EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[Gutfright]

I don't see that. Remember, people here tend to talk about things that are (a) controversial, and (b) actually have an open thread on the topic. There is currently no thread about the plight of the low paid - so it's hardly surprising that noone's posting much about that topic. If you wish to start a thread about that, you'll be welcome to. Then you may be better able to judge from how people respond to the thread how much or how little people care about that subject. (FWIW I think the problem of low pay is a very serious issue, but it is of only marginal relevance to this thread because its solution lies mainly in Government policy, not in the EU debate. Having said that, I think it'd be slightly easier to solve the problem of low pay within the EU rather than outside it).

I didn't make myself entirely clear in my post.

There are a number of EU threads on this forum, where a lot of different talking points are debated. The plight of the low-paid has received little attention on those threads, even though as EU members we can't control EU immigration which suppresses the wages of the low-paid.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I was just trying to find out why some people on this forum believe that they are intelligent and rational enough to make a decision on the EU, but that the average man on the street isn't?

Your question is based on a false premise. As far as I can see, no one here has claimed to believe what you are alleging. (Lots of people, including myself believe that people were mislead by false claims by the Leave camp, but that's not the same thing).

Also, various people including myself are suggesting that decisions about Government policy should be made by those who are experienced in that, but that also has nothing to do with intelligence/rationality.

Look at it this way: Next time you get on a train, who would you prefer to be driving it?

1. Myself, computer programmer, never been anywhere near the driving cab of a train, but thinks it would be kinda interesting to try it, or
2. A fully qualified train driver, who's spent years training and working on the railway.

I'm pretty sure that you'll choose (2). And I'm also sure that your choice would have nothing to do with whether you think I'm intelligent or not!

Isn't it the same thing for figuring out the consequences of Government policies, such as deciding on our EU membership? The choice is best made by those who have spent a huge amount of time learning about the issues and studying them (or at the very least, by people who are willing to listen to expert opinion and take account of it when making their decisions)? Again, nothing particularly to do with intelligence (although presumably a reasonable amount of rational thinking is needed to acquire the expertise), more a case of people having spent that time learning about that subject.

 

[EM2]

...which suppresses the wages of the low-paid.

Minimally - see http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=2613440&postcount=1383

 

[Gutfright]

You're now suggesting that people said 'This person says we should Leave, but I think is lying, so I'll research it for myself. (.....) Now I have completed my research, I'm going to vote Leave'.
Now if you think someone telling you to do something is lying, and you research what they said, and come to the same conclusion, either you do not believe that person is lying, or you are lying to yourself.

Nope.

You can think that the leave campaign is lying about claim X, but still vote leave for reasons Y and Z.

 

[EM2]

Nope.

You can think that the leave campaign is lying about claim X, but still vote leave for reasons Y and Z.

I can't think of any politician on the Leave side that ran a campaign based on one claim.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I didn't make myself entirely clear in my post.

There are a number of EU threads on this forum, where a lot of different talking points are debated. The plight of the low-paid has received little attention on those threads, even though as EU members we can't control EU immigration which suppresses the wages of the low-paid.

As I recall, the subject did come up a few times on the main EU thread (the one that got closed after referendum polling closed). The point that I made at the time was that the assumption that immigration suppresses the living standards of the low-paid is, on the whole, not backed up by either economic analysis or evidence. Personally I would love for everyone to have the chance of a job and a decent standard of living, but I'm fairly sure that controlling immigration will not significantly help to achieve that. I don't think I'm alone in that opinion, and I would suggest that's the reason why Remainers haven't particularly talked about the issue in the EU thread. Nothing to do with any lack of caring.

 

[Gutfright]

Your question is based on a false premise. As far as I can see, no one here has claimed to believe what you are alleging. (Lots of people, including myself believe that people were mislead by false claims by the Leave camp, but that's not the same thing).

Also, various people including myself are suggesting that decisions about Government policy should be made by those who are experienced in that, but that also has nothing to do with intelligence/rationality.

Look at it this way: Next time you get on a train, who would you prefer to be driving it?

1. Myself, computer programmer, never been anywhere near the driving cab of a train, but thinks it would be kinda interesting to try it, or
2. A fully qualified train driver, who's spent years training and working on the railway.

I'm pretty sure that you'll choose (2). And I'm also sure that your choice would have nothing to do with whether you think I'm intelligent or not!

Isn't it the same thing for figuring out the consequences of Government policies, such as deciding on our EU membership? The choice is best made by those who have spent a huge amount of time learning about the issues and studying them (or at the very least, by people who are willing to listen to expert opinion and take account of it when making their decisions)? Again, nothing particularly to do with intelligence (although presumably a reasonable amount of rational thinking is needed to acquire the expertise), more a case of people having spent that time learning about that subject.

The same argument could be made against voting in General Elections. Surely it's better to have experts choosing our government and the makeup of Parliament than ordinary people who haven't spent time learning about that subject?

If we're miffed with the government we can vote it out. If we're miffed with the EU we should be given the chance to do the same.

I can't think of any politician on the Leave side that ran a campaign based on one claim.

Nor can I.

Here's a memory test for you. Which of these was the original quote?

A) A survey recently of 1,800 people performed by Consumer Intelligence, 36.5% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum said that they felt politicians who had urged them to vote leave had lied to them.

B) A survey recently of 1,800 people performed by Consumer Intelligence, 36.5% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum said that they felt politicians who had urged them to vote leave had lied to them about every single claim they made.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The same argument could be made against voting in General Elections. Surely it's better to have experts choosing our government and the makeup of Parliament than ordinary people who haven't spent time learning about that subject?

Not quite. There are two crucial differences:

Firstly, in a general election, you are not so much choosing specific Government decisions as choosing who should make those decisions. That doesn't require as much expertise. A analogy would be, taking your car to the garage: Most of us are not remotely qualified to fix our cars. But if our car breaks down, we still have to choose which garage we'll go to to get it fixed. That's still not always an easy decision, and it's easy to get the decision wrong (and perhaps get ripped off as a result). But still, choosing a garage to fix the car tends in most cases to give better results than trying to figure out yourself what's wrong with it and how to fix it.

Another, perhaps closer, analogy, is that, if you're the director of a medium-sized company, you may not have the skills to do a market analysis yourself in order to determine company strategy. But you might have sufficient skills to interview and appoint someone else to do that work.

The second issue is that, in the case of a general election, if you get the decision wrong, you can always kick the wrong choice out in 5 years time. But a referendum tends to be much more permanent, therefore leaving less scope for escaping if you make the wrong choice. I think that point precisely addresses your other comment:

If we're miffed with the government we can vote it out. If we're miffed with the EU we should be given the chance to do the same.

Of course, in the end, no system of Government is perfect. Every system has advantages and disadvantages. But it seems to me that, looking at different countries through history, representative democracy seems to have the best track record for creating economic stability/stable, prosperous, tolerant, countries. And it does seem to give a good balance between the competing demands of ensuring that decisions are reasonably well informed, while at the same time giving everyone some say in the direction of the country. I would suggest that referendums are not in general a good way of doing things because they lack that balance.

 

[EM2]

Here's a memory test for you. Which of these was the original quote?

A) A survey recently of 1,800 people performed by Consumer Intelligence, 36.5% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum said that they felt politicians who had urged them to vote leave had lied to them.

B) A survey recently of 1,800 people performed by Consumer Intelligence, 36.5% of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum said that they felt politicians who had urged them to vote leave had lied to them about every single claim they made.

A)

Whether you like it or not, there are Leave voters that believed what they were told, and most (if not all) of what they were told has now been demonstrated to be false.
http://www.france24.com/en/20160628-brexit-backtrack-leave-camp-promises-unravel

A key pledge of the Leave campaign was embodied in a campaign poster reading: "Let's give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week."

- a figure that was shown to be false, and will not be spent on the NHS.

Second big promise: a drastic reduction in the number of immigrants arriving from EU countries.

Leave camp MEP Daniel Hannan told the BBC: "We never said there was going to be some radical decline ... we want a measure of control".'

"Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the EU, they are going to be disappointed," he added.

And from IDS

"We never made any commitments. We just made a series of promises that were possibilities"

:roll:

 

[miami]

Surely it's better to have experts choosing our government and the makeup of Parliament than ordinary people who haven't spent time learning about that subject?

If we're miffed with the government we can vote it out.

Good, I'm miffed with the government. Where do I vote? Oh wait I can't. Not until 2020 at least.

The government is appointed by the PM, and the PM alone. The PM is appointed by the members of the largest party (in actual fact it's the queen, but she appoints someone who can command the support of the house, which typically means the support of the largest party). By convention the leader of the largest party is the one who gets to be PM.

The EU commission president is the named nominee of the largest party in the EU parliament, Junker campaigned to be president as part of the EPP, and the EPP achieved plurarity in 2014, Junker attracted support of enough MEPs (several parties worth) to be voted in as leader of the government, just as Cameron did in 2010 and 2015, and just as May||Leadsome will do in September (although when we voted for our MPs in 2015 we were voting knowing Cameron would be in charge if they Tories became the largest party - just as we knew Junker would be in charge if EPP became the largest party.

The rest of the commissioners are appointed by the leaders of the EU nations - just like Westminster ministers of state. In the Westminster system the PM can appoint anyone he wants - say Andrew Adonis as Education minister, just make them a lord. In the EU system the Commission President has to live with the choices of the EU country governments.

Unlike the EU system and the UK system, I think I lean on the side of having experts in charge of the government - the US does this, but that's by the by as neither the EU or UK system does this.

If we're miffed with the EU we should be given the chance to do the same.

We could before you lot voted leave, although not until 2019 (by which time we'll probably have to implement as many EU regulations and directives as we do now but won't get a vote)

So how would you vote out Junker? Well ensure you vote for a party that isn't going to back him in 2019. Want him out before then? Persuade your MEP to back a vote of no confidence. Junker had one of these against him shortly after taking office, he passed, clearly our representitives thought he was doing a good enough job.

Is your entire "EU isn't democratic" argument really "there are no early day motions"?

 

[ianhr]

It is worth having a read of this, anyone who has not already seen it: www.opencanada.org/features/brexit-post-mortem-17-takeaways-fallen-david-cameron/

 

[St Rollox]

It is worth having a read of this, anyone who has not already seen it: www.opencanada.org/features/brexit-post-mortem-17-takeaways-fallen-david-cameron/

Not entirely true.
You can call a referendum with no chance of winning it and then get close.
You then up winning a gold watch.
See SNP and the wipe out of the entire Scottish Labour Party.
With Brexit the Scottish Labour Party are now down to local councillors and a handful of members in the Scottish Parliament.
Brexit strangely enough has played right into the SNPs hands.

 

[ianhr]

Not entirely true.
You can call a referendum with no chance of winning it and then get close.
You then up winning a gold watch.
See SNP and the wipe out of the entire Scottish Labour Party.
With Brexit the Scottish Labour Party are now down to local councillors and a handful of members in the Scottish Parliament.
Brexit strangely enough has played right into the SNPs hands.

Perhaps those people in England and Wales who voted Leave for 'patriotic' reasons should have thought of that. The country they are likely to end up with will not bear much resemblance to the one for which they seem to have a romanticised nostalgic yearning. That said, very few English people have much understanding of Scotland, for them Britain or UK = England. The further south in the country that you go the more apparent this becomes, until you reach a point, in the Home Counties where more people have been to Machu Pichu than to even Newcastle on Tyne or Sunderland, let alone Scotland. (the Edinburgh Festival perhaps excepted). Rail enthusiasts are probably atypical as they often travel to far corners of the NR system in the pursuit of their hobby, although some of these visits may be brief and rather 'special interest' only.

 

[miami]

The further south in the country that you go the more apparent this becomes, until you reach a point, in the Home Counties where more people have been to Machu Pichu than to even Newcastle on Tyne or Sunderland, let alone Scotland.

That's a rather unfair comparison. I've been all over mainland Scotland - Inverness, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Loch Ness, Lomand, Fort William, St Andrews, Gretna Green, from the dangly lighthouse off south-west, to john o groats in the north east. Been all over the lake district many times, to Durham. Liverpool, Leeds, Grimsby, York, Wolverhampton, Stoke, Buxton, various points on Hadrian's Wall, Anglesy, Conwy, Rhyl, Bangor, he Norfolk Broads, Lancaster, Hebden Bridge, Holmfirth, Giants Causeway, Belfast, to towns in NI that have kerb stones painted in various colours of various flags - that's a fair few visits around the north of the country.

However visiting Sunderland holds as much appeal as going to Chelmsford.

 

[Phil.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THWPJE4xaJM

 

[northwichcat]

Looks like the NHS budget might be cut opposed to increased:

Staffing levels within the NHS will have to be cut if the government wants to bring NHS finances in England under control, the King's Fund think tank has said.

It says the government should be honest about NHS spending plans at a time when patient demand is rising.

It comes days before a major initiative by the NHS to control spending.

The Department of Health said the government wanted to make the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world.

This is an important week for the financing of the health service in England, says BBC health editor Hugh Pym.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36760985

 

[TheKnightWho]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THWPJE4xaJM

You actually listen to Pat Condell? He's obsessed with Muslims and smugly telling himself he's right, despite what he says having little bearing on evidence, fact or reason.

And yes - we "saved our democracy" to have it chosen for us by the Tory membership. But don't let that stop you blindly telling yourself you did something good.

 

[anme]

Here's an interesting article on the UK's options for future trading relationships - http://www.politico.eu/article/5-options-for-post-brexit-trade-with-europe-ukip-efta-single-market/

Which do you prefer? Leave voters are especially encouraged to comment as they will have thought about this before the vote and must believe that at least one of the arrangements is better than EU membership.

Personally I prefer option 1 from the article - "join the minnows".

 

[NSEFAN]

And yes - we "saved our democracy" to have it chosen for us by the Tory membership. But don't let that stop you blindly telling yourself you did something good.

But it would be BRITISH tories choosing the next PM, so that makes it okay.

 

[northwichcat]

Looks like Brexit may cause delays to rail franchise renewals

Last month's decision to leave the EU has put the brakes on plans to speed up and improve the region’s rail service – and has prompted current operator Abellio to reconsider its bid for the long-term contract according to a national newspaper.

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politic...ed_by_wrong_kind_of_brexit_decision_1_4610853

 

[TheKnightWho]

But it would be BRITISH tories choosing the next PM, so that makes it okay.

To be honest, the fact that he's holding up Pat Condell with no comment is a pretty strong sign that xenophobia was a strong motivation.

 

[anme]

I didn't make myself entirely clear in my post.

There are a number of EU threads on this forum, where a lot of different talking points are debated. The plight of the low-paid has received little attention on those threads, even though as EU members we can't control EU immigration which suppresses the wages of the low-paid.

I disagree that this point has not been discussed. It has been discussed and proven to be wrong. Bring it up again and again as justification does not make it right. At some point, when one is proven to be wrong, one has to accept that, one has to stop repeating the same discredited point, and one has to update ones' opinions based on the new facts.

 

[Garmoran]

It is worth having a read of this, anyone who has not already seen it: www.opencanada.org/features/brexit-post-mortem-17-takeaways-fallen-david-cameron/

This was an interesting read and I agreed with much of it. However, there were parts which made me wonder if the writer was a bit too distanced from the subject, to an extent that he failed to grasp that the matter was even more complicated than he thought.

In particular, in paragraph 8 his regret that Leave did not do more to warn about the dangers of the City of London losing trade to Frankfurt, Paris, etc. shows naivety: I have no reason to doubt his figures that the City contributes 11% of our public finances but regrettably most people in the country do not appreciate this aspect of the economy and any attempt to highlight the value of the City of London to the rest of the country would, in my view, have been counter-productive, due to widespread resentment of London and the finance industry in general.

The mention in paragraph 9 that "British farmers love the 55 percent of their income coming from the Common Agricultural Policy" also sounds dodgy, first due to the enormity of the figure quoted, and secondly because the farming industry seems to have been strongly on the Leave side (read the Brexit threads on thefarmingforum.co.uk for an opposite bias to that in railforums).

On the other hand he also addresses in paragraph 11 a question that has puzzled me about the Leave campaigners: the suggestion that immigrants can undercut UK residents' wages. Where I live it is extraordinary to see a job offered that pays more than the minimum wage, despite the fact that most immigrants around here are self-employed. The introduction of the minimum wage boosted wages here by a considerable percentage and I have no doubt that without it the normal hourly wage today would be under £5. But my point is, how can immigrants undercut the minimum wage? Or is this area unusual and in other parts of the UK is the minimum wage the exception rather than the rule?

 

[radamfi]

It is completely within the gift of the UK government to sort out low pay, should they so wish, by imposing a high minimum wage. Same for the other members of the EU.

 

[northwichcat]

It is completely within the gift of the UK government to sort out low pay, should they so wish, by imposing a high minimum wage. Same for the other members of the EU.

Figures of £8-£10 per hour were proposed by parties currently on the opposition benches, prior to the last general election, by parties in favour of staying in the EU.

 

[miami]

Well at least we've got a leader again. Sure, only 199 people voted for her, but that's democracy we've won back from the EU!

 

[ExRes]

Well at least we've got a leader again. Sure, only 199 people voted for her, but that's democracy we've won back from the EU!

Bring on the democracy people on here seem to want then, 81 Ukip MPs would be good in my book

 

[TheKnightWho]

Bring on the democracy people on here seem to want then, 81 Ukip MPs would be good in my book

STV is much better than PR anyway. Allows genuine representation, whilst also giving people the option to keep out parties they genuinely hate.

The reason why I think that's important is because it means that those who are negatively affected by certain parties have the option to keep them out - proportion is not everything. Many atrocities have been committed by democratically affected parties - allowing people to effectively vote against, as well as vote for, is important.

(In other words, I doubt you'd see 81 UKIP MPs, because they're such a polarising party that's deeply unpopular with many people. Likewise for far-left parties as well, who might be hoping for a boost.)

 

[anme]

Bring on the democracy people on here seem to want then, 81 Ukip MPs would be good in my book

Are you defending the fact that our next prime minister will be chosen only by members of the conservative party?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It is completely within the gift of the UK government to sort out low pay, should they so wish, by imposing a high minimum wage. Same for the other members of the EU.

Not entirely. People forget that the Government is constrained by how the economy works Now that so many people are on the minimum wage, there are good grounds for expecting that simply raising that wage would by itself would most likely lead to higher prices, leaving the people on the minimum wage not significantly better off than before (maybe after a time lag of a year or so).

(The fact that this seems not to have occurred to Osborne is btw one of many reasons why I don't think that our chancellor has a particularly good grasp of economics )