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Happy Brexit Day!

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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by The E   » Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:52 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:People weren't voting on our exact relationship with the European Union. Whether they voted to Remain or to Leave, that exact relationship is something to be negotiated by whatever government has been elected into power.

The Leave campaign wasn't a government, and it wasn't a political party (it was several). It could discuss as many ideas as it liked. The Leave campaign had exactly zero power when it came to putting any of these ideas into practice - that was a power reserved for the elected government.


And isn't that just fantastic (if you are a pro-brexit campaigner)? Not only can you lie openly about the money birds flying into the UK to build hospitals and millions of pounds being poured into the NHS, you don't even have to actually do the hard part of making it work!

For that matter, it can equally be argued that those voting to Remain didn't have a clear concept of what they were voting for either Were they voting for the status quo, or were they voting for 'ever close union'? Were they voting for nothing changing, or for further treaties? Who knows?


That's a bit disingenuous, isn't it? A vote for Brexit had quite a lot more and quite a lot more severe uncertainties attached to it than a vote to remain. The number of uncertainties of the UK/EU relationship and how it may develop in the future with the UK as part of the EU and the number of uncertainties involved in the UK divorcing itself from the EU and having to renegotiate hundreds of bilateral and multilateral treaties and deals that define its place in the global economy is simply not comparable in any real sense.
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by Bluesqueak   » Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:24 pm

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The E wrote:
Bluesqueak wrote:People weren't voting on our exact relationship with the European Union. Whether they voted to Remain or to Leave, that exact relationship is something to be negotiated by whatever government has been elected into power.

The Leave campaign wasn't a government, and it wasn't a political party (it was several). It could discuss as many ideas as it liked. The Leave campaign had exactly zero power when it came to putting any of these ideas into practice - that was a power reserved for the elected government.


And isn't that just fantastic (if you are a pro-brexit campaigner)? Not only can you lie openly about the money birds flying into the UK to build hospitals and millions of pounds being poured into the NHS, you don't even have to actually do the hard part of making it work!


Uh, again, I think you are not getting the UK context. We've just had an election campaign in which one side promised that the money birds would fly in and pay for free bus travel for under-25s, building 100,000 homes, provide free broadband - in addition to extra money for the health service. Etcetera. They didn't get elected.

There was a court case about one of the Leave 'distortions' (the amount of money sent to the EU). It ended up being thrown out at High Court level because the judge saw it as normal campaign exaggeration. Equally, the Remain campaign went so overboard with the 'economic disaster' predictions that people were joking about zombie plagues and the four horsemen of the apocalypse by referendum day.

The UK electorate is very used to this sort of stuff. They expect to have to sift through it for truthfulness. They do expect the Johnson government to build more hospitals and spend money on the NHS, because he's seen as 'the guy with the bus'. But they're not going to be wildly offended because he quoted a pre-rebate amount. That's like a politician announcing that there are 100,000 NHS vacancies and 'forgetting' to point out that most of these vacancies are being filled by temps.

The E wrote:
Bluesqueak wrote:For that matter, it can equally be argued that those voting to Remain didn't have a clear concept of what they were voting for either Were they voting for the status quo, or were they voting for 'ever close union'? Were they voting for nothing changing, or for further treaties? Who knows?


That's a bit disingenuous, isn't it? A vote for Brexit had quite a lot more and quite a lot more severe uncertainties attached to it than a vote to remain. The number of uncertainties of the UK/EU relationship and how it may develop in the future with the UK as part of the EU and the number of uncertainties involved in the UK divorcing itself from the EU and having to renegotiate hundreds of bilateral and multilateral treaties and deals that define its place in the global economy is simply not comparable in any real sense.


No, but I think you'd be being disingenuous if you thought that those who voted Leave didn't expect disruption. People who vote against the status quo generally do expect that this will disrupt that status quo.

On the other hand, it's legitimate to point out to people who are voting for the status quo that there is no status quo - just a smoother slope for the changes to come.

You also seem to think that the 'global economy' was what the Leave voters were voting about - but that was the mistake the Remain campaign made. They ran a campaign that was almost entirely about the economy and the economic impact of Brexit, and discovered that this time it wasn't 'the economy, stupid.'
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by The E   » Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:38 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:You also seem to think that the 'global economy' was what the Leave voters were voting about - but that was the mistake the Remain campaign made. They ran a campaign that was almost entirely about the economy and the economic impact of Brexit, and discovered that this time it wasn't 'the economy, stupid.'


And yet, the most immediate and most harsh effects of brexit will come about due to the introduction of friction in international trade where there was none before. Large parts of the british economy, including its financial services sector, will be adversely affected by brexit; to downplay this impact and the years if not decades of reduced growth or recession as the british economy stabilizes again would have been quite disingenuous.

If the people voting to leave were not voting based on economic concerns, what precisely were they basing their votes on? Their dislike of people from the EU coming to the UK to work? Their dislike of EU rules and regulations? Their trust in Boris Johnson as "a funny harmless bloke"? Their desire to help Rees-Mogg not be subject to the new tax-evasion rules and regs that the EU is enforcing?
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by Bluesqueak   » Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:40 pm

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The E wrote:
Bluesqueak wrote:You also seem to think that the 'global economy' was what the Leave voters were voting about - but that was the mistake the Remain campaign made. They ran a campaign that was almost entirely about the economy and the economic impact of Brexit, and discovered that this time it wasn't 'the economy, stupid.'


And yet, the most immediate and most harsh effects of brexit will come about due to the introduction of friction in international trade where there was none before. Large parts of the british economy, including its financial services sector, will be adversely affected by brexit; to downplay this impact and the years if not decades of reduced growth or recession as the british economy stabilizes again would have been quite disingenuous.

If the people voting to leave were not voting based on economic concerns, what precisely were they basing their votes on? Their dislike of people from the EU coming to the UK to work? Their dislike of EU rules and regulations? Their trust in Boris Johnson as "a funny harmless bloke"? Their desire to help Rees-Mogg not be subject to the new tax-evasion rules and regs that the EU is enforcing?


Essentially they were voting for the constitutional idea that decisions that affect the UK should, as far as possible, be taken within the UK. In addition, they wanted the top layer of government to be subject to regular elections. They wanted sovereignty to ultimately reside in the electorate, not the elected.

None of that is economic. It found expression in 'let's leave the EU', just as it found expression in Scotland as 'let's leave the UK'.

If you think that the 2016 Referendum went for Leave simply because people disliked ten years of mass immigration, or because people disliked EU regulations, you're missing the point. Those things were flashpoints. They were irritants. They symbolised a sense that somehow, the general electorate were losing the power to vote and decide on matters that directly affected them.

Essentially, the Leave voters sensed that they were losing their power to people who thought these things were too complicated for the general electorate. Who distrusted the electorate.

So they voted to take it back.

As I said: UK referenda are about constitutional questions.
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by gcomeau   » Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:00 pm

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The whining is already starting from some Brexit supporters as they encounter the reality of their decision instead of the fantasy in their heads... this genius has been getting roasted on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ColinBrowning14/sta ... 25344?s=19

"Wait, you mean leaving the EU means not getting the benefits of being in the EU? No fair!!!"
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by Annachie   » Sun Feb 16, 2020 12:51 am

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gcomeau wrote:The whining is already starting from some Brexit supporters as they encounter the reality of their decision instead of the fantasy in their heads... this genius has been getting roasted on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ColinBrowning14/sta ... 25344?s=19

"Wait, you mean leaving the EU means not getting the benefits of being in the EU? No fair!!!"



Thus showing part of the problem, and the size of the con.

People didn't vote for Brexit, they voted for their version of Brexit thinking that that is what they'd get.
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by munroburton   » Sun Feb 16, 2020 9:07 am

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Bluesqueak wrote:Again, you are not understanding the way UK referenda work. Essentially, they ask 'strategic' questions. Should we change the voting system (no). Should we have devolution in Wales (yes). The government usually sends out an information leaflet, but it's understood that what the public are voting on is NOT, for example, the exact details of how the Welsh Assembly is going to work and whether we might have more or less devolved powers than were discussed during the campaign.

People weren't voting on our exact relationship with the European Union. Whether they voted to Remain or to Leave, that exact relationship is something to be negotiated by whatever government has been elected into power.


The 2011 referendum on switching to AV wasn't like that, though. It was binding; parliament had passed an Act which stood ready to implement the results. I think the 1979 Scottish Devolution referendum also had an Act ready to implement(if it met that infamous threshold). People could know exactly what they were voting for/against.

The devolution referendums in the 90s and 00s were pre-legislative, like the 2014 Scottish Independence and 2016 EU referendums. (The Welsh devolution process is a fascinating case study in obtaining the "consent of the loser" which saw anti-Assembly sentiments drop from ~49% to ~20%.)

What needs to be understood is that ultimately the British system works however the House of Commons says it works. Precedents, no matter how ancient and longstanding, can be shattered and overturned with a simple majority and in certain situations(as we saw 2017-2019), if there isn't a simple majority willing to uphold and enforce them.

The Tories chose the framing of the 2016 referendum very deliberately with their majority in 2015. If they had first triggered Article 50 and then put the result of that negotiation to the people - ratify WA or unilaterally revoke A50...?
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by Bluesqueak   » Sun Feb 16, 2020 9:30 am

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Annachie wrote:
gcomeau wrote:The whining is already starting from some Brexit supporters as they encounter the reality of their decision instead of the fantasy in their heads... this genius has been getting roasted on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ColinBrowning14/sta ... 25344?s=19

"Wait, you mean leaving the EU means not getting the benefits of being in the EU? No fair!!!"



Thus showing part of the problem, and the size of the con.

People didn't vote for Brexit, they voted for their version of Brexit thinking that that is what they'd get.


I'm afraid you've just been taken in by fake news, folks. Yes, there was a queue at Schiphol Airport. No, it didn't have anything to do with Brexit. They were training new staff.

The phrase is 'confirmation bias'. For example, it's uncertain whether 'Colin Browning' is a real Brexiteer account or a parody account. Remain supporters would go for 'of course it's real' and Leave supporters would go for 'definitely a parody'.

The reality is that I don't have a clue. :D
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Re: Happy Brexit Day!
Post by Joat42   » Mon Feb 17, 2020 1:25 pm

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Bluesqueak wrote:I'm afraid you've just been taken in by fake news, folks. Yes, there was a queue at Schiphol Airport. No, it didn't have anything to do with Brexit. They were training new staff.

The phrase is 'confirmation bias'. For example, it's uncertain whether 'Colin Browning' is a real Brexiteer account or a parody account. Remain supporters would go for 'of course it's real' and Leave supporters would go for 'definitely a parody'.

The reality is that I don't have a clue. :D

Hmm.. Training new personnel.. Are they expecting more work perhaps because of Brexit!?

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