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EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

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bramling

bramling

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edwin_m said:
I believe the answer to that is to start addressing the deep-seated issues that plague our society and which have been mostly ignored by all governments for at least 20 years. Governments that ignore large chunks of the population and massive inequality.
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This argument I just don't get. There's deprived places in Britain which have received EU funding, yet still voted leave - often in quite large numbers. I think the remain side have never really grasped just how much latent reluctance towards the EU has simmered away throughout Britain for many years. My opinion is the rationale behind the leave vote is more complex than the remain side give credit for.

edwin_m said:
As regards the EU, I wonder if there should be some form of associated membership that brings the economic benefits but avoids the political stuff which is what most people (including some remainers) object to.
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Now I'd agree with that, in fact as someone heavily in favour of leave I'd be prepared to go along with that as a compromise, even though personally I'd ideally favour a total break. The immediate difficulty is the EU seem utterly unwilling to deviate away from their established setup. Cameron tried and I think it's fair to say failed to come back with anything more than window dressing.

Britain has never really bought in to the EU project. There's always been a latent caution and reluctance towards it, with the contents of the saucepan gradually simmering higher and higher. Eventually this was always going to bubble over, and again this is something which the remain contingent just don't seem to get. In my view short of some drastic change within the EU which doesn't look likely to happen, we might as well go no deal and be done with it - that bubbling saucepan just isn't going to disappear.
 
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Greg Read

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ainsworth74 said:
I've never quite got this argument.

The EU have been quite clear throughout, but increasingly so of late, that they'd prefer the UK to leave with a deal but that they are quite prepared to tolerate the disruption of a no-deal exit. So, with that being the case, how can you threaten someone with something that they're quite willing to undertake the negative impacts of?
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Well, if there is No Deal as an option, then we will have to put up with whatever they give us, there will be no point arguing, we will just 'agree' to what they demand, bear in mind also that the people of Main Land Europe are also affected, and could suffer job losses and price rises, the buying a house scenario, it is like saying 'agreeing' a sale and saying I want 500,000 or there is no deal, after an offer of 250,000, if you have taken the no deal part away, bang goes your 500, you will be stuck with 250 !
 
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ainsworth74

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Greg Read said:
Well, if there is No Deal as an option, then we will have to put up with whatever they give us, there will be no point arguing, we will just 'agree' to what they demand, bear in mind also that the people of Main Land Europe are also affected, and could suffer job losses and price rises, the buying a house scenario, it is like saying 'agreeing' a sale and saying I want 500,000 or there is no deal, after an offer of 250,000, if you have taken the no deal part away, bang goes your 500, you will be stuck with 250 !
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Yes but they've been quite clear that they're prepared to cope with the negative effects of no-deal. How do you threaten them with something that they're quite prepared to put up with?
 
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bramling said:
For as long as Farage reflects widespread public opinion, ignoring Farage will *not* make the issue go away.
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I can only see him inspiring those who believe reducing emigration is the solution to virtually all of our ills or enjoying his subtle pedalling of English nationalism &/.or cancelling HS2,, what have I missed?
 
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Starmill

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Greg Read said:
Well, if there is No Deal as an option, then we will have to put up with whatever they give us, there will be no point arguing, we will just 'agree' to what they demand, bear in mind also that the people of Main Land Europe are also affected, and could suffer job losses and price rises, the buying a house scenario, it is like saying 'agreeing' a sale and saying I want 500,000 or there is no deal, after an offer of 250,000, if you have taken the no deal part away, bang goes your 500, you will be stuck with 250 !
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This isn't true at all I'm afraid.

The UK position is that to get an agreement the so-called Theresa May 'backstop' must be removed from the Withdrawal Agreement. The EU leaders have been clear time and time again they will not agree to this. They will accept an exit by the UK without a deal before they agree to this. Indeed, if they did agree to what the Prime Minister has asked for, they would probably find themselves in a worse position than they would by sticking to their guns and tolerating 'no deal'.

There are many reasons:

- They would risk the integrity of their single market across Europe, which could 'leak' across the land border with Northern Ireland
- They would risk fury from Ireland for placing the interests of a non-member UK ahead of member Ireland
- They would risk humiliation and loss of reputation in international negotiations between the EU and other third countries on trade negotiations
- No guarantee would be offered that the House of Commons would approve the deal even if they agreed to this condition. To put it another way, this concession would in no way exclude the possibility of 'no deal'

The EU leaders believe Boris Johnson is making a credible threat that he will leave with no deal. This threat will not motivate them to change their terms. They simply aren't scared by it. Last but not least because, if they stand firm, the damage of a 'no deal' exit in the EU can be easily blamed on Boris Johnson by casting him as a 'foreign idiot'. If they change their terms, they might come in for the blame that the harm Brexit does (with or without a deal) in the EU as a result.

Angela Merkel is desperate to avoid a UK exit with no deal. She is however a pragmatist. She will place Germany's long term interest first, which means accepting that the UK will leave with no deal if we will not:

- request an extension to Article 50
- revoke article 50
- ratify the Withdrawal Agreement

The Prime Minister has ruled out all three of these options.
 
DerekC

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bramling said:
This argument I just don't get. There's deprived places in Britain which have received EU funding, yet still voted leave - often in quite large numbers. I think the remain side have never really grasped just how much latent reluctance towards the EU has simmered away throughout Britain for many years. My opinion is the rationale behind the leave vote is more complex than the remain side give credit for.

Britain has never really bought in to the EU project. There's always been a latent caution and reluctance towards it, with the contents of the saucepan gradually simmering higher and higher. Eventually this was always going to bubble over, and again this is something which the remain contingent just don't seem to get. In my view short of some drastic change within the EU which doesn't look likely to happen, we might as well go no deal and be done with it - that bubbling saucepan just isn't going to disappear.
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There's a good reason for the "bubbling saucepan" - the Tory press has conducted a decades-long campaign against the EU, laced with misinformation and not a few lies, with the objective of obtaining our withdrawal. The reasons are not hard to see - the EU is a basically liberal organisation which sets strong limits on the ability of capitalists to do exactly what they want, and the Murdochs of this world don't like it.
 
bramling

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DerekC said:
There's a good reason for the "bubbling saucepan" - the Tory press has conducted a decades-long campaign against the EU, laced with misinformation and not a few lies, with the objective of obtaining our withdrawal. The reasons are not hard to see - the EU is a basically liberal organisation which sets strong limits on the ability of capitalists to do exactly what they want, and the Murdochs of this world don't like it.
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And people can't analyse what they're presented with and form their own opinion?

The more I read here, the more I can see how this situation isn't going to fizzle away.
 
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ainsworth74 said:
Pandora's Box has been opened and I don't see anyway of closing it. And it's that which really worries me.
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All thanks to David Cameron. This mess is his legacy. We simply never should have had a refurendum in the first place. Even if Remain won, it wouldn't be as chaotic as now, but it would have still stirred up the divided opinions on the EU. Whoever thought the refurendum would put the issue to bed was incredibly naive (or there was some kind of game at play, but that's possibly getting into conspiracy theory territory)
 
Starmill

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bramling said:
Cameron tried and I think it's fair to say failed to come back with anything more than window dressing.
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I couldn't disagree more. The Cameron Renegotiation represented a large shift in the position of the other EU leaders. They were willing to give him significant flex, as a member, on the core principles of the organisation. They wanted him to convince us to stay, so they allowed him to claim it was the end of 'ever closer union'. There was also a significant change in form of child benefit policy, the 'Red Card' on European Parliament proposals, the limits on Eurozone crisis support and the Emergency Break in immigration. These things were hard fought changes too because the UK already enjoyed a huge rebate and a large number of special opt-outs to otherwise Europe-wide policies.

The right-wing press immediately decried it all as meaningless. Of course they did though. Nothing short of full exit will satisfy them. We already had a special deal - way, way better than the deal that countries that joined after us got. The renegotiation would have given us even more rights over the rest of the members. The other EU leaders valued the UK so much that they've flexed as much as they possibly can to keep us, and that's been true since the start.
 
Starmill

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bramling said:
And people can't analyse what they're presented with and form their own opinion?
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If people read the Daily Mail and the Express, but they don't also read the Financial Times or the Guardian, or perhaps more importantly they don't read government policy documents or the Budget or the reports by the European Comssion on everything from inequality to climate change to environmental protection to healthcare systems, how likely do you think it is that people will have informed opinions? I don't criticise anyone for reading the Mail and the Express. I'll occasionally read them myself if there's one lying on a seat on the train, because I'll have a look through it and always find at least one factual error, several very misleading points and a great deal of use of hyperbole and outrage, and attempt at emotional appeal rather than factual analysis. Funnily enough I find hardly any of these things in the Economist or the FT.

Where your moral and ethical boundaries lie is one thing in you forming your opinion. But some things are true, and some are not. Everyone needs to be on the same page with these things, and if you're getting your information from the Murdoch press and not anywhere else, you'll find it quite difficult to get access to basic facts.
 
bramling

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Starmill said:
If people read the Daily Mail and the Express, but they don't also read the Financial Times or the Guardian, or perhaps more importantly they don't read government policy documents or the Budget or the reports by the European Comssion on everything from inequality to climate change to environmental protection to healthcare systems, how likely do you think it is that people will have informed opinions? I don't criticise anyone for reading the Mail and the Express. I'll occasionally read them myself if there's one lying on a seat on the train, because I'll have a look through it and always find at least one factual error, several very misleading points and a great deal of use of hyperbole and outrage, and attempt at emotional appeal rather than factual analysis. Funnily enough I find hardly any of these things in the Economist or the FT.

Where your moral and ethical boundaries lie is one thing in you forming your opinion. But some things are true, and some are not. Everyone needs to be on the same page with these things, and if you're getting your information from the Murdoch press and not anywhere else, you'll find it quite difficult to get access to basic facts.
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Can’t help but raise a slight smile to all this, as someone for whom the only use for a newspaper is to help get a fire going. Seriously, the above might have been the case in the 1980s, but things have moved on and there’s many readily available sources of news, information and opinion nowadays. I just don’t buy that it’s all down to the Murdoch press.

Perhaps I’m fortunate that I’m young enough to not be from the generation who were accustomed to a “morning paper” but likewise old enough to not be from the social-media generation (working on the basis that this forum isn’t really social media!)...
 
Starmill

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bramling said:
Seriously, the above might have been the case in the 1980s, but things have moved on and there’s many readily available sources of news, information and opinion nowadays.
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Unfortunately, incorrect information online purporting to be genuine 'news' has also proliferated. Do most people always read from reputable sources?
 
Starmill

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bramling said:
So what’s the alternative? No democracy because people are deemed too uninformed / stupid to vote?
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All I'm saying is what you've said. People are responsible for making an informed choice and using the best available facts at the time to do so. It isn't a question of stupidity or anything like that. But just because you don't read the papers yourself that doesn't mean that the Daily Mail and Mail Online aren't very popular. Are all of those people also consulting more accurate, reliable sources of information, and doing what you've done in coming to their own conclusions? Or are they repeating the lies they've been told by authority figures?
 
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ainsworth74 said:
And this is thing that keeps me awake at night (well figuratively). I've heard a few different places talking about how we should leave to just get it over with. But that just shows an adorable level of naivety of what happens after we leave. With or without a deal we then spend the following years negotiating what our future relationship with the EU actually looks like. The date we leave the EU isn't the beginning of the end it's the end of the beginning! Then, as well as that, there will doubtlessly be the campaign to rejoin the EU. It will continue without a shadow of a doubt for years and years even if Boris came back tomorrow with his magic deal.

But then remaining doesn't fix it either! Let's say Article 50 is revoked after a second referendum all that then does is ensure that Farage and the voters who support him will scream and shout that it's all a stitch up and the elites are suppressing the will of the people. So then they'll advocate for a third referendum or hell they'll just advocate for Brexit Party to win an election and do it without another referendum. And so that will no doubt last for years as well.

Anyway I look at it Brexit, which has already consumed three years, will continue to consume time, energy and attention away from almost any other problem and will do so for years and years to come.

Pandora's Box has been opened and I don't see anyway of closing it. And it's that which really worries me.
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It was for these very reasons, and that these issues were not properly explored that I chose not to vote in 2016.

Greg Read said:
So, with NO DEAL seemingly off the card, I would say that Europe now has the UK over a barrel, we have no bargaining chips left !
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Sorry, but that is pure rhetoric & completely inaccurate.
 
Killingworth

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How many read newspapers? How many read any serious articles online? How many really understand and question what they read? How many watch serious TV news and background content?

How many form their opinions in the golf club, pub, outside the school gate, gym, or at work with like minded mates? Mini mobs who will act together.

We're in a mess. Two opposing positions. Pack it in and remain. Brazen it out and leave. We can all see chaos ahead.

I throw into the pot another option. The Tories can't ditch Boris. Labour won't ditch Jeremy. Many MPs are retiring at the next election and being 70+ seems to be as good a reason as any. Corbyn sees he's toxic and decides his best contribution is to retire!
 
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Now would be the time for the E.U to harden their attitude towards a leaving UK. Clearly there is no mandate for No Deal and even leaving with a deal does not command much of a majority , if any.

I know it is not the E.U 's role to impose any solutions on the UK but they could push forcibly for any deal to be put to a referendum which would decide things once and for all : leave with this deal which is the best that will ever be offered or remain. If leaving is still the so called will of the people, then we will leave but I have my doubts !
 
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nidave

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bramling said:
much latent reluctance towards the EU has simmered away throughout Britain for many years. My opinion is the rationale behind the leave vote is more complex that
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Thats because sine we joined the EU the media have been fed a constant
"it's not our fault the EU made us" be successive governments as it was an easy way to lay blame.

I think ony 7% of our laws are EU ones. But listening to some you think they were dictating bedtime and how many times you could use the toilet.

Ediit: I see you dismissed this further up the thread. Funny that when you ask people what actual law they want to be shot of first you get something stupid like bananas or 3 pin plus.
If these are the people who are suffering due to austerity, don't you think they would come up with something else.

Who kept printing stupid EU stories.. Which were tenuous at best.. .Oh yes. The uk.
 
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nidave said:
Thats because sine we joined the EU the media have been fed a constant
"it's not our fault the EU made us" be successive governments as it was an easy way to lay blame.
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Yes I think David Cameron totally misjudged & underestimated the reality that prior to the 2016 referendum campaign a huge proportion of the electorate had probably barely ever heard, watched or read any pro EU material whereas almost our entire domestic population had endured 20 +years of UKIP,, right wing tortes & the tabloid press continually bashing it
 
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This story has appeared in several media this week: https://inews.co.uk/news/media/euro...e-decades-long-boycott-of-the-sun-study-says/
Liverpool’s boycott of The Sun newspaper led to a fall in Euroscepticism in the city, a new study suggests.
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Suggests that people switched to other papers and this correlated with Liverpool voting more towards Remain than it would otherwise have. It think the relentless anti-EU drumbeat of certain papers over a long period has had a big effect, dating from before social media.
 
krus_aragon

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ainsworth74 said:
On Scottish Independence I'm expecting every time Ian Blackford stands up in Parliament or Sturgeon speaks in the Scottish Parliament that one of them will be issuing the demand for Westminster to legislate for IndyRef2. To me it feels like purely a matter of time.
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One key situation to watch for is after the (inevitable) general election, if the Conservatives don't manage to achieve a majority, even with DUP and/or Brexit Party support. Anyone that comes to the SNP asking for a coalition will probably find that conset for an independence referendum will be one of the conditions for support.
 
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