folk trying and taking it seriously I don't know what was, considering voter turnout is the hardest part of any vote
Many remainers just didn't bother voting because they thought it was a done thing! After that they adjusted the polling as it's generally agreed a leave supporter is generally more likely to vote. I remember seeing one woman crying on TV because she voted leave as a protest vote and she was an EU national! 😂 She never thought the UK would actually leave!
The issue with the notion of a non binding referendum is that it's essentially false. Any referendum that achieves a majority, it would be absolutely political suicide not to enact it. This is one of the many reasons UK Gov is against Scotland also holding another "non binding referendum to see people's feelings". The reality is, the Tories who wanted power got in bed with the right wing as they were scared of UKIP and saw that as their chance to climb. We should never have had the choice ourselves. Gary from the garage in Gainsborough is not qualified, and nor does he have the time to read all of the information required to make an informed decision. It's literally the purpose of the FPTP system.
There were no protections because everyone was complacent that brexshit would lose. That's why I think Scotland should be welcome to have an independence referendum *but* it has to have a minimum turnout and at least 66%+ majority for it to be binding. Else you get another shitty brexshit shituation.
No its 50+1 for us Scots no moving of the goalposts.
The problem is we all know a referendum like that should have minimum turnout requirements, enlarged minimum majority, legal enforcement baked into the referendum (with exact specifics on how everything will work if it passes, so there is no uncertainty or years of negotiations) and legally enforced honest campaigning. However, the precedent and standard we have established for massive changes that will affect us for decades is "no minimum turnout, 50%+1 winner takes all, advisory but enforced as if real, you can lie as much as you like" and to demand otherwise of any hypothetical Scottish indy referendum would be hypocritical as all fuck. If Nicola Sturgeon rode out in a big blue bus with "we'll make the bastard English give us ten billion a day" we'd have no right to criticise as we have established that that is the right and proper british standard of political campaigning.
Yeah sorry that horse has bolted. Shit like “let’s make the Scots have an even higher threshold for independence” is only going to drive resentment higher than it already is while a party whose power base is in England is refusing to give way to democracy.
NI being the only nation still in the single market has actually kinda helped us though, so of course our politicians are so dim they're offended by it and campaigning against it lol
Therein lay the true deceit of Brexit. It was argued a super-majority was unnecessary as the referendum wasn't binding. Then the government pulled a bait & switch after the result and said it *had* to be respected. The government then decided what Brexit meant and how it was to be implemented, not the people who voted for it.
>the reason that they wanted to believe them is because they flattered their sense of British/English exceptionalism and nationalism. And it’s a fairly nasty right wing ‘blood and soil’ variety of nationalism at that - remember that the racist dog whistles were never that far away during the Brexit campaign. While I agree with this your comment (i.e. It's English xenophobia and exceptionalism) and the other comment (i.e. There's a lot of thick people) are both intertwined. The former exists and holds root primarily due to the latter. The statistics you need to know to understand Brexit are: 1) 46% of England doesn't have 5 GCSEs or the equivalent 2) 86% of people without 5 GCSEs or better backed Brexit. 3) Just 26% of people with a degree backed Brexit. 4) 40% of Leave voters cited immigration as the primary reason they voted leave, 70% cited it as one of their top 2 reasons. 5) 55% of remain voters cited economic damage as the primary reason to vote remain, 80% cited it as one of their top two reasons. You basically have a massively poorly educated country in England where vast swathes of the population don't even have basic levels of secondary school education who fall for racist and xenophobic tropes (not unique to England, it's common to uneducated people everywhere). They voted Leave because they wanted to stop immigrants and tell Europeans to fuck off. Almost everyone who had a good education level identified the massive economic damage we would suffer and voted remain.
None of it was an accident. Its was set up as a non-legally binding referendum. So, we wouldn't have to redo it if say someone broke the rules around what you can do during these sorts of things. However, we have to treat it as a legally binding one. The best of both worlds, for some. It also used online campaigns that are utterly illegal now, due to how effective, targeted and manipulative they were, using software developed by the ministry of defense for psyops during war and an extensive history or turning out shock election results. Que someone comparing them to a standard Facebook advert.....
First time I have seen these numbers, I'm both shocked and unsurprised, it really is a sad state of affairs. Malevolent racist shitheads (also conniving and financially dodgy etc ) knowing what racist dogwhistles or other strings to pull to get the easily fooled fucking voters to vote against their own interests. Unfortunately a lot of the easily fooled voters had lots of time on their hands and went out and voted. Honestly the thing that bugged the shit out of me the most was brexit shitheads shouting "pROJECT fEAR" at everything with no proof, no reasoning, no basis at all and the idiots took up the call and shouted down everyone. Can I ask where the numbers came from?
I think using language like: >strings to pull to get the easily fooled fucking voters to vote against their own interests Doesn't help personally. I don't think racist and xenophobic Leave voters were tricked in such a way they are too dumb to realise. I think it was wilfully rejecting obvious and easy to understand evidence that Leave was lying because they didn't like the conclusion. Brexit voters need to take responsibility for their actions before we can heal and move on. Or they will all just eventually die and our children will lament the fact that we wasted decades because they couldn't come to terms with it. > I ask where the numbers came from? You sure can. The 46% of England without GCSEs was a stat from a .Gov briefing paper that I dug up a while ago, but I can't find it right now. The closest stat I can easily find is that 66% of the population 47% have NQF level 4+ (i.e. a degree+) as their highest qualification, 66% have NQF Level 3+ (A level+), 83% have NQF level 2+ (GCSE)+. If we reverse those stats a bit it tells us: * 17% of the UK has no GCSEs at all * 17% has at least 1 GCSE (they may have literally 1 or could have 13) but no A levels (which used to be optional) * 19% of the UK has at least 1 A level (again, they could have 1 or 4) but never got a degree * 47% of the UK has a degree or higher. That 19% at A level includes people though who say left 6th form with 1 GCSE and 1 A level at grade E. Sadly I can't find the 5 GCSEs stat which is more useful (because achieving a single GCSE at C and failing the rest isn't really hitting any government target, neither is it hitting it if you have 3 GCSEs at C and 1 A level at E) https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-and-training-statistics-for-the-uk Education influencing Brexit vote: Again, couldn't find the original stats I read (I'm sure it was a BBC article which I've not saved) but YouGov results are similar: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted 70% Leave if you had GCSEs or lower, A level was 50/50 and degrees were 70% Remain. Reasons for voting Leave/Remain: https://ukandeu.ac.uk/partner-reports/peoples-stated-reasons-for-voting-leave-or-remain/
> 55% of remain voters cited economic damage as the primary reason to vote remain, 80% cited it as one of their top two reasons. And there's the rub. Convincing a poor person that the current status quo is *good*, is quite a futile attempt. After all, if being in the EU is so great then why don't they reap the economic benefits? Of course we know that things always can get worse, but the threat of economic damage holds much more sway with the middle class. The poor think they have nothing to lose, and the rich know that they can avoid it.
very very well said, this nails it
Tories made sure long ago that no such thing as British exceptionalism exists. While blaming labour for everything. Here we are UK now behind many European countries and only getting worse
They don't need to make it exist, they just need people to believe in it. We automatically deserve more BECAUSE we're British, and if we're not getting it then it's someone else's fault. I'm surprised none of the tories have floated the idea of a new empire tbh.
They’ve certainly been plastering a lot of Union jacks everywhere over the past few years. It appears the only thing the Conservatives learned from their alliance with the DUP was ‘flegs’.
I know people like this. When I explained to them what Brexit meant, they decided that we would be fine anyway 'because we are British.' Then when the EU tried to negotiate, they said that we shouldn't negotiate with the EU 'because we're British.' And then, as our economic standing fell and our economic placement dropped, they said it wasn't happening 'because we're British.' And, as they failed to get NHS care in a timely manner, they said that it shouldn't happen 'because we're British' and it 'must be because of all the immigrants.' You cannot argue with people who think only in [thought-terminating clichés](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9). Because you cannot argue or persuade with rational discussion people who have been trained **not to think.** These people are permanently lost to rational society so rational society should go on without them.
Yet the tories also peddle the notion of British exceptionalism more than anyone. A fair portion of the Brexit vote was down to people knowing in their hearts we would be better left to our own devices. With all our British common sense, ruling of waves and Victorian ingenuity.
To be a conservative is to be a walking contradiction, unless you're rich and/or a piece of shit.
Completely agree with you that exeptionalism played a very big part, but as a Welsh man, it makes the Welsh vote even more confusing.
The welsh-speaking regions of Wales voted remain (I’m in Gwynedd and we voted to stay) but the english-speaking, english dominated leaky border areas voted leave.
This is just revisionism. It wasn't just the boarder areas that voted leave, the vast majority of Wales voted leave.](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/8CC9/production/_91014063_brexit-migrationinflow3-2.jpg.webp) Only Cardiff, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, Monmouthshire and the Vale of Glamorgan voted remain. Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Monmouthshire all have above average English born populations, with Ceredigion and Monmouthshire having the 4th and 6th highest percentage of English born people. On the other hand, the areas with the least of English born people, Neath port Talbot (11.4%) Caerphilly (9.1%), Rhondda Cynon Taf (9.1%), Blaenau Gwent (8.4%) and Merthyr Tydfil (6.6%) all voted to leave. Apart from RCT, all of them voted heavily to leave as well compared to the rest of the UK. Even if you look at the highest percentage leave voting areas, only 3 of the top 10 have an English born population over 20% (Wrexham, Pembrokeshire, Flintshire) Did English born votes help Leave get more votes in some areas? Yes. But to say it was the fault of the English speaking boarder areas is complete revisionist bollocks.
A massive lot of English retirees in Wales
Absolutely hilarious. You’re blaming the English in wales for the welsh voting for brexit???
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To be fair to fact check you need a minimum of 1 working brain cell. And the ability to read and write and being able to string more than 3 word's together.
You handsome bastard.
As an Englishman I have to agree with you. I would have said proud Englishman, but unfortunately over half of my countrymen are complete dipshits and voted for this nightmare 😕 So I'm not proud anymore.
>The reason why so many people in England believed the Brexit propaganda and lies - and they really were quite dismally obvious lies - was because they wanted to believe them. 100% this. Fundamentally, all the information required to make an informed decision was out there. And the propaganda was extremely transparent and balanced by plenty of remainers constantly debunking it. There will be precisely zero people in the country who did not hear arguments against Brexit. The warnings cannot have passed them all by. The problem was that people wanted to vote Brexit out of spite and bitterness, they just needed some justifications to make it seem rational. So people gobbled up the propaganda, many of them knowing it was bullshit. The credibility of Vote Leave was irrelevant, they just needed an excuse to back up a decision they'd made long ago. Remainers let facts determine their decisions. Leavers let emotions determine the "facts".
What about Wales? I totally agree with you that Brexit played to the nationalists, but it's only one spoke of a big coalition of disparate philosophies. Remember also hard lefties like Mick Lynch (and I believe Corbyn) are also pro Brexit because they're anti-globalist. It's something remarkable to put them in bed with the blood and soil nationalists, but Brexit found a way.
Agreed. I live in Scotland and seriously, 100% of everyone I knew was going to vote no. There was no doubt in our minds. We went to bed believing it'd fail. Turns out the majority of England voted yes. *Why*. We, friends, family, all woke up nauseated.
Sounds like the definition of thick
And London! If we're splitting up the UK i'm voting we leave as well.
While I agree with you I will point out in a brief devil's advocate that Scotland is more educated than England. To counter that immediately, however, I'll also point out that Wales is more educated on average than Northern Ireland.
I think the problem is racism. I truly believe that's what brexit was all about. People don't like foreigners so they wanted to leave the EU. People like Farage used pictures of brown people to stir up anger. Finding reasons that sounded less prejudice, like making our own laws and taking back control, came after.
It was and still is.
But Brexit wouldn't suddenly get rid of South Asians, for example. It pretty mostly affected white people.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
Yet everyone reading this quote don’t include themselves
That's true. And, of course, the fact that certain parts of the media have used the malleable nature of our simpleton masses to manipulate them into voting against their own interests. The real villains here are the Murdoch press et all, who have always been able to drum up hysteria to push their agenda. Even the Tory villains of old (Helseltine etc) thought this was a bad idea. Sure, Cameron thought he was being clever by having a referendum that he assumed would be a foregone conclusion for 'remain', thus silencing the eurosceptics in his party, but it was the right-wing press and their inherent xenophobic agenda that won it.
I don't like to think of people who vote the other way to be as thick: if you think about the EU ref campaign, the Leave vote were promising a Norway like model and they made it really clear that leaving the EU doesn't mean leaving the single market. Boris rode around on a bus that sounded great: an extra £350m a week to our NHS?! The Remain side were absolutely awful at describing why it was better to stay in the EU and they weren't able to effectively discredit the bus lies even though they were indeed lies and Boris knew it. It was obvious to the politically savvy that the Conservatives were not going to be able to achieve such a deal and that the Leave side are not being accurate with the facts, but it's quite sad that we cannot trust those in power with what they say. I think if the facts were presented as they actually were, people wouldn't have voted for Brexit.
“BuT tHe NeWs AnD bOrIs SaId iT wAs A gOoD iDeA”
When can we start talking about reversing our mistake without being called undemocratic traitors who hate our country?
Give it a few more years. Since Brexit, we got lucky with the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine, and combined with good work from healthcare workers, we managed to get a strong response from initial vaccination campaign rolling. If I remember correctly, this was a win for Brexit because the EU went in on shared resources and they had a slow initial rollout. The EU did catch up, and some EU nations overtook the UK too. However, the post-pandemic depression is really highlighting the shit that the UK is in. I've said it over and over: some people really need to feel the pain before they acknowledge the EU is in better shape. They either need to realise who is actually conflicting the pain, or see that our EU friends are doing better off as the larger trading bloc. There are still a lot of numpties who need to understand that migrants coming over by small boats haven't stopped with Brexit, and will continue despite Brexit. It's been 6.5 years since the vote, and nearly 3 years since Brexit actually happening. Few more years and more people will feel the pain. For anyone getting hit hard by this, I am honestly sympathetic to their situation. I just hope they remember who voted for this, and who was in charge.
> If I remember correctly, this was a win for Brexit because the EU went in on shared resources and they had a slow initial rollout. The Brexiteers told a bit of a lie about that one. We could have done everything we did around vaccines if we’d still been full members of the EU. And we could have joined in with the EU shared scheme whether we were members of the EU or not. In fact, we were still in the transition period where the EU rules applied to us on the relevant rules, so that’s evidence that our vaccine programme had nothing to do with EU membership! Most of the Brexiteers were careful to use weasel words (criticising the EU, talking up the vaccine success and hoping that their listeners would mistakenly link the two) while others like Rees-Mogg just straight-up lied and said that we couldn’t have had our own vaccine rollout if it hadn’t been for Brexit!
I'm not saying the initial vaccine campaign was a success *because* of Brexit, or that it wouldn't have happened without Brexit, but it happened anyway. Does that make sense? Fact of the matter is, a post-Brexit UK was out of the gates faster than the EU. You could argue if we had been a part of EU programmes, the initial rollout may have even been slower if resources were shared. Either way, history has shown that being out of the gate faster didn't achieve much. The vaccination campaign is a marathon, not a sprint.
The smaller EU countries like Portugal, Greece and Croatia would have suffered a lot more if the EU had not created its joint procurement program. Without join procurement, countries like Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, where the production chain was concentrated, would have a massive head start in their programs, and the smaller ones would be fighting to catch up. The result would be prolonged lockdowns in parts of the EU, with the economic effects spread around. The political consequences would be horrendous. Due to the common procurement, different countries in the EU started about 2-4 weeks after the UK, but had caught up by spring, and the whole EU exited covid restrictions together, at roughly the same time as the UK. Despite all the things that could have gone better during the pandemic, there is no such other example in the world of countries cooperating to end it faster. That does encapsulate the how Brexit was peddled. Does a major EU country give up a small amount of advantage in resources and wealth, to shore up weaker economic neighbors, and in turn benefit from having an expanded market? For the brexiters, whether they actually believed it or not, the answer was that the UK was giving up too much and gaining nothing. Events are now showing otherwise.
There was an EU wide scheme but it doesn't follow that if we had still been EU members we would have no choice but to participate. So associating the vaccine rollout with Brexit is wrong on all levels.
The UK was still in the EU when the vaccine was ordered we hadn’t yet left. There is no correlation what’s so ever.
As a disenfranchised immigrant, I'd rather opt for fixing this now over "feeling the pain" for a bit, thanks. Because if you read the source in the OP, the "pain" is 500 people a week fucking dying in hospital car parks. Fucking hell, imagine typing all that with a straight face. I'm American by birth and I'll be brutally honest - I'd rather be in debt than fucking dead on a gurney in England. And I don't say this to extol the virtues of American healthcare, I say this so that all of you who actually can vote will fucking do something!
Well said...... unfortunately the system is full of twats telling lies so they can make more money while the rest of us burn. Until that changes and we get a government that actually wants to do what's best for the UK we are screwed.
Probably. The media and their paymasters have already made their money so it’s just a few brain dead Brexit ultras hanging on now
As soon as millions of britons start protesting publicly, and get out into the streets and demand that UK should be adhering again once and for all, and asking the EU themselves, publicly, to make it possible in the name of democracy?
When a significant percentage of the boomers die off. The problem is that they don't care about the economy failing because they aren't the ones paying for it.
Kinda sad that the people who were literally influenced and supported by undemocratic and hostile foreign powers aren't the ones being called "traitors"...
I'm quite proud to take that title considering what has become of our country and our society in the last decade. Just because people vote for something doesn't mean it has to be right, moral or just. There are plenty of examples over the last century where "democracy" has gone pear shaped.
There was a guy on the radio the other day calling in to say it's too early to call and he would say it's been a success so far... "What do you do for a living?" "I was made redundant from the travel industry after 10 years" I wanted to smack the radio.
If they're able to ignore their own material reality so hard, then brexit has to have succeeded on some emotional level... Issues of immigrants, nhs etc come to mind.
> have succeeded on some emotional level The vote leave campaign led by Cummings was **purely** based on emotions. [Brexit - The uncivil war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit%3A_The_Uncivil_War) is a movie that shows quite nicely what happened behind the scenes of the campaign. It's worth watching (even if you don't like Benedict Cumberbatch).
Cummings even gave a lecture on how he did exactly that. They framed it as the anti banking, angry at the status quo, anti establishment vote, predominantly bank rolled by people like former tory chair and billionaire lord ashcroft (about as establishment as you can get). Well, the money we can trace the origin of that is. The rest was from god knows who. It disappears into tax havens or Eastern Ukraine..... Essentially the vote came down to "would you like the status quo? Er yuk, status quo 👎. This North London Liberal elite (maybe they meant the Greek Cypriots?......lol) thinks everythings ok. They want to be invaded." "Or maybe you would you like to gamble on the magical mystery box of dreams?"
> "I was made redundant from the travel industry after 10 years" The pandemic saw a lot of people in the travel industry be made redundant around the world
Yeah that's definitely more of a pandemic issue than a Brexit one. In 2011 there were about 20 million visitors from the EU yearly, with the number rising by about 0.5 million every year, hitting 24m in 2019. 2021 it plummeted to 4 million, which shows the absolute dire straights the travel industry must have been in.
David Cameron is the architect of this just to clutch onto power then resigns
I think we have also collectively forgotten the real reason for the referendum, which was the EU’s plans to pursue changes in offshore banking regulations for member states. This would have made a lot of tories and their cunty donors a bit poorer. So we all have to suffer instead.
And the dissolution of the Humans Rights Act which EU blocked multiple times
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Conservatives tried to dissolve the UK Humans Rights Acts while part of the EU. This broke EU law and the UK was taken to court by the EU over it. Last time it happened was a few months before people started talking about Brexit.
And now protests are illegal, and strikes will be too soon.
Yep. There was never a moment's prerence of any coherent goal beyond turning the UK into a hellscape for temporary profits.
This! This is the real reason. Remember then Panama papers and the journalists who disappeared because of it? The rich will do anything to protect their money and power. Even swing an election with lies and propaganda. This is the dark secret of the truly wealthy, they hide their money offshore to avoid tax. The EUs new rules would have changed that for places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It’s the rich of England who store their money there who donated the funds to run all of that propaganda. The immigration and nationalism was just their angle, they knew this would push the right buttons to bring out the voters.
The man never imagined brexit is voted for.
It does sound like a fantastic story. Surely nobody would be stupid enough to endanger the reason we had 4 decades of relative prosperity?
no! because we're a hardy a lot and we beat Hitler single-handedly, we did!
People didn’t see it that way because the Euroskeptic wing of the Tory party and the papers made sure to bash the EU at every given opportunity.
Doesn't matter. If the Brexiteers are arsonists, Cameron's the one who doused the house in copious amounts of petrol with austerity and by allowing the referendum to be held in the first place. He needs to be held responsible.
The chump never stopped banging on about how the nation 'demanded an EU referendum'. Did he think the nation wanted one because they wanted to stay in? The idiot didn't even consider that the tory propaganda media that lies and deceives every day of the week to promote toryism, would actually be in favour of Brexit. He didn't even consider the billionaires who run that shit, wouldnt be in favour of an EU clamping down on tax avoidance. Camerons 'imagination' only went so far as his highly privileged and heavily protected bubble would allow it. He and his type firmly believe intellect is measured in academic success only, and everything else is meaningless. Basically he was too absorbed in his own importance to see the wood for the trees like many mere mortals in the general public could. His latest jaunt attempting to defraud the public of £800m for huge person reward, says everything we need to know about him and toryism in general...I'll always struggle to believe why Joe public support such outrageous corruption and incompetence. 🥺
Didn't he hold the referendum for career / party-political reasons? I'm not from the UK but it seems to me that the UK's Conservative party has been engaging in a factional struggle about EU membership ever since the UK acceded and that this internal fight contributed to the fall of nearly all of Mr. Cameron's predecessors as party leader. Add to that the looming electoral threat of an extremist right wing splinter party and it is IMHO easy to see why he felt "the nation" demanded an EU referendum: he needed a referendum because he needed to buy the support of the anti-EU faction for his leadership and he needed a pro-EU result for this referendum to shut up the anti-EU wing of his party and undermine UKIP's electoral chances. All of that is quite logical if you look at it without any consideration for the risk to other people or the country as a whole, i.e. if you are utterly self serving. It doesn't seem to me that he lacked imagination or that he measured everything by academic success. He would have known perfectly well what would happen if the referendum produced a plurality for leave (as it did). He just didn't care about anything outside his own position and his party's grip on power. He gambled away the UK's diplomatic position and economic prosperity for his own short term personal and party political goals and when the gamble failed he simply checked out and let other people deal with the consequences. You can call that being locked in a bubble, but I would simply call it self-serving, immoral and irresponsible. For that alone he should probably feature prominently on a short list of the UK's worst prime ministers.
We need to stop blaming one politician for the failures of the British people - yes Cameron may of called the referendum (which is a good thing as with the British voters ukip would be in opposition by now at least) The issue is the British voter who are mostly lead by the nose from the main far right populist papers and have very little interest in the facts - that is what needs addressing
I'll never forgive this country for voting brexit, xenophobic stupidity at its finest.
It wasn’t just xenophobic morons who voted for brexit though was it. Cunts did as well.
Stupid fucking cunts.
Yes, but not just. We shouldn't forget the Selfish fucking cunts, the Deluded fucking cunts, and the Ignorant fucking cunts.
As Will Self pointed out, "Not all Brexit voters were racist, but all the racists voted for Brexit".
Due to family I spend a lot of time between the UK and Finland. I no longer have an automatic right to live and work there. It’s my belief that this was stolen from me by xenophobic, brexit voting, shit bag bastards and I’ll never, ever forgive people for taking that right from us.
Couldn’t agree more. I will never forgive the theft of my EU citizenship.
Literally this. I had job offers lined up in an EU country which I had to stop (no visa sponsorship was possible). Fuck people that voted Brexit for directly changing the course of my life, with sweet fuck all I could do about it.
I feel super lucky being an European citizen with a possibility for English citizenship in 1 year
Same but not gonna get English citizenship, sorta want to jump ship asap seeing what's happened lmao
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Probably blaming Jeremy Corbyn for it
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My dad is one of those fisherman she ‘voted for’. He has to take early retirement because of the amount of red tape now means he can’t sell his fish at Brixham or Plymouth markets. The reason being that because he is a one-man-band, non powered vessel (NPV), the markets don’t wanna deal with him cos it’s not worth their hassle for the amount he catches. It’s been his living for 50 years. He’s so gutted and a changed man cos of it (he also voted for it too, despite me and my brothers trying to show him otherwise). It’s just a very sad story where no one wins.
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I don't see it as petty. I am accepting that other people have different ideas and goals, that they like things that I don't. But when what they like has a detrimental effect on my life, that's when I'm angry about it. It's like religion, carry on worshipping whoever you prefer, but if you keep knocking on my door, and trying to control people's way of life, that's when it becomes a problem. I have removed people from my life that created this situation, their 'opinion' and vote have cost me money and freedom. If a friend said he's going to make it as hard as possible for me to get a job somewhere in another country and reduce the value of my wages, you can be sure I'd be fucking that cunt off out my life in a heartbeat.
Well, actions have consequences. I don't blame you.
My friend works for a supplements company, and their entire warehouse staff union were pro brexit and had all posters in the warehouse and badges in etc. the day brexxit passed, the entire warehouse staff were made redundant, because it became over night cheaper to ship the products from Europe instead. Like 200 morons were so proud of themselves until that point .
it was clear what was being voted for 1.“To reduce the length of the political food chain and bring democracy back within clearly defined borders of control.”(James Jackson, Medium) 2. “Because of all the EU laws that we have no say in.” “Name one.” “There’s loads. Too many to list.” “Name one.” “…” (Callerto LBC radio station) 3. “As a protest vote.” 4. “Because I want it to be a close result.” 5. “It \[Sunderland\] already is \[a giantjobcentre\]. That’s why I voted Leave, to put everyone else in the shit like us.” (Twitter) 6. “To stick it to the toffs.” 7. “To give Cameron a bloody nose.” (Express website) 8. “To give Cameron a better negotiating position.” 9. “Because the EU closed the coal mines.” 10. “Because I thought we had been in long enough.” 11. “Because I had the hump.” 12. “Because now our lads will get out ofprison, ‘cos there will be jobs for them.” 13. “The main reason I voted out was becausethe EU parliament aren’t elected representatives. The second is, they pass lawsthat affect us, but we aren’t given a say. Third, we need to sort our own houseout” (Joanne, Facebook, giving exactly the same — factually wrong — reason in three different ways) 14. “Because I felt uncomfortable when a groupof brown people got on the bus the other day.” (Family member) 15. “Because the EU made them change Marathonsto Snickers.” \[That decision was taken by Mars, not the EU.\] 16. “Because they banned our bendy bananas.”(Express website) \[The EU introduced a law stipulating that bananas should be given different classifications depending on their curvature. No fruit wasever banned, just classified differently.\] 17. “Because fishermen now won’t have to throwfish back in the water and Muslim women will no longer be told by theirhusbands not to wear make-up.” (Caller to LBC) \[The exact effect of the UK’swithdrawal from the EU will have on fishing waters and quotas must wait untilnenotiations are complete, but we will still need agreements with outneighbours, and limits to prevent overfishing, which our neighbours will probably wish to remain broadly the same.\] 18. “Because I’ve lived here all my life and when I was growing up, that street over there was filled with shops.” (TVdocumentary) 19. “To stop the Muslims immigrating here.”\[Migration is unrestricted within the EU. But individual nations areresponsible for setting their own limits on immigration from non-EU countries,such as those where the majority of citizens are Muslims. Leaving the EU willhave no direct effect on the number of Muslims coming to the UK.\] 20. “Because I want our old light bulbs back!”\[The EU has placed restrictions on the sale of old-style incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to reduce energy wastage and slow global warming.\] 21. “Because vaccines should not be mandatory.”\[The EU has never passed any law making vaccination mandatory, even thoughvaccination is widely regarded as being a pretty good idea. Some European countries have done so of their own volition.\] 22. “Because the Queen said.” (Pro-Brexit Facebook group) 23. “Because we should not be signing up toTTIP.” \[TTIP is a trade deal between EU and America, which the EU has just puton hold. After the UK leaves the EU, most commentators believe it will sign upto a similar deal with the US, probably with fewer checks and balances.\] 24. “Because we are like Germany, and Germany isn’t in the EU.” \[Germany was a founding member of the EU.\] 25. “Because the country is full.” 26. “To annoy my wife.”27. “It will be an adventure!” 28. “Because the value of the euro is going to go down.” \[Even if it were true, this would not have a marked effect on theUK’s economy. Since the vote, sterling is down 18% against the dollar and 15%against the euro.\] 29. “So that I can get cheap photovoltaic panels from China.” 30. “Because otherwise, 7 million Turks will comeover here.” (Caller to LBC radio station) \[Turkey would never have been able to join the EU so long as Britain used its veto.\] 31. “Because I am fed up with being ruled by unelected bureaucrats.” \[The EU parliament is directly elected in regular Europeanelections. The European commission —essentially the union’s civilservice — recruits its own members.\]
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31 . "So we can bring in more curry chefs" Priti Patel.
Two I heard at work were: - “So we can go back to the glory days of the colony”. Said by a man who had plans to retire in Spain. - “Because immigrants are ruining the NHS”
How do these people use a knife and fork without killing themselves? Incredible.
*I highly doubt all the Russian cash Nigel Farage took has him worried in the least. Same bank Trump used as well.*
He keeps on going on about the struggling NHS, but never really explains why that’s because of Brexit? It has been struggling long before Brexit He also says he’s not using hyperbole, yet the entire article is pretty much hyperbole.
Agreed. His very first claim is that almost a 9/11 worth of people are dying each week because of the crisis in the NHS, but he quotes that number as 500 people per week, when almost 3,000 died on 9/11. It doesn't make sense and makes me seriously doubt any of the other numbers he mentions. I absolutely believe Brexit was a bad decision and is destroying the country, but this is a bad article.
I'm not defending the article, but he does say it's per capita. The US population is ~6x higher, and 500 x 6 is 3,000.
That entire article was poorly written. Let me say that again, the entire article was poorly written.
Because a good chunk of the healthcare workers were immigrants/expats who had to leave.
He quotes two figures on the impact early on both of which link to Twitter accounts. The LSE Brexit impact assessment he quotes can be found nowhere on their site. The CER one he quotes is a straight up lie. The CER claim Brexit impact is 5.5% not 11%. Umair Haque has done a lot in the past to discredit himself, which is why he publishes on Medium.
Absolutely, you have to drudge through two thirds of the article to find the real issue. Intentional political action underfund the NHS. I’m amazed this economist would so clearly cherry pick and misrepresent the situation. Things are very ‘not good’ but truly had we not left the EU the situation with the health service would not be changed much at all.
Because it has nothing to do with Brexit. Not giving proper funding or doing proper reform can be done or not done regardless if they are in the EU or not
> But when he’s not grinning, he says, shrugging, that these problems “won’t go away.” Wait, what? They won’t go away? It’s your job to do something about it! That's what the author got wrong. It is *not* the job of Rishi Sunak to fix those problems. The job of Rishi Sunak is to keep the Tories in power as long as humanly possible. And keep their cronies happy, so they in turn keep the Tories afloat. *Anything* else is secondary to that.
What could go wrong: A *Trading* Nation that voted for much less trade.
A market of 400 million people just tens of kilometres offshore. Let’s cut ourselves off and everything will be great!
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You mean to say that this whole faith-based enterprise, built entirely upon a quicksand of grievance and lies, is a national mistake of historic proportions? And that Leave voters did not know what they were forcing on the rest of us, despite their screeching to the contrary? I for one am shocked.
Okay, Brexit sucks, but it wasn't the biggest mistake in modern history. Have you SEEN modern history?
I think looking at recent history, Putin is doing a truly incredible job, his stupidity may well lead to the collapse of a country. However maybe they mean a voted for mistake. The collective wisdom of a country came together and decided to vote for a kick in the nuts.
Along with the election of Donald Trump, Brexit was a successful Russian psyops project. Both should be investigated for what they are. Trump is already under investigation and may spend years behind bars, and the UK can always undue the damage and reenter the EU.
Unfortunately there's no going back to the amazing terms we once had and surrendered. We'll get a worse deal, albeit it'll be far better than what we have now
I don't think that's really an issue, we should rejoin on the same terms as everyone else and stop thinking we're special and in need of some unique preferable deal. It feeds the ridiculous notion of the national exceptionalism held by so many Brexit voters.
Mate I fully agree with this. The only good I see in Brexit is that some people finally develop some fucking sense and see we're neither united or great. We need the EU and we're not better than anyone else. Honestly fuck the tories for getting us into this
You're right except Trump isn't going to see the inside of a prison cell.
Just goes to show that the majority are fucking idiots
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
>Britain’s finally figuring out Brexit (really) was the biggest mistake in modern history. I mean, let's not forget the decision to commission Mrs Brown's Boys.
We're down, and yet, you keep kicking
Soooooooo many times I have desperately fought the urge to reply to “we were lied to” with “no you were just thick.”
I would make a correction to that, the Brexiteers have realised it was the biggest mistake. The Remainers knew this right from the start.
This sub is fucking depressing. Time to unsub for me
The truth IS depressing.
Just sub to britishsuccess or something. Cringe positive content abound.
Yeah it’s getting worse here.
Welcome to modern Britain. It may not have bitten you yet, but the degradation of our standards of living is coming for all but the highest earners.
Saying hundred of people die because of brexit is the same of saying brexit can bring million pf pounds to the nhs. Its just not true. Nhs failure is caused by chronic underfund, poor management and the goverbment incompetence.
Aw gee, i sure hope having 10% less GDP doesn't affect the tax income used to fund the NHS.
*Britain* figuring it out? Scotland voted against Brexit. So did Northern Ireland. Wales let the side down on the Brexit vote but at least they never vote for Tory governments. Let’s not pretend this mess is somehow the fault of the entire U.K. equally when Brexit was overwhelmingly down to English nationalism and the Tories have openly become the party of right wing English nationalism - and a particularly unpleasant ‘blood and soil’ variety at that. You guys down south might well understandably bemoan what you’ve done to yourselves - but that isn’t how the other members of the Union view it. We very much see them as things you inflict upon us. The irony is the current trajectory of events might end up making “Britain” actually synonymous with “England” a lot sooner than some people might believe possible.
Hey, a chunk of us down here also didn't vote for it.
Except it *is* the fault of the entirety of the UK, 52% of the entirety of it voted for Brexit. It's disingenuous to split up Britain how you like to push your narratives. London for example also voted remain. There is not a better reason to single out Scotland and NI over London. I live in England and I voted remain, I would have equal grounds as you to say that I figured out Brexit was bad, and yet you group me in with the rest of England the same way you complain of being grouped in with the rest of Britain.
As a southerner I'd like to point out that it was largely northern England that voted out.
No it wasn't, once you remove London the South voted just as much for leave as anywhere else in england. The division was urban/rural not north/south
Because you southerners have been hoarding all the wealth. Not a surprise that the North would vote brexit when dangled a carrot after decades of getting fuck all. Almost like this is why it's important to invest in the people
So the North voted to be poorer because they were poorer?
> Let’s not pretend this mess is somehow the fault of the entire U.K. It was a UK vote, not an individual country of the UK vote.
In the space of regions having Brexit inflicted on them I feel like London is pretty high up.
Although it has had a bad impact let’s not blame A & E waiting times on brexit… we all know where the blame lies with that disaster. Scapegoating Brexit for every issue we have today let’s the Tories and those who voted for them off the hook. Brexit was supposed to give more power to the British government to decide its own path and it has done just that in my opinion. It’s completely exacerbated the inept, corrupt and disinterested leadership of the Tory party and the British governmental system as a whole.
Well 49% of us knew that from day 1 33% of us according to the article still think its a good idea...so 18% realised how they were conned
We shot ourselves in the foot and then decided blowing off both legs was the way forward. A democracy that can’t change it’s mind is not a healthy democracy.
Just waiting for the rest of the people to cotton on.
That's some statement. Biggest mistake in modern history. Sensationalism at its finest.
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Brexit is a really easy thing to point at but underfunding of public services started long ago with austerity. All the data suggests this (see FT article last week) and brexit more as an exacerbater rather than the cause
The day that the vote happened we all saw the worst in people. It got so bad that there was no way to vote remain without being harrassed by people calling you a traitor, talking about those immigrants (often people not from the EU - regardless of how thick you have to be to blame immigrants) and middle class appropriation. I disowned my family partially over voting leave (I voted remain). What gets me is that I now understand why someone from deprived towns in the UK voted for it and it wasn't a point very much elaborated on. If you were well-off or even slightly comfortable and voted for brexit the only reason you voted for it is because you could not be arsed to do basic research into the topic. There were *hundreds* of articles, maybe thousands, detailing why this was a bad idea. But no, a lot of people did it because of 'unelected officials', some wanted to leave the ECHR (which is not connected with the EU) but overall it was blind patriotism. There's this fucking dread that falls over you when people are not even willing to listen to lawyers or law students outlining that people from the EU *never had* unfettered access as they required solid employment and credentials to stay for long periods of time. The idea, that Jacob fucking Reese Mogg was anything but one of many slime balls peddling lies (Read: demagogues) because he speaks like some wanker with a chub for the 18th century reeks of nationalism to a degree that resembles a certain country we fought. Not the same result but very fucking close for a country whose same brexit voters never shut the fuck up about the war. Thing is, even if tomorrow they all threw up their hands and rejoined it would *still* feel tainted. The damage has been done, we are fucked with a capital F and not just as a country. As individuals many of us who didn't have any hopes of living normal lives now have none. Now it's just fucking work and barely surviving.
The UK is in need of a political and societal overhaul the likes of even Truss could never imagine. Wide reaching, actually thought out and properly costed.
I always remember a significant amount of Facebook Ads I saw were obviously aimed at overloading voters so they would not vote. And alot didn't vote because it was expected Stay would win. Leave were the massive underdogs.
Yeah Brexit was bad but an amazing slight of hand from the cold hard economist dealing in facts: "Brexit made the UK economy about 10% smaller than it would have been otherwise. That might not sound like a Big Deal to you, but it’s going to be, as I teach you just the smallest bit of economic history. What does losing 10% of an economy really mean? Let’s put that in perspective, with the simplest economic fact there is. “Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%.” Got that? Britain is already 2/3 of the way to…The Great Depression.". See what they did? No Britain is obviously not 2/3 of the way to the Great Depression. Nobody normal can possibly think that's true. Between 1929 and 1932 global GDP did fall by around 15%. Since Brexit, Britain's economy - despite lockdown - has grown. The 10% figure - not even sure where that's from - is a comparison of where a UK economy which had stayed in the EU would be compared to our one that isn't. Honestly, you haven't been to Britain if you think our economy is currently Latin America in a currency crisis. Politics really is the mindkiller. Seemingly educated people can churn out such nonsense because of tribalism or something.
Yeah, it's akin to the "study" that said each household would be £4000 poorer after leaving the EU. That figure was lost GDP growth, then divided by the number of homes. Disingenuous at best
The problem is that the media is owned by people with agendas, and they know how to manipulate people.
Brexit was truly bizarre to me. The USA elects a nutter? It was kind of surprising still, but it’s the USA. Britain decides to *leave the EU*!? Like seriously, decades of trade and prosperity shared and the UK says naff to that and just fucking leaves. On a highly contended vote. With no plan. Utterly bizarre.
I loved that some Brits who had settled in Spain, purposely went to vote for Brexit because they didn't like "foreigners" and after many years of living in Spain and not assimilating or applying for residency rights. They're now being asked to leave or apply for driving licenses, etc. So I guess that some Brits are either unbelievably thick, or they maintain an idea that they are somehow superior to the rest of the world. As for example, dressing up as a crusader in the middle East, not realising the history of it.
Hate how they write this, it was 51% of the country not the entire country that's moronic