UK Politics Thread (Part 1)

Really? You know better than me what I mean?

If I’d said ‘everyone who voted Brexit is a cunt’ or even ‘Brexit voting wankers’ you’d have a point.

I didn’t though, did I? You’re being tad sensitive to think every disparaging comment about Brexit is about you. There were loads of people who voted for Brexit. And there was a small number of people who campaigned for it, championed it, and lied to the British people to get it. Did things like telling the people it’s was going to be glorious while quietly moving their wealth to Ireland. Those kinds things.Those were the people I was referring to. As I’ve already explained, over and over again, to the point where I’m really tired.

Here are some…

Emergency budget
Recession
Collapse in house prices
3 million job losses
No EU Army
Exodus of financial service jobs
2/3rds of manufacturing jobs dependent on the EU
Hard border on the island of Ireland
Back of the queue for a US trade deal
Migrant camps in Kent

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Seriously , you can’t remember the fact that Osbourne stated that we’d be in a recession the day after the result, that companies would be leaving Britain in droves , that there was no plans for a European army etc?

Why is it the remainers are so smug in their disdain for democracy when it goes against their ideals ? How many people here over the years suggested that people who wanted to leave were racists? Thick or lied to?

Remainers back then as they do now just love slagging this country off because they didn’t win, and yet if remain had won, you wouldn’t even entertain a second referendum, yet we had to watch politicians and left wing media highlighting the militant left wing protests demanding a second referendum, yet brexiteers never really had much airtime because the collective establishment tried everything in operation fear to get us to have a second one just so they could try and fix the result.

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Also wasn’t there one about families being £4,300 worse off ?

At least one for sure!

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It’s early days, mate.

Oh and I think we had a recession in early 2020, didn’t we? I’m sure that was a thing.

So Brexit caused covid now? That’s a new one.

I’ll add that to the list, shall I?

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Lot of my ancestral family from Blyth.

Kinda cool for a place so entrenched in the mining industry now involved in a milestone of green energy.

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It’s about who won and lost. It’s not a fucking game of football.

People on both sides of the debate were doing their best to do what they thought was right for the country. That’s obviously going to be messy and heated, but we had to let that process play out, it it did not help anyone that the leave side behaved like tinpot dictators in a banana republic, with shit like calling people traitors and enemies of the people.

I think the leavers quite quickly and shamelessly started gaslighting the population into believing they voted for something they never actually did - a hard no deal Brexit.

In the run up to the vote every single prominent leave voice argued until they were gammon in the face that no-one was calling for no deal, it would be insane to leave without a deal, and we could all rest assured that no deal wasn’t on the table.

As soon as it was done, a sickening number changed tack and started demanding exactly the no deal exit they had told to the public wasn’t going to happen.

It was absolutely right for remain supporting politicians to argue tooth and nail against this and fight for the best outcome to leaving the EU. If they had slung away and allowed the Brexit Wankers (hopefully that’s OK, now I’ve clarified several times for Klopptimist) to take complete control of the process, it would have been a lot more catastrophic than it actually was.

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Well, where does Brexit start and Covid begin. One of the difficulties we have is that the true impact of Brexit is going to be forever masked by the Pandemic, and a lot of the damage is going to be blamed on the ‘Rona.

Although, I think you can argue that Brexit ultimately led to the Johnson administration which has completely fucked up the response and killed so many people. No Brexit, No PM Boris Johnson. Lots more people still alive.

But to go back to your list, I don’t think you’ve really highlighted any lies. You highlighted a bunch of predictions, some of which didn’t come to pass, some of which are arguable and some that may come true in the fullness of time.

Can you point to an actual lie - as in something the remain campaign told the British people that was categorically untrue at the time of the claim being made? I’m taking about things like vastly exaggerating the amount of money we send to the EU on a weekly basis? Or claiming the EU pass laws that we don’t want? That kind of thing.

Vast majority of population don’t care about politics one way or another. Many at best have a superficial understanding of the issues and policies.

Irrespective of if you are probrexit or against. When push came to shove people typically did not take a holistic view, they voted on the one or two things that mattered to them. The fact that we are in a politics thread for me, shows the people in here have a greater interest/understanding than the average man in the street. We are not representative of the norm or population.

Both sides (politicians) however did the country a disservice as did the media. For the most part debate was reduced to 3 world slogans, Dismissed as project fear or nonsense, relied upon the charisma (or lack of) of the leaders. Serious debate was lacking and poorly explained. The goal posts of what Brexit meant was never defined. It was all things to all men.

Johnson and Farage were showmen, more celebrities than proper politicians. People related to them. It resonated more than say Corbyn who was a bit meh, when it came to Europe. If I was to sum up the two campaigns. Brexit sold vision of milk and honey, those that wanted remain sold a vision that the EU is a bit shit but the alternative is worse. It’s no surprise that remain lost.

It’s unfortunate that we were living in an era of Twitter and Facebook which meant people only had their views self validated. Like a nice pat on the back (again both sides).

One of the big reason we joined the EEC was food shortages. If you look at the government forecast of what would occur post Brexit (operation yellow hammer) most of issues where predicted or known.

Whilst I am firmly in the remain camp, I think Brexit could have been successful, if competent people where in charge. However cabinet is full of yes men, showmen, and those there to line their own pockets. As a result they have made poor decision after poor decision leading to an inevitable poor outcome.

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I agree with this, and there were certainly compelling theoretical arguments to leave but I think some people - a couple in this thread - made the mistake of voting for the theory and not the reality in front of us.

A yes vote in the referendum was never a vote for a sensible, managed withdrawal where everyone behaves sensibly and competently. It was a vote for Brexit as delivered by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Rees Mogg, Farage etc. That was the choice on the table.

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Some of those aren’t far off the mark at all.

And they aren’t lies, they are predictions. Even if they didn’t come to pass, it’s hardly in the same category as writing ‘we give £350m a week to the EU’ on a massive red bus.

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Here’s a clue. It’s called the Covid-19 recession.

Also, the UK is predicted to bounce back faster than any other G7 economy, including the Eurozone.

But when you talk about people saying “this isn’t the Brexit I voted for” aren’t you basing those on predictions?

The list I gave has commonly been referred to as project fear.

As for verifiable lies, Professor Dougan told a few.

UK can meaningfully control immigration within the EU
The EU is responsible for gold plated UK employment rights.
The EU doesn’t compromise UK sovereignty.
The EU is the reason for peace in Europe for the last 70 years.
The EU is a rules based organisation
The EU is democratic
The EU doesn’t operate a discriminatory immigration policy

All of the above is untrue.

As a gross figure, that was true. I don’t like it though, as I said at the time, because it should have been expressed as a net figure which, from memory, was about half that.

Which ones, specifically?

So I just imagined Theresa May being PM after Cameron resigned?

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Sorry, but I disagree a lot of those are lies, and the ones I wouldn’t argue about are only because I don’t really know the issues.

I would certainly agree with Dougan on sovereignty, democracy and rules based operation and peace in Europe.

Just on democracy, I thought it was fucking incredible that leave got to argue that the EU wasn’t democratic, especially compared to our our own shambolic democratic institution. We are a country that regularly elects a government into absolute power on a minority of the vote. We have not right to throw these stones around.