A large proportion of leave voters didn’t vote for it with a clear understanding of what the benefits and disbenifits of EU membership were. The leave campaign was full of misinformation and lies. The same can probably said for remain voters that didn’t fully understand the pros and cons.
It split the country based on lies and misinformation and its only gone and divided the country more so in a horrible way.
Its this that upsets me.
Edit - I don’t know what the ‘large proportion’ is, but there are clear voters types that I’ve come across and sadly there are more that don’t like foreigners, or being told that some power that is non British had some form of control, than those with a clear understanding.
Based on those I’ve come across @Kopstar, i don’t know a lot of the 17m, and I doubt you do too. I was just trying to be clear that when I say large proportion I don’t know the numbers.
Slightly unfair when you part quote me. I clearly said, in my edit, that its based on who I’ve come across.
If you disagree with who I’ve met then so be it. I’m not sure how you could know who I’ve met or my experiences of the leave voters I’ve met.
Feel free to unlike a post based on my own experience. Note I didn’t say all voters.
You know damned well I meant lies being told by Boris and Farage. You are just being sarcastic , maybe because you cannot answer the question I keep asking. I never got involved in the thread on TIA as I thought it better to keep football and politics seperate. I did however contribute to another thread about Brexit , a very informative one where generally people seemed to at least make an attempt to explain themselves without being sarcastic.
Interestingly, there appears to be a campaign for joining upto EFTA starting up.
With regards to what we were originally signing up for, I know we discussed this a bit in the old TIA thread, but I continue to respectfully disagree with you on this.
There’s no way that happens in the next 5 years, probably more. Plus you’ll need a complete change of government for it to have half a hope.
What state the UK will be in by then is anyone’s guess.
Thete is no way in heaven that leave voters knew what EFTA/EAA even is let alone voted for it. I’d bet you’re in a very smalll minority in that regard. It’s remarkably unfair to blame remain voters for not understanding why people voted to leave when there’s a whole host of reasons and versions, many of which those leave voters didn’t even understand themselves.
A question I’ve answered repeatedly over the last four years. I spent long enough already addressing the 69 points of distortion posted the other day. It’s a weekend. I’m with my family. If you want me to again repeat points I’ve made at length before, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer than 24 hours. They will then be ignored anyway, so forgive me if I start to wonder what the point is, other than to waste my time.
I have taken the trouble to try to discover the reasons why people voted to leave.
According to various opinion poles conducted after the 2016 referendum, the top three reasons for voting leave were:
Regaining sovereignty: the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken by the UK (49%)
Immigration: voting leave offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders (33%)
Fears over EU expansion: remaining meant little or no choice about how the EU expanded its membership or powers (13%)
Evidently the vast majority of leave voters were unconcerned about the economic consequences of leaving the EU. (Less than 6% of leave voters thought that the UK would benefit more from being outside the EU than from being part of it).
However, any further rehearsal of the arguments, either pro or con, is futile. The die is cast; the decision taken. For better or worse we must accept the consequences of the decision, good or bad, and move on.
And that would be my advice to anyone young enough, move on; emigrate from the UK just as fast as you can.
It’s simply not true that every Brexit voter knew what they were voting for. 17m voters, 17m different interpretations of “Brexit” with most of them being significantly more optimistic that reality has shown to be the case.
Currently I’m guessing very few of those Brexit voters are happy with the state of things but true to form the government will blame the EU for it all.
And yet we are supposed to understand the reasoning. Truth is they very likely dont understand themselves. I’m also pretty certain most of them including posters on this forum are not getting the Brexit they thought they voted for or wanted.
But its done and we’re only left to debate the impact or otherwise of what this government agree going forward. And highlight the inaccuracies in ehat they say of course. Because thats what this lot do.
In a way I find it easier to understand why people might have voted for Brexit in the referendum.
A lot harder for me to understand what happened in the numerous elections after that, especially the last one. Even if people weren’t comfortable with Corbyn (who was pretty out of his depth with the whole Brexit topic imho) there would have been other choices than to hand this over to the Tories and Boris specifically, who clearly already had made a complete mess out of the process. Instead there was this ‘let’s just get it over with, I’m bored with Brexit now’ atmosphere.
At least that’s what it looked like to me as an ‘outsider’.
Johnson intentionally tried to, and was allowed to, go with the tagline “Get Brexit Done” without ever being held to account over what he specifically saw as “Brexit” and therefore voters were invited to simply apply whatever their ideas were and believe that was what was going to happen.
It’s a massive failure of the Labour Party, and Corbyn, that they were unable to pressure this one clear area. Especially when all the major faces of Brexit - Johnson, Gove, Farage, Baker etc. all clearly had very different ideas on the future of the UK/EU relationship. Somehow they managed to get away with selling the idea that Brexit is exactly what everyone wanted.
The overused analogy is that they sold the idea of Unicorns, without any critique into how they were going to get the unicorns or what unicorns look like or if they even existed. Voters still want their unicorn.
The biggest electoral problem in the UK is the fragmentation of the centre-left vote. If you’re right wing, you vote Conservative (or DUP in Northern Ireland); if you’re centre-left, you have a multitude of options.
The Conservatives and DUP totalled 44.4% of the vote in December 2019; that means that the left was actually more popular. The trouble is that that vote is spread too thinly; what is needed is for Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Greens (and other smaller parties) to all work together for the greater good.
If they don’t do so, the Tories will be in power for generations to come.
I get what you’re saying. Still somewhat shocking to me that the Tories would manage to get that many votes after that whole farce. Honestly don’t get why anyone still had any hope Brexit under their rule would end up in anything but a disaster. Some still do apparently.
Couldn’t agree more with this. They at least need one year of an electoral pact, push through a single transferable vote reform, and then the playing field is much more even.
I find it a bit surreal that much of the frustration that had built up over the last decade in no small part due to Austerity and blind hatred for what the government was doing ultimately lead them voting for a worse version of the same government they were frustrated at.
You have to admit the Tories played a blinder.
Still what will come this week as Brexit negotiations resume. Not a lot of time left now.
