Consequences Of Brexit [Part 9] Read First Post Before Posting

[melthebell 863]

3 minutes ago, KinderKid said:

It's hyperbolic comments like this that muddy debate, and in my view, lost the referendum. It is evident that the government have pulled back some degrees of sovereignty (e.g. an ability to control immigration from EU countries) - the level to which these are deemed a success or a failure is still an open question, as are many of the intricacies of what being "sovereign" means. 

 

I can't help but feel if, in the lead up to the 2016 referendum, there had been fewer comments of this sort and more robust and honest debate championed by Remain they would have walked it home. Instead, the failure to acknowledge public mood was such that it allowed Brexiteers to build a vision of renaissance against a backdrop of terminal decline. In short, it should have been possible to champion continued EU membership whilst still being empathetic to the fact many British people had reservations about the project.

it was utter ********, it still is, end of story

[andyofborg 11]

2 hours ago, KinderKid said:

 

I can't help but feel if, in the lead up to the 2016 referendum, there had been fewer comments of this sort and more robust and honest debate championed by Remain they would have walked it home.

Possibly, but to David Cameron the referendum was solely for Conservative party management  Had he run more robust campaign it would have  torn the conservative  party apart. 

 

He was a chancer who thought he would just squeak over the line so fought a campaign designed to save the conservative party rather than win the argument. 

 

 

[Magilla 510]

On 01/01/2021 at 13:15, convert said:

Good to see free movement of goods to the Uk, from the EU.

What you think you saw, and what you actually saw, bear no resemblance to each other

 

On 01/01/2021 at 13:21, tinfoilhat said:

Erm, no there isn't. It's tariff free not free of customs checks or red tape. Depending on what you are sending, there's loads of it!

Indeed!

[max 13]

7 hours ago, KinderKid said:

It's hyperbolic comments like this that muddy debate, and in my view, lost the referendum. It is evident that the government have pulled back some degrees of sovereignty (e.g. an ability to control immigration from EU countries) - the level to which these are deemed a success or a failure is still an open question, as are many of the intricacies of what being "sovereign" means. 

 

I can't help but feel if, in the lead up to the 2016 referendum, there had been fewer comments of this sort and more robust and honest debate championed by Remain they would have walked it home. Instead, the failure to acknowledge public mood was such that it allowed Brexiteers to build a vision of renaissance against a backdrop of terminal decline. In short, it should have been possible to champion continued EU membership whilst still being empathetic to the fact many British people had reservations about the project.

Having campaigned for Remain during the referendum I can assure you that there were none of us making hyperbolic comments on the doorstep. Despite this, there were very few people who intended voting Exit who were willing to debate. Their minds were made up by the constant drip of anti-EU rhetoric over the previous decades and on many occasions we were turned away with comments such as "I don't want to debate or talk about the EU".

 

I found it personally very difficult to champion continued membership to closed doors and minds.

[KinderKid 0]

44 minutes ago, max said:

Having campaigned for Remain during the referendum I can assure you that there were none of us making hyperbolic comments on the doorstep. Despite this, there were very few people who intended voting Exit who were willing to debate. Their minds were made up by the constant drip of anti-EU rhetoric over the previous decades and on many occasions we were turned away with comments such as "I don't want to debate or talk about the EU".

 

I found it personally very difficult to champion continued membership to closed doors and minds.

That's a very fair point. 

I suspect part of the failure of Remain to win the referendum lies with successive pro-EU governments on both the Labour and Conservative benches.

 

Without governments really selling what the benefits of EU membership were to the electorate over several parliaments, the job of Eurosceptics has been relatively easy. If you take the lack of opportunity for the electorate to challenge Britain's direction on Europe over decades and the coverage of referenda abroad which were presented as fudged to get the right result, it's not tricky to see why there was already a strong undercurrent of scepticism. 

 

I also fear that with some more vocal campaigners (and I suspect this applies to very few of those on the doorstep but a higher proportion of those online) bandying around words like "racist", "xenophobe", "jingoist" served little to allay the concerns of those moderate floating voters who were already leaning towards Leave. The more a moderate sees other moderates being piled on, the more emboldened they are in their own views. 

 

 

[max 13]

16 minutes ago, KinderKid said:

That's a very fair point. 

I suspect part of the failure of Remain to win the referendum lies with successive pro-EU governments on both the Labour and Conservative benches.

 

 

This is exactly what was predicted once we'd left and the horror of what we had done dawned on people - the blame would be lain at the door of Remain supporters and pro-EU governments.

 

The reason we are where we are is purely down to the lies spouted for the last few decades by those with a vested interest in not only leaving but also selling newspapers.

[KinderKid 0]

19 minutes ago, max said:

This is exactly what was predicted once we'd left and the horror of what we had done dawned on people - the blame would be lain at the door of Remain supporters and pro-EU governments.

 

The reason we are where we are is purely down to the lies spouted for the last few decades by those with a vested interest in not only leaving but also selling newspapers.

I think this is where our concurrence ends 😉

 

In this matter I think it takes two to tango - the referendum was as much a Leave victory as it was a Remain loss - the argument was simply not made strongly enough (over years) for many of the electorate to believe they were seeing adequate benefit against the cost of membership. Against the vision set out by the Leave side for a better future for an independent Britain, the feeling of being satisfied with what was being handed down by Brussels dissipated. We can argue until the cows come home about whether that will transpire or not, but it is important that the "maintain the status quo" message of Remain simply wasn't robust enough. 

 

I'd also contest that most voters (including the working classes this is often levelled at) blindly vote for whoever their paper of choice tells them to. Buying a newspaper is a transaction between two parties, not a dictatorial put; if readers don't sympathise with what they read, they stop buying.

[tinfoilhat 11]

3 minutes ago, KinderKid said:

I think this is where our concurrence ends 😉

 

In this matter I think it takes two to tango - the referendum was as much a Leave victory as it was a Remain loss - the argument was simply not made strongly enough (over years) for many of the electorate to believe they were seeing adequate benefit against the cost of membership. Against the vision set out by the Leave side for a better future for an independent Britain, the feeling of being satisfied with what was being handed down by Brussels dissipated. We can argue until the cows come home about whether that will transpire or not, but it is important that the "maintain the status quo" message of Remain simply wasn't robust enough. 

 

I'd also contest that most voters (including the working classes this is often levelled at) blindly vote for whoever their paper of choice tells them to. Buying a newspaper is a transaction between two parties, not a dictatorial put; if readers don't sympathise with what they read, they stop buying.

But if readers blindly belive what they read in the papers (be it bendy bananas, immigrants taking our jobs etc etc) they'll vote leave. And did, in great numbers. 

[KinderKid 0]

Just now, tinfoilhat said:

But if readers blindly belive what they read in the papers (be it bendy bananas, immigrants taking our jobs etc etc) they'll vote leave. And did, in great numbers. 

My exact point is that I don't believe most people do - just as I can't believe many Remain voters believe every Guardian story of absolute EU unity or benevolence  

[The Joker 10]

3 minutes ago, KinderKid said:

In this matter I think it takes two to tango - the referendum was as much a Leave victory as it was a Remain loss - the argument was simply not made strongly enough (over years) for many of the electorate to believe they were seeing adequate benefit against the cost of membership. Against the vision set out by the Leave side for a better future for an independent Britain, the feeling of being satisfied with what was being handed down by Brussels dissipated. We can argue until the cows come home about whether that will transpire or not, but it is important that the "maintain the status quo" message of Remain simply wasn't robust enough.

The Leave campaign was headed by a known compulsive liar and serial cheater who made a number of promises (lies) he had no intention to keep.

 

Like the additional £350 million a week to the NHS.

 

Don't blame the Remainers; they lost.

 

Leave won; they own this mess.

[tinfoilhat 11]

19 minutes ago, KinderKid said:

My exact point is that I don't believe most people do - just as I can't believe many Remain voters believe every Guardian story of absolute EU unity or benevolence  

But they do though. Leave supporting papers made promises they didn't need to keep, and those promises sound brilliant ! Less red tape (going to be more), immigration restrictions, the fabled £350m a week for the NHS,  new "golden age" - that was last week in the express, buccaneering opportunities- how much fun does that sound, and in the Sun the evergreen excuse to be rude to foreigners. 

 

Nobody cared about frictionless trade, financial passporting, the Irish border and crime databases! Boring!

Edited January 3, 2021 by tinfoilhat

[Litotes 63]

18 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

But if readers blindly belive what they read in the papers (be it bendy bananas, immigrants taking our jobs etc etc) they'll vote leave. And did, in great numbers. 

The biggest problem was that the Leave campaign could promise the world (as they did) and promise that it would be the land of milk and honey afterwards wiothout having to prove anything.

This is where we are now - soon people will be saying - "you promised..." and when they realise that much of what was said was empty rhetoric and lies, then the pendulum will swing the other way - but we have shot the golden goose - there is no going back under such favourable terms as we previously had.